Attributes And the words God and Deity are of different signification Damascene a Father of the Church expounding the Nicene Creed denies plainly that the Deity was incarnate but all true Christians hold that God was incarnate Therefore God and the Deity signifie divers things and therefore Eternal and Eternity are not the same no more than a wise man and his wisdom are the same Nor God and his justice the same thing and universally 't is false that the Attribute in the Abstract is the same with the Substance to which it is attributed Also it is universally true of God that the Attribute in the Concrete and the substance to which it is attributed is not the same thing I come now to his next Period or Paragraph wherein he would fain prove that by denying Incorporeal Substance I take away Gods Existence The words he cites here are mine To say an Angel or Spirit is an Incorporeal Substance is to say in effect there is no Angel nor Spirit at all It is true also that to say that God is an Incorporeal Substance is to say in effect there is no God at all What alledges he against it but the School-Divinity which I have already answered Scripture he can bring none because the word Incorporeal is not found in Scripture But the Bishop trusting to his Aristotelean and Scholastick Learning hath hitherto made no use of Scripture save only of these Texts Who hath planted a Vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock and Rev. 4.11 Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they were created thereby to prove that the right of God to govern and punish mankind is not derived from his Omnipotence Let us now see how he proves Incorporeity by his own Reason without Scripture Either God he saith is Incorporeal or Finite He knows I deny both and say he is Corporeal and Infinite against which he offers no proof but only according to his custom of disputing calls it the root of Atheism and interrogates me what real thing is left in the world if God be Incorporeal but Body and Accidents I say there is nothing left but Corporeal Substance For I have denyed as he knew that there is any reality in accidents and nevertheless maintain Gods Existence and that he is a most pure and most simple Corporeal Spirit Here his Lordship catching nothing removes to the eternity of the Trinity which these my grounds he says destroy How so I say the Trinity and the Persons thereof are that one pure simple and eternal Corporeal Spirit and why does this destroy the Trinity more than if I had called it Incorporeal He labours here and seeketh somewhat to refresh himself in the word Person by the same grounds he saith every King has as many Persons as there be Justices of Peace in his Kingdom and God Almighty hath as many Persons as there be Kings why not For I never said that all those Kings were that God and yet God giveth that name to the Kings of the earth For the signification of the word Person I shall expound it by and by in another place Here ends his Lordships School Argument now let me come with my Scripture Argument St. Paul concerning Christ Col. 2.9 saith thus In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead Bodily This place Athanasius a great and zealous Doctor in the Nicene Councel and vehement enemy of Arius the Heretick who allowed Christ to be no otherwise God then as men of excellent piety were so called expoundeth thus The fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him Bodily Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Realiter So there is one Father for Corporality and that God was in Christ in such manner as Body is in Body Again there were in the primitive Church a sort of Hereticks who maintained that Jesus Christ had not a true real Body but was onely a Phantasm or Spright such as the Latins called Spectra Against the head of this Sect whose name I think was Apelles Tertullian wrote a Book now extant amongst his other Works intituled De Carne Christi wherein after he had spoken of the nature of Phantasms and shewed that they had nothing of reality in them he concludeth with these words whatsoever is not Body is Nothing So here is on my side a plain Text of Scripture and two ancient and learned Fathers nor was this Doctrine of Tertullian condemned in the Council of Nice but the division of the Divine Substance into God the Father God the Son and God the holy Ghost For these words God has no parts were added for explication of the word Consubstantial at the request of the dissenting Fathers and are farther explained both in Athanasius his Creed in these words not three Gods but one God and by the constant Attribute ever since of the Individual Trinity The same words nevertheless do condemn the Anthropomorphites also For though there appeared no Christians that professed that God had an Organical Body and consequently that the Persons were three Individuals yet the Gentiles were all Anthropomorphites and there condemned by those words God has no parts And thus I have answered his accusation concerning the Eternity and Existence of the Divine Substance and made appear that in truth the question between us is whether God be a Phantasme id est an Idol of the Fancy which St. Paul saith is nothing or a Corporeal Spirit that is to say something that has Magnitude In this place I think it not amiss leaving for a little while this Theological dispute to examine the signification of those words which have occasioned so much diversity of opinion in this kind of Doctrine The word Substance in Greek Hypostasis Hypostan Hypostamenon signifie the same thing namely a Ground a Base any thing that has Existence or Subsistence in it self any thing that upholdeth that which else would fall in which sence God is properly the Hypostasis Base and Substance that upholdeth all the world having Subsistence not only in himself but from himself whereas other Substances have their subsistence only in themselves not from themselves But Metaphorically Faith is called a Substance Heb. 11.1 because it is the foundation or Base of our Hope for Faith failing our Hope falls And 2 Cor. 9.4 St. Paul having boasted of the liberal promise of the Corinthians towards the Macedonians calls that promise the ground the Hypostasis of that his boasting And Heb. 1.3 Christ is called the Image of the Substance the Hypostasis of his Father and for the proper and adequate signification of the word Hypostasis the Greek Fathers did always oppose it to Apparition or Phantasme as when a man seeth his face in the water his real face is called the Hypostasis of the phantastick face in the water So also in
