and his Spirit And further to make it clearer that this Father always confounds the Holy Ghost with the Word I must observe that in the last Passage I am about to cite he applies to the Holy Ghost the same Words of Solomon which are ordinarily applied to the Son The Word says he who is the Son was always with the Father and because the Wisdom which is the Holy Ghost was also with God before the Creation it speaks thus by Solomon God hath founded the Earth by his Wisdom c. and again The Lord created me c. There is therefore but One God who hath made all things by his Wisdom and by his Word CHAP. XI A Continuation of the same Proofs that the Antients understood by the Word and the Holy Ghost one and the same thing BUT after all you will say Irenaeus makes an express distinction between the Word and the Spirit I answer Yes But David makes the same distinction too and from him I believe the Fathers borrowed theirs The Heavens says he were formed by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth By the way who will be so weak as to affirm that he did not mean by these two words the same Power of God as if the Word was not the Breath of his Mouth and the Breath of his Mouth the Word Can one forbear smiling when one sees our Divines put David in the number of the Trinitarians In fine Irenaeus extols the Generation of the son of God by the Operation of the Holy Ghost as infinitely more excellent than the Generation of the first Man which was by breathing Life into him or by the Divine Breath Irenaeus affirms it but Dr. Bull denies it maintaining that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God by virtue of his miraculous Conception in a manner more excellent than Adam was by virtue of his immediate Generation or Formation by God's own hand Let us suppose it as the Doctor would have it yet after all he must agree that this Holy Father carries the Parallel that he makes between the first and second Adam no further than their Generation which was equally extraordinary in both This appears in the 31st Chapter of his 3d Book If the first Adam says he had his Being from a Man it might be said with some shew of reason that 't is the same as to the second Adam and that Joseph was his Father But if it be true on the contrary that the first was form'd out of the Earth by the Word of God must not the same Word acting with the same Power as he did at the Formation of Adam carry a resemblance of the same Generation Let this Comparison be a little minded it contains this clearly that God did no more in the Generation of the second Adam in whom he would dwell than in that of the first Adam that Adam and Jesus Christ are the immediate Production of this Word Consequently there 's no more reason to infer the hypostatick Union of the Word with Jesus Christ than with Adam this Word being as you see nothing but the Power of God which having immediately formed the first Man did also form Jesus Christ after the same primitive manner of Generation All the difference is that God was pleas'd to dwell in the latter after an extraordinary manner Let 's see in the next place what Tertullian has to say He was a great Platonist but that Party does not always strictly observe the Rules of Platonism They have their lucid Intervals wherein some Remains of the antient Tradition drop from their Pens Whenever they philosophize according to the humour of that Faction they are to be suspected 't is the effect of their Prejudices but when they happen to speak to the disadvantage of their own Hypotheses what is it that could oblige them to it but the Power of Truth alone Tertullian therefore at the end of his Discourse against Praxeas sisting this matter of the Nature of the Word and the Holy Ghost to the bottom speaks of 'em as one and the same Power 'T is worth while to read the whole throughout but I shall content my self with this following Passage which is decisive and beyond dispute Contra Prax. cap. 26. The Spirit of God i. e. Holy Ghosi shall come upon thee c. By saying the Spirit of God altho the Spirit of God be God nevertheless he not calling it directly God he would have us understand a Part of the Whole which was to attend the Person of the Son and get him the Name that he has This is that Spirit of God which we call the Word also For as when St. John says the Word was made Flesh by the term Word we understand the Spirit so in this Passage we understand the Word under the Name of the Spirit since the Spirit is the Substance of the Word and the Word the Operation of the Spirit and these two are but one For if the Spirit be not the Word and the Word be not the Spirit 't will follow that he of whom St. John says that he was made Flesh will not be the same with him of whom the Angel says that he shall be made Flesh Let us weigh well all these Words By the Spirit Tertullian understands nothing but a Portion of the whole a Beam of the Substance of God as he expresses himself elsewhere because otherwise it would follow according to Praxeas that the Father himself was incarnate He will have it that this Portion makes the Son what he is that is the Son of God He confounds the Spirit with the Word and will have St. Luke and St. John speak the same Language and that the first might have said the Word shall come upon thee and the latter the Holy Ghost was made Flesh since that by the term Holy Ghost the Word must be understood and by the term Word the Holy Ghost and that 't is not likely St. John would speak of one particular Spirit and the Angel of another And more than this he acquaints us what use we ought to make of these two Words which at the bottom signify but the same thing and that is we ought to call this Power Spirit when we would express its Substance and Word when we would express its Operation In short he decides our Question by saying that these two are but one and the same thing that is to say the same Power For the Word says he in his Rule of Faith de Praescript descended from the Spirit and the Power of God into the Womb of the Virgin What does this import viz. the Word descended from the Spirit and the Power of God if not this that the Word is nothing else but an Emanation a Manifestation of the Power which is internal and essential to God And 't is almost in the same sense that Marius Victorin contra Arium lib. 1. states a twofold Power of the Word that is to say a
the Reason and Soul of the World hath thereby laid down as the Principle of the Creation of the Vniverse the Goodness Wisdom and Power of God But the best Interpreter of this Platonick Trinity is Galen in his third Book de Vsu Partium his Words are plain and may be call'd the right Key of Platonism I do not says he make true Religion and Piety towards God to consist in sacrificing Hecatombs or in sending up the Smoke of much Incense but in knowing and making known to others what God's Wisdom Power and Goodness are For in my opinion that God has been pleas'd to fill the World with so many good things is a Mark of his Goodness which deserves our unmost Praise That he has found the way of putting it into so good Order is the highest pitch of Wisdom and that he could execute so vast a design is the effect of Almighty Power Nothing is plainer than this Comment He fully explains the Doctrine of the Three Principles without mixing any Philosophical Subtleties or Cabalistick Mysteries with it Here all refers to the Creation of the World and shews no more than a natural Trinity which all may read in these three admirable Properties which God has if I may so speak made visible in his Works And lastly Clem. Alexan. Lib. 5. Strom. p. 547. Edit Lutet 1629. fully shews Plato's mind in the Definition he gives of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Word of the Father of all things says he is not that which was utter'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a most evident Wisdom and Goodness of God with an Almighty and truly Divine Power This is plain here you have the Wisdom Goodness and Power whereof Plato made his Three Principles and whereof Clemens makes only the internal Word the Word of the Father in opposition to the utter'd Word So free and unlimited is this Allegorical Philosophy Observe farther That the words most evident refer to what appears of God in the Creation of the World which is properly the Word of God according to all the Platonical Allegorists As to the Begotten Word which is not that Wisdom nor that Goodness nor that Power which was manifested in the Creation of the World what can it be but the World it self Nevertheless the Fathers believ'd the Prolation of this Word to be the true Generation and consequently when they spake of a Begotten Son understood it of this World without thinking of it Plato then having so personaliz'd the several Operations of the Godhead spake of many Gods to please the People Populo ut placerent quas secisset fabulas reserving to himself the liberty of owning but one God when he convers'd with the Learned or as appears by his Epistles when he wrote to his Friends CHAP. VIII That the Pleroma of the Valentinians was an Allegorical Theology With a Digression concerning the Fanaticism of both the Antient and Modern Gnosticks I Pass from the Philosophers to the Hereticks who imitated them It is certain that there was a hidden and mystical Theology in the Pleroma of the Valentinians That prodigious number of Emanations which seems so monstrous an Opinion to us was at bottom but either a System of the several Orders of Angels who are often call'd Aeons I mean such a Celestial Hierarchy as that of Dionysius was or that Collection of Ideas those different Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Valentin calls them apud Iren. l. 1. c. 5. those several Dispensations which they conceiv'd in one and the same God For they did consider him 1. without regard to the Creature as incomprehensible and retir'd into a profound Silence that is as not having yet spoken that efficacious Word which was to make the Creature and then he call'd him the Profound and the Silence that was the first Order of Aeons 2. They consider'd God with respect to the intelligible World as having his Vnderstanding fill'd with Ideas Ideas being the Essence and the Truth of things according to the Platonists and then they call'd him the Vnderstanding and the Truth that was their second Syzigy 3. They consider'd God with respect to the sensible World as executing his Design and speaking that powerful Word which gave Life and Being to all Creatures and then they call'd him the Word and the Life that was their third Syzigy 4. They consider'd God with respect to the Spiritual and Evangelical World as working Redemption and there they found the Mediator Jesus Christ Man with the new Church which he made by his Preaching and Death and then they call'd him the Man and the Church that was their fourth Alliance But after all these several Emanations rightly taken are but the several Respects in which they conceived one and the same God who having been hid in an Abyss of Light did outwardly manifest himself in these two admirable Works of the Old and New Creation That is the Testimony which Irenaeus l. 2. c. 15. gives of them The Valentinians says he after having divided their Emanations did however return to the Unity holding that all together made but one And in Lib. 1. c. 6. the same Father's relating that Ptolomy gave the most High God two Wives Vnderstanding and Will which they called the Father's two Powers apparently shews that Ptolomy fell into Plato's Allegory in ascribing Wisdom and Power as two Properties inseparable from one and the same Spirit to the Good or Creator of all things And I don't see why Ptolomy might not as well Allegorically say that the supreme Father had two Wives as Philo in the like case that the World had God for its Father and Knowledg for its Mother But if all these several Powers of the Valentinians did not destroy the Unity of God whence then comes it you 'l say that their Doctrine was so abhor'd The reason is apparent viz. That in avoiding the Christian Simplicity they run the Faith into terrible Confusion exposing God's Unity to Peril by their idle Speculations As for the Basilidians they did also allegorize on the word Abraxes whereby they understood that Supreme Power from which all the other Aeons or Spirits proceeded This Name has in its Greek Letters the Number 365 which is that of the Days of the Year or according to Basilides of the Celestial Orbs. And he intended to signify that Abraxas or the most High God was the Father of the Celestial Orbs Ages or Aeons and Creator of the Universe 'T is probable that this is a Hebrew Word and that it comes from Ab Ben Rouach Father Son and Spirit Menage would with his Etymological Sagacity find no difficulty in proving this to be its Derivation thus Ab Ben Rouach Abenrach Aberach Abrach and adding a Greek Termination Abrachas Abraxas Serenus the Physician of the Sect of the Basilidians lengthening the Word fram'd Abracadabra of it which is another mysterious Name which he made use of as an Amulet or Preservative for the Cure of all intermitting
us to understand that when the Platonic Fathers applied these losty Expressions of Solomon to their Eternal Word they did not or could not do it but by the way of an Accommodation or Allusion The same Bishop having related the Opinion of some Fathers a little lower who apply the same Expressions of Solomon to the Man Jesus Christ afterwards goes on thus pag. 63. But this saith he not being the sense of the Words which Solomon first intended I shall not build my Paraphrase upon it but take Wisdom here as it signifies in other Places of this Book and hath been hitherto described whom Solomon now celebrates for her most venerable Antiquity and introduces like a most beautiful Person no less than a Queen or rather some Divine Being infinitely to be preferred before that base Strumpet spoken of in the foregoing Chapter Indeed Solomon hath made her speak by introducing her as a Person and exborts young People to give ear to her She speaks of herself that God created her or that she comes to us from God that she was before the World was made because God who is the source of her and communicates her to Men did make use of her in framing this Universe Also that Kings reign by her because Prudence and good Counsels are the Soul of a good Government Notwithstanding this clear and natural sense Prejudice hath abused these Words to apply them to Jesus Christ but there are many other that cannot at all agree to him 'T is true that the Platonick Fathers are alledg'd here who understood this Chapter literally of a Personal Wisdom I own it but the same Fathers have also and that with no less Pomp quoted that Passage of the 45th Psalm My Heart is inditing a good Matter Word to prove the Eternal Generation of J. C. We justly laugh now adays at so ridiculous an Interpretation as well as of that Psal 110. From the Womb of the Morning thou hast the Dew of thy Youth Which the antient Interpreters did endeavour to make subservient to the same purpose Let us then I pray mistrust them as to this Text in the Proverbs they having so grosly deceiv'd us in those two of the Psalms which they made use of for the same ends as frequently and with as much Confidence But after all tho their Testimonies should be produc'd in shoals we can produce better Interpreters of Prov. 8. I mean the Books of the Old Testament it self the Wisdom and Ecclesisticus which tho they are Apocryphal yet are of greater Authority than the Writings of the Fathers who were the Disciples of Plato the Authors of these two having probably known better the Mind of Solomon and the Sentiments of the Jews The Author of the Wisdom having made use of the same Prosopopeia with him in the Proverbs calls Wisdom The Breath Spirit of the Power of God a pure Stream flowing from the Glory of the Almighty the Brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted Mirrour of the Power of God the Image of his Goodness and that she sits on the Throne of God He goes on like the Author of the Proverbs that when God created the World Wisdom was with him knew his Works was present then knoweth and understandeth all things But to let you see that he speaks only of a Quality or Virtue he adds That he loved her sought her out from his Youth desired to have her for a Spouse was a Lover of her Beauty He desires of God in his ardent Prayers to give her to him to send her out of the Heavens to assist him to teach him that his Works might be acceptable For saith he we hardly guess aright at things that are upon the Earth but the things that are in Heaven who can search out unless God gives Wisdom and send his Holy Spirit from above See Chap. 7 8 9. The same Author speaking further of this Divine Perfection saith That God made all things by his Word form'd Man by his Wisdom Chap. 9. 