and by himself as the Athanasian Creed speaks a most perfect God are but one God is so monstrous a Paradox that we might justly wonder such a contradictory and impossible Doctrine being unhappily got abroad was not immediately hissed again into the Hole from whence the Chimera first sallied did we not know that the Propagation and Conservation of this Affront to common Sense and to all the Principles of Knowledg and Silence was the Work and Effect of such penal Laws as would equally have restored the whole Body and System of Paganism While the Question about the Trinity was disputed only by Argument and Authorities of Holy Scripture the Proverb was all the World is against Athanasius and Athanasius is against all the World And in Constantinople it self the then capital City of the whole Roman Empire the Trinitarian Conventicle was so thin that it had more Benches than Men to fit on them and their Preacher was forced to comfort his almost empty Fold with such Reflections as these The Unitaries says he have the Churches but we we Trinitarians are the Temples of God they have the People but the Angels are with us my Flock indeed is little I easily tell all my Sheep but they hear my Voice they follow me and will not follow Strangers Greg. Nazianz. Serm. 35. against the Arians But the Empire falling at length to a Prince who was a bigotted Trinitarian he applied the Imperial Authority and the Awe of his Armies which comfilied for the most part of Souldiers and Officers who had been born bred and continued Pagans to establish Trinitarianism by Terrors and Force He 't was Theodosius and his Successors began with taking the Churches 〈◊〉 in all Unitarians by military Force then they were prohibited to hold their Assemblies Conventicles they were now called within the Preciucts of Cities or Towns Next he called general Councils but admitted none to Session or Vote but Trinitarians to whose Creeds and Canons all that stood for any the very least Church-Preferment must subscribe before they were admitted to their Places Afterwards all Disputes against the Decisions of these Councils were forbid to all without Exception to Churchmen and military Officers on pain of Deposition to Lay-men if they were free under the Penalty of Banishment to Servants under pain of corporal Chastisement and that too saith the Law after the severest manner They proceeded farther they required all Persons to deliver up all Heretical Books that they might be publickly burnt denouncing horrible Punishments to such as should presume to hide or conceal any such Books While the Civil Power acted his Part in this outragious manner the Ecclesiasticks were as industrious another way the Underlings of them sought the Favour of their Superiours by turning Informers against the Hereticks and their Assemblies others that could read and write took upon them the corrupting or as they then spoke the correcting the Bibles adding and leaving out as themselves pleased Nor would they have left to us any Remain of genuine Christianity or suffer'd a single Unitarian to escape their Barbarities but that their Divisions concerning their own Doctrine their own Disputes de Asini umbrâ diverted often their Rage and Treachery from the Scriptures and the Unitaries to the Members of their own Party and Communion Dares Dr. Bull or any other deny any thing of this when they do this and much more shall be proved upon them from the most allowed of their own Historians and from the Codes which contain the Imperial Constitutions We may say then that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion as the Law of the Bizantine or Constantinopolitan Emperors it was first introduced by military Force then confirmed by Edicts of the Arbitrary Emperors of Constantinople Well but when Folly and Impiety are once establish'd by Law and are the only way to Preferment there will never want a great Number who will court the Favour of the Government by endeavouring to represent the current Doctrine of the Times as possible nay as reasonable and agreeable to Scripture and from hence came the Explications of the Trinity by the Parasites of those times whom now in regard of their Antiquity we call the Fathers These Explications were various and contrary to one another Dr. Bull has made choice of the most tolerable and passable Accounts given by the Fathers and tho he has patched up one Hypothesis or Explication out of many and divers I will be content to take it as he gives it He represents it as the ordinary Explication of all the Fathers as well the Ante-nicene as Post-nicene let us see what it is and then make our Reflections upon it They said there are three infinite Persons known by the Names of Father Son and Holy Spirit each of which has all Divine Perfections and in their highest Degree They are so many distinct tho not divided or separated Substances and Essences they are as much three Spirits as they are three Substances and Persons each has his own proper and personal distinct Understanding Will and Almighty Energy It is true that they said also that the three Divine Persons are consubstantial or have the same Substance but they did not mean thereby the self-same Substance or the same Substance in Number but the same for Kind and Properties that is their Substances are alike Divine Immortal and Unchangable They are consubstantial to one another as Stars are consubstantial to Stars that is their Substances tho divers in Number have the same Properties and Qualities In short the Father Son and Spirit are distinct intellectual Substances and are consubstantial or of the same Substance as their Substances or Essences are alike infinite immutable and immortal they are also and therefore distinct Beings and because they are intellectual and spiritual they are three Minds and three Spirits as much as they are three Persons and Substances Lastly because each has all possible real Perfections therefore each of them is true God I dare to affirm before-hand that Dr. Bull is so well satisfied that this is the Notion that the Fathers had of the Trinity that he will own it for theirs and his and will not disingenuously deny that he intended this Explication or Account of the Trinity in the several Chapters of his Defence of the Nicene Faith where he speaks either designedly or incidentally of this Point And his Book has given him such a Reputation all over Europe even in the Catholick Countries and his Citations out of the Fathers so plainly evince that this was their Sense that I believe no Trinitarian will be so rash or hardy as to call him Heretick or to attack or write against him as such tho others of less Esteem are now loudly challenged of Heresy for this very Explication In very deed it is the Doctrine of the Post-nicene Fathers and of all the real Trinitarians and since the Revival of these Controversies divers learned Writers by Name Dr. Cudworth the late
Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Glocester Dr. Sherlock Mr. How and others imbrace this Notion of the Trinity 'T is not unlikely that by degrees it will exclude the Sabellian Nominal Trinity of the Schools and not only exclude it but be the Occasion that it shall be declared Heretical 'T is true that more commonly in Universities they go the way of the Schools but the scholastick Trinity implies so many Follies and is so certainly nothing else but a disguised Sabellianism that the real Trinitarians may probably enough carry their Point against the Nominals if the Difference between them breaking out into a Contention shall fall into the Hands of able Managers We have seen how the Fathers understood the Trinity but the Difficulty is still behind how did they make out the Unity of God For if there are three spiritual intellectual Substances three infinite Spirits three eternal all-knowing and all-powerful Minds Three each of which is a perfect God do we not lose the Unity of God the principal Article of revealed Religion and the grand Design of both the Testaments while we believe and affirm three such Persons Dr. Bull here offers his Hand at a dead lift he tells us the Fathers easily came off from this Exception or Doubt by saying 1. The Son and Spirit had their Original their Being and Godhead from the Father therefore having proceeded from him as their Principle and Fountain they are not distinct Gods from him but one God with him The Fathers granted that were not the Son and Spirit originated from the Father the three Divine Persons being so many several Principles would also be so many Gods but because the Son and Spirit are not as the Father self-originated or unoriginated but from the Father therefore they are rightly said to be one God with him Every one sees that there lies this Exception against this Account of the Unity of God If to be originated from the Father will make the Persons so originated to be one God with him or one with him and with one another it follows that not only the Son and Holy Spirit but Angels also and Men nay the whole Creation the very vilest Parts of it shall be one God with the Father and with the pretended Trinity and one with one another because they are all originated from the Father Therefore the Fathers said 2. Bare Origination from the Father will not constitute the Persons so originated one God or one with him or with one another unless they have the same Substance with the Father that is as has been said the same for Kind and Properties And this Confideration they said excludes all Creatures from being one God or one with the Father or the blessed Trinity for created Substances are finite subject to Change and Accidents In a word they are wholly unlike to the Divine Substance They foresaw that it would be again objected here If to be originated from another who is of the same kind with the Persons so originated from him will make them all to be one for Instance will make the Son and Spirit to be truly one and one God with the Father from whom they are originated then two Sons or a Son and Grandson because they are originated from the same Father and are of the same kind with him shall also be one with him they shall not be three Men but one Man as Father Son and Holy Spirit are not three Gods but one God To wind themselves from this most certain and solid Reasoning the Fathers devised a third Elusion as wise as either of the two former they said that 3. Origination of two Persons from a first Person tho they are all of the same kind will not make them one or one God except as it most luckily happens between the three Divine Persons the originated Persons are propagated interiori productione that is are generated by an internal Production so that they are always and inseparably in the Person that produced them And this at length is the Fathers whole Explication of a Trinity in Unity They said in short three distinct Divine Persons Substances Spirits each of which is singly and by himself a perfect God are notwithstanding but one God because the second and third Persons are originated from the first and are of the same Kind and Properties with him and are generated or propagated by an internal Production so that they inseparably and always remain in the Father and he in them This in effect is to say that naturally properly and truly speaking there are three Gods or there are three Gods in Number but in regard that God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are of the same kind with God the Father are originated from him and are eternally and inseparably in him they may in a Catachrestical improper and respective Sense all be called one God I will examine very particularly the whole Hypothesis of these Fathers their Trinity of Substances Minds and Spirits and their Explication now laid down how three such Persons and Divine Minds can be but one God Only for preventing if it may be future Cavils I would first take notice that this Explication of the Unity of God or how three Persons can be but one God by the Fathers and Dr. Bull evidently supposes that they held the three Divine Persons are so many distinct Substances Minds and Spirits as well as distinct Persons I think 't is sufficient to prove that the Fathers held the three Persons are so many distinct Spirits and Minds in that they so certainly affirmed them to be distinct spiritual Substances if the three Divine Persons are three distinct Substances all Men the very nominal Trinitarians themselves will grant that they are distinct Minds and Spirits Dr. Bull hath incontestably proved by a great Number of Quotations and might have proved by a great many more that by consubstantial or of the same Substance the Fathers meant not the same Substance in Number but the same in Properties As Stars are consubstantial to Stars and the Bodies of Men to the Bodies of Beasts because they are Substances of the same kind that is corporeal and of the same Properties for all Stars are lucid and the Bodies of Men and Beasts are organized and subject to Alteration So are the three Divine Persons consubstantial being of the same kind that is to say spiritual and having the same Properties namely Eternity Immutability Omnipresence and the other Divine Attributes I will undertake for it that none of the Nominal Trinitarians as angry as some of them are will ever attempt to confute Dr. Bull 's first Chapter of his second Section where he gives this Account of the word Consubstantial out of the Fathers But if the Divine Persons are therefore Consubstantial because they are of like kind and have the same Properties their Substance is not the same in Number but only as Dr. Bull speaks the same in Nature And if this be true as
