Infinite Persons and but one God Ask them How can these things be and what do you mean They answer our meaning only is God understands himself and willeth that is esteems and loves himself This is a very mean and despicable Sense to be couched in such mysterious and surprising Terms Why do they affect to speak fantastically when they might speak soberly and plainly But we would easily forgive them the Folly of their Mysteries if their Hieroglyphick Language were not as false and contradictory as 't is vain and trifling For after they have told us that by Son and Spirit they mean nothing but God's Knowledg and Love of himself that the Eternal Generation so much talk'd of is only God's conceiving understanding or apprehending his own Perfections and the Procession which we are so carefully to distinguish from the Eternal Generation is only the Love which proceeds from God towards himself after I say they have thus unriddled their Mystery and of a Mystery made it a very vulgar and ordinary piece of Knowledg how absurd and monstrous is it to tell us that this Reflex Knowledg which God hath of himself and his Love or Esteem of himself are Persons and Spirits really distinct from him One while the Second and Third Persons so called are only God's knowing himself and loving himself that is they are only two Acts of his Vnderstanding and Will At the next turn these two Acts God's Apprehending himself and Esteeming himself are metamorphosed into Two several Spirits and Persons whereof one you must call the Son and the other the Holy Ghost Of one you must say on pain of Damnation He was Conceived Generated or Begotten of the other you must believe and say under the same Penalty He proceeded I say now this is Egyptian all over 't is the very Genius and Spirit of the old Mystical Hieroglyphicks that is to say partly Foolish and partly False And to prove it I need go no farther than the Understandings and Consciences of all Reasonable Men or even of every Individual Man who hath not as much given up his Reason to Mother Church as the Good Man who would not believe his Eyes against his Dear Wife had given up to her his Senses To tell Men that to apprehend one's self is a Person and to love one's self is another Person and Spirit is in effect to ridicule Religion and to scare from it all Men of free Sense I know not why the prophane Wit was esteemed an Atheist for his saying God by his Almighty Power can turn a Tree into a Syllogism more than such may be justly suspected of Atheism who say an Action of the Divine Vnderstanding is an Infinite and Almighty Person whom under pain of Damnation we must call the Son of God And again an Action of the Divine Will is another such Person and him we must name the Holy Ghost For the Wit only turned a Substance into a Thought and Trinitarians turn Thoughts into Substances and Persons Did they alledg for these Mysteries but the least colour of Reason or Revelation we would hold our Tongues but to be obliged to believe such things without any pretence of Revelation and contrary to all Reason and common Sense this I think is what we owe to no sort of Men of what colour soever they dye their Coats For my part I never think of these whether Dotages or Impostures without such an Inclination as I very hardly resist of applying to our Athanasian Doctors what Cato said of the Roman Augures and Aurispices I wonder says Cato that an Augur or Aruspex can meet another of the same Profession without their Laughing in one another's Faces He knew their pretended Learning and Discipline was the Religion establish'd by Law warranted by Custom and Prescription and authorized by the Consent of Nations For all that 't was a Cheat so gross and palpable that he could not but admire that the Augurs were such stark Fools or such perfect Knaves that meeting they could carry a grave Look upon one another Of the Creation IN the Fulness of Time the before-described Trinity Created the World and all things therein Yet we are not to imagine that the Three Divine Persons divided the Work among them each of them taking a Part. Nor could every one of them Create the same things because a thing can be created but once But according to that Oeconomy as Divines speak that is the Domestick Order or Houshold-Government that is between the Three Persons it must be said and held that the Father is most properly the Creator the Son the Redeemer and the Spirit the Sanctifier of all Persons and Things So that when we say the Trinity Created Heaven and Earth and all Things this is thereby intended The Father Created all things by the Son through the Holy Ghost The Notes The Father created all things by the Son through the Holy Ghost I wish the Sages of the Party had thought fit plainly to tell us what they mean by such an odd way of expressing themselves But they have long since let the World know that all their care is to get Words and for Meaning they never think of it But the Father it seems is the Creator nay 't is he that is properly the Creator but then 't is by the Son and through the Holy Ghost That is to say the Father is not the Creator much less is He properly the Creator but the Son and Holy Ghost and these two are jointly Creators For if the Father created the World by the Son and through the Holy Ghost then the Father himself had no immediate