first Commandment Thou shalt have no other God but Me he speaks to all Men to the illiterate to the sincere and even to Children as well as to those who are practised in the Arts of deceiving and being deceived by a Disguise of Words and by captious Forms of speaking If his meaning therefore was there is an Almighty Father who is God he hath an Almighty Son who also is a God and besides these there is an Almighty Spirit distinct from the other two and a God no less than either of them if I say this was his meaning would he have couched it in such words as these There is none other God but one or in these There is one God and there is none other but He or would he have said Thou shalt have none other God but ME Could the Wisdom of God it self find no other words but these which are so directly contrary to such a meaning by which to express himself and that too to those who were utterly uncapable of apprehending such a Sense in them These are the words which God spake upon Mount Sinai with Thunders that shook the Earth and Heavens I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other God but ME. They tell us his meaning was there are three Almighty All-knowing and Most good Persons each of them singly and by himself God and all of them jointly Creators of all things Now who would have thought it that this should be the meaning of no other God but ME Without doubt the Texts and the meaning are as far from one another as any the most contradictory Propositions can be and till they can remove this first Commandment out of the way it will be impossible for Men of Sense to be of the Trinitarian Perswasion I mean if they be also sincere if they suffer not themselves to be blinded by the Interests or awed by the vain Terrors of the present false World Our Opposers themselves grant that when the Israelites first heard this Commandment they understood it and could then no otherways understand it as the Unitarians now do namely thus Thou shalt never own any other Person as God but only Me who now speak to thee God Almighty suffered this Sense of his Words to pass current for upwards of 1500 Years But then say they he sent our Saviour and his Apostles to give another Sense of them nay a contrary Sense The Apostles and our Saviour had it in Charge to tell us that no other God but Me was as much as to say God the Father and God his Son and God the Holy Ghost three Divine Persons each of them Almighty each of them All-knowing and most Good and each of them God But I verily think had the Apostles indeed pretended this to be the Interpretation of the first Commandment they would not have found a single Person who would have believed or received them For these good Men had not nor desired Penal Laws Prisons Confiscations Deprivations Exclusions from the common Privileges of the Society by which to awe Mens Minds to profess and even to believe that black is white and white is black It would have been told them by all their Hearers that the Sense of Words is unalterable and that even the greatest Miracles cannot authorize an Interpretation evidently contrary to the Text. If the Speaker had been only a Man yet the Sense of his Words when actually spoken can never be changed by any Authority whatsoever If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroyed to confirm an Interpretation that disagrees with the Natural and Grammatical Sense of the Words it will for all that ever remain a false Interpretation Cardinal Bellarmine is extreamly puzled with this Difficulty he saw plainly that the first Commandment and other Texts of the Law is conceived in such words that the Israelites could not think there were three Divine Persons but only one Divine Person But the Reason saith he of this was because the Israelites having lived long in a Nation where they owned and worshipp'd many Gods if they had been told of three Divine-Persons or of God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost they would most certainly have apprehended them to be three Gods This saith the Cardinal is the Reason why the Doctrine of the Trinity was reserved to the Times of the New Testament Bellarm. de Christo l. 2. c. 6. Notandum est Deum in vetteri Testamento noluisse proponere Mysterium Triuitatis expresse quia Judaei incapaces erant quia recens exierant de Egypto ubi colebantur multi Dii intraturi erant in terram Chanaan ubi etiam multi babebantur Dii ne videlicet putarent sibi tres Deos proponi colendosâ— voluisse tamen Deum adumbrare hoc Mysterium ut cum in Novo Testamento praedicaretur non videretur omnino Novum q. d. The Doctrine of the Trinity was not propounded expresly to the Jews in the Old Testament they were uncapable of it because coming out of Egypt where many Gods were worshipped and entering into Canaan where also many Gods were acknowledged the Jews would have thought that three Gods had been propounded to them to be worshipped Nevertheless it was hinted or shadowed to them lest when it came to be preached in the New Testament it should seem altogether a new thing In reading the Works of this Cardinal I have often had this Thought That provided his Works were but bulky and learned he never cared what other Property they wanted no one can deny that his five Books against the Unitarians intituled by him De Christo are the most learned of any that have been written against us but they have no Wit and are throughout most injudicious What can be more unthought or silly for instance than this vain Elusion God speaks to the Jews saith he as if he were but one Person because they living among People who acknowledged many Gods would have mistaken three Divine Persons to be three Gods How came it to be more safe or seasonable or less liable to Misinterpretation to instruct Christians in the Belief of three Divine Persons than it would have been to teach the same Belief to the Jews The Jews saith the Cardinal would have mistaken they would have thought the Trinity an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit to be three Almighties and three Gods so this Mystery was not preached to them What a Narrowness of Thought and Consideration is implied in this Answer for was not the whole Christian Church taken from among such Nations who all worshipped and owned many Gods The Reason alledged by the Cardinal if it were good for any thing must also have prevented the Revelation of that pretended Mystery to any of the Christian Nations and Churches I might also ask the Cardinal why he hath so much better Thoughts of Athanasius than of Moses and the Prophets Athanasius knew how to compose a Trinitarian Creed in the most express and particular
the Arian Trinity is but of Persons all of them Homogenial all of them Eternal Spiritual and Uncreated They that shall deny this to be the Doctrine of the Fathers will find themselves obliged to answer to two things which are indeed fairly and truly unanswerable The first is Why those Fathers who contend for the Homo-ousios consubstantial or of the same Substance do yet expresly reject the Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Substance and Essence in Number The Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Essence or Substance in Number is the very Doctrine of the Schools and Moderns but is denied by the Fathers as meer Sabellianism which invincibly proves that by one and the same Substance and Essence they meant not one and the self-same or one in Number but one for Kind Nature or Properties Secondly They must also satisfy the Citations of D. Petavius and S. Curcellaeus and these in the Intellectual System which do all of them severally and much more conjunctly clearly show what the Sense of the Fathers was about Homo-ousios and consubstantial It appears by this and abundance more the like that Dr. Cudworth had the same Apprehensions concerning the three Divine Persons with Dr. Sherlock they both apprehend the three Persons to be as distinct and different and as really three several Intelligent Beings and Substances as three Angels are or as Peter James and John are Dr. Sherlock saith they are however called one God because they are internally conscious to all one anothers Thoughts and Actions but I do not believe that Dr. Cudworth would have allowed so much to the Son and Spirit as to be internally conscious to all the Thoughts and Actions of the first Person he always speaketh of them as every way inferior to the Father he will not allow them to be Omnipotent in any other respect but only externally that is to say because the Father concurreth Omnipotently to all their external Actions whether of Creation or Providence Dr. Cudworth desires to distinguish his Explication from all others of the Moderns by this Mark that it alloweth not the three Persons to be in any respect but Duration Co-equal for saith he three distinct Intelligent Natures or Essences each of them Pre-eternal Self-existent and equally Omnipotent ad intra are of necessity three Gods nor can we have any other Notion of three Gods but if only the first Person be indeed internally Omnipotent and the other two subordinate in Authority and Power to him you leave then but one God only in three Divine Persons This is Dr. Cudworth's Explication Every one will readily make this Exception he thinketh either that there is one Great God and two Lesser Ones or else only the first is true God and the other two in Name only The Doctor foresaw without doubt this Objection therefore see how he hath endeavour'd to prevent it First he reports some Answers of the Fathers to this Difficulty which Answers he expresly rejecteth For some of them said that the three Persons are one God by their Unity of Will and Affection Others said they are one God as all Men or all Mankind are called Homo or MAN namely because they All have the same Specifick Nature or Essence or Substance even the Rational For as all Men have the same Specifick Essence or Nature which is the Rational so the Divine Persons also agree in one Nature namely the Eternal Spiritual and Self existent But Dr. Cudworth confesseth that an Union of Will and Affection is only a Moral Union not a Physical or real Unity and as three Human Persons would be three distinct Men notwithstanding the Moral Union in Affection and Will so also the three Divine Persons will be three distinct Gods notwithstanding such an Union in Will and Affection As to the other that the three Persons are but one God by their having the same Specifick Nature or Essence or as some call it Substance namely because they are all of them Spiritual Self-existent and Coeternal he calleth it an absurd Paradox contrary to common Sense and our common Notions of things for so all Men will be but one Man because they have the same Specifick Essence or Nature namely the Rational and all Epicurus his