the highest to the lowest had been taught the mystery of the Trinity in Unity and to these St. Paul's words are as intelligible in their truth as the Apostles Creed or any other which an uninitiated Heathen might easily misunderstand either to conclude our Lord not to be God as being not called God in the Apostles Creed which Hereticks and Latitudinarians lay hold of to their evil Ends or another God because in other formularies he is called God of God But this fundamental Institution that we have no other God nor Lord than the Jews had and that Lord of the Jews being only one God Almighty we cannot err in understanding this Creed of St. Paul or any other to believe that Christ is a Lord in nature different from God the Father Almighty To exhibit this more clearly I will set these words of St. Paul and those of the Nicene Creed that are most apposite to them and liable to an Heathen misconstruction St. Paul's Creed To us there is one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things The Nicene Creed We believe in one God the Father Almighty Maker of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God very God of very God by whom all things were made Now to shew the most designed intention of St. Paul's words and that they do not at all give any colour to the Socinian notion of one advanced to Divine Honour but make him with God the Father Creator of all things I shall digest them into a due Paraphrase thus For though the Heathen Worshippers of Idols have many celestial and terrestrial Gods as they call them which they Worship by their Idols their Superstition to their falsly so called Gods arising from this truth that God hath set Presidential and Tutelary Powers over us who are therefore by Office though not by Nature Gods and Lords as the Angelical Princes of Greece and Persia and here on Earth the Kings and Rulers of the World yet we Christians have but one Almighty God the Father from whom all things originally are and we are in him or for him and one only Tutelar Lord next God the Father Jesus Christ by whom we were created and by whom we subsist for the Object of our Adoration By this Paraphrase it appears that the Father is called God and Christ Lord but the Creation attributed to both in this form of distinction that all things are of or from God the Father as the first Original and by the Lord Christ because by him the Father created all things and hence it follows that the Lord Christ in that nature which created all things is uncreated and if uncreated then of the same Deity of the Father who by him created all things and hence adorable with the Father whereas the Heathen Gods and all other Gods by deputation or advancement are not adorable as not being Authors of our Creation and Being nor uncreated in themselves Whatsoever Hebrew word therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place may be referred to yet our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Jesus being as our Lord and Creator the Object of our Adoration is vindicated from the reproach of a Creature advanced to the Honour of Divine Adoration by the very context it self And to this sense the words were fully clear to the Christian Church who knew St. Paul both as a Jew and Christian an utter Adversary to all Creature-worship But however I note here that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of Christ answers not to the Hebrew Jehovah for being set opposite to the many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must answer to a word in Hebrew that is capable of a plural number which Jehovah is not for there cannot be a plurality of Jehovahs But what shall be done to convince an Arian who will confess our Lord a Sub-Creator of all things beside under the Father and so their Lord on the Title of that Creation though himself was created by God the Father Why this place must be interpreted by others such as that he is God the true God God over all blessed for ever that he was ever in the form of God and equal with God the Father and one with him all which will bear weight while the federal whimsie vanishes into soft air And therefore after all his critical trisling he wisely †P. 38.40 comes to this way of interpretation and says a great many Good and Orthodox truths on this Article so far as that that Christ was God who manifested himself in our flesh which being so dissonant to all his former Modes of expression and avowed Notions seem to have dropp'd from him either unawares or for a colour of defence against a foreseen charge of Heresie or perhaps the singular Providence of God might so over-rule the madness of the Prophet to make him speak that for the Christian Faith which he had no mind to that his manifest inconsistencies might render him of no Authority for the use of Hereticks either in present or suture Ages § 16. His Lordship's last Argument for the Deity of Christ is †P. 39 40. that the Jews and Apostates from Christianity never charged the Apostles nor the Church with Idolatry or Creature-Worship which they would certainly have done had the Christian Principles been Arian or Socinian And had there been any such Objection we should have had the Apologies of the Apostles against it For so we find them vindicating themselves against the Charge of the Jews for quitting the Mosaical Ordinances and calling the Gentiles things of less prejudice than the worshipping and Deifying a Creature Now for my part I believe it was the common opprobrium both of Jews and Gentiles and perfect Apostates that the Christians adored a mere Malefactor and that surely is an imputation of Creature Worship and though we find it not in the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles expresly charged yet many passages asserting his Deity seem directly set in opposition to such calumnies In the Acts of the Apostles the recorded disputes with the Jews are whether our Jesus was the true Messias for on concession of this all the other Doctrines of Christianity were to have been admitted without scruple and so the questions of his Deity and Adoration came not into course with the Jews while they denied this Truth that was first to be proved in order to their conviction that he was the Christ And all that is written against Judaism in the Epistles is against Judaizing Christians or Semi-Christian Judaizers that adhered to the Levitical Institutes as necessary to all Christians Now these not making Christ an Idol or a mere Creature there was no need of a Vindication of us with them against an Idolatry that they charged us not with but against those Hereticks that made Jesus a mere Man and consequently would impeach us for the Worship of
God-head before the Incarnation For this account will admit the Personality of Christ to be founded first †P. 32. in the Humane Nature according to some of his Lordship's Criticks which he dares not contradict who place the foundation of the Sonship in the lower Nature Yea this Description will admit the Patripassian Heresie of but one Person in the Deity For if the Eternal Word were no Person distinct from the Father the Union thereof with the Humanity constitutes the Father an incarnate Person or otherwise by this State of his Lordships Doctrine the Father Son and Holy Ghost may be conceived as one incarnate Person Whereas his Lordship well knows our Faith to be clear That the Eternal Word is personally distinct or a distinct Person from the Father and alone assumed the Humanity into a Personal Union with himself and so alone was the Person of Christ exceptively of the Father and the Holy Ghost from this Personality and Character § 5. Now if a Man would enquire into the Motives of this affected obscurity in his Lordship that leaves open a gap to so many Heresies his Lordship's Words would lead one to a conclusion or at least a fair jealousie that his Lordship does not believe any Distinction really Personal between the Father Word and Holy Spirit but that the true and real Personality of Christ is proper to the Humane Nature For he teacheth us that those whom the Church calleth Persons the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Where that artificial Word