perfect equality and subordination of the Divine Persons ibid. And shows how each Person is God and all but one God 82 This gives an Account of the different modi subsistendi of which the Schools speak 83 And how the Operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to all Three Persons 85 An Answer to the Absurdities and Contradictions charged on the Doctrine of the Trinity by the Brief Notes 87 SECT V. The Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools about a Trinity in Unity reconciled to the foregoing Explication of it page 100 That the Fathers made the Three Divine Persons Three distinct infinite Minds 101 That Father Son and Holy Ghost are as distinct Persons as Peter James and John how to be understood 104 How the Fathers Explain the Unity of the Godhead 105 1. By the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or coessentiality of the Divine Persons 106 What they meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. How they proved the Unity of Essence from the sameness of Nature Gregory Nyssen's reasoning in this matter and vindicated from the Mesrepresentation of Petavius and Dr. Cudworth 109. c. 2. To this the Fathers added a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence 121 Concerning the Unity of Energy and Power 123 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession is Self-consciousness 125 St. Austin explains the Unity of the Divine Persons by Examples of Self-consciousness 126 The Unity of the Godhead consists in the Unity of Principle 128 How the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are essential to the Notion of One God explained at large 129 c. SECT VI. Concerning expounding Scripture by Reason 140 The Arguments against a Trinity in the History of the Unitarians Letter 1. particularly answered 153 c. His first Argument 154 His second Argument 155 1 Coloss. 17. The first-born of every Creature explained 156 The Mediatory Kingdom of Christ explained at large 159 His third fourth and fifth Arguments answered 176 His sixth Argument 178 His seventh Argument 184 His eighth Argument from those Texts which declare that the Father only is God ibid. His ninth Argument That if Christ were God there was no need of giving the Holy Spirit to his Human Nature 187 His tenth and eleventh Arguments 188 His Arguments against the Godhead of the Holy Ghost ibid. Concerning the Personality of the Holy Ghost 189 That the Spirit is obtained of God by our Prayers therefore it self is not God Answered 193 Father Son and Holy Ghost the entire Object of Worship page 193 Those who do not worship the Trinity do not worship the true God if Father Son and Holy Ghost be God 194 No need of any new Cammand to worship the Holy Ghost when it is revealed that he is One God with the Father and Son ibid. That the Scripture speaks of God as One Person Answered 196 Whether the Socinian Faith be a reasonable and accountable Faith 198 The Socinian Faith ridicules the Scriptures 199 This is particularly shown in the Expositions of Scripture contained in the History of the Unitarians ibid. The Form of Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost explained 209 1 John 1 2. In the beginning was the Word c. explained and vindicated 215 How this Historian has represented Grotius 220 Socinianism makes the Iewish oeconomy very unreasonable and unaccountable 231 Socinianism ridicules the Christian Religion 238 SECT VII An Answer to what remains in the Brief Notes 256 Concerning the Generation of the Son ibid. The equality and coeternity of the Persons in the Trinity 259 Concerning the Incarnation 262 How an infinite and finite Being may be united into one Person 263 What makes a Personal Union 266 A VINDICATION Of the DOCTRINE OF THE Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY AND OF THE Incarnation of the SON of GOD In ANSWER to the Brief NOTES on the Greed of St. Athanasius SECT I. Concerning the Nature of a Contradiction and how to know it BEFORE I particularly Examine the Brief Notes on Athanasius 's Creed which under a pretence of exposing that Creed charge the Christian Faith itself of Three Persons and One God with the most monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions I shall 1. Shew what a Contradiction is and in what cases we can judge of a Contradiction 2. I shall take a brief view of the Athanasian Creed and shew that it signifies no more than that there are Three Persons and One God or a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and that if we own this we must own the particular Explications of the Athanasian Creed First As for the first A Contradiction is to deny and affirm the same thing in the same sense as to say that a thing is and is not at the same time that there is but One God and that there is Three Gods that is that there is and that there is not but One God for if there be Three Gods then it is not true that there is only One God Things which are so contrary as to contradict each other can never be both true for all Contradictions finally resolve into this It is and It is not which is absolutely impossible But when we come to apply this to the nature of Things we may easily fancy Contradictions where there are none For a Contradiction in the nature of Things is such a Notion or Idea of any thing as implies a Contradiction and then it is impossible any such thing can be as it is impossible that such a Proposition whose terms contradict each other should be true but then before we can pronounce that such a Notion or Idea is contradictions we must be sure that we perfectly understand and comprehend the nature of that Being otherwise the Contradiction may not be in the thing but in our manner of conceiving it It is not enough in this case to say we cannot understand it and know not how to reconcile it but we must say that we do perfectly understand it and know that it cannot be reconciled As for instance Some new Philosophers will tell you that the Notion of a Spirit or an immaterial Substance is a Contradiction for by Substance they understand nothing but Matter and then an immaterial Substance is immaterial Matter that is Matter and no Matter which is a Contradiction but yet this does not prove an immaterial Substance to be a Contradiction unless they could first prove that there is no Substance but Matter and that they cannot conceive any other Substance but Matter does not prove that there is no other Thus the Atheist discovers a great many Contradictions or Absurdities in the very Notion and Idea of a God or of an Eternal Omnipresent Omnipotent Omniscient Being For to be without a cause and without a beginning without time and without succession to be present every-where and to fill all Places and yet to have no parts no extension to be able to create a World and to annihilate it
shew you things to come He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you All things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you Of which words more hereafter at present I only observe how intimately the Holy Spirit is acquainted with all the Secrets both of Father and Son whatever things the Father knows that the Son knows and what the Son knows that the Holy Spirit knows that is whatever the Father knows which is first said to be the Father's then the Son 's and then the Holy Spirit 's according to the Order of Persons in the adorable Trinity Thus the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Love which inspires us with the love of God and gives us the reciprocal Testimonies of God's love to us For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us 5 Rom. 5. And as some of the Ancients represent it he is that love wherewith the Father and the Son love each other and therefore there is no question but that he who unites Father and Son and unites God to us and us to God by love is united to Father and Son by love himself He is that Holy Spirit who renews and sanctifies us and subdues our wills into a conformity and subjection to the will of God and therefore no doubt but he has the same will with Father and Son Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost are most intimately united in knowledge will and affection but after all this is no more than what we call a Moral Union such as may be between created Spirits which remain separate Beings still and though they are morally are not essentially One and therefore such an Union as this cannot make Father Son and Holy Ghost One God but Three agreeing and consenting Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn though they should in the most perfect manner be united in the same Faith and mutual love and affection c. yet would be Three Men still And therefore I must now shew that what is merely a Moral Union between Creatures is an essential Union between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity And this I have already shewn in part The Three Divine Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity are united in knowledge in will in love but are not united as Creatures are by an external likeness conformity agreement consent in knowledge will and affection but are so united to each other as every Man is to himself not as one Man is to another As for instance Every Man by an inward sensation feeels his own knowledge will and affections but he does not know any other Man's thoughts or will or passions by feeling them in himself as he does his own but by an external communication of thoughts and therefore though they may be morally One by an exact agreement and harmony of thoughts and passions as far as by external communication they can know what each others thoughts and passions are yet they are essentially distinct and separate But Father Son and Holy Ghost are One not by an external agreement or consent but by an internal consciousness as every Man is One with himself If I may so speak because we want proper words to express it they feel each other in themselves know the same thing by feeling each others knowledge and will and love a-like by feeling what each other wills and loves just as every Man feels his own thoughts knowledge will and passions that is are as intimate to each other and as essentially One by a mutual Self-consciousness as every Man is One with himself And the phrases and expressions of Scripture whereby the Unity or Oneness of Father Son and Holy Ghost are expressed require this sense Thus I observed before that the Son is the eternal word and wisdom of the Father and therefore as intimate to him as every Man's Reason is to himself and knows the Father not by external Revelation but as every Man knows himself But the most frequent expression whereby Christ represents this close and intimate and essential Union between his Father and him is I am in the Father and the Father in me which he repeats several times in St. Iohn's Gospel Now if we will allow this to be a proper not a metaphorical expression it can signifie no other Union than what I have now described That it is a proper and not a metaphorical expression appears from this that there is no such Union in Nature between any two other Beings as this to be in One another and a Metaphor is translated from something that is real and natural upon account of some likeness and similitude and therefore that which is like to nothing else which has no pattern and example can be no Metaphor because it alludes to nothing Now if we speak of a substantial Union or a Union of Substances what two Substances can there be in the World which can mutually be in each other or can mutually comprehend each other which is indeed a palpable contradiction as signifying at the same time to be greater and to be less than each other for in substantial Unions that which comprehends is greater than that which is comprehended that which is within any thing else is less than that which contains it and therefore for two Beings mutually to comprehend and to be comprehended by each other is to be greater and less than each other greater as they comprehend each other and less as they are comprehended So that this Oneness between the Father and the Son is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it and we cannot long doubt what kind of Union this is if we consider that there is but one possible way to be thus united and that is by this mutual Consciousness which I have now described If the Son be conscious in himself of all that the Father is as conscious to the knowledge to the will to the love of the Father as he is to his own by an internal sensation then the whole Father is in the Son if the Father be thus conscious to all that the Son is then the whole Son is in the Father if the Holy Ghost be thus conscious to all that is in the Father and in the Son then the Father and the Son are in the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son by this mutual Consciousness to each other This is very plain and intelligible and makes them as much One as every Man is One with himself by Self-consciousness And this is a plain demonstration that all Three Divine Persons are coessential and coequal with each other We know nothing of God but that he is an infinite Mind that is infinite Knowledge Wisdom Power Goodness And if these Three Divine Persons are all internally conscious of all these Perfections which are in each other they must all have the
seeming Contradictions in the Doctine of the Trinity I. This contains the true Orthodox Faith of the Holy Trinity or a Trinity in Unity for so the Athanasian Creed teaches us To worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance for there is One Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal There are two things then which an Orthodox Christian must take care of neither to confound the Persons nor to divide the Substance that is to acknowledge Three distinct Persons and yet but One God and nothing can be more apparent than both these in that account which I have given of the Ever Blessed Trinity 1. It is plain the Persons are perfectly distinct for they are Three distinct and infinite Minds and therefore Three distinct Persons for a Person is an intelligent Being and to say they are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct infinite Minds is both Heresie and Nonsense The Scripture I 'm sure represents Father Son and Holy Ghost as Three intelligent Beings not as Three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is down-right Sabellianism for Faculties are not Persons no more than Memory Will and Understanding are Three Persons in One Man When we prove the Holy Ghost to be a Person against the Socinians who make him only a Divine Power we prove that all the Properties of a Person belong to him such as Understanding Will Affections and Actions which shews what our Notion of a Person is such a Being as has Understanding and Will and Power of Action and it would be very strange that we should own Three Persons each of which Persons is truly and properly God and not own Three infinite Minds as if any thing could be a God but an infinite Mind And the distinction between these Three Infinite Minds is plain according to this Notion for they are distinguished just as Three finite and created Minds are by Self-consciousness They are united indeed into One as I have already discoursed by a mutual Consciousness to each other which no created Spirits have which are conscious only to the actings of their own Minds not to each others and therefore these Three Divine Persons are not separate Minds as created Spirits are but only distinct each Divine Person has a Self consciousness of its own and knows and feels itself if I may so speak as distinct from the other Divine Persons the Father has a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor the Holy Ghost and the Son in like manner feels himself to be the Son and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost feels himself to be the Holy Ghost and not the Father nor the Son as Iames feels himself to be Iames and not Peter nor Iohn which proves them to be distinct Persons Which is a very plain account how these Three Divine Persons are distinct that there is One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts Here is no confounding of Persons 2. Nor do we divide the Substance but unite these Three Persons in One numerical Essence for we know nothing of the unity of the Mind but self-consciousness as I shewed before and therefore as the self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct Persons so the mutual consciousness of all Three Divine Persons to each other makes them all but One infinite God as far as consciousness reaches so far the Unity of a Spirit extends for we know no other unity of a Mind or Spirit but consciousness In a created Spirit this consciousness extends only to itself and therefore self-consciousness makes it One with itself and divides and separates it from all other Spirits but could this consciousness extend to other Spirits as it does to itself all these Spirits which were mutually conscious to each other as they are to themselves though they were distinct Persons would be essentially One And this is that essential unity which is between Father Son and Holy Ghost who are essentially united by a mutual consciousness to whatever is in each other and do by an internal sensation I want other words to express it feel each other as they do themselves and therefore are as essentially One as a Mind and Spirit is One with itself 2. This is a very plain and intelligible account of this great and venerable Mystery as plain and intelligible as the Notion of One God or of One Person in the Godhead The great difficulty of conceiving a Trinity of Persons in One infinite and undivided Essence or Substance arises from those gross and material Idea's we have of Essence and Substance when we speak of the Essence or Substance of God or created Spirits We can frame no Idea of Substance but what we have from Matter that it is something extended in a tripple Dimension in length and breadth and depth which is the subject of those Qualities which inhere and subsist in it And therefore as Matter is the subject of all sensible Qualities so we conceive some such Substance of a Mind and Spirit which is the subject of Will and Understanding of Thoughts and Passions And then we find it impossible to conceive how there should be Three Divine Persons which are all infinite without Three distinct infinite Substances each distinct infinite Person having a distinct infinite Substance of his own and if we grant this it seems a plain contradiction to say That these Three distinct infinite Substances are but One numerical Infinite Substance which is to say that Three Infinities are but One Infinite and that Three Persons are but One Person for a Person and an intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms and therefore Three distinct Persons are Three distinct numerical Substances and One numerical intelligent Substance is but One numerical Person But this is all carnal Reason in a strict and proper sense which conceives of an infinite Mind after the manner of a Body and distinguishes between the Matter or Substance and the Powers and Vertues of the Divine Essence as it does between Matter and Qualities and Accidents in Bodies We know nothing of the Divine Essence but that God is an infinite Mind and if we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God but an infinite Minds that is infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness the Essence of God though considered but as One numerical Person is as perfectly unintelligible to us as the One numerical Essence or Substance of Three Divine Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity It is this gross and material imagination about the Essence and Substance of the Deity which occasions all the Difficulties about the Notion of One God as well as of a Trinity in Unity For we cannot