speaking the thing understood or named is called Hypostasis in respect of the name so also a Body coloured is the Hypostasis Substance and Subject of the colour and in like manner of all its other Accidents Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the Art of Logick and signifies only the manner how we consider the Substance it self And of this I have spoken sufficiently in Pag. 371.372 of my Leviathan Body Lat. Corpus Grae. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that Substance which hath Magnitude indeterminate and is the same with Corporeal Substance but A Body is that which hath Magnitude determinate and consequently is understood to be totum or integrum aliquid Pure and Simple Body is Body of one and the same kind in every part throughout and if mingled with Body of another kind though the total be compounded or mixt the parts nevertheless retain their simplicity as when water and wine are mixt the parts of both kinds retain their simplicity For water and wine cannot both be in one and the same place at once Matter is the same with Body But never without respect to a Body which is made thereof Form is the aggregate of all Accidents together for which we give the Matter a new name so Albedo whiteness is the Form of Album or white Body So also Humanity is the Essence of man and Deity the Essence of Deus Spirit is Thin Fluid Transparent Invisible Body The word in Latin signifies Breath Aire Wind and the like In Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiro Flo. I have seen and so have many more two waters one of the River the other a Mineral Water so like that no man could discern the one from the other by his sight yet when they have been both put together the whole substance could not by the eye be distinguished from milk Yet we know that the one was not mixt with the other so as every part of the one to be in every part of the other for that is impossible unless two Bodies can be in the the same place How then could the change be made in every part but only by the Activity of the Mineral water changing it every where to the Sense and yet not being every where and in every part of the water If then such gross Bodies have so great Activity what shall we think of Spirits whose kinds be as many as there be kinds of Liquor and Activity greater Can it then be doubted but that God who is an infinitely fine Spirit and withall intelligent can make and change all species and kinds of Body as he pleaseth but I dare not say that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh because it is past my apprehension yet it serves very well to demonstrate that the Omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction and is better than by pretence of magnifying the fineness of the divine Substance to reduce it to a Spright or Phantasm which is Nothing A Person Lat. Persona signifies an intelligent Substance that acteth any thing in his own or anothers Name or by his own or anothers Authority Of this Definition there can be no other proof than from the use of that word in such Latin Authors as were esteem'd the most skilful in their own Language of which number was Cicero But Cicero in an Epistle to Atticus saith thus Vnus sustineo tres Personas Mei Adversarii Judicis That is I that am but one man sustain three Persons mine own Person the Person of my Adversary and the Person of the Judge Cicero was here the Substance intelligent one man and because he pleaded for himself he calls himself his own Person and again because he pleaded for his Adversary he says he sustained the Person of his Adversary and lastly because he himself gave the Sentence he says he sustained the Person of the Judge In the same sence we use the word in English vulgarly calling him that acteth by his own Authority his own Person and him that acteth by the Authority of another the Person of that other And thus we have the exact meaning of the word Person The Greek Tongue cannot render it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a Face and Metaphorically a Vizard of an Actor upon the Stage How then did the Greek Fathers render the word Person as it is in the blessed Trinity Not well Instead of the word Person they put Hypostasis which signifies Substance from whence it might be inferr'd that the three Persons in the Trinity are three divine Substances that is three Gods The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they could not use because Face and Vizard are neither of them honourable Attributes of God nor explicative of the meaning of the Greek Church Therefore the Latin and consequently the English Church renders Hypostasis every where in Athanasius his Creed by Person But the word Hypostatical Vnion is rightly retained and used by Divines as being the Union of two Hypostases that is of two Substances or Natures in the Person of Christ. But seeing they also hold the Soul of our Saviour to be a Substance which though separated from his Body subsisted nevertheless in it self and consequently before it was separated from his Body upon the Cross was a distinct Nature from his Body how will they avoid this Objection That then Christ had three Natures three Hypostases without granting that his Resurrection was a new vivification and not a return of his Soul out of Heaven into the Grave The contrary is not determined by the Church Thus far in explication of the words that occur in this Controversie Now I return again to his Lordship's Discourse J. D. When they have taken away all incorporeal Spirits what do they leave God himself to be He who is the Fountain of all Being from whom and in whom all Creatures have their Being must needs have a real Being of his own And what real Being can God have among Bodies and Accidents for they have left nothing else in the Universe Then T. H. may move the same Question of God which he did of Devils I would gladly know in what Classis of Entities the Bishop ranketh God Infinite Being and participated Being are not of the same nature Yet to speak according to humane apprehension apprehension and comprehension differ much T. H. confesseth that natural Reason doth dictate to us that God is Infinite yet natural Reason cannot comprehend the Infiniteness of God I place him among incorporeal Substances or Spirits because he hath been pleased to place himself in that rank God is a Spirit Of which place T. H. giveth his opinion that it is unintelligible and all others of the same nature and fall not under humane understanding They who deny all incorporeal Substances can understand nothing by God but either Nature not Naturam naturantem that is a real Author of Nature but Naturam naturatam that is the orderly