only derogates from the propriety and fitness of the term Person as if the Scripture terms did not come up to it nor justifie it And if his Lordship will stand by the †P. 45. plain intention of his Words elsewhere he places Christ's Personality only in his Manhood in these words That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word So that the Word must be different from the Person in whom it dwelt which must be the Heresie of Sabellius Maâ—… or Nestorius In short while he 〈◊〉 the Canonical term of Person to contain some notion in it not imported in the Scripture terms he seems for that cause to censure it for that the Scripture does not come up so far as to teach three Persons but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost But when he says this third Opinion is than by the Incarnation God and Man truly became one Person I would fain know whether the term Person be proper for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no If not the Doctrine is to be blamed that teaches him to be truly one Person since the truth of a Character is the greatest propriety and if it be not true the Doctrine that teaches it is to be cashiered But if to avoid this it be true then I would fain be instructed whether the Church does not use the term Person in the same formal intention concerning the Father Son and Holy Spirit when She calls them three Persons as She does when She calls Christ or the Son of God incarnate a Person For if She uses the term in the same formal intention then if the Christ be a proper Person so are the Father and Holy Spirit two other Persons properly and truly distinct in the sense of the Church but if the Church has one intention in the Term when applied to Christ 〈◊〉 God-man and another when applied to the Eternal Trinity let this be made out by just Authority and I have done § 6. But the Order of his Lordship's Discourse obliges me to break off a little from this Disquisition till the next Section where we must resume it For he tells us if we will believe him that the term Person by those of our Perswasion came to be applied to the three to discover those who thought that these three were different names of the same thing which were for the most part and were generally called Patripassians and were expelled as Hereticks from the Church Now wherein lay their Heresie Why in this That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were not three co-essential Persons really distinct which was the Catholick Faith instead of which they coined this pretence That those Names had not three distinct subjects of which they were predicates or denominations but only were three titles of God the Father who became incarnate and suffered for us Now hence it appears that their Heresie consisted in the denial of what was ever before received in the Church That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were three Persons And if so then is his Lordship's insinuation false and injurious that the term Person had its rise and occasion from Patripassianism and consequently is of a later Date that by this fraudulent Hypochronism the term and the sense of it may be taken for not Primitive and Traditional but a mere later and artificial invention Now to prove what I say to be true I am to produce authentick Testimonies Now in the Latin World the first I ever have read of that taught Patripassianism was Praxeas against whose Heresie herein Tertullian wrote and charged in for denying the Eternal Word to be a * Tert. ad Praxeam Non vis enim eum substantiâ—um habere in re per substantiae proprietatem ut res persona quaedam videri possit substantial and real Person which Tertullian though then a Montanist then asserted with the Church though his †Tert. ibid. Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam Personam conditam Sic Filius in suâ personâ profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae Novatian de Trinit secundam Personam efficiens terms and senses were sometimes very singularly odd concerning the production of the second Person In the Eastern Church several lapsed into the like Error the most famous of which was Sabellius from whom the Heresie was entitled Sabellianism which denied what that Church also had ever asserted That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were three Persons instead whereof they asserted them to be but one Person For the truth hereof I shall recite the Words †Athan. con Sabell Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Athanasius as beyond all Exception valid From whence it appears that the Sabellians asserted but one Person against that Plurality of Persons fore-acknowledged in the Church And now I leave it to his Lordship to explain how the denial of three Persons could be Apostasie as this Father calls it had not the Faith of them been before expresly avowed and received For Heresie is an opposition of true received Faith and Apostasie must be from an antecedent Profession So that the Doctrine of a Personal Trinity was not later than Patripassianism but the Original Faith Nor does his Lordship seem candid in concealing this which was the substance of that Heresie while he mentions only their teaching three Names of one thing or Person which was a Conâ—ectary or at least a Colour added to
a Creature St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expresly written and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors So that his Lordship's Observation though never so well intended is however partly false and partly impertinent And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it it will amount to no more than this That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature because he whom the Christians worshipp'd in our flesh was by them owned to be the Eternal God Yet no doubt the Jews ever did and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature who really as they think had no Deity in him else had they also thought him to be God they had been ipso facto converted to us the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine So unlucky is his Lordship even in the fairest part of this Discourse as if God had laid this Curse on him that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum c. PART II. § 1. I Have now I think performed my first undertaking that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith A truth so evident to his own Clergy even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities that they ascribe all or seem willing so to do to haste inconsideration and want of judgment not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse I cannot tell but at the best they are but Fig-leaves For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor first uttered to a learned Body and after exposed to the Censure of the World in a matter most fundamental in Christianity most liable to prejudices and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith with their unaccuracies and impertinencies and this not in their particular and private conceptions which the Church hath not authorized but in their most Catholick and established Theories Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men and not to have needed the Candor of a Reader § 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality that 't is not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character The Fathers it is true were Men and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these not with a design to blacken their memory but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions he had dealt very commendably But it falls out quite otherwise For he Taxes them for no real obliquities but their Catholick Principles fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamed of and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them he gives them not so much as one good word but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Bablers which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresie I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England Sure I am as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith so modesty ought to have repressed it if