Two Letters touching the Trinity and Incarnation The First urging the Belief of the Athanasian Creed The Second an Answer thereto The First LETTER Loving Cousin IT 'S no small Trouble to me to hear you are fallen into the horrid Heresy of the Socinians and Arians viz. to deny the Holy Trinity and Incarnation of our Saviour For you commend a printed Sheet that is dispersed under the Title of Brief Notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius and are not afraid of the Damnation which is there pronounced against all such as do not firmly believe the Doctrines contained therein which have been always and are at this Day held to be the Great Fundamentals of Christianity And I take them to be so clearly revealed in Holy Scripture that no Man well acquainted with Scripture as you are can disbelieve them without some Wantonness and Pride of Vnderstanding a great Conceit and Confidence of their own Knowledg and such unpardonable Immodesty as admits of no Excuse And though such Persons may be otherwise pious and useful Men yet there 's no Reason why they should not be damned as well as devout and vertuous Jews and Heathens I always took you for a modest Man and one that had a great Reverence for what is revealed in Holy Scripture But if you now resolve never to allow that to be the Sense of the Revelation however plain and evident the Words are which is not agreable to your Reason but will put another Sense upon them though never so forc'd and violent as in this Controversy you do I can no longer account you modest but that you now betray the Pride and Conceitedness which before lay hid and that if you persist in the Denial of the supream Divinity of the Son of God and of the Holy Ghost you are to be rejected of all good Christians as an Heretick one that is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself For that it is not consistent with any Man but him that has long indulged in himself that Arrogance and Singularity which stops his Ears to sober Truth and shuts out of his Heart the Fear and Awe of God or at least never sets himself seriously before the Divine Tribunal in the Consideration of these Matters as I am perswaded befals some heady and hot Controvertists to shut his Eyes against the Meridian Light of these necessary Doctrines the Foundation of Christian Religion as it is Christian For the Mystery of the Trinity runs through it and gives it all the Strokes of Life and Greatness as it is a positive Religion different from natural I beseech you therefore Cousin retire your self into your own Heart and set our Lord Jesus upon his Throne before your Eyes and consider what you will answer to him whom you have denied to be your God and say he is but a made Lord and that as a Mediator he is not God-Man but Man only and concerning the Holy Ghost in whose Name you are baptized as well as in the Father and the Son you yet deny him to be another Divine and Almighty Person Consider I pray that the Doctrine of the Trinity is not a speculative Point but that the whole Frame of Christianity is built upon it and that it is necessary to support both our Christian Worship and our Christian Hope and Comfort Consider also that all Heresies are Works of the Flesh which notwithstanding many great Bishops and some great Councils have been guilty of even in this Point denying of three equal Persons in God And we know that for many Ages the Church of Rome has maintained the gross Heresies of Transubstantiation and Idolatrous Worship of the Host with many other Superstitions all which shew that our corrupted Wills and Passions are as inclinable to Heresy and Superstition as to other Vices and Immoralities Faith is a Christian Vertue and a Man shall be punished for the Faults of his Vnderstanding as well as any others We must be as careful then to bring our Reason to whatever is divinely inspired as our Will to whatever is divinely commanded I beseech you therefore again and again examine your Conscience seriously and the Holy Scripture sincerely Do not impose upon your self to your own Destruction by uncouth nice unintelligible and trifling Distinctions for God will not be mocked Sincerity is necessary to every good Christian and they that want it shall have their Portion with Hypocrites and Sinners As you hearken to this altogether necessary Advice you shall have me Your Condoling or Congratulating Kinsman The ANSWER Dear Cousin AS I was meditating on the little or no care Christians take of their own Salvation that unhappy Carelesness afforded me the true Reason of their being so little concerned for the Salvation of their Neighbours I am glad to hear you are not of that Number and I don't question but you will be pleased that I am none of them neither and that following your Example I desire your Salvation with as much Earnestness as you do mine Most of those whom the Church has set up for the Conduct of Souls are much more earnest to get Preferments and defend the