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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43808	A vindication of the primitive Fathers against the imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum, in his Discourse on the divinity and death of Christ referred to the sense and judgment of the church universal, the arch-bishops and bishops of the Church of England, the two famous universities of Oxon and Cambridge, and the next session of the convocation / Samuel Hill ...	Hill, Samuel, 1648-1716.	1695 (1695)	Wing H2013; ESTC R12727	83,119	189

if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter But tho' this be inartificial enough if no more yet that which is more grievously suspicious is that he calls the Catholick Faith but a meer Opinion and Perswasion of a Party * P. 31. The third Opinion saith his Lordship is that the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that the Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Term Person became applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word a complete intelligent Being but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two So again † P. 32 33. This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than three Names or three outward Oeconomies * P. 42. or Modes and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of Christ § 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this but there are indeed several and those of great Importance First That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church The truth is as his Lordship has stated it it has many meer Opinions in it but they are such as are not in the Faith and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith either as it is or ought to have been stated by him he ought not to have set it out as a meer Opinion or Perswasion of a third Party For a meer partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholick Faith whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion For the Act is meer Humane Conjecture without certain grounds and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain but only probable appearance which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority But Catholick Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholick Church and thereupon to be relied on and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church not the Opinion of any Party in the beginning and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since of what Cut or Size soever pertain not to this Holy Body in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity and as fundamental in the Christian Professions Now would it not be very Theological to say That all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles the whole Synagogue of the Jews and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion That there is one God only the Creator and Governour of all things That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ That it is our Opinion That he came down and dwelt among us died rose again and ascended into Heaven and shall come to Judgment at the general Resurrection Just so absurd it is to call the Catholick Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Perswasion of a Party 'T is true indeed his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine but this term is equivocal and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers But what I require is that the Catholick Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion or form of Faith † P. 26. See Discour 3. That we believe points of Doctrine because we are perswaded that they are revealed to us in Scripture which is so languid and unsafe a Rule that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions since each Man's Faith is his Perswasion that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Perswasions but by a primitive perpetual universal and unanimous Conviction and Tradition The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Perswasions is the cause of all Heresies and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruine of the true Christian and Catholick Faith I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversie What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgment and Knowledge herein must betake him † P. 63. to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirine●● and take that for fundamental Doctrine which hath been received for such in all Ages Places and Churches A Rule very practicable and easie since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholick Faith which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages 'T is true indeed every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately perswaded but he that is not to be perswaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholick upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood and yet stands or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ though he fansies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures § 4. Secondly His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation for he tells us that this third Opinion is that by the Vnion of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity God and Man truly became one Person Now here first we are not taught whether there were three or any one Person in the

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 Ma●… 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 substanti●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 Con●ectary or at least a Colour added to

their Heresie against the Trinity of real Persons 'T is true a Man may innocently say That the term Person was used against Patripassians while he contends for the proper truth of their Personality as the Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity † P. 25. Ubi citatur Facund pro defensione tri●● capit c. 1. p. 19. cites Facundus's Saying that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie but to throw out such Expressions with a Design to deny the Primitive Antiquity of this Faith of Three proper Persons or Personalities is extremely perfidious of which this is a certain Sign when Men avoid the use of these Terms as a stock of Offence as his Lordship appears industriously to do in his State of the Doctrine I have not Facundus by me and so cannot so well judge of the convenience of his Words But as to the Term Hypostasis or Subsistence tho' it was in use long before Sabellianism and used of the Person of the Father * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1.2 yet was that use promiscuous for Essence and Subsistence long after Sabellianism and the determinate use thereof for the distinct Persons was later than the Sardican Council and was indeed at last so fixed to denote their substantial Personality or personal Subsistence against the Sabellians who asserted the Word and Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-subsistent that is not distinctly subsistent from the Person of the Father in the Unity of Essence but the Term Person both in the Eastern and Western Churches was ever received from the beginning without any variety or ambiguity § 7. Now that my Surmises against his Lordship's Integrity herein are well grounded will appear from his Lordship's explanation of this Term which tho' it be received in the third Party yet he dares not make his own nor allow for proper By Person saith he is only meant that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other Two Here it is plain that by using the Term Three so often without adding Person he shuns the Word as much as he dares at present to do and assigns a distinction which is not any way personal For it being only such a diversity that one is not the other it will as well agree to two or three Tobaco pipes for these are truly different from each other I would therefore ask his Lordship Does the Name of Father as distinct from the Son import no more than that one is not the other or does it import a Personality really Paternal If he will grant only the former part of the disjunction as he grants no more in his Discourse then there really was no God the Father from Eternity till the Creation of Christ which was the first Article of Arianism nor was he who is by all called God the Father even a true Person which yet however all have ever acknowledged But if he ever was a true Person and Father then first as to him the Term is elder than Patripassianism and I demand a good reason why the Eternal Word is not as much and as true a Person also especially if he be the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father For otherwise the Father and the Son will be of Dignities specifically different if one be of a personal and the other of impersonal Character tho' how a real Son can be a thing really impersonal I cannot conceive and then be that allows no more distinction but only this that one is not the other tacitly denying the relative distinction between Father and the Son doth really deny both the Father and the Son When these Words were orally delivered at Warmister I observed them to my self but looked on it as a slip only of an extemporary speaking but when I see it also after the last concoction delivered from the Press I suspect somewhat more than should be I am sure the Dictate is rotten and tacitly imports a renunciation of our Christianity § 8. And yet after all so great is the force of Truth that it will maintain its Evidence even in the Tongues and Pens of its Adversaries For though some part of his Lordship's Doctrines denies the Personality yet others unwittingly concede it For first of all when he calls the Trinity the Blessed Three not daring to say Persons the Character of Blessed doth import a Peal Personality For whether it be taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of God's essential Happiness or in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the objects of our religious Praises yet if the Three are either or both ways Blessed they must be Persons For among created Beings none are internally or effectually blessed but what are Personal but if any Man will cavil and say that God in the Creation blessed things Impersonal and promised such Blessings also in the Mosaical Covenants it is enough to reply That these Blessed Three are uncapable of those lower forms of Benediction and must have a Divine Blessedness if they are of a Divine Nature Now his Lordship will not say that these are Three Distinct Blessed Essences and he says they are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes so that he cannot with consistence call them three Blessed Names Oeconomies or Modes and then what can he or any one else conceive by Three Blessed but Three Blessed Persons For though it may be truly said that the highest Blessedness is that of Essence yet none but a Person or Persons can be essentially Blessed So that his Lordship asserting a Blessed Three must against his will yield them to be three Persons really distinct though not divide And so when he says that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself this Pronoun himself is expresly Personal and so either the Personality is Real or his Lordship very unaccurate in attributing a Personal Pronoun to every one of the Three and so is at his choice either unaccurate or self-contradictory or heretical or for the sake of a blessed Comprehension all together § 9. Let us now consider his Lordship's proper Tradition of this third Opinion or perhaps his own under the Colour of that for 't is not easie to find him This saith he is in general the Sum of the Received Doctrine that in God's undivided Essence there are Three really different from each other that are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes But here is not one word of Persons though asserted by the whole Catholick Church by our own Articles and Liturgies which his Lordship has sworn his unfeigned Assent and Consent to and is by his Station bound to defend and for which he has the great example of his late Metropolitan What latent Ulcer is the Cause of this tergiversation I cannot exactly tell but something there must be at the bottom But since this being matter