Efficiency or Hand in the Work but only the Son and Holy Ghost these were the true Creators of the World and of all things And besides that the old Difficulty returns namely that the Son and Spirit divided the Work between them each taking his part or the same things must be created twice I know not how better to explain their Notion of the Father's being most properly the Creator than by saying he was just so according to them the Creator of the World as King Charles I. built the Royal Soveraign or was the Builder of the Royal Soveraign For we say that King built the Royal Soveraign by the Master-Builder through the Ship-Carpenter that is he built it not he only ordered it to be built the Master-Shipwright or Master-Builder and the Ship-Carpenters were the Builders But if this be so we are strangely misled by the Apostles Creed which instructs us to say that the Almighty Father is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and is wholly silent of the great Mystery that it was by the Son and through the Holy Ghost And the Scriptures do yet worse impose on us by an unheard-of Solecism and Impropriety while they speak of these two or three pretended creating Persons by the singular Pronouns I HE THOV HIM which in no Language are used but only of one singular and particular
't is not only not true but self-contradictory in the sense they use it For how is God most simple and uncompounded if he consists or is made up which is the very English of the word compounded of distinct Beings and divers and several Persons none of which is the other They may with the same Exactness of Grammar and Propriety of Speech say a Common-Council or a Common-Hall is one most simple uncompounded Being one is no more ridiculous than the other for the Propriety of Speech and Exactness of Truth is as verily lost in three as in three hundred or three thousand What is in God is God FOR the other Properties 't is the Orthodox and true Belief that whatsoever is in God is God Not only the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God but whatsoever else is in God by way of Immanence that also is God So the Justice of God is God the Power of God is God the Wisdom of God is God and so too is the Goodness of God Yet we make not hereby so many several Gods because these and all other Properties of God are not only the same with him but the same also with one another The Justice for instance of God differs not really from his Power and Mercy and his Power and Mercy differ not or are not really distinguish'd from his Wisdom but are verily and identically the same with it their distinction is only in our Conceit The Notes See here another brace of Mysteries whatsoever is in God is God and the Divine Properties or Attributes differ not but are the same with one another The Reader may perhaps suspect that when they speak after this wild fashion they have some secret and reserved meaning contrary to the usual Import of the Words or a learned Sense contrary to the vulgar Signification of the Terms but 't is not so they mean as they speak and whole Volumes are written in Defence of these Follies But let us consider what they say Whatsoever is in God is God the Justice for instance of God is God and so also the other Properties and Attributes As who should say every Property of a Being or Nature is that very Being or Nature of which 't is only a Property This is more monstrous than to say a Part is the Whole that very Whole of which 't is only a Part. For a Property being somewhat less than an Integrating Part because it may be away or at least be dormant and unactive without destruction of the Specifick Nature or of the Person an Integrating Part cannot therefore 't is more absurd to say a Property or Attribute is that very Being or Nature to which it belongs than to say an Integrating Part is the Whole Thus Body and Soul are Integrating Parts of Man take away one of them and he is no longer a Man but a naked Spirit and Risibility is an acknowledg'd Property of the Human Nature and yet it may be dormant or wholly away and the Human Nature not be destroyed but remain But they add the Properties or Attributes of God are the same with one another they differ only in our Conceit But why do they not tell us too that God pardons Sinners by his Justice and punishes them by his Mercy that he made the World by his Eternity and will judg it by his Immensity For if Mercy and Justice if Wisdom and Power if Eternity and Omnipresence are the same and differ only in our Conceit then the Effects of any one of these Properties are not to be appropriated to that Attribute or Property but must be equally and indifferently ascribed to all or to any of the rest Thus unlucky are our Opposers both at dividing and compounding they divide what is most intimately the same and they compound unite and identify what are and ever must be diverse and different That Unity of God or that God is one which should have been as carefully guarded as the very Belief of a God they have divided by introducing a Trinity of three equally All-mighty and All-sufficient Persons And the Properties of the Divine Nature to whose Distinction and Variety we must heedfully attend if we will have any adequate Notion of God or right Understanding of his Works and Providences these they confound by affirming they are the