1 2. taking the Word and Wisdom for one and the same thing viz. for that Power which created the World and whereof Wisdom is but an Emanation Can you imagine now this Author meant that God did create the World by his Son the second Person of the Trinity Can such a Thought enter into a rational Creature Let us come now to the Author of the Ecclesiasticus who expresseth better the Sense we ought to give to the Words of Solomon He introduceth Wisdom speaking thus of her self I came out of the Mouth of the most High he created me from the beginning before the World Hitherto he seems to speak of a Person but explains himself clearly Ch. 24. Ver. 23. where he declares that he meant by this nothing else but the Law of Moses which the Jews name Wisdom by way of Excellency For having spoken of Wisdom under other Figures than that of a Person I mean under the Figure of a Palm-tree an Olive-tree a Vine c he sums up what he had said in these words All these things are the Book of the Covenant of the most High even the Law which Moses gave Can the Law given by Moses be call'd more expresly not only an Olive-tree or a Vine but also the Word which came out of the Mouth of the most High and Wisdom which God created before the World Which are Expressions visibly figurative the which under the Fiction of a Person or the Figure of a Vine represent the Wisdom of God to us sometimes as revealing it self in the Creation of the World and again as replenishing Men with the Fruits of its Knowledg in the Dispensation of the Law This kind of Fictions was familiar to the Moralist Jews and to all the Oriental Philosophers You must be purblind if you discern not immediately the Genius of that People accustom'd to a figurative and parabolick Stile St. John imitates the Moralist Jews and according to the same Ideas hath at one view represented to us the Word or Wisdom of God manifesting himself to Men in two of the greatest of his Dispensations viz. in the Old and the New Creation The Method is the same absolutely you need only put the Gospel or the Author of the Gospel instead of Moses and the Law You may really see him join these two things together viz. The Wisdom of God residing in God himself and presiding at the Creation of the World and the same Wisdom descending upon J. C. in whom it was as it were incarnated and ordering the New World For if according to the Hebrews the Law was the Wisdom or the Word or Precept by way of Excellency much more doth this great Elogium belong to the Gospel namely to be the Word the Wisdom the Truth the Light and the Life by way of excellency An Elogium consequently belonging to J. C. who brought the Word and the Life and was the great Teacher of Truth Whatever the Scripture saith of the First Creation
which comes not from his Vnderstanding by a necessary Emanation but by his Will by a free Operation That Power I say which may be called his Word or his Spirit according to the different respects wherein one considers it I will produce another Proof of this important Truth from Theophilus Antiochenus in his 2d Book to Autolycus Who says he speaking of the Word being the Spirit of God the Beginning the Wisdom the Power of the Highest came down into the Prophets by whom he spake What could he say more formal to make us understand that he took for one and the same thing the Spirit of God his Word his Wisdom and his Power His meaning cannot be mistaken when one considers that the Spirit and the Word whereof he speaks is the same that inspir'd the Prophets Words that very well agree with those of Justin which I now come to examine These two Fathers understood by the Word nothing but that prophetick Spirit the fulness whereof dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ and that St. Paul calls the fulness of the Godhead This is in effect the Explication that the Author of the Homilies ascrib'd to Origen has given in Diversos Homil. 2. St. Paul says he calls the fulness of the Godhead those mystick Senses or the truth of those legal Shadows which dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ that is to say truly and really because that he is the Fountain and Fulness of Grace the truth of the antient Symbols and the accomplishment of Prophetick Visions But according to the Fathers Jesus Christ was sill'd with this Prophetick Spirit not only when the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a Dove and that God made him a Prophet but especially when he was conceived by the Power of the Highest and he was as I may say begotten a Prophet that is to say when by virtue of his Generation his Body was formed for the Office of a Prophet And 't is chiefly this last Consideration that is urg'd against the Josephites because this Privilege of his Birth makes us to regard him not only as a Man who was a Prophet but as a Prophet who was also the Son of God But to return to the Passage from Theophilus if it be read thruout one shall find a fine Allegory upon the Word and the Holy Spirit which he calls the Wisdom of God Sometimes he considers 'em as two Divine Emanations proceeding from the Bowels of God and which God us'd as his two Hands or two Ministers by whom he created the World And sometimes he makes 'em but one Operation and so both are the Spirit and the Word the Wisdom and the Power of God c. Why so If not because that this Spirit takes divers Names either for the diversity of its Prolation or for its different Operations For the Word is the Spirit or Breath prolated with a Sound and a Voice and the Spirit is a Word brought forth tacitely and in silence the one with the other without sound One acts inwardly in a hidden and secret manner and the other outwardly and openly 'T is thus the Fathers speak In my opinion 't is idle to look for any exactness in these sort of allegorical Discourses which are loose and where the Fancy taking its swing drives on in full Career Irendus one of those Fathers who was obliged to urge the miraculous Conception of our Saviour against the Epionites confounded the Holy Ghost with the Word These Hereticks would not own says Ireraeus lib. 5. cap. 1. the Vnion of God with Man Why Because says he they believed the Lord Jesus to be a mere Man How a mere Man Because they believed him to be the Son of Joseph and Mary like other Men and not of a Virgin by the Operation of the Holy Ghost What says the Holy Father to this He laments that they would not consider how in the first Creation the Breath of God uniting it self to the Body of Adam animated the Man and made him a reasonable Creature So in the New Creation the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God being united to the old Substance of Adam hath form'd a living and perfect Man who contains in himself the perfect Father Dr. Bull in his Judic Eccles p. 10. having cited this Passage takes no notice of these words who contains in himself the perfect Father it may be because Irenaeus seems to say that 't was the Father who was incarnate or as 't is more probable because these Words expresly demonstrate that by the Word Irenaeus understood nothing but the very Power of God The living Man of whom he speaks containing in himself the perfect Father only because he was filled with God's Spirit and God's Word which were united to the Man But whatever he himself thought this is a truth that one perceives at first in reading the Text of Irenaeus 'T is at least most evident that he confounds the Spirit of God with the Word of the Father as one and the same Power which formed the New Adam and that he opposes it to the Divine Breath and Spirit of God which animated the first Adam His only aim being to oppose the Ebionites who denied that the Spirit of God interven'd in the Conception of Jesus Christ His only concern is also to establish firmly this miraculous Conception and to make 'em regard Jesus Christ as the most perfect Man whom the Father who is perfect had miraculously begotten by his Word and by his Spirit in the same manner as by the means of his Almighty Word he animated the first Man with the Breath of Life To make Irenaeus his Conception of the Word the same with the Moderns is to see and not perceive In short by reading his Text alone one shall be convinced that in his stating the Divinity of Jesus Christ he goes no farther than his miraculous Conception by the Holy Ghost He not only confounds the Word with the Spirit but calls the Word the Descent of the Holy Spirit into the Womb of Mary He calls it I say the Union and Mixture of God with Man He says the Father wrought at the Incarnation of his Son or at the new Generation with the same Hands excuse his Phrase as he did at the Generation of the Old Adam If we ask him what he means by Hands in this place he tells you in his 4th Book 37 Chap. that he understands thereby the Word of God his Son his Wisdom and his Spirit He means that powerful Command which God us'd in the Creation of things which is called his Spirit forasmuch as it is in God and is in a manner his Soul and which is also call'd his Word and his Son in regard that it came from his Mouth to form the Creation it was in a manner begotten That is to say by the same manner of speaking that the Wisdom and the Power of God are called his Hands by the same they are called his Son his Word
and Reasonings are the same with those of Beza concerning it we will not count him for a separate Witness The third Interpreter I shall alledg is Coelius Secundus Curio who speaks thus in his Araneus The Sacred History informs us that several have seen God present let it be so but the same History teacheth us that these were Angels and ministring Spirits who holding the Place of God did appear unto Men and spake in his Name in a visible Form and Person And not this only but the incomprehensible God being willing to make himself known in a more illustrious manner did moreover insinuate himself into J. C. with all his Majesty for we read thus in the Gospel The Father that dwells in me he doth the Works and he that seeth me seeth my Father also Add to these the Words of the Apostle God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself and these also He was pleas'd that all the Fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily in Jesus Christ Doth not all this manifestly prove this Author plainly acknowledges that as Angels had been the Person or the Word of God J. C. was so likewise but yet a Word more excellent and a Person more noble into which God insinuated himself not God the Son as they tell us but God the Father according to the Passage the Author quotes Pater in me manâ—â—s facit ipse opera The Paraphrase of the same Author on the beginning of the Gospel of St. John is yet more express Before saith he that God created the World he had in himself the Cause and the Reason of all things the Idea and the Design Altho this Reason was with God we must not therefore imagine that it was any thing else but God himself For God was that Reason but seeing God cannot be seen with our Eyes nor comprehended by our Mind he was pleas'd to put on a Person under which he might shew himself as it were in his natural and living Image Now seeing he is an only and simple Being and cannot borrow any form of himself he produc'd himself one without by the mean of a Voice and a Light wholly Divine which because he made use of it to instruct us and manifest himself was called his Word that is to say his Oracle and his Wisdom c. to the 14th ver where he proceeds thus Would you have me at last to discover this great Mystery And tell you under what Form God came unto Men This Word this Reason this Wisdom this Oracle was made Flesh and this Flesh which is called Man that he might raise ours to a Sovereign Immortality A Metamorphosis to be admir'd in all Ages God was the Word the Word was the Life the Life was the Light of Men the Light was Flesh the Flesh Man the Man God who is blessed for ever God and Man have join'd themselves together for God was in J. C. reconciling the Word to himself 'T is on this wise that God the Sovereign God Deus Deus ille O Man manifested himself in the Flesh and conversed amongst us Hence comes it that a great Prophet gives him the Name of Emanuel This Learned Man's Words are remarkable He saith that the invisible God being willing to make himself known was pleas'd to put on a Person that is to say give himself a Figure take a sensible Image under which he produced himself outwardly That this Image consisting in a Light and a Voice which he made use of to shew himself and to instruct us was for that reason call'd his Word So that the Word of S. John and the Image of the invisible God as S. Paul has it are the self-same thing Thus you have the Word excellently well defin'd according to the Ideas of Clement neither do I believe that a neater and more distinct Notion can be formed of it nor one more agreeing with the Scriptures which tell us so often of the Glory of God of his Face of his Dwelling of his Presence in an Angel in a Cloud in a Light in a Fire with a Clap of Thunder with a Voice or with a gentle and still Sound and what can this be I pray you but his Person and his Word You need only read Maimonides in his More Nevochim P. 1. ch 25 64. where with extraordinary Clearness he explains what the antient Word is saying that it is the Habitation of the Divine Majesty and Providence in some certain Place where he would make himself known which he causeth to dart forth miraculously under the Representation of a created Light Would you have the same Word under the N. Testament Consider the extraordinary Providence that presided at the Conception of the Messiah behold an Angel that speaks and is the Voice of God on this occasion a Spirit overshadowing the Holy Virgin the which resembles so much the light Cloud that cover'd the Tabernacle behold the Habitation of God in the Messiah dwelling himself amongst us In a word see the Majesty of the Father in the Son whose Glory we have beheld If this will not suffice get up the Mount to the Transfiguration of J. C. you will there see an Apparition of two great Prophets a Cloud that covers them a Light spreading it self over J. C. his Face becoming bright like the Sun and lastly a Voice coming out of the Cloud saying these Words This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleas'd hear ye him Behold here the Word wherein God gives all the Marks of his Presence and whence he declares his principal Will which is that we should give ear to his Son the only Oracle and the sole Word by which he would ever hereafter discover himself and speak to us Irenaeus had no other Idea of the Word Lib. 4. c. 37. where he saith That the Word designing to shew God in its sundry Dispensations shew'd him made like to a Man that by this mean he preserv'd to the Father his Invisibility lest Man should come to despise him that if the Manifestation of God which was at the Creation of the World did give Life unto Men how much more will the Manifestation of the Father by the Word give Life to all those who see God on this wise That the Prophets never saw the Face of God uncover'd but only certain Dispensations and certain Mysteries by which God began to shew himself that these first Sketches of the Divine Manifestation were only the Preludes of that which was to be made by J. C. That the Father is invisible in Truth that no Person ever saw him but that the Word manag'd the Dispensations of the Father and shew'd their Glory as it thought fit Irenaeus tells us afterwards That the Word appeared under different Figures of a Man a Wind a Light a Cloud a Fire c. which discovers to us that all external Manifestation whether it be by Angels or by the Flesh of J. C. is the Word of God as all internal Communication