of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation † P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus

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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

necessary that they should be but two Modes of thinking This being premised our cogitations and reasonings are acts of a free Principle but our animal Operations are necessary But what is this to the Theory of the Divine Nature For these contrarieties of Operations proceed from the composition of contrary Substances Soul and Body whereas the Deity is most simple and uncompounded and consequently cannot be represented by any compositum whatsoever especially a compound of contraries Well! but necessary Operations of the animal Life seem to be from some Emanations from our Souls Very well and do these seeming Emanations represent an Idea of the Emanations of the second and third Person I doubt not for those in the Deity are but two but these of our Souls on our Bodies if they were Emanations as they are not are very manifold But if they be representative Emanations why then his Lordship here goes beyond due bounds in being pleased with the Notions and Similes of Emanations or else these Notions are regular and then why are the Fathers taxed for exorbitancy in them But if these Emanations of the animal life are not representative why are they brought in here under the term of Emanations to make us believe them representative of the Divine Emanations So much then for a Dyad representative Now a Kingdom for a third Well then we have in acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse a mixture of both Principles i. e. free and necessary or a third that results out of them As for his mixtures I leave them purely to himself but for his third resulting Principle I am to seek For it must be a Principle that is neither free nor necessary and such a one is hard to be got for love or money but however that a Principle neither free nor necessary should result from two whereof one is free and the other necessary will I doubt bring his Lordship of mere necessity to the terms of a contradiction how uncontradicted soever he affects to be § 19. Advance we now from the old Similes of the Fathers to the Theology it self represented by them Now it is not a novel Observation or Fancy as his Lordship snearingly suggests but the ancient internal Catholick and substantial Wisdom of the Faith that the * Iren. l. 2. c 47. Deus enim cum sit totus Mens totus Ratio totus Spiritus operans c. Octav. ap Minuc Foelic Quid aliud à nobis Deus quam Mens Ratio Spiritus praedicatur Greg. Naz. ad Patr. cum Eccl. Naz. ipsi permisit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil lablorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Graec. Inlid Ser. 2. de Principio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three adorable Persons in the Godhead are an Eternal and Substantial Mind Reason and Holy Spirit Now to avoid all cavil and equivocation it is not unnecessary that I state the exactest Notions of the Fathers in these Terms of their Theology For that the words being of very various and involved significations in common use will be liable to easie mistakes in this profound and critical Theory especially when Readers shall discover sometimes the same terms to be promiscuously used for different Persons § 20. I begin therefore with that of Mind This most properly and primitively signifies the noetick or intellectual Principle in all rational Beings the Spring the Fountain the Original of those intellectual Graces and Perfections that are found in such Spiritual Natures But by an easie Trope it is also very commonly used in all sorts of Writings for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Conceptions Counsels Sentiments Propensions and Resolves of the Mind as were it necessary might be shewn in infinite instances But thirdly there hath been a Philosophick and Artificial Sense of the word of a more late invention setting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Minds for single Spirits Now the exact Notion of Mind as the first Principle in the Deity is the first of these the proper and the Primitive as it is the Original of God's Essential Reason and Holy Spirit Now according to this exact and canonical Notation the term Mind is not only an Essential but a Paternal and Producent Character so that speaking with canonick accuracy we cannot say that there are three Minds for this is directly to assert three Fathers and by consequence three Sons or Logoi and so likewise three Holy Spirits since every such Mind must have its Reason and Spirit of which it is and must be a natural and necessary original To assert three Minds in the sense of Spirits is directly to assert three Gods it being the same thing and as irregular to say there are in the Deity three Spirits as three Gods But if we will take the term equivocally in different Senses then we find some Fathers calling not only * Athenag Leg. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at prius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil quod dixerat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic forte intelligendum illud p. 110. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. ad Autolyc p. 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Protrep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Strom. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de codem Logo the Father the Mind in distinction from the Logos but the Logos also tropically by the name of Mind as being the essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Reason of the Father of the same Essence and therefore in respect of that Essence loosly called by the same name according perhaps to the Pattern and Language of Plato the Philosophick Ancients using this homonymy according to the tast of the Platonick Philosophers which were of so great credit among the Greeks whom our Worthies cited as of Authority with the Gentiles in their Apologeticks in order to their more easie conversion And yet neither in this laxer acception or comprehensiveness have I ever read among our Ancients the assertion of three Minds For using the term mind in an essential Notion only not a paternal the assertion of three Minds would have looked like three Essences § 21. But though we have sufficiently proved our Doctrine not to be a novel whimsie but a Primitive and Catholick Tradition yet will I prove its foundations to be really Divine For the Son of God is so called with relation to a Father from whom he derives his proper Subsistence and Character And this Son of God the Father is he whom St. John calls the Logos according to the old Jewish Theology God of God the internal substantial Reason of God the Father in whom or who is the Image of his Father by whom the Father made and governs all things And from hence this hath ever been the avowed Faith of all the * Iren. l. 1 c. 1. l. 2. c. 55. l. 3. c. 18. l. 4. c. 14. c. 28. c. 37. c. 75. l. 5. c. 6 Just Martyr Apol. 2. Dial.