concourse of natural Causes as T. H. seemeth to intimate or a fiction of the Brain without real Being cherished for advantage and politick Ends as a profitable Error howsoever dignified with the glorious title of the eternal Cause of all things T. H. To his Lordship's Question here What I leave God to be I answer I leave him to be a most pure simple invisible Spirit Corporeal By Corporeal I mean a Substance that has Magnitude and so mean all learned men Divines and others though perhaps there be some common people so rude as to call nothing Body but what they can see and feel To his second Question What real Being he can have amongst Bodies and Accidents I answer The Being of a Spirit not of a Spright If I should ask any the most subtil Distinguisher what middle nature there were between an infinitely subtil Substance and a meer Thought or Phantasm by what Name could he call it He might call it perhaps an Incorporeal Substance and so Incorporeal shall pass for a middle nature between Infinitely subtil and Nothing and be less subtil than Infinitely subtil and yet more subtil than a thought 'T is granted he says that the Nature of God is incomprehensible Doth it therefore follow that we may give to the divine Substance what negative Name we please Because he says the whole divine Substance is here and there and every where throughout the World and that the Soul of a man is here and there and every where throughout man's Body must we therefore take it for a Mystery of Christian Religion upon his or any Schoolman's word without the Scripture which calls nothing a Mystery but the Incarnation of the eternal God Or is Incorporeal a Mystery when not at all mentioned in the Bible but to the contrary 't is written That the fulness of the Deity was bodily in Christ When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible I can acquiesce in the Scripture but when the signification of words are incomprehensible I cannot acquiesce in the Authority of a Schoolman J. D. We have seen what his Principles are concerning the Deity they are full as bad or worse concerning the Trinity Hear himself A person is he that is represented as often as he is represented And therefore God who has been represented that is personated thrice may properly enough be said to be three Persons though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible And a little after To conclude the doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture is in substance this that the God who is always one and the same was the Person represented by Moses the Person represented by his Son incarnate and the Person represented by the Apostles As represented by the Apostles the holy Spirit by which they spake is God As represented by his Son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those Names Father Son and Holy Ghost in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are Persons that is they have their Names from representing which could not be till divers Persons had represented God in ruling or in directing under him Who is so bold as blind Bayard The Emblem of a little Boy attempting to lade all the Water out of the Sea with a Cockle-shell doth fit T. H. as exactly as if it had been shaped for him who thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable Mysteries of Religion by his own silly shallow conceits What is now become of the great adorable Mystery of the blessed undivided Trinity It is shrunk into nothing Upon his grounds there was a time when there was no Trinity And we must blot these words out of our Creed The Father eternal the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost eternal And these other words out of our Bibles Let us make man after our Image Unless we mean that this was a consultation of God with Moses and the Apostles What is now become of the eternal generation of the Son of God if this Sonship did not begin until about 4000 years after the Creation were expired Upon these grounds every King hath as many Persons as there be Justices of Peace and petty Constables in his Kingdom Upon this account God Almighty hath as many Persons as there have been Soveraign Princes in the World since Adam According to this reckoning each one of us like so many Geryons may have as many Persons as we please to make Procurations Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation T. H. As for the words recited I confess there is a fault in the Ratiocination which nevertheless his Lordship hath not discovered but no Impiety All that he objecteth is That it followeth hereupon that there be as many Persons of a King as there be petty Constables in his Kingdom And so there are or else he cannot be obeyed But I never said that a King and every one of his Persons are the same Substance The fault I here made and saw not was this I was to prove That it is no contradiction as Lucian and Heathen Scoffers would have it to say of God he was One and Three I saw the true definition of the word Person would serve my turn in this manner God in his own Person both created the World and instituted a Church in Israel using therein the Ministry of Moses the same God in the Person of his Son God and Man redeemed the same World and the same Church the same God in the Person of the Holy Ghost sanctified the same Church and all the faithful men in the World Is not this a clear proof that it is no contradiction to say that God is three Persons and one Substance And doth not the Church distinguish the Persons in the same manner See the words of our Catechism Quest. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief Answ. First I learn to believe in God the Father that hath made me and all the World Secondly In God the Son who hath redeemed me and all Mankind Thirdly In God the Holy Ghost that hath sanctified me and all the elect people of God But at what time was the Church sanctified Was it not on the day of Pentecost in the descending of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles His Lordship all this while hath catched nothing 'T is I that catched my self for saying instead of By the Ministry of Moses in the Person of Moses But this Error I no sooner saw then I no less publickly corrected then I had committed it in my Leviathan converted into Latin which by this time I think is printed beyond the Seas with this alteration and also with the omission of some such passages as Strangers are not concerned in And I