said And indeed on the least Application in considering the Existence of this Universe it s well contriv'd Disposal its Parts so exactly adjusted to each other its admirable Order its regular Motion its Vastness Form Laws and Proportions its Corruptions and Productions its Duration Stability and Variety and in a word all the Wonders wherewith it is filled one must necessarily conclude the Meditation in confessing that immense Goodness gave Birth to the Design of it that profound Wisdom fram'd its Model and Figure that Infinite Power executed so great a Project and that these three Properties together preserve it and give Motion to all its Springs This Philosophy was not unknown to Caelius Rhodoginus as he expresses himself clearly enough on it in his Preface to his 1st Book Lection antiq The Heavens says he relate God's Glory c. It is certainly so the Greatness of so exquisite a Work its Strength and Motion do well shew the astonishing Power of its Maker Its Oeconomy and so well contriv'd Disposal publish his Wisdom and we discover Infinite Goodness in its Usefulness and Advantages Wherefore the Divine Platonistâ— rever'd this Universe as the most August Representation of the most High God Thâ—sius in his Notes on Lactanius de Opific c. â— did also penetrate to the prime source of this good Philosophy consisting in a Trinity of Principles God says he created this beautful World and has adorn'd it with a thousand Wonders to the end that the Mind of Man contemplating so amazing a Work might admit the Wisdom Goodness and Power of the great Maker of it So Minutius Felix reasons in his Octavius Observe says he all things which have Being God makes them to be by his Word disposes them by his Reason and brings them to their Perfection by his Power Good Philosophy went directly to a Trinity which may be known by the Light of Nature Some difference will be seen in the manner of expressing but in the main 't is always the same Truth Plato saw this great Truth Some others had seen it before him tho not so distinctly However they all saw it not only by way of the Cabala and Tradition as is now pretended but as a natural Thing and as a Truth which was owing to their diligent Search and Enquiry A modern Author hath with much Reason acknowledged Graverol in his Moses vindicatus p. 89. That all that is said of the Origin of Philosophy among the Egyptians Chaldeans and Grecians is a most uncertain Tradition and his Opinion is that 't was the Fruit of their Study and Experience What he says of Philosophy in general is yet in particular more true of this part of it which treats of the three Principles whereof we have been speaking It is by their long Searches into the Origin of the World and not by Tradition at least by a very uncertain and confus'd Tradition that they attain'd to the Knowledg of these three Principles Goodness Wisdom and Power CHAP. VI. A Digression concerning Socrates's Genius THose are the invisible Excellencies which are discover'd in the visible Works of the Creation and a natural Philosophy which does not depend on Tradition but on Contemplation and Study Socrates did not take any other Method to find the Truth as Apuleus relates after Plato de Deo Socratis Socrates says he being inspir'd by his Genius has assur'd us that he heard a Celestial Voice These Words rightly understood prove what I have been asserting For I don't think this Celestial Voice can signify either the Chaldeans Cabal or any particular Revelation He must be little skill'd in the Allegorical Philosophy of those Times who does not see that by these Words Genius Demon Celestial Voice was meant nothing more than that Socrates by the force of his own Genius and Reason which he always consulted had apprehended this Divine Language of Nature which declares a Creator to us Reason duly consulted and Nature well understood are the Oracle of wise Men Reason says Heraclides Ponticus explaining Homer's Allegories Reason is a Demon which God hath planted in the superiour part of the Body to inspire us with truly Celestial Inclinations The Author who gives us the Life of Socrates in French having mention'd the several Opinions of those who literally believ'd that Socrates had a familiar Demon adds That some others suppos'd that this Genius was only his natural Judgment or his Soul that 't was that which he called his Demon according to the manner of speaking us'd by Philosophers who sometimes gave that Name to that Divine Part of Man which guides and governs him This Doubt adds he is also propos'd by Plutarch in the first Question concerning Plato where speaking of Socrates he says Did he not give the Name of God to his own Nature Thereon quoting the Opinions of Menander Heraclitus and Xenocrates who say that every ones Soul is his God or a Demon. A Friend of Socrates having gone down to Trophonius his Cave on purpose to know from the Oracle what the Demon of Socrates was brought no other Answer thence than that the superiour Part of our Soul which is not overpower'd by our Passions is by the vulgar call'd Vnderstanding but that those who speak better call it a Demon. Another Oracle answer'd Socrates's Father That he should let his Son do whatever came into his Mind without thwarting his natural Inclination because he had in him a Guide and Director more worth than ten thousand Masters As to the Voice which he heard 't is a manner of speaking like the Phrase we daily use my Mind tells me because there is nothing more natural than ascribing Speech and a Voice to that secret Motion of the Soul from which as from a faithful Voice we receive so many Counsels and Informations Whereto add his Prudence solid Judgment and great Experience in the things of the World For why might not such a piercing Mind as his exercis'd by long Study in Philosophy and by attentive Observation of the Manners and Affairs of Men which might have requir'd an extraordinary Facility of Reasoning on all sorts of Circumstances Why I say might he not have seen clearer than others and have discover'd things which are most commonly hid from vulgar Understandings By this Discourse of Monsieur Charpentier it appears that Philosophers have a Mysterious and Theological Language distinct from that of the Vulgar and that we must not suffer our selves to be so deceiv'd by their pompous Words as to make a venerable Mystery of a mere Allegory It is what Father Simon did not omit observing Crit. Hist of the New Testament p. 95. The Platonists says he who have often express'd themselves more like Divines than Philosophers meant nothing more by the Demon or God of Socrates than Reason The Author of the Critical Moral and Historical Reflections is also of this Opinion p. 66. Socrates says he was so wise that foreseeing all things it was believed that he had a familiar Demon
Fevers almost as the Superstitious use some Words of the beginning of St. John's Gospel which they hang about the Patient's Neck as I my self have seen Now in as much as the Basilidians pass for the first Authors among Christians of the Discipline of the Secret and of the Platonick Trinity it is very likely that they design'd to hide it under this Allegorical and Symbolical Name But it is also possible that this Name contains only the Gospel-Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost whereon they allegoriz'd extravagantly according to the Custom of that Time By this Essay which we have been making it sufficiently appears that we could give a rational Meaning to the other Orders of the Aeons wherewith the Gnosticks did also enlarge their System With a little labour in taking off the Veil of Allegory which covers the hidden Meaning of this mysterious Theology one might easily enough discover that the true aim of these Christian Philosophers was to set off the lowness of the Gospel by the suppos'd depths of their Mysteries But we 'll go no farther on this Article The Sample given is sufficient But if any one desires proof of this our Explication of Valentin's Aeons that he conceiv'd them only as the several Affections of the Divine Understanding or as so many Dispensations of Providence let him but consult Chap. 12. of Danaeus de Haeresib To be brief we 'll here quote only the famous Pearson Vindic. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 5. Valentin says he made an open Profession of believing but one God and tho Tertullian asserts somewhat Rhetorically that this Heretick believ'd as many Gods as he number'd Aeons that Father himself did nevertheless own that Valentin's Aeons were nothing else but the Divine Propertys and Affections whereof his Disciples afterwards made Personal Substances Gallasius had before Pearson observ'd the same thing in Annotat. in lib. 1. Irenaei for he recites the Words of Tertullian Ptolomy says that Father follow'd Valentin's Doctrine only he made Personal Substances subsisting distinctly from God of what Valentin had consider'd only as Affections and Ideas internal and intimate to the Godhead Irenaeus also informs us that by these Aeons Valentin understood only certain Dispositions and Powers of the most High God Summi Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tantum quasdam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he clearly explains in his L. 1. c. 6. where he relates the System of the discreet Valentinians When say they the Supreme God would produce any thing he was in that respect call'd Father but because his Productions are true he was at the same time called the Truth and then when he would produce and manifest himself he was called the Mun. The Man by speaking begat the Word which is the first-born Son All which shews that Allegory being undetermin'd every one took it the way which best pleas'd him But however it appears that they all agree that these Aeons are nothing else but God's several Affections or Dispensations What 's peculiar in this last Hypothesis is that Man which signifies God manifesting himself utters the Word his First-born Which yet has a good Sense according to Mark the Valentinian who in Chap. 10. of the same Book says That God to give a visible Form to the invisible Grandures which are in him utter'd his Word like himself Understanding by the Word only the visible Form which God takes to manifest himself in So our Quakers understand no more by the Word than the Goodness of the Supreme God manifesting himself to Men. This was the Opinion of the Sabellians who by the Christ did not any way understand a Man but only Divine Clemency and Heavenly Aid manifesting it self to Men in the Work of Redemption It may perhaps also have been the Opinion of Clemens Alexandrinus who as we have already seen calls the Word the most manifest Goodness of God That of Origen and of many other Allegorists does not at all differ from it since they did not so much believe in the Son of Mary as in their Theologiz'd Son as they speak much slighting Faith and the sensible Gospel as we shall shew hereafter and valuing only Contemplation This Platonick Fanaticism has Cerinthus for its Author who carefully distinguish'd Jesus the Son of Mary from this Christ or this Celestial Aid which came to enlighten and guide Men and it is now adopted by Father Malebranche Dr. More and Mr. Norris This last is a right Platonick Fanatick who has brought disorder and confusion into both the Speculative part of Religion and the Duties of Christian Piety His several Treatises of Doctrine and of Morality shew that the Dreams of a contemplative Man are capable of converting the most sensible Lights of Reason and Revelation into Smoak Can we forbear judging of what he has written of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato as we judg of what he has written concerning the Love of God which he makes to consist in such refin'd Contemplations and Enthusiasms as render Gospel-Morality tho of it self so plain and natural wholly impracticable Fanaticism all over And if we see it in the Morality of these Visionaries why do we not perceive that their strain'd Platonism is no less the fruit of Mystical Theology The Fathers were right Quakers in their System of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if we will not be Quakers in point of Morality let us keep close to our Principles and neither be so in the Doctrine of the Word and such other speculative Points as have been render'd incomprehensible by too much refining of them If I may say what I think this Gallimaufry about the Divine Word which is defin'd see the Treatise intitul'd Reason and Religion An intelligible World Archetype and Ideal or even the Essence of God as far as it is variously imitable variously exhibitive and representative of all things which exist This Cant I say is suspected by me and I am tempted to believe that under these specious Names nothing more is given us than a fair System of my Understanding with its Reason and Ideas or to speak better its universal and unchangeable Natures which the Philosophers call'd the Reality and Truth of things and whereof they made even the Essence of God Yea I dare venture to say that 't is Deism or Atheism disguis'd The Accusation is heinous and requires Proofs of the utmost evidence Well and we shall produce them Read and weigh these Words ubi supra p. 209. that Author says The Idea of a Triangle has a determinate and immutable Nature such as it is not in my power to make the least alteration in which is a certain Proof that it is not of my making for then it would be arbitrary and I might change it as I pleas'd but that it is an absolute Nature distinct from and independant of my Understanding And to say the truth it is nothing else than the Essence of God himself modify'd and as it is exhibitive and imitable