Trallians I salute you saith he to the Trallians in the Fulness of the Apostolical Character In short no one can read these Epistles with Judgment and impartially but he will see what was the Aim of the Forger of them namely under the venerable Authority and Name of Ignatius to magnify the Reverence and Respect belonging to Church-men This is the Beginning Middle and End of all these Epistles except only that to the Romans where to cover his Design and discover his Folly he only advises the Christians not to rescue him from the Imperial Guards These are all the Apostolical Fathers and Writings that our Opposers can muster up during the first 150 Years of Christianity that is to the Times when the Socinians and all Protestants confess that the Faith began to be actually corrupted I have proved that the Monuments they have to produce are unquestionably and incontestably counterfeit and therefore I do not think my self concerned to examine the few and impertinent Passages alledged out of them by Dr. Bull but before I proceed to his other approved Doctors 't is but reasonable that I should have leave to search what Authors and Books of these times of which we are speaking favoured the Unitarians and particularly the Socinians The Question between Dr. Bull and the Unitarians is what genuine Monuments or Remains there are of the Period which Church-Historians have called the Apostolical Succession that is of the Time in which those Doctors of the Church who had conversed with the Apostles and received the pure Faith of the Gospel from their very Mouths flourished And whether those Remains or Monuments do favour the Unitarians or the Trinitarians whether they teach the Doctrine of one God or of three We have seen what Dr. Bull can produce for their pretended Trinity his Apostle Barnabas the Prophet Hermas both of them rejected as false and soolish by the Catholick Church Next the Revelations of Pionius that is the Martyrdoms of Polycarp and Ignatius and their Epistles all which being almost perished and worn out by Time were revealed to Pionius by one from the Dead It is true our Opposers having been so long Masters have made use of their Power to destroy and abolish as much as was possible whatever Monuments of those first Times that too notoriously contradicted the Innovations in the Faith that were made by the Councils of Nice Constantinople and Chalcedon yet as there is no Battel so bloody and cruel but some tho it may be a very few have the good luck to escape from the Massacre so from this Persecution of Books and Writings some illustrious Testimonies and Witnesses to the Truth are come down even to our Times These are the Apostles Creed an unquestioned Epistle of St. Clemens Romanus the Accounts given by unsuspected Historians of the Nazarens or Ebionites the Mineans and the Alogi who all held as the Socinians now do concerning God and the Person of our Saviour the Recognitions of St. Clemens which tho it may be they are not rightly imputed to him yet are a most antient Book and serve to show what was the current Doctrine of those Times they are cited by Origen in divers Places by Eusebius Aikanasins and others Of the Apostles Creed COncerning the Apostles Creed we must resolve two Questions What it teaches and who were the Compilers of it To the first the Creed it self answers I belâ—eve in one God so this Creed was antiently read both in the East and West the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth In these Words the Father is character'd by these Names Properties and Attributions that he is God the one God Almighty and Maker of Heaven and Earth Concerning the Lord Christ it saith And in Jesus Christ his only Son Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only begotten Son our Lord. So the Characters of our Saviour are that he is not the one God but the only begotten Son of the only or one God and that he is our Lord. Our Lord he is as he is our Saviour Teacher and Head of the Church both in Heaven and Earth He is called the only begotten Son of the only or one God to distinguish him from all other Sons of God from Angels who were not begotten but created Sons from Holy Men who are adopted Sons and from Adam who is called the Son of God not because he was generated or begotten but made or formed by God himself immediately Well but it may be this only-begotten Son of God is an only-begotten Son in some higher Sense and namely by eternal Generation from the Substance or Essence of God whereby he is God no less than the Father is God But the Compilers of this Creed knew nothing or however have said nothing of any such Generation so far from that they describe his Generation and his Person by humane Characters and by such only Every thing that they say here either of his Person or Generation is not only humane but inconsistent with Divinity He was conceived say they of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary was crucified dead and buried he arose again from the Dead ascended into Heaven sitteth on the right Hand of God i. e. is next in Dignity to God Our very Opposers confess that every one of these is a Description of a mere humane Person and Generation even they acknowledg that God cannot be conceived be born die ascend and least of all be at God's right Hand or next to God to be God and next to God are wholly inconsistent There is no answering here that the before-mentioned are intended only as the Characters of our Saviour's Humane Nature For a Creed being an Institution or Instruction what we are to believe in the main and sundamental Articles of Religion especially concerning the Persons of the Father Son and Holy Spirit if the first is described as the one or only God and the Son only by Characters that speak him a mere Man and are utterly incompatible with Divinity it remains that the Compilers of the Creed really intended that we should believe the Father is the one God and the Son a mere Man tho not a common Man because conceived not of Man but of the Holy Spirit which is the Power and Energy of God If they had meant or but known that the Son and Spirit are eternal and divine Persons no less than the Father they have done to both of them the greatest possible Wrong because in the same Creed in which they declare that they believe that the Father is the one God Almighty and Maker of Heaven and Earth they believe the Son was conceived born died descended into Hell ascended into Heaven is next to God that is they believe he is a mere Man and concerning the Spirit they believe no higher thing than of the Church we believe in the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Catholick Church It is evident then and incontestable by any fair and sincere Considerer that whoever
