Infinite Persons and but one God Ask them How can these things be and what do you mean They answer our meaning only is God understands himself and willeth that is esteems and loves himself This is a very mean and despicable Sense to be couched in such mysterious and surprising Terms Why do they affect to speak fantastically when they might speak soberly and plainly But we would easily forgive them the Folly of their Mysteries if their Hieroglyphick Language were not as false and contradictory as 't is vain and trifling For after they have told us that by Son and Spirit they mean nothing but God's Knowledg and Love of himself that the Eternal Generation so much talk'd of is only God's conceiving understanding or apprehending his own Perfections and the Procession which we are so carefully to distinguish from the Eternal Generation is only the Love which proceeds from God towards himself after I say they have thus unriddled their Mystery and of a Mystery made it a very vulgar and ordinary piece of Knowledg how absurd and monstrous is it to tell us that this Reflex Knowledg which God hath of himself and his Love or Esteem of himself are Persons and Spirits really distinct from him One while the Second and Third Persons so called are only God's knowing himself and loving himself that is they are only two Acts of his Vnderstanding and Will At the next turn these two Acts God's Apprehending himself and Esteeming himself are metamorphosed into Two several Spirits and Persons whereof one you must call the Son and the other the Holy Ghost Of one you must say on pain of Damnation He was Conceived Generated or Begotten of the other you must believe and say under the same Penalty He proceeded I say now this is Egyptian all over 't is the very Genius and Spirit of the old Mystical Hieroglyphicks that is to say partly Foolish and partly False And to prove it I need go no farther than the Understandings and Consciences of all Reasonable Men or even of every Individual Man who hath not as much given up his Reason to Mother Church as the Good Man who would not believe his Eyes against his Dear Wife had given up to her his Senses To tell Men that to apprehend one's self is a Person and to love one's self is another Person and Spirit is in effect to ridicule Religion and to scare from it all Men of free Sense I know not why the prophane Wit was esteemed an Atheist for his saying God by his Almighty Power can turn a Tree into a Syllogism more than such may be justly suspected of Atheism who say an Action of the Divine Vnderstanding is an Infinite and Almighty Person whom under pain of Damnation we must call the Son of God And again an Action of the Divine Will is another such Person and him we must name the Holy Ghost For the Wit only turned a Substance into a Thought and Trinitarians turn Thoughts into Substances and Persons Did they alledg for these Mysteries but the least colour of Reason or Revelation we would hold our Tongues but to be obliged to believe such things without any pretence of Revelation and contrary to all Reason and common Sense this I think is what we owe to no sort of Men of what colour soever they dye their Coats For my part I never think of these whether Dotages or Impostures without such an Inclination as I very hardly resist of applying to our Athanasian Doctors what Cato said of the Roman Augures and Aurispices I wonder says Cato that an Augur or Aruspex can meet another of the same Profession without their Laughing in one another's Faces He knew their pretended Learning and Discipline was the Religion establish'd by Law warranted by Custom and Prescription and authorized by the Consent of Nations For all that 't was a Cheat so gross and palpable that he could not but admire that the Augurs were such stark Fools or such perfect Knaves that meeting they could carry a grave Look upon one another Of the Creation IN the Fulness of Time the before-described Trinity Created the World and all things therein Yet we are not to imagine that the Three Divine Persons divided the Work among them each of them taking a Part. Nor could every one of them Create the same things because a thing can be created but once But according to that Oeconomy as Divines speak that is the Domestick Order or Houshold-Government that is between the Three Persons it must be said and held that the Father is most properly the Creator the Son the Redeemer and the Spirit the Sanctifier of all Persons and Things So that when we say the Trinity Created Heaven and Earth and all Things this is thereby intended The Father Created all things by the Son through the Holy Ghost The Notes The Father created all things by the Son through the Holy Ghost I wish the Sages of the Party had thought fit plainly to tell us what they mean by such an odd way of expressing themselves But they have long since let the World know that all their care is to get Words and for Meaning they never think of it But the Father it seems is the Creator nay 't is he that is properly the Creator but then 't is by the Son and through the Holy Ghost That is to say the Father is not the Creator much less is He properly the Creator but the Son and Holy Ghost and these two are jointly Creators For if the Father created the World by the Son and through the Holy Ghost then