hereof you need only read his Book de Temulentia where he pusheth on very far his Allegory of a Spiritual Marriage between God and Wisdom saying that the latter was deliver'd of an only and well-beloved Son that is the sensible World He makes use of the same Expression in the Book of the Life of Moses where he calls the World the most perfect Son of God One of our Authors Steph. le Moine in Notis ad Hippolyti Sermonem hath sincerely acknowledg'd this Truth It is true saith he that Philo the Jew hath often spoke of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he calls the Angels the Words of God and what is more he calls the World so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Philo borrow'd these ways of Expression from the Platonists for dwelling at Alexandria where there were many of these Philosophers he took from their Opinions very many things which he inserted in his Writings As to Josephus his Studies were wholly different for not having had any Commerce with the Platonists you cannot discover in him that Genius and Inclination to Allegory so much observ'd in Philo so that we cannot trace any thing of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in him It is objected that Philo hath given the Name of God to the Word of Plato which he had not done if he had understood the World by it 'T is remarkable saith Cudworth in his Intellect Syst p. 549. that Philo altho a great Enemy to Polytheism doth not stick to call the Divine Word according to the Platonists a second God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without thinking to thwart his Religion and the first Commandment of God But this Author excuseth Philo but ill saying That the Commandment speaks only of created Gods whereas Philo held his second God to be eternal and consequently an uncreated God It is absurd to think that a Jew would have admitted of a second uncreated God as if there could be many uncreated Cudworth over-lookt that Philo speaking as a Platonist allegorizeth upon the intelligible World which he calls the second God inasmuch as he looks upon it as an Emanation of the Divine Understanding even as the Plan and the Idea of a Building is the Emanation of the Understanding of an Architect that intends to build it according to this Image Which is a Comparison very samiliar to the Platonicks as you will find it in Philo himself in the beginning of his Book de Mundi Opificio The intelligible World saith he is nothing else but the Word of God preparing it self to create the World even as an intelligible City is nothing else but the Reasoning of the Architect that designs to build a City according to the Plan that he form'd of it in his Mind Now can any one be ignorant that this internal Word this City or this intelligible World are nothing else but the Understanding of the Architect and consequently the Architect himself From whence we discover the reason why Philo who own'd the second God of the Platonists would not platonize yet further being unwilling to admit of their third God for fear of contradicting his Religion which could not allow the created World to be a God the Platonists calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Creature If he went no further 't is because he might carry on his Allegory so far as to the making of a second God of the Image which is in the Divine Understanding and which is God himself But he could not without danger carry it on as far as the visible World which is a Creature so as to make it a third God seeing this third God as Petavius remarks Annot. ad Syness in Calv. Encomium is nothing else in the opinion of the Platonists and Stoicks but the sensible World only Cicero 2. de Natura Deor. And is the same that Philo calls the only Son whose Father is God and his Mother Wisdom which ought to be distinguish'd from that other which the same Author calls the Word of God and the intelligible World I say the Word this being the Name he always gives to the intelligible World never calling it the Son as he doth the sensible World See Maldon in Joh. 1.1 But when Philo sometimes gives the Name of God to the Soul of the World he understands by the Soul of the World no more as Cudworth hath own'd than the Word it self or the second God to whom he might give different Names according to the diversity of Notions that he form'd either of God or of the Wisdom or Power c. But however it be 't is always whilst he considers the thing in God and never out of God nor in the created World In this same Sense St. John said that the Word that made all things was in God and that the Life or the Soul was in that Word not distinguishing at all the Soul from the Word as the Platonists did You may judg by this whether Mr. Le Clerc had good ground to quote Philo in his Paraphrase upon St. John as one of those who were not ignorant of the Mystery of Three in the Deity Philo having said first That in the literal Sense the three Men that appear'd to Abraham were three Angels he afterwards goes on to the hidden and allegorick Sense where he saith that it is God accompany'd by his two Powers whereof the one is that Power that created the World the other that Wisdom which conducts and governs it God saith he between these two Powers presents to an enlighten'd Soul sometimes one Image only sometimes three For our Soul seeth but one Image when being purified by Contemplation she raiseth her self above all Numbers and advanceth to that pure and simple Idea which is one and independent of all others On the contrary the Soul considers three of them when not being as yet initiated in the Mysteries of the first Order she stops at the smaller viz. when not being capable of comprehending him who is consider'd in himself and without any foreign Aid she seeks him in his several Relations of Creator and King The Mystery of Three then according to him is for low Souls who are not capable of comprehending God in his Unity independently of all Creature and that seek him in the Works of Creation and Providence But the great Mystery of purified Souls is to raise themselves by a Contemplation transcending all Creatures towards that only and simple Idea that hath nothing common with the rest Lastly he pretends that there is a third Sense differing from that of the Contemplation which he seems besides to call the Letter of the Scripture according to which 't is he who is with his two Powers But this last cannot be the literal Sense seeing it would be contradictory to say that in the literal Sense they were three Angels and yet in the same Sense it was he who is with his two Powers Besides that by this means he would confound this last Sense with the second which
Resemblances tho it continued the same at the bottom But the second Method fix'd on the Number Three which were always reckoned in the same Order and had almost always the same Names given them could not be liable to the same Confusion especially among Christians who applied it constantly to the Father Son and Holy Ghost Besides they could explain themselves clearly in this last Method and speak of it distinctly whereas the other in its very rise was a politick Method prudentially invented and which was understood either ill or not at all because it kept secret and allegorical Furthermore the same distinction of gross and subtil Platonism ought to take place in reference to the other two Systems viz. in relation to the Creator Matter and Form and with respect to the Father the intelligible World and the sensible World If you distinguish not well between the Allegory and the Letter nothing will prove more intricate or unintelligible Lastly the principal Cause of this Confusion is these two Methods being so often intermix'd for if you mind it the Fathers sometime philosophizing according to the spurious Platonism insist rigidly on the sense of the three Hypostases and sometimes treading in the Footsteps of the true and antient Platonism do only allegorize and by their Emanations seem rather to mean the Powers of the supreme Being than Spirits subsisting Sometimes nothing will serve their turn but Subsistences Substances a true Generation and a real Procession At other times 't is a quite different thing they mean only the Powers and different Oeconomies of God manifesting himself in the Creation of the World to which they seem to give improperly the Name of a generated Son and Wisdom brought forth which doubtless is the Cause why so much Sabellianism overspreads their Writings We need not wonder henceâ—â—â—th if their Trinity is sometimes so inconsistent with the Vnity of God this proceeds from their gross Platonism Whereas in other Places their Three Principles suffer the Vnity to remain intire which proceeds from their refin'd Platonism CHAP. XIII The Christians have contriv'd a twofold Word grounded upon the two Words of Plato They meant only by Generation the Prolation of the second Word which happened a little before the Creation of the World SOCRATES reduc'd Philosophy to Morality his Disciple Plato advanced it further even to Theology by making three Persons or three Divine Hypostases of the three Divine Properties by whose concurrence the World was created or rather by conceiving a Creator infinitely Good with an Vnderstanding drawing the Plan of the World and an Energy that performs it These Theologic Philosophers allegorizing after their wonted manner changed the intelligible World into the Word and the sensible World into a Son The one is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Fathers in like manner distinguish'd the two Words whereof the one is internal the other brought forth and consider'd only the second as a Son because properly speaing they called Generation only that which was perform'd at the beginning of the World They say When God wil'ed to create the World he brought forth or generated the Word May you not easily perceive that such Modes of Speech owe their rise to the Mystic Philosophy which consider'd the whole World as the Son of God and as a Son generated by his Word or Command Yes these Turns of Expression owe their birth to some Poetical ones of the Heathens like those of Orpheus related by Justin in Protrep ad Gentil I swear saith the Poet by that Voice which the Heavenly Father uttered when he formed the whole Creation Then it was according to Justin that God generated his Word because he brought it forth in order to create the World All this is well meant and grounded upon the Words of Moses The only difference I remark in the System about these two Words is seeing Allegory is arbitrary some have fix'd it on the sensible World which they made to be the Son of God as many of the Philosophers we quoted have done because they consider'd it as the Production of the Divine Speech or Power but others fixed their Allegory upon the intelligible or Ideal World even on the Speech it self as thrust forth which they considered as a Production of the Divine Vnderstanding This last System was followed by the Christians when they personalized either the Word brought forth as the first Fathers and the Arians or the Internal and Mental Word as the Fathers of the Council of Nice and the Athanasians did Dr. Bull being forc'd to own this Truth pretends to clear the difficulty by distinguishing a twofold Generation of the Word the one Eternal and the other Temporal and maintaining that the Fathers consider'd the first as Real the second as Metaphorical but just the contrary hereof is true Theophilus of Antioch distinguisheth carefully the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Thought of God from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Word generated Athenagoras and Tatian tell us of a Son who was in God in Idea and potentially before he actually existed as a Person Tertullian saith There was a time when the Son was not a Son and that the Father was not always a Father that the Word which he distinguisheth from Reason was not from the beginning Novatian declares expresly chap. 31. that the Procession of the Son which was done when the Father willed it that is to say when he resolved to create the World That this Prolation say I made the Son a second Person Origen and Clement make a difference between the Word which was God and the Word which was made Flesh meaning that the former was the internal Word which is the Divine Vnderstanding and God himself and by the latter the Word brought forth which is only an Emanation from the former Prudentius calls J. C. Verbigena begotten of the Word where you may see manifestly the two Words the one generating and the other generated the one being the essential Wisdom of God the other is its Production And the first Word is so far from being the Son that Prudentius considers it as the Father Lastly not to be redicus Marius Victorinus makes to great a difference between the Word speaking and the Word silent that he calls the former the Son and the latter the Father All these Fathers generally tell us that before the Word was generated it was in the Heart of God in the Womb of his Vnderstanding in his Bowels whence it came forth as it were from its Seed and Bud. Either all these Terms mean nothing or they denote that the Son did not then exist otherwise than in the Design and Intent of the Father that he came forth thence when by the virtue of the Divine Prolation he did receive a real Existence Now it is not the first Existence but the second which the Fathers constantly and properly call the Generation of the Son or in other words
the Father because it is only a Breath an Emanation and a Ray. The Word is before all things because it was necessary that God should command before the Creature obeyed But all things are born together with it because God created the World by bringing forth and begetting the Word We should open our Eyes and see the Cabala of the Creation of the World through all these mysterious Generations So as Clement of Alexandria expounds it in brief Strom. lib. 5. The Word saith he coming out of God did cause the Creation that is to speak plainly God created the World by one single Word and seeing this great Maker made no use of any other Instrument hence it came to pass no doubt that this Word of his was called his Minister But let us return to immediate Generation As the Philosophers understood by Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing else but the Universal Idea of the World which they called the first-born Son of God because it is the Plan of this sensible World So the Fathers being enur'd to this way of philosophizing conceiv'd also the Idea of the Messiah to be the first Idea in the Spiritual World and an Universal One and to be the Source and Seed of all the other Ideas In this sense Tertullian against Hermogenes makes Wisdom to be more antient than the Word meaning that this Wisdom did thrust the Word it self out of the Heart of God and together all the various Forms of existing things Which is a mere Allegory the meaning of which is that the Word brought forth and all other things were made according to the Plan and Idea of the internal Word which is the immediate Production of the Divine Understanding Hence it comes that Justin in his second Apology distinguisheth the Universal Reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Primitive Seed which is nothing else but the Wisdom of God from Reason which is in every Man and which is only a Portion and Emanation of the Divine Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Philosophers consider'd these Seeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. In God and then they differ not from Platonic Ideas which are not only the Forms of Creatures trac'd in the Divine Understanding but also are the Causes and the Origin of all Productions Marcus Antoninus made use of this Word in that sense lib. 4. § 10. 2. They considered these Seeds in things created designing to denote by them their Essences and Forms but especially that of Man who is as it were a Portion of the Wisdom of God This last is the sense of Justin But they distinguish'd among these Primitive Seeds the Idea of the Messiah as an immediate one and the first in the Divine Understanding for the sake of which God trac'd and form'd all the rest Hence arose that common Opinion that God created the World for the Messiah This Opinion whether true or false gave occasion to Mahomet to apply to himself this Prerogative of the Messiah that God would not have created the Heaven and the Earth had it not been for the Love he bare him apud Barthol Edessen in confut Agaren Furthermore if any will demand how it happened that so many of the Disciples of Plato both Christians and Pagans did so grosly follow the Letter of his three Principles made three Hypostases of them and changed his Cosmogony into a mere Theogony I answer as Mons Le Clerc doth concerning Idolatry on Exod. 20.4 It proceeded saith he from the Craft of Priests who in order to make Religion more August talk'd but very obscurely of its Mysteries whatever was clear was not convenient for them but every thing must be concealed under Symbols and Riddles and seeing that Symbolical Religion was purely arbitrary it came to pass that the true sense of those Symbols was effaced out of the Minds of Men nothing remaining for the Vulgar except what made an Impression upon their senses So that they believed at last that the Deity it self dwelt under those Figures At first they design'd to represent under the Symbolical Figure of an Ox only a King devoted to Husbandry but at last they came to believe that the Soul it self of that King deified did inhabit that Ox. No doubt but the Philosophers themselves were a part of the People The shrewder of them having found the Truth had some Reasons to cover it under Fictions thereby to disguise it to others Plato had his as we have seen already He having found the Father of the World to be the most good wise and powerful God and having found it dangerous to speak of him according to Truth he made three Hypostases and three Gods of the three Attributes which he conceived were in the Creator and spake of them Majestically under the Names of Good Reason and the Soul of the World or under some other Fictions that vary the Terms yet without altering the secret Doctrine contained in those Symbols This Symbolic Theology being arbitrary or rather a mere Fiction the Sense â—â—â—tained under that Shell dwindled away by little and little The Letter remaining alone they philosophized only on the indeterminate System of three Hypostases viz. of a First Second and Third God The Christians especially were not wanting to make a noise about this Mystery to render their Religion the more pompous But after all it was the gross Platonism that turned the Christian Doctrines into a mere Pag 〈…〉 Turns the best things degenerate but it was not so from the beginning CHAP XV. The Sentiment of the Moralists among the Jews concerning the Wisdom or the Word St. John hath imitated them I Know it is pretended that the Jews were not ignorant of the Mystery of the Platonic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in truth there is too much Weakness in what is alledged from the 8th of Proverbs and some other Places in their moral Books I am amazed to think that any body should not see this Chapter to be figurative and that Solomon speaks there of Wisdom in general such as it is in God or as he hath communicated it to Man but especially of that which shines forth and is to be admired in the Creation of the World as some of the Orthodox understood it in St. Jerom's time Hieron in cap. 2. Ephes Dr. Patrick now Bishop of Ely doth freely own in his Paraphrase on this Chapter that Solomon speaks here of nothing else but the wise Laws which God had given to the Israelites Arg. ver 21 22 c. This is expressed in such magnificent Language that tho Solomon I suppose thought of nothing but the wise Directions God had given them in his Word revealed to them by his Servant Moses and the Prophets yet the antient Christians thought his Words might be better applied to the Wisdom revealed unto us in the Gospel by the Son of God himself the Eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father Could he have expressed himself more clearly to give