made this Creed either they did not know that any other Person but the Father is God or Almighty or Maker of Heaven and Earth or they have negligently or wickedly concealed it The Latter is a Supposition that none will make therefore the other is the Truth of the Matter and it remains only that we enquire who were the Framers of this Creed The Creed that bears the Name of the Apostles Creed was always reckoned both by Fathers and Moderns to be really composed by the Apostles for a Rule of Uniformity among themselves in their Preaching and of Faith to all the Converts till about the middle of this present Age G. J. Vossius published a Book wherein he denies that either the Apostles or the 120 Disciples who are mentioned Acts 1.15 and who assisted and voted with the Apostles in publick Matters were Authors of this Creed He thinketh it was only the Creed of the particular Church of Rome and that the Original of it was this Because it was the Custom to interrogate Persons that were to be baptized whether they believed in God the Father in the Lord Christ the Son of God and in the Holy Ghost in whose Names Baptism is administred therefore in process of Time it became a Form of Confession for Persons who were admitted to Baptism to say I believe in God the Father in Jesus Christ his only-begotten Son and in the Holy Ghost Afterwards some few more Words were added to these as a fuller Description both of the Father and Son and as Heresies grew up new Articles were added to the Creed in opposition to them and to distinguish Catholicks from Hereticks Against all Hereticks and Schismaticks in general this Article was made I believe in the Holy Catholick Church against the Sects of the Gnosticks this Article I believe the Resurrection of the Body This is the Conjecture of Vossius Because it was so evident that this Creed makes only the Father to be God and that it speaks of the Son by only humane Characters and says not the least Word of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit therefore this Book of Vossius was received with a mighty Applause among all the Denomiantions of Trinitarians Papists Lutherans Calvinists and all others They saw themselves delivered by this Book from such an Allegation and Aughority against the Doctrine of the Trinity as was more than equivalent to all their pretended Proofs from the Fathers or from the Holy Scriptures For what are all the Fathers if indeed they were all of their side when opposed by the College of Apostles And what are some incidental and very dubious Expressions of some particular Writer of Holy Scripture against a Creed composed by the Concurrence and Consent of all the Apostles and of their Senate or Council the CXX A Creed in which they not incidentally in which case Men often speak loosly and incorrectly but professedly and designedly declare what is the true Faith to be believed by all Christians concerning the Father Son and Holy Spirit I say for this Reason 't is not to be much wondred that Vossius his Book was so kindly received or that the Trinitarians of whatsoever Perswasion have generally ever since followed the Conjecture of Vossius If now and then a learned Man has dissented from the new Opinion he has always been laugh'd out of Countenance by the Croud of Pretenders to Learning Vossius says 1. St. Luke in his Acts of the Apostles would never have omitted so memorable a Transaction as the compiling a Creed by all the Apostles for a Rule of Doctrine to themselves and their Successors in the Pastoral Office and of Faith to the Converts He has set down many lesser Matters the Election of Matthias into the Apostolate of Judas the Conclusion of the Apostles and Elders assembled in Council concerning the Ritual and Judicial Parts of the Mosaick Law and even divers petty Matters relating only to private Persons and is it credible that he should not say a Word of the Rule of Faith of a Creed made by the joint Consent of all the Apostles and intended for the general and perpetual Use of both Pastors and People But besides that this Creed is never spoke of in the Acts none of the Apostles mention or so much as allude or refer to it in any of their Epistles it is incredible not to say impossible that there should not be so much as a hint given of this Creed in all the Apostolick Writings if indeed it had been composed by the Apostles as their Joint Work for the Use of the whole Catholick Church There are abundance of false Steps made in this reasoning of Vossius 1 It is evident enough that divers most important Matters were ordained by the joint Council and Authority of the Apostles and the CXX which yet St. Luke did not think necessary to be inserted into his History of the Preaching Travels and Persecutions of the Apostles The Institution of the Lord's Day instead of or with the Sabbath or seventh Day appointed by God himself in the 4 th Commandment the Form of Church-Government whether you will say by Bishops or by a Presbytery or in the Independent Way the solemn manner of ordaining the Church-Pastors by Imposition of Hands and Prayer made for them the Love-Feasts the Holy Kiss all these every one will confess are Institutions not of one Apostle but of the College of Apostles and their Council the CXX and yet St. Luke has not told us either when or by whom they were ordained but is as silent of their Institution by the Apostles as of their composing the Creed 2 'T is not hard to guess at the Reason why none of these great Matters or the compiling the Creed are particularly recorded in the Acts of the Apostles namely because they are not bare Memoirs or transient things but such as were to be kept up and perpetuated by Example and Practice Every one sees that the Lord's Day the Form of Church-Polity or Government the Ordination of Church-Pastors the Love-Feasts and the Holy Kiss are Institutions that needed not to be recorded because the constant and universal Practice of them by the Apostles and the whole Church was more effectual to preserve them than any Register or History would be The like is as evident of the Creed it was to be orally taught to every Convert in every Place as the Mark of their Christianity therefore being committed to so many Witnesses and Memories it was considered not as a transient thing of which there was Danger that it might go into Oblivion if not recorded but as laid up safely in the Minds and Memories of all the Faithful Farther 't is an Observation made by all Church-Historians that the Antients of a long time purposely forbore to commit the Creed to Writing partly because they would not expose the Mysteries of Religion to the Contempt Raileries and Opposition of the Heathen partly to oblige their own People to be more