Party wherein they are ingaged by subtil Disputes and violent Persecutions than sincerely to examine the Doctrines which they teach and feed their Flocks with those pure and solid Truths which free from Sin and Error Nor do they think that thereby they become accountable before God's Tribunal for all the Wandrings of their Disciples And lastly that both the blind Guide and the Blind whom he guides shall fall into the Ditch Do but separate from their Study whatever is profane and belongs not to the Character of a Pastor and the Treasure of their Minds will soon be exhausted therefore imitate them not in such a Disorder For my part though I am a Lay-man I think I am bound earnestly to exhort my Brethren and you particularly to restore the Principle of our Reformation which is almost degenerated into Popery and to make use of our own Light that we may be able to keep the Way set before us in the Scripture This is the Protestants Right we are in Possession thereof and we must not suffer our selves to be deprived of it I beseech you dear Cousin in the Name of God to consider that when we were first delivered from the Roman Tyranny we inveighed against the absurd Doctrines that were imposed upon our Faith we cried down the Word of Men and recommended only the Word of God the Bible the Bible the Bible only says Chillingworth But we no sooner got out of our former Slavery by the help of so clear a Light but we are fallen into a new one by a most unequal Conduct The Question is no more concerning the pure Word of God it is say they too equivocal and uncertain and it is no hard Matter for Hereticks to make it agree with their particular Opinions What then we hear of nothing but Fathers Tradition Councils Creeds and new-coined
most infallible Mark of an Orthodox Man he that is endowed with it though he may err cannot be an Heretick If I was as bold as you dear Cousin I would apply to you a fine Passage of our worthy Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in his Sermon upon Luke 10.42 wherein he blames the Rashness of those who like you dare censure Error and Heresy in others whilst they themselves do not think of curing those Lusts Vices and Passions which so visibly reign in them But I shall only cite that general Reflection of his concerning those pretended Orthodox Deluded People says he that do not consider that the greatest Heresy in the World is a wicked Life because it is so directly and so fundamentally opposite to the whole Design of the Christian Faith and Religion and that God will sooner forgive a Man an hundred Defects of his Vnderstanding than one Fault of his Will And to shew you in one Word that when you attribute Immodesty Wantonness and Pride to Hereticks you act against the Spirit of your Church the Testimony of one of your Teachers only will suffice since he speaks for the whole Clergy I mean the Author of the Vindication of the conformed Clergy from the unjust Aspersions of Heresy That Heresy was no less than Pelagianism and Socinianism See how he vindicates your Teachers The Reason says he why they are accused of Heresy is their Moderation in Points of Controversy They do not confute their Opponent with a rude and infignificant Noise nor think they shall ever convince him by hard Words and ill Names which are the only Arguments that some Men are able to manage but they consider and are willing to make Allowances for the common Infirmities of humane Understandings and the strong Prejudices of Education and therefore they treat all Men gently and are not rudely clamorous in their Discourses but hope the best and think as charitably as they can of those that are of a different Perswasion See the Moderation of your Church imitate so charitable and Christian a Judgment and cease to damn like Jews and Heathens proud and conceited Men those good Men who work out their Salvation with Fear and Trembling lest with what Judgment ye judg ye may be judged The same Author will tell you that the Term of Heretick is a Name that is given now-a-days liberally and at a good rate and that It is nothing but the Passion of the Opponents that hath made that Name so very common as it is for it is grown no more now than an ordinary Term of Reproach for every angry Man that would fain be dealing with controversial Divinity that it serves for one of the principal Topicks for the great Professors of artificial Scolding c. Read but p. 70. As to that great Conceit and Confidence of their own Knowledg of which you think Hereticks are so full that they resolve never to allow that to be the Sense of the Revelation however plain and evident the Words are which is not agreeable to their Reason but will put another Sense upon them though never so sorced and violent As to this I will tell you First that they have borrowed that Method from the very Principle of the Reformation When dear Cousin those Words of Christ are objected to you This is my Body My Flesh is Meat indeed My Blood