that in our debates with the Socinians as the dispute is so are the Arguments of another nature than those in that sort of Controversies which we have been speaking of The matter is abstruse and mysterious We are not willing to speak more of God than he himself has taught us This you call obscurity and want of satisfaction and because the Socinians are perpetually reasoning of an Increated and Incomprehensible Substance as they do of Finite and Created Beings and are never weary of applying their notions of what they understand to what they understand not at all and has no sort of proportion to it Then you say that their writings are clear I appeal to your self whether you are not highly unjust to us Nay whether any one Controversy in the World was ever manag'd with so little Candor as this is by you Socin But pray how have you manag'd it Forgive me if I tell you that the Church never shew'd so much Weakness in any thing as in this very particular You are angry with us for Reasoning too much and you have Reason'd your selves out of doors You pretended to assert a Trinity and cannot tell us what that Trinity is You are Trinitarians indeed but at the same time the sad Assertors of a Trinity which is too much or too little Degenerates into Tritheism or Sabellianism and if receiv'd according to some explications is Real and Blasphemous and if according to others is Nominal and signify's nothing Orthod Truly I wonder this was not yet come out For you cannot now speak to a Socinian but he brings in this right or wrong The Author of the considerations of the several explications of the Trinity made the best of it and perswaded himself that he had given us the mortal wound The Writer of the discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians promises himself no less than the ruine of the Church if the fatal distinction is carry'd on and improv'd as it ought to be He that dawbs with untemper'd mortar and calls himself a Prebyter of the Church of England is of the same mind The whole Church say they Condemns the Real Trinitarians and the Nominals being rank Sabellians must of course be condemn'd too Blessed discovery which when truly examin'd is the greatest piece of unsincerity imaginable Socin I must beg leave to interrupt you and blame you for denying that which is clearer than the Sun Where lies then the unsincerity Is it in affirming that you will not tell us what your Trinity is Or is it in distributing you into Real and Nominal Trinitarians Orthod 'T is in every part of the Allegation Can any thing be more unsincere than for you to tell us that we oblige you to believe a Trinity and are not willing to tell you what that Trinity is Pray were you ever Baptiz'd Have you ever paid your Duty to God in the solemn use of our excellent Liturgy Did you ever join in the Doxology by which the Church in the Primitive Ages down to ours put in the mouth of her Children a confutation of the Samosatenian Sabellian Arrian Nestorian and Macedonian Heresies Did you ever make a profession of that Faith which you embrac'd in your Baptism by reciting the Apostolical and Catholick Creeds Did you ever read the Articles of the Church of England or of any other Church in the World For I positively averr that they do all and every one of them speak and assert the same thing Socin True They tell us of a Trinity but do not tell us what that Trinity is Orthod Do they not tell you that God is one That in that one adorable and Divine Nature are Father Son and Holy Spirit That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet not three Gods but one God This is to tell you that there is a Blessed Trinity and what that Trinity is Socin True again But they do not tell us how God can be One and Three How that Trinity and Unity are reconcil'd How every Person is God and yet but one God and if they do not say this in effect they say nothing Orthod This is the arrantest Sophism that ever was or can be us'd in a dispute The Church asserts the thing because God has asserted it He has not been pleas'd to reveal the manner and therefore the Church says nothing to it All is built upon the Divine Revelation Must we not believe that a thing is when God has affirm'd that it is because he has not thought fit to make clear to us how it is Should I tell you that the Sun is a luminous Body which by dispersing its Beams over all the Creation gives Light and Colour to every thing and that the earth is impregnated by certain qualities which with an admirable luxuriancy cover it with Fruits and Flowers Would you deny this because I do not acquaint you how that Body is luminous how the impressions of light mix with all things and shew what they are Would you deny the fruitfulness of the Earth because I cannot explain those qualities by which it is impregnated Socin This reaches not at all the difficulty For these are things of sense which I am satisfy'd to be and to exist Besides I am capable of Philosophical inquiries by which if I do not certainly know the How I come at least very near it Orthod But this not only reaches the difficulty but wholly resolves it For your Philosophical inquiries are but inquiries things for the most part uncertain But that wherein the stress of the difficulty lies is the degree of certainty by which we are assur'd that such a thing is And I say that the Divine Revelation is infinitely more certain than the fullest testimony of Sense and that if I am satisfy'd that God has reveal'd a Trinity I am more assur'd that there are Three Persons in the Divine Nature than I am assur'd that the Sun is a luminous and the Earth a fruitful Body though I could understand how the one shines and how the other is actuated into so many several forms Socin Then now the Church of Rome will give you thanks For this is the very Topick us'd in the famous case of Transubstantiation Orthod This is one of the Socinian Common Places But not to spend time about so little an objection which will carry the digression too far let me tell you that a Topick may be good but yet ill and falsly apply'd In that dispute between them and us we deny the Divine Revelation We say God has not reveal'd it But to return You make a mighty noise with your distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians and pretend that it is the natural result of several explications of the Trinity To overthrow this at once it is enough to say that the Church owns no particular explication of this Divine Mystery nor concerns herself with what private Authors have said of it The Church has spoke in general Councils