never produce any thing of the Cabala that but looks this way And see here what Origen who flourished about the Year 270 fays of the Jews I have disputed often says this most Learned Father with the Jewish Rabbins that were of most Esteem but I could never meet with any of them who approve this Doctrine that the WORD is the Son of God Contr. Celsum l. 2. p. 79. Again l. 4. p. 162. he is more express in the case Celsus is ignorant that the Jews do not believe that the Messias or Christ whom they still expect as to come is not God nor the Son of God But Dr. Bull himself tho here to serve the present turn he contends that the Jewish Cabala speaks of the WORD as a Person and the Son of God elsewhere Judic Eccl. p. 170. owns and proves that the Jews do not expect any Messias or Christ promised to them by their Prophets but who shall be a mere Man And he cites Tripho the Jew saying We Jews expect a Christ who is a Man born of Men. But if this was the Opinion of the Jews concerning Christ that he shall be a Man only why does Mr. Bull pretend in this Place that the Cabala or Traditional Doctrine of the Jews which by them is supposed to be of Divine Revelation teaches the contrary namely that the Christ is to be a Divine Person the eternal Son of God and himself also God He will never reconcile these Contradictions to himself But let us now examine of what Authority his Quotations out of some Jewish Books are His first Citation is out of the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom Wisd 18.15,16 Thy Almighty WORD leap'd down from Heaven out of his Royal Throne as a fierce Man of War into a Land destined to Destruction He brought thine unfeigned Commandment as a sharp Sword and standing up filled all things with Death he touched the Heaven tho he stood upon the Earth In sober Sadness this was a terrible WORD his Feet stood on plain Ground and yet his Head touched not the Clouds or the Aether but Heaven it self and with his Death-dealing Fauchion he even depopulated the whole Country in a few Minutes 'T is sufficient however I suppose to sober People if we say hereupon that this same was only a Chimerical not a real Almanzor and that there is no Body but Dr. Bull that will ever be afraid of his Puissance But Dr. Bull objects that however this Passage serves to show that the Author of the Book of Wisdom who was a Jew believed the WORD Right but then he should have observed too that the Book as we now have it must be as much reckoned to the Translator who was a Christian as to the first Writer of it who it may be was a Jew Let us hear Grotius in his Preface to his Annotations on this Book The Book of Wisdom was written by a Jew who lived after the times of Ezra but some Christian or other who was a Greek hapning on it he hath given it us in the Greek Tongue but with divers Additions to it taken from the Christian Religion Of this kind no Man will doubt it is this Description of the WORD which is wholly Christian as Christianity began to be taught about the middle of the second Age the Jews as we have heard from Origen never believed such a kind of WORD namely that is a Person the Son of God or God His next Allegation is from the Paraphrases of Onkelos and Jonathan Jews that translated the Old Testament into Syro-Chaldaick after a Paraphrastical way But I cannot perceive that any of his Citations out of these Paraphrases speak of the WORD in the Platonick Sense namely as a Person or as a God but only in the Jewish and Socinian Sense namely as the Energy and Power of God or God's powerful effectual Mandate As to his last Quotation from a Paraphrase of Jonathan on the Psalms which has some Appearance of being to the purpose for which Mr. Bull alledged it whereas Jonathan seems to read the Lord said to his WORD Sit on my right Hand Jonathan's Words may better be rendred thus the Lord said by his WORD i. e. his Mandate or Decree Sit on my right Hand But Philo speaks home he expresly calls the WORD the Son of God his first-begotten Son to whose Care saith he farther as to the Vicarius and Deputy of God the whole Creation is committed and by whom it was originally made But I shall never believe that a Jew by Religion wrote those things concerning the WORD that we see in Philo's Works Eusebius suspects Photius directly affirms that Philo was a Christian This last adds that by occasion of some Displeasure taken Philo departed from the Christian Religion I believe with Eusebius and Photius that Philo was a Christian but I make no question that Eusebius is mistaken in thinking that this is the Philo who was sent on an Ambassage to the Emperor C. Caligula but a Philo of the second Age toward the expiring of it or of the 2 d Age just expiring For he describes the Therapeutae that is the Christians both in their Discipline their Studies and their manner of interpreting Holy Scripture not as they lived or were in the Apostolick Times but in the Close of the second and Beginning of the third Age. Lastly as to the obscure Rabbi cited by Masius and the unknown Book Tankumam enough has been said to evince that if they speak of the WORD as the Son of God they may be written perhaps in Rabbinical Hebrew and by Jews by Nation but such Jews as were come over to the Christian Religion there being nothing more certain than that the Jews never owned a Son of God in any other Sense but of Adoption Sanctification Exaltation and such like nor do I think that Dr. Bull himself will again insist on Jewish Authorities whether they be these or any other He should make himself ridiculous to all learned Men by persevering in such a notorious Mistake as this that the Jews either now or in any time past believed the WORD as a Person or that God begat a Son who was pre-existent to the World and was together with God the Creator of it 't is for this very Doctrine that the Jews have pretended ever since the Council of Nice and at this day do pretend that Christianity is a Revolt to Heathenism and Paganism There remains now but one thing more in Dr. Bull 's Defence of the Nicene Faith that I intend to consider in this first Part of my Answer to him his Explication of the Trinity or how three Divine Persons and Spirits each of which has all Divine Perfections and is singly and by himself God nay perfect God are for all that but one God On the Explication of the Trinity according to the Fathers and Dr. Bull. THAT three Divine Spirits and Persons each of which has all possible real Perfections and therefore is singly
