created by the Word of God c. by a Comparison taken from the Kings of the Earth whose Word is the only Instrument they imploy to execute their Wills Indeed God has no need of any Instrument whereby to act he does all by the sole Act of his Will And Ibid. c. 65. The Word of God says he signifies no other than his Will But because Men cannot presently apprehend how a thing can be made by the Will only thinking it necessary that he who will make any thing must either do it himself or cause it to be done by others the Scripture says that God commands that a thing be when he will have it to be not only by comparison to our manner of acting but also because those Expressions do also signify the Will So as often as in the Work of the Creation we meet with the words God said it is the same as God willed And these that the Heavens were created by the Word of God is the same thing as by the Spirit of his Mouth For as his Mouth and his Spirit are Metaphorical Expressions so his Speech and his Word are also Metaphorical the meaning whereof is that things exist by his Will only And lastly in Cap. 66. mentioning these Words of Psal 8. The Heavens are the Works of thy Hands or of thy Fingers he says that the Finger of God is the same thing with the Word of God and the Word of God the same thing with the Will of God Grotius makes almost the same Observation on John 1.1 Because says he Moses wrote God said Let there be Light the Hebrews have thence call'd Devar the Word that Power or Divine Emanation by which God brought things out of Nothing and worketh all that is uncommon and extraordinary Psal 33.6 148.8 That which we read of Isaiah My Hand hath laid the Foundations of the Earth is in the Chaldee I have laid the Foundations of the Earth by my Word St. Peter uses the same Expression 2 Ep. 3.5 And that Paraphrast uses it so when treating of Miracles Prophecy or God's extraordinary Assistance and particularly when the Hebrew says the Eyes the Hand or the Face of God Whence it appears that in Scripture saying that the Hands of God laid the Foundations of the Earth or that he laid the Foundations of it by his Word or by his Spirit are equivalent Expressions and consequently that there is no Mystery in this Term Word or Speech Otherwise we must seek it also in Hand Finger Mouth c. and make of 'em so many Persons of the Trinity 'T would be much more proper to say with the Bishop of Meaux as above noted that thereby is signify'd nothing more with respect to God than that the doing great Works costs him but one single Word In truth this literal Sense is much more reasonable than the suppos'd Mystery But I said in the second place that there is another more excellent Communication when God fills with his extraordinary Gifts and if I may so speak overflows with his Favours those of Mankind whom he appoints to execute his Decrees as his Prophets and other Messengers and particularly the Messiah whom he sent into the World with all the Characters of an extraordinary Consecration This latter kind of Communication is called the Holy Ghost And here again we see on the one hand the Word and the Commission of God address'd to his Minister and on the other the Holy Ghost confirming God's Order to the Minister and conferring on him Power to discharge all the Duties of his Office So true it is that the Word and the Spirit are two united Powers which ordinarily work 〈…〉 I say ordinarily because Cases 〈…〉 een seen where the Communication 〈…〉 ut any Manifestation and on 〈…〉 trary others where God manifested himself by meer Apparitions which do not imply any Union of the Godhead with the Person who was honour'd with them But here it must be observ'd with respect to Prophetical Communication that there are two kinds of it whereof each hath its specifick Character The first which was when God spake by the Prophets was only for particular Dispensations for certain Times and Ministrys The other which was demonstrated in Jesus Christ to whom the Divine Nature was communicated in a much more perfect manner was inseparable and perpetual The first is called the Holy Ghost the second is not only called the Holy Ghost but also the Word because Jesus Christ was not only a Prophet by reason of the Gifts received from the Holy Ghost but also because he was begotten a Prophet and born a Prophet a distinction which raises him infinitely above all other Prophets This is the Truth which St. John design'd to teach us in writing the Preface or Prologue to his Evangelical History viz. that the same Jesus who was born of a Woman was born the Christ or is the Christ in right and by the advantage of his Birth And the reason which he gives for it is that the Holy Ghost or the Word for that 's the same thing did not only make his Flesh but also insinuating himself into it as the antient Doctors speak did there sow the Principles of his Prophetical Operations in the same manner as our bodily Fathers do not only give us Birth but often transmit to us the Seeds of their Inclinations and Vertues Now that which had never been seen in any other Prophet obliged the Evangelist to call Jesus Christ the Word to distinguish him from all other Prophets and Interpreters of God and to express himself in so forcible a manner on the Birth of this great Prophet in saying that the Word was made Flesh The old Translation was Verbum Domini factum est ad Prophetam The new has something more emphatical Verbum Domini factum est caro the Word insinuated it self into the Flesh