though not separate from the other Divine Persons then at least the Godhead of each Person must be as distinct as their Persons are and we must acknowledge three distinct though not separate Gods I answer by no means We must allow each Person to be a God but each distinct Person is not a distinct God there is but One Godhead which can no more be distinguished then it can be divided from it self There is but One God and each Divine Person is this One numerical God has the whole entire Godhead in himself and the same One numerical Godhead is in them all thus each Divine Person is God and all of them but the same One God as I explained it before This One Supream God is Father Son and Holy Ghost a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God Now Father Son and Holy Ghost with all their Divine Attributes and Perfections excepting their personal Properties which the Schools call the Modi subsistendi that One is the Father the other the Son the other the Holy Ghost which cannot be communicated to each other are whole and entire in each Person by a mutual consciousness each Person feels the other Persons in himself all their essential Wisdom Power Goodness Justice as he feels himself and this makes them essentially One as I have proved at large Now if the whole Trinity be in each Divine Person by such an intimate and essential Union we must confess each Person to be God if the whole Trinity be God and yet there being but One Trinity One Father Son and Holy Ghost who are essentially One by a mutual consciousness it is certain all these Three Divine Persons can be but One God for where-ever you begin to reckon there are but Three and these Three are One If we consider the Father and Holy Ghost in the Son by this mutual consciousness we truly affirm the Son to be God as having all the Divine Perfections of the whole Trinity in himself if we consider the Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost for the same reason we affirm the Holy Ghost to be God but the natural Order of the Trinity is to reckon from the Father as the Fountain of the Deity that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God for the Son and Holy Spirit are in the Father not only by a mutual consciousness as the Father and the Son are in the Holy Ghost but as in their Cause if I may so speak and the Ancient Fathers were not afraid to speak so as in their Root their Origine their Fountain from whence they receive the communications of the Divine Essence and Godhead the Son by Eternal Generation being God of God Light of Light the Holy Ghost by Eternal Procession from the Father and the Son Thus all these Divine Persons are naturally united in the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity and all essentially in each other by a mutual consciousness which makes each Person God and all One and the same God without any shew of Contradiction SECT V. The Doctrine of the Fathers and of the Schools concerning the Distinction of Persons and the Vnity of Essence in the Ever Blessed Trinity considered and reconciled to the foregoing Explication of it THis Notion of the Union of the Divine Persons in One numerical Essence by a mutual consciousness to each other is so very plain and gives so easie and intelligible an account both of the Phrases of Scripture and all other Difficulties in the Doctrine of the Trinity that this alone is sufficient to reconcile any Man to it but I am very sensible how afraid Men are and not without reason of any new Explications of so Venerable a Mystery and such a Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity as this is and therefore I must ward this blow as well as I can and remove the prejudice of Novelty and Innovation Now if it appear that I have advanced no new Proposition but have confined myself to the received Faith and Doctrine of the Catholick Church if that Explication I have given of it contain nothing new but what is universally acknowledged though possibly not in express terms applied to that purpose I use it for if that explication I have given be very consistent with nay be the true interpretation of that account the Ancients give of a Trinity in Unity I hope it will not be thought an unpardonable Novelty if I have expressed the same thing in other words which give us a more clear and distinct apprehension of it and to satisfie all men that it is so I shall compare what I have now said concerning the Distinction of Persons and the Unity of Essence in the Ever Blessed Trinity with the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Schools I. To begin then with the distinction of Persons I have not indeed troubled my Readers with the different signification of Essence and Hypostasis Substance Subsistence Person Existence Nature c. which are terms very differently used by Greek and Latin Fathers in this Dispute and have very much obscured this Doctrine instead of explaining it but I plainly assert That as the Father is an eternal and infinite Mind so the Son is an eternal and infinite Mind distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost is an eternal and infinite Mind distinct both from Father and Son which every body can understand without any skill in Logick or Metaphysicks And this is no new Notion but the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and Schools Three Persons signifie Three who are infinite in Knowledge and Wisdom and all other Perfections which belong to a Mind Now no Man who acknowledges a Trinity of Persons ever denied that the Son and the Holy Spirit were intelligent Beings or Minds When they tell us which is their common Language that the Son is the substantial Word and Wisdom of the Father what is this else but to say that he is an intelligent Being or infinite Mind Greg. Nyssen calls the Son or Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind or Intellect Athanasius observes from our Saviour's words I and my Father are One that are signifies two or the distinction of Persons as One signifies the Unity of Essence for he does not say I and my Father am but are One. And therefore if the Father be an eternal Mind and Wisdom the Son also is an eternal but begotten Mind and Wisdom as the Nicene Creed tells us That he is God of God Light of Light very God of very God St. Austin in his Sixth Book of the Trinity takes notice of a common argument used by the Orthodox Fathers against the Arians to prove the coeternity of the Son with the Father that if the Son be the Wisdom and Power of God as St. Paul teaches 1 Cor. 1. and God was never without his Wisdom and Power the Son must be coeternal with the Father for it is distraction to say that the Father was ever without his Wisdom or Power was
Faculties and Powers more but these being only Faculties and Powers neither of them is a whole entire Mind the Understanding alone is not the whole entire Mind nor Reflexion nor Love but the Mind is whole and entire by the union of them all in One but these being Persons in the Godhead each Person has the whole Divine Nature The Son has all that the Father has being his perfect and natural Image and the Holy Spirit is all that Father and Son is comprehending all their infinite Perfections in Eternal Love and they are all the same and all united into One God as the several Faculties and Powers are in One Mind 7. For this proves that these Divine Persons are intimately conscious to each other which as I before showed makes them One numerical God for as the same Mind is conscious to all its own Faculties and Powers and by that unites them into One so where there are Divine and Infinite Persons instead of Faculties and Powers they must be mutually conscious to each other to make them all One God 8. This proves also that though there are Three distinct Persons there can be but One Energie and Operation Father Son and Holy Ghost is the Maker and Governour of the World by one inseparable and undivided Energie neither of them do nor can act apart as the several Powers of the Mind all concur to the same individual Action Knowledge Self-reflection and Will do the same thing which is the Effect of Knowledge brought into act by Reflection and Will and yet the Effect may be ascribed to Knowledge and ascribed to Will as the making of the World is to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost not separately to either but as they act in Conjunction and produce the same Effect by One individual Energie and Power 9. This proves also that Father Son and Holy Ghost must be co-eternal as the several Powers and Faculties must be co-temporary and co-exist in the same Mind Understanding cannot be without a Power of Reflection nor that without Will and Love And I suppose no man will say that there could be any imaginable instant wherein God did not know and love himself This Account is very agreeable to what St. Austin has given us who represents the Father to be Original Mind the Son his Knowledge of himself and the Holy-Spirit Divine Love as I have done and gives the very same Account of their Union Cùm itaque se mens novit amat jungitur ei amore verbum ejus quoniam amat notitiam novit amorem verbum in amore est amor in verbo utrumque in amante dicente When the Mind knows and loves it self its Word is united to it by Love and because it loves its Knowledge and knows its Love its Word is in Love and Love in its Word and both in the loving and speaking or knowing Mind This is the Eternal Generation of the Son Itaque mens cùm seipsam cognoscit sola parens est notitioe suoe cognitum enim cognitor ipsa est when the Mind knows it self it is the sole Parent of its own Knowledge for its self is both the Knower and the Thing known that is the Son is begotten of the Father by a reflex Knowledge of himself and he gives us the same Account of the Difference between Generation and Procession that One is a new Production if I may so express it inventum partum repertum that is the Production of its own Image of its own Wisdom and Knowledge by Self-reflexion the other comes out of the Mind as Love does and therefore the Mind is the Principle of it but not its Parent Cur itaque amando se non genuisse dicatur amorem suum sicut cognoscendo se genuit notitiam suam in eo quidem manifeste ostenditur hoc amoris esse principium undè procedit ab ipsa quidem mente procedit quae sibi est amabilis antequam se amet atque ita principium est amoris sui quo se amat sed ideo non rectè dicitur genitus ab ea sicut notitia sui quâ se novit quia notitia jam inventum est quod partum vel repertum dicitur quod saepe praecedit inquisitio eo fine quietura This I hope is sufficient both to explain and justifie this Doctrine which is the great Fundamental of the Christian Religion of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and that Account I have given of it It must be confessed that the ancient Fathers did not express their Sense in the same terms that I have done but I will leave any indifferent and impartial Reader to judge whether they do not seem to have intended the very same Explication which I have now given of this venerable Mystery As for the Schoolmen they generally pretend to follow the Fathers and have no Authority where they leave them Sometimes they seem to mistake their Sense or to clog it with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own The truth is that which has confounded this Mystery has been the vain endeavour of reducing it to terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis Person and the like which some of the Fathers used in a very different Sense from each other which sometimes occasioned great Disputes among them not because they differed in the Faith but because they used words so differently as not to understand each others meaning as Petavius has shewn at large The more pure and simple Age of the Church contented themselves to profess the Divinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost that there was but One God and Three who were this One God which is all the Scripture teaches of it But when Sabellius had turned this Mystery only into a Trinity of Names they thought themselves concerned to say what these Three are who are One God and then they nicely distinguished between Person and Hypostasis and Nature and Essence and Substance that they were Three Persons but One Nature Essence and Substance but then when men curiously examined the signification of these words they found that upon some account or other they were very unapplicable to this Mystery for what is the Substance and Nature of God How can Three distinct Persons have but one Numerical Substance What is the distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence The Deity is above Nature and above terms of Art there is nothing like this mysterious Distinction and Unity and therefore no wonder if we want proper words to express it by at least that such Names as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures should not reach it I do not think it impossible to give a tolerable Account of the School-terms and distinctions but that is a work of greater difficulty than use especially to ordinary Christians and I have drawn this Section to too great a length already to enter upon that now SECT VI.
next place let us consider the first Chapter of St. Iohn's Gospel which gives a glorious Testimony to the Divinity of Christ and a plain demonstration of the incurable perverseness of Hereticks In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God the same was in the beginning with God Our Historian tells us The Trinitarian Exposition of this Chapter is absurd and contradictory 'T is this In the beginning i. e. from all Eternity Answ. From all Eternity is before the beginning or without beginning not in the beginning Reply This is false No man expounds in the beginning of Eternity but when St. Iohn tells us In the Beginning was the Word we say this proves the Eternity of the Word for that which was when all things began which had a beginning was it self before the beginning and without beginning especially when it was so in the beginning that it gave beginning to every thing else that all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made Was the Word i. e. was God the Son Answ. But where in Scripture is the Word called God the Son Reply This Word indeed is God the Son but we do not Paraphrase it so in this place In the beginning was God the Son but in the beginning was that Divine Person who is called the Word The Word was with God i. e. The Son was with the Father Answ. It seems then that God in this Clause is the Father But was not the Son also with the Holy Ghost and is not he too according to the Trinitarians God or a God If he is why doth St. John only say The Son was with the Father and how comes the Father to engross here the Title of God to the Exclusion of the Holy Ghost Rep. This is true also the God with whom the Word was is the Father but that is not his Character here neither no more than the Character of the Word is the Son But by God the Apostle here means that Original mind and Wisdom that Supreme and Soveraign Being whom all men called God without making a distinction of Persons in the God-head And therefore whereas he thinks that he has got the Trinitarians at an Advantage when the Apostle adds and the Word was God his triumph is vain What says he shall we do here was the Word the Father for so they interpreted God in the foregoing Clause No! no! neither so nor so The Word was God signifies the Word was a Divine Person in the Godhead and the Verse is very plain In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God intimately and inseparably united to him and that not as a Faculty or Power as Reason is in Human Minds but as a Divine subsisting Person for the Word was God God is the Name of a Being absolutely Perfect and the Light of Nature teaches us that there is but One such Supreme Being or but One God but Nature does not teach us that there are Three Divine Persons who are this One God though when Revelation has discovered this Mystery natural Reason is able in some measure to understand it and see the necessity of it as I have already shewn and if there be Three Divine Persons in the Godhead Reason will tell us that each Person is God though all Three Persons are but One God This is the Trinitarian Hypothesis and if the words of the Evangelist do easily and naturally agree with this Hypothesis and cannot reasonably signifie any thing else that is a sufficient Argument to me that this is the true Interpretation of the Text In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God That is In the beginning of all things was the Divine Person whose Name and Character is The Word this Word was inseparably united to that Supreme Being whom we call God and was himself God a Divine Person subsisting in the Vnity of the Godhead not a Power and Faculty as Reason is in Man Can any thing be more easie and obvious and more agreeable to the Doctrine of the Trinity Or if you change the Subject and the Praedicate as others will have it and read God was the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it makes no difference at all for this Supreme Being whom we call God was and is the Word though not Only the Word for God is the Father and God is the Son and God is the Holy Ghost though God is not only the Father nor only the Son nor only the Holy Ghost but the Supreme God is Father Son and Holy Ghost Now when the Evangelist had said That the Word was God or God was the Word there was great reason to repeat the same was in the beginning with God which our Historian thinks a meer Tautology for the intention of it is plain to inculcate more expresly on us that though the Word be God yet the Word is not all that God is as Grotius well observes for the Word was with God and therefore a distinct Person from some other Person who is callâ—d God that is that Eternal and Original Mind and Wisdom who is the Father of the Word And why the Name of God should peculiarly be appropriated to the Father as the Fountain of the Deity I have often observed But yet the Evangelist does in this Verse say something more than he said before and therefore this is no Tautology He had said That the Word was in the beginning that it was with God that it was God now he adds The same Word was in the beginning with God that is was always with him never separated from him and this is added for the sake of what follows That the Word was so with God in the beginning that God made the World by his Word For all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made which was made which is another very mysterious Repetition which nothing can give so plain an Account of as our Hypothesis All things were made by him this is full enough without the following addition nay indeed signifies more than what follows in strictness and propriety of Speech seems to do for that nothing was made without him of it self does not signifie that he made all things but that he had something to do in it as he may have who is not the principal Actor But our Doctrine gives a plain account of this Addition when the Evangelist had said That this Word who was with God in the beginning made all things there was an obvious Objection viz. then it seems that God with whom the Word was did not make the World if all things were made by the Word to have attributed the Creation of the World to the Word so as to have excluded God from making the World had been very absurd and contrary to the sense of Mankind God made the World by his Word the Word made all