incontestably it is that the Fathers believed the three Divine Persons to be so many distinct spiritual Substances in Number it will be controverted by no Body that they are also in the Judgment of the Fathers distinct Minds and Spirits Secondly But as I said the before-mentioned Explications of the Unity of God or how the three Divine Persons are yet but one God are another and an invincible Declaration that they held the said Persons are three Minds Spirits and Substances If the Fathers had held that the three Persons are but one only numerical Substance one infinite Spirit one omniscient Mind and Energy and that they are called Persons only because the one numerical Substance subsists in three Modes that is after three several manners I say if this had been the Opinion of the Fathers the Question would not have been how the three Persons can be but one God but how they can be called Hypostases or Persons As at this day no Man is so foolish as to charge the Nominal Trinitarians with Tritheism or holding three Gods but only with Gotham Philosophy and Divinity in calling Modes or a Substance subsisting after three manners Persons when it is so obvious that Modes are not Persons but certain Affections and accidental Denominations belonging to Persons The Fathers would never have troubled themselves nor would any ever have objected it to them or demanded it of them how they could say there is but one God if the three Persons by them so called were but one numerical Substance subsisting three manner of ways or in three relative Modes all the Question as I said would have been what they meant by this Gibberish subsisting in three Modes or three manner of ways What Occasion was there for the Fathers to tell us the three Divine Persons may be called one God because the Son and Spirit are originated from the Father are like to him in all Divine Properties and subsist in him what need I say was there of these Excuses or how are they possibly applicable to the three Divine Persons if the Persons were not taken to be so many Spirits Minds and Substances but only a threefold manner of Subsistence of the same numerical Substance Mind and Spirit I omit for the present a great deal that might be farther said on this Subject because when the Nominal Trinitarians have called till they are hoarse weary and asham'd to Universities and Bishops to espouse their Cause and to censure the real Trinitarians after all the very Names by which the three Divine Persons are called a Father his Son an Holy Spirit distinct from both do so manifestly imply those Persons to be distinct Beings Substances Minds and Spirits and not Modes or Relations only of the self same numerical Being and Spirit that it will always be carried against them by the Majority of considering Divines All their Appeals notwithstanding it will not be long e're they are told by their Superiors in the Church that 't is expedient for them to be quiet left themselves be censured as Sabellians or as we now speak Unitarians To sum up all I say the Fathers beld that the three Divine Persons are three distinct spiritual intellectual Substances three Minds three Spirits this appears say I farther by their Explications of the word Consubstantial by their Answers to this Question how three such Persons can be but one God and by the Terms which they use concerning the three Persons a Father his Son a Spirit distinct from both These things being I suppose sufficiently establish'd we may rely on it that Dr. Bull will not deny that I have truly reported what the Fathers the Post-nicene Fathers say I but Dr. Bull says all the Fathers held both concerning the three Divine Persons and how we must understand them to be but one God Therefore now I will examine his whole Hypothesis it hath these Parts 1. There are three Divine Hypostases or intellectual Substances three ommscient almighty Minds and Spirits each of these has all Divine Perfections and is singly and by himself a most compleat and perfect God 2. Yet doth not this contradict that most great and indisputable Truth visible in the Works of Creation and ascertained by Revelation of holy Scripture that there is but one God because of the three Divine Hypostases and Spirits before described the second and third are originated from the first have the same Nature and Properties that he has and are propagated from him by an internal Production so that they are always inseparably in him and he in them by a mutual Pervasion Immeation or Penetration There is no necessity that I should concern my self against the first of these Propositions for if I disprove the second the first will fall of it self if three Hypostases or Spirits cannot be one God this sort of Trinitarians must either give up their three distinct Substances their three Minds and Spirits or openly profess that they believe three Gods Notwithstanding it will not be amiss or besides our Purpose if we show these Gentlemen that whatever Arguments militate against a Plurality of Gods prove also no less effectually and directly that there can be but one Divine intellectual Substance but one infinite Spirit and Mind How do Philosophers and Divines establish the Unity of God or that there neither is nor can be more than one God They say all Plurality of Beings of the same kind and sort is from the Imbecillity Weakness and Unsufficiency in some respect or other of those Beings for if a Being be absolutely perfect infinite in all Perfections all-sufficient for it self and for the Beings to which it relates there is no need that it should be multiplied or be more than one We see say they that all Nature has nothing that is superfluous nothing in vain where-ever one of the sort is sufficient as one Sun and such like the Individuals of that kind never proceed beyond Unity But the Divine Nature as the most excellent of all will much more exclude all Multiplicity more Infinites more All sufficients would be such an impertinent Repetition so altogether vain and to no purpose that we cannot think of it without immediately rejecting it This is the first Argument used by Philosophers to prove the Unity of God no Body will contest it that it equally proves but one infinite Spirit one all-sufficient Mind one absolutely perfect Being They say again it implies a Contradiction that there should be more than one all-sufficient God Mind or Spirit because such a Supposition pretends to make an infinite Addition of the same kind to what is already infinite and to increase All-sufficiency And if there are more Gods or more Minds and Spirits infinite in their Perfections either they are all of them unoriginated or one only is unoriginated and the rest are derived from him by Generation or Creation The Trinitarians with whom we have now to do answer that only one the Father is unoriginated the other Persons