too and that the Jews were witnesses to all the World of this Sacred Truth I grant it The Unity of God was the Fundamental Article of the Mosaical dispensation Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle the Academicks have spoke admirably well to it But I say that Christianity has been as far superior to them in this point as they themselves exceeded the rest of Mortals For the Jews kept this to themselves without propagating it to others and the wise Heathen confuting their doctrine by their practice openly embrac'd Polytheism None treated of God and his Divine Attributes of which the Vnity is the Center as the Holy Jesus and his disciples have done This the Apostles spread through the World This the Fathers taught indefatigably One God One Divine Nature Spirit Mind substance has been the constant Voice of the Church He is not a Christian who believes not that God is one and can be but one If it were not too tedious I would produce some of their Authorities Socin It is altogether needless This is our very Doctrine I am fully perswaded of this and infinitely pleas'd to hear you speak so home to it Orthod I am afraid you will not be so well pleas'd with my second observation and it is this That the same Church of God which so Zealously asserted his Vnity never did it without asserting at the same time a Trinity of Persons in that One Divine Nature No matter of fact which depends from Testimony can be made to appear more incontestably true than this You have a large Collection of Books at home Let us step to your Library and I dare engage to convince you of this by the most exact induction of particulars which can ever be made from the very Apostolical Creed to this time I say once more and presume to be positive in it that the Church in delivering the Faith ever taught the Existence of God to be necessary and Eternal and his Vnity so perfect and entire that it transcends what notion soever we have of Unity even that which we call Numerical coming much short of it But at the same time she taught and profess'd to believe and adore in that Vnity of Nature a Trinity of Hypostases or Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Thus run the Apostolical the Nicene Ephesine and Constantinopolitan Creeds Thus speak the Ante-Nicene Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Thus all the Learning of the Schools and all the now Churches in the World express themselves Thirdly But least the belief of a Trinity of Persons whose Coeternity and Coequality is asserted should affect the Vnity of the Divine Nature the Church has stated it in one and the same indivisible and inseparable simple and uncompounded Essence They are Coeternal and Coequal because Coessential And they are Coessential because Subsisting in that Nature which cannot be multiply'd It is true to say of each Person that he is God and yet it is false to say that they are Three Gods The Trinity multiplying the Persons but the Vnity remaining the same that is the greatest and most unconceivable Vnity in the World And therefore the Sacred Councils and the Fathers have been carefull to the utmost to distinguish the Personality from the Nature as afraid of multiplying the one as of confounding the other You see then that the first member of your distinction is worth nothing The charge laid against the Church in that particular is not only false but impossible You have attempted to divide the Church of God into two Parties The first you have accus'd of Tritheism or of teaching the belief and Worship of Three Gods Unfortunate in this that the very exposition of the Doctrine of the Church the very reading of any one Creed is an open confutation of what you have pretended to make us guilty of Socin I hope you will not take it ill If I make some remarks as well as you First I confess that the Nicene and following Councils spoke as you do and that many of the Post-Nicene Fathers the Schoolmen and the present Churches agree with you in this but I deny it of the Apostolical Creed which ought to have been the Form of all the rest Where can you find there a Trinity in Vnity Where can you see Coeternity Coequality Coessentiality and all those Famous Terms which the Church perserv'd ever since For my part I can perceive no such thing To this Creed we stand as to a rule left us by the Apostles themselves Suffer us to keep but that and take you all the rest Secondly I challenge the Ante-Nicene Fathers we say they are strangers to your Doctrine The Answer to Dr. Bull has made it invincibly appear Have you taken notice how the Learned Author of that answer has discover'd the impostures of Pseudo-Hermas and the pretended Epistles of Barnabas and Ignatius What clear account he has given of the Nazarens Mineans and Alogi And what a plain proof he has brought against your Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ out of the Epistle of Clemens of Rome to the Church of Corinth Thirdly Admitting all your allegations to be true A Trinity in Vnity Three Gods in one God is a thing wholly unaccountable Orthod The question between you and me is not whether it is unaccountable or not The question is whether those whom you call Real Trinitarians have departed from the doctrine of the Unity of God and have actually and manifestly as you speak own'd their Tritheism The matter of Fact and not the Reasonableness or Unreasonableness of the thing is the Point in dispute Your mistake is Palpable For the Trinity in Vnity is not Three Gods in one God a Language which the Church ever abhorr'd but Three Persons in one God Three Subsistences in one Divine Nature Pray name me one Man in the Church even of those who have most abounded in their own sense and spoke most loosly in the explication of our Mysteries who was not as Zealous a defender of the Unity of God as yourself can be This is then the most unpardonable want of Candor imaginable You call me a Tritheist I deny it You prove it because I believe the Blessed Trinity I own I do Then you exclaim I believe Three Gods The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit I say No! For though the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God yet they are but one God For God can be but one The Divine Nature is incapable of Multiplication Division or Augmentation You may and will urge again that this is very unreasonable I hope to shew you one day that it is highly Rational But in the mean time I gain the point and complain that you do me wrong and are inexcusable in charging me with destroying the Unity of God 2ly You are positive that the Ante-Nicene Fathers asserted the Vnity but not the Trinity I suppose you mean in our sence of a Trinity or else the mistake is not
