so much the greater because I may ground my Interpretation upon other Expressions of the Scripture wherein Christ is formally called the Image of God and because you have no express Texts of the same Scripture wherein the Sacramental Bread is called the Figure of Christ's Body Now neither in my Proposition nor in yours the Image cannot be the Original As the Bread hath but a Conformity of Qualities with Christ's Body not the same Qualities and the same Substance Thus Christ as he is the Image of God cannot have the same Qualities nor the same Nature with God He only hath the Impression of the Divine Substance which God hath communicated to him by honouring him with his Unction bearing Testimony to him and crowning him with Glory as a Reward of his Sufferings Because he humbled himself to the Death of the Cross therefore the Father hath highly exalted him and hath given him a Name which is above every Name Now if Christ hath been dignified with that high Name by reason of his Obedience and Vertue it follows from thence that he had it not by the Priviledg of his eternal Generation For if so the pompous Description of Christ's Elevation set down in the Gospel would be but a Shew and mere Pageantry Therefore dear Cousin if you find in those clear Texts of the Scripture the true Reason of Christ's being called God believe me do not fetch any other from the extravagant Notions of the Athanasian Creed wherein neither you nor I can apprehend any thing except we apprehend nothing Notwithstanding you are so bold as to pronounce against me a Sentence of Damnation upon the Words of that doting Writer who was not Athanasius and even to damn all those who will give no Credit to his Ravings let them be never so pious and charitable O strange Prejudice of Men As for me I 'le make bold likewise to tell you that how false and ill grounded soever the Assurance of Salvation may be which that Author promises to those that believe his Visions it is yet more false that those good Christians who refuse to believe them shall be damned For there is nothing more certain and clear in the Gospel than this viz. That all honest and pious Men shall be saved and that all those who shall be saved will be saved without believing the curious Mysteries of the pretended Athanasius Do but peruse all the Evangelical Promises and look if you can find any one that promises Salvation to those who believe the Vnity in Trinity and the Trinity in Vnity I can shew you a thousand which make Salvation sure to Piety or to a Faith inconsistent with the Faith of Athanasius What Guide shall we then follow this Creed which says That whosoever will be saved ought to believe three Divine Persons and one Divine Essence or Christ who assures us that eternal Life consists in acknowledging his Father the only true God and himself Christ Jesus to be he whom the Father hath sent that is to say the Messias What Creed shall we pitch upon to be the Badg of our Christianity either the new ones which speak of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost as three equal Persons or the ancient Creed of the universal Church commonly called the Apostles Creed which only speaks of God the Father Jesus Christ his Son and the Holy Ghost without giving the Title of God to these two last and which expresly ascribing to the Father the Attributes of the Godhead of Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth ascribes only to the Son that which is only consistent with a Man and cannot be ascribed to the supream God without Blasphemy viz. That he was conceived born died was buried and raised Now as it is not the Language of the Apostles Creed to say God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost so it is neither the Stile of the Scripture which never gives the Title of God to Christ when it joins him with the Father in those Places wherein it sets before us the Objects of our Knowledg and Worship and makes as it were a kind of Form or Confession of Faith The Reason of it is this Christ is God with Respect to the Empire which he hath received from God over the new Creatures which he hath taken out of the Chaos of Sin and governs by his Father's Power But with Respect to God his Father he is only the Minister of his Will his Messenger and is at most called the Lord which is a Term of Inferiority in the New Testament to denote him whom the Father hath made his Lieutenant who hath received his Empire from another and is to deliver it to him that intrusted him with it God say the Holy Apostles having made him Lord and Christ According to this Rule which the Scripture exactly follows it doth not only deny the Title of God to Christ in the Abridgments of Faith which it affords but it is wont to ascribe it only to the Father exclusively of the Son saying expresly that the Father is the only true God and the Son the only Lord as often as it puts together those two Objects of our Faith And in this remarkable Opposition it is that we are to look for the true Sense of the Scripture about this Mystery not in those other Places wherein it doth not affect the same Exactness Here dear Cousin I intreat you again if you are a true Lover of Truth seriously to consider those Texts of the Gospel upon which my Remark is grounded This is Life eternal says Christ to his Father to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent But to us says St. Paul There is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him One God says the same Apostle and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus Where is the Trinitarian who on such an occasion would not say One God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost yet there is no mention made of the Holy Ghost and as for the Son he bears only the Title of sent Lord and Mediator that of God being not at all bestowed upon him in those Places Who is the Trinitarian that would not say on the last cited Place One God and one Mediator between God and Men Christ God-man But God-man is too barbarous an Expression and the Holy Ghost is too wise to make such a Conjunction Lastly who is the Trinitarian who would call the Father the only God the only true God to distinguish him from the Son by opposing God to Man the only God to the only Lord and Mediator in a Word the Father to the Son and one Person to another Do they not pretend that the Father cannot be called the only true God but by Opposition to the false Gods of the Heathens But the Holy Apostle doth not only oppose him