Extramundan Gods will be but one God Then he propoundeth divers other Explications which he neither approveth nor expresly rejecteth tho 't is plain that he disliked them for the Explication on which he insisteth and which appears to be his Sense of the matter is this that follows The three Divine Persons are one God because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head or Chief even the Father He adds here expresly that if the Persons were Co-ordinate i. e. equal in Authority Dignity or Power they should not be one but three Gods This is at large Dr. Cudworth's Opinion the short of it is that the three Persons are as really distinct Beings Essences or Substances as Dr. Sherlock hath imagined them to be And as their Substances or Natures are not one but three so also must their Understandings and other Personal Powers and Properties The Doctors differ only in this that Dr. Sherlock maketh the Unity of the three Persons in the Godhead to consist in the Mutual-Consciousness of the Persons But Dr. Cudworth in this that the Father is both the Principle Root or Fountain or Cause and also the Head of the other two Persons They neither of them believe one Numerical but one Collective God one God not who is really one God but is one God in certain Respects as of Mutual Consciousness or of being the Cause Principle and Head of all other Beings and of the second and third Persons Dr. Cudworth contends by a great number of very Pertinent and Home Quotations that his Explication I mean that part of it which makes the three Persons to be so many distinct Essences or Substances is the Doctrine of the Principal if not of all the Fathers as well as of the Platonists and I for my own part do grant it For I am perswaded that no Man hath read the Fathers with Judgment and Application but he must discern that tho they do not express themselves in the incautelous unwary and obnoxious Terms used by Dr. Sherlock as neither doth Dr. Cudworth yet the Fathers as much believed the three Persons are distinct Minds and Spirits as Dr. Sherlock doth all the Difference as I said is only this that they and Dr. Cudworth do not use his very Terms They do not say in express words three Minds or three Spirits but the Comparisons which they use and their Definitions or Descriptions of what they mean by Persons are such that it cannot be questioned by any that they apprehended the three Persons to be three distinct Spirits Minds and Beings having each of them his own
believed that the Son was created by the Father or God but a little before the Creation of the World and that the Spirit was the Work or Creature of the Son and further that their Substances or Essences were altogether unlike from whence they were also called Heterousians But the moderate Arians were content to say that there was no conceivable Duration or Time between the Being of God or the Father and the Generation or Creation for those are with them equivalent Terms of the Son the Father made or generated the Son so early that there was no conceivable Portion of Time before the Son was no more than was absolutely necessary for giving to the Father the Priority of Existence and his Title of Father and as to their Substances they are Consubstantial by which this sort of Arians meant and the Church then meant no more that their Substances or Essences are alike or the same for Kind and Properties tho not in Number that is the Essences of these three Persons are all of them Spiritual Eternal and Infinite tho only the Father is Infinite in Power These moderate Arians were received to Communion by the moderate Trinitarians and particularly by Pope Liberius Dr. Cudworth holdeth their very Doctrine he alloweth only the Father to be Omnipotent and tho he saith that the Son and Spirit are also Eternal yet he cannot deny that there must be some Priority of the Father as the Fountain Principle and Cause before the Son and Spirit as Effects In a word the moderate Arians ascribed as much to the Son as Dr. Cudworth doth Were Dr. Cudworth alive it would not be expedient to make this Judgment of his Explication but being dead it cannot hurt him He is retired to the true Mount Moriah or Land of Vision where he no longer guesses by prudent and wary Conjectures but he knows and even sees how these things are God and Nature after which he enquired with so much Application and Freedom are now known to him and he now rests from his excellent Labours out of all danger from the Malevolence of the present evil Generation with whom 't is a Crime not to take every thing upon Trust on the meer Credit of those who have been before us As if it were the way to Truth not to enquire but to believe not to examine try and judg but to pre-suppose and take for granted every thing that has been told us by Men in Power and Place This is the Spirit that now prevails in the Church and on the contrary an ingenuous Freedom in enquiring and examining tho it be nothing else indeed but an honest and necessary Sincerity is now called Heresy and Schism and is if you 'll believe them to be punish'd with certain Damnation We have however in the mean time this Satisfaction that it is God who shall at last judg us He that hath said to us Try all things hold fast that which is good But I pass to the Trinity according to Aristotle defended by Dr. S th Of the Explication by Dr. S th I Have already done Right to Dr. S th and his Book if he takes it amiss that I observe also some Defects in it he ought to show his Patent by which he is constituted the only Animadverter on the Books of others If he hath received any Personal Wrong or Affront from Dr. Sherlock he is the more excusable that his Book hath so much more Scurrility than Argument but the Injury must have been very great to excuse him wholly He has noted some Errors either of Inadvertency and Haste or of the Pen in some Expressions and Words used by Dr. Sherlock he imputes all these as faults of meer Ignorance or Dulness to the Doctor This was somewhat barbarous nay it was more Barbarity in Point of Morality or Manners than ever Dr. Sherlock was guilty of in Grammar or Speech Dr. S th will not at least has not yet been able to perswade many that Dr. Sherlock wants the Qualifications or the degree of the Qualifications for which Dr. S th hath deserved Esteem the World thinks there is a great deal more in Dr. Sherlock to be commended besides his Preferments it is only wished that both these Doctors had something more of the Tenderness and Catholick Charity of Genuine Christianity tho it were accompanied with lesser Abilities or Learning Dr. Sherlock hath publish'd an Essay towards vindicating and explaining the Difficulties of the Trinity and Incarnation the Method he hath taken is wholly new and is a Mistake but it was meant well and I do not think that setting aside some Authorities or Quotations Dr. S th hath said any thing against it which Dr. Sherlock will much value The Arguments used by Dr. S th are only Metaphysical Reasonings easily advanced and as easily destroyed Dr. S th's is the true Explication that is to say as Orthodoxy is reckoned since Peter Lombard and the Lateran Council but Dr. Sherlock knew it to be Nonsense and therefore adventur'd to propose another he put forth his Hand to save the tottering and falling Ark and 't is made an inexcusable Fault But I will pass from the too Cynical Doctor to his Book and Explication 'T is not till Chap. 8. that he begins to bless us with the Catholick and Orthodox Account of his Trinity in Unity but at length at Pag. 240. out comes the Secret with this Preface to it The Doctrine of the Church and of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judg but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this Truly I am heartily sorry to hear it that Dr. S th at these Years has no fixed Religion of his own no not concerning the Trinity it self but is ready to turn with the Wind is prepared to renounce a Doctrine and Explication which he believes to be not only true but Fundamental if the Church commands him Mr. Milbourn makes the same Complement to his good Mother the Church in his late Book against the Socinians as I have noted in my Answer to him but Mr. Milbourn is somewhat excusable because he hath not yet received any of the Rewards due as he thinks to his Industry and Learning but Dr. S th is full and even overflows with the Blessings of the holy Mother It should seem Dr. S th thinketh he hath not yet enough else he would never be so over-mannerly as to put his Faith it self afloat and that too with the humblest Submission at the Command of his Reverend Mother We may infer however from these publick Professions of the Writers that could the Socinians get Mother Church of their side all her Champions would also come over to us for 't is not it seems the Cause that they defend 't is not the Trinity or Incarnation that they value but our Mother our Mother the Church If Dr. S th makes so light of his own Explication that he
is ready to fling it into the Kennel at the first Nod that the Church shall make he cannot wonder that the Socinians will handle it will look on both sides of it will view it in a clear Light before they bargain for it Well see here it is The Personalities by which the Godhead stands diversified into three distinct Persons are called and accounted Modes Therefore for understanding the Mystery of the Trinity we must declare what is properly a Mode or Manner of Being It is not a Substance nor an Accident which two make indeed the Adequate Division of Real Beings but a Mode is properly a certain Habitude of some Being Essence or Thing whereby the said Essence or Being is determined to some particular State or Condition which barely of it self it would not have been determined to And according to this Account a Mode in things Spiritual and Immaterial hath the like Reference to such Beings as a Posture hath to a Body to which it gives some Difference or Distinction without superadding any new Entity or Being to it In a word a Mode is not properly a Being whether Substance or Accident but a certain Affection cleaving to Being and determining it from its common general Nature and Indifference to something more particular as we have just now explained it As for instance Dependence is a Mode determining the general Nature of Being to that particular State and Condition by virtue of which it proceeds from and is supported by another and the like may be said of Mutability Presence Absence Inherence Adherence and such like viz. that they are not Beings but Modes or Affections of Being and inseparable from it so far that they have no Existence of their own after a Separation or Division from the Things or Beings to which they belong Animadver p. 240 241 242. Behold the Birth of the Mountains We