scrutiny of human Reasonings Do all these Vnities transcend the capacity of Human Nature Are they above the reach of an inquisitive Philosopher or a profound Divine Socin I confess that you startle me and I begin to have no great opinion of the first part of the distinction I see you are no Tritheists but then you must of course fall into Nominalism or Sabellianism and that is as bad I am afraid that part of the charge will stick cruelly against you Orthod The notion of Nominal Trinitarians is if possible more extravagant than the other Can you think in good earnest that the Ancient or modern Church if such an expression may be us'd for the Church is always the same Can you think I say that the Church in the first and in these last Ages oppos'd Sabellianism with so much Zeal and Vigor that is that very impiety which you fasten on her and condemn'd it with so unanimous a consent and yet would make it the foundation of her Faith The vast labours of the Fathers and of all the Doctors who succeeded them aim'd at this to assert a Real distinction of Persons against Sabellius and their Consubstantiality Coequality and Coeternity against Arrius And you come resolutely to tell us that for all that the Church is Sabellian and teaches Sabellianism How heartily would you laugh at a Man who should come to tell you that he has attentively read all the Socinian Prints and finds at last that they believe the Holy Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour Socin Had they said so much for these two Articles as you have for Sabellianism in all your Books I protest I could not laugh at it Orthod Let us see then what is Sabellianism and if found in the Church I promise to give up the cause But if not I expect that you will have the justice to own that to charge us with it is a crying unsincerity We cannot have the sense of Sabellius better than from Dionysius of Alexandria the other Dionysius of Rome Athanasius St. Basil Nazianzen Ruffinus c. You will Learn from them that Sabellius own'd the Divine Nature but confounded the Hypostases or Persons and maintain'd one only Person or Hypostasis the Father And that when they objected to him the different operations of the Son and Holy Spirit he answer'd that they were only denominations of the Father resulting from his several appearances or offices to us If you mistrust this account take what the Author of the discourse says pag. 16. In a word says he the Noëtians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without him he may be call'd as the modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons The one subsisting Person of God sustains the three names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons in a Classical Critical sense Now I will do more for you than you can expect I will not confine you to our English Authors But I dare you to produce any one Man in the Church of God who ever understood those matters and spoke at this rate But if you do not as I am positive that you cannot what becomes of your distinction and with what face can it be us'd any more Socin I will not go out of the Kingdom no not out of London for it Dr. South shall be the Man You will not deny that he understands the sense of the Church He says himself animadvers ch 8. pa. 242. And this I affirm to be the current doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools concerning the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and the constantly receiv'd account given by them of a Divine Person so far as they pretend to explain what such a Person is Pag. 240. He tells you That the commonly receiv'd Doctrine of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity is this That the Christian Faith has laid this sure foundation that there is but one God That there is no positive real Being strictly and properly so call'd in God but what is God That there can be no composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self And yet that the Church finding in Scripture mention of Three to whom distinctly the Godhead does belong has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1.3 express'd these Three by the names of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence alloted to one and the same Godhead and these also distinguish'd by three distinct Relations Then pag. 241. To explain these modes of Subsistence and these Relations he tells you That they are neither substance nor accident That they are not a Being but only the affection of a Being and that they add no entity to it such as are dependance mutability presence absence c. And that they have no Existence of their own after a separation or division from the things or beings to which they do belong Having thus in general explain'd what a mode is he applys it pag. 242. And says that the Personalities by which the Deity stands Diversify'd into three distinct Persons are call'd and accounted Modes .... That every Person is properly the Godhead as subsisting with and under such a certain Mode or Relation Now put all this together and see whether this is not the very Doctrine of Sabellius Did not Sabellius say that God is one even the Father acting under several Names sustaining several Relations by which he sometimes is the Father and sometimes the Son What does Dr. South say more He must be very clear sighted who can perceive any difference between these two Hypotheses Orthod There is as much difference as between affirming and denying between Light and Darkness Sabellius admits only one Person in the Divine Nature Dr. South Three When Sabellius by the great evidence of Scripture is forc'd to own Three Persons and confess the Relations He will have them to be Persons only in a Classical Critical sence having no other but a Metaphorical being He confounds the Persons and makes the Son and the Holy Spirit to be the Father Dr. South affirms them to be Persons in a Real Sence by an Eternal Communication of the Divine Nature and so really distinct that the Son cannot be the Father or the Holy Spirit Father or Son or the Father Son or Holy Spirit Sabellius makes the Relations to be wholly extrinsecal as he sustains the Three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons Dr. South affirms pag. 242. the Relations to be Intrinsecal founded upon those Internal Acts by which one Person produces another or proceeds from another He tells you that God may sustain an extrinsecal Relation founded upon some external act issuing from him as Creation Preservation c. Which adds to the Deity only an extrinsecal denomination as