to the Idols of the Pagans as the true one to the false ones but to the only Lord whom Christians worship inasmuch as God by Excellence God by himself is opposed to the inferior and subordinate Gods whom he hath made such out of his Grace and Liberality I said ye are Gods But to us says the Holy Apostle to us Christians there is but one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ Two Objects of our Faith really distinguished the one by the Name of one only God the other by the Title of one only Lord. From whence it follows as I have already said that Christ indeed is God or rather a God if considered as the Head of all the new Creatures which God hath subjected to his Empire but when joined to the Father this Title vanishes away and he bears only that of his Minister and Ambassador so true it is that before the true and supreme God any other God besides him must fall and disappear You accuse me of wresting the Scripture yet you see how I have brought you to the Necessity of putting a hard Sense upon it if you will maintain your Hypothesis The Texts that I alledg to you are clear and formal and you cannot avoid the Strougth of them but either by a Philosophy altogether incomprehensible or by some gross and contradictory Shifts or by a pitiful Wrangling or even by Impiety and Blasphemies The Number of such Shifts is endless and I shall be contented to bring an Instance about every one of those which I have just now intimated When we alledg that Croud of Texts which say that God is one you fly to that famous Distinction of one Essence and three Persons and three Persons and one Essence If at the same time we alledg those primitive Facts of the Gospel wherein we see a most exact History not of a God but of a Man like unto us who was born died and was raised you answer with another Distinction of two Natures and one Person and one Person and two Natures This is your incomprehensible Philosophy which will have one to be three times one three times himself and pretends that by Virtue of I know not what hypostatical Union a Man is the supreme God and the supreme God a Man so that it may be said The most high God was born the most high God died O! Who shall raise him from the dead Again when we shew that the Question concerning Christ's Divinity was decided by himself before the Jews who accused him that being a Man he made himself equal to God when one shews you I say that Christ vindicates himself from Blasphemy by protesting that he said he was the Son of God only in such a Sense as is approved by the Law founding his Right not upon an eternal Generation but upon a Heavenly Commission and Unction just as the other Gods whose Example he alledges If those are called Gods to whom the Word of God came c. say ye that I blaspheme because I said I am the Son of God When one sets before you so clear a Decision and at the same time so favourable to those you call Hereticks how do you make shift You say that Christ spake only according to the Need of the Jews that there was no Necessity for him to give them further Instructions Yet at the same time that you return this curious Answer which supposes that it was enough for the Jews that Christ should teach them that he was a God by Office you make an Objection taken out of the same Discourse of Christ wherein you pretend that he told the Jews he was God by Nature when he says that he and the Father were one which Words you insist upon to prove the Unity of Nature This I call your gross and contradictory shifts Again when one cites the famous Text of St. John's Gospel wherein Christ makes eternal Life to consist in knowing the Father the only true God c. What do you answer to so strong an Objection You put upon those Words a most forced and unnatural Sense and say that they ought to be translated thus This is Life eternal to know that thou Father and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent are the only true God This I call your rash and impertinent Wranglings In effect you are so bold as to make use of this in your Disputes to make shift as well as you can But none of your Orthodox Translations durst take the same Liberty neither the Latin nor the English nor the French nor the German nor the Dutch c. And I am sure that if you would undertake a new Translation you have still Modesty enough not to fly to so shameful an Extremity Lastly for I should never have done were I willing to insist upon every thing when one shews you in the 13th Chapter of St. Mark that Christ is not the most high God since he was ignorant of the Day of Judgment for God knows all things of that Day says Christ no Man knoweth it not the Son but the Father only In answer to this unanswerable Objection you put into Christ's Mouth a Jesuitical Equivocation pretending his meaning was that he knew it not as a Man though he knew it well as God This I call your Impiety and Blasphemy Methinks dear Cousin you should blush to impute to Christ a mental Reservation which you so much detest in the Priests of the Church of Rome Read Dr. Stillingfleet in his Sermon upon Matth. 