same But let us go on to what remains What we are to understand by the Son and Holy Ghost GOD is one substantial and most simple Act yet we say also God is two substantial and really distinct Acts. The two substantial and immanent Acts in God are Vnderstanding and Will For God most perfectly understands himself and also willeth that is loveth himself in the most perfect manner But whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving an Image of the thing understood Therefore God as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image thus conceived and as it were generated or begotten by him is called the Son And this Image being in God and a perfect Image of God and Eternal is God no less than the Father by whom it was conceived or generated in the manner aforesaid namely by his understanding or apprehending himself and his own Perfections But God also willeth and that is another of the substantial immanent Acts that concur to the essentiating the Trinity He willeth or loveth himself and the most perfect Image of himself and the Image willeth or loveth him This Mutual Love of the Father and the Image or Son is what is named the Holy Ghost So that what things in Men are Faculties Actions and Properties in God we must understand them to be Persons and Spirits Which is also farther both cleared and proved by this Observation The second Person or Son is the Understanding or Wisdom of God not Original Wisdom or Understanding for that is the Father but a reflex Wisdom that is the Wisdom which resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections The Holy Spirit as hath been said is the mutual willing Love and Power of Original Wisdom and of the Reflex Wisdom The Notes This they pretend is that Mystery hid from Ages and Generations but now made manifest to the Disciples of Athanasius There is no Parallel for it in all either History or Nature but the Mysteries of the Egyptians For as the Egyptians were at prodigious Cost in making and setting up a great number of Images in and about their Temples by which Hieroglyphicks or sacred Images they pretended to teach Men the Secrets of Natural Philosophy and the Precepts of Morality but when they were ask'd to explain the meaning of these Hieroglyphicks they gave a very mean and trifling Sense or a Sense very absurd and false So after Trinitarians have long amused their Disciples with Terms as Mystical as the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks such as Trinity Eternal Generation Eternal Procession three
are as bad as the Devil you shall presently be inclined to as much Good as will save you from Hell and qualify you for Heaven And this no less certainly if you are one of the Elect for else the Churches Incantation produces only a Momentary Effect and a false Appearance of Good no less certainly I say than by tying the Norman Knot you may gain the Love of the Person you desire or by other Devices recorded in the learned Books so Fools esteem them of Magick you may cause Hatred raise Winds and do a thousand other Feats which have no more natural or real Agreement with those Causes that are said to produce them than Faith and Obedience have with a bit of Bread or with a sprinkling of Water Therefore when St. Austin defined a Sacrament to be the outward visible Sign of an inward invisible Grace or Energy the good Father should have considered that this is the Definition of a Charm not of a Gospel-Sacrament For a Charm is a bare outward visible Sign that has no natural or real Agreement with the Effect and if the Effect prove for the good of the Person concerned it may be called the inward invisible Grace of such Sign or Charm as when the Effect is to beget Love or such like But if the Effect of the Charm be hurtful as to kill or such like then it must be called the Energy not the Grace of the Charm as that damning Quality or Power which our Opposers impute to the Sacrament of the Supper when not received aright cannot be called the Grace of that Sacrament but only the Energy So that let them turn themselves which way soever they can they have turned the Gospel-Sacraments as I said before into Charms and Spells Now on the contrary Unitarians think of the Sacraments reverently not extravagantly or superstitiously They like not indeed the word Sacraments because 't is no Scripture-word and because the Criticks have noted that 't is a very improper Term or Name to denote the Ceremonies of Baptism and of commemorating the Passion and Death of our Saviour But they will not quarrel about words if the Things signified be agreeable to Reason or Holy Scripture We think that Baptism was a Ceremony or Rite appointed by our Saviour for divers most weighty Reasons whereof this was the chief to initiate or enter Jews and Heathens into the Christian Church It was a very proper and significant Rite and Ceremony for the washing and cleansing the Body in Water doth very aptly signify that Repentance and those Purposes of Holiness and Purity which such as enter themselves into the Christian Church or are born in that Church should profess and practise He that comes to be baptized that is to be washed in Water doth thereby profess he will in like manner purge his Mind and Conscience and his whole Conversation from Impurity and Wickednesses of all sorts by delivering himself up to the