and Mother God is his Father and the Virgin Mary his Mother and thus though they will not allow the Virgin to be the Mother they will allow her to be the Wife of God which is as honourable These are very fit men to make Addresses to a Morocco Ambassador for they are so far of Mahomet's mind that God cannot have a Son unless he have a Wife but Mahomet was the better Divine in this that he never dreamt of God's having a Woman for his Wife I am afraid this is Blasphemy I 'm sure we have always thought it so from the Mouth of a scoffing Atheist or Infidel for this is not his own but borrowed Wit For does our Author in earnest think that God cannot have a Son unless he begets him as one man begets another This is to dispute against God's begetting a Son as the Epicurean in Tully did against God's making a World that he wanted Ministers and Instruments for such a Work as if God made a World as a Carpenter builds a House Does a Son necessarily signifie one who is begotten of two Parents I thought the true Notion of a Son had been one who is produced out of the Substance of its Parent not out of nothing which we call Creation nor formed of any other Praeexistent Matter which we call making and that the true Notion of begetting is to produce its own Image and Likeness out of its own Substance by what means soever this is done and if one Parent can thus beget a Son of his own Substance this argues greater perfection in the Father and is a more perfect manner of Production than by two and methinks he might allow the most perfect Being to beget a Son in the most perfect manner And that an infinite Mind can and must beget his own likeness and image that is an Eternal Son by a reflex Knowledge of himself I have already shewn The Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding His first quarrel against this is the Procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son the next is about the distinction between being begotten and proceeding which he says are the same thing and are now confessed to be so by the most learned Trinitarians who these are I know not but be they who they will it was no Argument of their Prudence or Learning to reject a distinction which both the reason of the thing requires and the Christian Church has always owned but this I have accounted for before and plainly shewn the distinction between Generation and Procession the first is a reflex Act whereby God knows himself and begets his own Likeness and Image Procession is a direct Act that Eternal Love whereby God loves himself and his own Image which proceeds from God as all Thoughts and Passions proceed out of the Heart And therefore there is but One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts The second Person is indeed the Son of the first but the third Person who proceeds from Father and Son is not the Son of either for to proceed is not to be begotten and therefore there are not two Sons nor two Fathers as this Author affirms much less are they Three Holy Ghosts though I grant as he says that they are Three Holy Spirits But this is a meer childish Fallacy and playing with words as as there is but One God so he is a holy Being and a pure Mind and Spirit as Spirit is opposed to Matter and thus all Three Divine Persons are holy Minds and Spirits essentially united into One infinite Mind and Spirit but the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son and a distinct Person in the Trinity is but One. In this Trinity none is before or after other none is greater or less than another Yet the Son himself saith the Father is greater than I 14 Joh. 28. And the Son himself saith I and the Father are One 10 Joh. 30. And therefore there can be no greater inequality between them than what is consistent with an Oneness and Identity of Essence that is not an inequality of Nature but Order as a Father is greater than the Son who is naturally subordinate to him though their Nature be equal and the same Though we know the ancient Fathers understood this of Christ as Man as it is also expressed in this Creed Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead inferiour to the Father as touching his Manhood He proceeds As for the other Clause None is afore or after other 't is just as true as that there is no difference between afore and after I ask whether the Son doth not as he is a Son derive both Life and Godhead from the Father All Trinitarians grant he does grounding themselves on the Nicene Creed which expresly calls the Son God of God Light of Light very God of very God begotten not made But if the Father gave to the Son Life and Godhead he must have both before he could communicate or give either of them to the Son and consequently was afore the Son was No effect is so early as its Cause for if it were it should not have needed or had that for its Cause No Proposition in Euclid is more certain or evident than this I hope he will abate a little of his Mathematical Certainty before I have done with him and yet I shall quickly have done with him too I will begin with his Philosophy of Causes and Effects No Effect he says is so early as its Cause Did he never then hear of what we call Emanative Effects which coexist with their Causes Is not the Sun the Cause of Light and Fire of Heat and can he conceive a Sun without Light or Fire without Heat and if he cannot so much as in thought without absurdity and contradiction separate these Causes and Effects is it possible to separate them in time that the Cause should be before its Effect that is that the Sun should be without Light and the Fire without Heat and yet can Light be without the Sun or Heat without Fire What becomes then of his Reason which is as certain and evident as any Proposition in Euclid That if the Effect were as early as its Cause it should not have needed or had that for its Cause For Light needs the Sun and Heat the Fire for their Causes and yet are as early as their Causes But I perceive he is but a young Mathematician or Philosopher and therefore I would desire him to remember against the next time That plain Matter of Fact is as certain and evident as any Proposition in Euclid In all other Causes and Effects which subsist distinctly and separately his Maxim is good That the Cause must be before the Effect but when the Effect is essential to the Cause and the Cause cannot be without it
go about thus to make Asses of all Mankind under a pretence of teaching them a Creed and Things Divine to despoil them of their Reason the Image of God and the Character of our Nature But let us in two words examine the Parts of this monstrous Proposition as 't is laid down in the Creed itself Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance But how can we not but confound the Persons that have say they but One numerical Substance and how can we but divide the Substance which we find in Three distinct divided Persons Our Author should have kept to Athanasius's Creed which he undertook to expose and then we had not heard of this Objection for the Creed does not say that there are Three Persons in One numerical Substance but in One undivided Substance nor does it say that there are Three divided Persons in this One undivided Substance but Three Persons which may be Three and yet not divided but intimately united to each other in one undivided Substance Now tho' we should grant it unconceivable how Three distinct Persons should have One numerical Essence that the Essence of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost should be numerically the same and yet their Persons distinct for it is not easie to distinguish the Essence or Substance from the Person and therefore not easie to tell how there should be but One Substance and Three Persons yet it is no Absurdity or Contradiction to say that Three real substantial Persons should subsist in One undivided Substance and then there is no necessity either to confound the Persons or divide the Substance We must allow the Divine Persons to be real substantial Beings if we allow each Person to be God unless we will call any thing a God which has no real Being as that has not which has not a real Nature and Essence whereas all Men grant there are no Accidents or Qualities or Modes in God but a pure and simple Essence or pure Act and therefore the Three Divine Persons are substantially distinct though in One undivided Substance which shews that to say That the One true God is Three distinct Persons and Three distinct Persons are the One true God is not plainly as if a Man should say That Peter James and John being Three Persons are One Man and One Man is Three distinct Persons Peter James and John Because Peter Iames and Iohn are not only distinct but divided and separate Persons which have Three divided and separate Substances which therefore cannot be One Man as Three distinct Persons in One undivided Substance are One God This is sufficient to vindicate the Athanasian Creed which only asserts Three distinct Persons in One undivided Substance which has nothing absurd or contradictious in it but because this Author founds his Objection upon One numerical Substance let us briefly consider that too for the Divine Essence or Substance is certainly numerically One as there is but One God and the difficulty is how Three distinct substantial Persons can subsist in One numerical Essence I will not pretend to fathom such a Mystery as this but only shew that there is nothing absurd in it and take down the confidence of this vain Pretender to Reason and Demonstration Let us then enquire what it is that makes any Substance numerically One that if there be any Absurdity in this we may find out where it lies Now in unorganiz'd Matter it is nothing else but the union of Parts which hang all together that makes such a Body One whether it be simple or compounded of different kinds of Matter that is One numerical Body whose Parts hang all together In Organical Bodies the Union of all Parts which constitute such an organized Body makes it One entire numerical Body though the Parts have very different Natures and Offices but this is of no use to explain the numerical Oneness of the Divine Essence because the Divine Substance has no Extension and no Parts and therefore cannot be One by an Union of Parts In finite created Spirits which have no Parts and no Extension neither that we know of no more than a Thought or an Idea or a Passion have Extension or Parts their numerical Oneness can be nothing else but every Spirit 's Unity with itself and distinct and separate subsistence from all other created Spirits Now this Self unity of the Spirit which has no Parts to be united can be nothing else but Self-consciousness That it is conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings Passions which no other finite Spirit is conscious to but itself This makes a finite Spirit numerically One and seperates it from all other Spirits that every Spirit feels only its own Thoughts and Passions but is not conscious to the Thoughts and Passions of any other Spirit And therefore if there were Three created Spirits so united as to be conscious to each others Thoughts and Passions as they are to their own I cannot see any reason why we might not say that Three such Persons were numerically One for they are as much One with each other as every Spirit is One with itself unless we can find some other Unity for a Spirit than Self-consciousness and I think this does help us to understand in some measure this great and venerable Mystery of a Trinity in Vnity For God being present every-where without Parts and without Extension we must strip our Minds of all material Images and Figures when we contemplate the Unity of the Divine Nature Though we should suppose but One Person in the Godhead as well as One God as this Author does yet we must consider his Unity not as the Unity of an infinite Body but an infinite Mind which has no distinct Parts to be united and let any Man who can give me any other Notion of the numerical Oneness of an infinite Mind but Self-consciousness that though present every-where it is still intimate with itself and in the very same way and for the very same reason Three Divine Persons who are as intimate to each other and if I may so speak as mutually conscious to each other as any One Person can be to itself are truly and properly numerically One. This I suppose is what several Ancient Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession which I confess is an ill word and apt to raise very material Imaginations in us as if the Divine Persons were united in One Substance as Three Bodies would be could they touch in every Point whereas we know not what the Substance of an infinite Mind is nor how such Substances as have no Parts or Extension can touch each other or be thus externally united but we know the Unity of a Mind or Spirit reaches as far as its Self-consciousness does for that is One Spirit which knows and feels itself and its own thoughts and motions and if we mean this by Circumincession Three Persons thus intimate to each other are numerically One And
any Man that this is the mutual consciousness which I have described and by this St. Austin represents the Trinity in Unity and I hope his Authority will defend me from the charge of Innovation and I am sure the reason of the thing will defend itself But for the better understanding of this we must further observe that the Fathers resolve the Unity of the Godhead into the Unity of Principle that is though there be Three Divine Persons in the Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost yet the Father is the Original Fountain of the Deity who begets the Son of his own Substance and from whom and the Son the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds of the same Substance with Father and Son So that there is but one Principle and Fountain of the Deity and therefore but One God But this as Petavius well observes does not of itself prove the Unity of the Godhead but only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sameness of Nature and therefore the Fathers add That God begets a Son not without but within himself for the Wisdom of God is within him and inseparable from him This they illustrated by the Sun its light and splendour which are coaeval and inseparable by the Fountain and its Streams by a Tree and its Branches which are united in One which Comparisons must not be strained farther than they were intended as if Father Son and Holy Ghost were one in the same manner as the Sun and its Light or the Tree and its Branches or the Fountain River and Streams but only that there is such a natural and essential Union between the Divine Persons as makes them One numerical God But there is something still to be added to this to compleat this Notion that as the Father is the Fountain of the Deity and the Son and Holy Ghost inseparably united to him so Father Son and Holy Ghost are essential to One God as St. Austin calls the Trinity Vnam quandam summam rem One Supreme Thing And as all acknowledge that the Three Persons are One God and since God is the most necessary Being all Three Persons are necessary and essential to One God That there must necessarily be Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead and there can be no more For the explication of this I shall proceed by these steps which are all plain and universally acknowledged 1. That there are no Accidents nor Qualities nor Faculties in God as there are in created Spirits but whatever is in God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence and Substance a pure and simple Act. This is universally acknowledged by all Christians St. Austin affirms That there are no Accidents in God Athanasius That there is no Composition in God as between Substance and Accident and it is much alike as to Mind and its different Faculties and Powers which is a Composition but that God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pure simple Act but there is no need of Testimonies to prove that which Natural Reason proves for nothing can be Eternal and Self-orginated but a pure and simple Act for what is compounded is made for it wants a Maker 2. That it is essential to an eternal Mind to know itself and to love itself for this is essential to a Mind no human Mind can be without it much less the most perfect and excellent Mind and therefore God does know himself and love himself and his own Image 3. That Original Mind and Wisdom and the Knowledge of it self and love of it self and its own Image are distinct Acts and never can be One simple individual Act. They are distinct Powers and Faculties in men Knowledge Self-reflexion and Love and are so distinct that they can never be the same Knowledge is not Self-reflection nor love either Knowledge or Self-reflection though they are inseparably united they are distinct 4. Therefore these three Acts which are so distinct that they can never be the same must be three substantial Acts in God that is three Divine subsisting Persons for there is nothing but Essence and Substance in God no Accident or Faculties as there are in Creatures 5. That these are the true and proper Characters of the distinct Persons in the ever blessed Trinity The Father is Original Mind and Wisdom the Son the Word and Wisdom of the Father that is the reflex knowledge of himself which is the perfect Image of his own Wisdom the Holy Ghost that Divine Love which Father and Son have for each other It would be very impertinent to confirm this by the Authority of the ancient Fathers because all men who know any thing of them know that this is their constant language I am sure this is very agreeable to the Language of Scripture and Answers all those Characters we find there of the Son and Holy Ghost The Son is expresly called the Word and the Wisdom of God That Word which was in the beginning which was with God and was God 1 Iohn 1. For God did certainly always know himself and therefore this Word was always with God intimately present with him not as our transient and vanishing Reflections are but as a permanent and substantial Word the subsisting and living Image of his Fathers Wisdom as he is called the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person 1 Heb. 2. His Fathers Glory and Person is Eternal and Original Wisdom He is his Fathers begotten Wisdom or the bright Reflexion of his Wisdom which is as perfect and exact as the Fathers Knowledge of himself And therefore St. Iohn might well say No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him 1 Iohn 18. And our Saviour might well tell us As the Father knoweth me even so know I the Father 10 Iohn 15. that he seeth all that the Father doth That he receiveth all his Commands from the Father that he that seeth him seeth the Father and many such like Expressions he uses to signifie his perfect knowledge of his Father for he is that Wisdom and Knowledge wherewith his Father knows himself and if the Father perfectly knows himself he is the perfect Image and Wisdom of the Father For this reason he is called the Son because he is the perfect Image of the Father begotten of his own Eternal Wisdom by a reflex Act upon himself for he begets his own Son in his own likeness by knowing himself and therefore the Son must be of the same Nature the very Wisdom of the Father unless the Father knows himself otherwise than he really is This is the Eternal Son and Word of God whereby he made the Worlds for it is this reflex Knowledge and Wisdom which makes all things The Eternal Ideas of Truth and Wisdom in the Divine Mind effect nothing no more than meer Speculation does in us till it is brought into Act by reflexion for it was this reflex
when God vouchsafes to speak to us in our own Language we must understand his Words just as we do when they are spoke by men Indeed when I am sure that it is an inspired Writing I lay it down for a Principle that it contains nothing absurd and contradictious or repugnant to the received Principles of Natural Reason but this does not give me authority to Expound the Words of Scripture to any other sense than what they will naturally bear to reconcile them with such Notions as I call reason for if one man has this liberty another may take it and the Scripture will be tuned to every mans private Conceits and therefore in case the plain sense of Scripture contradicts those Notions I have of things if it be possible to be true I submit to the Authority of Scripture if it seems to include a Contradiction and Impossibility if that Contradiction be not plain and notorious and in such Matters as I am sure I perfectly understand there I submit again and conclude it is no Contradiction though I cannot comprehend how it is if I can by no means reconcile it I will confess I do not understand it and will not pretend to give any Sense of it much less to give such a Sense of it as the Words will not bear This shows that men may pretend to Expound Scripture according to Reason when the Dispute is nothing else but a Clash of Reason with Scripture as this Author phrases it for so it is when the usual signification of the Words and the Scope and Circumstances of the Place require one Sense and men force another Sense on it upon pretence of Expounding Scripture by Reason that is to reconcile Scripture to their pre-conceived Notions and Opinions of Things for what the Words signifie that is the Sense of Scripture and when they will not admit this Sense because they apprehend it contrary to Reason though most agreeable to the Words and Scope of the Place that is nothing else but a Controversie between Scripture and Reason My present Undertaking does not oblige me to examine all the Scriptures which are alleadged by the Socinians against the Doctrine of the Trinity or by others for it this is a voluminous Work and has often been done by others and if there were any just Occasion of doing it again it deserves a Treatise by it self but indeed it is the Doctrine it self which the Socinians dislike more then our Expositions which they cannot deny to be reasonable enough were the Doctrine so but they must not expound Scripture contrary to Reason and therefore must never allow that the Scripture teaches such a Doctrine which they think contradicts the plain and self-evident Reason of Mankind reconcile men to the Doctrine and the Scripture is plain without any farther Comment this I have now endeavoured and I believe our Adversaries will talk more sparingly of Absurdities and Contradictions for the future and then they will loose the best Argument they have against the Orthodox Expositions of Scripture but yet I am unwilling to dismiss this Argument without some few Observations about the Sense of Scripture This Author refers us to the History of the Vnitarians which though it be but a little Book in all Senses is too large to be particularly examined now but however I shall give some taste of it In the first Letter the Author marshals those Texts which he thinks overthrow the Doctrine of the Trinity and because this may be most dangerous to unskilful Readers I shall more particularly examine that He reduces the Scriptures under several Topicks or Heads of Arguments 1. If our Lord Christ were himself God there could be no Person greater than he none that might be called his Head or God none that could in any respect command him Now this Argument is fallacious for though Christ be God himself yet if there be Three Persons in the Godhead the equality and sameness of Nature does not destroy the Subordination of Persons a Son is equal to his Father by Nature but inferiour to him as his Son if the Father as I have explained it be Original Mind and Wisdom the Son a personal subsisting but reflex Image of his Fathers Wisdom though their Eternal Wisdom be equal and the same yet the Original is superior to the Image the Father to the Son and therefore though I know such Texts as he alleadges My Father is greater than I. The Head of Christ is God I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God are both by Ancient and Modern Expositors applied to Christ's Human Nature yet I see no Inconvenience in owning this to be true with respect to his Divine Person and his Relation to his Father For the Father is the Head and Fountain of the Deity and the Son is God of God and therefore the Father may be called his God As for Christ's receiving Commands from the Father though this relates to the Execution of his Mediatory Office and so concerns him as God Incarnate as by the Dispensation of the Gospel he is the Minister of God's Will and Pleasure yet I grant even as God he receives Commands from his Father but it is no otherwise than as he receives his Nature from him by Nature he is the Word the Wisdom the Command of the Father his reflex Image whereby he produces all the Designs of his own Wisdom and Counsel into act Thus St. Austin answered the Arrian Objection That Christ was but God's Instrument and made the World by God's Command Let them consider with what other words the Father commanded his only Word But they frame to themselves an Imagination of two near one another but separated by their distinct Places one commanding another obeying Nor do they understand that the Fathers Command it self that all things should be made is no other Word of the Father but that by which all things are made that is the substantial Word and Wisdom and Command of the Father his only begotten Son 2. If our Lord Christ were indeed God it could not without blasphemy be absolutely and without Restriction affirmed of him that he is the Creature the Possession the Servant and Subject of God It is well he added absolutely and without restriction but he had done better if he had remembred it in his Proofs that Christ is called a Creature he proves because he is the first-born of every Creature but here he should have remembred his absolutely and without restriction for he is so to the first-born of every Creature that he is the Image of the Invisible God and therefore no Creature so born before all Creatures as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also signifies That by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all