had corrected this Error sooner if I had sooner found it For though I was told by Dr. Cosins now Bishop of Duresme that the place above-cited was not applicable enough to the Doctrine of the Trinity yet I could not in reviewing the same espy the defect till of late when being sollicited from beyond Sea to translate the Book into Latin and fearing some other man might do it not to my liking I examined this passage and others of the like sence more narrowly But how concludes his Lordship out of this that I put out of the Creed these words The Father eternal the Son eternal the Holy Ghost eternal Or these words Let us make man after our Image out of the Bible Which last words neither I nor Bellarmine put out of the Bible but we both put them out of the number of good Arguments to prove the Trinity for it is no unusual thing in the Hebrew as may be seen by Bellarmine's quotations to joyn a Noun of the plural Number with a Verb of the singular And we may say also of many other Texts of Scripture alledged to prove the Trinity that they are not so firm as that high Article requireth But mark his Lordship's Scholastick charity in the last words of this period Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation This Bishop and others of his opinion had been in their Element if they had been Bishops in Queen Maries time J. D. Concerning God the Son forgetting what he had said elsewhere where he calleth him God and Man and the Son of God incarnate he doubteth not to say that the word Hypostatical is canting As if the same Person could be both God and Man without a Personal that is an Hypostatical Union of the two Natures of God and Man T. H. If Christian Profession be as certainly it is in England a Law and if it be of the nature of a Law to be made known to all men that are to obey it in such manner as they may have no excuse for disobedience from their ignorance then without doubt all words unknown to the people and as to them insignificant are Canting The word Substance is understood by the Vulgar well enough when it is said of a Body but in other sence not at all except for their Riches But the word Hypostatical is understood only by those and but few of those that are learned in the Greek Tongue and is properly used as I have said before of the Union of the two Natures of Christ in one Person So likewise Consubstantial in the Nicene Creed is properly said of the Trinity But to an English man that understands neither Greek nor Latin and yet is as much concerned as his Lordship was the word Hypostatical is no less Canting than Eternal now J. D. He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Soveraign to deny Christ with his tongue before men T. H. I allow it in some Cases and to some men which his Lordship knew well enough but would not mention I alledged for it in the place cited both Reason and Scripture though his Lordship thought it not expedient to take notice of either If it be true that I have said why does he blame it If false why offers he no Argument against it neither from Scripture nor from Reason Or why does he not show that the Text I cite is not applicable to the Question or not well interpreted by me First He barely cites it because he thought the words would sound harshly and make a Reader admire them for Impiety But I hope I shall so well instruct my Reader ere I leave this place that this his petty Art will have no effect Secondly The Cause why he omitted my Arguments was That he could not answer them Lastly The Cause why he urgeth neither Scripture nor Reason against it was That he saw none sufficient My Argument from Scripture was this Leviathan pag. 271. taken out of 2 Kings 5.17 where Naaman the Syrian saith to Elisha the Prophet Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my self in the house of Rimmon when I bow my self in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing and he said unto him Go in peace What can be said to this Did not Elisha say it from God Or is not this Answer of the Prophet a permission When St. Paul and St. Peter commanded the Christians of their time to obey their Princes which then were Heathens and Enemies of Christ did they mean they should lose their Lives for disobedience Did they not rather mean they should preserve both their Lives and their Faith believing in Christ as they did by this denial of the tongue having no command to the contrary If in this Kingdom a Mahometan should be made by terror to deny Mahomet and go to Church with us would any man condemn this Mahometan A denyal with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the Church but to retain the Faith of Christ stedfastly in his Heart cannot be prejudicial to his Soul that hath undertaken no charge to Preach to Wolves whom they know will destroy them About the time of the Council of Nice there was a Canon made which is extant in the History of the Nicene Council concerning those that being Christians had been seduced not terrified to a denyal of Christ and again repenting desired to be readmitted into the Church in which Canon it was ordain'd that those men should be no otherwise readmitted than to be in the number of the Catechised and not to be admitted to the Communion till a great many years penitence Surely the Church then would have been more merciful to them that did the same upon terror of present death and torments Let us now see what his Lordship might though but colourably have alledged from Scripture against it There be three Places only that seem to favour his Lordship's opinion The first is where Peter denyed Christ and Weepeth The second is Acts 5.29 Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said we ought to obey God rather than men The third is Luke 12.9 But he that denyeth me shall be denyed before the Angels of God T. H. For answer to these Texts I must repeat what I have written and his Lordship read in my Leviathan pag. 362. For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of Death to worship before an Idol doing it he detesteth the Idol in his Heart he doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer Death rather than worship it he should do better But if a Pastor who as Christ's Messenger has undertaken to teach Christ's Doctrine to all Nations should do the same it