the Father himself had no immediate Efficiency or Hand in the Work but only the Son and Holy Ghost these were the true Creators of the World and of all things And besides that the old Difficulty returns namely that the Son and Spirit divided the Work between them each taking his part or the same things must be created twice I know not how better to explain their Notion of the Father's being most properly the Creator than by saying he was just so according to them the Creator of the World as King Charles I. built the Royal Soveraign or was the Builder of the Royal Soveraign For we say that King built the Royal Soveraign by the Master-Builder through the Ship-Carpenter that is he built it not he only ordered it to be built the Master-Shipwright or Master-Builder and the Ship-Carpenters were the Builders But if this be so we are strangely misled by the Apostles Creed which instructs us to say that the Almighty Father is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and is wholly silent of the great Mystery that it was by the Son and through the Holy Ghost And the Scriptures do yet worse impose on us by an unheard-of Solecism and Impropriety while they speak of these two or three pretended creating Persons by the singular Pronouns I HE THOV HIM which in no Language are used but only of one singular and particular
THE Trinitarian Scheme OF RELIGION CONCERNING Almighty God And MANKIND Considered both before and after the pretended Fall With NOTES thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme London Printed in the Year 1692. The Trinitarian Scheme of Religion concerning Almighty God and Mankind considered both before and after the pretended Fall with Notes thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme Of the Blessed Trinity THERE are Three Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son an Almighty Spirit distinct from both who are jointly Creators of all other both Persons and Things They are so many distinct Minds and Spirits indued each of them with his own Proper and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action Each of them is an absolutely Perfect and All-sufficient Being and singly and by himself a God Yet all of them together are but one God The Notes There is a most Holy most Wise most Good and Almighty Person who is over all from everlasting to everlasting the Maker of the Universe the Fountain of Good to all other Beings every where present Who with respect to the Creation of the World and his Adoption of all Good Men is pleased to permit himself to be called the Father But with respect to his Soveraign Dominion and Power above all He is usually designed by the Name or Word GOD. There neither is nor can be more than one such Person Because He is All-sufficient for himself and for whatsoever He shall please to make He had thereby within himself a most Determining and Certain Cause why he should neither beget nor make another or others equal to Himself but only Subordinate and Dependent Beings for Objects and Exercises of his Goodness More such Persons or Beings as Himself He knew must be as needless and useless as himself is absolutely and indispensably necessary For if He is truly All-sufficient they must for that reason be altogether superfluous both to him and to his Creatures Nor can we suppose more than one such Person without supposing an Infinity of them For whatsoever either Rational Motive or Natural and Necessary Cause may be feigned why the Universal Father should beget or make another or others equal to Himself the same whether Motive or Cause must also dispose that other or those other Persons to beget or make their Equal or Equals and so onwards till there were an Infinity of Divine Persons The Nature therefore of the thing demonstratively shows that a stop is necessarily made at one Divine that is one Infinite and All-sufficient Person Of the Eternity of the Trinity AS to the Duration Eternity or Life of the Blessed Trinity the Trinity possesses Eternal Life all at once To all other Beings Time is a Flux or Succession that of it which was now is not and that which now is shall immediately give place to what is coming It was once true of all other Beings but the Trinity that they were are and shall be but to the Trinity there is neither past nor to come but whole Time or all Eternity is now To the Trinity from everlasting to everlasting is but one undivided Instant or Moment for the Trinity is we may not say it was or it shall be The Notes This Divinity is wholly borrowed from the Platonists from whom the Modern Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Mystical Properties and Attributes thereof have been learned by those who among themselves go by the Names of Orthodox and Catholick The Trinity or God say they possesses Eternal Life all at once He is we may not say He was or He shall be In direct opposition to this whimsical Paradox St. John has defined God to be Him which WAS which IS and which SHALL BE or is to come Rev. 1.4 We say therefore 't is one of the Divine Perfections not an Imperfection that God IS WAS and SHALL BE. He hath carried and shall carry all Perfections into all the Successions and Periods of Time when He WAS he was no less perfect than now that he IS nor is He now less perfect than he shall be