the Orphicks by Heraclitus and Zeno as Tertullian and Lactantius affirm Nay that the Stoicks and Platonists and especially Philo Iudaeus uses it in the same sense who attributes the making of the World to the Word which he calls the Name the Image the Son of God To which purpose he before cited Rabbi Eliezel that God and his Name were before the World was made and explains this by the sayings of some Fathers as all meaning the same thing and we know they meant by it a Divine Person The Wor d was with God Grotius does say that this is opposed to the Words being made Flesh and appearing in the world but he was far enough from thinking that these words have only a negative sense that to be with God signifies only not to be in the world for he tells us what the positive sense is that with God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Father the very sense which our Historian before rejected as absurd and explains it by what Wisdom says 8 Prov. 30. Then I was by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing alway before him which he does not think a Prosopopoea but spoken of a subsisting Person The Word was God Here Grotius produces numerous Testimonies to prove that that Divine Person who is called the Word not the Faculty of Wisdom and Power in God is God He says indeed that the ancient Hebrews and Primitive Christians teach that when an Angel is in Scripture called Iehovah it is not a meer Angel sed cui adfuerit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such an Angel to whom the Word is joyned or united not as the Historian says to whom the Divine Wisdom has been in an extraordinary degree communicated that is an extraordinary wise Angel for there is no other sense in it but I know not what Grotius meant by the Union or Presence of the Word with the Angel but I know the Primitive Christians asserted That the Angel called Iehovah was the Word Grotius assigns this Reason of the Repetition that because the Evangelist had called the Word God he would have us understand that he is so God that he is also with God that is that the Word is not all that God is but only One Person in the Godhead which he observes that Origen and others after him called the Distinction of Hipostasis tho' the Primitive Christians and Athanasius himself used that word Hipostases in a different sense and the Christians seemed to take up this sense of it from the Platonists But whatever becomes of the Phrase this is plainly what Grotius meant by the Word 's not being all that is God that is that he is but One Person in the Godhead not that he is but One communicable Attribute in God This is sufficient to show how our Historian has abus'd this Great Man when he represents him as making the Word only the Divine Wisdom and Power not a Divine Person and all his other mis-representations depend on this and need not be particularly examined But I perceive our Socinian Historian is ashamed of that Exposition which Socinus and his genuine Disciples give of this Chapter which had been a sign of some Understanding and Modesty had he not invented as foolish and sensless an Interpretation himself for it is not Grotius's but his own Socinus was sensible that the Word must signifie a Person but would allow it to be no more than a Man called the Word not with respect to his Nature but Office as the greatest and most excellent Prophet who reveals God's will to the world Our Historian was convinced that the Word must be something Divine which was with God from the beginning of the world and was not different from God but is God and did create all things at first and was in a sense Incarnate was made Flesh did abide on and inhabit an human Person the Person of Iesus So far is very well But then he will not allow the Word to be a Person but a Divine Quality or Accident the Wisdom or Power of God and the fault of this is that it is unintelligible Nonsense to describe the Word so pompously as distinct from God but with God in the beginning and himself God and to ascribe the making of the world to him and tell us that he was made Flesh and all this while the world is only a communicable Attribute in God what we call the Faculty of Reason in Men This is a new way of making a God of a Prosopopoea and incarnating a Prosopopoea which must be a very figurative God and Incarnation But I observed before that when any Vertue or Power or Faculty is spoken of as a Person what is said of the Vertue or Power belongs to the Person in whom that Vertue and Power is and what that is said to do is done by the Person or else it is not a figurative but a false and absurd form of speech As when Charity is said to suffer long and is kind the meaning is a charitable man is so a Prosopopoea is easily understood and conveys its sense clearly and elegantly to our minds but where there is nothing but Nonsense at the bottom it must not be made a figure for a figurative Speech is good sense Let us then examine his Prosopopoea by this Rule In the beginning was the Word that is the Wisdom and Power of God and this Wisdom and Power of God was with God that is God was with himself and this Wisdom and Power of God was God that is God was God what sense I beseech you is there in this That the Wisdom and Power of God made the world I grant is sense because God did make the world but if there be any sense in the words being made Flesh it is certain that God is Incarnate For the Wisdom and Power of God which is with God and is God cannot be Incarnate unless God be Incarnate Unless we can divide God from his Wisdom and separate the Wisdom of God which was with him from the beginning from God to be Incarnate in Man The Wisdom of God can no more be Incarnate unless God can be Incarnate then the Wisdom of an Angel can be Incarnate without the Incarnation of the Angel and thus this Socinian is turned Sabellian and Patropassian However I confess we are beholden to this Historian for he has given up this place to us which is one of the most express places for the Divinity of our Saviour He allows that the beginning is the beginning of all things that Word signifies something Divine even the Wisdom and Power of God that to be with God is to be intimately present with him that to be God is to be God himself That all things were made by him is meant of the first Creation of the world that this Divine Word was made Flesh and did abide on the human Person of Christ Jesus the only difference between us is whether
and what is the Rule of Faith are two very distinct Questions and to apply what is said of the Catholick Faith to the Rule of Faith becomes the Wit and understanding of an Heretick This is the very Argument which the Papists use against our Authors Compleat and Infallible Rule of Faith the Scriptures that they do not contain all things necessary to Salvation because they do not prove the great Fundamental of the Protestant Faith that the Canon of Scripture which we receive is the Word of God now what Answer he would give to Papists with reference to the sufficiency of Scripture let him suppose I give him the same Answer in Vindication of the Catholick Faith of the Athanasian Creed and we are right again But his parting blow is worth some little observation That if the Scriptures be a compleat Rule of Faith then this Creed of Athanasius is at least an unnecessary Rule of Faith But why did he not say the same thing of the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed or any other Creeds as well as of the Athanasian Creed for it seems a Creed as a Creed for there is no other sense to be made of it is a very unnecessary thing if the Scripture be a compleat Rule of Faith And thus both Catholicks and Hereticks even his dear Arians and Socinians have troubled themselves and the World to no purpose in drawing up Creeds and Confessions of Faith But this Author ought to be sent to School to learn the difference between a Creed and a Rule of Faith A Rule of Faith is a divinely inspired Writing which contains all matters to be believed and upon the Authority of which we do believe a Creed is a Summary of Faith or a Collection of such Articles as we ought to believe the Truth of which we must examine by some other Rule the sum then of our Author's Argument is this That because the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and contains all things necessary to be believed therefore it is very unnecessary to collect out of the Scripture such Propositions as are necessary for all Christians explicitely to believe He might as well have proved from the Scriptures being a compleat Rule of Faith that therefore there is no necessity of Commentators or Sermons or Catechisms as that there is no necessity of Creeds But as senseless as this is there is a very deep fetch in it for he would have no other Creed but that the Scripture is the Divine Infallible Compleat Rule of Faith which makes all other Creeds unnecessary and then he can make what he pleases of Scripture as all other Hereticks have done before him But let me ask this Author whether to believe in general that the Scripture is the compleat Rule of Faith without an explicite belief of what is contained in Scripture will carry a Man to Heaven There seems to me no great difference between this general Faith in the Scriptures without particularly knowing and believing what they teach and believing as the Church believes We suppose then he will grant us the necessity of an explicite belief of all things contained in the Scripture necessary to Salvation and ought not the Church then to instruct People what these necessary Articles of Faith are and what is the true sense of Scripture about them Especially when there are a great many damnable Heresies taught in the Church by Men of perverse Minds who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction and does not this shew the necessity of Orthodox Creeds and Formularies of Faith And this puts me in mind of the great usefulness of ancient Creeds though the Holy Scripture be the only Divine and Infallible Rule of Faith viz. That they are a kind of secondary Rule as containing the Traditionary Faith of the Church It is no hard matter for witty Men to put very perverse senses on Scripture to favour their heretical Doctrines and to defend them with such Sophistry as shall easily impose upon unlearned and unthinking Men and the best way in this case is to have recourse to the ancient Faith of the Christian Church to learn from thence how these Articles were understood and professed by them for we cannot but think that those who conversed with the Apostles and did not only receive the Scriptures but the sense and interpretation of them from the Apostles or Apostolical Men understood the true Christian Faith much better than those at a farther remove and therefore as long as we can reasonably suppose this Tradition to be preserved in the Church their Authority is very Venerable and this gives so great and venerable Authority to some of the first General Councils and therefore we find Tertullian himself confuting the Hereticks of his days by this argument from Prescription or the constant Tradition of all Apostolick Churches which was certain and unquestionable at that time and as much as Papists pretend to Tradition we appeal to Tradition for the first Three or Four Centuries and if the Doctrine of the Athanasian Creed have as good a Tradition as this as certainly it has it is no unnecessary Rule though we do not make it a primary and uncontroulable Rule as the Holy Scripture is where there are two different Senses put on Scripture it is certainly the safest to embrace that sense if the words will bear it which is most agreeable to the received Doctrine of the Primitive Church contained in the Writings of her Doctors or Ancient Creeds or such Creeds as are conformed to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church Then for taking ought from this Creed the whole Greek Church diffused through so many Provinces rejects as Heretical that Period of it The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son contending that the Holy Spirit is from the Father only which also they clearly and demonstratively prove as we shall see in its proper place And for the menace here of Athanasius that they shall perish everlastingly they laugh at it and say He was drunk when he made that Creed Gennad Schol. Arch Bishop of Constantin This Addition of the Filioque or the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and from the Son which was disputed between the Greek and Latin Church is no corruption of the Essentials of the Christian Faith about the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as I observed before nor does Athanasius deny Salvation to those who do not believe it For he that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity does not relate to every particular Word and Phrase but to that Doctrine which immediately proceeds That the Trinity in Vnity and Vnity in Trinity is to be Worshipped which the Greeks acknowledged as well as the Latins and therefore agreed in the Substantials of Faith necessary to Salvation And that I havereason for what I say appears from this that after the Latins were perswaded that the Holy Ghost did proceed from the Son they were far enough from denying Salvation to those who
Imperial Palace to countenance and promote their proceedings and having bespattered Athanasius with all the ill things they had formerly charged him with and tried in vain to delay the Sentence of the Western Bishops they proceeded Synodically to condemn and depose him together with several other principal Bishops of the Catholick Party of all which they published an Encyclical or Decretal Epistle wherein they gave a large account of their whole proceeding The Western Bishops in the mean time after a large and particular Examination of Athanasius's Case and all Matters of Fact relating to him acquitted and restored him and having heard the Complaints made to the Synod from all parts concerning the Grievances they lay under from the Arian Faction they particularly condemned and deposed the chief Heads of that Party and banished them from the Communion of the Faithful publishing an account of what they had done in several Synodical Letters Thus far it was pretty well with Athanasius for all the Churches of God did not condemn him if he were condemned by the Eastern Bishops in a Schismatical Conventicle he was absolved by the Western Council if he was condemned by the Arians he was absolved by the Catholicks but still his Faith was no matter of the Dispute But now the Zeal of Constantius reduced Athanasius to greater extremity for he lying at Arles in France Anno 353 a Synod was held there where all Arts were used to procure the condemnation of Athanasius at least by refusing to hold Communion with him to which most of the Bishops yielded and Vincentius of Capua himself the Pope's chief Legate subscribed the Condemnation Paulinus of Triers for his honest courage and constancy in refusing it being driven into Banishment Not contented with this as if poor Athanasius could never be often enough condemned Anno 355 Constantius going to Milan another Synod was called there and the Catholick Bishops were strictly required to subscribe the Condemnation of Athanasius and the Emperor himself being present in the Synod drew his Sword and fiercely told them That it must be so that he himself accused Athanasius and that his Testimony ought to be believed And for refusing to comply Eusebius Vercellensis Lucifer Caralitanus and several others were sent into Banishment This is the Council which as our Author tells us consisted of Three hundred Bishops but the Emperor was more than all the rest and it was he that extorted the Condemnation of Athanasius and let him make his best of this The like Violence was used in other Synods as in that of Syrmium Anno 357 where a Confession of Faith was drawn up which Hosius of Corduba was forced to subscribe and as some say to condemn Athanasius Anno 359 was his other great Council at Ariminum of Five hundred and fifty Bishops where they were so managed by the subtilty and importunity of some few Arian Bishops and so wearied out by Taurus the Prefect and that by the command of the Emperor that they generally yielded several of them being even starved into compliance and this is the time of which St. Ierom speaks that the whole World wondered to see itself Arian By such Councils and by such Arts as these Athanasius was condemned though he was never accused nor condemned for his Faith and that veneration the whole Christian World has had ever since for the Name of Athasius is a sufficient Vindication of his Person and Faith notwithstanding the ill usage he met with under an Arian Emperor As for his next Paragraph wherein he appeals to the late Arian Historian Chr. Sandius I shall only refer the Reader to Dr. Bull 's Answer and I think I am more than even with him and whoever will read and consider what that learned Man has irrefragably proved that those Fathers who lived before the Council of Nice were yet of the same Faith with the Nicene Fathers as to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity will see that a very modest Man may call this the Catholick Faith even in his sense of the word Catholick as it signifies the common Faith of Christians in all Ages since the Preaching of the Gospel in the World And that it requires both Forehead and Forgery to deny it And if in that Age Athanasius were the only Man who durst openly and boldly defend the Catholick Faith against a prevailing Faction supported by a Court Interest and grown formidable by Lies and Calumnies and the most barbarous Cruelties it is for his immortal Honour and will always be thought so by the Churches of Christ. And now I come to answer his terrible Objections against the several Articles of this Creed which he has endeavoured to ridicule and when I have done so I hope he will think it time to consider what it is to ridicule the Christian Faith A modest Man would not affront the general Faith of Christians at least of that Church in which he lives and a cautious Man whatever his private Opinion were would not ridicule so venerable a Mystery lest it should prove true which is the same Argument we use to make Atheists modest not to laugh at the Notion of a God lest he should find the God whom he has so impudently affronted when he comes into the other World SECT IV. The Catholick Doctrine of a Trinity in Vnity and Vnity in Trinity explained and vindicated from all pretended Absurdities and Contradictions THE Catholick Faith is this That we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity He means here That we must so worship the One True God as to remember he is Three Persons and so worship the Three Persons as to bear in mind they are but One Substance or Godhead or God So the Author explains himself in the Three next Articles which are these Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance for there is One Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One. Therefore all these Articles make indeed but One Article which is this The One true God is Three distinct Persons and Three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are the One true God Thus far I agree with this Author and indeed this is the whole of the Creed as far as relates to the Doctrine of the Trinity that there are Three Persons and One God all the rest being only a more particular explication of this and therefore I would desire the Reader to observe for the understanding this Creed what belongs to the Persons and what to the One Eternal undivided Substance or Godhead which will answer all the seeming Contradictions which are charged on this Doctrine But he proceeds Plainly as if a Man should say Peter Iames and Iohn being Three Persons are One Man and One Man is these Three Persons Peter Iames and Iohn Is it not now a ridiculous attempt as well as a barbarous Indignity to