are kept in suspense seven long Chapters at length in the 8th at p. 240. of his Book he gives forth this Oracle That the three Divine Persons so much talk'd of are neither Substances nor Accidents and consequently saith he no Real Beings Nay they have no real Existence of their own but are Modes Habitudes or Affections of the Divine Substance or the Substance of God they are in the Godhead or in the Substance of God such as Mutability Presence Absence Inherence Adherence and such like are in the Natures or Substances to which they belong Or if you will have a great deal in one single word the very Iliads in a Nut-shell they are Postures or what amounts to the same thing they are such in Spiritual and Immaterial Beings that a Posture is to a Body I must needs here tell you Sir the Story of the Princess Dulcinea del Toboso Mistress to the Renowned Don Quixot of the Mancha in Spain This famous Princess had the Honour to be Mistress of the Affections of the so much celebrated Don Quixot for her he traversed Mountains Deserts and other dreadful Places for her he encountred Giants Knights-errant and other formidable Dangers and at length for her to satisfy his amorous Passions towards her he retired to a place called the poor Rock where he spent much time in lamenting the Disdains the Cruelty and Hard-heartedness of his Mistress towards himself as is largely related in the History Don Quixot was waited on in his long Travels and Adventures by his Esquire Sancho Pancha who greatly pitied his Master that he should serve so rigorous a Mistress but the Esquire had one Scruple in his Mind Who this Dulcinea del Toboso should be But while Don Quixot was tormenting himself at the poor Rock he unluckily happened to drop some words by which it evidently appeared that Dulcinea del Toboso was only an imaginary Lady or Princess and that indeed she was no other Person but a certain coarse Country Wench Daughter of the Farmer Alonso Zanchez and for her Plainness called Joan. Ta Ta cries Sancho Pancha and is the Princess Dulcinea our Neighbour Joan Zanchez By my troth a sturdy Quean well may my Master languish for her for I am well perswaded she hath no regard or sense of Love-matters but 't is a good-natur'd Wench c. Methinks Sir there can be nothing more pat or proper for this place than this Story For just such a Disappointment do we all meet with in the Explication for which Dr. S th hath made us wait so long as Sancho Pancha had when he found the Princess Dulcinea was Joan Zanchez Dr. S th had raised the Expectation of his Readers in no fewer than seven Preliminary Chapters in the eighth he promises in the Title of it the long-lock'd for the much-desired Catholick and Orthodox Explication of a Trinity of Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead but when all comes to all he tells us the three Divine Persons are nothing else but the Substance of God or the Godhead diversified into three Postures Never were Men so bilk'd before as his Readers are at this News 't is the Princess Dulcinea turned into Joan Zanchez Was it worth while to fall upon Dr. Sherlock in that outragious manner only because he would not call the three Divine Persons three Postures of the Godhead or the Substance of God in three Postures Dr. Sherlock poor sensless illiterate Cantabrigian Ignoramus thought that these words Father Son and Spirit implied something that was real He imagin'd that the Notion which all Men naturally have of a Father his Son and a Spirit distinct from both must be filled up with something that will honestly and satisfactorily answer to such Names and natural Notions of a Father a Son and a Spirit diverse from both therefore saith he seeing these Persons are Spiritual and Immaterial and Intelligent I call them three Minds three Spirits and three Beings But the Adepti of Oxford will make him know his Mistake First Dr. Wallis tells him Three Persons and one God is as much as to say three Respects of one God to his Creatures he is their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and in this sense is called three Persons tho he is indeed but one God and but one Being but Dr. S th answers 't is neither so nor so three Divine Persons are the Substance of God in three Gambals or Postures or in three such I know not what 's which have the same or like Reference to Things Spiritual and Immaterial that Postures have to Bodies The three Personalities are that in the one Substance of God which Mutability Presence Absence Inherence Adherence and such like changeable Affections and Habitudes are in the Substances to which they belong He thinks it should seem that the Faithful must put their Trust in three Postures and worship Mutability Presence Absence or something which in Spirituals is like to them something which is no more in the Deity than Postures are in Bodies I fancy Dr. Sherlock will object to him that it is of the Nature of a meer
or Essence of God diversified by three Modes of Subsistence But above all I would not have Dr. S th please himself overmuch in this that he hath cited some Passages of the Fathers which describe the Personalities of the Father Son and Spirit by Modes Justin and Irenaeus have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of subsisting others call them Properties but by Modes Properties Characters and such like the Fathers meant quite another thing than Dr. S th and the Moderns do they meant what Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Cudworth mean By a Mode and Property they meant that discriminating Character by which the Individuals of any Specifick Nature are distinguished or differenced from all the Individuals of the same Species or Nature For Example the Individuals of the Specifick Nature of Humanity are particular Men and all these Individuals or particular Men are discriminated characterized differenced or modified each by his particular Properties Peter from John Peter and John from James by particular Properties Characters or Modes both of Body and Mind one for instance is bigger taller wiser or some other the like than the other This was what they meant when they described Personalities by Modes and when they said there were three Properties Modes or Characters in God they meant not in the least to deny that each Person is a particular Substance Essence or Nature different in Number from all other Substances Essences or Natures or to deny that each Person is a particular Being they meant only that each Individual or each Person besides the common Specifick Nature that is besides the meer Human Angelical or Divine Nature has also some particular Properties or Characters which ultimately distinguish him from all the Individuals or Persons of the same Species Specifick Nature or Kind It is not true therefore what Dr. S th pretends that by Modes of Subsistence the Antients meant no more than certain such Habitudes or Affections as Mutability Presence Absence Posture or such like they meant real discretive and characterizing Properties or Qualifications and by Person they meant a particular individual intelligent Substance or Essence and so modefied or characterized They were far from dreaming that the three Divine Persons an Almighty Son an Almighty Father and an Almighty Spirit distinct in Number from both were only one individual Substance distinguished or diversified by only three such lank and meagre Affections as Absence Posture Adherence or any other that are no more in a Spiritual Substance than those three are in Bodies to which they add no Perfection and from which they are every Moment separable But the Socinians are not concerned what becomes of the Dispute about Persons and Personalities in God whether they are adequately the same yea or no and again whether the Moderns who follow the Schools agree with the Antients in their Notion of them for I will put to Dr. S th a plain Question to which if he is disposed to give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men that either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock or with the Unitarians that is to say he is either a Tritheist or what I doubt he will as much abhor a Socinian He saith there is one only Divine Substance Essence or Nature and thus far we agree with him but he adds this one Substance is so diversified by three Modes Affections or Habitudes or something like to them that we must say under pain of Heresy and Damnation that this one Substance is three Divine Persons a Father his Son and a Spirit distinct from both Therefore I ask have the three pretended Divine Persons each his own proper peculiar and personal Understanding Will and Energy so that there are in the Divine Substance or in God three distinct All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies as there are three distinct Persons as Dr. Sherlock has affirmed Or have the three Persons but one only self-same Understanding Will and Energy in Number as there is but one self-same Substance in Number If he saith the former he joins Hands with Dr. Sherlock and is guilty of Tritheism no less than he for three Omniscient and Omnipotent Understandings Wills and Energies without doubt are three Gods If there be three Omnisciencies and Omnipotencies of necessity there must be three Omniscients and Omnipotents but that is Tritheism even in the Judgment of Athanasius himself who expresly denies three Almighties or three All-knowings And indeed I do not think Dr. S th will say that each Person hath his own proper and personal Understanding Will or Energy so that there are three distinct Understandings Wills and Energies in what his Party call the Godhead I see his Book is written with more Judgment and Precaution than Dr. Sherlock's or even than any that I have seen that have been written in Defence of the Trinitarian Cause But if he denies that there are three All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies he is a Socinian he has granted to us the Point in Controversy he grants the whole that we contend for They will allow him to say there are three Persons or three thousand Persons in the Godhead so long as he grants but one Omnipotent Energy and Will and but one All-knowing Understanding or Wisdom If this be granted to us 't is plain to every one who gives but never so little heed that the Question about three Persons is a meer Strife of Words and the Authors of the Brief History and Brief Notes are tho not in their Words yet in their Senses as Orthodox as Dr. S th and the Schools I will affirm we have no need of our Brief Histories or Brief Notes we need not make an operose Proof of our Doctrine of the Unity of God from the Holy Scriptures or from Reason the whole Controversy with the Church is ended in the Resolution of this short and plain Question Is there more than one All-knowing Almighty Understanding Will and Energy If you say there is but one such Understanding Will and Energy in one self-same Divine Substance you may talk of as many Persons Fathers Sons Spirits Modes Properties Respects Nothings as you please we will only peaceably advise you that these are meer empty Words that have nothing to answer them in the thing under Consideration When you have granted to us that there is but one Divine Substance and but one Omniscient Omnipotent Understanding and Energy what you add more of Persons Properties Thingams and call them a Trinity 't is an Addition only of Words and Names not of Realities or Persons that are properly so called These things being so and so very evident I cannot wonder that so discerning a Philosopher as Dr. Cudworth never speaks of the Trinity of the Schools maintained by Dr. S th without calling it a Nominal Trinity a Trinity of Names and Words only a disguised Sabellianism which is to say Unitarianism or Socinianism drest up in the absurd Cant of the Schools But whereas the