is Drink indeed Whoso eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood c. When I say those Places of the Scripture are objected to you who follow the Spirit of the Reformation Are you not resolved never to allow that to be the Sense of the Revelation however plain and evident these Words are which is not agreeable to your Senses and Reason and will you not put another Sense upon them though never so forced and violent as in effect you do when you say that by the Body of Christ is meant the Figure of his Body by eating his Flesh to believe in him c But I have already touched that Article in my Letter and therefore I shall insist no longer upon it Secondly Who puts upon the Scripture a more unnatural Sense than you do in this Controversy Who hath a greater Pride of Understanding and is more conceited of his Reasonings Hereticks so called make Religion to consist in the Profession of a simple Faith which they express in the very Terms of Scripture holding fast the Form of sound Words so afraid they are to indulge their Reason too much and to wrest the Language and Intention of the Holy Ghost But you on the contrary who rely altogether upon humane Expressions taken out of the Pagan Philosophy metaphysical Arguments and Abstractions or remote Consequences you I say must needs violate the sacred Reverence due to God's Word put a forced Sense upon the Words of the Holy Ghost and shew at the same time a proud Confidence by making the Scripture speak any thing that agrees with your Notions There is not one Word or Proposition in that Scripture but will signify quite contrary things according to your Distinctions and Consequences You distinguish between the Son of Man and the Son of God yet you confound those two Terms when you think fit and make the Son of Man to be the Son of God and the Son of God to be the Son of Man If we say that it was the Son of Man that came down from Heaven you reply that the Son of Man signifies there the Son of God If we object that the Son of God knew not the Day of Judgment you answer that by the Son of God in that Place is meant the Son of Man If one asks you What 's the Name of the first Person of the Trinity you answer the Father and insist earnestly upon that Distinction of Persons to avoid the Force of this Objection viz. That if Christ were the most high God he would be the Father of himself But if we object that the Father only knows the Day of Judgment and that he only is the true God and Creator of all things then the Word Father signifies no more what it signified before I mean the first Person of the Trinity but the whole Trinity and the very Son whom he hath begotten so great is your Skill in doing and undoing the Work of the Holy Ghost by contradicting Hereticks in Season and out of Season Let this suffice as to what concerns Words The same may be said of the Propositions of the Scripture either affirmative or negative By the enchanting Virtue of your Distinctions the Affirmative becomes Negative and the Negative Affirmative when there is any need of it and two contradictory Propositions are equally true and divine if at any time it can serve your turn It may be said that Christ hath wrought Miracles and hath wrought no Miracles that he knew not the Day of Judgment and knew it that he was born and not born In a word one may overthrow the whole Gospel and Creed all those
Words on purpose to keep Christians within the Bounds of the Faith of their Ancestors Metaphysical Terms whereof Men have no fixed Notion and yet they stop the Mouths of Hereticks by making the Church speak more clearly and reasonably than the Holy Ghost did But this is not all some of the same Men who inveighed so much against the Inquisition and Popish Violences set up among themselves a Holy Inquisition and will hear of no Toleration but oppress the Liberty of the Christians who dare speak out their Mind so far are they from venturing on Writings and a publick Profession One would think that by our many Disputes with the Roman Church concerning Infallibility we have acquired the Priviledg thereof to our selves Give me leave therefore dear Cousin since you call me to God's Tribunal to summon you to the same Pray tell me Ought we not to fear that God should require from us the Truth of the Holy Scripture with which we have been intrusted that Light which we have put under a Bushel and his gracious Talent which we have buried If he asks from whence we took those prosane Novelties of a Science falsly so called I mean that most strange and barbarous Language in his Church O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have Mercy upon us What shall we answer him What if he shall oblige us to give an Account of our Faith of that monstrous Creed of Athanasius with which we honour our great Holy Days and which you mention as the most illustrious Monument of the Faith of our Fathers Where is the Scribe where is the Philosopher of this World that can answer