no solid satisfaction I have endeavour'd to walk in the old way and aim'd at these two things First To prove the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour and of the Holy Spirit which proof really implies all the rest For if the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God The great objection is answer'd that Three Divine Persons destroy the Vnity of God which is the state of the question Since if it does appear that it is so there is a Trinity of Persons without a destruction of that Vnity which is inseparable from the Divine Nature Secondly I have attempted to shew the insufficiency of these Gentlemen's Answers to those substantial Texts on which our Belief rests For I must beg leave to say that it is almost incredible that such thin ill-built unwary Answers should drop from Persons undoubtedly of great Learning and it is a strong confirmation of those very proofs when mighty Adversaries have so little to say to them If the whole is not mannag'd as it should be I hope that the Sacred Cause which I maintain will not suffer for it and if the Person for whose sake these Letters are written is not satisfy'd by what I have done It is his and my Misfortune that I can do no better Whatsoever is in these Papers is with the humblest submission offer'd to the Judgment and Censure of the Church of England THE First LETTER SIR I Have read the Books which you were pleas'd to lend me with as much application as I could and am now to discharge my promise of giving you my sence of them I confess it is somewhat a hard Province and in particular to me who ever was an Enemy to disputes in Religion and fully perswaded that the only way to unite dissenting Christians is not so much to dispute as to live up to the duties of a Religion which we all confess to be as the God who gave it holy and just This would have oblig'd me to be silent But since it has pleas'd God to make you a part of my Care and that you desire me to resolve your Doubts against the Catholick Doctrine which you say you are most willing to embrace if you can be satisfied that it is true I will endeavour to give you the best information I can leaving all to the candor of your nature and to that solid judgment which I have observ'd in you I design'd once to have follow'd every tract which you put in my hands But I was disswaded from it First By the length and tediousness of the work Secondly By observing that your Friends say almost the same things over and over again These Gentlemen having the way to turn the same Argument into several shapes and put their thoughts every day in a new dress As to their abilities their greatest Enemies must confess that they are not ordinary They are Men of learning Their stile is correct exact and florid They have the misfortune of Origen of whom an Ancient said that Vbi bene nemo melius ubi male nemo pejus None can do better where they are in the right none worse where they are in the wrong I find also that sometimes those fine Pens are dipt in Gall that they are not sparing of the sharpest invectives and that laying aside their fine and Gentlemen-like way of writing they become Mortals again and grow acquainted with all sorts of Sarcasms The Preface to Mr. Milbourn is sharp and scurrilous The Reflexion on both the Universities and the skill of the Bottle do not much grace the Dispute The Trinity of Marcus Tullius Cicero by reason of an illustration of the word person by Dr. Wallis The Trinity of the Mobile of ignorant and lazy Doctors The Sabellian Targonry of Dr. South Consider on the Explic of the Doctr. of the Holy Trin. pag. 11. might have been laid aside and the pretended Wit that it amounts to reserv'd for a better use Give me leave also to admire how men who are willing to be thought pious as well as learned can turn solid Reasonings into Railleries and disprove an Argument by ridiculing it Indeed Tertullian in his Apologetick asks whether he shall laugh at the vanity of the Heathen and their Rites or whether he shall reproach them with their blindness Rideam vanitatem qut exprobrem caecitatem But it is quite another thing when a Writer pretends to answer men of Reason and Learning and when the Objections are really strong and solid Not to multiply instances I will only point at that in a Letter of Resolution pag. 3 4 5. The Author had objected to himself that the Trinity and Incarnation are incomprehensible Mysteries and that when the matter is of meer Revelation it is not to be judg'd by either Reason or Sence He proposes several things which are really above both This is answer'd by making a Mystery of that which is none the assertion of Christ Joh. 15.1 I am the true Vine and the notion of God-Man is ridicul'd by that of Christ-Vine or Vine-man or Viney man Dr. Wallis having asserted That the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are more than three divine Attributes and that though perhaps their Personality may not so exactly be understood by the notion of Personality which we are acquainted with in created Beings yet there is certainly somewhat more than Attributes They make a perpetual descant upon three Somewhats or