cum Tryph. Clem. Alex. Protrep Tertull Praesc adv Jud. con Marcion l. 2. con Prax. Novatian de Trinit Euseb Praep. Ev. l. 7. c. 15. con Marcell l. 2.17 Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 2. Panegyrista Paulini ap Eus Eccl. Hist l. 10. Constant ad Sanctor Caetum ap Euseb c. 9. Pastor Hermae l. 3. Similit 9. Athenag Legat. Theoph. ad Autolyc Orig. con Cels l. 1. l. 2. l. 3. l. 4. l. 5. l. 6. l. 7. de Princip l. c. 2. Cypr. de Idol Vanit Basil con Eunom l. 5. Serm. in Princip Naz. de sacr Pasch Prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Roman Martyr in Apotheof Greg. Thaumat ad Origen Athan. ubique Pseudo-Ambros de fide con Arian Aug. con 5. Haeres in Evan. Joh. c. 1. Tract 1 2. de Tempor Ser. 190. infinities plura reperies ejusdem generis apud omnes Primitive as well as suceeding Ages to be sealed with their Blood and Sufferings and was not a mere upstart project to supply the former Tritheism taught in the more ancient Church Now if according to the common and universal Senses and Notions of all Men the Mind is the Parent and Original of all actual Reason in it then if the Divine Reason be the truest and most Essential Reason the Parent Principle thereof must be the truest and most Essential Mind which Principle of this Reason the Scripture having owned Paternal it follows that God the Father is an Eternal Mind having a coessential Reason for its coessential Issue the perfect Image and Character of its Parent § 22. In the next place let us see whether the Character of the Holy Spirit agrees well to the Substantial Love of God according to the Doctrine of the traduced Ancients Let it then be noted that that Mind in which a vital and consubstantial reason perfectly subsists doth by that reason in one clear intuitive luminous and Archetypal Idea discern all possible Forms Essences Habitudes Powers and Reasons of things and therefore very particularly all the distinctive forms and differences of good and evil From whence there must proceed in such a Mind and Reason a vital and essential Spirit which we in our Language would perhaps call a Principle of Holiness to wit an essential Love of all the Forms and Reasons of Good and therein an essential aversation of all the kinds and degrees of Evil this being but one and the same Spirit having different aspects on different objects Now without such a Spirit of Love and Holiness no being can be perfectly good or happy since perfect goodness as well as happiness consists essentially in love and purity Now the goodness of things must be the proper object of such Love and must be discerned by that actual Reason that contains in it the Idea's of all things possible Whence this Love is as essential to the Deity as Reason and thereupon the Apostle faith † 1 Joh. 4.8 that God is Love the suum of which truth is nobly celebrated * Const ad Sanct. Caet ap Eus c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the great Constantine as the Doctrine which he had been taught by the Christian Fathers herein according with the perpetual Theology of God's People who ever acknowledge this Holiness of the Divine Wisdom and Spirit from its constant indication For * Sap. Sal. 1 3 4 5. froward thoughts separate from God and into a malicious Soul Wisdom will not enter nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will fly deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in for Wisdom is a loving Spirit c. § 23. But here again a fresh difficulty arises from the homonymy of terms For St. Paul calling our Lord † 1 Cor. 1.24 the Wisdom of God the generality and the exactest of the Fathers follow him in that style and make the Wisdom and Logos to be the same subsistence distinct from the Holy Spirit Some of the Ancients as great as any speaking distinctly * Iren. Theoph. Antiochen p. 81. c. 108.114 distinguish the Logos from the Sophia and make the Sophia the Person of the Holy Spirit and yet again at other times † Theoph. Antioch p. 81. confound the Logos and Sophia for the same second Person the Son * Theoph. p. 81. Tertull whom also they call the Spirit of God the Father Wherefore 't is necessary to our Theory that we remove this Cloud And here we are to distinguish Wisdom into speculative and practical for which distinction there is apparent authority in the Scripture and ground in our own inner Experience Now the Reason of any Spiritual Nature is its formal proper speculative Wisdom but an Holy Spirit and temper of Mind is the practical In this latter sense the forequoted place out of the Apochryphal Wisdom calls the loving Spirit of God or his Spirit of Discipline Wisdom but † Sap. Sal. 7.22 c. elsewhere the same Author Preaches that in Wisdom which is the Artificer of all things there is a Spirit which among other attributes is Holy and loves the thing that is good and is Almighty where the in-existence of the Holy Spirit of Love in that Wisdom the Artificer of all things puts a distinction between this Spirit and Wisdom and so hereby Wisdom in this place as well as by its Character must be the Archetypal Logos or Architectonick Reason of God the Father And hence these ambiguous Fathers seem to have copied their Theories and Language sometimes calling the Logos Wisdom to wit the intuitive sometime the Holy Spirit as the practical Wisdom of God the Father And so there are learned Men that ground the alledged homonymy of the Word Spirit in some forms of Scripture But I that think the Scripture as a Rule for Canonick Theology thinking it unsafe to fix any exorbitant Senses on the Terms expressive of the Trinity without absolute necessity am apt to think those Fathers called the Logos the Spirit of God sometimes through some Scriptures by them so mistaken or appearing in that sense to them under a loose and general Notion that whatsoever issues from the Essence of God the Father so issues by a Spiritual Efflux or else is of a Spiritual Substance as the Father is and so as Tertullian calls the Logos Spirit of Spirit and God of God But since all these Fathers expresly own a Trinity of Persons the third of which is signally characterized by the appropriate Title of Holy Spirit there can be no doubt of the consonancy of their Faith to the Catholick Doctrine and to this Theory of it in the Holy Spirit which to serve his Lordship I am here to illustrate § 24. These Bars being thus removed we shall proceed to examine on what ground this Substantial Love of God is called by the name of Spirit Now this