afraid you cannot resolve them The first is this If you are neither for a Real nor a Nominal Trinity then you are for no Trinity at all For there is no medium between them The second is that in what sense soever you hold a Trinity I cannot believe it A Trinity of Persons of which every one is God and yet but one God is to me the most absurd notion in the World I have study'd the matter with as much application as I can But to me it still appears to be a perpetual affront to Reason and good sense Orthod Give me leave to tell you that the first is no difficulty at all The Church believes a Real Trinity Not in that sense of Real which your Friends have made so much noise about and so unjustly imputed to us which infers three Gods But in that sense which in the asserting three Divine Persons preserves still the Unity of the Divine Nature To speak plainly and prevent that wrangling to which obscurity generally leads Men what the Church proposes to our belief consists in this The Unity of God is so clearly prov'd both by Reason and the Authority of the Sacred Writings that there is not in the World a truer or a plainer assertion than this God is one and can be but one But the same Sacred Writings speaking of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and giving those Characters of them by which they appear incommunicably distinct from one another It makes this second assertion The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit Nor the Son the Father or the Holy Spirit Nor the Holy Spirit Father or Son But the Scripture being express and positive in giving to every one of these Persons the Name Nature Attributes and Operations of God there arises a third assertion The Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God But the first of these propositions standing unmoveable and God ceasing to be if he ceases to be one All at last are resolv'd into this Fourth That in that ONE adorable and Divine Nature are Father Son and Holy Spirit every one God and yet but ONE God This is the Real Trinity which the Church believes which the Apostles have taught For which the Martyrs dy'd and notwithstanding all the oppositions of Hereticks has obtain'd and will obtain to the end of the World I cannot read the Ecclesiastical History but I adore the veracity of Christ and see in that very particular the fullfilling of his promise to the Church that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her Your second difficulty is as easily resolv'd as the first For how can that be an affront to Reason and good Sense which God has commanded us to believe Socin There must be a great deal more in it than what you have laid down Vast many Books have been written on this Subject You are not ignorant how from the first and intermediate ages of Christianity to this time it has been the ground of irreconcilable disputes I do not speak only when the Emperours espous'd the Cause and this or that Opinion prevail'd because it was the Religion of the Court But I speak of the retirements of the Schools where the dispute was furious and the Doctors more set one against another than Marius and Sylla Caesar and Pompey This grand and Mysterious Contradiction has given birth to infinite Contradictions which like the Hydra's head multiply daily without number The Socinians in that Print of theirs call'd A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation pag. 10. have charg'd this home upon you The Author tells you roundly that there is no fewer than fifteen divisions amongst you each division consisting of two Parties at the least some of them of four or five So that they are in all about forty Parties of them A strong Argument by the way against the pretended Vnity of the Church Orthod What I have propos'd to you is the simplicity of the Revelation God has reveal'd so much and in that there is enough to satisfy our selves The disingenuity of the Author of that Letter appears in this that he talks of divisions and Parties and pretends to enumerate them whereas there never was any about this Socin Can you think that a Learned Person as this Author is durst have the confidence to assure such a thing if he had not very good grounds for it Orthod Call it what you please I dare to averr that he has none at all But to make this clear I must needs tell you that in a Revelation two things are to be consider'd The one is the thing reveal'd as in this case the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Spirit God and yet not three but one God The other is the manner how these things are which are reveal'd How the Father is a Father how the Son is a Son how the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son How every one of these is God and yet but one God I dare say that there has not been nor can never be a more universal agreement than there has been in the first Had we been contented to adore and believe there had never been any Schisms or Divisions in that particular But Man will be curious pretend to unfold Mysteries and clearly see into his Nature who has made darkness his Pavilion round about him He must of course receive the punishment due to his Presumption and instead of that noble pleasure which results from knowing meet with all the sad consequences of a confident ignorance Any one moderately acquainted with Ecclesiastical Learning will see that this has been the conduct of the Church to stick to that first part as certain and undoubted and not at all to meddle with the other as full of danger This is visible in all the confessions of Faith of the Primitive Councils which are full in asserting the Vnity of God and the Trinity of Persons and all upon the certainty of the Divine Revelation But pretend to no kind of explication of the HOW or manner of it I confess that private Doctors have done it and that with heats not becoming the matter in dispute The Schools have given way to a World of impertinent questions and have been as impertinent in their resolutions as impertinence can be They have commented upon one another and still the Commentary has been obscurer than the Text. But when all is done they have stuck firmly to the doctrine reveal'd and unanimously agreed in this though they disagreed in there explications about it I should look upon it as the greatest Miracle that ever was done if they had explain'd that which is inexplicable Is there no such thing as the Heavens because some Philosophers have maintain'd that they were Fluid and others that they were Solid bodies Is there no such thing as the Earth because that sort of Men have wrangl'd about its figure and motion The same may be ask'd of