asked the Corinthians Is Christ divided He did not think they thought him impossible to be considered as having hands and feet but that they might think him according to the manner of the Gentiles one of the Sons of God as Arius did but not the only begotten Son of God And thus also it is expounded in the Creed of Athanasius who was present in that Council by these words Not confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substances that is to say that God is not divided into three Persons as man is divided into Peter James and John nor are the three persons one and the same person But Aristotle and from him all the Greek Fathers and other Learned Men when they distinguish the general Latitude of a word they call it Division as when they divide Animal into Man and Beast they call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Species and when they again divide the Species Man into Peter and John they call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partes individuae And by this confounding the division of the substance with the distinction of words divers men have been led into the Error of attributing to God a Name which is not the name of any substance at all viz. Incorporeal By these words God has no parts thus explained together with the part of the Creed which was at that time agreed on many of those Heresies which were antecedent to that first General Council were condemned as that of Manes who appeared about thirty years before the Reign of Constantine by the first Article I believe in one God though in other words it seems to me to remain still in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which so ascribeth a Liberty of the Will to Men as that their Will and Purpose to commit sin should not proceed from the Cause of all things God but originally from themselves or from the Devil It may seem perhaps to some that by the same words the Anthropomorphites also were then Condemned And certainly if by Parts were meant not persons Individual but Pieces they were Condemned For Face Arms Feet and the like are pieces But this cannot be for the Anthropomorphites appeared not till the time of Valens the Emperor which was after the Council of Nice between forty and fifty years and was not condemned till the second General Council at Constantinople Now for the Punishment of Hereticks ordained by Constantine we read of none but that Ecclesiastical Officers Bishops and other Preachers if they refused to subscribe to this Faith or taught the contrary Doctrine were for the first Fault Deprived of their Offices and for the second Banished And thus did Heresie which at first was the name of private Opinion and no Crime by vertue of a Law of the Emperor made only for the Peace of the Church become a Crime in a Pastor and punishable with Deprivation first and next with Banishment After this part of the Creed was thus established there arose presently many new Heresies partly about the Interpretation of it and partly about the Holy Ghost of which the Nicene Council had not determined Concerning the part established there arose Disputes about the Nature of Christ and the word Hypostasis id est Substance for of Persons there was yet no mention made the Creed being written in Greek in which Language there is no word that answereth to the Latine word Persona And the Union as the Fathers called it of the Humane and Divine Nature in Christ Hypostatical caused Eutyches and after him Dioscorus to affirm there was but one Nature in Christ thinking that whensoever two things are united they are one And this was condemned as Arianism in the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus Others because they thought two living and rational Substances such as are God and Man must needs be also two Hypostases maintained that Christ had two Hypostases But these were two Heresies condemned together Then concerning the Holy Ghost Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople and some others denied the Divinity thereof And whereas about seventy years before the Nicene Council there had been holden a Provincial Council at Carthage wherein it was Decreed that those Christians which in the Persecutions had denyed the Faith of Christ should not be received again into the Church unless they were again baptized This also was condemned though the President in that Council were that most sincere and pious Christian Cyprian And at last the Creed was made up entire as we have it in the Calcedonian Council by addition of these words And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver of Life who proceedeth from the Father and the Son Who with the Father the Son together is Worshipped and Glorified Who spake by the Prophets And I believe one Catholick Apostolick Church I acknowledge one Baptism for the Remission of Sins And I look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to come In this addition are condemned first the Nestorians and others in these words Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified And secondly the Doctrine of the Council of Carthage in these words I believe one Baptism for the Remission of Sins For one Baptism is not there put as opposite to several sorts or manners of Baptism but to the iteration of it St. Cyprian was a better Christian than to allow any Baptism that was not in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost In the General Confession of Faith contained in the Creed called the Nicene Creed there is no mention of Hypostasis nor of Hypostatical Union nor of Corporeal nor of Incorporeal nor of Parts the understanding of which words being not required of the Vulgar but only of the Pastors whose disagreement else might trouble the Church nor were such Points necessary to Salvation but set abroach for ostentation of Learning or else to dazle men with design to lead them towards some ends of their own The Changes of prevalence in the Empire between the Catholicks and the Arians and how the great Athanasius the most fierce of the Catholicks was banished by Constantine and afterwards restored and again banished I let pass only it is to be remembred that Athanasius is suppos'd to have made his Creed then when banished he was in Rome Liberius being Pope by whom as is most likely the word Hypostasis as it was in Athanasius's Creed was disliked For the Roman Church could never be brought to receive it but instead thereof used their own word Persona But the first and last words of that Creed the Church of Rome refused not For they make every Article not only those of the body of the Creed but all the Definitions of the Nicene Fathers to be such as a man cannot be saved unless he believe them all stedfastly though made only for Peace sake and to unite the minds of the Clergy whose Disputes were like to trouble the Peace of the Empire After these four first