mention also that the Devil who long time universally tyrannized is yet never said to be poured out upon all Flesh But now the aforesaid Attributes given to the Prince of Devils manifestly set forth his Supremacy in the Kingdom of Darkness and therefore in the Kingdom of God the like Phrases of the Holy Spirit of God must denote his Supremacy therein and by consequence his Deity since God alone is the one Supreme King of that Kingdom and thus our Faith is established firmly against the Macedonians also § 32. Now of what hath been said thus much I believe would be granted by all the Anti-personists that there is in God the Father an essential Reason and Spirit of Sanctity though not personally subsistent For a Person being with them a complete suppositum rationale and intellectual Subject or Being separate and standing single from all others they hold it a contradiction to hold three Persons in one individual Deity § 33. To this I hope to give so just and candid an answer as may embolden his Lordship to joyn in the Litany heartier and to speak clearer next time in his Theological Essays The name Person or whatsoever answers thereto in the learned Languages first of all signifies a Man's Face natural and artificial and thence the whole single Man hence after were the Gods in profane and intellectual Spirits in sacred Writings represented personally and so now the Term Person agrees to all single intelligent Beings by common and inartificial use But we that have no natural Idea of the Modes of Subsistence peculiar to Father Son and Holy Spirit without Divine Revelation cannot without it conceive the form of their Personality So for this we must rest wholly on Divine Revelation And accordingly I would describe a Person for a Theological Term thus whatsoever hath Personal Titles and Characters properly attributed to it by God's Word the same is a Person though we cannot frame an Idea of the form of its Personality And then I can add but the Divine Mind Reason and Holy Spirit have three properly distinguishing Personal Characteristick Titles Father Son and Paraclete to be owned in our avowed Faith and Baptism therefore these three are three distinct Persons though we cannot form a natural Idea of the Mode of their Personality * Aug. de Tempor Ser 189 Ego Personas in Patre Filio Spiritu Sancto non dico quasi personas hominum Personam Patris dico quod Pater est Filii quod Filius est Spiritus Sancti quod Spiritus Sanctus est dividuntur enim proprietatibus sed naturâ sociantur and though yet we are sure they are not separate and disjoyned like three Humane Persons In this mystery therefore the sense of this term is not vulgar nor of common Notion but peculiarly and necessarily Technical For since God hath revealed that in the Unity of his Nature there is one first Principle with two other co-eternally emanant or descendent from him and subsisting individually in him by which he created and governs all things and this under the Personal and Distinctive Characters of Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete and many other Personal Attributes distinctive of their proper Subsistences in the Essential Unity of the Godhead the Term Person fell unavoidably into Canonical use though under a strict care against the vulgar notion of Humane or such like separate Persons and restrained only to the revealed Theories of the Mystery And under this regular limitation I challenge the Art of the World to sind out any one Characteristick Term so fit proper and congruous to denote their formal Personalities ascribed to them in the Scripture as this of Person in which the whole Catholick Church of old unanimously agreed antecedently to any Conciliar Definitions and is therefore of greater Antiquity and Authority than the Greek Hypostasis which though well founded in * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. yet was a while of ambiguous use and interpretation till it was by the help of Athanasius and others canonically adjusted and fixed according to the sense of our Term Person And yet supposing a sensible defect in these Terms Person and Subsistence what modest Man would upbraid the whole Church of God for such an insuperable impotency in Humane Nature which all wise Men perceive and own in their speaking of God after its utmost endeavours cares and consultations upon cogent necessities to fix the terms of our Faith and Doctrine in the best manner possible while yet the Revilers can produce nothing better or equal 'T is certainly an intollerable indecency against the Gravity Duty Care and Right ' of Men that are in Authority of proscribing Doctrines in any Profession what soever for to such certainly it belongs to fit Terms of Art to their Theories as reason shall require as well as they can without the merit or hazard of malevolence and detraction § 34. But because I would fill the thirsty and candid Soul with a satisfying Theory herein I will dig deeper into the grounds of these Personal Characters in the Scriptures and the Traditional Term of Person thence Canonically used First then Personality is a Character only of what is substantial and intellectual as are the Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete who therefore have a good ground of bearing those Personal Titles But tho' these peculiar Titles have this common Basis yet have they their peculiar and formal reasons of Distinction The first Principle of all being called Father from his Eternal generation of the Logos which is called Son from being so eternally generated of the Father's Substance without division or partition thereof And * Con. Arian Orat. 2. here the Father being ever Father never Son and the Logos ever Son never Father St. Athanasius justly as well as sagaciously appropriates these Titles to these Persons in a primary Right and peculiar Excellency above all others since earthly Persons change their Character being one while Sons other while Fathers and Sons other while Fathers only and other while neither The Personal Distinctives of the Holy Spirit are taken from his connatural Operations and Offices which are Personal and the Titles therefore apposite Now that the essential Reason and Spirit of God the Father should each be as equally Personal as the Socinians themselves confess the Father to be will hence appear rational for that they are consubstantial with him and as substantially Divine as that Eternal Mind from and in which they are and live without any inequality in their Nature Perfection or essential Dignity And therefore if one be distinctly Personal so must the others also And therefore the Pronoun He first belonging to God original i. e. the Father as the first Person is properly also communicable to the other Persons each of them deriving their Deity and Personal subsistence from him with peculiar reasons of their proper Personal Characters and Distinctions And hence it was necessary to a just