for no other consideration yet for this one reason That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers § 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies which he introduces thus by telling his Clergy that †P. 31. he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood and in what respect these Persons which he calls so according to custom not his own sense are believed to be one and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any other Account of it is to take away its mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible Now what doth this prima facie intimate but that it is not laid down in the Scripture in what respect the Persons are one nor in what respect they are Three But first in the Doctrine of Unity I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence notwithstanding all the wriggles of Hereticks not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7 which his Lordship has exposed * Letter I from Zurich for doubted but in many others And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity I will adventure the proof of it But if his Lordship be not so hardy then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip not a designed Artifice Let it be so yet is it a dangerous one and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction to the service of heretical Comprehensions The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One. This saith he is Scripture * Antap. p. 5. but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not What is this fetch for but that we may not press the Heretick's to own an essential Unity but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith But secondly his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three according to the Scriptures which do instruct us herein with certain notions and respects by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence For are not Father and Son Personal Characters and founded on a substantial generation the Father being the Person Generant as such and the Son the Person generated as such And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind and as such distinguished from its Parent The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and
the Son on which account he hath personal and distinctive Pronouns and Attributes given him Which shews the form of distinction to be Personal and the different Mode of their descent origination and mission So much therefore of the Modes of their distinction being taught by the Scriptures is also well taught by the Church and ought to have been so by his Lordship though other Modes of this Subsistence that are not revealed pass our measures and capacities and Men's inauthentick speculations on them are not to be admitted for Catholick or Canonical § 4. And now we come to consider the exorbitances of the Fathers in their teaching the Respects and Modes of this Unity and Distinction †P. 31. In this saith his Lordship too many both Ancients and Moderns have perhaps gone beyond due bounds while some were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanations and a foecundity in the Divine Essence Now here it must be noted that the Ancients and Moderns which his Lordship here speaks of are the Defenders of the Faith of the Trinity against the Arian and other Ancient Heresies Now as great Friends as my Lord and Petavius are I would fain know how they can be reconciled herein For if * Petav. citat Bullo in Prooem Defens Fid. Nicen. p. 8. Arius were a genuine Platonist in the created pre-existence of the Logos how came any of the Anti-Arian Ancients to be Platonick in their Doctrines of Eternal Pre-existence and Emanations 'T is hard that Arians and Catholick Fathers should both be in the same Platonick Errors in a point in which they were contradictory and in which alone their great division was founded But as for the Eternal Emanations asserted by the Fathers they were taught purely from all ill mixtures of Platonists and others in that while they from sacred Tradition assert those Effluxes yet they all deny them to be like corporeal Emanations by corporeal abscissions or divisions of parts It would be endless to cite places of this kind Let it suffice that the Doctrine of Emanation * Sap. Sal. 7.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was pure Jewish Theology by which term received into the forms of Christian Theology they meant the derivation of the whole Divinity from the Father to the Logos and the Holy Spirit without †Athan. Expos Fid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. de Syn. Nic. con Arian decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any division or partition of Substance For the truth of which I referr instead of many to one Athanasius that spake the sense of the whole Church in his time and of the Fathers before him Now the Fathers all denying an emanation which like that of Bodies consists in abscission of Parts will hereby be discharged from the fancies of Platonick Emanations which the * P. 28. Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity charges with such Abscission in the Platonick Triad We are not yet advanced to the Beatisick Vision nor the tongues of Angels nor if we were could we adequately describe the glorious Mysteries of these Divine Subsistences yet God himself gives us leave to speak of his revealed Truths herein according to our infirmities that we who see these Mysteries remotely and only by dark resemblances may communicate those notions in as remote forms of expression while we keep however to the Schemes himself has set us and embase those Theories with no Humane Corruptions And hence I freely allow the words of Emanation as being taken from the Images of corporeal Effluxes not to be fully equal to the Mystery intended but such as would be apt to lead us into crass and material conceptions of the Deity did not our Theology expresly forefend us But under this guard the terms are not only innocent but Authentick and that Authority with the Fathers descended not from Plato but from Canonical and allowed Scriptures which have set corporeal Emanations as dark Symbols of these internal Communications of the Divine Essence in the Trinity of which sort of Similes are the * Athan. ad Serap Sp. S. non esse Creaturam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Id. de Syn. Nic. con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. con Arian Orat. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Rays and Emanations of Light and Glory and the streams of Fountains from which in the Scriptures the Fathers have taken those Emanatory forms of expression which therefore owe not their Authority or Reception to Plato that so his Lordship should call them Platonical in derogation to the Grandeur of the Christian Theology like the reproach of Amelius upon St. John as if he also had preached the Philosopher 'T is true indeed the Primitive Fathers writing for our Faith against Gentilism do often cite this Philosopher not as an Author of our Principles but as a good witness to the Greeks for their Credibility though sometimes when upbraided with him by the Heathens they freely call him a plagiary of the Jewish and Sacred Theology which he afterwards cook'd up after a Greek Mode Now the Corruptions in Plato's Doctrine of the Trinity the Fathers use not nor are pleased with but those seeds of true Theology that are in him they love and cherish not as Plato's but as God's the Wisdom of God having graciously permitted some Notions and Rudiments of Faith to be conveyed to the Wise of the Heathen before the publication of Christianity to prepare a way for its after-reception and vindication among them And having thus vindicated the Ancients in their Doctrines of these Essential Emanations let me observe how tectly sly and abusive his Lordship's Reflexion on them is Some saith he were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanation as if all the Catholick Ancients had not the same Notions of Emanation but some were for and some against these Emanations But here it had been fair to have graced the Margin with the Catalogue of the Emanatory and Antiemanatory Ancients and I do here urge and challenge his Lordship to produce them in foro to speak for themselves before sentence be passed upon them This I doubt is an hard task but a demand that cannot be denied me without shame But it seems these Platonick Ancients were grown old unto Dotage and become Children again and as such were pleased poor Souls with the pretty Baubles that Plato invented for them and thus we have made a good beginning upon the Fifth Commandment if the Sense thereof may extend to the Fathers of our Religion and the Church § 5. To the absurdity of Emanations succeeds that of foecundity in the Divine Essence which his Lordship taxes in both Ancients and Moderns that is most eminently in St. Athanasius and Bishop Pearson that were in their respective Ages the exactest and gravest Divines in the World without exception or diminution