therefore St. Austin represents this much better by that Self-consciousness which is between those distinct Faculties in us of Memory Understanding and Will which know and feel whatever is in each other We remember what we understand and will we understand what we remember and will and what we will we remember and understand and therefore these Three Faculties which are thus intimate to each other make one Man and if we can suppose Three Infinite Minds and Persons thus conscious of whatever is in each other as they are of themselves they can be but One numerical God But that this may not be thought a meer arbitrary and groundless conjecture I shall shew you that this is the true Scripture Notion of the Unity of the Godhead or of Three Persons and One God That the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Infinite Minds really distinct from each other that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost either the Father or the Son is so very plain in Scripture that I shall not spend time to prove it especially since it is supposed in this Controversie for when we enquire how these Three Infinite Minds or Persons are One God it supposes that they are distinct and if there were any Dispute about it what I shall say in explaining their Unity will prove their Distinction that they are Three distinct infinite minds 1. Let us then consider what the Unity is between the Father and the Son for so our Saviour tells us I and the Father are One 10 Iohn 30. And how they are One we learn from several places in this Gospel which as the Ancients tell us was wrote on purpose in opposition to the Heresie of Carinthus to prove that Christ was not meer Man but the Eternal Son of God and One with his Father Now 1 Iohn 1. the Evangelists call him the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Word of God the Eternal Wisdom and Reason of God and therefore as intimate to God as his own Eternal Word and Wisdom as intimate as a Man 's own Wisdom and Reason is to him and therefore he adds that this Word which was in the beginning was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with God as we translate it which cannot signifie a local presence but an essential union or a being in God as Christ tells us The Father is in me and I in him 10 Iohn 38. for before place was made or any thing to fill it to be with God could signifie nothing else but to subsist in him and therefore v. 18. the Apostle expounds this being with God by being in the bosome of the Father which cannot signifie an External Union because God has no External Bosom but Bosom signifies the very Essence of God and if we could distinguish Parts in God the most inward and secret Recesses of the Divine Nature Now this intimate Union and In-being when we speak of an essential Union of pure and infinite Minds is a mutual consciousness and if I may so speak an inward sensation of each other to know and feel each other as they know and feel themselves To represent this plainly and intelligibly if it be possible to the meanest understanding I shall consider wherein the most perfect Union of created Spirits consist which are distinct and seperate Beings from each other wherein the Union of the Divine Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity answers this and wherein it excels it Now created Spirits as Angels and Humane Souls are then most perfectly united to each other when they most perfectly know one another and know all that each other knows and perfectly agree in all they know which is an Union in Knowledge when they perfectly love one another have the same will the same affections the same interests and designs when they are a kind of Unisons which move and act a like as if one Soul animated them both This is that perfect Unity which is so frequently and earnestly recommended to Christians both by Christ and his Apostles as we may see every-where in Scripture And the very same Union with this there is between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity an Union in knowledge in love in will in works The Son perfectly knows the Father and therefore knows all that the Father knows this St. Iohn means when he tells us That he is in the Bosom of the Father 1 Iohn 18. No man hath seen God at any time that is no Man ever had a perfect knowledge of God which is here called seeing because sight gives us the most distinct and perfect knowledge of things The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Where it is plain to be in the bosom of the Father is put to signifie the most perfect and intimate knowledge of him as in ordinary speech to take any Man into our bosom signifies to impart all our Secrets to him but our Saviour tells us this in plain words that the Father perfectly knows the Son and the Son the Father 10 Iohn 15. As the Father knoweth me so know I the Father Thus the Father loveth the Son 3 Joh. 25.5 Joh. 20. And the Son loveth the Father 14 Iohn 31. Thus the Son has no will but his Fathers 5 Iohn 20. I can of my own self do nothing as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which hath sent me 6 John 38. For I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me 4 John 34. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work Thus whatever Christ did or spake it was in conformity to his Father what he saw and heard and learnt of him 5 John 19. The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for whatsoever things he doth these also doth the Son likewise 12 John 49. I have not spoken of my self but the Father that sent me he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak This is as perfect an Union as Union signifies agreement and concord as can possibly be between two minds and spirits The like may be said of the Holy Ghost He perfectly knows the Father and his most secret Councels For the spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 He is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation who inspired the Prophets and Apostles to declare God and his will to the World and therefore is most intimately acquainted with it himself Thus our Saviour comforts his Apostles when he was to leave them himself with the Promise of the Spirit who should guide them into all truth 16 Ioh. 13 14 15. Howbeit when he the spirit of truth is come he shall guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will
themselves confess It remains therefore that they say That the Glory and Majesty of the Son and Spirit is the same in number and not for kind and degree only with that of the Father but then it follows that the Glory and Majesty of these Persons is neither equal nor coeternal Not equal for 't is the same which equals never are Not coeternal for this also plainly intimates that they are distinct For how coeternal if not distinct Do we say a thing is coeternal and cotemperary with itself Therefore also this Article doth impugn and destroy itself Besides if the Glory and Majesty of the Three Persons be numerically the same then so are all their other Attributes from whence it follows that there is not any real difference between the Three Persons and they are only Three several Names of God which is the Heresie of the Sabellians What he says That if the Glory and Majesty of the Three Persons be numerically the same so are all their other Attributes is certainly true for their Glory and Majesty is nothing else but the infinite Perfections of their Nature And therefore to make short work with this I affirm that the Glory and Majesty and all the other perfections of these Three Divine Persons are as distinct as their Persons are and therefore may be coequal and coeternal because they are distinct and yet they are as numerically One and the same as the Godhead is They are Three Infinite Minds and therefore distinct as Three Minds are but they are all mutually conscious to each other and therefore as essentially One as the same Mind is One with itself by a self-consciousness this does not destroy the Distinction of their Persons nor consequently of their Majesty and Glory their Glory and Majesty is as distinct as their Persons are and united as their Persons are into One essential and numerical Glory of one Supreme God a Trinity in Unity But to expose the ridiculous Sophistry of this instead of their Glory equal their Majesty coeternal let us put in their Persons equal and coeternal for the equality of their Glory and coeternity of their Majesty is nothing else but the equality and coeternity of their Persons that the Godhead of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One their Persons equal and coeternal And then our Note-makers Argument runs thus I ask whether the Persons of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which are equal and coeternal with the Person of the Father be the same in number that is the very same with the Person of the Father or only the same for kind and degree If they be not the same in number that is if they be distinct Persons as the Creed affirms then the Godhead of the Father and of the Son is not all One and they are not One and the same God for Two infinite and distinct Persons make Two Gods and Three make Three Gods Is not this now a self-evident proof that there cannot be One Godhead if there be Three Persons because Three Persons make Three Gods Quod erat demonstrandum that is it cannot be because it cannot be But to proceed with his argument It remains therefore that these Trinitarians say That the Person of the Son and Spirit is the same in number and not in kind or degree only with the Person of the Father That is because they affirm these Divine Persons to be distinct therefore they must say they are numerically the same and what then Why then they are neither equal nor coeternal because they are the same without any real distinction and the same thing is not equal nor coeternal with itself Right very right Sir a plain demonstration And thus the poor Trinitarians are eternally confounded They teach that there are Three distinct Persons and One eternal and infinite God he plainly confutes this by saying That if there be One Godhead there cannot be Three distinct Persons for Three distinct Persons are Three Gods and if he had proved it as well as said it it had been a direct confutation They affirm that these Three distinct Persons are coequal and coeternal he proves that they are not because they must say though they say the quite contrary that they are not Three but One numerical Person and then they cannot be coequal and coeternal and thus they shamefully contradict themselves and this Article is Felo de se If this be the profound Reason of Hereticks God deliver me from Heresie if it were for no other Reason but to keep my Understanding And yet as ridiculous as this looks it is the whole of his Reasoning for if there be Three distinct coequal and coeternal Persons their Majesty and Glory must be as distinct coequal coeternal as their Persons are and united into One numerical essential Glory as their Persons are into One God and how Three infinite Minds or the Three Divine Persons or which is the same thing Three Divine Glories and Majesties may be really distinct and yet numerically One God I have already explained at large In the next place this Creed teaches That The Father is Incomprehensible Uncreate Eternal Almighty the Holy Ghost is Incomprehensible Uncreate Eternal Almighty Also That each of these Persons is by himself God and Lord so that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God yet there are not Three Gods or Lords nor Three Incomprehensibles nor Three Almighties not Three Eternals nor Uncreated Now if in imitation of this a Man should have a mind to say The Father is a Person the Son is a Person and the Holy Ghost is a Person yet not Three Persons but One Person I would know why this were not as good Grammer and Arithmetick as when Athanasius says The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God yet not Three Gods but One God or when he says The Father Vncreated the Son Vncreated the Holy Ghost Vncreated yet not Three Vncreated but One Vncreated And so of the rest Doth not a Man contradict himself when the Term or Terms in his Negation are the same with those in his Affirmation If not then it may be true That The Father is a Person the Son is a Person the Holy Ghost is a Person yet there are not Three Persons but One Person For all the fault here is only this that in the last clause the term Person is denied to belong to more than One when in the first it had been affirmed of no fewer than Three For the same reason it must be a Contradiction to say The Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God yet there are not Three Gods but One God For the Term God is at last denied to belong to more than One though in the first clause it was affirmed of Three Will they say that in these words there are not Three Gods but One God the term God is not denied to
neither wise nor powerful But this acute Father discovered a great inconvenience in this argument for it forces us to say that the Father is not wise but by that Wisdom which he begot not being himself Wisdom as the Father and then we must consider whether the Son himself as he is God of God and Light of Light may be said to be Wisdom of Wisdom if God the Father be not Wisdom but only begets Wisdom and by the same reason we may say that he begets his own Greatness and Goodness and Eternity and Omnipotency and is not himself his own Greatness or Goodness or Eternity or Omnipotency but is Great and Good Eternal and Omnipotent by the Greatness Goodness Eternity Omnipotency which is born of him as he is not his own Wisdom but is wise with that Wisdom which he begets The Master of the Sentences follows St. Austin exactly in this Point and urges this unanswerable Argument for it which he grounds upon St. Austin's Principle That in God to be and to be wise is the same thing and if it be he cannot be wise with the Wisdom he begets for then he would receive his Being from this begotten Wisdom not Wisdom from him for if the Wisdom he begets be the Cause of his being wise it is the Cause also that he is which must be either by begetting or by making him but no man will say that Wisdom is any way the Begetter or Maker of the Father which is the heighth of madness And in the next Chapter he teaches That the Father is unbegotten the Son begotten Wisdom so that according to St. Austin and the Master of the Sentences who is the Oracle of the Schools the Father is Eternal Wisdom or an Eternal Mind and the Son Eternal Wisdom and Mind though both are united into One Eternal Wisdom and if we confess this of Father and Son there can be no Dispute about the Holy Ghost who is Eternal Mind and Wisdom distinct both from Father and Son Nothing is more familiar with the Ancient Fathers than to represent Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three as distinct Persons as Peter Iames and Iohn are as every one knows who is at all versed in this Controversie and this is charged on them by some men as little better than Polytheism or a Trinity of Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are a Trinity of men but this must be true with reference to distinction of Persons if we will acknowledge a real distinction between them for if the distinction be real and not meerly nominal which was the Heresie of Sabellius their Persons must be as distinct as three humane Persons or three men are The Father is no more the Son or the Holy Ghost than Peter is Iames or Iohn but then they are not separated or divided from each other as Peter Iames and Iohn are for that indeed would make them three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are three men There is no Example in Nature of such a distinction and unity as is between the Three Persons in the Godhead and therefore the ancient Fathers made use of several Comparisons to different purposes which must carefully be confined to what they applied them for if we extend them farther we make Nonsense or Heresie of them There are three things to be considered in the ever blessed Trinity the Distinction of Persons the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature and their Essential Unity and the Fathers make use of different Comparisons to represent each of these by because no one can represent them all but inconsidering Persons seek for all in One and because they cannot find it they reject them all as impertinent dangerous or heretical and reproach the Fathers sometimes as ignorant of this great Mystery sometimes as bordering upon Heresie which I am sure does little service to the Doctrine it self and gives great countenance to false and corrupt Notions of it whence the Fathers themselves even those who were the most zealous Opposers of Arianism are thought Favourites of such Opinions I shall have occasion to take notice of several Instances of this as I go on at present I shall confine my self to the Distinction of Persons which cannot be more truly and aptly represented than by the distinction between three men for Father Son and Holy Ghost are as really distinct Persons as Peter Iames and Iohn but whoever shall hence conclude That these Fathers thought that Father Son and Holy Ghost are no otherwise One also than Peter Iames and Iohn are greatly abuse them without any colourable pretence for it as will appear more presently but this Comparison of theirs shows what their sense was that these Three Divine Persons are Three Eternal and Infinite Minds as really distinct from each other as Three men are though essentially united into One Infinite and Eternal Mind or One God But I need not insist on this for the real distinction of Persons is so plainly taught by the ancient Fathers especially after the rise of the Sabellian Heresie that there is more difficulty to understand how they unite them into One God then that they make them distinct Persons and what they say about the unity of the Godhead abundantly proves this distinction of Persons Secondly Let us therefore in the second place consider How they explain this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity they all agree That there are Three distinct Persons and that these Three Persons are but One God and they seem to me to agree very well in that account they give of it though some late Writers are very free and I think very unjust in their Censures of some of them as scarcely Orthodox in this Point I shall only remind you that this being so great a Mystery of which we have no Example in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the Godhead and we must carefully apply what they say to those Ends and Purposes for which they said it and not extend it beyond their Intension as I observed before and there are several steps they take towards the Explication of this great Mystery which I shall represent in short and show that taking them altogether they give a plain and intelligible Notion of this Unity in Trinity and indeed no other than what I have already given of it 1. The first thing then to be considered is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 orCo-essentiallity of the Divine Persons That all Three Persons in the God-head have the same Nature which they signified by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now whereas the same Nature may signifie the same Numerical or the same Specifick Nature Petavius and after him Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved that the Nicene Fathers did not understand this word of a