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

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

of any that indulged not to Humane Wit or Fancy in their Theological Theories but relyed wholly on the force of the Scriptures and the Tradition of their Fathers Now * Athan. con Sabell Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. con Arian Orat. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. con Arian Orat. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Athanasius so far insisted on this Doctrine of foecundity that he looked on it as necessary against both Sabellianism and Arianism both which Heresies stood on this Principle which was therefore heretical that there is no foecundity in the Divine Essence for the concession of this inferrs the Eternal Personality and Existence of the Son And the wonderful † Expos of the Creed Artic. His only Son Pearson sticks to this Doctrine of foecundity as essential to our Faith not only against those Elder Hereticks but their Bastards also the Mahometans and is it not an unaccountable sort of confidence or ignorance in his Lordship to joyn with Sabellians Arians and Mahometans in flurting at the Doctrine of foecundity on which alone stands the Faith in the Father and the Son Either therefore let his Lordship deny or own this foecundity if he deny it let him be anathema if he owns it why doth he accuse the Fathers and Moderns that teach it as transgressing due bounds But perhaps it was necessary to do that by oblique reflexion which it is not yet safe to do by open mouth to avoid an open conviction But a Man is as well know by his hints as protestations and perhaps much better § 6. Let us now see how Heathenish his Lordship makes these Divine and Catholick Notions of the Fathers † For * P. 31. saith he we have footsteps of a Tradition as ancient as any we can trace up which limited the Emanations to Three And these thought there was a production or rather an eduction of two out of the first in the same manner that some Philosophers thought that Souls were propagated from Souls and the figure by which this was explained being that of one Candle being lighted at another this seems to have given the Rise to those words Light of Light It is certain that many of the Fathers fell often into this conceit c. Now sure I am that I have set his Lordship's words in their due connexion with those cited in the last Section And are the reason assigned why they exorbitated beyond due bounds that taught Emanations and Foecundity because the Notion is Platonick and the Tradition heathenish and false For those which his Lordship notes who limited the Emanations to three resembled it to the imagined propagation of Souls and lighting of Candles and consequently from these Heathens came our Light of Light This is the true Grammar Sense of his Lordship's Words For the Relative these respects the Heathens only last before-mentioned and the representation by Souls propagated and Candles lighted reflect back only on the Heathen Tradition and is not this a great Credit to the Nicene formula to have such an heathen and exorbitant Original The Discourse to this period is of an heathen Tradition heathenishly expounded by the Similes of Souls propagated and Candles lighted for I dare engage no Catholick Author ever represented the Essential Foecundity and Emanations in the Deity by those Figures of Souls and Candles that thence probably his Lordship might be thought to have set these as the Figures of Christian Authors of which he makes no mention within these words here cited Afterward indeed he tells for certain that many of the Fathers fell often into this conceit which he owns to be heathenish and gives it no other original either in Scripture or Jewish Tradition The most that can be most favourably imagined though contrary to the order of his Lordship's words is that the Tradition was heathenish though dressed up by Christian Ancients under the Similes of Souls propagated and Candles lighted for many of the Fathers most certainly fell often into this conceit and so probably came our Nicene formula Light of Light The upshot then is the Tradition of Emanation and Foecundity is exorbitant and heathenish set off either by Heathen or Christian Expositors by the exorbitant Similes of Souls and Candles from which Figure of Candles probably came the Nicene form Light of Light That this is the genuine sense of his Lordship is manifest for he accuses these Principles as exorbitant for this cause that they are heathenish and set off with ill Similes one of which was probably the ground of the Nicene Confession For if his Lordship will not own this sense let him declare if the Simile of one Candle lighted from another give a regular notion of the Faith in the Doctrine of Emanations and Foecundity If it does why does he blame the Doctors of those Emanations Foecundities and Similes as Men that have gone beyond due bounds and fallen into these exorbitant conceits But if he will stand to it that these Doctrines and their Similes are irregular conceits than the Nicene form has an ill foundation in his Lordship's professed Opinion But before I come to vindicate the true Originals of the Nicene form I will examine the truth of this History whether many of the Fathers often fell into this conceit that the Emanations in the Divine Essence are of the same manner that some Philosophers thought Souls propagated from Souls or Candles were lighted from Candles Sure I am the Conceits and Similes are not only improper but contrarily dissimilar to the Notions of the Catholick Theology For this teaches a co-eternal Emanation of the second and third Persons with a co-eternal and inseparable Unity and essential Dependence of the two latter on the first Person but Souls propagated from Souls and Candles lighted from Candles are neither coaeval nor united nor dependant one on the other and so are fitter for an Arian than a Catholick Simile though I confess it not fit for all Arian conceptions neither These then being such absurd conceits charged upon many Fathers as often used by them one should have hoped for a large list of them and the places cited in the Margin but alas here is no such direction either for the Student or Examinant And for my own part I confess I never remember any such conceit in any Father Of the imagined propagation of Souls I have not made the least observation among the Fathers but of what may seem to come near these Candles or might occasion this rash conceit of his Lordship for want of memory or care I will here offer Now first I confess I have found this mystery * Athenag Legat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aug. Exp. in Joh. c. 5. Tract 20. Ser. 199. De quinque Haeresib de Verb Apost quor al. Ser. 1. assimilated to the light motion and heat of fire which are all coaeval I have also observed a Simile