If it be so his History of a Phaenix ought not to seem so strange to us it is a Fable containing a great Truth in his Opinion he makes use of it as of an ingenious Allegory that seems to have been made expresly to represent to Men the Doctrine of the Resurrection As to the rest whenever Clement doth not allegorize he explains to us simply his Sentiment about the Word and the Trinity As to the former he saith in Chap. 27. of his 1st Ep. to the Corinthians That God founded all things by the Word of his Power and that he can destroy them by the same Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utrobique Whence it is evident that the Word in his sense is only the Power and Efficacy of God by which as he created the World he can also destroy it when he pleaseth This agrees with the Scriptures saying By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the Breath of his Mouth Psal 33.6 and that by the same Breath he destroys the Wicked Isa 11.4 2 Thess 2.8 We cannot find here the Platonic Ideas of a Personalized Word so that Photius had reason to complain Bibl. Cod. 126. that Clement did not speak of J. C. in that sublime Stile which is made use of when God is spoken of His Simplicity has offended those that love only the high-flown Philosophy of Plato For whereas a Platonic Christian would never have omitted on such an occasion to inculcate that God the Father created all things by his Son who is his Word and eternal Wisdom Clement is dumb here and contents himself to attribute the Creation to the Power or the Command of God Elsewhere when he speaks expresly of J. C. he withholds himself from giving him any other Excellencies or Titles than those resulting from the Offices he possesseth by the Gift of God as a Recompence for his Sufferings viz. those of an High-Priest and Lord never quoting any other Passages but those that serve to this purpose As to his Trinity nothing is more simple for being willing to move the Corinthians to Concord and Union he alledgeth this Motive among the rest Have we any other but the same God the same Christ and the same Spirit of Grace shed upon us This is a Trinity of a Man truly Apostolic one God one Messiah and one Spirit shed upon the Faithful CHAP. XVIII Of the Method of the refin'd Platonists and of Allegory in General FROM these Disciples of the Apostles let us come to the Disciples of Plato Peruse the Platonist Writers and you 'll therein find yet some remains of well contrived Platonism They having conceived the Ideas and Archetypes of all Creatures which are in the visible World to be in the intelligible World did easily invent a Spiritual and Intelligible Gospel which is the Substance and First Form of the sensible Gospel a Distinction which Origen did not fail to make as he distinguisht between the exemplary and ideal Word different from the sensible Word and as he expresses it in his second Tom. on John A Word which was in God and which was as different from that which was made Flesh as an Original is from the Copy Substance and Reality from the Shadow They use the Comparison of an Architect who has in his Mind the Idea and Plan of a House he intends to build Whereon they giving themselves liberty find all the Wonders of our Gospel in the Ideas of the Divine Understanding If in the sensible Church there be found an Oracle and Interpreter from God born of the Father by the Holy Ghost making the new Creature by the Power and Wisdom which he has received from the Father To this they make another Answer in the intelligible Church a Word proceeding from the Bosom or Understanding of God begotten of his Substance who is the Eternal Wisdom of God and secondary Cause of all things subsisting in the World Take off the veil of Allegory or rather suppose all that to be Allegory and 't is a rational Philosophy which reduces all to God's eternal Decrees as the prime Cause of all existent Beings but particularly of Christ who being with respect to his Essence the only Son and First born of all Creatures consequently is in God's Vnderstanding the Idea which God immediately begets whereon all others depend He is I say the noblest Idea or as some speak the Idea of Ideas And if they found this Christ in the Ideas and Decrees of God it is not to be wonder'd if they found him also in the antient Dispensation of Angels while 't is not more difficult seeing him in those first Sketches than in the Design and Idea which God had fram'd of him Thus far I perceive right Platonism I see in it the Foot-steps of what it was when in its Purity and I at the same time observe in it fair remains of antient Allegory either of the Jews or of the Chaldaeans who delighted in profound Senses and theological Interpretations But I no sooner cast my eye on those eternal Substances conceiv'd as real Emanations those Emanations as real Generations and those Generations as subsisting Persons than I see only deprav'd Platonism as absurd as the Theology of the Poets and as unpolish'd as the Religion of the most superstitious Vulgar To make this Truth the more evident 't will be necessary to say somewhat of Allegory and of the use which the Antients made of it But we must as I promis'd in Page 64. at the same time shew that Disciples who ofttimes change their Masters Method do nevertheless retain certain Remains of the antient Discipline which betrays them and discovers their Innovations That is we will shew the tracks of the antient manner of allegorizing even in those very men who have abandon'd the Allegory of the three Principles and chosen the literal Sense of three Hypostases I have already given some account of it which ought to be recall'd to mind by the Reader to join to what I have farther to say thereon Allegory is a Figure in Speech whereby one thing is expressed and another intimated by rising from the literal to a nobler and more theological Sense See Grotius on Matth. ch 1.22 I shall not here speak of the Enigmatical Science of the Chaldeans and Egyptians but come directly to the Philosophy which is most known to us But before I come to Particulars I must advertise my Reader that if he would be fully inform'd on this Head he may read all the 5th Book of the Stromates of Clemens Alexandrinus I 'll content my self with quoting thence the following Words which give us a general Idea of the Antients Method in the use they made of Allegory All those says that Father who have treated of Divine Matters as well Greeks as Barbarians concealing the Principles of things wrap'd the Truth in Enigma's Symbols Allegories and Metaphors as intricate as those of the Oracles Even the Poets who
seems this allegorical Exposition of the Word of St. John was not unknown in the time of Hyppolitus Hunrl de Deo trino uno contra Noeâ—um For he waises an Objection to himself which shews that it was ung'd against the Platonizers But says that Farther some will say to me You introduce 〈…〉 when you call the 〈…〉 St. John indeed speaks of a Word but he understands it otherwise and by Allegory Hyppolitus does not wholly reject this Exposition and afterwards answers That in truth the Word was called Son from the beginning only because it was afterwards to take birth and become a Son the Word of it self and without Flesh not being a perfect Son Which shews that according to him the Word was nothing else but a Divine Operation which was the Son but improperly and by an imperfect Generation before it was united to the Flesh of Christ One would think Servetus had copied Hyppolitus lib. 2. p. 90. Let us says he exactly follow the Scripture-Stile let us say the Word where that says the Word and the Son where that says the Son a formerly the Word now the Son That if the Word was formerly the Son it is only because it had the Form and was the Seed of the Son which was to come I will then say says he in another place the Prolation of the Word and the Generation of the Son One of our Bishops does not seem to dislike the so explaining the word Son with respect to the Son of Mary rather than with respect to the Begotten-Word Thus he speaks 2d Discourse to the Clergy p. 99. Many have thought that the Term Son did not belong to the Blessed Three but only to our Saviour as he was the Messiah the Jews having had that Notion of the Messiah that as he was to be the King of Israel so he was to be the Son of God Now some Criticks do apprehend that since in many places the term Son of God has manifestly a relation to Christ as the Messiah there is in this an Uniformity in the whole Scripture-Stile so that every where by the hrase Son of God we are to understand Jesus as the Messiah But that the Divine Principle that was in him is in the strictness of Speech to be called as St. John does the Word So that by this if true all the 〈◊〉 conceâ—â—ing an Eâ—ernal 〈◊〉 are out off in the strict sense of the Words the in a larger Sense every Emanation of what sort soever may be so call'd Whenoe appears how vain Dr. Bull 's Endeavours are Judic Eccles to prove that the four sorts of Filiation alledg'd by the Socinians to fill the Signification of the Term Son of God are not sufficient The constant Phraseology of the New Testament ruins his Pretence while not one of those Expressions Son of God is applicable to an eternal Generation And that also shews that the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be otherwise refer'd than to that Divine Operation which over-shadowed the Blessed Virgin and to that effusion of the Holy Ghost which consecrated Jesus Christ in his Office of Messiah And this powerful Virtue can be no other than an allegorical Son as it is a Divine Emanation and every Emanation an improper and figurative Generation It 's to little purpose that Dr. Bull with the Mahometans objects to us That in Christ's being born of a Virgin or ascended into Heaven there is nothing which distinguishes him from the first Man who was made by the Hand of God nor from Enoch who was taken up into Heaven We answer with Bartholomew of Edessa Confut. Aguren What a pitiful Argument that is If Adam may be compar'd to Jesus Christ because he was made by God's own hand without Man's operation it will thence follow that the first Ass and the first Dog may be compared to Adam and to Christ and that they are not of a less excellent nature because they were immediately created as well as Adam and J.C. This Author gives us to understand that what distinguishes Adam from other Animals or J. Christ from Adam himself is not so much the Miracle of their Birth which seems to be every way equal as the excellency of those Gists which they more or less receiv'd by that extraordinary Birth And those degrees of Excellence are shewn by the Breath of God in Adam's Nostrils and by the Operation of the Holy Ghost in the Conception of Jesus Christ That Divine Breath raising Adam above all other Animals and the Holy Ghost being doubtless something more noble than that Breath hath raised Jesus Christ above the first Man and made him the Son of God in a more proper and more peculiar manner So we are likewise to argue on the Exaltation of Jesus Christ and shew that it raises him infinitely above Enoch not by the mere Miracle of raising him to Heaven but by the Sovereign Power which was then communicated to him What shall we say of Origen We might copy his whole Works Read only his first Tome on St. John where he strongly disputes against the Valentinians 1. In shewing them that since they expound the other Names given to our Saviour as the Life the Truth and the Light c. anagogically and allegorically they are his own Terms it is but reasonable that they keep to the same Rule in interpreting the Name of Word and give it an allegorical and figurative Sense 'T is not reasonable says he to them that you will not expound the Term Word in a metaphorical Sense while you allegorically explain that other Phrase the Light of the World Therefore since Jesus Christ is call'd the Light because of his Work or Office which is to enlighten the World it follows that he is also call'd the Word because of his Work which is to cure us of our Errors and Follies to prepare us to act conformably to Truth and Reason Nothing can be more just than this Observation of Origen St. John's Stile is altogether Oriental full of harsh Metaphors hyperbolical Expressions and very peculiar manners of speaking 'T is however impossible for one freed from Prejudices to mistake them How Why every Man whose Head 's not fill'd with mad Platonism will not look for more Mystery in the Term Word than in those of Light Way Life and Truth c. Titles which the Evangelist no less attributes to Jesus Christ than the former Indeed if this Divine Saviour is the Light and the Truth because he is the bearer of a Doctrine which dissipates our Darkness and Errors if he is the Way and the Life because he opens to us the way of attaining everlasting Happiness why may we not argue in the same manner on this other Term Word And why should we not say that J. Christ is so called because he is the Bearer of the Word of God by way of Excellence and the Interpreter of his most authentick Truths 2. Origen endeavours to take from the Valentinians two Passages