of the approaching Night Socin No! I should be then an incomprehensible Creature my self I own to my grief that there are abundance of that sort of things I say to my grief For I would if I could know every thing But when I find a bar which stops me from going further then I make a stand and cannot conceive that I am any way concern'd in it In a word as I have said before what is incomprehensible is nothing to me Orthod You put me in mind of a verse in Hesiod wherein the old Mythologist says that Credulity and Incredulity have equally undone Mankind A thought more becoming a Christian than a Heathen From the first have sprung Superstition and Idolatry Men have brought down their Adoration as low as their thoughts They have worship'd Beasts and Plants as irrational as the one and as insensible as the other The second has run them into other extreams From Polytheism to Atheism from believing every thing to the believing nothing at all It has produc'd Deism not such as was the Deism of the first race of the World when Nature taught Men sincerely to serve their Creator but such as loose and profane Persons have embrac'd the better under that venerable Name to destroy Reveal'd Religion Pardon me if I say that Socinianism is another of its branches Credulity has undone others but Incredulity has ruin'd you Socin You do us a double injury First In puting us with Deists and Atheists whom you know we are no favourers of Secondly By charging us with Incredulity when in all our Books and Prints we publickly profess to believe Orthod That is you assent to what comes within the compass of your Reason but no further You believe what you please or how you please What squares with your Thoughts shall be Faith What does not must be rejected You are then Believers at large and such as St. Austin represents the Manichaeans lib. de util creden who would have Faith to be nothing but Reason Socin No we distinguish them The one is not the other We are satisfy'd of the Truth of those things which Reason could never have demonstrated We acknowledge a Reveal'd Religion and think it an infinite mercy of the Creator to have sent the Lord Christ into the World to teach us the way to Heaven But we are perswaded that Revelation contains nothing but what is Possible Consistent with Reason and easily understood You have made Christianity Mysterious That is the plainest Religion in the World is become in your hands obscure and intricate and when you have nothing to say for your selves you appeal to Faith as to the last remedy Orthod Give me leave to shew you the disingenuity and weakness of this way of reasoning You say that you are satisfy'd of the Truth of those things which Reason could never have demonstrated But at the same time you confine this principally to the matters of Fact related in the Gospel Nay the Learned Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity would unreasonably have confin'd it to the bare belief of CHRIST being the Messias But is there nothing else besides matter of Fact in the sacred Writings Are we not told what that Messias is as well as what he has done his Nature as well as his Actions Does not this matter of Fact depend upon a Series or Concatenation of Divine Verities which the Scripture has carefully attested Does not the whole Oeconomy of the Gospel turn upon Father Son and Holy Spirit Are we not initiated in their Names to our Holy Religion And does not that Religion teach us what they are in themselves and what in relation to us But you have an easy and possible way and that is to maim and mangle Religion When it is thus murder'd and disfigur'd then it is consistent with Reason and easily understood when it has nothing to say Thus Socinianism by pretending to remove Mysteries from our Holy Religion becomes it self a Mystery It takes away the greatest part of the Credenda Let another Socinus arise and take away the Agenda too and then the World will be sitted with a delicate System of Religion Socin Now I see you grow hot Orthod No but would it not amaze any Man to see Christianity thus abus'd by Men who own themselves to be Christians and under a pretence of making Religion plain easy and rational remove out of the way the most substantial parts of it May not I wonder to see you deny your assent to things because you pretend that they are not comprehensible when at the same time you believe things of which you can give no sort of account and which you must at last as well as we resolve into the Authority of the Reâ—ciation Socin Pray prove that Orthod Yâ—â— very easily For instance amongst many things of this sort you believe the Creation of the World that is you believe that the World and all that is in it was made of nothing Now any thing to proceed of nothing every thing to be made of nothing is as great a contradiction 〈…〉 as one and one and 〈…〉 but one Oâ—â— of nothing is made is a 〈…〉 the most sagacious Philosopher On this the Lycaeum built the Eternity of the World Tertullian Apolog. c. 11. attributes it to Pythagoras and Proclus to Plato both I fear falsly Others made matter to be eternally pre-existent Others said that God was the World I maintain that though we can never conceive it yet it is easier to imagine how Three Persons can subsist in one Nature than that any one thing should be made of nothing Socin No I can easily conceive the Creation The notion of an Almighty God producing all things is neither arduous nor difficult I may say with the Ancient of whom Clemens Alexand. speaks Str. 5. That when I contemplate this great Fabrick of the World I think I hear the Voice of God who commands it to Exist That infinite Essence in whose mind are reposited the Essences of all things can give them their several Existences when he pleases None but Moses spoke worthy of God when he brings in the Almighty commanding all things out of nothing with a word of his mouth Orthod I must beg leave to say that this does not reach the difficulty For if you run to the power of God and the relation made of it by 〈…〉 for it But does it 〈…〉 comprehensible Do you know 〈…〉 how something is 〈…〉 the contradiction the 〈…〉 as your Friends exâ—â—◠〈…〉 not in the words only 〈…〉 thing it self How would you 〈…〉 your very principle I should say that the Revelation must be made consistent with Reason that a possible sence is to be inquir'd after that God is said to create because he orders and disposes the eternally pre-existent Matter Should I criticise and as you have done in other places alter particles in the Text of Moses you would think that I am mad and say that when the Text is so plain