among them witnesses that all Jews who were Christians were named Ebionites or the poor ones partly from the poor Opinion they had of our Saviour's Person partly because they adhered still to the beggarly Principles and Rites of the Mosaick Law it unavoidably follows that the Nazarens were Ebionites in this Sense that they held the Lord Christ was a Man only and observed the Law together with the Gospel I said Ebionites in this Sense because as was noted before the Ebionites more strictly so called believed our Saviour was the Son of Joseph and Mary but the Nazarens tho they believed he was a Man only yet they held he was miraculously conceived in the Womb of Mary by the sole Power and Energy of God without the Concurrence of any Man As Origen makes no Distinction of the Ebionites into Ebionites and Nazarens because of their Agreement in the main Points that the Lord Christ was a Man only and that the Mosaick Law must be observed by all Jewish Christians no more does Eusebius who contents himself to observe that some Ebionites hold the miraculous Conception others of them say he was the Son of Joseph and Mary Euseb H. E. l. 3. c. 27. But neither he nor Origen charge either of them as Epiphanius in after Ages from no Author does that they owned of the Old Testament only the Books of Moses and Joshua not the Prophets or that they calumniated St. Paul and rejected his Epistles publishing also certain Acts of St. Paul wherein they charge him as an Apostate from the Law only because he could not obtain for his Wise a Priest's Daughter Epiphanius imputes this not to the Nazaren-Ebionites but to those Ebionites who held our Saviour was the Son of only Joseph and Mary but as I said he quotes no Author and therefore this seems to be one of the malitious Tales which contending Sects and Parties frequently raise upon one another So in after-times the Albigenses Waldenses and Wiclevites were charged with monstrous Heresies which they not only abominated but are refuted by the Protestant Historians out of the Catechisms Sermons and other Books of those early Reformers They were charged with teaching that the Devil is above God that Elizabeth was Christ's Concubine and taken with him in Adultery with other more horrid and foolish things not fit to be named but the Protestant Historians have evinced to the Satisfaction even of all learned and ingenuous Papists out of the Books and Catechisms of those pious Men that these are diabolical Calumnies devised by their Persecutors the Friars Farther Dr. Bull grants that Theodoret Haeret. Fab. l. 2. c. 3. affirms expresly that the Nazarens honour the Lord Christ only as a holy Man not as God or a Divine Person Because this Father also lived in Syria was a most learned and inquisitive Person and writeth in that Work before-quoted of all Hereticks and their Opinions we may surely rely on the Account he gives 'T was impossible that Theodoret whose Bishoprick was in Syriâ cavâ whereabouts the Nazarens and Mineans then most abounded and whose very Design it was in that Book which we alledg to set down the peculiar Opinions of all the Distinctions and Denominations of Christians I say 't is impossible he should not certainly know the Doctrine of the Nazarens the most famous as well as most antient of all those Denominations which dissented from the Church or prevailing Party of those Times And whereas Dr. Bull excepts that Theodoret is a later Father than some he quotes 't is a mere and a wretched Subterfuge First because St. Jerom before cited witnesses that then the Nazarens flourish'd over all the Orient and Epiphanius that they abounded chiefly in Palestine and Syriâ cavâ Secondly because in very Deed Theodoret was contemporary with Sulpitius Severus who is as we shall see Dr. Bull 's only Author the only Father who ever mistook the Nazaren Doctrine concerning our Saviour and the Occasion of his Mistake was that he lived so remote from them they in the Orient he in the West that is to say at about 2000 Miles distance Sulpitius began to write at soonest about the Year 401. Theodoret was made Bishop in 420. so Theodoret might be the older Man But however that be one lived in Syria among the Nazaren Churches the other in the remotest Parts of Gaul distant from the Nazarens the whole length of the Roman Empire when in its greatest Extent and therefore 't is no wonder if he mistook the Nazaren Doctrine He grants again that Epiphanius Haeres 30. c. 2. informs us Cerinthianis Nazaraeis fuâ—sse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cerinthians and Nazarens had like Sentiments and Haeres 30. c. 2. Nazaraeos Ebionaeos capita simul contulisse suamque nequitiam invicem communicasse i. e. The Nazarens and Ebionites laid Heads together and communicated their Impiety by which Epiphanius without doubt means their Heresy one with another Lastly that Epiphanius doubts only of this whether in this the Nazarens agreed with the Cerinthians that the Lord Christ was a common and ordinary Man or was miraculously generated by the Holy Spirit or Power of God in the Womb of Mary Let us put this together Epiphanius says the Nazarens and Cerinthians had like Opinions but did the former believe as the other did that the Lord Christ was a common Man born as all other Men are of a humane Father and Mother or did they grant that he was a Man indeed but miraculously conceived by the Divine Power in the Womb of a Virgin Epiphanius professes that he cannot upon his own Knowledg charge the Nazarens with the former of these Opinions Farther he owns that the Ebionites and Nazarens were extremely gratious and intimate and communicated in the same Impiety that is Heresy These Testimonies do stagger Dr. Bull so that at last Judic Eccl. p. 56 57. he is willing to grant that at length some Nazarens were infected with the Ebionite Heresy that the Lord Christ is a Man only and of these Nazarens whom he calls the latter Nazarens tho the Antients never make any such Distinction as the former and latter Nazarens he thinks Origen is to be undestood when he says as was before quoted that the Jewish Christians i. e. the Nazarens are Ebionites There never was a more injudicious Paragraph unless the Man wilfully prevaricates For first why doth he say some Nazarens were infected with the Ebionite Heresy when Origen who is his Author expresly says all the Jewish Christians are Ebionites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Jews that own Jesus to be the Christ are Ebionites Contr. Cels l. 2. p. 56. Secondly I desire to know of Dr. Bull how Epiphanius could more effectually declare the Doctrine of the Nazarens concerning the Quality of our Saviour's Person than by saying they hold as the Cerinthians do and they mutually communicate their Heresy with the Ebionites For was