three I know not what 's the Vnreason of the Doctr. of the Trin. pag. 5 6. Dr. South in his Animadversions Chap. 8. pag. 241. having explain'd the Modes of Being and having told us That a Mode is properly a certain habitude of some Being Essence or Thing whereby the said Essence or Being is determin'd to some particular state or condition which barely of it self it should not be determin'd to That a Mode in things spiritual and immaterial seems to have much the like reference to such kinds of Beings as a posture has to a body to which it gives some difference or distinction without adding any new Entity or Being to it and having told us also pag. 242. lin 4. that no one thing can agree both to God and the Creature by a perfect Vnivocation which the Answerer has I hope not wilfully overlookt and which is enough to prevent any just exception against it Then Consider on the Explic. pag. 21. we have a story of Don Quixot and of Dulcinea del Toboso pag. 22. He makes the grave and learned Doctor to answer That the three Divine Persons are the Substance of God in three Gambols or postures A little below he thinks it should seem that the Faithful must put their trust in there postures Thus the Declamation goes on Posture A begets Posture B Posture A and B breathe Posture C. I appeal to these Gentlemen themselves whether this is the way to vindicate Religion and keep men from Atheism Whether they seek to instruct or divert their Reader Whether such petulant Sallies of Wit are
the confession of their Adversaries Some of them had preserv'd the gift of miracles which expir'd soon after Such an assertion had it not been true would have better become a pack of Villains than Holy and Reverend Men. 2ly How durst the Nicence Fathers declare this to be the Faith and Anathematise whosoever was against that sacred wise Divine and Catholick Faith had this Faith been new and unknown to the Fathers before nay had a contrary Faith obtain'd then in the Christian World This is a monstruous supposition that within 300 Years after Christ the Nicene Fathers should presume to obtrude the belief of and declare a Doctrine to be Faith which the Primitive Fathers were not so much as acquainted with To give more strength to this and prevent an objection which perhaps may have some colour and occasion another Criticism I freely own that not only the Arrians but even some of the Orthodox complain'd that the words Consubstantial and Consubstantiality were new and unscriptural But this confirms what I have said the newness and unscripturalness of the words but not of the sence being asserted They agreed in the truth and antiquity of the Doctrine but only differ'd about these two words which by being new and unscriptural were not thought so fit to express it I beg your pardon for insisting so long upon this But I was forc't to it 1st Because this very place of that Letter you have often urg'd to me 2ly To shew that how great Criticks soever we are we must be just and equitable and value reasons above Criticisms If these Gentlemen write for the Unlearned they are much out of the way these things are above their reach And if for the Learned they must own that this has not made one Learned Man of their side It is a sort of Chicane which Men of sence abhor 6ly These Gentlemen would have us prove those Terms by Scriptures which we own to be unscriptural They challenge us to find in the New Testament the word Godman Trinity Incarnation nay whole Propositions in Terminis The Author of the Letter now cited pag. 10. pretends it as a great Argument of their side that Tertullian is the first amongst the Latins and Clemens Alexand. amongst the Greeks who first us'd the word Trinity We might as well ask and with as little reason where is the word Vnity in respect of God or Sacrament or Hierarchy and several more which all the World receives and yet are no Scriptural words If we do but find the things exprest by the words as that God is one that there is Baptism and the Lord's Supper that there is an order of Men appointed to administer holy things the words are a natural consequence and founded in the things themselves Is it not highly unjust to ask us where we find a Trinity if we can prove three Divine Persons That besides the Father whom they acknowledge to be God the Son also and the Holy Spirit is God To wonder at the word Eternal Generation since if we prove Christ's Pre-existence and Pre-eternity He cannot be the Son of God but by way of Eternal Generation To stare at the word Incarnation as such an unheard of thing since if Christ is God and yet has taken our nature He must be Incarnate These are poor mean and a sort of Mob difficulties These Grievances being consider'd I beg nothing but what is equitable 1st I beg that if we prove the thing in question that is the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy spirit we may have no quarell about the words Trinity and Incarnation 2ly That no particular Interpretation of any Protestant Author may be brought against us as Interpretation either of our Church or any other considerable body of Protestants 3ly That if a Text is capable of a various