call'd by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Apostle 1 Cor. 2.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the demonstration of the Spirit to distinguish it from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the demonstration of Power which consists in miraculous operations And therefore that Record is truly divine in which God has left such splendid and lasting monuments of his Holy Spirit But if a Book may truly be call'd Divine which transcends all Books whatsoever that Collection which we have of the Sacred Writings justly deserves that name For besides that it can be made to appear that all the Theology all the Philosophy all the Rites all the Laws all the Manners and Customs all the Heroes of the Heathens are deriv'd from thence and that this Truth is not unperceiveable though oppress'd and eclips'd with the interposition of innumerable Fables and Lyes pray what Book can compare with this for Antiquity for certainty in the discovery of the Creation of the World the formation of all things the History of the first Ages but above all for that vast number of Precepts of Morality of excellent rules of Piety and Holiness by which Man is acquainted with his duty to God and to his fellow Creatures and has the promise of an Eternal State as a Reward of his Obedience What Man ever spoke or could ever speak in the Stile of the Sacred Writings It is every where Inimitable and does not surprise by a numerous train of pompous expressions but by a natural and inward Majesty which no mortal Oratory can personate It speaks to the Heart as well as to the Ears and converts as well as instructs us God has shew'd himself no where better than in his Word In his operations he acts but in this he speaks like God Whosoever reads attentively the Holy Scriptures must needs upon the whole conclude that it is a Work which infinitely exceeds the most refin'd Reason the most intense Capacity and the vastest Industry of Man I will say no more only let me beg of you to lay this all together and then tell me whether I am an Enemy to Reason and whether it has receiv'd any injury from me Socin Your way of speaking shews the Excellency of Reason and you make an admirable use of it against it self You leave me but one thing to desire and that is that I could be so far satisfy'd with what you have said as to assent to it But it is not in my power Nor think I my self overcome though I cannot answer your Arguments For when all is done my Reason must be the Judge and it will not suffer me to believe your Mysteries I know that you will tell me that this is obstinacy and that at this rate no Man will ever be convinc'd of his errors but will make this his last refuge that he cannot indeed contradict the truth offer'd but that his Reason will not suffer him to submit I grant all this But still as long as I act sincerely in it I may be pity'd but I cannot be blam'd Orthod You have often told me of your sincerity in this matter But I am afraid you have not the true notion of it Socin I understand by it a serious mind willing to know the truth and taking all the ways that it can to attain it I have study'd my own heart and if I can pretend to any knowledge of my self I think that I am in that very disposition Orthod There is a great deal more in it than all this comes to Self-love will turn it self into a thousand shapes and represent us to our selves quite otherwise than really we are Information indeed is the way to Truth But other qualifications must be suppos'd without which it is not attainable Bare arguing will never do The Soul must be purify'd of those lusts which are so many clouds interposing between us and the Truth I shall never believe a Man sincere in this till a substantial Piety with an uniform humble and mortify'd Life has made way to Divine Illuminations I take the grand obstacle to Faith not so much to consist in what we call Reason as in the indisposition of the heart which resists the impressions of the Grace and Spirit of God Sincerity in our obedience to CHRIST's holy precepts is the Touch-stone of that other which we pretend to One may practise Religion though he understands it not but it can never be understood except it be seriously practis'd As long as we live a life of sense and neglect the duties of Religion we shall ever wrangle with the points propos'd to our belief Oblige me in not separating two things so wholly depending on one another Socin I perfectly agree with you in this But I believe that God is merciful and that there is an allowance for invincible errors Orthod I believe so too But the error which you have espous'd is certainly a damnable error and is not Invincible He who never had a revelation of the Gospel and lives up to the light of nature will no doubt find that the mercies of God are not so consin'd as some Zealots have made them But you have had it and that too attested with the blood of Martyrs and the voice of the Catholick Church which at this very time from all the parts of the World exclaims against and condemns you How guilty is that confidence which under the pretence of contradictions and poor Criticisms dares refuse an assent to God speaking in his Holy Scriptures and to his Church declaring her sence of those matters in all her decrees Your errour indeed is invincible not because you cannot but because you will not be overcome Socin But who is a better judge than my self whether I can or no Orthod All this is trifling with God and your self Every Man will give the same Answer and by this defend not only the most pernicious errours but even the most sinful habits However take the great help which God has provided in this case and that is Prayer Be never wanting in your publick and private Adorations of God to pour your Heart before him with humility and fervency that he would open your Eyes and remove from you blindness and hardness of Heart Alass my Friend the night of your Life and mine is far spent The day is at hand Few steps more and we launch into Eternity Have pity on your own Soul and hasten to secure your self Socin I cannot however but express my acknowledgment for your good and serious advice I promise you that I will consider of it in earnest But it grows late and I fear we have no more time than what will serve to take another turn in this fine Garden and then draw home Orthod Besure to be as good as your word Socin I will Orthod Then I am almost confident that you will have done Socinianizing FINIS