Institution and Guidance of that Gospel which was given by the Father or God as its Author was brought by the Son our Lord Christ as the Messenger and confirmed by the Holy Spirit or the Power and Inspiration of God by abundance of Signs Miracles and Wonders Therefore according to the Vnitarians 't is not this Sacrament that worketh ought in us much less renews regenerates and changes our Natures but the Person who receives this Sacrament is to resolve and purpose Renovation Regeneration or Newness of Life This Doctrine we learn form St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.21 The like Figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us not the putting away the Filth of the Flesh i. e. not the meer Ceremony of Baptism that is of dipping and washing in Water but the Answer of a good Conscience towards God That is if as our Bodies are baptized or wash'd in Water so also we purify our Consciences of all Disobedience towards God From this Explication of Baptism some have drawn these two Corollaries or Consequences 1. That Baptism should be administred by dipping in Water for by that cleansing of the Body is effected at least is intended and signified but sprinkling doth neither cleanse nor signify cleansing the Body and so is very improper to signify the Answer of a good Conscience that is the cleansing the Heart and Conscience from Evil. 2. That no Person is capable of this Rite but such as can profess and intend the thing signified by Baptism even a clean Conscience and a new Life As to the Lord's-Supper every one knows the mighty Wonders ascribed by our Opposers to this Sacrament Papists say the Substances of Bread and Wine are changed into the Substance of Christ's Body Lutherans say they are consubstantiated with his Body The Church of England goes beyond the Papists for she saith in the Catechism that the Body and Blood of Christ are VERILY and INDEED taken and received by the Faithful not by others in the Lord's-Supper This implieth such a Real and Universal Presence of our Lord's Body in the Sacrament as far exceeds the Popish Transubstantiation for that limits the Presence to only the Substance of Christ's Body and excludes the Accidents but this takes in both The Vnitarian Doctrine concerning this Sacrament is plain and simple We say our Saviour has told us the meaning of this Sacrament in those words Luke 22.19 This do in remembrance of me And St. Paul 1 Cor. 11.26 As oft as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's Death That is you commemorate and represent the shedding the Lord's Blood and the breaking his Body for Mankind But for the miraculous Effects and Consequences ascribed to the right partaking of this Sacrament Unitarians can find them nowhere but in the Books and Sermons of the superstitious Admirers I might have said Idolaters of External Things 'T is true the Apostle blameth the Corinthians for receiving unworthily But the Vnworthiness was their Drunkenness in the very Act of communicating that is of commemorating the Death of our Saviour and 't is of this and the like Disorders in the Act of communicating that he there bids them to examine themselves before they presume to take the Memorials of their Lord's Death As for those words of our Saviour at John 6.53 Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no Life in you and divers such-like Expressions in that Chapter especially toward the latter end of it 't is certain and agreed by the most Learned Interpreters Papists and Protestants as well as Socinians that our Saviour is not there speaking of the Sacrament of the Supper which when he made those Discourses was not yet instituted but of believing in him and imitating his Example H. Grotius hath very judiciously and learnedly and very amply also proved this to be the meaning of that Context and I believe hath satisfied as many as have carefully read and considered that part of his Annotations Wherefore I refer to
Infinite Punishment of all Mankind no nor of one Man 4. But if it were admitted that one Man was so dignified by the Inhabitation of God in him as to be an Equivalent for all Men admitting also that the three days Temporal Death of such a Man amounts to as much as the Deaths Temporal and Spiritual and the Eternal Damnation of all Mankind What will follow hereupon It will follow that God is obliged in Equity to release all Mankind from all the three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal else He hath received an Equivalent on behalf of Mankind without discharging those for whom He received it which is contrary to Equity nay to Justice For in Equity an Equivalent ought to discharge the Person whether he be Offender or Debtor but if the Equivalent be not only tendred but accepted also on behalf of the Debtor or Offender the Offender hath Wrong done him if he is not immediately discharged of his Punishment and the Debtor of his Debt But do Trinitarians pretend or dare they that God doth discharge Mankind from the three Deaths on the Oblation and Sacrifice of himself made by the Lord Christ on their behalf By no means they own we are not at all discharged from Death Temporal but in some part from Death Spiritual and only a few Persons from Death Eternal It follows that the Sufferings and Death of our Saviour were not in deed an Equivalent to the three Deaths of