especially on this Hypothesis That the Sun is a Globe of fire as to the Eye it seems to be On this notion I think it proper even without a Trope But why will not his Lordship allow me a Trope if the truth needs it in accensum who requires it for himself in Lumen For without a Trope Lumen doth not signifie either Candle or Fire and if all the words must be taken in their Primitive intention then his Lordship loses his pretence that this place speaks of two Candles or two Fires But had it here really signified Fire yet it does not hence follow that it speaks of two separate Fires since St. Hilary has found ignem in igne and lumen de lumine accensum in the same Fire Which answer I shall give also if any Man shall object that * Cit. Bullo Defens Fid. Nicen. p. 368. of Hippolytus tanquam lumen de lumine aquam ex fonte aut radium à Sole where the lumen de lumine and the radius à Sole being both distinctly set with another Simile interposed I take lumen de lumine in general to respect all sorts of luminaries whatsoever which send forth a coaeval Ray or sort of flaming Light from their Original Substance without any diminution So much for his Lordship and Tertullian § 8. But there are two passages offered to my consideration that seem much more apposite to his Lordship's purpose one out of Justin Martyr the other out of Tatian his Scholar which I will exactly consider Justin in his Dialogue with Trypho had asserted that in the beginning before all Creatures God begat out of himself a certain rational Virtue or Power which is also called the Glory of the Lord by the Holy Spirit and sometimes Son and sometimes Wisdom and sometimes Angel and sometimes God and sometimes Lord and Word sometimes he calls himself the Captain of an Host when he appeared in the shape of a Man to Joshua the Son of Nun. For that he is capable of all appellations in that he ministreth to his Father's will and for that he was begotten by * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Interpreter leaves out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the consequents require the Will of the Father after the manner we see a word produced in us For when we utter a word we beget it not by abscission or separation so as to lessen the internal word or reason by this utterance And as we see in Fire that out of one Fire another is kindled without the diminution of the first Fire from whence it was kindled this remaining the same And that which is kindled of it also †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appears to subsist not having lessened that from whence it was lighted Now sometime after the Father shews the reason to those Jews why he so often repeated this truth because saith he I know that there are some willing to prevent me and pretend that the Power that appeared from the Father of all things unto Moses or to Abraham or Jacob is called Angel in its progression unto Men because by it the purposes of the Father are declared unto Men. And that it is called Glory because it presents it self in an incomprehensible appearance and Man because it appears in such humane shapes as the Father will and they call it Word because it brings the speeches of God unto Men. They say also that this Power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father after the same manner as they say the light of the Sun upon the Earth is not to be cut off or separated from the Sun which is in Heaven but when he sets the Light is carried off with it So say they the Father when he pleaseth causeth his Power †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to leap forth to fly abroad and when he listeth retracts it again to himself After this manner also they teach that he makes Angels But now that there are Angels always abiding and not resolved again into that of which they were made hath been already demonstrated and withal * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 videntur vitiosa it hath been abundantly shewn so of this power which the Prophetick Word calls God and Angel and that he is not as the Light of the Sun only †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominally numbred but really is another in number I have shewn by exquisite reason in my former discourses in short when I said this virtue was begotten by his Power and Will not by Resection as if the Essence of the Father were divided asunder as all other things divided and parted are not the same they were before the division And for example's sake I took those instances as we see from one Fire other Fires kindled that Fire not being lessened from whence many may be kindled but remaining the same Thus Justin. By which it appears that these kind of Pro-Sabellians used the Simile of the Sun and its light to prove the Logos non-subsistent no Person Son or Angel of the Father and therefore Justin rejected that Simile by which the Sun and its Light and God and his Logos are only nominally distinguished and took the Simile of Fires kindled from Fires in which there is none of that diminution which those Adversaries object to our Doctrine of the consubstantiality and both Fires subsist really after one is kindled from the other in a true diversity If then Justin threw off the Simile of the Sun as favouring the Heresie after called Sabellian and took that of Fires kindled from other Fires as Tatian also uses the Simile of Torches lighted from Torches is it not probable that our Light of Light came from these Similes used by Justin and Tatian which are neither Sabellian as putting two subsistent subjects nor Arian as illustrating the Homoousion In answer to this I need be but very short that Justin doth not speak of the Eternal Internal and Substantial Emanation of the Logos but of his first progression at the Will of his Father to the Creation of all things that this progression was a kind of generation or nativity was the unanimous conception I think of all the Philosophick Ancients because as here below nativity produceth the Child into light and action that was before wrapp'd up secretly in the Womb quiescent and non-apparent so the Logos by this emission from the Father to the Creation of all things did in a manner come out of the Father's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to use the words of Theophilus Antiochenus to the publick sight apprehension or perception of the intellectual World created by him and acted also providentially in every part of the Creation Nor was this form of Theology ever condemned in the Church though it was not made or esteemed matter of necessary Faith or Doctrine Now the Nature of this Theory was that * Athenag Leg. Edit Oxon. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whom yet he there calls