10.16 pag. 31 32. The common Answer says he speaking of those Priests Equivocations is That in Confession the Priest doth not know as Man but as God and therefore when he is asked any thing as a Man he may deny what he knows as God But the Doctor shews the Folly and Absurdity of this Answer Because says he this doth not salve the Contradiction for to say he doth not know is as much as to say he doth not any way know it which is false if he doth know it in any Capacity because he knows it as a Priest and as such he is not God but Man Give me leave therefore to look upon the Words you put into the Mouth of Christ who is Truth it self as an Impiety and a Folly He doth not know it signifies that he doth not any way know it which is false if he knows it in any Capacity Furthermore it is false that he doth not know it as Man since he knows it as Mediator and as such he is not only God but God and Man say you This is a Pattern of your unnatural Explications I pass by a great many others to be short For the same Reason I will only undertake to overthrow the two Foundations of your Mysteries which being done nothing remains to build your Faith upon The one is the eternal Generation and the other the Incarnation or the Union of the two Natures To begin with the eternal Generation it is no difficult thing
Contradictions are Orthodox if one doth but keep in his Mind the blessed Distinction of two Natures which directs the Intention and hinders a Man from telling a Lie By such Tricks as these you pretend to Orthodoxy and boast of a Principle that promotes Holiness and Piety and as you say hath a great Influence upon all the Parts of Religion But dear Cousin don't you know that the learned Dr. Hammond who made a large practical Catechism could find no Place in his Book for the great Spring of the Trinity No question but he look'd upon it as a thing altogether useless and uncapable of moving the Heart of Man Make no doubt of it it is a dry and empty Opinion a Bone without Marrow or Meat which can afford a Christian Soul no sort of good Nourishment in order to Piety I confess there is a Trinity that hath Influence upon the Life of all true Christians viz. that in which you and I have been baptized the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost But I must confess at the same time that it is very different from yours if understood according to Scripture We have the Doctrine of the Father revealed by his Son his Interpreter and Messias and confirmed by the Gifts and Miracles of the Holy Spirit This Doctrine hath so necessary an Influence upon the Practice of Christians that without a right Knowledg of that Revelation we could neither obey God's Commands nor hope for his Rewards And I confess that with respect to this primitive and capital Truth any Man to whom that great Object is proposed shall be no less accountable for the Faults of his Understanding than the Vices of his Will There is a plain Reason for it viz. that this Object doth not consist in Philosophical Speculations which the Simple cannot attain to and the Ignorance whereof must needs be excusable but in plain and sensible Facts for the believing of which nothing else is required but the same Honesty and Sincerity necessary to practise the Precepts For Example We believe a Father Creator of all things a Son born dead raised c. and a Holy Ghost setting the Seal of his Miracles to that Revelation Here is a Faith grounded upon undeniable Facts which doth not require from us a seraphick Understanding but some Honesty to receive the Testimony of those who relate them with as much Evidence as is necessary to satisfy an honest and reasonable Mind The Want of Faith or Understanding in this Respect is the Want of Probity and Uprightness and therefore the Fault is inexcusable But if instead of so simple and sensible a Faith you introduce your Athanasian Faith of three Eternal Almighty and Incomprehensible Ones you make Unbelief of all things the most pardonable nay and the most reasonable too because such a Faith is above the Reach of our Senses Reason and Revelation So that we must read in the Gospel I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things from Babes and hast revealed them unto the Wise and Prudent I can assure you that not only many eminent Bishops and great Councils have rejected the Belief of such a Mystery as you confess it but that no good Christian knew it except perhaps in his Catechism or a Book of Controversy How many Monuments of Antiquity have we lost of which we could boast with great Reason Who can tell but most Fathers had been on our side if the Malice of their Enemies the Superstition of Monks and the Flames of the Emperors had not destroyed their Books As for those that remain nothing but this can be concluded from them viz. that the Party that prevailed History tells us by what means took Possession of Tradition and Orthodoxy However we have still in the Apostles Creed the Primitive Truths which unite all Christians the saving Truths wherewith God's Providence fed the Faith of Christians during the Quarrels of their Teachers and the only Truths for whose sake true Martyrs have shed their Blood I shall add that the same Providence hath preserved in all Sects and Ages a Body of Christian Morality which makes the great and whole Design of the Gospel Let us conclude here and seriously think dear Cousin that you and I shall be judged by Christ in the last Day only according to this Rule independently on those Opinions which now a-days make the Subject of our Disputes I rest Yours c. FINIS