Virgin baptized with the Holy Ghost and invested with the Power of the Father who is that Word and that Oracle by which the Father has been pleas'd to speak to us in these last days His Oeconomy being no longer to reveal himself by the Angels but in the Flesh of his Son the visible Image of the Invisible God the Face the Character or the Person as he is called of the Substance of the Father And thus we Christians have but One God who in the way of Oeconomy governs his Family by the Ministry of an Inferiour and but One Lord who by this Oeconomy manages the same Family in the Name of his Superiour There 's a Tract among St. Austin's Works intitul'd De eo quod dictum est Ego sum qui sum which admirably well explains this matter without that mixture of Platonism that Lactantius and Tertullian have in Passages hereafter cited They says that Author making himself one of them who would have it to be an Angel that call'd himself Jehova ought to give us a reason why he calls himself so They answer that as 't is said in the Scripture that the Lord spoke when the Prophet spoke not that the Prophet was the Lord but because the Lord was in the Prophet So when the Lord vouchsafes to speak by an Angel as by a Prophet or an Apostle this Angel may very well be called an Angel upon his own account and the Lord with respect to God dwelling in him The same who speaks in the Man speaks in the Angel wherefore the Angel of God who appeared to Moses said I am what I am This is not the Voice of the Temple as he may be called but of him who dwelt in it Afterwards he having shewn that the Apparitions of Angels in the Old Testament cannot be understood of Jesus Christ he adds I suppose we shall understand this matter better by saying that our Fathers own'd the Lord that it was in the Angels or the Being who dwelt in those whom he imploy'd and so give Glory to the Lord who was personated by the Angels and not to the Angels who did personate him This Truth says he is confirm'd by the Epistle to the Hebrews where 't is said the Word spoke by Angels whereby the Apostle reaches us that they were Angels who spoke but that God was heard and honoured in the Angels We are told the same truth in the Acts of the Apostles where St. Stephen reproving the Jews says to 'em Ye stiff-necked c. who received the Law by the disposition of Angels and have not kept it If Stephen had said of an Angel and not of Angels there would be no need of saying farther this is Jesus Christ who is call'd the Angel of Great Counsel Call him one Angel as much as you please but can one call him Angels 'T was therefore One Angel and the Lord in that Angel who said to Moses that ask'd his Name I am what I am There are the same Proofs and Arguments in St. Austin's 3d Book de Trinit who observes That 't was said Angels and not one Angel in the Singular that it might not be said that it was the Son of God And putting to himself this Objection Why do we read God said unto Moses and not the Angel said unto Moses He replys As we say the Judg speaks when the Crier publishes the Lord said when the Prophet spoke So tho the Angel spoke the Word is ascrib'd to God who imploy'd him The same Father arguing strongly against those who believ'd that Jesus Christ appeared to the antient Patriarchs has these Words Lib. 16. cap. 29. de Civit. Dei. God says he appeared to Abraham in the Person of three Men that were without question three Angels tho some imagin'd that one of 'em was Jesus Christ But if Jesus Christ be pretended to be one of the three because Abraham addresses himself to one of 'em why is it not minded that the third who staid with Abraham is called Lord and one of the other two who came to Lot is call'd Lord too in the Singular by the Patriarch when he makes answer to the Lord who was in the two Angels Therefore 't is much more likely that Abraham understood the Lord to be in the three Men and that Lot thought him present in the two There 's the same arguing to be met with in St. Austin's Lib. 2. de Trinit c. 12. This Oeconomy of Angels as you see gives great light to the new Oeconomy of Jesus Christ and opens a way for our understanding it For 't is but to apply to this last Dispensation all that those Authors have said of the Angels and we shall have a Key to understand the Passages of the New Testament which speak of Jesus Christ as of God himself We need say no more than this that Jesus in himself was a Man and a God with respect to God dwelling in him So that the Man is not the Lord Jehovah but the Lord is in the Man and whatever Name he has or Power he claims 't is not the Voice of the Temple but of him who dwelt in it In short all that has been said of the Angel may it not be said of the Man except this that there are two Natures in him And if the Angel might assume the Names and Characters of Jehovah without being concluded to be himself the Jehovah why may not the like Names and Characters be given Christ without concluding thence that he is the Supreme God This Reflection sinks the great Objection of the Trinitarians their modish Argument I had almost said for 't is the beaten Track of the modern Disputants How strange must it be say they for the New Testament Writers if they did not look upon Jesus Christ to be the Supreme God to speak of him as of God himself Would those Holy Men have led us into so great an Error by their extravagant Forms of speaking if it were not so But this ambulatory way of discoursing is pure Declamation and may be ruinâ—d with ease at a blow by making 'em sensible that if one reasons after their fashion upon the Conduct of the Writers of the Old Testament who have spoken of an Angel as of God himself one may prove to 'em in their own beloved way that that Angel was the Supreme God But let 'em but once understand the Oeconomy and they will forbear to give us any further trouble in this particular THE SECOND PART OF Platonism Unveil'd CHAP. I. The Primitive Fathers deify'd Jesus Christ or give him the Title of a God HAD the Antients then no true Theology Yes without question and we shall infallibly find it if we ascend a little higher than the date of Platonism which afterward reduced it to that miserable state wherein I am going to represent it And I know not how it can be done better than in the Ideas of a Learned Trinitarian who has spoke the truth in
Principle of his Son whom he has made Lord. But the Son is the God of all the Creatures because God the Father has set him at their Head when he made him Lord. Whence it follows that Jesus Christ may well be called God when you consider him at the head of the New Creation which God has subjected to his Dominion But this Title vanishes when the Apostle St. Paul is speaking of the Father and the Son together then the Son can have no other Character but what is fully signified and explain'd in the Notion of God's Minister and Embassador So true is it that before the only True and Supreme God every other Deity must fall down and disappear So that Bp Pearson had reason to say that Ignatius imitates St. Paul for he says in his Epistle to the Ephesians that Jesus Christ was made God in the Flesh which can signify no more than that a Man was raised to Divine Power or Dignity Moreover Ignatius gives Jesus Christ the Title of God without any of those Additions which the Fathers after him make use of He does not call Christ in the Platonick Stile God the Word a God begotten God of God But if it should be said Ignatius has not used the Restrictions of St. Paul and that he calls Christ God simply and absolutely this is not true for he calls him a God made or our God to shew that he is not so but with regard to the Power he received of his Father and exercises over us CHAP. II. The first Fathers did not theologize Jesus Christ i. e. ascribe Divinity to him in the Sense and Terms of the Platonic Fathers who lived in after Ages but merely on the account of his miraculous Birth and Exaltation THAT the most Primitive Fathers gave the Title of God to J. C. in the sense I am about to explain will appear for three Reasons which amount almost to Demonstration My first Reason is taken from the manner wherein Clem. Rom. and Polycarp speak of J. C. Photius says that Clement has given our Saviour the Stile of High Priest but reproaches him for not giving Christ the Characters of a God Is it possible that Clement has done J. C. so great an Injury as not to give him the Character he merits By no means Photius is mistaken and 't is contrary to all reason to imagine so considerable an Omission can be found in a Letter wherein the Church at Rome as Irenaeus tells us lib. 3. c. 2. delivers to the Church of Corinth the Tradition she had received from the Apostles It must be said therefore that this great Critick Photius did not take notice that in the Apostolic Stile of St. Clement the calling J. C. our High Priest and Pontif is the same thing as to call him our God agreeable to the Doctrine of St. Paul who teaches us that when God rais'd his Messias to the Honour of the High Priesthood 't was then he said unto him Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee So that there 's nothing in my Opinion more reasonable and just than the Remark of Grotius Epist 347. Par. 2. who proves the Antiquity of this Epistle of St. Clement for this very reason because it does not speak of J. C. in the Platonic Way and Manner as was done by others in after Ages but in a Simplicity or Plainness altogether as St. Paul had spoken As to St. Polycarp one finds in his Epistle the same Character of Simplicity and Plainness as in St. Clement aforesaid which Photius takes notice of in the place forecited And St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. gives Polycarp's Epistle this fair Character That 't is a most compleat and very proper Instruction in the Faith and Doctrine of Truth Yet one meets with no Platonic Titles in this excellent Epistle In vain will you look for these Phrases the Eternal Word the Pre-existence of the Son of God the Generation from the Womb of the Father c. Nay you will not find in this Epistle so much as the Name of God applied to Christ Where then with respect to Christ are Polycarp's Characters of the true Faith and Doctrine Why they are in those Elogies which Polycarp often repeats as that Jesus Christ is the everlasting High Priest that he is the Son of God that the Father hath rais'd him from the Dead and made him to sit at his right Hand For pray observe St. Polycarp's Creed of the Divinity of the Father and the Son To pass over says he the Mistake and Babble of some Persons let us believe in him who rais'd our Lord Jesus Christ from the Dead and hath crowned him with Glory c. Let us keep our selves clear of the vain and false Doctrine of those Persons aforesaid and keep close to the antient Tradition and Word which was left us from the beginning In which Passage this Holy Person being willing to put the Philippians in mind of the vain Discourse of some and to guide 'em to the source of true Tradition which he makes to consist in believing J. C. was deified by his Father he meant no doubt to bring them off from the vain Philosophy of Plato's Second God and to engage them to that Divinity of J. C. which is founded on his Exaltation For 't is clear that Polycarp ealls here by the Name of true and antient Tradition this summary of the Faith expressed in these Terms Believe ye in him who hath raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the Dead c. This Symbol is agreeable to that of the Apostles and is directly opposite to that vain Doctrine he was about to condemn And this Symbol insisting upon nothing but the Glory J. C. acquired by his Sufferings it must necessarily follow that under the Name of Babble or vain Doctrine St. Polycarp censures that vain and false Glory which Platonizing Christians ascribed to Christ by their fancied Pre-existence In short instead of that unintelligible Babble of other Fathers and I know not what Jargon of a Son of God begotten before all Ages and emanated from the Divine Mind which is exactly the reverse of the Gospel Polycarp here speaks of none other Son of God but one who is an everlasting High Priest rais'd to a Sovereign Glory which is the real Gospel the Tradition of the Apostles and the antient Theology My second Proof is drawn from the Consession of the antient Martyrs there can be no doubt but that those faithful Witnesses of J. C. gave his Person the most illustrious and most honourable Testimony that they could and that they heighten'd their Theology as far as they could without the hezard of their Faith Let us hear therefore what as said of 'em in the Acts of those Marty 〈◊〉 St. Polycarp invokes a Trinity but what Trinity three Persons and one God as 't is expressed God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost God forbid He as Euseb tells us Hist lib. 4. c. 16.
and of Spirit begotten and unbegotten made a God in the Flesh the true Life in Death born of Mary and of God This Father arguing against the Josephites does not oppose to their Error the eternal Generation of the Son of God but his Birth of a Virgin by the Holy Spirit I would say he does not speak of a God incarnate but of a Man who was made God in the Flesh that is to say who was born a God or made a God by his Birth because he was born of God and of the Virgin Mary In this Sense Ignatius assures us that our Physician is partly Flesh and partly Spirit since by his wonderful Conception he partook equally of the fleshly or Human and of the Spiritual and Divine Nature He adds this Physician is begotten and unbegotten since he was begotten of a Woman like other Men and at the same time unbegotten having no Man for his Father Lastly he says that this Physician was born of the Virgin Mary and of God which explains all the rest for 't is as much as to say that he was born of the Virgin Mary by the Power of the Spirit of God and not by her Intercourse with Joseph This word God as you may see being there manifestly oppos'd to Man or to Joseph Jesus Christ our God as Ignatius further says in the same Epistle was conceived of the Virgin Mary according to the Divine Dispensation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in truth of the Seed of David but by the intervention of the Holy Spirit Where one sees the same Antithesis continued which we observ'd in the foregoing Passage that is between God and Mary and between the Seed of David and the Power of the Spirit The true Oeconomy according to Ignatius is not the Incarnation of the Supreme God but the miraculous Conception of the Messiah who is both God and Man by his Birth of a Woman by the Power of God This is a Physician who was made God in the Flesh being born of the Virgin Mary and of God of David and of the Holy Spirit This is the true Divine Dispensation this is the great Mystery of the Christians The same Author in his Epistle to the Church of Smirna presents us with another Passage sutable to this occasion For thus he speaks of Jesus Christ That he was truly of the Race of David or the Son of David according to the Flesh but the Son of God according to the Will and Power of God in that he was truly born of a Virgin Monsieur Daillé having mark'd out this Passage of Ignatius as Heretical since he makes the Generation of the Son to depend on the Will and Power of the Father Bp Pearson gives this account of it in his Vindic. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 9. That 't is clear this Father does not speak of the Eternal Generation of the Son but of his Incarnation which as the World owns was by the Will and Power of God For which reason adds Pearson the Interpolator having a mind to pervert these Words by applying 'em to the Divine Nature he was forc'd to change their Order 'T is sufficient that this Learned Person affirms that in this Passage there 's nothing of an eternal Generation and that Ignatius speaks not but of Jesus Christ in allusion to the Words of the Angel The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee c. Wherefore that which c. shall be called the Son of God 'T is enough that he owns this Conception was so wonderful as to intitle Jesus Christ to the Name and Dignity of the Son of God As for the word Incarnation which Ignatius does not use we 'll excuse it in Pearson 't is a Term of art unknown to the good Father and signifies in the Platonizing Divinity that the Supreme God was made Man And if it be certain that Ignatius did not speak in this Passage but of the miraculous Conception of Jesus Christ can it be doubted whether he discours'd upon that same Subject and by no means on the eternal Generation in the two other Passages I am about to cite and which are very like to this here In the mean time Dr. Bull has the rashness to produce them for a Proof of that which he calls the two Natures of our Saviour that is that of a Supreme God and that of a Man like one of us in his Judic Eccles p. 5 seq Who would not wonder at the Artifice of Divines who have the Skill to pervert these Passages to serve their Notion of the Eternal-Generation We can furthermore shew you the Footsteps of this plain antient Divinity in other of the Fathers who Platonize more than Ignatius as in Justin and Irenaeus But we shall have another opportunity of examining the Theology of those two Fathers at present the Passage in Ignatius will suffice whereby to judg of the rest The only Reflection that remains is that Ignatius having so often distinguish'd between the Son born of God and of Mary and the Son born of David and the Holy Spirit 't is upon this Foundation that the distinction of the two Natures in Christ is founded in the true sense of it or if you please his twofold Filiation the one Divine the other Human. He is the Son of God says the Author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox Quest 66. in that he was born of the Holy Spirit and the Son of Joseph in that he was born of Joseph's Wife 'T is in this the Mystery consists He was born of Joseph's Wife this is but a legal Filiation with regard to Joseph and he was born of the Spirit of God this is a proper and natural Filiation with respect to God So that in this last respect it may be said that he is truly Light of Light and God of God I have already said it and I 'll repeat it again The Fathers thought that the Holy Spirit which overshadowed the Virgin Mary in some sort united it self to the Flesh of Jesus Christ so as never to be separated from it and 't is upon this perpetual Inhabitation that they have philosophized in their manner upon the two Natures of our Saviour Grotius aim'd at this Theology in one of his Notes upon Colos 1.19 The Plenitude of Divine Vertues says he dwelt in Jesus Christ that is to say 't was perpetually and inseparably united and not by intervals as in the Prophets This is what 's called the Hypostatick Vnion This in effect is the personal Union of the Divine with the Human Nature even this Shekinah or this perpetual Inhabitation of the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ To go farther in quest of other Mysteries betrays a Vanity of Mind The Fathers compriz'd all in what I have said and upon it they built those profound Speculations with which their Books are fill'd If at some times they went farther and spoke of the Word in a manner not agreeable with the ground I have laid down 't is