Mankind 5. To add now no more The Unitarian Doctrine is consistent nay is the very same with what the Scriptures every-where say namely that Almighty God of his Grace the Riches and Abundance of his Grace and Love has pardoned Offenders for Christ's sake on the Conditions on their part of Faith Repentance and Newness of Life But the Trinitarian Doctrine which saith the Punishment laid on the Lord Christ was truly equivalent to the Punishment due to all Mankind doth deprive God our Maker and Father of the Glory of his Pardoning Grace and Mercy Nay it saith in effect that we are not beholden to God our Father on that account It saith he hath been harsh nay hath been apparently unjust in that he hath received more than an Equivalent for our discharge from the three Deaths and yet he hath not wholly releas'd any and but very few are at all released I will only add Whereas Trinitarians call the Sufferings of the Lord Christ a Punishment and will have that Punishment to be equivalent to the Infinite Punishment due they say to Mankind for Sin Original and Actual and whereas they call this Doctrine the Doctrine of the SATISFACTION by the Lord Christ they have mistaken in the Name as well as in the Thing 'T is the Unitarians who in proper speaking hold that the Lord Christ made Satisfaction to God for Sin not Trinitarians We say that the Sufferings of the Lord Christ not being equivalent in the exact Scales of Justice for what all Mankind have deserved yet God was satisfied with them that is was graciously pleased to accept them as an Intercession on our behalf and this is the proper Notion of a Satisfaction But Trinitarians in saying the Sufferings of Christ were equivalent to the Demerit of our Sins were a full Payment to the Justice of God for them do not hold a Satisfaction but a Reparation or Plenary Amends The more elegant Latinists call Confession Deprecation and such like imperfect and partial Reparations and Payments by the Name of Satisfactions Of the Incarnation BEcause no other but a Person of Infinite Merit and Dignity could satisfy the Divine Justice for Adam's Transgression therefore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity called the Son offered himself to undergo the Equivalent to that Punishment or threefold Death which belonged to Adam and his Descendents and this Offer was accepted by the other two Persons of the Trinity It was agreed that the Son should become incarnate in an Human Nature should be Whole and All united to a Finite Man even the Man Christ Jesus and be one Person with him By this means the Man Christ Jesus became of that unspeakable Merit and Dignity that one drop of his Blood was an Equivalent to the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire and his Holiness and the Merit thereof was infinitely more than enough for himself it was meritorious of Heaven for never so many Sinners The Son was so incarnate in a particular Human Nature as to be personally thereto united in the very Womb of the Virgin Mary so that Mary as General Councils of the Orthodox have rightly defined was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This Incarnation of the Son in the Man Christ Jesus begets also such a Communication of Idioms that is of Properties and Attributes between the Divinity and the Humanity of the Lord Christ that we must say on the one hand God was born God suffered God died as we must say also on the other hand the Man Christ Jesus is Eternal Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of Heaven and Earth As all Learned Divines acknowledg and Cardinal Bellarmine in particular has largely proved from Fathers and Councils of the Orthodox Bellar. de Christo l. 3. c. 9. The Notes The Doctrine of the Incarnation claims the place of all the Trinitarian Doctrines even of the Trinity it self in regard of its Seniority For while our Opposers were only Homo-ousians that is believed and professed only two Eternal and Consubstantial Persons not having yet dreamt that the Holy Spirit is God in the days of the first Nicene Council even then they held the Incarnation of the second of those Persons Neither does this Doctrine come behind any of their Doctrines either in the Number or the Rarity and Strangeness of its Wonders and Mysteries but of these three are more remarkable than the rest I will make a short Reflection on each of them The first Wonder is that an Infinite Person is whole and all incarnate in a Finite Nature Which amounts to this That Infinite is less than Finite for else how should Infinite be incarnate that is cased in the Finite But make the greatest Allowances possible yet the Infinite which is whole and all incarnate in the Finite can at most but be commensurate to the Finite that is but equal to it Now these are two such Paradoxes that till our Opposers can separate them from their Doctrine of the Incarnation they will never perswade that Doctrine to any who make use of their Reason and Consideration The second great Mystery or Wonder of this Doctrine is that the particular Human Nature in which a Person of the Trinity vouchsafed to be incarnate became thereby of Infinite Dignity and Merit for 't was an Equivalent for an Infinite number of Men and for the Infinite Punishment due to them and yet still remained and continued a meer and bare Human Nature Which is to say a