him to one of those many nonsensical Articles How came ye will he say to find in my Word one Essence and three Persons rather than one Person and three Essences By what Partiality have you discovered a Figure in these Words This is my Body and have found none in these The Word was God Why did you distinguish two Natures in the Christ whom I sent you whilst you refused to admit of two sorts of Being in the Sacramental Body which he gave you You were afraid of those Words To eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of God and you had no Repugnancy for the literal Sense of these A Virgin brought forth God The Jews crucified God He can ask a thousand such Questions to which we shall be able to give no reasonable Answer by reason of the Inequality of the Reverence we pretend to pay to his Word and of our Unsteadiness in the Use we make of our Reason and Senses In Effect I would fain have our Teachers to tell us by what Principle of Philosophy by what Rule of Language that Conclusion is irght and necessary viz. the Father is a Divine Person the Son is a Divine Person the Holy Ghost is a Divine Person Therefore there are three Divine Persons and this should not likewise be so The Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God Therefore there are three Gods Doth not common Reason tell us that those two Conclusions are like this Gabriel Raphael and Michael are three Angelical Persons therefore they are three Angels The same might be said of Peter James and John who are both three humane Persons and three Men. This Principle of natural Reason ought to prevail unless we are taught by the Scripture that three Divine Persons are not the same with three Gods or that a God is three Persons and three Persons a God But where doth it tell us so What Texts can they alledg that are clearer to prove that Mystery than those alledged by the Papists are to prove their supposed Mystery of one Christ and many Bodies and of many Bodies and one Christ How is it that with respect to the Sacrament we are helped by our Senses to put a reasonable Sense upon the Scripture but with respect to the Trinity Reason forsakes us so far as to ascribe to Scripture an absurd Sense and contrary to its Simplicity Is the Light of a sensible Man more certain than that of an understanding and reasonable Man Have we a greater Certainty that a Piece of Bread is not a humane Body than that two and one make three Is the Mystery of Christ's Sacramental Body more suitable to our Apprehension than the Mystery of his real and natural Body How come we to know that there is something that is incomprehensible in that Man whom we see born and dead and that there is no such thing in the Bread which we take and eat A God is joined to that say ye and why not to this But we see still some Bread will ye reply It is true your Senses do not deceive you But have not the Apostles too seen with their Eyes and touched with their Hands the Man who is called the Word of Life and their Senses have not deceived them This is true who can doubt of it How shall we come off Shall we fly to another Nature hypostatically united to this which is the Object of our Senses But then the Hereticks who err about the Sacrament may have Recourse to the same Shift to avoid the Testimony of the Senses Some will say that the Senses can judg only of the Species which remain in the Sacrament Some that there is an invisible Object in the Bread which is the glorious Body of Christ Some that there is an hypostatical Union of that Bread with the eternal Word which raises the Mystery so much above our Reason that it loses thereby the Right and Liberty of judging thereof and lies under the Necessity of submitting to the Authority of the Revelation which is clear upon this Point for it says This is my Body Now if our Reason is rash in the Judgment it bears concerning the Incarnation notwithstanding the Evidence of the literal Sense of the Scripture which is on her side what Rashness will it not be to interpose her Judgment in the Mysteries of Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation against the express Revelation of God's Word This is my Body I will only ask you one Question upon this Matter and I desire you to answer me in the Fear of God and the Sincerity of your Heart Why do you think you may with Dr. Wallis say that the Terms of Person Father Son Begotten c. are metaphorical whilst you cannot endure that those you call Hereticks should use the same Right and according to Reason and Scripture pretend likewise that the Title of God ascribed to Christ is also a metaphorical Expression Can any thing be more unjust Furthermore why do you take the Liberty to explain the Words of the Eucharist thus This Bread is the Representation and the Figure of my Body And why do you deny me at the same time the same Liberty when I explain the Words in the Beginning of St. John's Gospel by these And the Word was the Image of God Your Injustice is