Testimony Every one frames for himself an Idea of sound Doctrine according to his particular Judgment of things Supposing therefore that this antient Author believed as the Orthodox Doctrine of his time was that J. C. was not the Son of Joseph and Mary and supposing on the other side there was none other Theology of his Birth than this that he was the Son of God by the Virgin Mary Hegesippus might very well say the Nazarene Bishops were sound in their Doctrine of the Person of J. C. without any ground for concluding thence that they held the Platonic Faith and were of Eusebius his Judgment 'T is enough that they were not engaged in the Error of the Ebionites because they were Orthodox To explain this by an example let 's suppose that Eusebius had said of some Arian Eishop that his Faith was sound as to the Person of J.C. could the Doctor and his Friends thence conclude that this Bishop believed the Consubstantiality and Equality of the Father and the Son By no means All they could hence infer is that the Bishop believed the Platonic Pre-existence which was the true Faith according to Eusebius who believed neither the Consubstantiality nor the Equality c. We ought to reason in the same manner from the Words of Hegâ—sippus who held that for a sound Faith which Eusebius would have called impious if he had known it as the Doctor would that which Eusebius thought sound Who does not know that those very Persons who held the Orthodox Faith of the first Ages I mean that of the miraculous Birth of our Saviour were accounted impious in the time of Eusebius Because they would not receive the Notion of the Platonic Word and the modish Philosophy of an Eternal Generation that was rashly superinduced or brought in the room of a plain Doctrine of a Generation in time of Mary by the Holy Ghost that is of a Woman by the Power of God But from the beginning it was not so they had another Theology for the better Demonstration of which I shall shew in the following Chapter that CHAP. X. The Word and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Antients were but one and the same thing I Shall lastly consider that the Word among the Antients and the Holy Ghost in the Evangelists are but one and the same thing and that the Platonizing Writers themselves led by an antient Tradition the Footsteps whereof remain'd a long time have confounded these two Terms having often used 'em in one and the same Signification An evident Proof that the Philosophy of the Platonic Word owes its Birth to Allegories made upon that Divine Power which overshadowed the Blessed Virgin which Power may be indifferently call'd the Holy Ghost or the Word But as the latter Term is more agreeable to the Doctrine of Plato so 't is more frequently used So that at last this Conformity of Terms brought the Platonic Fathers to a conformity in Doctrine with Plato that is to say they fell into two Errors directly opposite to the Doctrine of the Gospel One in that they have made of a Power or a mere Operation an Hypostasis the other in that they have made two Hypostases of the Word and the Holy Ghost which at the bottom are but two diverse Operations Where therefore they made two Hypostases of these two Operations they follow'd their own Philosophy but when they confounded these Operations they built without question upon this Passage of David which says The Heavens were made by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth where the Word and Breath of the Lord are put together as things inseparable which differ not in effect only in this that the Breath is the Substance of the Word and the Word is the Operation of the Spirit to use the Words of Tertullian adv Prax. I shall pass over Hermas who in his 5th 9th Similitudes says That the Holy Ghost is the Son of God I have already shewn that he speaks thus but in parable for which reason his Testimony would be of no use but to serve for an Illusion And I shall say nothing more of Ignatius who salutes the Church at Smyrna in the Inscription of his Epistle with these Words The Holy Spirit which is the Word of God as if he had said by or thro him who is the Holy Ghost or the Word of God This Passage is not very exact or clear so as to perceive the meaning of the Author and to be able to draw from it a convincing Proof Les us begin therefore with Justin Martyr He in his 2d Apol. p. 74 c. having stil'd Jesus Christ the first and principal Power the Son and the Word who had not his Birth from Man but by the Power of God he comes afterwards to examine the Passage in St. Luke The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall over shadow thee c. By the Holy Ghost or Spirit says he and the Power which came from God we ought to understand nothing but the Word which is the first-born of God And for the better understanding what Word he is speaking of he adds all in one Breath That 't is the Spirit which inspir'd the Prophets and which spake in the Person of a Prophet or in the Person of the Father or in the Person of Christ or in the Person of the People Here 's no difficulty either he has said nothing or he has formally said that the Holy Ghost which inspir'd the Prophets and the Power of the most High of which St. Luke speaks and the Word in St. John are all but one and the same thing After a Testimony so express I have no need to heap up other Passages out of the Writings of this Father wherein we may in part discover the same truth As when in his Dialogue with Trypho P. 327. he makes an Opposition between the Word of the Serpent by which Eve conceived and the Word of God by which the Blessed Virgin did conceive These are rather flights of Fancy and starts of Wit in a Preacher than an Exposition of the Christian Faith Only I would have it observ'd how in his 5th Book P. 284. he collects all the Qualities and all the Names which were usually given to the Word and to the Spirit that he may apply 'em to Jesus Christ First says â—he God â—eâ—â—t before all the Creatures a 〈◊〉 â—â—sonable Power which is sometimes called the Spirit the Glory of the Lord sometimes the Son sometimes the Wisdom sometimes an Angel sometimes God sometimes the Lord and the Word For all these Names are given to him either because he is the Minister of the Designs or Purposes of the Father or because he was begotten by his Will All this has much of the air of a theological Allegory by which one would express that Spirit and that Power of God which he imploy'd to execute his Counsels and
that he did not believe Ignatius favour'd the Opinion of Christ's Pre-existence or that the Epistles of that Father were a Forgery after his time 'T is to the first and earliest Antiquity we must ascend Artemon will be in the right if he rejects those latter Testimonies and produces more antient ones for his own Doctrine But the Anonymous cites Scripture and so does Artemon appeal to it alledging that his Doctrine is the same Truth that the Apostles had taught That therefore is the thing in question We shall see hereafter who has the most reason to appeal to this most Primitive Authority for I intend to examine in what sense the Son of God is there deify'd The Anonymous makes another small attack upon the Artemonites for their seeming to insinuate that Victor was not against their Doctrine but that Zephirin was the first that did persecute it I will not repeat here what I have remark'd touching the deposing of Theodotus that Victor might excommunicate him as an Ebionite without breaking Communion with the Artemonites who maintained the Orthodox Doctrine of the miraculous Conception of our Saviour 'T is sufficient at present to shew that the Words of Artemon may fairly signify that Victor was the first who attack'd the Apostolick Faith but that Zephirin intirely destroy'd it So far is Artemon from ranking Victor among those who preserv'd the Truth intire that he seems to say on the contrary that he began and Zephirin completed its Ruin Victor began by excommunicating one single Christian Theodotus and certainly Zephirin concluded by excommunicating the whole Orthodox Church or all the other Great Men who joined with Artemon in the defence of expiring Truth as the Fable concerning their Bp Natalis that comes after inclines one to think I call it a Fable for nothing is more extravagant than to talk of Angels whipping and scourging the Artemonite Bishop into the bosom of the Church How were the Angels the first who made Converts by Dragooning Is there any thing that can more discredit this Romance of the Anonymous Another Story that Eusebius has tack'd to this is when he makes the Anonymous say that Theodotus was the first Author of the Error ascrib'd to him which is false take his Heresy in what sense you please Dr. Bull endeavours to cover the Reputation of Eusebius by a certain wretched distinction but he does not observe that Eusebius contradicts him for he goes on to say in the same Book that Theodotus was the first whom Victor excommunicated which supposes that he was the first who suffer'd for his adherence to this Doctrine but not the first who published it If he was the first Martyr for it it does not follow that he was the first Author of it 'T is highly probable that the great noise of the Excommunication of Theodotus upon the very account that this Persecution was new and unheard of made him pass in after-times for the very Author of that Opinion for which he was persecuted Not to insist on it at present that Eusebius makes no scruple a little to corrupt the Story at all times when he can by that Fraud give the Air of Antiquity to his Platonick Logos or of Novelty to the opposite Doctrine which he hated with all his heart he has been catcht in so many other Places that the Presumptions against him cannot but be very violent For instance where he makes Josephus say that on the Day of Christ's Passion a Voice was heard in the Temple of Jerusalem saying Let us go hence And witness another Passage where he makes the same Josephus say Euseb Hist Eccl. lib. 2. c. 9. that 't was an Angel who appear'd over the Head of Herod Agrippa whereas Josephus expressy says it was an Owl One plainly discerns where the pious Fraud lies he would not have it be thought that the Jewish Historian did not agree with St. Luke Thus it appears in spite of all the Efforts of Eusebius that 't was in the time of Victor and Zephirin that the pure Faith of the first Christians fell with the Church of the Nazarens which from that time have often pass'd for Hereticks The new Succession of Gentile Bishops Euseb lib. 4. c. 5. began with one Mark and Platonism enter'd into the Church with the new Bishops Saturninus Basilides and the whole Class of the Gnosticks made a mighty progress afterwards under colour of discovering Secrets unknown heretofore to the Church About the same time Carpocrates his Heresy was broach'd another Mysteryman To speak the truth the infamous Practices of these Pretenders to Illumination were not long born withal in the Church Human Nature alone without the Succours of Religion knew how to quit it self of it in a short time But as for their Philosophy the Church managed that to her purpose after some sifting and refining 't was adjusted to the more specious part of her Religion for the support of her new Opinions which being pure Speculations the Affections were not so far concern'd about 'em as to take notice of their Repugnancy And the Mind which is naturally desirous of Knowledg found its account in 'em and the natural Veneration Men have for Mystery and for every thing they do not comprehend had the greatest Stroke in this matter and gained the Point So one sees how by insensible Methods and Degrees the Gospel which is a Doctrine purely practical was exchanged for Contemplation Mystery and Fanaticism CHAP. XIII An Account of the first Christians call'd Nazarens TO conclude it may not be amiss to give my Readers an Idea of the first Christians called Nazarens There were two sorts of 'em as many of the Fathers and some of the Moderns have observ'd The former improperly so called and more properly Ebionites for they believ'd Jesus Christ to have been the Son of Joseph and obliged the Gentiles to keep the Law of Moses Among these such who held Jesus to be the Christ were tolerated and accounted Christians but the others had not that Character because they made Moses's Law necessary to Salvation and held Jesus for no more than a just Man or a Prophet who suffer'd in the Cause of Righteousness and Truth They would not have the Benefits of his Mission to extend to the Gentiles or in a word that he was the promis'd Messiah and had any Power in Heaven Some believed he was not truly rais'd from the Dead others believed he was that he might receive the Reward of a Good Man but not that he might be made Lord of the World They could not be persuaded to think that Jesus who was come in the Flesh that is in so low and mean a Condition could be the glorious Messiah the Christ so often promis'd by the Prophets The other sort of Nazarens properly so called were the Believers of Judea to whom that Name was given as the Name Christian was to the Gentile Proselytes These believ'd Jesus Christ to be born of a Virgin by the Holy