Simile and always alledged it to the explication of the Nicene form without fear of being impeached of Sabellianism But as for Justin's Simile of several Fires and Tatian's several Torches though the invaluable Dr. Bull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hereby well shews that these Ancients held the Homoousion yet * Bull Defen Fid. Nie. p. 357. Similia autem quae post ea quae hue usque explicavimus adbibet Tatianus ad mysterium sive aeternae productionis sive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utcunque iâ—â—â—strandum nolo omnino praestare c. he confesses Tatian's Simile which is the same with Justin's to be lame and such as he will not make out and so with this note I conclude this long disquisition § 9. But before we leave this our form of Faith it may not be amiss to find it out a better Original Now the Glorious purity of the Divine Essence is such that for it we have no adequate conception and therefore we are forced to celebrate it by names of the greatest Glories and Purities which we know and which seem by the intention of God in Nature to be Symbols of it And of all these the most Excellent is Light This in General St. Paul * Eph. 5.13 excellently defines that †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. whatsoever doth make manifest is Light according to the Greek derivation of the Word And accordingly the Vrim in the Pontifick Pectoral is by the Septuagint rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that that which is most excellently manifeslative that is the most perfect and true Light Of these there must be two sorts according to the two great parts of the Mundane System i. e. intellectual and corporeal and of these the intellectual are really the nobler and of these the manifestative Light of the Deity must be the truest and highest of all upon which no Manichean darkness can border Hence St. John saith that * 1 Joh. 1.5 God is light and in him is no darkness at all which is originally true of God the Father and as really true of the Son and Holy Spirit For of the Son the same St. John saith †Joh. 1.9 That he is the true Light that Lighteth every Man that cometh into the World and if true then not Parabolical or Metaphorical Only So that as the Scriptures teach the Father to be originally God and the Son really God of God the Father so when they teach God the Father to be true original Light and the Son to be true Light also by immediate consequence they teach the Son to be true Light of Light Original like that Text which the Fathers apply to this purpose In thy Light shall we see Light So that our Light of Light is not the product of a Simile in two Candles but a literal truth revealed in the Scriptures and thence as truly taken as God of God And we may as well deny the reality and truth of the Life of God deny him to be the living God though he himself swears by that Life and attests the truth of it as to deny that he is true Light which is expresly asserted of the Father and the Son Now the Son being what he is from the Father here is literal Scripture for Light of Light Light indeed inaccessible yet Light true and essential And from hence I dare deduce the Nicene form instead of that Chandlers Shop whence his Lordship's fancy had its illumination Here then will I fix his Lordship in this Question Whether the Logos the Son of God be really what the Scripture calls him true Light and Life If not I yield the Argument but at his Lordship's peril But if he really be then the Creed is true without a Metaphor from Divine Revelation not from humane conceits and adumbrations As for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I grant it a term metaphorical but that is nor in the Creed perhaps because a Simile and the same like all Similes below the dignity of the Hypostasis represented thereby but however this is nothing to his Lordship's pretty Simile that he found out for the good old Faith and Fathers but the Light of Light is as literally true as any thing spoken of God can be or is in Holy Scripture § 10. But supposing many Fathers had borrowed their dim light from these Candles yet it seems it led them like an Ignis fatuus into strange brakes if as his †Lordship taxes them * P. 31. in this way of explaining this matter they have said many things which intimate that they believed an inequality between the Persons and a subordination of the second and third to the first That the Fathers do teach a Pensonal Gradation or Subordination in the Deity Igrant and for the account hereof I referr to Dr. Bull 's fourth Section of his Great Monument of the Faith But had these Fathers fallen into the conceit of this Simile of Souls propagated from Souls or Candles lighted from Candles I cannot see how they could have bended it to assimilate such or any Subordination For there is none such between Souls propagated from Souls or Candles lighted from Candles though there be succession of time Beside Inequality and Subordination either Respects Essences or Persons and his Lordship ought to have named the particular sort least his Reader should be apt to mistake that these Fathers held an essential Inequality and Subordination as many Heresies did and the terms to common Ears will seem to import but this he leaves undetermined that we may not see him in the dark Besides even in the Personal Subordination his Lordship ought to have been clear that it signifies no proper Inferiority or Subjection such as is between supreme and inferiour Authorities among Men the plenitude of the Highest not being imparted to the Subject Governour which no Fathers assert in the Trinity and yet the terms of Inequality and Personal Subordination simply set without an explanatory guard will to common senses suggest this wrong Notion as the Sense of the Fathers though their Subordination is explicitely no other but what consists in the order of Emanations and the Operations ad extra accordingly the Father originally working all things by the Logos and the Holy Spirit who therefore were commonly called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministers and Officers to the Father till Hereticks took up their Words and Authorities for a Cavil to a greater degradation than ever was intended or would have been endured by those Fathers Wherefore his Lordship is obliged by all Laws of integrity to shew the exorbitancy of this Subordination which they all own or if not to prove that these Ancient Souls and Candlesticks propagated the Doctrine of any other Subordination which I dare undertake he can never do but without doing it must incurr the guilt of defaming the Innocent that are now with God § 11. But
grant such a conception allowable that there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies For if he be no Tritheist in allowing this Conception why does he reflect on it as Tritheite in the Fathers And yet his Lordship diversifies the Operations much more exclusively each of other Person than any Fathers do and in such a manner as inferrs a Tetrad in the Deity in which according to his Lordship the Father must be a second Principle For his words run thus †P. 42. In the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Vnity there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies By the first God may be supposed to have made and to govern all things by the second to have actuated and been most perfectly united to the Humanity of Christ and by the third to have inspired the Penmen of the Scriptures and the Workers of Miracles and still to renew and purifie all good Minds all which notwithstanding we firmly believe there is but one God Now whatsoever acts by another is distinct from that other by which it acts and prior in the Agency by the order of Reason If then God acts by the first which is the Father that God is in Nature and Subsistence antecedent to the Father and the first hath a former and if God who acts by three be distinct from those three by which he acts there are then four Distincts and Distinctions in the Deity or else the three are not essential in the Deity but only operant and unsubstantial Powers and Qualities Yet is it against Faith to say that God acts or creates by the Father because it makes him secondary by an unallowable conception the Canonical Faith herein being that God original or God the Father acts by his Son and Holy Spirit But whether we make the Father primary or secundary if we attribute the Creation to him exclusively of the Logos and Holy Spirit and the Inspirations to the Spirit exclusively of the Father and the Son and the Divine Operations in the Union of our Nature with the Logos to the Logos only exclusively of the Father and Holy Spirit according to his Lordship's scheme of