Schools deform the sincere and easy Notion of the Unity of God as 't is held by the Socinians and Sabellians by transforming it into a Fantastick Trinity of Nominal Persons or of Persons who are Persons only in Name not in Truth and Reality therefore Dr. Cudworth saith farther that this Trinity is Jargonry in Philosophy a Trinity that falls not under Human Conception and which cannot be in Nature Intellect System p. 605. Elsewhere he scruples not to name it the Philosophy of Gotham These are the just Characters which that great Philosopher and Divine gives of the Scholastick Trinity of Dr. S th he giveth his Reasons up and down in the Intellectual System but 't is not necessary for me to report them when every one may see them in the Author himself and besides they are too Philosophical to be put into a Discourse which I design for the Use of the less learned as well as of the learned I have done with Dr. S th's Explication for this time If he is angry with me for the Reflections I have made thereupon I protest 't is without just Cause I have used no disrespectful Language I have acknowledged and do acknowledg the Worth of the Man and all other Perfections in his Book but only this one that it maintains an unjustifiable Explication The Method or Structure of his Book is Natural Elegant and Judicious the Words Expression or Phrase is proper forcible clean and well chose it hath very many agreeable Turns of Wit which render it pleasant to an ingenious Reader As this Author hath a great deal of Wit so he hath known how to govern it in this respect that he is witty without Buffoonry This is a Conduct not very usual in those that have much Wit commonly they know not how to manage it and among other unjudicious Neglects they forget the Where and When and other such like Circumstances they are so taken with their Talent as to be always using it because they know not that everlasting fooling is true and meer fooling But I wish that Dr. S th in exercising his Wit had remembred the who which he hath utterly forgotten and that was utterly an oversight and a very great one He cannot excuse himself by pleading the many Contradictions in Dr. Sherlock's Book a candid Man would not impute them to the Author but to the extream Obscurity of the Subject when the Subject it self is contradictory there will be many Contradictions committed in defending it I doubt not that Dr. Sherlock will find many Contradictions in Dr. S-th's second Chapter Having done to Dr. S th this Right he ought not to be out of Humour that I as a Socinian have attacked his Explication as I have some other Learned Men I mean no Disrespect thereby to him or them I acknowledg their Personal Merit but cannot give up to them so sacred a Truth as the Unity of God or consent that it be disguised and deformed Of the Explication by Mr. Hooker Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity MR. Hooker tho he was none of the Fathers of the Catholick Church is not of less Authority in the particular Church of England than any one of the Fathers is and it must be confest he was not only a very good but a very learned and discerning Man But it is observed of him that in speaking of the Trinity he speaks somewhat incorrectly this was a Doctrine which he took for granted there was no Dispute in his time about it so he hath delivered himself not with his usual Precaution and Judgment He saith That the Substance of God with this Property to be of none doth make the Person of the the Father The very self-same Substance in Number with this Property to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son The same Substance having added to it the Property of proceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God which is one and also that Property which causeth the same Person really and truly to differ from the other two I must observe in the first place hereupon that Mr. Hooker in this matter hath not spoken over critically and correctly nay hardly Orthodoxly I mean as Orthodoxy goes among the Learned of his own Parry He saith that the Substance of God with these Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from the other two make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit now to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from both are but other Words for this Sense to beget to be begotten and to proceed But that Father of Modern Orthodoxy Peter Lombard whom we have already twice mentioned denies that these before-mentioned are Properties in the Substance of God or that they can belong to it he saith Essentia Divina non est generaâ—â— nec generaâ—â— nec procedens i. e. the Substance of God neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds 'T is impossible to make this consist with Mr. Hooker who expresly ascribeth those Properties to the Divine Substance or Essence and saith that being in the Divine Substance they make it to be three Persons What shall we do here Shall we say Reverend Hooker has mistaken and missed his Sons who are all the Church of England into an Error concerning the Trinity Hath he ascribed to the Divine Essence Properties which he calleth Persons that are not in it To give up Hooker is to dishonour the Church of England it self to part with Father Hooker is to endanger the very Surplice and even the Cross in Baptism nay that Book of Books the Common-Prayer If Mr. Hooker could err about the Trinity What will the Fanaticks and Trimmers say Will they not be apt to pretend too he may have erred in his profound Dissertations and Discourses for the Rites and Discipline of the Church I am afraid for all that we must keep close to Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences and of the Modern Divinity he hath been espoused by all the Popes since Innocent the Third by the Lateran Council which was General and by the tacit Approbation of the whole Church ever since I doubt it is not much more passible that Mr. Hooker saith that the Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed do together with the Substance of God make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit It is not true that those are the Properties which make the Persons he might say that they make the Persons to be Father Son and Spirit or to have that threefold Relation among themselves but they do not make the three Persons to be Persons or thus they do not make as he speaks the Persons To be of none maketh the Father but I deny that it maketh as Mr. Hooker affirms the Person of the Father the Character or Property which maketh the Person of the Father is quite another
the first Inventors of it were Peter Lombard and the Schoolmen so it hath no other publick Authority but that of the Fourth Lateran Council held in the Year 1215. He saith 't is a gross piece of Nonsense that it falleth not under Human Conception neither saith he can it be in Nature This is the Judgment which this great Philosopher and Divine maketh of the Explication propounded and defended in Dr. S th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock And in very deed Dr. S th's Explication can fitly and properly be called by no other Name but an absurd Socinianism or Socinianism turn'd into Ridicule as we shall see when we come to consider it in particular Mr. Hooker the celebrated Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity giveth yet another Explication of the Trinity he descibeth it to be the Divine Essence distinguished by three Internal and Relative Properties this Explication differs as much from Dr. Wallis as any of the rest for Dr. Wallis's three Persons are all of them External Denominations or Predications But these Differences Sir among our Opposers will appear to you most clearly without my needing to point at them in the Accounts I am about to give of their several Explications of their Trinity and the Observations I shall make on them Therefore I pass on to the Explication given us by Dr. Sherlock Of the Explication by Dr. W. Sherlock FOR Memory and Method's sake and because the Division is so just we may distinguish the Accounts or Explications of the Trinity contrived by our Opposers after this manner There is first the Trinity according to Tully or the Ciceronian Trinity which maketh the three Divine Persons to be nothing else but three Conceptions of God or God conceived of as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of his Creatures Dr. Wallis after many others hath propounded and asserted this Trinity in his Letters and his Sermons to the Patris conscripti at Oxford He found in Tully Sustineo unus tres Personas of which he mistaketh the meaning to be I being but one Man yet AM three Persons saith the Doctor hereupon Why may not God be three Persons as well as one Man was three Persons The next is the Cartesian Trinity or the Trinity according to Des Cartes which maketh three Divine Persons and three Infinite Minds Spirits and Beings to be but one God because they are mutually and internally and universally conscious to each others Thoughts Mr. Des Cartes had made this Inventum to be the first Principle and Discovery in Philosophy Cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am and he will have the very Nature of a Mind or Spirit to consist in this that 't is a thinking Being Therefore says Dr. Sherlock three Persons can be no otherways one God but by Unity of Thought or what will amount to as much as internal and perfect Consciousness to one anothers Thoughts Any one may see that Dr. Sherlock's Mutual Consciousness by which he pretends to explain his Trinity in Unity was by him borrowed from the Meditations and Principles of Monsieur Des Cartes his System was hinted to him by that unhappy Philosopher who hath razed as much as in him lay the only Foundation of Religion