Knowledge which took the Patterns of things for the new World and gave Being to them and therefore God made the World by his Son and begotten Wisdom who doth all things by seeing what the Father doth as the Father doth all things by seeing himself in his reflex and begotten Wisdom for the Father and the Son are one single Energie and Operation This is that eternal Word and Reason that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world which communicates the light of Reason and the eternal Idea's of Truth to Mankind This is that Son who reveals the Father to us and acquaints us with his secret Counsels for the Salvation of Sinners This is that Word which became Flesh and dwelt among us who hath undertaken the Work of our Redemption and is become the Wisdom of God and the Power of God to Salvation to them that believe for all the natural Communications of Wisdom and Reason all the new Discoveries of the Divine Wisdom whatever the Divine Wisdom immediately does must be done by this begotten Wisdom that is by a reflex Wisdom which is the Principle of Action and Execution and therefore as God made the World by his Word so also he redeems the World by his Incarnate Word this being as immediate an effect of the Divine Wisdom and Counsel as his Creation of the World As for the Holy Ghost whose Nature is represented to be Love I do not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said that the Holy Ghost is that mutual love wherewith Father and Son love each other but this we know that there is a mutual love between Father and Son The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hands And the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that himself doth And our Saviour himself tells us I love the Father And I shewed before that love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person for there are no Accidents nor Faculties in God And that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person is sufficiently evident in Scripture for he is the Spirit of God who knows what is in God as the Spirit of Man knows what is in Man and he is the Spirit of Christ who receiveth of the things of Christ and his peculiar Character in Scripture is love which shews us what he is in his own Nature as well as what he is in his Effects and Operations for Nature and Energy is the same in God It is by the Holy Spirit that the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 5 Rom. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us For this Spirit is the essential love of God and therefore both inspires us with the love of God and gives us a feeling sense of God's love to us He is the Spirit of the Son the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father and which cries in our hearts Abba Father The Spirit of the Son that is of the eternal and only begotten Son that very spirit whereby the eternal Son calls God Father whereby the Father owns the Son and the Son the Father that is that essential Love which is between Father and Son and therefore wherever this Spirit of the Son is it will call God Father will cry Abba Father that is is a Spirit of Adoption in us for the eternal Spirit of the Son dwells only in Sons by our Union to Christ who is the eternal Son of God we become his adopted Sons and as such the Spirit of the Son dwells in us And therefore the fruits and operations of the Spirit answer this Character For the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness which are the communications of the Spirit of Love This shews the difference between generation and procession between being a Son and the Spirit of God Generation as I observed before is a reflex Act whereby God begets his own Image and Likeness it is God's knowledge of himself which to be sure is his own perfect Image and the living essential Image of God is his Son for to be a Son is to be begotten of his Father's Substance in his own Likeness and Image But the Divine Spirit or this Eternal Love proceeds from God is not a reflex but a direct Act as all Thoughts and Passions are said to proceed out of the Heart a reflex Act turns upon it self and begets its own likeness but Love is a direct Act and comes out of the Heart and thus does this eternal Love proceed from God besides this eternal Love is not the Image of God but his eternal complacency in himself and his own Image and therefore is not a Son begotten of him but the eternal Spirit which proceeds from him It is true this eternal subsisting Love which is the third Person of the Trinity has all the Perfections of Father and Son in himself for Love must have the perfect Idea of what it loves and therefore this subsisting Love must have all those Perfections in himself which are the Eternal Object and Cause of this Eternal Love but his essential Character is Love and though Love has the whole Divine Perfections in it self yet it has them not as a Son not as the Image of God This gives a plain Account also how he is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son and according to the Profession of the Latin Church proceeds both from Father and Son for this Divine Love eternally proceeds from God's reflex Knowledge of himself or seeing himself in his own Image he loves himself in his Image and therefore the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son that is from the Original and the Image by one undivided Act as every man loves himself in that Idea and Image he has formed of himself in his own Mind And no man will wonder that the Creation of the World is ascribed to the Holy Spirit as well as to the Father and Son for it is Eternal Love which gives Being to all things which is the Author and Giver of Life without which Infinite Wisdom and Power produces no One Effect Original Wisdom contains the Ideas of all Things and begotten Wisdom can frame the Natures of Things according to the Original Ideas of the Divine Mind but it is Love which gives Being to them 6. From hence it is clear That these Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God as these Three Powers of Understanding Self-reflexion and Self-love are one Mind for what are meer Faculties and Powers in created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead really distinct from each other but as inseparably United into One as Three different Powers are essentially united in One Mind There is a vast difference indeed between them as there is between God and Creatures the Mind is but One the
and whoever rejects them whatever name he goes by can be no better than a Socinian in disguise but however there are no Texts alledged by learned Trinitarians but are acknowledged by some or other of his learned Trinitarians and thus it is as broad as long but it is not the Authority of any modern Expositors which we rely on but their Reason and if a learned Trinitarian should reject any Text without Reason or Learning it signifies no more to us than the Expositions of a learned Socinian when we seek for Authority we go higher to the Primitive Fathers of the Catholick Church and there we find it They not only delivered to us the traditionary Doctrines of a Trinity which had always been taught in the Catholick Church but the Traditionary Exposition of those Scriptures too whereon this Doctrine is founded and they being so near the Head and Fountain of Tradition the Apostolick Age their Authority is venerable and a modest and prudent Man will not reject any Interpretation of Scripture which relates to Articles of Faith and is unanimously delivered by the Ancient Fathers if the words in any tolerable construction will bear the sense for though a Text should fairly bear two different Interpretations that is most likely to be true which has been from the beginning taught by the Catholick Church And I challenge this Author to name any Text which is alledged for the proof of a Trinity by learned Trinitarians which has not been used to the same purpose by many or most or all the ancient Fathers who have alleadged those Texts But his Conclusion from hence that therefore the Scripture does not compel us to acknowledge a Trinity in Unity because the Unitarians and some or other of the most Learned Trinitarians expound these Texts to another Sense is very pleasant and shows what a great Master of Reason he is for his Argument is this the Scripture does not compel us to believe any thing while there are other men who expound the Scripture to a contrary Sense and thus I am sure the Scripture compels us to believe nothing for it will be hard to name any Text which concerns any Article of Faith how plain and express soever it be but what has been expounded to a contrary Sense by one Heretick or other I would ask this Author whether the Scripture compels him to believe but One God in his Sense of it that is but One who is God If it does not why does he believe it and insist so peremptorily on it in defiance of the whole Catholick Church and yet how can the Scripture compel him to this when the Catholick Church and the Catholick Doctors in all Ages have expounded Scripture to a contrary sense that there are Three Divine Persons who are this One God At this rate when Men differ in their Expositions of Scripture the Scripture does not compel us to believe either and thus notwithstanding the Scripture we may believe nothing If the Scripture have a determined Sense we are bound to believe that Sense and must answer it to God and to our Saviour if we do not whoever expounds it otherwise and therefore when it is said in the Creed that we are compelled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are under a necessity by the Christian Verity to acknowledge each Person by himself to be God and Lord the meaning is not that men are under any force to believe or acknowledge it or to expound Scripture to this sense but that the true Sense and Exposition of Scripture does make this Acknowledgment necessary if we will believe as the Scripture teaches and this may be true whatever the Unitarians or any Learned Trinitarians teach He adds That the Contest between the Vnitarians and Trinitarians is not a clash of Reason with Scripture but whether we ought to interpret holy Scripture when it speaks of God according to Reason or not that is like fools or like wise men Now this is all sham and falacy for to expound Scripture by Reason may signifie two very differeent things 1. To use our own Reason to find out the true Sense and Interpretation of Scripture 2. To expound Scripture in Conformity to the Principles and Maxims of Natural Reason In the first sense he expounds Scripture according to Reason who considers the Use and Propriety of Words the Scope and Design of the place what goes before and what follows and how one place of Scripture is consistent with another just in the same way as we find out the sense of any Humane Writing and he who does not thus expound Scripture by Reason expounds it like a fool that is if he put such a sense upon it as the words will not bear or the scope and design of the Text will not admit and as no man would think of who were not prepossessed and prejudiced against what appears to be the plain and obvious Sense of the Text and whether they or we in this sense expound Scripture according or contrary to Reason like fools or like wise men shall be examined presently As for the other Sense of Expounding Scripture according to Reason that is in Conformity to the Principles and Maxims of Natural Reason we allow this too so far that we must not expound Scripture to such a sense as contradicts the plain and express Maxims of Natural Reason for though God reveals such things to us as Natural Reason could not discover and cannot comprehend yet Revelation cannot contradict plain Reason for Truth can never contradict it self what is true in Revelation can never be false in Reason and what is true by Natural Reason can never be false in Revelation but then as I observed before we must be sure that there is such a Contradiction it must be evident and express and not made out of uncertain Consequences which many times are not owing to the Nature of Things but to the Imperfection of our own Knowledge As to keep to the Matter of our present Dispute Natural Reason tells us That there is and can be but One Supreme God the Soveraign Lord of the World and should any man pretend to prove from Scripture that there are Three Gods this would be an express Contradiction to the Natural Belief of One God and therefore we must reject this Sense of Scripture as contrary to Reason but to prove from Scripture that there is but One God and that there are Three who are this One God this is no Contradiction to Reason which teaches but One God for Scripture teaches the same and all Trinitarians acknowledge the same and must do so if they believe the Athanasian Creed and therefore the belief of the Trinity does not contradict the natural belief of One God Yes you 'l say that there should be Three Persons each of which is God and yet but One God is a Contradiction but what Principle of Natural Reason does it contradict Reason tells us that Three Gods cannot be One God but does
things which is the Explication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begotten before the whole Creation and therefore no part of the Creation himself and by him all things consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things were not only made by him but have their Subsistence in him as the Apostle tells us in God we live and move and have our being that this does not relate to the new Creation as the Socinians would have it is very plain For 1. in this Sense Christ if he were meer Man was not the first-born of every new Creature for I hope there were a great many new Creatures that is truly good and pious men before Christ was born of his Virgin Mother 2. Nor in this sense were all things in Heaven and Earth visible and invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers that is all the Orders of Angels created by him For the greatest part of visible things especially in the Apostles days when so little part of the World was converted to the Christian Faith were not new made by him and none of the invisible things were new made by him good Angels did not need it and he came not to convert fallen Angels but to destroy the visible Kingdom of the Devil in this World and to judge them in the next 3. Nor in this sense were all things made for him for he is a Mediator for God to reduce Mankind to their Obedience and Subjection to him and therefore when he has accomplished his Work of Mediation and destroyed all Enemies in the final Judgment of the World he shall deliver up his Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all of which more presently 4. And therefore the Apostle proceeds from his Creation of the Natural World to his Mediatory Kingdom which proves that he did not speak of that before And he is the Head of the Body the Church who is the beginning the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence as the Maker of all things visible and invisible he is said to be before all things begotten of his Father before the Creation of the World as Head of the Church he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also the beginning the first who rose from the dead that he might be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first upon all Accounts before the Worlds and the first-born from the dead That he was God's Minister and Servant he proves by several Texts as that he was appointed or made which has the same sense by God the Apostle and High-Priest of our Profession but here is a restriction to his being High-Priest and therefore no danger of Blasphemy though he be God for we may observe that though the Jewish High-Priest were but a man yet he was a Type of a High-Priest who is more than man even the Eternal Son and Word of God as some of the Learned Jews acknowledge for the Son of God is the only proper Mediator and Advocate with the Father as Philo Iudoeus often calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or High-Priest and shows that the Garments of the High-Priest were Figures of Heaven and Earth which seems to signifie that the Eternal Word which made the world is the true High-Priest And the Story Iosephus tells of Alexander looks this way that when Iaddus the High-Priest went out to meet him dressed in all his Pontifical Attire he approached him with great Reverence and Veneration and his Captains wondering at it he told them That that God who appeared to him and sent him upon that Expedition and promised him Victory and Success appeared to him in that very Habit. I am sure the Apostle distinguishes Christ from High-Priests taken from among men and makes his Sonship the Foundation of his Priesthood Christ glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest which shows that it is no Servile Ministry but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee As he saith also in another place Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedec And what the Mystery of this Melchizedecian Priesthood was he explains 7 Hebrews that Melchizedec was first by Interpretation King of Righteousness and after that also King of Salem which is King of Peace Without Father without Mother without Descent having neither beginning of days nor end of life but made like unto the Son of God which is a Priest continually As for his next Quotation that Christ is Gods I know not what he means by it for there is no doubt but Christ is God's Son God's Christ God's High-Priest serves the ends and designs of God's Glory and what then therefore he is not God By no means he may conclude that therefore he is not God the Father because he acts subordinately not that therefore he is not God the Son His next Proof is that God calls him his Servant by the Prophet Isaiah but it is his Servant in whom his Soul is well-pleased which is the peculiar Character of his Son and is that very testimony which God gave to Christ at his Baptism by a voice from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased His next Proof is that he humbled himself and became obedient which is all he cites but what does he prove from this that Obedience is part of his Humiliation And what then therefore he is not God because he voluntarily condescends below the Dignity of his Nature does he forfeit the Dignity of his Nature and yet this is the plain Case as the Apostle tells us in that place that He being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. And this is a wonderful Proof that he is not God because being in the form of God that is being God he voluntarily condescended to the meanest and most servile state of Human Nature for the Salvation of sinners But the sting of all is behind that for this submission and obedience he was rewarded and exalted by God and a God is not capable of a reward or exaltation being Supreme himself and yet as it follows for this God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every Name Now it seems very strange to me that Christ's advancement to the supreme Government of the World should be made an Argument against his being God or the Eternal Son of God for is it fitting and congruous for God to make a meer Creature the Universal Lord and Soveraign of the World to advance a meer man above the most glorious Angels to be the Head of all Principalities and Powers which would be an Indignity to the Angelical