reading and of a double sence that sence and reading may be preserv'd which is prov'd to have been the ancient reading and the sence generally receiv'd in the Churches of God A sence new and unknown to all the Ages of the Church cannot be the sence and that possession which we and all Christian Societies are in of those Texts cannot be disturb'd without something more forcible and authoritative than the witty fancy of an Interpreter 4ly I beg that the Fathers may be heard as Witnesses of an unquestionable integrity and that this at least may be a real prejudice against these Gentlemen that they have not only oppos'd the Faith of their Age but also that of times past 5ly That a Criticism alone the doubting of a Book the denying of a place the wrangling about a Particle without some considerable reason to back it may not be look't upon as an Answer 6ly That not only some one particular Text which we alledge be consider'd but that all our Texts be taken together with the weight of the important reasons which inforce the belief of our Mysteries This granted I conceive that it is no difficult matter to convince a candid Opposer that the New Testament is clear for the Divinity of Christ We will begin by that which is the foundation of our Holy Religion Matt. 28.19 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is the ancient profession of our Faith and ingenuously acknowledg'd to be such by the Author of the Answer to Mr. Milb pag. 16. He cites for this Tertullian de bapt c. 13. He might have cited Theodoret lib. 1. c. 12. St. Basil de Spir. sanct and Arrius himself who is a Witness of this in the Confession of his Faith given to Constantine and reported by Socrates lib. 1. c. 26. The Orthodox from this Text conclude three Persons to be spoken of These Gentlemen only two The Father who is God and the Son The Holy Ghost they will have to be no more than the Energy of the Father They are positive in the Brief Hist pag. 25. That neither the more learned of their Opposers nor the Fathers of the first 400 Years insist on this Text to prove the Divinity of the Lord Christ and of the Holy Spirit The matter of fact is a vast mistake and the very supposition is impossible This place having been cited so often by the Ancients and modern to prove the Persons of the Trinity must of course in their Hypothesis be an Argument for their Divinity They agree with us that the Son spoken of in the Text is Christ Jesus whom they will have to be the Son of God by all other titles but that of Nature and Essence They say of him that he is the Son of God by his miraculous Conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin By his Mission to preach to Men and reclaim them from their Sins by his Glorious Resurrection being begotten to a new Life and his Admission to a Blessed Immortality whence as God's deputy he is to come to judge the quick and the dead
are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him None of these places can be understood of Master and Sir The first notion which they present to the mind is of a sovereign supreme and Divine Authority The name Johovah being given to Persons Angels places and communities is another miserable evasion Nay it is a substantial proof for us For if that sacred name was only given to places which God honour'd with his presence or to them in whom he spoke It shews that the presence of God was the only reason of the name It remains still proper to him and there being no prefence of God so great and so intimate as the Union of the two Natures and God appearing visibly so much in no Man as in Christ Jesus he is truly our Jehovah 4ly Who can think Christ a meer Man a meer Creature as these Gentlemen call him who seriously considers the words of St. Peter act 4.12 Neither is there Salvation in any other for there is no other name under Heaven given amongst men by which we must be sav'd Coloss 3.17 Whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of Jesus Matt. 1.21 he shall save his People from their sins Eph. 1.7 in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins I beg of them to leave Mankind to the common notices which they bring with them into the World and not to overrule that universal way of thinking which the Creator has given them Is this spoken of the Doctrine or of the Person of the Holy Jesus Does not all this suppose an excellency which no Created being can attain to Can saving redeeming forgiving atoning be the privilege of any creature If the Prophet speaking of men's natural death says Psal 49.7 that no man can redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him how much less can any one free us from the Eternal Condemnation due to Sin 5ly The coming of no Man into the World is express'd as that of Christ Leave one to himself out of the noise and prejudice of a dispute and in the reading of the Scripture he will easily see that it supposes knowledge Choice Pre-Existence in him who took our nature 2 Cor. 8.9 You know the Grace of our Lord J. C. that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his proverty might become rich Phil. 2.7 He took upon him the form of a servant was made