and National Synods We have her Mind in her publick Confessions of Faith She is so far from espousing any sort of explication that she ever thought that that great Mystery could not be explain'd The Church suffers Men to write concerning these matters St. Austin has given several considerable reasons for it in his Books on this very Subject and in that de utilit credend The opposing of Heresy the improvement of Piety the study of the Holy Scriptures of which this makes so considerable a part are the principal But to think that the Church will stand by all the Opinions of private Writers and own their errours and mistakes is a prodigious inadvertency What Church in the World can be safe if made to answer for all the Authors of her Communion What becomes then of the objection It is all overthrown in this one word The Church has nothing to do with those explications which the Socinians fansie they have so much expos'd And as for the explications themselves I believe that if the Judicious Hooker and the Learned Cudworth were alive you durst not so much as name them The rest are Men of great abilities who can arm in their defence no better Pens than their own Socin But do you put Bishops and eminent Bishops too in the rank of private Persons Who can best speak the sence of the Church but those who are call'd by the Fathers the Husbands of their Churches the Keepers of the Canons and the Successors of the Apostles Some seem to be Tritheists and others seem to be Sabellians Orthod Truly you have us'd the Bishops in your Writings as if they had been no more than private Persons the reflections on their Lordships having been so sharp and so many His Grace the late Arch-Bishop whom by your own confession you ought to have reverenc'd was not free from your aspersions My Lord of Glocester has had his share In the latest answer to my Lord of Sarum you forget the large Encomiums given him before The Bishop of Worcester for whom the Learned World has so just a value met in the answer to his late Book with the same way of Entertainment But laying all this aside and answering your meaning A Bishop with all the respect due to the Sacred Dignity is still a private Doctor Nor can the Church be favourable to his explications if they are contrary to her Doctrine But what of all this Our Bishops are all Orthodox Socin I do not know what you mean by Orthodox There is no Orthodoxy but Truth They who teach Three Gods cannot be Orthodox and this is done by the Real Trinitarians The Socinians believe and adore but one and this is done by the Nominals The greatest part of the Church goes I confess that way and therefore it is Orthodox because Socinian In short we may talk till Doom's day and never be the Wiser The question at last must be this are you a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian If a Real then we shall never be reconcil'd If a Nominal then we are certainly agreed Orthod What I have said already seems to me to be satisfactory But since you are not contented with it let us examine the several parts of your distinction What is the meaning of Real Trinitarians But let me beg of you to answer plainly and directly Socin I will answer in the very words of the Author of the Discourse concerning them He says pag. 7. The Realists are denominated from their believing Three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many Real subsisting Persons Again p. 19. They are every day Challeng'd and impeach'd of Tritheism And again p. 25. Themselves do sometimes almost openly and explicitely own and profess their Tritheism Their doctrine of the Trinity manifestly implies Three Gods Orthod What is the meaning of Nominal Trinitarians Socin They are they who maintain a Trinity which Consists only in the several Names Offices Relations and Modes of Existence of the Divine Nature This was first taught by Noëtus and Sabellius embrac'd afterwards by the assertors of the Homoousios and receiv'd by the Schools and Divinity Chairs ever since This is the substance of what he says of the Nominals in the first part of the Discourse Orthod And this you make the Foundation of that difference which you imagine to be in the Church and has of late fill'd up all your Prints Socin Yes indeed and with a great deal of Reason You are all afraid of the distinction It is of your side so notorious a giving up of the Cause that we have parted with all our Old Arguments and retrench'd our selves there as in a place from whence we cannot be driven Orthod Then pray set your heart at rest and suffer your selves to be forc'd from it For I presume positively to averr that there is no such thing in nature as these Trinitarians of your own making You pretended already to a God of your own making You wish'd for a Scripture of your own making To make a Trinity too is a little too hard I say then and pray forgive the sharpness of the words that all this is a mistake a slander and a calumny upon the Church Socin How much must you abate of your assurance when I shew you in several late Writings that the Three Persons of the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits and Substances I appeal to your self whether this is not manifest Tritheism For what is God but an Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Orthod I have told you already and tell you again that such expressions are wholly unknown to the Church and therefore cannot with any candor be fastn'd upon it Oblige me so far as to shew me a Church in the World this day or formerly which uses them or else be pleas'd to own that you are guilty of a great deal of disingenuity But though such a denial is sufficient because it is of a thing which you cannot and dare not undertake to prove yet it will be much clearer if you give your self the trouble to consider that such a notion in the Christian Church is impossible and has not the least ground or appearance of truth You are acquainted with the Sacred Writings of the New Testament and no doubt have inform'd your self of the Confessions of Faith of the Ancient Councils the assertions of the generality of the Fathers the doctrine of the Schoolmen the sense of the Greek and Latin Church even since the fatal separation and in the division of so many Kingdoms from the last in these two Ages you know perfectly all the Articles which the Famous Societies of Protestants have declar'd to be the points of their belief This suppos'd I lay before you these plain and easy but Substantial Observations First That the Church of God has always asserted the Vnity of the Divine Nature as the Foundation of all Religion It has been its great and distinguishing Character You will tell me that the Philosophers did so