conceptions we rove from truth from Scripture from Catholick Tradition which ascribes these to the single Persons by a peculiar respect of Oeconomick Order but not by an exclusive propriety of Operation And yet though his Lordship recommends this conception of such a separate Agency in his three Divine Anonymities yet can he find no such incongruities in the received Doctrines of those his despised Fathers But 't is time to take breath and consider what reformation following extinguished this Tritheism in the Catholick Church and Faith Why Others therefore laid another foundation in one numerical Deity or Being Now what is this but to insinuate nay openly to assert that the former Fathers that believed Emanations and Foecundity and argued from the specifick Homoousion with the respective Operations did not fundamentally own one individual Deity And yet how could they that stuck to the Nicene Creed deny the fundamental Article of one God which yet all the taxed Fathers defended as the Faith of all the former Fathers who made the Monarchy a fundamental Principle against Gentilism and were herein exactly and professedly followed by all their Successors Nay the feature of his Lordship's reflexion seems to attaint all Antiquity of Tritheism till after the Doctors of the specifick Homoousion and distinct Operations ceased as not holding the Unity of the Godhead for his conjunction therefore makes this Unity a post-nate Principle taken up upon the apprehension that the former Doctrines of the Church were Tritheite according to his Lordship's general Imputation § 14. And now it seems high time to observe upon what fancies for they are represented as such these Tritheite Principles were reformed by these over seri patrum nepotes * They then observed †P. 32. that the Sun besides its own Globe had an Emanation of Light and another of Heat which had different Operations and all from the same Essence And that the Soul of Man had both Intallection and Love which flowed from its Essence So they conceived that the Primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an Eternal Word it designed all things This they thought might be called the Son as being the generation of the Eternal Mind while from the fountain Principle together with the inward Word there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and that was to be the Soul of the Creation and was more particularly to animate the Church and in this Love all things were to have life and favour This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark nicety by the Schools and grew to be the universally received explanation So that it seems these conceptions these reforming conceptions are very novel and the Doctrine derived from them became not universal but by the Definitions of the Schools § 15. But before we come to justifie their due Antiquity let us consider whether as his Lordship represents them the Tritheism of the former Fathers were really amended by them For in this Simile here are two Emanations from the Globe of the Sun Light and Heat which have different Operations which if they represent different Operations of the different Persons in the Deity this reduces that Tritheism which the Simile was designed to avoid So unhappy were these Theological Tinkers in mending the former Theories § 16. But however let us see whether these Theories had not really a more early Original and Reception in the Universal Church I begin with the Simile of the Sun †Apolog c. 21. sup citat §. 7. Vide. Now Tertullian the most ancient of all our Latin Writers used this Simile and says that in respect thereof the Logos was ever backward celebrated under this Title as the Ray of God So * Instit l. 4. c. 29. ille tanquam Sol hic quasi radius à Sole porrectus Lactantius had learned the same Simile from Tertullian or his Church So †In Evan. Joh. c. 5. Tract 20. Si separas candorem Solis à Sole separa Verbum à Patre St. Austin an African likewise had from his Fathers derived the same Example of the Sun The Greek Fathers that lived in and just after the Nicene Council so often so uniformly and canonically use it who yet argued from the specifick Sense of the Homoousion that the citations of them would fill a Volume so this Fancy is not later than these Tritheit Homooufiasts And to let his Lordship see that it was an Ante-Nicene Simile not only the Scripture term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may convince but the express production of it * Theognost ap Athan de Syn. Nic. con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
is distinguished from and asserted the Author of those Operations and Graces there the Spirit cannot be those very Operations or Graces produced by them as those middle Virtues and Qualities must be See 1 Cor. 12.1 to 12. 2 Thess 2.13 1 Pet. 1.2 Gal. 5.22 Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. 1 Joh. 5.7 In which last the Holy Spirit is said to be in Heaven and consequently can be no middle Quality in us and yet in Heaven personally distinct from the Father and the Word which I take to be a good Argument from a good Authority in despite of Hereticks and defective Libraries to which I could add very many more were it necessary But the truth is the Texts alledged by Crellius do not all manifestly denote by the Spirit of God a mere created Virtue or Quality but may except some few to be by and by considered denote the essential Spirit of God supervening upon Men and creating in them the Spirits of Wisdom Vigour Prophecy Life c. And particularly where Elihu Job 33.4 saith the spirit of God hath made me he implies the prae-existence of that Spirit before himself and so not after effected in him being indeed a Virtue operant not operated but a precedent cause of the Operation it self And though according to the literal form of the Hebrew the evil Spirit that troubled Saul is called the Lords evil Spirit 1 Sam. 16.15 16 23. and 18.10 and 19.9 yet this may denote not a divine Operation surely which is not evil but a wicked infernal Personal Spirit the Lictor or Carnifex which God sent to punish him But if we keep to Crellius's Notion and let the evil Spirit here be a Quality effected in Saul it must be from some inspiring Agent which the Quality being evil cannot be God and so must be an evil Spirit of darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 16.14 sent from the Lord. And if so how can it be evinced that the Term evil Spirit does not denote the Person of the Evil Angel but only the effect of his infernal Operation And as to the Spirit of Wisdom with which God had filled some Persons for making the Priests habits c. Exod. 28.3 it appears not to be that effected Wisdom it self but the Divine Principle efficient thereof from Exod. 31.1 Where God says he had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God in Wisdom and Understanding c. where the filling Power i. e. the Spirit of God is distinguished from its effect i. e. that Wisdom and Understanding inspired by the Spirit of God into him And that Spirit of God producent of that Wisdom Exod. 31.3 might well be called the Spirit of that Wisdom which it produced as likewise Esa 11.2 So that in all these places I am verily perswaded that the Spirit of God signifies not a mere Divine Operation nor a mere Virtue divinely operated but a Principle and Substantial Power operant But that the Term Spirit of God may be sometimes put for the Grace effected thereby nay and that actions of Subjects are many times elegantly attributed to their Adjuncts as it may also happen to the effect for the efficient I shall not gainsay but such mere Metonymies do not presently exhibit a formal Prosopopoecia of those Adjuncts or Effects without other technical Schemes such as usually appear in Poetick or Dramatick fancies not in serious Prose plain Discourse didactick Institutions especially in the Simple Catechetical and Inartificial Rules of Faith delivered by Christ and his Apostles Besides with Poets and other Painters personated Qualities put on the feminine Veil Face and Sex but Christ describes his Holy Spirit * Joh. 14.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 16.13 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita 15.