by resolving so absurdly as well as impiously the Original of the World and of all Things not into the Contrivance and Power of an Almighty and All-wise Mind but into the Natural Tendencies of Bodies or as he calls them the Laws of Motion The Third is the Trinity of Plato or the Platonick Trinity maintained by Dr. Cudworth in his Intellectual System This Trinity is of three Divine Co-eternal Persons whereof the second and third are subordinate or inferior to the first in Dignity Power and all other Qualities except only Duration Yet they are but one God saith he because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head even the Father This saith Dr. Cudworth is the Trinity of Plato and the genuine Platonists and is the only true Trinity all other Trinitarians besides the Platonists are but Nominal Trinitarians and the Trinities they hold are not Trinities of subsisting Persons but either of Names and Denominations only or of partial and inadequate Conceptions The fourth is the Trinity according to Aristotle or the Aristotelian or Peripatetick Trinity which saith the Divine Persons are one God because they have the same Numerical Substance or one and the self-same Substance in Number and tho each of the three Persons is Almighty All-knowing and most Good yet 't is by one individual and self-same Power Knowledge and Goodness in Number This may be called also the Reformed Trinity and the Trinity of the Schools because the Divines of the middle Ages reformed the Tritheistick and Platonick Trinity of the Fathers into this Sabellian Jargonry as Dr. Cudworth often and deservedly calleth it This is the Trinity intended by Dr. S th in his Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock especially at chap. 8. The Author or first Contriver of it was Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences and Bishop of Paris who died in the Year 1164. It never had any other Publick Authority saith Dr. Cudworth but that of the fourth Lateran Council which is reckoned by the Papists among the General Councils and was convened in the Year 1215. He might have added that the Doctrine of P. Lombard was disliked and opposed by divers Learned Men and censured by Alexander the Third and other Popes till Pope Innocent the Third declared it to be Orthodox It may be not unprobably said that an Unitarian was the true Parent of it for 't is said that Peter Lombard took his four Books of Sentences for so much as concerneth the Trinity out of a Book of P. Abelardus concerning the same To this Trinity of Aristotle and the Schools we must reckon the Trinity of Properties which we shall see hereafter is so variously explained as to make even divers sorts of Trinities yet I refer all the Property-Trinities to this fourth Distinction of Trinities the Trinity according to Aristotle because they are all grounded on the abstracted or Metaphysical and Logical Notions of that Philosopher nor can they be understood without some Knowledge of his Philosophy We must add to all these the Trinity of the Mobile or the Trinity held by the common People and by those ignorant or lazy Doctors who in Compliance with their Laziness or their Ignorance tell you in short that the Trinity is an unconceivable and therefore an inexplicable Mystery and that those are as much in fault who presume to explain it as those who oppose it I have propounded to my self to discourse briefly on all these Trinities I have begun with the Trinity of Marcus Tullius Cicero or if he pleases of Dr. Wallis I have said of it as much as is necessary the next is the Trinity according to the
Philosopher Des Cartes but the Discoverer of which is Dr. Sherlock When Dr. Sherlock came out with his Vindication in Answer to the Brief History of the Unitarians and the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius the more ignorant of the Doctors and Rectors and all the young Fry of Lecturers and Readers about Town were his Hawkers to cry it about and cry it up They questioned not what such a Master in Polemicks had delivered especially with so much Assurance and Confidence and with so much Keenness and Contempt of the poor kick'd Note-maker and Epistler But the more learned among them said from the very first that indeed Dr. Sherlock meant honestly and he might have propounded this Explication to his private Friends to be considered and debated but it was liable to too many obvious Exceptions to be published to all the World without great Corrections in the manner of Expression But the Socinians presently saw their Advantage and resolved to make use of it accordingly in about four or five Weeks time out came their Observations on the Vindication of Dr. Sherlock which in some Editions of them are prefaced with the Acts or Gests of Athanasius Here they tell the Doctor that he hath published a worse Heresy than even ours is held to be by our bitterest Opposers in one word that he hath revived Paganism by such an Explication of the Trinity as undeniably introduces Tritheism or three Gods They show him that his Error was condemned by the Antients in the Person of Philoponus and in the middle Ages in the Person and Writings of Abbat Joachim but more severely since the Reformation in the Person of Valentinus Gentilis who was condemned at Geneva and beheaded at Bern for this very Doctrine They demonstrate to him by a great many unexceptionable Arguments that a Mutual Consciousness of three supposed Divine Spirits and Minds having each of them his own peculiar and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action is so far from making three such Spirits to be one God in number that 't is the clearest and the certainest Demonstration that they are three Gods Mutual-Consciousness maketh them to be a Consult or Council a Cabal or Senate of Gods if you will but by no means one Numerical God or one God in Number The Observations of the Socinians opened all Mens Eyes to see and acknowledg that Dr. Sherlock had greatly overshot the Mark and that it was necessary he should yield his Place to some new Opponent who in these Disputes with the Socinians would speak more cautiously All Endeavours therefore were used by his Friends to perswade Dr. Sherlock to be quiet and because such an Example had been made of him they stopped a while all Sermons and other Tracts that were going to the Press against the Socinians The Politicians among them feared the Success of a War that in its Beginnings had been so unsuccessful they said to one another we need not trouble our selves with the Socinians because being Masters of all the Pulpits we can sufficiently dispose the People to the Orthodox Belief without the help of printed Answers and Replies 'T is about three Years since these Observations on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication were made publick and all this time he hath very peaceably taken the Imputations of Heresy and Paganism tho he had said in the Preface to his Vindication That having dipped his Pen in the Vindication of so glorious a Cause by the Grace of God he would never desert it while be could hold a Pen in his Hand The Socinians did not design to give him any farther Trouble but Dr. S th not able to endure that such Aspersions should lie at the Door of the Church could not refrain from declaring to all the World that the Church had suffered nothing in the Defeat of Dr. Sherlock He professeth that the Charge drawn up against Dr. Sherlock by the Socinians is true for he hath in very deed advanced an Explication of the Trinity saith Dr. S th which immediately and unavoidably inferreth three Gods Pref. p. 2. It not being the Design of Dr. S th in his Animadversions to prove the Truth of the Doctrine of the Trinity but only to explain or declare it that is to notify in what Sense and manner 't is held by the Church we must say that his Performance is an accurate and learned Work He concerneth not himself with the Socinians but only rescues the received Doctrines of the Church from the Misrepresentations of them by Dr. Sherlock who either understood them not or ventur'd to depart from them Nor do we concern our selves with Dr. S th but whereas he is the only Writer since the Revival of these Controversies who has indeed understood what the Church means by a Trinity in Unity therefore we must take leave to say and will also prove it that this his true Explication of the Trinity is for all that a great Untruth or rather a great piece of Nonsense Dr. Sherlock's was a Rational and Intelligible Explication tho not a true one 't is not Orthodox as Orthodoxy is reckoned since the Lateran Council Dr. S th's is a true and Orthodox Explication of what the Church intends to say but 't is neither Rational nor Intelligible nor Possible But of that in its proper place for I must next examine the Trinity according to Plato defended by Dr. Cudworth Of the Explication by Dr. Cudworth IT will be necessary in the first place to declare Dr. Cudworth's Explication more largely and clearly than hath been yet done In accounting for the Doctrine of the Trinity he professeth to follow the Platonick Philosophers with whom saith he not the Arians as some suppose but the Orthodox Fathers perfectly agree These held a Trinity of Divine Persons Co-eternal indeed but not Co-equal for the Son and Spirit are inferior to the first Person or the Father in Dignity in Authority and in Power They are so many distinct Substances not one numerical Substance as hath been taught by the School-Doctors and the Lateran Council For tho the Fathers said that the three Persons have but one and the same Substance Essence or Nature they did not mean thereby one and the self-same Substance or Essence in Number but the same Essence or Substance for Kind or Nature Because each Person of the three is Spiritual Eternal Infinite a Creator and necessarily existent therefore they were said by the Fathers and Platonists to have the same Nature Essence or Substance and not because their Essences or Substances Physically or Properly so called are one and the same Physical Substance in Number In few words saith he this famous Term Consubstantial or of the same Substance was never intended by the Platonists or by the Fathers to deny as the Schools do three distinct individual Essences or to denote one Numerical Substance or Essence but only to signify that the Trinity believed by the Orthodox is not made up of contrary or unlike Natures as