his God is a divisible God a compounded God that hath matter or qualities or accidents Hear himself I argue thus The divine substance is indivisible but eternity is the divine substance The Major is evident because God is Actus simplicissimus the Minor is confessed by all men that whatsoever is attributed to God is God Now listen to his answer The Major is so far from being evident that Actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing The Minor is said by some men thought by no man whatsoever is thought is understood The Major was this The divine substance is indivisible Is this far from being evident Either it is indivisible or divisible If it be not indivisible then it is divisible then it is materiate then it is corporeal then it hath parts then it is finite by his own confession Habere partes aut esse totum aliquid sunt attributa finitorum Upon this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying That God is not just but justice it self not eternal but eternity it self which he calleth unseemly words to be said of God And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesie in not adding Blasphemous and Atheistical But his Bolts are so soon shot and his Reasons are such vain Imaginations and such drowsie Phantasies that no sad man doth much regard them Thus he hath already destroyed the Ubiquity the Eternity and the Simplicity of God I wish he had considered better with himself before he had desperately cast himself upon these Rocks But paulo majora canamus my next charge is That he destroys the very being of God and leaves nothing in his place but an empty name For by taking away all incorporeal substances he taketh away God himself The very name saith he of an incorporeal substance is a Contradiction And to say that an Angel or Spirit is an incorporeal substance is to say in effect that there is no Angel or Spirit at all By the same reason to say That God is an incorporeal substance is to say there is no God at all Either God is incorporeal or he is finite and consists of parts and consequently is no God This That there is no incorporeal spirit is that main root of Atheism from which so many lesser branches are daily sprouting up T. H. God is indeed a Perfect Pure Simple Infinite Substance and his Name incommunicable that is to say not divisible into this and that individual God in such manner as the name of Man is divisible into Peter and John And therefore God is individual which word amongst the Greeks is expressed by the word Indivisible Certain Hereticks in the primitive Church because special and individual are called Particulars maintained that Christ was a particular God differing in number from God the Father And this was the Doctrine that was condemned for Heresy in the first Councel of Nice by these words God hath no parts And yet many of the Latin Fathers in their explications of the Nicene Creed have expounded the word Consubstantial by the community of nature which different Species have in their Genus and different individuals in the Species as if Peter and John were Consubstantial because they agree in one humane nature which is contrary I confess to the meaning of the Nice Fathers But that in a substance infinitely great it should be impossible to consider any thing as not infinite I do not see it there condemned For certainly he that thinks God is in every part of the Church does not exclude him out of the Church-yard And is not this a considering of him by parts For dividing a thing which we cannot reach nor separate one part thereof from another is nothing else but considering of the same by parts So much concerning Indivisibility from Natural Reason for I will wade no farther but relie upon the Scriptures God is no where said in the Scriptures to be indivisible unless his Lordship meant division to consist only in separation of parts which I think he did not St. Paul indeed saith 1 Cor. 1.13 Is Christ divided Not that the followers of Paul Apollo and Cephas followed some one part some another of Christ but that thinking differently of his nature they made as it were different kinds of him Secondly his Lordship expounds Simplicity by not being compounded of Matter and Form or of Substance and Accidents Unlearnedly For nothing can be so compounded The matter of a Chair is Wood the form is the figure it hath apt for the intended use Does his Lordship think the Chair compounded of the Wood and the Figure A man is Rational does it therefore follow that Reason is a part of the man It was Aristotle deceived him who had told him that a Rational living Creature is the definition of a man and that the definition of a man was his Essence and therefore the Bishop and other School-men from this that the word Rational is a part of these words Man is a Rational living Creature concluded that the Essence of man was a part of the man and a Rational man the same thing with a Rational Soul I should wonder how any man much more a Doctor of Divinity should be so grosly deceived but that I know naturally the generality of men speak the words of their Masters by rote without having any Idea of the things which the words signifie Lastly he calls God an Essence If he mean by Essence the same with Ens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I approve it Otherwise what is Essence There is no such word in the Old Testament The Hebrew Language which has no word answerable to the copulative est will not bear it The New Testament hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but never for Essence nor for Substance but only for Riches I come now to his Argument in Mood and Figure which is this The Divine Substance is indivisible That 's the Major Eternity is the Divine Substance That 's the Minor Ergo the Divine Substance is indivisible The Major he says is evident because God is Actus simplicissimus The Minor is confessed he thinks by all men because whatsoever is attributed to God is God To this I answered that the Major was so far from being evident that Actus Simplicissimus signifieth nothing and that the Minor was understood by no man First what is Actus in the Major does any man understand Actus for a Substance that is for a thing subsisting by it self Is not Actus in English either an Act or an Action or nothing or is any of these Substances If it be evident why did he not explain Actus by a definition And as to the Minor though all men in the world understand that the Eternal is God yet no man can understand that the Eternity is God Perhaps he and the School-men mean by Actus the same that they do by Essentia What is the Essence of a man but his Humanity or of God but his Deity of Great but Greatness and so of all other denominating