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as a Masculine Person when he calls him Paraclete with a Personal Pronoun He to shew him as it were exactly both in Nature and Person Where as Bishop Pearson well observes on Joh. 16.13 14 c. upon the Article of the Holy Ghost those personal Attributes of the Spirit can be by no means applied to God the Father nor to the Apostles by any Metonymy whatsoever according to the Socinian pretention But further that supreme Spirit of God is only one which yet by manifold Operations creates many kinds of Virtues which therefore are plurally called Spirits 1 Cor. 12.10 1 Cor. 14.32 § 29. Now to break off this blow Crellius coins a double sort of Unity for the Holy Spirit One generical consisting in this that all such Spirits how numerous and various soever are yet of one Genus of Spirit as all individual Bodies and sorts of Bodies are included in one Genus of Body But such Unity is but merely notional and uncapable of individual Acts and Offices which yet are ascribed to the one Holy Spirit For when †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the self same Spirit is said to distribute all gifts according as he will it is manifest that many single and many sorts of Graces are given by the will of one only Spirit individually One. For individual and actually existent effects must be the products of individual and actually existing Cause or Causes not from mere Genus and Species which are not the subjects of Historical Relations For it cannot be said of Substance or Body in general that one and the self same Substance or Body produces all Physical effects in the material World nor of Man in Specie that one and the self same Man performs all the Acts and Offices that are done by all and every single Man Nor is Genus and Species capable of Personal Unities and Distinctions But now the Apostle distinguishes both the Operations and Effects of one and the self same Spirit both from themselves and that Spirit not only numerically but specifically and yet asserts them the products * 1 Cor. 12. of one and the self same Spirit one and the self same Lord one and the self same God shewing at least the Unity of the Spirit to be such and the same as is the Unity of the Lord and God which must be therefore most perfectly Individual But if each particular Divine Inspiration or it s produced Graces had been so many distinct Holy Spirits of God in themselves since there are such multitudes and multiplicities of them there was no reason why in the same breath he should assert them many and manifold and yet but one operant Spirit only which therefore must be distinct from them as the Cause from the effect as the Author from the product and as the Donor from the gift § 30. His second sort of Unity is that of Origine by which he pretends the Spirit to be called One because though infinitely manifold or divisible in it self yet it proceeds from one God and in this respect may be called One But neither will this last fit For the Terms one and the self same are too narrow and express a closer
Unity and cannot be applied to innumerable particulars that are only of one Original For all particular Men cannot be said to be one and the self same Man which performs all humane actions that are because all Men originally descend from one Father Adam Nor can all the Israelites be said to be one and the self same Israelite that destroyed the Canaanites because they all descended from one Father Israel Nor can all the Socinians be called one and the self same Socinian that wriggles himself into a thousand tricks and turnings because they all descended from one Doctor or Father Faustus for I will not meddle with Laelius But in truth if there had been a vast number of the Holy Spirits of God and these but mere Qualities to which Personal Names Pronouns and Predicates are so often attributed in the singular number of one Holy Spirit on the score of a mere generical or originary Unity why do we never plurally read of many such Holy Spirits of God so personated according to this invention with an open acknowledgment of their Plurality and sometimes of their Impersonality but only of one such Holy Spirit under such Personal Titles and Descriptions Or why had not the Article of the Holy Spirit in the Greeds been always taught and professed according to this pretty novel interpretation Since the Church ought to have been taught and dealt with plainly and not tricked into mazes or impieties by Figures Fetches and Sophistries more ambiguous and involved than the Devil's Oracles Nor will the seven Spirits of God in the Revelation help for they are waiting Ministers at the Throne of God not Qualities inspired into us and they are but seven neither a number far too small for the kinds or numbers of inspired Graces We see then that the Wit of Man cannot bear up against the Truth and Wisdom of God And herein our Country-man Biddle was so convinced of * Bid. of the Holy Spirit the errors of his Socinian Fathers that he even scouts them and roundly falls off to the Elder Enemies of the Holy Spirit with whom he passed for a created Person § 31. Hoping then that this may help to convince his Lordship of the Personality of the Holy Spirit of Divine Love I will a little for the sake of others endeavour also to prove the Holy Spirit not to be a created Person This will appear first from all those places in which he is said †Didym de Sp. S. l. 1. ex version Hieron Ipsum quoque Effusionis nomen increatam Spiritus Sancti substantiam probat Neque enim Deus cum Angelum mittit aut aliam creaturam effundam dicit de Angelo meo aut throno aut dominatione to be put or poured out upon Men which is no where spoken of Angels which yet are Spirits ministring to the Heirs of Salvation which argument convinced the Socinians of the Macedonian Error But a Divine Virtue though in its Energies it recede not from God yet because of those influences is it self said and in a manner seems to be poured out upon and communicated to divinely-inspired Souls into which a connatural congenial or consimilar Virtue is thereby infused So the Spirit of God poured out upon all Flesh Joel 2.28 29. is a Virtue substantially intrinsical to the Deity which yet St. Peter testifies to be the same Spirit which acted the Apostles at the Feast of Pentecost Act. 2. and which is celebrated with Personal Titles Pronouns and Attributes Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. And herein also is asserted his omnipresence as also by the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon ch 1. v. 7. The Spirit of the Lord filleth the World and by the Psalmist Psal 139.7 Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence Here the Spirit of God cannot be a middle Virtue inspiring David since this he had no reason to dread or shun and yet all Men by sinning especially by knavery and doubling shun and fly from this Grace too easily Nor are the acts of Divine Vengeance ever called the Spirit of God in the Patient Neither is this Spirit of God here a created Spirit whose Presence cannot be escaped since the Psalmist here only speaks of God's Presence and Power See onward to v. 17. And further * Didym de Sp. S. l. 1. Demonstratur Angelica Virtus ab hoc prorfus aliena Angelus quippe qui aderat verbi gratia Apostolo in Asia oranti non poterat simul eodem tempore adesse aliis in caeteris partibus constitutis Vid. praeced seq praed Athanas omnino Disp con Arium though one created Angel can follow one single or more sociated Men wheresoever we can suppose one way for their flight yet one single Angel cannot at once follow or be present to all Men in all their Dispersions which omnipresence however all Men ought to own in the Spirit of God Now if any Man shall urge that the Words thy Spirit are put for thee as my Spirit for I Gen. 6.3 The same Psalmist's same words in a full literal intention Psal 51.11 Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me must interpret our present Text without a circumlocution as many others will that of Gen. 6.3 And yet admitting a Figure or Trope it represents the