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

the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the operation of all things Theoph. ad Autolyc p. 81. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the Father being an Eternal Mind had eternally in him a consubsistent reason † Tertull. adv Praxeam Ante omnia enim Deus crat solus ipse sibi mundus locus omnia Solus autem quia nihil extrinsecus praeter cum Caeterum ne tunc quidem solus habebat enim secum quam habebat in semetipso rationem suam scilicet Rationalis enim Deus Ratio in ipso prius ita ab ipso omnia Quae ratio sensus ipsius est Hane Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicunt quo vocabulo etiam sermonem appellamus Ideoque jam in usu est nostrorum per simplicitatem interpretationis Sermonem dicere in primordio apud Deum fuisse cum magis rationem competat antiquiorem haberi quia non Sermonalis à Principio sed rationalis Deus etiam ante Principium Et quia ipse quoque Sermo ratione consistens priorem eam ut substantiam suam ostendat Tamen sic nihil interest Nam etsi Deus nondum sermonem suum miserat proinde cum cum ipsa in ipsâ ratione intrà semetipsum habebat tacitè cogitando disponendo secum quae per Sermonem monerat dicturus Cum ratione enim sua cogitans atque disponens Sermonem eam efficiebat quam Sermone tractabat Vide cum tacitus tecum ipse congrederis ratione hoc ipsum agi intra te occurrente ea tibi cum sermone ad omnem cogitatus tui motum ad omnem sensus tui pulsum Quodcunque cogitaveris senno est quodcunque senseris ratio est Loquaris illud in animo necesse est dum loqueris conlocutorem pateris sermonem in quo inest haec ipsa ratio qua cum eo cogitans loquaris per quem loquens cogitas Quanto ergo plenius hoc agitur in Deo cujus tu quoque imago similitudo censeris quod habeat in se etiam tacendo rationem in ratione sermonem Possum itaque non temere praestruxisse tunc Deum ante universitaris constitutionem solum non fuisse habentem in semetipso proinde rationem in ratione sermonem quem secundum à se faceret agitando inter se Haec vis haec divini sensus dispositio apud Scripturas etiam in Sophiae nomine ostenditur Ouid enim sapientius ratione Dei sive sermone Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam personam conditam Dominus creavit me initium viarum suarum Nam ut primum Deus voluit●ea quae cum ratione sermone disposuerat intra se in substantius species suas edere ipsum primum protulit sermonem habentem in se individuas suas rationes Sophiam ut per●ipsum fierent universa per quem erant cogitata atque disposita imo facta jam quantum in Dei sensu Tunc igitur ipse sermo speciem ornatum suum sumit sonum vocem cum dicit Deus fiat Lux. Haec est nativitas perfecta sermonis dum ex Deo procedit conditus ab eo primum ad cogitatum in nomine Sophiae Dominus condidit me initium viarum dehine generatus ad effectum Cum pararet coelum aderam illi Exinde cum parem sibi faciens de quo procedendo filius factus est primogenitus ut ante omnia genitus unigenitus ut solus ex Deo genitus Vide plura ibid. which was not yet an actual word till God thereby spake and commanded all things to be made which was a kind of birth to him as such an actual word That Justin speaks of this generation and emission is manifest in that he compares it to our utterance of words from our internal Reason which is not diminished by that utterance and withal asserts this generation to be not only by the Power but the Will of God the Father which is not proper to the Eternal Emanation Now Justin's meaning is that this Power called among other Terms the Logos was of the Fathers substance from which he was not divided by this progressive emission or nativity and that after this progression into the World from the Father he has subsisted in making several appearances in it being never called back from the World again as the Rays of the Sun are upon the setting but remaining and subsisting in the World as a Fire does that is kindled from another being not drawn back again into that from whence it was kindled This appears further to be his Sense from the like Doctrine of Tatian * Con. Gent. who after he had taught that God the Father had before the Creation the Logos subsistent in him at length thus speaks By the Will of Gods simplicity the Logos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes forth and going forth not in vain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per vacuum he becomes the first born production 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Spirit But thus he became by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 communication not abscission For that which is cut off is separated from its first original but that which is Communicated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being endowed with its proper function did not leave him from whence it was taken void of the Logos For as many Fires are kindled from one Torch and the light of the first Torch is not diminished through the kindling of many Torches So also the going forth out of the power of his Father did not render his Father void of Reason or without the Logos So all the discourse is about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Justin and Tatian both make a kind of nativity or production and the Simile is applied only thereto not the eternal Emanation of its subsistence from the Father Now the Nicene Creed in this form Light of Light hath respect to the Original of the Essential and Eternal Subsistence of the Logos to wit whence he is what he is that is God and Light and defines that he is God of God and Light of Light essentially not mentioning his Office in the Creation till after other interposed Articles of his Being and Subsistence And for the truth of this sense in the Nicene Creed I appeal to the suffrage of all Antiquity So then these places of Justin and Tatian touching only the prosiliency of the Son from the Father to create all things by which the Co-eternal Wisdom had a kind of probletick nativity of an actual Word pertain not to the matter of this Light of Light in the Nicene form But doth not Justin say that the Sun and its Ray are not two really but only nominally I grant he does so but this in concession to the pertinacy of the Opponents who obstinately urged this that the Light of the Sun is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsubsistent virtue and so

the Logos likewise Not that otherwise Justin would have waved the Simile of the Sun and his Rays which had its Authority in the Scriptures to satisfie therefore the perverters of a Simile otherwise good did Justin wave it and chose that of Fires And yet what is it that Justin illustrates thereby Not the manner how the Logos eternally issues from and subsists in his Father no nor the manner of this prosiliency to the Creation but only the non-diminution of the Father by this prosiliency or non-separation of substance therein and the substantial permanency of the Logos in the World after this prosiliency without revocation out of it back again Whereas his Lordship fixes his Figures of Candles on the conceits of the Fathers concerning the foecundity in the Divine Essence and the essential Eductions of the two last from the first So then these places give no colour to that Opprobrium But though this be a full answer yet will I ex abundanti adventure further to consider the Antiquity of the Simile of the Sun Rays and how it came to be perverted by Justin's Adversaries and therefore waved by him It is evident therefore that though Justin greatly admired the Platonick Philosophy before he turned Christian yet after that he admired the Theology taught in the Church by Theories received from the Scriptures in which also the better part of the Jews agreed Now it is certain that * Prov. 8.22 c. Solomon's Proverbs and the † Sap. Sal. c. 7. c. 8. c. 9. c. 11. c. 12. Theories thereupon in the Apocryphal Books of the Wisdom of Solomon † Eccl. c. 1. c. 24. and Ecclesiasticus teach the Deity Consubstantiality Generation and this Progression of the Divine Wisdom And by the Jewish Author of the Wisdom of Solomon * Ch. 7.26 he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Ray of the everlasting Light and according to that Hebrew Notion the Divine Author † Hebr. 1.3 to the Hebrews calls Christ the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father's Glory So then it seems hence that the Ancient pious Jews looked on the Wisdom of God as a Personal Companion with God issuing from him as a Ray from the glorious Luminary the Sun This Wisdom as by it God spake and commanded the Creation of all things or as being that Archetypal Reason whence the World was formed was called by the Hellenist Jews Logos and was looked on as a Son a Personal Minister and Angel of God in the Creation Providence and Revelations This being then their celebrated and traditional Theology the next Curiosity was to enquire into his generation and descent And here no wonder if that of Esaias 53.8 most agreeably quadrated to the Jewish ignorance Who shall declare his generation Yet for this they go back to their great Master Moses who declared that God spake the Fiat of all things and therein therefore they conceive a certain Production and Genesis of their Logos his internal conception being the geniture and its emission into its effects its nativity after the manner that our Notions are conceived and offered in our voice And this I believe is that which * Philo de Mund. Opific 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an'ea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo meant that God did voluntarily prefigure in himself the Archetypal World which is his Logas after the manner of all Artificers that propose Schemes to themselves according to which they perform their external works For as Philo does not say that God made or created but only prefigured in himself the archetypal World so by that he only means that of all the Ideas in the Divine Mind of which consists the Eternal Reason and Wisdom of God God chose that of this World to be the pattern of what he would create by it and according to it For one cannot think that so great a Man as Philo should think that ever there was any imaginable point or time when God's essential reason was not or was without the Idea's of all things possible I take it therefore that the Eternal Reason which with all other possible Idea's eternally had in it the Idea of such a World as ours is possible is by Philo conceived to be in this Idea designed by God for an actual pattern and principle also of this future World and so in this Respect the Logos and first begotten Son of God And from this Jewish fountain proceed the like Notions in the Platonick Theology Now hereupon Justin disputing with Jews does in the first citation above made argue with them upon the Theology of their Fathers * Philo. de Confus Dialect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad verb. Zach. 6.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Euseb Praep. Evan. l. 11. c. 15. declared by Philo to whose very words he seems to have had an especial respect if you but compare them But now the Sadduces that had not Religion enough to believe any Angels or noetick Beings denied all this and to evade the force of Moses his Testimonies whose Books only they admitted they grant indeed † Calv. Instit l. 1. c. 14. S. 9. that the Power of God appeared to the Fathers and was called Angel as delivering God's Will but not as really a subsistent Spirit but only an agitated Virtue And I indeed am of opinion that after Christianity and our Doctrines of Christ as the Divine Logos increased the Jews quitted their former Theology of the Logos so far as herein to admit Sadducism and to deny his Sonship Personality and Angelical Ministration to his Father And as Trypho himself looks on the pre-existence of the Messias as the Divine Logos to be an incredible Paradox so those others that Justin says were willing to pre-occupate him with those Answers which he there recites and refutes seem to be perfect Sadduces in this Point of the Logos and all Angels and those some of Trypho's Company But whether they were Jewish Sadduces or some Hereticks of a pretended Christian Character it is plain they used the old Traditional Simile of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or light of the Sun on purpose to destroy the Traditions of Angels and consequently the Personality and Office of the Logos Thus say they our Tradition represents the Powers apparent as mere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mere impersonal unsubsistent rays that abide no longer than their Office but return again to their original presently after as the light goes off when the Sun sets So all this put together proves that the Simile of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was used in the old Traditional Theology of the Jews and continued among Christians but was perverted by Sadduces especially since Christianity to oppose our other Theological Theories and therefore Justin waved it to avoid the wrangles of those Jews he then dealt with And hence notwithstanding all such Jews or Sadduceans the Christian Church still ever kept this