were not only a sinful Scandal in respect of other Christian Mens Consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his Charge In which words I distinguish between a Pastor and one of the Sheep of his Flock St. Peter sinned in denying Christ and so does every Pastor that having undertaken the Charge of Preaching the Gospel in the Kingdom of an Infidel where he could expect at the undertaking of his Charge no less than Death And why but because he violates his Trust in doing contrary to his Commission St. Peter was an Apostle of Christ and bound by his voluntary undertaking of that Office not only to Confess Christ but also to Preach him before those Infidels whom he knew would like Wolves devour him And therefore when Paul and the rest of the Apostles were forbidden to preach Christ they gave this Answer We ought to obey God rather than Men. And it was to his Disciples only which had undertaken that Office that Christ saith he that denyeth me before Men shall be denyed before the Angels of God And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place and shewed that I do not allow the denying of Christ upon any colour of Torments to his Lordship nor to any other that has undertaken the Office of a Preacher Which if he think right he will perhaps in this case put himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful Doctors whereas now he extends his severity beyond the bounds of common equity He has read Cicero and perhaps this Story in him The Senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of Peace with Marcus Antonius but when Cicero had shewed them the just fear he had of being killed by him he was excused and if they had forced him to it and he by terror turned Enemy to them he had in equity been excusable But his Lordship I believe did write this more valiantly than he would have acted it J. D. He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judgment And the Regiment wherewith Christ Governeth his Faithful in this Life is not properly a Kingdom but a Pastoral Office or a right to Teach And a little after Christ had not Kingly Authority committed to him by his Father in this World but only Consiliary and Doctrinal T. H. How do I take away Christs Kingly Office He neither draws it by Consequence from my Words nor offers any Argument at all against my Doctrine The words he cites are in the Contents of Chap. 17. de Cive In the Body of the Chapter it is thus The time of Christ's being upon the Earth is called in Scripture the Regeneration often but the Kingdom never When the Son of God comes in Majesty and all the Angels with him then he shall sit on the seat of Majesty My Kingdom is not of this World God sent not his Son that he should Judge the World I came not to Judge the World but to save the World Man who made me a Judge or Divider amongst you Let thy Kingdom come And other words to the same purpose out of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no Regal Power upon Earth before his Assumption But at his Assumption his Apostles asked him if he would then restore the Kingdom to Israel and he Answered it was not for them to know So that hitherto Christ had not taken that Office upon him unless his Lordship think that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ be two distinct Kingdoms From the Assumption ever since all true Christians say daily in their Prayers Thy Kingdom come But his Lordship had perhaps forgot that But when then beginneth Christ to be a King I say it shall be then when he comes again in Majesty with all the Angels And even then he shall Reign as he is Man under his Father For St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15.25 26. He must Raign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death But when shall God the Father Raign again St. Paul saith in the same Chapter verse 28. When all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all And verse 24. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall have put down all Rule Authority and Power This is at the Resurrection And by this it is manifest that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture as he ought to have been J. D. He taketh away his Priestly or Propitiatory Office And although this Act of our Redemption be not alwayes in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a Pardon for us from his Offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand And again Not that the Death of one Man though without sin can satisfie for the Offences of all Men in the rigour of Justice but in the mercy of God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in mercy to accept He knoweth no difference between one who is meer man and one who was both God and man between a Levitical Sacrifice and the All-sufficient Sacrifice of the Cross between the Blood of a Calf and the precious Blood of the Son of God T. H. Yes I know there is a difference between Blood and Blood but not any such as can make a difference in the Case here questioned Our Saviour's Blood was most precious but still it was Humane Blood and I hope his Lordship did never think otherwise or that it was not accepted by his Father for our Redemption J. D. And touching the Prophetical Office of Christ I do much doubt whether he do believe in earnest that there is any such thing as Prophecy in the World He maketh very little difference between a Prophet and a Mad-man and a Demoniack And if there were nothing else says he that bewrayed their madness yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is Argument enough He maketh the pretence of Inspiration in any man to be and always to have been on opinion pernicious to Peace and tending to the dissolution of all Civil Government He subjecteth all Prophetical Revelations from God to the sole Pleasure and Censure of the Soveraign Prince either to Authorize them or to Exauctorate them So as two Prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time in the Dominions of two different Princes the one shall be a true Prophet the other a false And Christ who had the approbation of no Soveraign Prince upon his grounds was to be reputed a false Prophet every where Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is