it ever made a Question or dares he question it that the Cerinthians and Ebionites held the Lord Christ was a Man only 'T is a ridiculous Subterfuge when he pretends the Nazarens might at first hold the Divinity of our Saviour but afterwards somewhat before Origen's time sell off to the Cerinthian and Ebionite Doctrine For I request him to produce but the least Intimation from any Father or Historian that the Nazarens changed their Opinion by falling off from the Trinitarians to the Unitarians as he pretends they did 't is a mere shift to which he was forced by the Clearness of the Testimonies given by Origen and Epiphanius But I shall mind him of other Evidences that the Nazarens were Unitarians or held but one Divine Person and that our Saviour was a Man only Epiphanius Haeres Naz. c. 7. says Nazaraei à Judaeis nullâ in re dissentiunt nisi quod in Christum credunt i. e. The Jews and Nazarens differ in nothing saving that the latter believe in Christ But if the Nazaren Christians had held more than one Divine Person or that the Messias or Christ was to be God they had differed from the Jews in two the highest Points of all for all Men know and own that the Jews believed but one Divine Person and Dr. Bull himself has largely proved out of Justin Martyr that the Jews expected that the Messias or Christ should be a Man only not God To the Testimony of Justin he might have added Origen contr Cels l. 2. p. 79. l. 4. p. 162. Farthermore when Epiphanius in the Chapter before-quoted makes doubt whether the Nazarens held that the Lord Christ was the Son of Joseph and Mary or was miraculously generated by the Holy Spirit in the Womb of Mary who sees not that he took it for granted and certain that they denied he was God or a Divine Person if he had not first supposed that he could never have made it a Question whether they did not think he was the Son of only Joseph and Mary Because he know that the Nazarens believed the Lord Christ was only a Man therefore he questions and otherwise could not question whether they held he was the Son of Mary by Joseph or of Mary by the Holy Spirit To add now no more St. Austin contr Cresc l. 1. c. 31. says Et nunc sunt quidam Haeretici qui se Nazaraeos vocant à nonnullis tamen Symmachiani appellantur i. e. There are now certain Hereticks by themselves called Nazarens but by divers they are named Symmachians To know therefore what the Nazarens held we need only to inquire what Symmachus held Eusebius will answer Symmachus was an Ebionite and maintained Christ to be the Son of Joseph and Mary Euseb H. E. l. 6. c. 17. But here we are to note two things First the Nazarens did not hold that the Lord Christ was the Son of Joseph and Mary but the Son of God by miraculous Conception in the Virgin Mary But divers as St. Austin has cautiously worded it were not so critical or so well versed in the Knowledg of Sects as to mind or understand the several Subdivisions of them therefore because the Nazarens were so far Ebionites and Symmachians that they held the Lord Christ was a Man only tho generated not by Joseph but by the Power of God in the Womb of the Virgin Mary they called them Ebionites and Symmachians tho both these the Symmachians and Ebionites not only believed that Christ was but a Man but that he was the Son of Joseph by his Wife Mary not of God by the Virgin Mary Secondly Symmachus and the Ebionites as they held our Saviour to be the Son of Joseph and Mary so they contended that the first Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel was added by the Greek Translator St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew when it was translated into Greek the Translator prefaced it with a Genealogy and a Narration that our Saviour was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God and was not the Son of Joseph but this Genealogy and Narration said Symmachus and the Ebionites is not in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew nay is the mere Invention of the Translator As for the other Gospels the Ebionites and Symmachus did not receive the Gospel of St. Luke and for that of St. John they said it was indeed written by Cerinthus to confirm his Platonick Conceits about the Logos or WORD which he supposed to be the Christ or Spirit of God that rested on and inhabited the Person of Jesus Let us now for the Ease of the Reader sum up this whole Evidence concerning the Nazarens in short Paragraphs All grant they were the Jewish Christians whose first Churches were gathered by the Apostles themselves in Judea Jerusalem Palestine Syria Arabia and the whole Orient The Question is what they held concerning Almighty God and the Person of our Saviour Jesus Christ whether they said there is but one Divine Person and our Saviour is a Man only or whether they held a Trinity of Divine Persons and that our Saviour is God most High We affirm the former of these Dr. Bull the latter We alledg that Theodoret says in express Terms the Nazarens honour the Lord Christ not as God but only as a holy Man We observe that Theodoret lived where Epiphanius informs us the Nazaren Churches then most abounded in Syriâ cavâ and that in the Work by us quoted it is the very Design of Theodoret to tell us the particular Opinions of the several Denominations and Sects of Christians We alledg again that the most learned Origen who also lived a long time in Syria and Palestine it self says that all Jewish Christians were Ebionites And Eusebius that all Ebionites hold the Lord Christ is a Man only but they are divided says he into two Sects for the Symmachians and such like Ebionites believe Christ is a Man the Son of Joseph and Mary others of them say he is a Man miraculously generated by the Holy Spirit or Divine Power in the Womb of a Virgin St. Austin says the Nazarens are Symmachians But he means only they are thus far Symmachians that they think Christ is only a Man not God Epiphanius says the Nazarens communicated in their Heresy with the Ebionites and that they held as the Cerinthians do both which believed that our Saviour was a mere Man He says they agreed in all Points with the Jews concerning whom 't is certain and granted that they never belleved more than one Divine Person and Dr. Bull himself has proved that they expected the Messias or Christ should be a Man not God Again Epiphanius makes it appear that he took it for yielded that the Nazarens believed the Lord Christ to be a Man only in that he doubts whether they did not also hold that he is the Son of only Joseph and Mary To Dr. Bull 's Objections concerning the Nazarens AS to what Dr. Bull objects I shall now