when he SHALL BE. They tell us we must not say God WAS that is to please them we must turn Atheists by saying he WAS NOT for of necessity we must say one of the two either that He was or that He was not there being no middle between these two no more than there is between He is and He is not Of the Omnipresence and Infinity of the Trinity NOR are we to conceive of the Infinity Immensity or Omnipresence of the Trinity after a vulgar manner For tho the Trinity is truly Infinite and Omnipresent yet 't is whole and all in any the least Point of Space The Trinity has no Extension and yet it comprehends all Distances The Trinity is three such Persons as that each of them reaches over and through all the the World and yet all Three are laxly and largely accommodated on the Point of a Needle Not only so but the right Faith is the Trinity is no where and yet 't is every-where The Notes This is another Article of the new Platonick Divinity God or the Trinity say they is whole and all in the least point of Space and tho he is no where yet he is every-where We say on the contrary with St. Austin what is no where is nothing therefore to speak as they do of God is in words to affirm him and in sense to deny him That God is every-where we are ready to demonstrate to them from the Order and Conservation of his Works and from the Effects of his Providence and from an hundred Passages of Holy Scripture That he is no where is incumbent on them to prove which we are sure they can do by no Reason nor by any Authority but that of their Masters the Platonists Every-where and no-where are contradictory Terms therefore if God is every-where it must needs be false that he is no-where else we cannot distinguish between Affirming and Denying that is between express Contradictions Of the Simplicity of the Trinity THere is no less Mystery in the other Properties and Attributes of the Trinity For God is one most simple uncompounded Being yet He consists or is made up of Three really distinct Minds Beings or Spirits so really distinct and diverse that one of them is not the other nay one is the Father another his Son the third a Spirit as distinct from both as they are from each other The Notes There is no Mystery at all in any of the Properties or Attributes of God They are no less clear in themselves than they are evidently deduced from the Excellence of his Works and the Methods of his Providence The Mystery never lies in the Attribute or Property but in the Addition made to it by fanciful Men. As to that vulgar Aphorism that God is a most simple and uncompounded Being from whence they have hammered the Property or Attribute of God's Simplicity as they affect to speak
Person They confound us yet more if more can be by telling us only and so often of the Creator never of Creators as Trinitarians would have us to speak Gen. 6.7 Jebovah said I will destroy Man whom I have made Isa 42.5 HE that created the Heavens HE that spread out the Earth HE that giveth Breath unto the People Nehem. 9.6 THOV hast made the Heaven the Heaven of Heavens with all their Host the Earth and all things therein the Sea and all that is therein and THOV preservest them all and the Host of Heaven worshippeth THEE This Text assures us there was no dividing the work between two or more Persons It was one THOU who both created and preserves all things and THEE saith the Text the the Host of Heaven worshippeth not YE not THEM not more Persons but one only Isa 4.28 The CREATOR of the Ends of the Earth fainteth not Rom. 1.25 Served the Creature more than Gr. besides the CREATOR But what is not really found in Scripture for their purpose Trinitarians know how to discover that 't is there which with respect to the case before us they do these two ways First by interpreting the Texts which by Confession of their ablest Criticks speak of the new Creation or Renovation of the World from Idolatry to the Knowledg of the one true God which was by Christ concerning the old Creation or the making of Heaven and Earth which was by God Secondly They oft-times honestly add the word or words that were wanting on their behalf which they have done in abundance of Contexts But for both these Artifices their Detection and their Confutation I refer to the brief History of the Vnitarians Of Original Sin SOon after the Creation Adam the first Man transgressing the Law given to him of not eating the forbidden Fruit he thereby incurred the Penalty of Death that was the Penalty annex'd to the Law which he had violated But first he incurred this Penalty not only for himself who was the actual and real Offender but for his whole Posterity God impating to them or reckoning to them his Offence as if they had been the Doers of it Secondly We are to know that in the word Death there is implied not only what is naturally and commonly meant thereby even the Separation of the Soul from the Body and the Body's returning to Dust but first such a Corruption and Depravation of our Faculties that we are all born naturally averse from every good Word and Work and inclined to Evil only and to all kinds of Evil. Then all Temporal Calamities and Evils to which human Life is subject and finally Eternal Damnation All these are implied in the words of the Sanction The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and