spoken of Christ yet the Authority of Christ and his Apostles who have made this Application is as good a Reason to believe that they were meant of Christ as to believe any other part of the Gospel Let us then consider how he answers such Texts What the Psalmist says Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever a Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed Thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellows the Apostle to the Hebrews applies to Christ But unto the Son he saith thy Throne O God c. To this he Answers In the Hebrew and in the Greek 't is God is thy Throne i. e. thy seat resting place establishment for ever If he had only said it may be so he had said right but it is false to say it is so For the Hebrew Elohim may be either the Nominative or the Vocative Case and so the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is an Attick Vocative and so is used by the Septuagint 22 Psalm 1. ' O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And it is evident the Septuagint the Vulgar Latine the Chaldee Paraphrase the Syriack and Arabick Versions took it for the Vocative Case and thus the Christian Church has always understood it and this is the most natural Construction when it immediately follows a Pronoun which has no other immediate Relative Thy Throne O God that is O God thy Throne is for ever and ever And thus the Apostle must understand it To the Son he saith Thy Throne O God where O God must be referred to the Son and thy to God and the sense he gives of it is absurd and what we have no Example of in Scripture that God is a Throne God indeed is called a Rock a Fortress a high Tower which is expounded by a Deliverer but a Throne here signifies a Kingdom as is evident from the following words and to say that God is the Throne and the Kingdom of Christ is to Subject the Father to the Son for a King sits upon his Throne and governs his Kingdom The Apostle in the next Verse cites another glorious Testimony which God hath given to his Son And Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thine hands they shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a Garment and as a Vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail This is so plain a Testimony to the Divinity of our Saviour if these words be allowed to be applied by the Apostle to Christ that our Author is forced to deny it He says The Context has this sense And thou Lord that is and in another Text of the Psalms it is said Thou Lord which is certainly true if he had added but One word more viz. to the Son And in another Text of the Psalms it is said to the Son And thou Lord hast laid the Foundations of the Earth for so the Context requires us to supply it if we will make sense of it for the Apostle observes in what different Language God speaks of the Angels and to the Son Of the Angels he saith who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flaming fire but to the Son he saith thy Throne O God is for ever and ever And to the Son he saith Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth But to which of the Angels said he at any time Sit on my right hand until I make thine Enemies thy Footstool This is easie and natural but to apply those words to the Father Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth c. is to break the whole Context is contrary to the Apostles design and no good sense can be made of it and this I think is to ridicule Scripture to make it Nonsense or very bad disturbed and incoherent sense when there is no need of it but to serve an Hypothesis which the Text was designed to confute He says Tho. Aquinas rightly acknowledged that the words of both these Texts may be understood of God only not of Christ but this is false as indeed he seldom cites any Author but he corrupts him for Thomas says this Text may be understood of either but if you understand it of the Father then by in the beginning you must understand the Son who he says is called the beginning Thou Lord in the beginning that is in or by the Son hast laid the Foundations of the Earth for he saw the Context required that these words should be applied to Christ but he thought it indifferent whether they were applied to him in whole or in part since both ways he is made the Creator of the World which answers the Apostles design and though I think Thomas was mistaken yet this makes nothing to our Authors purpose Thus what the Psalmist says of God Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led captivity captive thou hast received Gifts for Men St. Paul attributes to Christ. Here our Historian spends a great many words to no purpose about Christ's discent into the Grave and into Hell and his ascending into Heaven to fill all things or as he says it might be better rendred to fulfil all things that is all the Prophesies of himself and others concerning his Death and Ascension into the highest Heavens But how does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie all Prophesies or how does his Ascension into Heaven fulfil all Prophesies As for the Gifts given to men he says in the Psalms they are literally meant of God and of Christ only by way of Prophesie or rather of Emblem or Accommodation which he learnedly proves because the Gifts the Apostle speaks of were not given or received till about One thousand years after David 's time Now what of all this we readily grant that ascending on high the leading captivity captive the receiving gifts for men which the Psalmist speaks of were not the same with the Ascension of Christ into Heaven his leading captivity captive and giving Gifts to men but were Types and Figures of it but the single Question is Whether Christ be that God of whom the Psalmist says that he ascended on high c. if he be not St. Paul has abus'd us for he applies that to Christ which was not said of him if he be we have what we desire that Christ is God but this which was the only Question he says not one word to Men may be Types and Figures as David and others were of Christ and in this case what was said of David as a Typical Person may be applied to the Person of Christ but God himself can be no Type for the Type is always less perfect than the
where the Lord of Hosts is said to be a Stumbling-stone and Rock of Offence And another of the same Prophet Behold I lay in Zion for a Foundation a Stone a tried Stone a precious Corner-stone a sure Foundation he that believeth shall not make haste which both St. Paul and St. Peter render with the Septuagint shall not be ashamed Now from hence we learn that the Prophet speaks of the same Stone that the Stumbling-stone and Rock of Offence is the Foundation stone the precious Corner-stone and therefore the Lord of Hosts who is the Stumbling-stone is the precious Corner-stone also And St. Paul and St. Peter tells us that Christ is the Stumbling-stone and that precious Corner-stone of which the Prophets speaks that is that Christ is the Lord of Hosts To whom to Christ coming as unto a living Stone disallowed indeed of Men but chosen of God and precious ye also as lively Stones are built up a spiritual House wherefore also it is contained in Scripture Behold I lay in Sion a chief Corner-stone elect precious and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded or ashamed All that our Historian says to this is That neither St. Paul nor St. Peter cite the words of the Prophet as spoken of Christ but only as in some sense applicable to him namely as Christ was to many a stone of stumbling which is nothing else but to out-face the World with down-right Impudence and to charge the Apostles with abusing Scripture and producing Proofs which are no Proofs St. Paul alleadges this Prophesie to prove that the Infidelity of the Jews and that Offence they should take at Christ was foretold in Scripture which answers that Objection against his being the Messias that the great Body of Israel to whom the Messias was peculiarly promised should reject him when he came which had it not been foretold had been a very unanswerable prejudice and yet if Christ be not the Prophets stumbling Stone this Prophesie does not foretel it St. Peter urges this Prophesie to prove that Christ is the Foundation Corner Stone Elect and Precious on which the Church was to be built but he abuses us also with a sham Proof if this Prophesie were not meant of Christ. And thus these men rather than they will allow the Scripture proofs that Christ is God destroy all the Old Testament proofs of the Truth of Christianity and I am afraid they are able to give us no good proofs of Christianity without them and yet if such Texts as these must pass only for Accommodations and Allusions I know not where they will find any proofs St. Iohn curiously observes the several Circumstances of our Saviour's Death and shows that they were the Accomplishment of ancient Prophesies and among others that of piercing his side with the Souldier's Spear which was foretold by the Prophet Zechary They shall look on me whom they have pierced which is confessed to be spoken of God and here he tells us again That the words in the Prophet are not by St. John interpreted of Christ but accommodated to Christ and his Sufferings And thus as fast as he can one after another he accommodates away all the proofs of Christianity for we may as well prove the Gospel out of Homer by accommodating Homer's Words and Phrases to it and turning it into an Homerical Poem as we know has been done as prove it by accommodating the Phrases and Language of the Old Testament to it which were never intended to signifie any such thing this I think is to ridicule and profane both the Old and New Testament and to overthrow the Authority of both But I am quite tired with this Work and therefore shall pass over his other Old Testament Proofs for what can we say to convince these men that such Old Testament Texts speak of Christ who will not believe the Apostles themselves And to conclude this I shall only give you a Specimen how they deal with the New Testament also in two or three Instances I shall begin with the Form of Baptism Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost All the Fathers have made this an Argument that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God because we are baptized in their Name and we must not be baptized in the Name of any Creature for to be baptized in their Name signifies to be devoted and consecrated by a Sacred and Religious Rite to the Faith Worship and Obedience of Father Son and Holy Ghost and it is Idolatry to joyn Creatures with God in so solemn an Act of Religion in the same Act whereby we give up our selves to God to give up our selves to Creatures in the same Form of words without making any other difference between them but the Order of Persons And it is to no purpose to dispute What is meant by baptizing in the Name for whatever that be it signifies the very same to be baptized in the Name of the Father and to be baptized in the Name of the Son and in the Name of the Holy Ghost our Saviour makes no distinction and we must make none and if Father Son and Holy Ghost be not One God this Form of Baptism destroys the distinction between God and Creatures and devotes us as intirely to Creatures as to God We must consider Baptism as the Sacrament of our Initiation into the Christian Religion and our Admission into the Gospel-Covenant and therefore the Persons in whose Name we are baptized is that God who receives us into Covenant and to whose Worship and Obedience we consecrate our selves Our Historian says That to be baptized in the Name of a Person or Persons is a Rite by which one delivers himself to the Institution Instruction and Obedience of such Person or Persons so that to be baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is to profess to be led or guided by them or as Grotius expresses this matter 't is to declare we will admit of no other thing as a part of our Religion but what proceeds from these that is nothing but what is commanded by God or the Father and has been delivered by his Son the Lord Christ and confirmed externally by Miracles and internally with the Witness and Testimony of the Spirit that is by the Power and Inspiration of God This is a very false Account of Grotius and therefore I shall consider it as his own Now I readily grant that Baptism does include our Profession of believing the Gospel and making that the sole Rule of our Faith and Worship those who are baptized do own as Grotius speaks tres dogmatis sui Auctores Three Authors of their Doctrine or Religion Father Son and Holy Ghost but then Baptism being a Religious Rite it is a Religious Profession of this a Religious devoting our selves to them and therefore we give up
our selves to their Institution and Guidance not as to Creatures but as to God who is both the Author and the Object of our Faith and Worship No man must religiously consecrate himself to a Creature for that is Idolatry even among the Pagans their Mysteries terminated on their Gods and they were initiated by them into the Worship of that God whose Mysteries they were and it was never known yet that men devoted themselves to the Institution and Guidance of any Human Doctors or Masters by Religious Ceremonies Now if Baptism be a Religious Rite God and Creatures can never be made the joynt Object of Religion and therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost must be One God with the Father I desire to know what is meant by being baptized in the Name of the Father Is it only to take him for our Instructor and Guide Or is it to worship and obey him for our God And why then do not the same words in the same Religious Act signifie the same thing when applied to the Son and Holy Ghost as they do when applied to the Father Let them shew me any one Instance in Scripture where a Creature is joyned with God in any Act of Worship much less in the Fundamental Contract of Worship if I may so speak wherein we devote and consecrate our selves to God Our Author with his usual Assurance adds 'T is in vain not to say ridiculously pretended that a Person or Thing is God because we are baptized into it or in the Name of it for then Moses and John Baptist also would be Gods Our Fathers were all baptized unto Moses unto what then were you baptized and they said unto John 's Baptism That is saith the generality of Interpreters unto John and the Doctrine by him delivered But in the first place he mis-represents the Argument which is That the Son and Holy Ghost are God because we are baptized in their Name as we are in the Name of the Father and together with him in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and I confess he had answered this Argument could he have shewn us that the Jews were baptized in the Name of God and in the Name of Moses for that had joyned Moses with God as our Saviour joyns the Son and the Holy Ghost with the Father in the Form of Baptism But he is so far from doing this that in the next place I observe that the Jews never were literally baptized in the Name of Moses or in the Name of Iohn as Christians are by our Saviour's Institution in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Moses did not Baptize the Jews at all much less in his own Name though St. Paul observes that they had a kind of Mystical Baptism under Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea And therefore it is plain that to baptize into Moses is a figurative and allusive Expression and does not and cannot signifie that they were baptized in the Name of Moses because it is not true for though we should grant as he argues that to be baptized into Christ and baptized in the Name of Christ signifies the same thing when men are literally baptized in the Name of Christ yet it is a demonstration that to be baptized into Moses and baptized in the Name of Moses cannot signifie the same thing because those who were mystically baptized into Moses never were baptized in the Name of Moses and it is burlesquing Scripture to make any Phrase and Expression signifie that which never was I will only ask this Author Whether the Jews were baptized in the Name of Moses If they were not let him tell me how their being baptized into Moses comes to signifie their being baptized in the Name of Moses Could the Apostle mean by this Phrase that they were baptized in the Name of Moses that is could the Apostle mean what he knew was not true And yet I deny that to be baptized into Christ and baptized in the Name of Christ signifie the same thing for to be baptized into Iesus Christ does not relate to the Form of administring Baptism in the Name of Christ but to the effect of it in uniting us to Christ and incorporating us with him as Members of his Body which induces an Obligation of a Spiritual Conformity to his Death in dying to Sin and living to God And thus the Israelites were baptized into Moses or into the Mosaical Covenant not by being baptized in the Name of Moses but by mystical Sacraments the Cloud which over-shadowed and guided them and the Red-Sea which divided and gave them safe Passage but drowned the AEgyptians being Types and Figures of the Christian Baptism but I shall not spend time in explaining this now it is enough to shew that it is nothing to our present Argument Thus it is evident that to be baptized into John 's baptism does not signifie to be baptized in the Name of Iohn for Iohn did not baptize in his own Name but made Proselytes to the Messias as the Apostle adds Iohn verily baptized with the baptism of Repentance saying unto the People that they should believe on him who should come after him that is on Christ Iesus Are not these now admirable Proofs that we may be baptized in the Name of Creatures because the Israelites were mystically baptized into Moses who never literally baptized any much less in his own Name and that the Disciples of Iohn were baptized into Iohn's Baptism that is into Iohn and that is in the Name of Iohn which we know he never did And yet the Socinians who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost make this Form of Baptism infinitely more absurd still The Holy Ghost they say is not a Person but the Power and Inspiration of God Now is it not very absurd that the Power and Inspiration of God which is not a Person should be joyned in the same Form with Father and Son who are Persons Is not this like swearing Allegiance to the King and to his Son and to his Power or to his Wisdom The Holy Spirit is plainly distinguished from the Father and from the Son and it seems has a distinct Name of its own into which we are baptized now if the Holy Spirit be not a Person I desire to know how the Power and Inspiration of God is so distinct from the Father as to justifie our being distinctly baptized in the Name of the Father and in the Name of the Holy Spirit or of his Power or Inspiration To be baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is sufficient to convince any man who is not resolved against being convinct that the Holy Ghost is a Person as Father and Son are Persons otherwise it were very absurd to joyn the Holy Ghost with Father and Son in such a Religious Dedication as Baptism is In the
things not so as to Exclude God from making the World and God made all things but not so as to exclude the Word for without him was not any thing made that was made which is exactly what we teach that Father Son and Holy Ghost as they are One God so they are One Creator who made the World by One individual Act and Operation God the Father made the World and the Creation of all things may eminently be attributed to him as the Fountain of the Deity and of all Energy and Power but he did not make the World without his Word and Spirit All things were made by the Word and without him was not any thing made that was made This Account is very far from containing any thing absurd or contradictious but to have as little dispute as may be with this Author let us take it in that sense he would have us take it in instead of Word put the Son and instead of God put God the Father and I can find none of the Contradictions he talks of for then the words run thus In the beginning of all things was the Word the Son of God and this Son of God was inseparably united to God the Father and the Son was One God with the Father this same Son was in the beginning with the Father for the Father made all things by him and without him was not any thing made that was made But let us consider what Account our Socinian Historian gives of this Chapter He appeals to Grotius's Interpretation of it but has misrepresented Grotius that did an Action of Forgery lie in these Cases many men have lost their Ears for less matters The Account he gives of it in short is this Briefly the Word according to Grotius is not an Eternal Son of God but is here the Power and Wisdom of God which Word abiding without measure on the Lord Christ 't is therefore spoken of as a Person and as one Person with Christ and he with that Whoever will be at the pains to consult Grotius will soon see what credit is to be given to this Socinian but it is no wonder that those Men pervert Human Writings who having nothing else to value themselves upon but perverting the Scriptures But what Agreement there is between this Socinian and Grotius I shall show in some few particulars by comparing their Expositions with each other by comparing Grotius as he is represented by this Historian with Grotius himself Brief History In the beginning That is when God created the Heavens and the Earth Was the Word The Hebrews call that Power and Wisdom of God by which he made the World and does all other his extraordinary works the Word 33 Psal. 6. 11 Hebr. 2. 2 Pet. 3.5 They borrowed this Expression from Moses God said let their be light 1 Gen. 3. undoubtedly Moses is not to be understood of a Word orally spoken for God is a Spirit but his meaning is God put forth his Power Wisdom and thereby created Light and the Firmament c. This is a direct opposition to Grotius whom he pretends to follow and his Reason is as silly as his Authority is counterfeit for why could not an infinite Mind beget a substantial Word the substantial Image of his own Power and Wisdom and by this Word make the World and why may not this be represented by his saying Let there be Light for since he confesses this was not an oral word why should it be represented by speaking or saying if God have not an eternal substantial Word by which he made the World there must be some foundation for such forms of speech and since it is evident God did not create all things by an oral Word or Command there is no pretence for this expression God said Let there be Light unless there be a Divine Person who is the Word and Wisdom of God by whom he made the world especially since this Phrase of Moses is thus expounded both in the Old and New Testament that God made the world by his Word which is every where represented as a Divine subsisting Person The Word was with God i. e. It was not yet in the World or not yet made Flesh but with God So that to be with God signifies nothing but not to be in the world The Word was God i. e. The Word or Divine Wisdom and Power that is not a substantial personal Wisdom and Power but such a Faculty as Reason and Wisdom is in man is not something different from God but being his Wisdom and Power is God as the wisdom of man is man 't is the common maxim of Divines that the Attributes and Properties of God are God which is in some sense true The meaning of that Maxim is that there are no Powers or Faculties in God as there are in created Minds but God is a pure and simple Act and therefore what are and must be distinct Powers and Faculties in created Minds must be distinct Persons in the Godhead And thus whatever is in God is God as each Divine Person is But if there be distinct Powers and Faculties in God as there are in men then the Wisdom of God is not God nor the Power of God God no more than the Understanding is the Man or the Will the Man or the Memory the Man He adds That those Persons whether Angels or Men to whom the Divine Word hath been in an extraordinary degreeCommunicated have also had the Names of Iehovah and God communicated to them Vers. 2. The same was in the beginning with God This is here repeated by the Evangelist to teach us that the Word is so God that it is not all that God is there being other Properties and Attributes communicable as well as the Word So that the Word is but an Attribute of God and a communicable Attribute and but one of God's communicable Attributes So that there may be many Words for the Word as he just now said may be communicated to Angels and Men in such a degree that the Name Iehovah may belong to them and then why does St. Iohn call the Word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the only begotten of the Father Grotius So also Grotius But adds was jam tum erat was when all things began and shows that among the Hebrews this was a popular Description of Eternity to be before the World 17 Iohn 5. And to this purpose Applies the words of Iustin Martyr concerning the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was before the Worlds The Word He owns it is called the Word in allusion to what Moses says That God said let there be Light But he calls this Word vim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power Efflux Emanation in the same sense as the ancient Christians used them to signifie a Substantial Word Power Emanation In this sense he shows that it is used in the ancient Books of the Chaldoeans and by the Writer of