in the likeness of men was found in fashion as a man Heb. 2.16 he took not on him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham 1 Joh. 5.20 and we know that the Son of God vs come 1 Joh. 3.8 For this purpose the Son of God was manifested appear'd to destroy the works of the Devil Heb. 9.25 he has appear'd to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself 6ly The Grace of God by which he pardons our sins and capacitates us for an Eternal Life is so peculiar to God that no Man has yet pretended to deny it But how often is it attributed to Christ Act. 15.11 but we believe that through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they 2 Cor. 12.9 and he say'd to me my Grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me The Author of the Brief Hist pag. 37. is strangely Embarass'd to answer this He says That the words before the Text cited I besought the Lord thrice ..... are spoken to God not to Christ The power of Christ is the strength which he procures by his mediation with God The Socinians for the most part grant that the word or power of God abiding in Christ does qualify him to hear our Prayers I would ask this Author if the words are spoken to God what signifies this Socinian acknowledgment of Christ hearing our Prayers which overthrows all the rest And if they are spoken to Christ why did he not consider better before he deny'd it He saw and so must the most infatuated Person that the power of Christ is that Grace which is sufficient and was so earnestly pray'd for and that it is the Grace of him who was pray'd to and who answer'd the Apostle Gal. 2.8 He that wrought effectually in Peter to the Apostleship of the circumcision the same was mighty in me toâ—ard the Gentiles Eph. 2.13 But now in C.J. you who were sometimes afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ Tit. 3.7 that being justify'd by his Grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of Eternal life Rom. 16.24 The Grace of our Lord J.C. be with you all And more fully 2 Cor. 13.14 The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all These two last places they have excepted against This last Text demonstrates says the Author of the Brief Hist pag. 31. that neither the Lord Christ nor the Holy Spirit are God for it plainly distinguishes them from God I say that it demonstates that the Lord Christ is God since he is the Author and giver of Grace and that the Holy Spirit is God since he communicates those graces to us which none but God can give and both are join'd to God who as this very Author explains it in this very place is the Father So that it plainly distinguishes them not from God but only from the Father and shews excellently the operations of the Three Persons The Author of the answer to My Lord of Sarum has foreseen this and therefore winds another way and says pag. 21. that it is true that Grace Mercy and Peace are pray'd for from the Lord Christ but that they are also pray'd from them who certainly are no Gods Rev. 1.4 Grace be to you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come and from the seven spirits that are before his throne and from J. C. But he seems to make no difference between a Salutation and a Prayer The one is the introduction to what St. John had to say and from whom he spoke The other is the conclusion of a discourse which to make the more effectual he prays to Christ without whom we can do nothing to give us his grace to the Father to continue those repeated Testimones of his love to us and to the Holy spirit to influence us into the practice of the duty commanded I may wish peace and grace to any Man from all the Angels in Heaven but I must not pray for Grace Peace and Mercy to any created being This Author in the same page has given us a specimen how easy it is to extricate one self of the most substantial difficulties 'T is a folly to read or think There is a
has been us'd by all the Fathers is the only method to come to the Knowledge of the truth This will be prov'd by the reading of both Testaments For if those things are spoken of Christ which can relate to none but Man and at the same time those things are spoken of him which belong to none but to God shall we presume to separate what God has united shall we run to the extreams of the Old Hereticks who would not admit of a real humane nature in Christ and offer'd an incredible violence to all those texts which represent him as a Man Or as the Socinians who denying his Divinity put to the torture all those places which speak of him as God To take off at once the authority of the Old Testament and make ineffectual those glorious predictions of Christ which tell us what he was before he was in the World They confidently assert in the brief History pag. 22. That the more learned and Judicious Trinitarians confess that the â—rinity and the Divinity of the Lord Christ and of the Holy Spirit are not indeed taught in the Scriptures of the Old Testament but are a revelation made in the new Nay 't is the more general opinion of the Divines of all sects and perswasions They cite for this some Authors and amongst them Tertulian adversus Prax. Which