to deny that the Fathers ever held more than one Divine Essence or Substance but I have shown before the Ground of that gross and I doubt not wilful Mistake of the Doctrine of the Fathers But Dr. Cudworth thought that he had found an Expedient how he might keep sincerely to the Fathers and yet not be guilty of Tritheism for saith he tho there are three distinct Divine Essences or Substances vulgarly called Persons yet the second and third Persons or Essences are derived from the first and they all concur to the same Actions under the same Head or Principal even the Father Therefore 2. To that the second and third Persons are derived from the Father as their Fountain and Cause therefore they may be reckned as one God with him Here begins the Controversy between the Socinians and the Doctor They grant that every distinct Person is a distinct and particular Essence or Substance but they deny that three distinct Divine Essences can be understood to be one God Unity of Original or that the second and third Persons are derived from the first will not help the Doctor no not in the least The three Divine Essences which are called Persons are one God saith this Doctor because the second and third are derived from the first Why doth he not say too that three Human Essences or Persons whereof the second and third derive themselves from the first are one Man He may as well say this and as soon perswade it as the former the Son and Grandson derive themselves from a first Human Essence or Person called the Grandfather two Brothers derive themselves from their common Father Doth this Unity of Original make them all to be but one Man If not neither can Unity of Original make the Son and Spirit one God with their Fountain and Cause even the Father It is a reasoning altogether unworthy of Dr. Cudworth the Son and Spirit are particular Substances or Essences derived from the Essence of the Father as their Principle or Cause therefore they are one God with the Father for then all Angels all Men nay and all Beasts shall be one God with the Father who is their Cause and Principle Unity of Original is so far from proving that they are one God with him that it even demonstrates the very contrary for if they are derived from the one true God they themselves cannot be that one true God no more than the Effect can be the Cause that very Cause whose Effect it is These Arguments are so clear and withal so very obvious that I wonder much that Dr. Cudworth foresaw them not but it may be he foresaw them but thought withal that even all these Consequences are better than to admit such a Monstrosity in Philosophy as three Persons having only one self-same Substance in Number All things how hard soever would go down with him but only that but that can never be agreed to by a Philosopher 3. His last Subterfuge was this the three Divine Essences called Persons are but one God because they concur to all the same Actions of Creation and Providence under one Head the Father who only is Almighty ad intra or really Almighty How many Rarities hath he boxed up in a very little compass 1. Here is one Almighty who together with two other Persons is one God I would know how two other Persons can contribute to make him a perfect God who without them is Almighty The Scale is already full if Almightiness be there we need no more Weight and least of all the Weight of two Impotents If the Son and Spirit are not Almighty ad intra or not really Almighty but only as the Father Omnipotently concurs with them they are Impotent for every Person and Thing that is not Almighty or cannot do all things is impotent to some things Dr. Cudworth being so accurate a Philosopher saw evidently that three Almighty Persons are of necessity three Gods therefore he will admit of but one Almighty Person even the Father But then he should have look'd a little further or closer and he would also have seen that when he had found one Almighty there was no need to add to him two Impotents to make him a compleat God or as he speaks to make up the Intireness of the Divinity 2. 'T is altogether as rare strange and surprizing that the Son and Spirit are one God with the Father because they are gathered under him as their Head and Principal Doth not the Doctor prevaricate doth he not say these things only to establish Unitarianism so much the more strongly For if you say first that the Father is the Head and Principal and the Son and Spirit are subjected to him and then therefore they are one God with the Father their Principal and Head this in a Man of so great Sense looks like meer Prevarication for 't is plain to all that he should have inferred the contrary namely therefore only the Father is God We shall see the Weakness of Dr. Cudworth's Reasoning so soon as ever we apply it to any other Instances The Son and Spirit are one God with the Father saith he because he is their Head and Principal therefore say I the Servants and their Master the Subjects and their Prince the Children and their Parent are all one Governour because the Subjects Servants and Children are gathered under their Prince their Master and Parent as their Principal and Head Will the Doctor allow of this last Consequence if not he vainly urges or insists on the other 3. But the Son and Spirit concur with the Father to all the same Actions both of Creation and Providence and therefore may be said to be one God with him If the Doctor could prove that the Son and Spirit concur to the same Acts of Providence and Creation with the Father he would thereby prove that there are three Gods not that the concurring Persons are one God Many Carpenters for instance concur to make a Ship under one Head or Principal the Master-Builder Many Colonels and Captains concur to the marshaling of an Army under one Principal and Head their General Are therefore all these Carpenters Colonels and Captains one Master-Builder and one General That there is but one Master-Builder and but one General we grant but the Captains and Carpenters concurring with their Master-Builder and General are not one with the General and Master-Builder I do not think it necessary to make any further Reflections on such impotent Reasonings I will leave it with you Sir to judg Whether Dr. Cudworth hath given any new Strength to the Trinitarian Cause by reviving an old forsaken Explication If we will give a Name to Dr. Cudworth's Explication of the Trinity we must call it Mollis Arianismus a moderate Arianism The Arians were divided into two Parties the high or rigid Arians and the Ariani Molles or the moderate Arians The former of these being the Eunomians and AEtians strictly followed Arius they
from the Property or Character that maketh the Father To beget to be begotten and to proceed are Properties which constitute the Relations of Father Son and Spirit but they are other Properties which make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit Concerning the Properties or Characters which make the Reâ—â—tions all Learned Trinitarians are agreed they acknowledg them to be these three Active Generation not as Mr. Hooker mistakes this meer Negation to be of none Eternal Passive Generation or to be begotten and Eternal Procession but concerning the Properties that make the Persons they are not so well accorded The Antient Divines said the Property that maketh the Person of the Father or the peculiar Property and Character of the first Person is Monarchy the Property of the second Person is Wisdom and of the third is Love Others said that the Property of the first Person is Beatitude and Rest the Property of the second is Operation others had still other Conceits all of them false But allowing now the way of speaking used by Mr. Hooker what a Riddle has he propounded Here is the self-same Substance in Number unbegotten and yet begotten the Divine Substance with the Property to be of none or to be unbegotten is saith he the Person of the Father the self same Substance in Number with the Property to be of the Father or to be begotten is or makes the Person of the Son Can the self-same Substance in Number be of none and yet be of the Father be unbegotten and begotten too Are they not contradictory Terms and therefore not to be applied to the self-same Substance in Number They will say Mr. Hooker doth not affirm that the self-same Substance is begotten and unbegotten this indeed were a â—â—t Contradiction but he saith that as 't is in the Father 't is unbegotten as in the Son 't is begotten But do they reckon they have to deal only with Fools What if I should say my Hand as in my Pocket is unskalded but at in my Glove 't is skalded would it not be a Contradiction for all the Blinds of in the Pocket and in the Glove The self-same Hand in Number cannot be burnt and unburnt the Place in which it is will not palliate such a Contradiction in like manner the self-same Substance cannot be begotten and unbegotten because you are pleased to pretend you consider it sometimes in one Subject or Person sometimes in another In whatever Person a Substance is it must either be a begotten Substance or an unbegotten it cannot possibly be both if it really remains unbegotten then it never was begotten but if in process of time it has been begotten then it cannot still be unbegotten Why do our Opposers choose to maintain such extravagant Paradoxes rather than acknowledg so easy and natural a Truth as the Unity of God Rather than receive the first Commandment in its natural and obvious sense rather than we will sincerely and without Disguise or Juggle own that there is but one only God we will choose to make our selves scorned by all sensible Men by saying the self-same Substance in Number is begotten and unbegotten 't is of the Father nay 't is of Father and of Son and yet 't is of none Let us consider Mr. Hooker's Catch in three Human Persons He will say the Substance of John is begotten as John is the Son of Peter but John's Substance is unbegotten as John is the Father of James and yet it is the self-same Substance in Number that is thus both begotten and unbegotten Is it so but if John's Substance be really begotten I will ever stand in it that his Substance is not unbegotten it was begotten by his Father Peter therefore 't is a begotten Substance not an unbegotten Some one may say but is not John's Substance unbegotten in respect of John ' s Son James tho it was begotten by Peter By no means for if Peter begot John's Substance then John's Substance is begotten tho his Son James begot it not and consequently it cannot be said to be an unbegotten Substance in any respect whatsoever In short they would have us to say John's Substance is unbegotten because it was begotten by Peter and not by John's Son James I deny that 't is a proper or a true way of speaking for if the Substance has been begotten by any whomsoever it must never after be called unbegotten on this absurd account that it was not begotten by James but by Peter Farther whereas Mr. Hooker saith the Substance of God with this Property to be begotten or to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son I ask is then the Substance of God begotten I pray who begat it They must answer