Ghost and in this Sense they called him the Son of God and not only so but they confess'd this Son of God to be the Christ For 't is thus the Words of St. Austin must be understood de Haeres c. 9. and not as Dr. Bull expounds 'em Judic Eccles p. 47. by a Hysteron Proteron in this manner that the Christ was the Son of God that is according to him a Son begotten before all Ages Danaus a better Critick than he made no blunder in his Exposition of St. Austin's Words The Nazarens says he believ'd that Jesus the Son of Mary was the Christ and 't is certain the Words ought to be taken in this Sense Dei filium consitentur Nazaraei esse Christum says the Father In short they did not oblige the Gentiles to observe the Law which they thought themselves ought to keep as being Jews by birth but they afterward abandon'd it too as an Obligation that ceas'd as soon as they were driven out of Judea by the Emperor Adrian There is a great confusion among Ecclesiastical Writers in their Judgment of these Nazarens Some look upon 'em as Hereticks with others they pass for Orthodox The latter Fathers as Epiphaenius St. Austin and Theodoret place 'em in their Lists of Hereticks but the more antient Fathers as Irenaeus and Tertullian have not set 'em down in that Catalogue 'T is easy to conjecture whence this Disagreement comes Sometimes they pass'd for Orthodox 1st Because their Opinion that Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost c. being originally the Orthodox Faith some Remains of that Tradition maintain'd their Honour for a time 2ly Because Eusebius after Hegesippus had given 'em this Testimony that their Faith was sound as we have before shewn Now this Historian who gave his Opinion of 'em according to his own Prejudices mistaking their true Sentiments has drawn other Platonizing Christians after him into the same Mistake 3ly The Nazarens believ'd that by virtue of the miraculous Conception of our Saviour God was truly his Father and for this reason they give him the Title of the Son of God and it may be of God too sometimes The Platonizing Christians suffered themselves to be amused with big Words having their Minds pre-ingaged in Ideas they had put upon 'em beforehand so that they were so far from treating the Nazarens as Hereticks that they have often made 'em speak in the Platonick manner always supposing thro prejudice that whoever said these Words Son of God meant by 'em a Son begotten before all Ages But sometimes also they reckened 'em Hereticks either because they confounded 'em with the Ebionites or because their Opinion rightly understood was look'd upon as Heretical after Platonism prevail'd When all those in short who went for the Divinity of Christ no farther than his Generation from God and the Virgin Mary and who refus'd to subscribe or assent to the Platonick Generation before all Ages all such I say were no better treated than the Ebionites who believed Christ to be the Son of Joseph they were all anathematiz'd without hopes of absolution 'T is from this confusion of Ideas that we meet with so much obscurity in the History of the Nazarens Dr. Bull who knew not how to clear up this Perplexity runs himself into greater Difficulties He teazes and fatigues himself to maintain his own Sentiments under the Expressions of the Nazarens and to reconcile the irreconcilable Censures of the Platonizing Fathers about ' em But what signifies all this ado The truth is nothing of his Platonism was in the least known to the Nazarens All his Citations are grounded upon the equivocal Sense of these Words the Son of God True it is they went beyond the Ebionites and believ'd Jesus Christ was more than a mere Man because they believ'd him to be born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost Yet the Nazarens must be Hereticks say the Doctor what he will if they are to be try'd by his Platonick Faith But they are also Orthodox say others what they please if they are examin'd by the Rule of Orthodoxy that prevail'd in the first Age of the Church the Footsteps whereof have been preserv'd by some Writers in succeeding Ages as I have already proved FINIS
it saith the same in the same words of the New All the Encomiums it gives to the Law are applied more truly to the Gospel and lastly it saith nothing of God the Father which it doth not accommodate to J. C. his Son who is the Vicarius of the Father as Tertullian calls him and who saith he makes us to hear the Father in his Words and makes us see him in his Actions By this Rule you get the Key to all the Passages that seem to give the Son the same Names Prerogatives and the same Properties that God the Father hath it is because J. C. being the Vicarius of God both the Words and Actions of the Father are attributed to him by the virtue and upon the account of the Reprejentation if I may thus express my self For it is not as I judg by a mere Accommodation but by a Subordination Whatever is said of the Father in an exact and rigid Sense may also be said of the Son as of a Minister and Ambassador that represents God or to speak better that executes in a visible manner what the Invisible Father had already promis'd should be done Now lest any one should wrangle about this Title of Ambassador I shall say more namely that there is more than a Subordination because we see in J. C. not only the Character of an Envoy but likewise an Abode and an immediate Presence of the Father's Person He that receives a Prophet receives him who sends the Prophet therefore when J. C. came vested with the Authority of the Father to accomplish what God had promis'd should be perform'd by the hands of the Messiah God himself came in his Person and we have receiv'd him in the Person of Christ Hence it comes to pass that J. C. is adorn'd with all the Characters of Glory and Power which God attributes to himself when he promiseth that signal Deliverance by the Prophets which he design'd to perform one day for the good of his Church For this reason J. C. is call'd Emmanuel God with us which is a Symbolical Name by which the Scripture denotes the extraordinary Presence of God in the Messiah and teaches us that it is not so much the Man but that it is the Sovereign and Inviable God that acts I speak not of my self I speak only the things my Father taught me I do nothing of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me he doth the Works These in one word are the constant Expressions of J. C. he refers all the Authority of his Doctrine and all the Glory of his Miracles to the Father dwelling in him This the Jews call'd Shekinah the Habitation of God Here is more than the Abode of God in the midst of his People of old this is a more sensible and magnificent Presence and to say all 't is God's dwelling in the Messiah for God was with him saith the Apostle You have need only of this Reflection to foil the strongest Objection of the Trinitarians They say that the New Testament attributes constantly the same Properties and the same Perfections to the Son and to the Holy Ghost which the whole Scripture attributes to God the Father Granted What follows then Necessarily one of these two things Either you prove by it that there are three Gods all which have the same Properties and equal Perfections which is contradictory and disown'd even by those that make this Objection or you must acknowledg with us that the Perfections of the Son are nothing else but the Perfections of the Father dwelling in him and communicating himself to him And the Holy Ghost is likewise only the Virtue and Power of God It is objected against this Doctrine I am now establishing that it is not customary to call the Ambassador by the Name of the King that sends him I will not enter now upon the Particulars of this Controversy nor even examine the History of the Centurion related by St. Matthew Chap. 8. and by St. Luke Chap. 7. which alone were sufficient to decide it It will be enough for me to remark at present that tho this Custom were not us'd by Men in their Transactions yet it is incontestably so in God's Method Drusius De Nomin Tetragram in Epist ad Conrad Vorstium grants that it may be said the King doth what the Ambassador transacts in his Name but he denies at the same time that you may give to the Envoy the Name of the King that sends him And thereupon he will not receive without some alloy that Rule of the Hebrews That the Angel bears the Name of God who sends him But with all the respect I owe this Great Man I affirm that this Rule of the Hebrews is well grounded it being taken from the Scripture it self where God declares that he will put his Name on the Angel whom he design'd to send It is no matter then whether this be the Custom of Kings or no seeing it is clear by this Place that it is the Custom of God to give his Name to his Envoys at least on some occasions and in extraordinary Cases And this Name that I may take notice of it by the by doth not denote only that they may call themselves the Lord the Jehova but indeed they have all the Glory the whole Authority and all the Power yet not absolutely but only in reference to that Commission they are then honoured withal that is to say they appear with as much Majesty they act with as much Authority and Power as God would in the like case were he pleas'd to act without a Medium and by himself alone And this is a great reason why God should act thus for seeing he could not manifest himself if the Angels by whom he was manifested had never taken his Name upon them it would have come to pass that the Jews having the knowledg only of Angels would have totally forgotten God whereas the Angels by taking the Name of God upon them on some extraordinary occasions put that People from time to time in mind of him by the Idea of his Presence After all seeing God is invisible by his Nature and cannot manifest himself by himself it follows then that every time he manifests himself by an Angel this Manifestation will not be regarded as an Appearance of an Angel but as that of God himself whom that Angel represents and consequently it is not so much the Angel that bears the Name of Jehova and is ador'd by Men but God himself that Angel being his Person and Presence This will be clear if you regard these three Rules 1. That according to the Oriental Idiom the Envoys make their Masters speak always directly as for example instead of saying The Lord saith he is the Jehova they speak thus The Lord saith I am the Jehova 2. They suppress often these Expressions The Lord saith and speak absolutely without making use of that Preface I am the Jehova 3. That you ought to supply those Words and
in the 33d and 45th Psalms which they made use of to prove that the term Word had no other Signification than that of Prolation properly so called For he supposes that these Words My Heart hath utter'd a good Word do not signify such a Prolation a proper and literal Generation but a metaphorical Prolation and that from this reason that the word Heart in this Text being figurative the term Word must also be figurative And that we may the better apprehend how far Origen carrys the Figure of this Word the other Text which he quotes from the Psalms so fully clears the matter as to leave no room for cavilling The Valentinians says he believe that these Words The Heavens were created by the Word of God and by the Spirit of his Mouth were said of our Saviour and of the Holy Ghost tho it be certain that one may give them this other Sense That the Heavens were establish'd by Divine Reason and Wisdom ratione Dei as we say that a House was built by that Skill which is the Art of building Houses I leave the Reader to judg whether an Vnitarian could more plainly remove all the Idea of Hypostasis from our Minds Therefore when the same Origen does elsewhere argue concerning the Word as if he himself believ'd it an Hypostasis his so speaking was according to the Principles of the Greek Philosophy For as Porphyry rightly observes Origen having continually apply'd himself to reading the Writings of the Platonists and the Pythagoreans and having therein learnt the allegorical way of those Philosophers expounding the Mysteries of the Greeks made use of it himself in his Interpretation of the Scriptures apud Euseb l. 6. c. 19. See likewise Bibl. univ T. 6. p. 50. That declared Enemy of the Christian Religion is not the only Person who has given that judgment of Origen Mr. Huet does not treat him more favourably in his Origeniana l. 2. c. 2. Origen says he was one of Plato's greatest Admirers insomuch that instead of suting the Platonick Tenents to the Christian Doctrine he regulated the Doctrine of Christianity by the Dogma of the Platonists And a little lower he adds That Origen had been carry'd to those Excesses by the example of his Preceptor Clemens Alexand. who us'd to embelish the Religion of Jesus Christ with the Academick Paint Can any one think that Justin did not discourse by the Principles of this Allegorical Philosophy when in his second Apology he calls the Reason which is in Man a Part and Seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Word The Divine Word is in his sense only that universal Reason that Source and Fulness of Wisdom-which resides in the Divine Understanding whereof ours is a Stream and a part Is our Reason an Hypostasis distinct from Man How shall we then imagine that this Father ever intended to say that Divine Reason is an Hypostasis distinct from God I may very well say that my Reason has taught me such a thing and that I consulted my Reason without supposing my Reason to be any other Person than my self Then why may we not say God made use of his Reason to create this Universe that his Reason was his Counsellor and his Minister without making a second Person of his Reason Certainly my Reason cannot be personalized any otherwise than by the Power of Allegory neither can that of God be any otherwise Nay it may be that Justin strain'd his Allegory yet farther and that he intended to say that Reason or the universal Seed is no other than the Gospel which is not a part of the Seed as the Precepts of Reason which enlighten'd the Philosophers are but the fulness of that incorruptible Seed which regenerates the Heart I will produce another Example of this allegorical way of interpreting the Scripture St. Cyprian explaining that famous Passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.8 concerning the three Witnesses on Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood has spoken of them as of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which are the three Witnesses in Heaven now found in our Bibles but were not there in the days of that Father Some as Fulgentius having confounded St. Cyprian's Discourse with the Sacred Text did not doubt but that Holy Martyr had spoken literally and as words of the Scripture what he said only in Allegory not observing that what he asserted of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is a spiritual Sense which he had drawn from the Three Witnesses on Earth as if the Spirit were the Father the Blood the Son and the Water the Holy Ghost But Facundus did not suffer himself to be at all deceiv'd by it for he informs us Defens Trinit Capit. l. 1. c. 3. That St. Cyprian will have that to be understood of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which St. John said of the Spirit Water and Blood which can be only an allegorical Interpretation And that Allegory was followed by St. Augustin contra Maxim lib. 3. c. 12. where he expresly says That the Spirit the Water and the Blood are the Sacrament of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost What 's the meaning of the Sacrament if it be not the Mystery and Allegory Now I pray who can warrant me that the Fathers who so strained the Allegory on the three Witnesses on Earth to find the Trinity therein have not also strained it on the Word of St. John to find in it their Favourite Doctrine Plato's second God If they misapplyed these Words My Heart hath uttered a Good Word and these I have begotten thee in my Bosom before Aurora how can I be assur'd that they have not deceived me or that their Infatuation for Plato has not deceived themselves when they Platonically interpret those other Places where it is said That the Word was God and that the Word was made Flesh However that be it must be granted me That the Fathers made no difficulty of seeking sublime senses in the Scriptures and of raising themselves up very high above its plain and natural meaning That appears by the use St. Cyprian and St. Augustin made of the Epistle General of St. John Now the same Fathers having expressed their Allegories in too absolute Terms without characterizing them by some Mark whereby they might be distinguished from a proper and literal sense it has in succeeding time happened that the literal sense of what they said has been followed We have seen it in the Example of St. Cyprian that Father expressing himself absolutely It is written says he of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And these three are one Now that was written only of the Spirit the Water and the Blood Then the Allegorical Exposition has been taken for an express Text of Scripture I strongly suspect that the same thing has happen'd to that noted Text of St. Paul 1 Tim. c. 3. v. 16. The Mystery of Godliness is great God manifested in the Flesh