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 i●●●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

yet it seems ill-luck would have it that these subordinating Fathers in the very career of their exorbitant Subordination fell into such Notions of the Homoousion which overturn their own dear Subordination † P. 31. So that by the same Substance or Essence they do in many places express themselves as if they only meant the same being in a general sense as all Humane Souls are of the same Substance that is the same Order or sort of Beings and they seemed to entitle them to different Operations not only in an Oeconomical way but thought that the one did that which the other did not Now supposing this had been true how could they at the same time have fallen into the subordinating Heresie For this Heresie is at least Arian grounding the Subordination of Dignity on Inequality of Essence but all Humane Souls are essentially equal as are all individuals of the same Species however entitled to different Operations But in truth his Lordship falfly charges them with a mere specifick Homoousion in the Trinity I own they bring it for illustration so far that as separate individuals of the same kind are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thereby is implied an equality of Essence * Dionys Alexand. ap Athan. de Syn. Nsc con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. de commun Essent Pat. Fil. Spir. Sti. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against his Lordships different Operations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the same word used in the Godhead of the Father and the Son excludes that essential inequality of the Arians which his Lordship would yet trump upon these very Fathers But then the Fathers teach a proper originary Homoousion by which the Father communicates his own Substance to the Son and thereupon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the essential inseparability of these Persons in the Godhead which a mere specifick Homoousion will not reach to But thus the argument runs strongly against the Hereticks If Fathers Sons and Kinsmen be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being of the same nature and descended from the same loins if more loosely all things of the same kind are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though separate and much differing in shape humors and actions one from another how much more are the Father and the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Divine Nature that are in all respects undivided and without any dissimilitude or inequality But though this be the strongest way of arguing against Hereticks from the specifick Homoousion to the individual by shewing that the term in general admits different Modes or Degrees of coessentiality or connaturality of which the individual is the greatest and exactest in the Trinity yet even simply the term it self in its utmost generality and without restriction will by consequence inferr a co-eternity in the Persons Let the Term therefore open to the loosest Importance let it be fansied that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are Three Persons of one common Kind diversly acting in themselves yet even this Notion will hold them to be equally of an Eternal and Divine Essence which was strong against Arians Photinians and Macedonians but it not being so clear against Tritheism therefore all the Fathers asserted the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the origination of the Son and Holy Spirit inseparably in the Father on purpose to disclaim and silence those charges of Tritheism which yet his Lordship does not blush to fix on them in words to be considered immediately notwithstanding their express remonstrances and demonstrations to the contrary And yet after all supposing that the cavils of the Hereticks had forced the Fathers into such forms of argumentation as might then appear expedient and good ad hominem which now in an Age of other apprehensions seem not so these are not to be stretched by us to reproachful and unintended Consequences of which the Church in those Ages knew them to be innocent and therefore gloried in their Piety But as to the diversity of Operations with which his Lordship twits them whatsoever forms may drop from them in popular or homiletical discourses in which no Men take so much care to be critical as affective I believe his Lordship can produce no Divine Operations ad extra so applied to one Person as positively to exclude all concurrence in the others For I wot not that they oppose St. Paul's * 1 Cor. 12.6 Doctrine that there are diversities of Operations but the same God which worketh all in all § 12. And yet we find his Lordship † P. 42. falling into that very guilt with which he upbraids the Fathers by framing worse Similes as shall appear in due place and from them framing a Theological conceit that in the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfect est Vnity there may be Three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies Here his Lordship did not much remember St. Paul above-cited nor himself in his 31. page on which we now are But whether this may be so or not so God knows it follows not from the Simile of a compounded Nature operating diversly from Principles Parts and Virtues specifically and naturally opposite which in his Lordship's expression may be brought to the Terms of a Contradiction of which I suppose there is no capacity in the most simple Nature of the Deity § 13. But let us see the foul aspect of the Homoousion in the Writings of these Fathers and what Reformation followed thereupon This was saith his Lordship * P. 31. more easily apprehended but it seemed so directly to assert three Gods which was very contrary to many most express declarations both in the Old and New Testament in which the Vnity of the Deity is so often held forth that therefore others took another way of explaining this making it their foundation that the Deity was one numerical Being In this Reflexion here are two things which in his Lordship's judgment and he says the judgment of the after Ancients seem directly to assert three Gods viz. their Arguments from a specisick Homoousion and their ascribing divers Operations The Jews and Greeks of old charged us * Athan. con Arian Orat. 4. with Polytheism on the account of our Trinity and his Lordship here seems to justifie and second the Infidels in that Charge against all the Fathers who argued from the specifick Homoousion and distinct Operations which I think were well nigh all the Greek Fathers after the Nicene Council even Athanasius who thus * Ubi sup argues and yet dissolves the Crime of Polytheism which his Lordship with Jews and Heathens lays upon them but from which I have clear'd them also § 11. But if divers Operations as well as the Arguments from a specifick Homousion seem directly to assert three Gods how came his Lordship to