the Father But did the Father beget the Substance of God Do they not say that the self-same Substance that is in the Father is also in the Son But if so then if the Father begat the Substance of the Son or of God he begat his own Substance Can any one beget his own Substance Is it not a Contradiction a manifold Contradiction Is it not as much as to say he was before he was He that begets his own Substance begets himself but he that begets himself is thereby supposed to have been before he was I know it hath been said by some Divines God is self-originated or self-begotten But 't is utterly false they ought to have said he is unoriginated or unbegotten As God is not originated or begotten by another so much less by himself not by another for then that other must be before him at least in order of Nature not by himself because then he must be before he was But to finish with Mr. Hooker I will show his Followers that in pursuance of his Explication they will be forced to say that as the Father begat the Son so the Son destroys the Father And I make challenge to them all to rescue their Master's Explication from that fatal Consequence Begotten doth always destroy unbegotten when once a Person or Thing is begotten that self-same Thing or Person can be no longer unbegotten If therefore the Substance of God unbegotten maketh as Mr. Hooker contends the Person of the Father and the self-same Substance begotten maketh the Person of the Son it unavoidably follows that the Generation of the Son is the Destruction of the Father because the Property or Characteristick of the Father even unbegotten is destroyed out of the Divine Substance by the Characteristick of the Son which is begotten Unbegotten that is to say the Father remains no longer in the Divine Substance if begotten that is according to Hooker the Son hath taken place in it O that our learned Opposers would vouchsafe to consider these things impartially that they would not reckon 't is their Glory to defend received Doctrines only because they have been long received and by many as if Prescription or Numbers could alter the Nature of Truths and Untruths Which I pray
is more honourable to own a clear and necessary Truth or to set one's self to darken and to obstruct it I confess the latter requires more Wit especially against an able and dexterous Defendant but 't is the other that deserves greater Praise especially before God because it argues Sincerity and Justice But I pass to the last sort of Trinity the Mystical Trinity Of the Mystical Trinity or the Trinity of the Mobile THE poor common People are first made to believe by the help of corrupted Copies and false Translations of the Bible that 't is a Scripture-Doctrine that there is a Trinity of Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit distinct and different in Number from both Father and Son But because this at the very first sight appears contrary to Reason and common Sense therefore in the next place they are told that they must consider this Doctrine as a Mystery impossible indeed for us to understand yet necessary to be believed because God hath said it How many things say these Teachers are there in the Works of Nature which we understand not no more than we can understand the Trinity and yet we believe them to be as assuredly as if there were no Difficulty in conceiving how they should be As that there are Antipodes whose Feet are opposite to our Feet and who walk with their Heads downwards with respect to our Parts of the World Again that a Spirit can move a Body from place to place tho Reason first assures us that there can be no Motion without a Resistance and then that a pure Spirit can meet no Resistance from Matter or Bodies Also that the Parts of Matter or Bodies hold together tho no Cause can be assigned for it but what appears immediately to be unsufficient nay ridiculous All these are great Truths and we believe them even contrary to the Verdict of Reason how much more ought we to believe the Trinity which hath been propounded to us as an Article of Faith in the Word of God it self tho our fallible and frail Reason reclaims and kicks perhaps against it When the Socinians say these Gentlemen have accounted for all the Mysteries of Nature and Art let them begin to object to the Trinity that 't is a Mystery and that it hath sundry Contradictions to Reason but till they do the first 't is nothing else but a bold Impiety to insist on the other It must be confessed Sir that this is the most plausible Pretence the strongest Hold as well as the last Resort of our Opposers when we have drove them from all other Posts here they take Sanctuary I will therefore take care to remove this Occasion and Cover of Error I say 1. I might leave it wholly to Dr. S th to answer this Pretence of some of his Party At p. 2 and 3 c. of his Animadversions he shows at large what is a Mystery he saith that a Mistery is a Truth revealed by God above the reach of Human Reason to find out or to comprehend He vindicateth this Definition part by part he saith p. 3. first a Mystery is a Truth by which saith he I exclude every thing from being a Mystery which is absurd or contradictions Now we desire nothing else of our Oppoâ—â—â—â— but that they would abide by this Account of Mystery that 't is not something absurd or contradictory but only some Secret revealed by God because it was above Human Capacity to discover it and sometimes also even to comprehend how it can be For there is a vast Difference between my not being able to conceive how a thing should be and a clear Apprehension and Sight that it cannot be There are it may be Mysteries which we cannot comprehend how they should be but that three Divine Persons or three distinct Almighty and All-knowing Persons should be but one Almighty but one All-knowing or but one God a Man who considers but with never so little Intention and Sincerity clearly sees that it cannot be In short that 't is not a Mystery but as Dr. S th speaks an Absurdity and a Contradiction In a word we do not reject the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation because they are Mysteries but because they are plain Contradictions to Reason and common Sense and consequently Untruths for without doubt Reason and Truth are but two Names for the same thing and clear Reason is no other thing but clear Truth 2. I consider that what will equally serve to excuse all the Nonsense and impossible Doctrines that are to be found among Men we cannot admit of it as a Defence of the pretended Trinity and Incarnation especially in Opposition to such powerful Proofs both from Scripture and Reason as may be and actually are alledged against those Doctrines A Papist for Example does with equal colour alledg this Pretence for his Transubstantiation He says 'T is a Scripture-Doctrine delivered in these express words This is my Body and how many things are there in the Works of Nature which we comprehend not no more than we can comprehend the Miracle of the Transubstantiation and yet we believe them to be as assuredly as if there were no Difficulty in conceiving how they should be or that they can be Such as the Antipodes and that a pure Spirit can â—â—â—ve a Body in which it findeth no Resistance and that the Parts of Matter or Bodies are continuos or hold together and many the like Thus do the Papists argue and I deny that this Pretence can be wrested from them by any Trinitarian for 't is the same Defence that the Trinitarian makes for his Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation Our Opposers will not vouchsafe so much as to hear Catholicks and Lutherans when they plead Mystery for the Transubstantiation or the Consubstantiation I desire of them therefore to give me but one Reason why that Plea is not as good in those Controversies as in these of the Trinity and Incarnation The Author of two Dialogues concerning the Trinity and the Transubstantiation finding himself pressed with this Difficulty answers to this effect that there are a great many more Texts of Holy Scripture for the Trinity than are pretended for the Transubstantiation But this is no Solution of the proposed Difficulty for 't is not at all the Question which Doctrine hath most Texts alledged for it but only whether the Pretence of Mystery be not a Plea as rational and allowable against all the Exceptions made against the Transubstantiation as an impossible inconceivable and contradictory Doctrine as 't is to the same Exceptions when urged by the Socinians against the Incarnation or Trinity But whereas that Author insists upon an Answer wholly foreign to this Difficulty and is so careful to bring together from Cardinal Bellarmine all the Texts alledged for the Trinity he is desired to name to us so much as one Text for either of those Doctrines that is not given up to the
for the perusal of this most learned and judicious Letter which I return you and I congratulate the worthy Author whom the Divine Wisdom has made an Instrument for the vindicating of his glorious and incommunicable Attribute of Unity which he has in several Tracts even demonstrated not only by clear and express Scriptures and obvious Reason but also now at length from the Confessions of the Trinitarians themselves the Infringers of it For whilst each one condemns the several Explications of the rest as either inconsistent with the Unity or the Trinity they do all in their turns bear Witness to the Unitarians that their Opposition to the Trinitarian Doctrine is well-grounded and reasonable and consequently their Doctrine of the Unity the Truth of God For if each one of their Explications does either introduce the Worship of three Gods or the Heresy of Sabellianism as they call it the turning the Son and Holy Ghost into Names and Operations without any real Distinction of Persons or Things answering those distinct Names as it plainly appears they do then it undeniably follows there is no such Trinity as they imagine but a Numerical Unity of Person and Essence in God as the Unitarians hold and as some Trinitarians contend in their Opposition one to another It remains then that the Trinitarian Worshippers especially the common People do seriously and in the Fear of the one most High God consider what Notions Conceptions or Idea's they have of an Infinite and Almighty Holy Ghost distinct from the Almighty Father and Producer of them For they cannot possibly escape the Condemnation of one of the highest Crimes even the Worship of three Infinite Real Gods or two Imaginary Ones or two Names without Notions that is they know not what as this Author expresses it Condemnation I say not only by the Unitarians who worship the Father only as God in the highest and strictest Sense of that Term but also by all the Trinitarians that hold not the same Opinion