Spirit of God as God which is what I contend for as being internal to the Divine Mind Esa 40.13 14. With this Omnipresence he hath also a Divine Empire by which he distributes all the Divine Graces to whom and as he will every where 1 Cor. 12.11 All which put together doth more fully set forth the Singularity Omnipresence and Supremacy of the Holy Spirit than those mere forms of Speech which as they are attributed to the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of God are also attributed to the Prince of Devils in the Kingdom of Darkness which is Biddle's grand Evasion from our Arguments taken from such sayings that the Spirit dwells in us teaches us c. for these and such like expressions are uttered of the Devil that he deceives the World blinds the Souls of Unbelievers Captivates Impenitents takes away the Word out of the hearts of the Hearers became a lying Spirit in Four Hundred Prophets c. which sayings do not indeed denote the Devil 's Personal Omnipresence to all at once but only that he thus reacheth Men by his Ministers which Biddle would perswade us of the Holy Spirit also but they had certainly denoted a terrestrial Omnipresence if it had been added that there is but one only Evil Spirit and that he alone by his own Personal Operations had thus acted on all wicked Men and that no mortal Man can avoid his Presence and Power none of which is expressed of the Devil and yet if it had his exclusion out of Heaven is asserted also where yet the Holy Spirit of God dwells and shines in essential Glory not to
as silly as it is false and debasing For Irenaeus the great mawl of Valentinianism defends our very Faith and Theology against that and all other Gnostick Heresies Nay and St. John one would think was a Preacher of our Doctrine And can any one be brought to believe that St. John and St. Irenaeus were tainted or drunk with the Lees of Aeonism Let Sandius therefore and his Lordship make what advantages they please against our Theories by their Valentinian Character there is no great danger The Lion's Hide covers a very tractable Animal For after all Sandius his Disguises his Father Arius his Thalea which he swaggered as descending from Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from Grandsire Kalentine and his Symmystae Well to go along with his Lordship how came the poor old doating Fathers to nod thus His Lordship tells us 't was because 't was long before these Theories were well stated and settled And here I had been at a sad loss for an Epocha of this settlement if I had not by good fortune met with Dr. Burnet's Letter of Remarks upon the two strong Box Papers where he tells us thus It seems plain that the Fathers before the Council of Nice believed the Divinity of the Son of God to be in some sort inferiour to that of the Father and for some Ages after the Council of Nice they believed them indeed both equal but they considered these as two different beings and only one in Essence as three Men have the same Humane Nature in common among them and that as one Candle lights another so one flowed from another and after the fifth Century the Doctrine of one Individual Essence was received If you will be further informed concerning this Father Petau will satisfie you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice and the Learned Dr. Cudworth as to the second So then the Primitive Faith till the Nicene Council was That there were two Divinities or Deities one of the Father and another of the Son and that of the Son somewhat inferiour to that of the Father From the Council of Nice to the sixth Century they believed two or three different * What is this but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essences or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beings and these equal and no otherwise of one Essence than three Men that are of one common Nature But in the beginning of the sixth Century then their Eyes and Faith opened into one individual Essence and then I suppose the matter was settled Be this so for once what will it amount to That all the Fathers till the sixth Century were Polytheists and Idolaters not excepting the Nicene When a Man thinks upon this he must needs confess it not †Discours 3. p. 65. It were perhaps too invidious to send Men to Petavius to find in him how much the Tradition of the several Ages has varied in the greatest Articles of the Christian Faith only perhaps but for certain invidious to send Men to the Jesuit for a Calumny against the Primitives and were so to Dr. Cudworth to make his History of such Consequence But as for Petavius and his Admirers I think them all refuted by Dr. Bull beyond all possibility of a reply and as for the Arguments upon a Specifick Homoousion cited by Dr. Cudworth and others I have above accounted for their innocency § 11. and proved that though they argued from a specifick Homoousion through the Arian Cavils especially to avoid the Charge of Sabellianism yet they did not assert this alone as his Lordship charges them But now to come upon my Lord 's blind side In his Letter he says the Post Nicene Fathers were for an equality and used for their Theory the Simile of Candles In the Discourse we are upon he says the Simile of Candles gave rise to the Nicene form Light of Light and therefore must be used by the Ante-Nicene Fathers whom he asserts to be for an inequality In his Letter the specifick Homoousiasts are equalizers but in his Discourse the same are Subordinators But here again I would sain see the Simile of Candles produced among the Post-Nicene Homoousiasts to whom in his Letter my Lord assigns it Again in his Discourse the Theory of the Divine Wisdom and Love is said to be consequent or concomitant to the Doctrine of one individual Essence In the Letter this Doctrine commences with the sixth Century But all the Fathers that I have above-cited for the Theory of the Wisdom and Love of the Divine Mind especially § 21. § 23. lived long before his Lordship 's Epocha even in the fourth Century the very lowest and latest But since his Lordship is become a Father no wonder if he falls into contradictions too against himself and truth too for it seems 't is of ancient prescription with Men of that Character But in short I thought all these traduced Theories to have been ever settled and that settlement not begun but continued and defended only by the Councils and Fathers in several Ages according as seemed then most seasonable in respect of the Heresies and Sentiments then fermenting which occasions a seeming variety in forms of expression but no real difference in the Substance of their Faith that so Men herein might charge them with mutual or self-contradictions And yet that which we stand for is not every notion of every Father but what they all agree in and such are those Theories which his Lordship hath exposed as Exorbitant Let his Lordship prove their express contradictions each to other in these established and received Theories and then indeed he may more creditably expose his Father's Nakedness though that practice is but of ill and execrable prescription But as his Lordship has upbraided the Primitive Tradition of the Faith and the Scriptures in these Discourses and the forementioned Letter and loaded the Traditors with so much reproach he has done what in him lies to discourage Students from reading or regarding them and not only so but he has put such a Dagger into the hands of Deists and the open Enemies of all Revealed Religion as he himself will never be able to extort for who will believe the Church that she received the New Testament from Men divinely inspired when for Five Hundred Years after Christ her Principles were Polytheist and Idolatrous and she knew not the very first Rudiments of a true Faith and when she at last did so yet fell into divers silly conceits and Similes about it since scorned and rejected by the Critick Tribe § 42. And now I am resolved to end though his Divinity affords much more corrigible matter At the horrour whereof I leave him to God's Mercy and the Churches Prayers but his Writings of this stamp either to his own ingenuous Recantation or Canonical Censure FINIS