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

that the true notion of these three Persons was popular and received by an indubitate and good Tradition or else our Lord and his Apostles having a recondite Notion of them unexplained could not be understood by that People Nor could Nathanael and Peter and others have made a right confession of Faith without any preliminary Catechism of the Notion had it not been general And in vain had God the Father at his Baptism declared him to be his Son in whom he was well pleased to all the multitude had they been Strangers to the true sense of the Title which imported not only a Royalty but an * Matth. 4. Mar. 1. Luke 4. omnipotent Divine Power even had he pleased of turning Stones into Bread by his mere Commandment † Matth. 8.29 Mar. 5.7 Luke 8.28 and to torment even Devils before their time and also a Divine Knowledge of the Father for no Man knoweth the Father but the Son who being the * Luke 4.34 Holy One of God was therefore the Holy One of Israel And though it may be objected that when the Jews demanded him to come down from the Cross if he would be believed 't is said by the Evangelists If he be the Christ the King of Israel let him come down from the Cross yet this supposes that had he this Power he must have it as God the Christ and King and not as a Man only anointed King of Israel So that neither the true nor false Conceptions of the Jews concerning his Filial Character can help his Lordship and his Criticks in their first Conceptions of it in his Humanity And here indeed there lies a large and noble Field before me for a Theory concerning the Titles of Christ Lord King of Israel c. on what grounds they stand in the Divine and Humane Nature wherein might be shewn that neither are the first Conceptions of all these in our Lord's Humanity to the utter ruin of Criticism but it being not here necessary and withal being a matter of a large speculation I wave it in this place and the rather because if my unhappy Eyes will hold out so far to serve my designs I intend a peculiar Treatise concerning the Kingdom of God in which these Titular Characters of our Lord will be largely discussed In the mean time I am sorry his Lordship's Criticks are spoiled in their kind aims to explain the Texts that teach the inferiority of Christ as Man to the Father but I am pretty well pleased however that the Catholick Doctrine has no need of such new fashioned planes to smooth its difficulties § 40. But now at last the Scene opens and the whole mysterious intrigue comes out why all this pother is made For saith my Lord * P. 32. If this be true all the Speculations concerning an Eternal Generation are cut off in the strict sense of the words though in a larger sense every Emanation of what sort soever may be so called But was it my Lord's part to leave this in suspense whether it be true or no To leave hereby a liberty to deny the Nicene Faith that he was begotten of his Father before all Worlds Would not common honesty oblige a Divinity Professor to determine one way or other between the inconsistent Fathers and these sagacious Criticks either for or against an Eternal Generation and yet to let us see which way he inclines he brings Texts of Scripture perverted for the sense of Hereticks but not one sacred syllable for the Fathers nothing but fastidious and exposing Censures Yet this was not enough The distinct Emanations of the Son and the Holy Spirit were to be confounded though one be from the Father only and immediately the other from the Father and the Son as we Westerns confess or to speak more like the Greeks from the Father by the Son that so the Emanation of the Holy Spirit being in a larger sense called Generation the Holy Spirit may in a larger sense be called the Son of God And so God the Father shall have improperly two Sons but really none at all till the being of Christ's Humanity § 41. And now for a blessed Epiphonema * P. 32. But it may be justly questioned whether by these they have made it better to be understood or more firmly believed or whether others have not taken advantage to represent these subtilties as Dregs either of Aeones of the Valentinians or of the Platonick Notions And it being long before these Theories were well stated and settled it is no wonder if many of the Fathers have not only differed from one another but even from themselves in speaking upon this Argument When Men go about to explain a thing of which they can have no distinct Idea it is very natural for them to run out into a vast multiplicity of words into great length and much darkness and confusion Many † Witness P. 41 42. c. impertinent Similes will be urged and often impertinent reasonings will be made use of all which are the unavoidable consequences of a Man's going about to explain to others what he does not distinctly understand himself Now to this calumnious reflexion it were enough to say the Lord rebuke thee but for the sake of others that may either glory in it or be beguiled by it I will answer it in order First then all these traduced Theories of Faith are universally professed and received in the whole Church of God and have but a very few Adversaries And we have reason to attribute this universal Consent herein to the Piety and Labours of the Ancients who so victoriously defended it against the Highest Parts Principalities and Powers For whatsoever failures and lesser mistakes from which no mortal is or can be secure may sometimes appear in a course of nice Disputations yet the main Body of them appeared so strong and convincing that they bowed down the whole World into Conviction I mean the Christian World while the Adversaries thereof have deservedly attained the glory of preparing the way for Mahometism What matter then is it if these Divine Theories which his Lordship opprobriously calls subtilties be abusively represented by wicked Men Does it follow that the Theology is vicious and to be quitted Such Counsel as this would soon have strangled the whole Christianity which at first was every where traduced What they if that Impostor Sandius * Enucl Hist Eccl. l. 1. would derive our Faith from Valentinus The vulgar Christians do not know nor trouble themselves with those fabulous Aeons nor is there any danger of frighting them from the Faith by this imputation And as for the Learned or Students in Antiquity they will soon discover the falshood and even to save or facilitate their labour 't is unanswerably † Bull. Defens Fid. Nicen. p. 64 65. alib Sect. 3. c. 1. done to their hands already by an Author his Lordship will never be able to answer But this Calumny is