I would beg of them to read more exactly It is the fault of these Gentlemen to be vastly large in their citations and to pretend to have Authors of their side who are really against them The mistakes I hope are not willful but they are somewhat frequent Neither the ancient or modern Doctors ever said that the Old Testament had nothing in it by which Men might be induc'd to the notice of a Trinity of persons in God and of the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit They have said indeed that the Jews had no explicite or clear Knowledge nor no explicite or direct belief of those mysteries Which is true The revelation of the Trinity in Vnity being the previledge of the Gospel and a considerable part of that Grace and truth which came by Christ Jesus Joh. 1.18 No Man has seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he has declar'd him How could the Old Testament be the form of and the introduction to the new if those truths were not adumbrated in the one which are clearly reveal'd and explain'd in the other How comes it to be a maxim receiv'd amongst the Old Jewish Doctors that whatsoever is recorded in the Law in the Prophets and in the sacred Books Indicant sapientiam point at Christ the ineffable Wisdom or Word How does St. Paul lay this as an Aphorism Rom. 10.4 Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believes How comes he before Agrippa and Festus solemnly to declare that he says nothing but what Moses and the Prophets have assur'd should be How come the Apostles and Evangelists to take most of their arguments from the Writings of the Prophets St. Austin treats this at large against Faustus lib. 12. c. 46. Eusebius Praep. Evang. l. c. 3. St. Cyprian Praefat. ad Quirin tells him that the sacred Writings of the Old Testament are of great use ad prima fidei lineamenta formanda To form the first lineaments of our Faith Origen against Celsus lib. 2. calls this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most strong demonstration and Lactantius Instit lib. 5. c. 3. Disce igitur si quid tibi cordis est non solum idcirco à nobis Christum creditum Deum quia mirabilia fecit sed quia vidimus in eo facta esse omnia quae nobis annunciata sunt vaticinio Prophetarum Be sensible then if thou hast any honesty or conscience left that Christ is believ'd by us to be God not olny because he has done miraculous things but because we have seen all the things fulfill'd in him which have been announc'd to us by the Prophets Non igitur suo Testimonio cui enim de se dicenti potest credi sed Prophetarum Testimonio qui omnia quae fecit passus est multo ante cecinerunt fidem Divinitatis accepit It is not then by the Testimony which he has given of himself for who can be believ'd who Witnesses for himself but by the Testimony of the Prophets who have Prophesi'd long before all that he has done and suffer'd He has receiv'd that Men should believe his Divinity The first proof which offers it self out of the Old Testament is that expression of the Almighty Gen. 1.26 Let us make Man in our image after our likeness It is undenyable that in the text as well as in the translation God is pleas'd to speak in the plural number And as we cannot admitt a multiplicity of Gods in a nature which is so entirely one so we cannot but see a kind of consultation in the Divine Persons It is visible that God does not speak to himself or to any created being who cannot concurr in any manner to the creation of Man It being an incommunicable property of the Divine nature And it is an impiety to think that God should speak in the air and to no purpose What is meant then by the Vs but that Son by whom he made all things and without whom nothing was made that was made Joh. 1.3 and that Holy Spirit which moved upon the Jaâ—e of the Waters Gen. 1.2 This the Fathers urg'd agâ—iâ—st the Arrians Thâ—se Gentlemen answer Brief History pag. 8. 1st That this is done according to the customs of Princes and great persons in all languages that is in an oratory and figurative way 2ly pag. 15. that God speaks to the Angels who were present not as adjutants but spectators of his work The presence of Angels is prov'd out of Job 38.7 This second reason is singular and the verse to prove the presence of Angels strangely dragg'd in But it ruins it self For if the Angels are not adjutants to the work How comes God to say Let us make Man This does not at all reach the difficulty The first is as bad that thiâ— is done according to the Custom of Princes It is strange that God should have laid the Custom aside in the formation of all the rest of the Creatures and us'd it only 〈◊〉 â—hat of Man For to say that it is the same as v. 3. let there be light v. 6. let there be a firmameâ—â— c. it is only a gloss and a comment against which the sence of the words stands unmoveable It is stranger 〈…〉 and Custom which in its 〈…〉 the Majesty of any divine 〈…〉 in a way which to these 〈…〉 to the unity of his nature I farely ask whether it was custom which caus'd God to alter the manner of his expression in all the Verses before or else a design to speak somewhat in this mysterious to us The first is