force to make him consider better of his own Doctrine and sometimes brought him to the acknowledgment of the Truth But other punishment they could inflict none that being a right appropriated to the Civil Power So that all the punishment the Church could inflict was only Ignominy and that among the Faithful consisting in this that his company was by all the Godly avoided and he himself branded with the name of Heretick in opposition to the whole Church that condemned his Doctrine So that Catholick and Heretick were terms relative and here it was that Heretick became to be a Name and a name of Disgrace both together The first and most troublesome Heresies in the Primitive Church were about the Trinity For according to the usual curiosity of Natural Philosophers they could not abstain from disputing the very first Principles of Christianity into which they were baptized In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Some there were that made them allegorical Others would make one Creator of Good and another of Evil which was in effect to set up two Gods one contrary to another supposing that causation of evil could not be attributed to God without Impiety From which Doctrine they are not far distant that now make the first cause of sinful actions to be every man as to his own sin Others there were that would have God to be a body with Parts organical as Face Hands Fore-parts and Back-parts Others that Christ had no real body but was a meer Phantasm For Phantasms were taken then and have been ever since by unlearned and superstitious men for things real and subsistent Others denyed the Divinity of Christ. Others that Christ being God and Man was two Persons Others confest he was one Person and withal that he had but one Nature And a great many other Heresies arose from the too much adherence to the Philosophy of those times whereof some were supprest for a time by St. John's publishing his Gospel and some by their own unreasonableness vanished and some lasted till the time of Constantine the Great and after When Constantine the Great made so by the assistance and valour of the Christian Souldiers had attained to be the only Roman Emperor he also himself became a Christian and caused the Temples of the Heathen Gods to be demolished and authorized Christian Religion only to be publick But towards the latter end of his time there arose a Dispute in the City of Alexandria between Alexander the Bishop and Arius a Presbyter of the same City wherein Arius maintained first That Christ was inferiour to his Father and afterwards That he was no God alleadging the words of Christ My Father is greater than I. The Bishop on the contrary alleadging the words of St. John And the Word was God and the words of St. Thomas My Lord and my God This Controversie presently amongst the Inhabitants and Souldiers of Alexandria became a Quarrel and was the cause of much Bloodshed in and about the City and was likely then to spread further as afterwards it did This so far concerned the Emperors Civil Government that he thought it necessary to call a General Council of all the Bishops and other eminent Divines throughout the Roman Empire to meet at the City of Nice When they were assembled they presented the Emperor with Libels of Accusation one against another When he had received these Libels into his hands he made an Oration to the Fathers assembled exhorting them to agree and to fall in hand with the settlement of the Articles of Faith for which cause he had assembled them saying Whatsoever they should decree therein he would cause to be observed This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency than would in these dayes be approved of But so it is in the History and the Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation were not thought then to be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of Rome When Constantine had ended his Oration he caused the aforesaid Libels to be cast into the fire as became a wise King and a charitable Christian. This done the Fathers fell in hand with their business and following the method of a former Creed now commonly called The Apostles Creed made a Confession of Faith viz. I believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible in which is condemned the Polytheism of the Gentiles And in one Lord Iesus Christ the only begotten Son of God against the many sons of the many Gods of the Heathen Begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God against the Arians Uery God of very God against the Valentinians and against the Heresie of Apelles and others who made Christ a meer Phantasm Light of Light This was put in for explication and used before to that purpose by Tertullian Begotten not made being of one Substance with the Father In this again they condemn the Doctrine of Arius for this word Of one substance in Latine Consubstantialis but in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Of one Essence was put as a Touchstone to discern an Arian from a Catholick And much ado there was about it Constantine himself at the passing of this Creed took notice of it for a hard word but yet approved of it saying That in a divine Mystery it was fit to use divina arcana Verba that is divine words and hidden from humane understanding calling that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divine not because it was in the divine Scripture for it is not there but because it was to him Arcanum that is not sufficiently understood And in this again appeared the indifferency of the Emperor and that he had for his end in the calling of the Synod not so much the Truth as the Vniformity of the Doctrine and peace of his People that depended on it The cause of the obscurity of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceeded chiefly from the difference between the Greek and Roman Dialect in the Philosophy of the Peripateticks The first Principle of Religion in all Nations is That God is that is to say that God really is Something and not a meer fancy but that which is really something is considerable alone by it self as being somewhere In which sence a man is a thing real for I can consider him to be without considering any other thing to be besides him And for the same reason the Earth the Air the Stars Heaven and their Parts are all of them things real And because whatsoever is real here or there or in any place has Dimensions that is to say Magnitude and that which hath Magnitude whether it be visible or invisible finite or infinite is called by all the Learned a Body It followeth that all real things in that they are somewhere are Corporeal On the contrary Essence Deity Humanity and such-like names signifie nothing that can be considered without first considering