they are by Divines commonly called the three Deaths or the threefold Death Spiritual Temporal and Eternal But we mean not to say that the word Death doth in its first or proper Signification import all the abovesaid Evils But it pleased God when He passed Sentence on Adam to extend the Signification of that Word which exprest and contained the Penalty of his Law 'T is true 't would be cried out on as most unjust among Men to reckon or impute the Transgression of a Father to his Children and other Posterity and much more if they were punish'd for it in a far more extream manner than is truly and indeed implied in the Penalty annex'd to the Law that was violated that is if the Word or Words of the Penalty were extended and strained beyond their proper and natural meaning Yet these things cannot be unjust with God because He can do no Unjustice and the reason of that is because Things or Actions are not just or unjust in themselves or in their own Natures but only as God who hath all Authority and Power either willeth and commandeth them or on the contrary nilleth and forbiddeth them The Notes This Postulatum that Things or Actions are not just or unjust in themselves or in their own Natures but only as the Supream Authority and Power that is to say GOD shall please to will or nill them to command or forbid them is indeed necessary to the Defence of such Doctrines as these that God doth arbitrarily impute the Sin of one Man to all Men and that in punishing those whom he hath made guilty by his meer Will he infinitely exceeds the true proper and natural Signification of the Words in the Sanction that is of the words of that part of his Law which contain the Penalty of transgressing it That Postulatum is so necessary to this Doctrine of Original Sin that it must be owned that the Calvinists have judged better and spoke more consistently than their Opposers of some other Sects and Churches who hold Original Sin as 't is before described and yet seem unwilling to allow of that only Basis on which Calvinists have rightly seen it will stand namely this that Just and Unjust Good and Evil are only the Will and Prohibition of him that hath Supream Power But as the Postulatum is necessary to the Doctrine for which it was devised so it as much destroys the Eternal Rectitude and Holiness of God as the Doctrines in the foregoing Paragraphs which have been already considered overthrow the Unity the Omnipresence and other his Essential Perfections and Attributes It is horrible but to think that these Imputations on the most Holy God are such as would make up the just Character of an Almighty Devil For if the Devil had Supream Power what worse could he do than they feign is done by the Fountain it self of Rectitude and Holiness Could he do worse than impute the Sin of one Man to all Men and punish them for it besides and beyond his own Sanction with an utter Inability to all that is good then punish Inability which was neither their Act nor Desert and of which himself was the only cause with Eternal Damnation Here many to help themselves a little say God saves some from this Ruine he rescues his Elect tho not from Sin and Temporal Death and Calamity yet from Eternal Damnation nay bestows on them the unspeakable and everlasting Beatitudes of Heaven But this is no better than the other For the highest Injustice to the far-greater number is so far from being excused by an ungrounded Partiality for a very few that this latter may be truly called a new and fresh Instance of sort of Unjustice Is it not Partiality and Vnjustice too to make a great number of Creatures of the same kind and tho one deserves no more than another of them either for Good or Evil cherish one with whatsoever Omnipotence can do for him and burn against the other with Wrath eternal and insupportable But they say God having all Authority and Power what He willeth must needs be Law that is to say Justice and what He nills or forbids must be Transgression that is to say Evil Sin and Vnjustice
Thought as that of David was it came solely from David not from God for in that very Context 2 Sam. Ch. 7. God disallowed and forbad it declaring withal that He had reserved that Work for Solomon the Son of David No one will be so unchristian as to deny that 't was a good Thought and Action in St. Paul and his Company that they attempted to preach the Gospel in Bithynia but it came from themselves not from God for the Text says God suffer'd them not so to do Acts 16.7 7. If our Case were such with respect to Good and Evil as our Opposers pretend that is if all the Good we do and all the Evil we forbear is only by a daily hourly and momentary Grace for so they affect to speak inspired infused or blown into us The Words of the Divine Law should be directed to God's Grace in us not to us But now this is not only not so but the Phrase and Expression used in the Law or Commandment plainly supposes that we can obey by our own proper Powers Such in particular is that remarkable Text at Ezek. 18.31 32. Make you a new Heart and a new Spirit for why will ye die O House of Israel I have no pleasure in the Death of him that dieth wherefore turn your selves and live ye 8. Our Ability to Good as well as Evil is evinced also by this that God declares he will punish