or have not the same Notion I know the Times of Ignorance God winketh at as well now as before the preaching of the Gospel but after he has made his Unity manifest and vindicated it from the Scholastick Subtilties and absurd Distinctions that have been invented to hide the Truth he then commands all Men to whom this Evidence comes to repent Inconsideration or Negligence will not now excuse Men must not say or think as they commonly do this Point is too high for me to determine for they have already determined it whilst they profess to believe in and to worship three equal ones a Father a Son and a Spirit Neither can they alledg the Universality of the Trinitarian Faith For besides as this Author observes the worshipping of many Gods was formerly and is now far more universal we see that this Opinion and Worship which soever it be is condemned by at least four to one of those that go under that common Name of Trinitarians The rise of these divers and contrary Explications has been this as is observed by the Author in that which now obtains that Learned Men looking narrowly into former Explications have found them inconsistent with the Oneness of God and therefore have devised somewhat either more obscure that would hide the Contradiction or somewhat more consistent with the Unity tho it destroyed the Trinity or more consistent with the Trinity tho it destroys the Unity as Dr. Sherlock has done And perhaps others like him may devise other Hypotheses taking it for granted from the Prejudices of early Education and customary thinking that the Trinity is a Fundamental of Christianity But we see here they labour in vain to reconcile manifest Contradictions and in believing the Son and Holy Spirit to be equally God with the Father they offend against express Scriptures and clear Reason upon the account of their own Reasonings upon obscure Texts and therein transgress the plain Principles both of Natural Light and Revelation which require 1. That nothing be held for Truth contrary to evident and Fundamental Truth And 2. That obscure Passages are to be interpreted by clear Passages and the Current of Scripture and not otherwise The Jews walking contrary to these Principles was the cause of rejecting Christ and Christianity and it is indeed the ground of all Error whatever In vain do Men press a great many Texts that have even in the Opinion of Learned Trinitarians another meaning to prove that the Son and Holy Ghost are God till they can reconcile that Inference to plain Scripture and evident Reason In vain does the Author of The Snare broken who could not overcome the Prejudices of his Education and Converse perswade Men to lay aside their Philosophy and wholly to betake themselves to a Scriptural Consideration of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which I understand they must take the words of Scripture without understanding them or reconciling them to other Scriptures or even the Current of Scripture or common Reason Do they think that Scripture is to be interpreted contrary to it self Or that Divine Wisdom has made the Belief of Contradictions necessary to Salvation It seems strange that Christians should be very zealous in the Punctilio's of the Worship of God Ceremonies of Posture Gesture or Apparel Forms of Addresses to God the wording of Faith to an Iota and yet go on in the Worship of one God the Father and of two distinct from him God as perfectly as he and in which their Worship terminates equally with him They can love God the Father with all their Hearts and Strengths and two Persons distinct from him with the same All they can give all to one and all to another and all to a third and never question the Possibility of it as if there were a Trinity in Unity in every Man that his own Heart were three Hearts to be bestowed all and entirely upon each of three Objects and yet be but one Heart still But whither am I carried This Author needs none of my Notes or Illustrations and indeed both he and all others that have labour'd in this Controversy may surcease their Pains henceforth and leave what they have already said to the Judgment and Conscience of all considerate and sincere Men. I am Sir yours c.
of the Party I say now 1. That their Quotations out of Socinus and the rest are for a great paâ—â— of them as false and disingenious as those â—â— Dr. Wallis were as any one will see who shall take the Pains to consult the Authors themselves 2. They make it to be a great Heresy in some Socinians that they deny there is a certain Fore-knowledg of contingent Events they say 't is a Denial of God's Omniscience And yet all Men know that very many of the most Learned Trinitarians have been of the same Opinion Antients as well as Moderns Protestants as well as Catholicks Nor have these Doctors so much as offered at an Answer to the Reasons of Socinus and Crellius concerning a conditional Knowledg in God 3. That God is Omnipresent not in his Essence or Person but by his Knowledg and Power is also held by divers Learned Trinitarians and it must needs have been the Opinion of those Fathers who either were Anthropomorphites or held that God is a Body not a Spirit 4. These Doctors have written against the Socinians by occasion of the English Books that have been lately published by those of that Perswasion they should therefore have attacked the Doctrine of those Books they should have described our Opinions out of our own Writings not from the Books of Foreigners The English Socinians sincerely believe that God is truly Omniscient that he foreseeth all Events how contingent soever they may be to us They believe the real Omnipresence of God or that he is present in his Essence or Person in all Places and not only by his Power Knowledg or Ministers They honour or if we must use that word they worship the Lord Christ neither with the same sort nor with the same degree of Worship which is due to God they worship or honour him with their Minds only as one who is highly exalted by God above all Principality and Power and every Name that is named and to whom God hath given to be Head over all things to the Church In a word they neither pay a higher Worship nor impute a greater Power or Knowledg to the Lord Christ than the most Learned and the far greater Number of Trinitarians impute and pay to the Human Nature the meer Human Nature of Jesus Christ in his present State of Exaltation We have said these things so often in our late Books we have defended them so earnestly that none but Persons of little Honesty or great Inconsideration would object to us such Opinions as these before-mentioned But these Gentlemen had a longing Mind to be Authors and who should they signalize themselves upon so popularly as upon the Socinians if they have got Reputation by their Books that is by weak Arguments and strong Calumnies it is with so very few that I do not think they will reap an Advantage by it But one of them urgeth that Socinus was in this dangerous Heresy that the Soul of Man after the Death of his Body is in a State of Inactivity and Unperception in a word neither perceives nor lives till the Resurrection of the Body at which time it receiveth Immortality by the meer Grace or Gift of God but is not of its own Nature immortal I do acknowledg that this seems to be the Opinion of F. Socinus but I believe of very few Unitarians besides But this Error was common to him with some of the Fathers the Learned Monsieur Du Pin has noted that Justin Martyr Irenaeus Minutius Foelix and Arnobius were in this Sentiment There was no Reason therefore to object this to Socinus as if it were a peculiar Opinion of his much less to the English Unitarians who never defended it nor that I know of do any of them hold it As to Mr. Basset there are two things very remarkable in his Answer to the Brief History of the Unitarians the meanness and dulness of the Book it self it being written with no Vivacity Wit or Elevation of Thought and the undecent Insolence of the Author His Book being such as it is if the Brief History cannot shift for it self against that Reply to it the Historian is resolved it shall take its Fortune he is perswaded that when a discerning Man has read Mr. Basset's Answer if he again looks over the Brief History he will at least as much approve of it as at first Mr. Basset has said nothing that can in the least shake the Reputation of the Brief History unless his Reader will believe him when he charges the Historian with false Quotations of Authors To this the Historian answers that he hath not made one false or mistaken Citation but Mr. Basset sometimes not understanding the Authors that are quoted for they are Greek and Latin and sometimes mistaking the Sense of the Historian which he doth very frequently it hath happened hereupon that he hath charged the Historian with his own either Ignorances or Inadvertences But I am not at leisure to write a Vindication every time that negligent and ignorant Scriblers mistake my meaning or the Sense or the Authors by me alledged I reckon it to be his Insolence that a Person who had nothing to offer on these Questions but what was very trivial and vulgar should yet give disrespectful Language without any the least Provocation given by the Historian He saith for instance that indeed the Foreign Socinians have been learned and subtile Men but he cannot say so concerning the English but for the Epistler so he calls the Writer of the Brief History because 't is written in four Letters he saith Poor Wretch ought to have imploy'd his small Talent to honester Purposes and not have sought for Reputation only by his Nonsense his Follies and his Impieties This was a Mortification indeed câ—ming as it does from so great and worthy a Hand but the Comfort is we are apt to be more advised and better'd also by our Humiliations And yet I am still of Opinion that as Mr. Basset thought it requisite to answer the Brief History after the great Victory gained over it by Dr. Sherlock so there will not want many others who will judg it no less than necessary to give other Answers to it after this Triumph of Mr. Basset But however that be I answer to Mr. Basset as Moses did to Pharaoh Glory over me I am resolved Mr. Basset shall have the Self-satisfaction that he hath mauled the Epistler for ever For I will not catch Flies nor spend my Artillery upon Mud-Walls when I happen on some such Second as Dr. Sherlock found up against the Jesuits Mr. Basset may hear from me and not before I will not ask Pardon Sir for the length of this Letter for you see to how many it was necessary to make some Answer but I ought not to forget to give you my Thanks and Respects for the Liberalities and Favours which you have done to your Humble Servant A LETTER to the Publisher from another Hand SIR I Heartily thank you