it I confess that when that which is propos'd is obscure intricate and capable of several sences the conclusions may be different and I cannot without injustice deny that you should examine the consistency or contradiction of my deductions But I maintain that most of the propositions by which our Holy Faith is establish'd are of such plainness that no equitable Man can fix any other sence upon them than what they offer themselves That I may not give you any occasion of mistaking me for your Friends are admirable at this and if they can but lay hold on it they presently expatiate and lose the question I mean no more than as to the existence of the Revelation that is that there is such a thing reveal'd though not as to the manner of the thing the HOW it is in it self Not to multiply instances take the places already cited Rom. 9.5 Whose are the Fathers and of whom as concerning the Flesh CHRIST came who is over all God blessed for ever What is that which the proposition offers That CHRIST is a Man descended from the Fathers and that he is God over all God blessed for ever It is a plain and as plain a proposition as can be But when I go further and say Then there are two Natures in Christ Jesus for as a Man he cannot be God and as God he cannot be Man He is Man because concerning the Flesh he came from the Father He is God because the Apostle says he is over all God blessed for ever I confess that this is an Inference but it is an inference which results so plainly and so fully from the Nature of the proposition that it is as clear and as undeniable as the proposition it self Again Phil. 2.6 Who being in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God There is a plain proposition that CHRIST is equal with God and the inference is of the same nature and clearness as the proposition Therefore he must be God For none but God can be equal with God 1 Cor. 2.10 The Spirit searches all things even the deep things of God The Spirit knows all that God is his Nature his Perfections even those depths unfathomable to any created Being You will not quarrel with the proposition and can you quarrel with the inference which in effect is the same with the proposition and that is that he is God since none but God perfectly knows himself Pray what inference is there in Act. 5.3 4. when Peter in his Apostolical Zeal asks Ananias why Satan has fill'd his Heart to lye to the Holy Ghost Thou hast not ly'd unto Men but unto God If the Holy Ghost is not God how could he lye unto God You see the inference is drawn by St. Peter himself and lies in the very Heart of the Proposition How unreasonable is this noise about inferences will appear if you take notice of the beginning of St. John's Gospel Is Verse the 14th an Inference The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father full of Grace and Truth Are the 1 2 3. Verses an Inference The Word was with God The Word was God The same was in the beginning with God All things were made by Him and without Him there was not any thing made that was made Is Joh. 20.28 an Inference And Thomas answer'd and said unto him my Lord and my God! Let us deal candidly if you call the Incarnation and the Union of the two Natures in CHRIST JESVS an Inference Is it not the plainest result of the plainest Propositions that ever were in the World Socin You are launch'd into a vast Sea of Discourse Orthod Oblige me so far as to suffer me to insist somewhat longer on this and I will repay your Patience with a serious attention to what you have to say to it Read 1 Joh. 5.7 There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One. When we talk of a Trinity of Persons consistent with the Unity of the Divine Nature is it an Inference or is it not Is not the Trinity of Persons and the Unity of the God head clearly express'd in the Proposition You have made such a wonder at the word Trinity and been so rude as to call Trinity in Unity Jargon Contradiction Nonsence How can you reconcile all this with this noble Passage Is not this a Trinity in Unity not by way of Inference but by a full and plain Assertion But why should I be so earnest to prove this against the Socinians when they themselves cannot deny it For if our Doctrine consists in nothing but inferences and conclusions which we draw as we please What has made them so earnest to dispute these very texts and with poor and little Criticisms to endeavour to elude their force If these Texts had not star'd them in the face with an incontestable evidence what should make them so indefatigable in granting and denying adding Comma's changing or putting in particles as if Truth wanted such mean helps It short there are two sorts of inferences the one near and immediate such as I have given you some instances of which naturally flow from the thing propos'd and are of equal clearness with it The other remote and not appearing so easily at first but wanting the help of further inquiries and deductions Concerning the first I may challenge your Reason of error I may safely and truly say you offer violence to Reason I may appeal to all Mankind in the case But for the other I must not so freely affirm it nor say that my Reason is more infallible than yours When I am oblig'd to run through a long course of deductions I may mistake as much as you do The Church never pretended to any inferences but of the first kind If the Scripture proposes a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead If it represents these Persons incommunicably distinct from one another Their Consubstantiality Coequality Coeternity is a natural and a necessary consequence If it teaches me that CHRIST is God and Man the Union of the two Natures in one adorable Person is an inference of the same sort If there is a Father from ever and a Son from ever and if a Spirit proceeds from ever Eternal Generation and Eternal Procession are necessary deductions from those great truths and in a manner the same with the truths themselves I tell you once more you must either admit our doctrine or reject the Holy Scriptures Socin I confess that what you have said is well put together and has a very good face But still I am far from being satisfy'd There is nothing can make me believe a contradiction Let it be found in Sacred or humane Writings it is still a contradiction A contradiction is that to which all the World cannot reconcile me You say Revelation and a