the neglect of Duty and every evil Doer after a most terrible and condign manner This would be too apparently unjust and tyrannical if himself hath so made us that we cannot do that Duty or forbear that Evil without a particular and extraordinary Grace and Aid which is in the Gift and Power of God only and which he refuseth or omitteth to bestow on us Our Opposers deny that we can so much as pray for that Grace or Aid of God by which to do Good and forbear Evil for they say the very Affectus orandi the Inclination or Intent to pray is purely the Gift of God As for the Word and Sacraments another means for obtaining God's Grace we shall see hereafter that our Opposers make the outward Word of no Efficacy ascribing all to the inward Word which is not at all in our Power and in order to any Benefit by the Sacraments so called they require a great many previous Graces which are only in the Hand of God So that after all their Subterfuges Evasions and Shifts their Doctrine concerning Grace amounts to this God will punish Men eternally in Hell-Fire for not doing and for not forbearing what 't was not in them to do or forbear without such an extraordinary Grace of God as was wholly in him to give and not at all in them to attain or get As to the Texts by them alledged to prove that all is done by the Grace of God and that we are impotent and averse also to all Good They have been often told by the Socinians and Remonstrants and in the Annotations of the excellent Grotius how those Texts are to be understood To them therefore I refer without ingaging in so long and tedious a Digression Of the Word and Sacraments NOW that the Elect may obtain the before mentioned Grace of God by which to believe aright and to do that which Good is the Trinity have appointed the Word and Sacraments A Sacrament consists of two Parts an outward visible Sign and an inward invisible Grace or Energy The visible Sign of the Sacrament of Baptism is Water the inward Grace is New Birth unto Faith and Righteousness By this Sacrament even Infants are regenerated or born again by the Spirit co-operating that is to say Faith Obedience and other saving Graces are conferred in this Sacrament on Elect Infants In the Sacrament of the Supper the outward Sign is Bread and Wine the inward Energy or Grace accompanying it is first Remission of Sins next the refreshing and strengthening our Souls in Faith and other Graces These things are amply and often taught us by the English Church both in the publick Catechism and in the Offices or Forms of administring Baptism and the Lord's-Supper The Word is another appointed means of Grace but no one is to think that 't is by Arguments used by a Preacher or by the Rewards or Punishments held forth in the Word whether written or preach'd or such-like external and human means that our Minds are savingly convinced or our Wills and Affections rightly disposed No no the inward and ineffable Word which God himself speaks to the Heart and which towards the Elect accompanies the Word preach'd or read when and as oft as God pleases this is that only Word which begets Faith worketh Obedience and in one word that whole Renovation or Change which denominateth a Man or Woman the Child or Servant of God And thus much is plainly and undeniably intimated in the Collects and other Prayers and Offices of our English Service-Book and is the known Doctrine of all the Orthodox of all indeed but Socinians and such as are more or less Socinianiz'd The English Service-Book and the Articles are so clearly for these Doctrines that it hath occasioned this Declaration of what may be meant when Men subscribe to the Articles Homilies and Service-Book to be favourably received even this that Men subscribe not to the Truth but to the use of the Service-Book and again they subscribe to the Articles as to Articles of Peace and Communion which they will not publickly impugn in the station of Preachers not as to Articles of Faith or of absolute and undoubted Verity This is the sense in which perhaps most Men now subscribe to the Homilies Articles and Service-Book and which upon occasion they declare to be the meaning of their Subscription But all such are reformed according to the Model not of our first Reformers but of Socinus Arminius and Episcopius whatsoever the Station may be that they hold in the Church The Notes The Sum of this Doctrine is tho we are so made by God as to be by Nature impotent to all Good and disposed to all Evil yet to cure the Elect tho not wholly yet in part of this corrupt and depraved Condition of our Minds and Souls God has appointed the Word and Sacraments Which are a sort of means that work not by any natural Energy of their own nor by any Harmony Sutableness or Agreeableness to our Powers Faculties or Natures but by a Theurgical Telestick and Mystical Operation Which is to say they work on our Minds as Spells Charms and Incantations and such like obtain their pretended Effects namely by a Praeternatural Power extraordinarily given to them by God or by those Spirits that preside over such Affairs Let a Man in black sprinkle you with some of the Church's Water or give you a bit of Bread or a sup of Wine over which he has pronounced the Wonder-working Words prescribed in Mother Church's Ritual tho by Nature you