Solomon in his Prayer of Dedication might well say But will God indeed dwell on the Earth Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Thee how much less this House that I have built The Temple then was a Figure and we must enquire what it was a Figure of Now a typical Presence can be a Figure of nothing but a real Presence and God's Personal dwelling among Men for Presence and Habitation can signifie nothing but Presence and a Figure must be a Figure of something that is real and nothing can answer to a figurative visible Presence of God but a personal visible Presence Now our Saviour calls his Body the Temple Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up which St. Iohn tells us He spake of the Temple of his Body The Temple then which was God's House where he dwelt was but a Figure of Christ's Body Christ's Body then was that in truth and reality which the Temple was but a Figure of that is God's visible Presence on Earth But God was not visibly present on Earth unless he were personally united to Human Nature that the Body of Christ was the Body of God or of the Divine Word by as true and real an Union as any man's Body is his Thus God may be personally and visibly present among men as a man though his Soul be as invisible as the Deity is yet visibly present by his Union to a visible Body But if Christ be not God incarnate if the Divine Word be not personally united to Human Nature the Body of Christ is but as figurative a Temple as the Temple at Ierusalem was and then one Figure is made a Type of another which is as great an Absurdity in Types as a Metaphor of a Metaphor is in Speech God was as really present in the Temple as he was in Christ without a personal Union for God fills all places and is really present every where but yet was peculiarly present in the Temple to peculiar ends and purposes to hear Prayers to accept their Sacrifices and Oblations to give forth his Oracles and Responses and if Christ be but a meer Man he dwells no otherwise in him but by Inspiration and though Christ was more perfectly inspired than the Jewish Oracle this does not alter the Nature of God's Presence does not make one a typical and figurative the other a real Presence for God is really present in both but not personally united to either The typical Presence of God in the Tabernacle and Temple is not opposed to a real Presence by real and sensible Effects but to a visible Presence God is present every where but he is invisibly present but as he had chosen Israel for his peculiar People and Inheritance so he would dwell visibly among them but this could be done no other way but either by taking a visible Body or by some instituted signs of his visible Presence the first he would not do yet but intended to do in the fulness of time which his own infinite wisdom had appointed for it and in the mean time did praefigure this visible appearance of God on Earth in Human Nature by some visible Symbols of his Presence by a visible House wherein he dwelt by a visible Throne or Mercy-Seat and by placing a visible Oracle among them So that the Temple as a Type was a Type and Figure of God's visible Appearance and dwelling upon Earth and therefore if it was a Type of Christ's Body as Christ himself tells us it was God did visibly dwell in Christ by a Personal Union for nothing else can make God visible but a Personal Union to a visible Nature To this St. Iohn plainly alludes when he tells us The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tabernacled among us fulfilled that Type of God's dwelling in the Tabernacle and Temple at Ierusalem by his dwelling personally in Human Nature and we beheld his Glory that is says our Historian the glory of the man on whom the Word did abide and inhabit in him But St. Iohn says it is the glory of the Word made Flesh the glory of the Word as of the only begotten of the Father did shine in Human Nature there were visible signs of the Glory of the Incarnate Word This glory he says was beheld in his Miracles and in his Transfiguration and on many other occasions very many indeed in his Life and Doctrine especially for how would they have the glory of the Incarnate Word seen but by the visible Operations of it in Human Nature How does a Human Soul discover its glory but by visible Actions Thus our Saviour tells us that he is greater than the Temple I say unto you in this place is one greater than the Temple Now the Temple was God's House and figurative Presence and if he were greater than the Temple God dwelt in a more perfect manner in him that is he was not a symbolical visible Presence of God which was all he could be had he been no more than a man but a visible God even the Lord of the Temple as the Prophet Malachi assures us Behold I will send my Messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come into his Temple even the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of Hosts This Messenger all men own was Iohn the Baptist The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight Now our Historian confesses he prepared the way for Christ and God says he shall prepare the way before Me which proves that Christ is this Lord of Hosts for whom Iohn was to prepare the way but that I at present intend is that he for whom Iohn was to prepare the way is the Lord of the Temple for it is called his Temple Now we know the Lord Jehovah was the Lord of the Temple for the Temple was God's House dedicated to his Name and Worship he dwelt in his Temple before by Types and Figures but now he was to come visibly and personally into his Temple and therefore he might well say he was greater than the Temple since he was the Lord of it that Incarnate God of whom God's dwelling in the Temple was a Figure and which had been a very empty and insignificant Figure unworthy of the Wisdom and Majesty of God had it not praefigured the mysterious Incarnation of the Son of God Thus as God had a Typical House so he had a typical High Priest and typical Sacrifices That the High Priest who once a year entred into the typical Holy of Holies was a Type of Christ who entred into Heaven The Apostle teaches us 9 Hebr. that the Jewish Sacrifices were typical of
when God the Father does the thing But thus much he allows him That Christ is said to judge the World because he shall pronounce the Decree and Sentence of God and order the Angels to execute it And now has not this Socinian made a glorious King and Mediator of Christ without the least Power to do any thing but intercede by Prayers and Supplications with God and that without knowing the particular Condition of those for whom he intercedes If this be Christianity sit anima mea cum Philosophis if this be to expound Scripture by Reason it is plain that Scripture and Reason spoil one another for no man would reason so foolishly but to pervert Scripture nor expound Scripture so absurdly but to comply with what he calls Reason 4. Socinianism justifies or at least excuses both Pagan and Popish Idolatries at least as it is taught by those men who allow of the Worship of Christ which it is certain the Christian Religion teaches Now if Christ be no more than a Man this is Creature Worship and then Creature Worship is not Idolatry and this goes a great way in justifying or excusing Pagans and Papists If the Worship of a Creature be natural Idolatry God would not have permitted the Worship of Christ if it be not then Pagans and Papists are no Idolaters Though they worship Creatures whatever their Fault be in it if it be so much a Fault as a Mistake yet it is a Fault of a much less Nature than Idolatry and more easily pardoned Especially when they do not worship these Creatures as the Supreme God but as their Mediators and Patrons and Advocates with the Supreme God for there is a Worship due to a Mediator distinct from the Worship of the Supreme God as the Worship of Christ proves who is not God but a Creature-Mediator and thus the Heathens worshipped their inferior Deities and thus the Papists worship their Saints And if they do mistake and worship those for Mediators who are none and can do them no Service the greatest hurt seems to be that they loose their labour but according to these Principles they do no injury to God For as they tell us when it is said That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father the meaning only is as we honour God or the Father so we must not forget to honour also the Son of God An equality of Honour is no more intended here than an equality of Perfection in those words Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect So the Heathens did not intend the same degree of worship to their Mediators and Inferior Deities as to the Supreme God and we know the Papists distinguish between the worship of Latria and Dulia or that Soveraign worship which is due to the Supreme God and that inferior honour to Saints and Angels and it is plain this is not an arbitrary but real distinction as is evident in the worship of God and the Man Christ Jesus who are worshipped with different degrees of honour as these Socinians assert And whereas the Papists are charged with making Gods and Goddesses of dead Men and Women by paying Religious Worship to them they no more make them Gods than the Socinians make Christ a God And as for the worship of the Virgin Mary they have in reason as much to say for it as the Socinians have for the worship of Christ They make Christ the Son of God only because he was formed by a Divine Power in the Womb of the Virgin but Papists who believe Christ to be God own her for the Mother of God and I cannot see why it is not as great an honour to be the Mother of God as to be born of a Virgin by the Power of God and it may be more And in reason I cannot see allowing of the Intercession of a Creature why the Virgin Mother of God should not intercede as powerfully for us as a Man born of a Virgin by the Power of God and I am apt to think our Saviour will account it a less fault to worship his Mother than to make himself a meer Creature And though the blessed Virgin do not particularly know our Condition yet she may help us by her general Intercession as Christ does and pray particularly for her peculiar Devotoes and therefore at least we may pray to God in the Name of the Virgin and other Saints as Socinians do in the Name of Christ who knows as little of them And yet the Virgin and other Saints may understand our Condition and Affairs the same way that the Socinians say Christ does viz. by Revelation from God and by the Ministry of Angels who are sent into the World and carry the News of this World to Heaven though we should not allow of their Glass of the Trinity wherein they see and know all things So that here is nothing wanting but the appointment and allowance of God to make the blessed Virgin and other Saints as proper Advocates for us as the Socinians make Christ to be for they are as well qualified for it or might be if God so pleased according to their Principles and this the Papists think they have too that God has appointed or at least allows the worship of such favourite Saints and though they are mistaken in it it is certainly a much more innocent and pardonable mistake to make a Mediator whom God has not made than to make the Eternal Son of God a Creature In a word whatever evil there is in Creature worship that the Socinians are guilty of in worshipping a meer man but this is not the worst of their Case for they overthrow the whole Christian Religion by it which Popery does not overthrow though it greatly and dangerously corrupts it SECT VII An Answer to what remains in the Brief Notes I Am now hastening to a Conclusion and there is little behind to stop me for though half the sheet be yet untouched it is answered before I come to it and therefore both to save Paper and Pains I shall not transcribe his long impertinent Harangues as I have hitherto done but only give the Reader a view of those Passages which he intends for Argument or Drollery I know not whether The Son is of the Father alone not made nor created but begotten Our Note-maker has discovered a Contradiction between the beginning and the end of this Article for either the Son is not of the Father alone or he is not begotten for every Novice in Grammar and proper Speaking knows that begotten when it is distinguished from made and created always supposes two Parents a Mother as well as a Father He will allow the Son to be begotten if you speak of the Generation of the Son by the Divine Power on the Virgin Mary for then it would have been true that the Son is neither made nor created but begotten for then he has both Father
only in the superior and governing Nature as it ought to be because in that the Natures are united into One Person and that must govern and take care of the whole Thus the Mind in man is conscious to the whole man and to all that is in man to all the motions of Reason and Sense but Sense is not conscious to all the Actings of Reason which is the superior Faculty though it is conscious as far as is necessary to receive the Commands and Directions of Reason for the Body moves at the command of the Will and it is so far conscious to its Commands Thus in the Person of Christ who is God-man the Divine Word is conscious to his whole Person not only to himself as the Divine Word but to his whole Humane Nature not by such Knowledge as God knows all men and all things but by such a Consciousness as every Person has of himself But it does not hence follow that the Humane Nature is conscious to all that is in the Word for that destroys Humane Nature by making it Omniscient which Humane Nature cannot be and its being united to the Person of the Word does not require it should be for an inferior Nature is not conscious to all that is in the superior Nature in the same Person This Union of Natures does require that the inferior Nature be conscious to the superior as far as its Nature is capable and as far as the Personal Union requires for so Sense is in some degree conscious to Reason and it cannot be one Person without it And therefore the Human Nature in Christ is in some measure in such a degree as Human Nature can be conscious to the Word feels its Union to God and knows the Mind of the Word not by External Revelations as Prophets do but by an Inward Sensation as every man feels his own Thoughts and Reason but yet the Human Nature of Christ may be ignorant of some things notwithstanding its Personal Union to the Divine Word because it is an inferior and subject Nature And this I take to be the true account of what our Saviour speaks about the Day of Judgment Of that day and hour knoweth no man no not the Angels in Heaven but my Father only where our Saviour speaks of himself as a man and as a man he did not at that time know the Day of Judgment though personally united to the Divine Word who did know it for as he is the Divine Word so our Saviour tells us That he seeth all that the Father doth and therefore what the Father knows the Eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father must know also But yet the Human Nature of Christ was conscious to all the actings of the Divine Word in it as we may see in the Story of the Woman having an Issue of Blood twelve years who in the midst of a great Crowd of People came behind him and touched his Garment and was immediately healed our Saviour presently asked who touched him and when all denied it and Peter wondered he should ask that Question when the Multitude thronged him and pressed him Iesus said some body hath touched me for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me he felt the miraculous Power of the Divine Word working in him as a man feels what is done in himself This I think gives some account how God and Man may be united into One Person which though it be a great Mystery which we cannot fully comprehend yet is not wholly unintelligible much less so absurd and contradictious as this Author pretends As for what he adds about believing and professing this Faith let him apply it to Christ's being the Messias or any other Article of the Creed and see what Answer he will give to it for what if men can't believe it are we obliged under the penalty of the loss of Salvation to believe it whether we can or no doth God require of any man an impossible Condition in order to Salvation No! but if it be credible and what a wise man may believe and what he has sufficient Evidence to believe he shall be damned not because he can't but won't believe it But what if it be against a mans Conscience to profess it if he profess against his Conscience he sins and if notwithstanding this a man must either profess or be damned then God requires some men to sin in order to their Salvation God requires no man to profess against his Conscience but he shall be damned for not believing it not for not professing what he does not believe it looks like a Judgment upon these men that while they can talk of nothing less than the severest Reason they impose upon themselves or hope to impose upon the World by the most Childish Sophistry and Nonsense And now I shall leave our Note-maker to harangue by himself and perswade Fools if he can that the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation is nothing but Popery or must be parted with for the sake of Iews or be made a Complement to the Morocco Ambassador and his admired Mahomet or must be sacrificed to Peace and Unity and to secure men from damnation who will not believe I will not envy him the satisfaction of such Harangues it being all the Comfort he has for I am pretty confident he will never be able to Reason to any purpose in this Cause again Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be World without end Amen THE END ADVERTISEMENT A Preservative against Popery in two Parts with a Vindication in Answer to the Cavils of Lewis Sabran a Jesuit 4 o. A Discourse concerning the Nature Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church 4 o. A Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor Novemb. 4. 1688. 4 o. A Practical Discourse concerning Death The Fifth Edition 8 o. The Case of the Allegiance due to Soveraign Powers stated and resolved according Scripture and Reason and the Principles of the Church of England with a more particular Respect to the Oath lately enjoyned of Allegiance to Their Present Majesties K. William and Q. Mary The Fifth Edition 4 o. By William Sherlock D. D. Master of the Temple Printed for W. Rogers The Creed Brief Notes Answer Notes Answer Notes Answer Notes Answer Vossius de tribus Symbel dissert 3 Cap. 29 30. Cap. 31. Ibid. Cap. 48. Ibid. Ibid. Cap. 44. Dissert 2. c. 1. Creed Notes Answer Notes Answer Answer Creed Notes Answer Notes Answer Aug. lib. contra Serm. Arrian c. 16. Creed Notes Answer Notes Answer Creed Notes Answer Creed Notes Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas. Cont. Arium Disput. Tom. 1. p. 116. Paris 1627. Quae ratiocinatio ad id cogit ut dicamus Deum Patrem non esse sapientem nisi habendo sapientiam quam genuit non existendo per se pater sapientia Deinde si ita est filius quoque ipse