and prepared it for Prophecy Marius Victorinus to give an Idea of this twofold Divine Dispensation Manifestation and Communication says in his 3d Book against Arius That there is a double Energy or Operation of the Word the one in a manifest way Christ in Flesh the other in a secret way the Holy Ghost Whereupon he calls the Father a Voice in silence the Son the Voice and the Holy Ghost the Voice of the Voice Which shews that the Holy Ghost is the Word of the Son as the Son is the Word of the Father And it is in this manner that St. Basil speaks 5 advers Eunom The Son is the Word of the Father and the Holy Ghost is the Word of the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now we see by what means Error was introduc'd God having reveal'd himself to his Creature by way of outward Manifestation and by way of inward Communication out of those two Dispensations have been made so many Divine Persons distinct from God the Father that is a second Person was made of the Manifestation and of the Communication was made a third It
us to understand that when the Platonic Fathers applied these losty Expressions of Solomon to their Eternal Word they did not or could not do it but by the way of an Accommodation or Allusion The same Bishop having related the Opinion of some Fathers a little lower who apply the same Expressions of Solomon to the Man Jesus Christ afterwards goes on thus pag. 63. But this saith he not being the sense of the Words which Solomon first intended I shall not build my Paraphrase upon it but take Wisdom here as it signifies in other Places of this Book and hath been hitherto described whom Solomon now celebrates for her most venerable Antiquity and introduces like a most beautiful Person no less than a Queen or rather some Divine Being infinitely to be preferred before that base Strumpet spoken of in the foregoing Chapter Indeed Solomon hath made her speak by introducing her as a Person and exborts young People to give ear to her She speaks of herself that God created her or that she comes to us from God that she was before the World was made because God who is the source of her and communicates her to Men did make use of her in framing this Universe Also that Kings reign by her because Prudence and good Counsels are the Soul of a good Government Notwithstanding this clear and natural sense Prejudice hath abused these Words to apply them to Jesus Christ but there are many other that cannot at all agree to him 'T is true that the Platonick Fathers are alledg'd here who understood this Chapter literally of a Personal Wisdom I own it but the same Fathers have also and that with no less Pomp quoted that Passage of the 45th Psalm My Heart is inditing a good Matter Word to prove the Eternal Generation of J. C. We justly laugh now adays at so ridiculous an Interpretation as well as of that Psal 110. From the Womb of the Morning thou hast the Dew of thy Youth Which the antient Interpreters did endeavour to make subservient to the same purpose Let us then I pray mistrust them as to this Text in the Proverbs they having so grosly deceiv'd us in those two of the Psalms which they made use of for the same ends as frequently and with as much Confidence But after all tho their Testimonies should be produc'd in shoals we can produce better Interpreters of Prov. 8. I mean the Books of the Old Testament it self the Wisdom and Ecclesisticus which tho they are Apocryphal yet are of greater Authority than the Writings of the Fathers who were the Disciples of Plato the Authors of these two having probably known better the Mind of Solomon and the Sentiments of the Jews The Author of the Wisdom having made use of the same Prosopopeia with him in the Proverbs calls Wisdom The Breath Spirit of the Power of God a pure Stream flowing from the Glory of the Almighty the Brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted Mirrour of the Power of God the Image of his Goodness and that she sits on the Throne of God He goes on like the Author of the Proverbs that when God created the World Wisdom was with him knew his Works was present then knoweth and understandeth all things But to let you see that he speaks only of a Quality or Virtue he adds That he loved her sought her out from his Youth desired to have her for a Spouse was a Lover of her Beauty He desires of God in his ardent Prayers to give her to him to send her out of the Heavens to assist him to teach him that his Works might be acceptable For saith he we hardly guess aright at things that are upon the Earth but the things that are in Heaven who can search out unless God gives Wisdom and send his Holy Spirit from above See Chap. 7 8 9. The same Author speaking further of this Divine Perfection saith That God made all things by his Word form'd Man by his Wisdom Chap. 9. 1 2. taking the Word and Wisdom for one and the same thing viz. for that Power which created the World and whereof Wisdom is but an Emanation Can you imagine now this Author meant that God did create the World by his Son the second Person of the Trinity Can such a Thought enter into a rational Creature Let us come now to the Author of the Ecclesiasticus who expresseth better the Sense we ought to give to the Words of Solomon He introduceth Wisdom speaking thus of her self I came out of the Mouth of the most High he created me from the beginning before the World Hitherto he seems to speak of a Person but explains himself clearly Ch. 24. Ver. 23. where he declares that he meant by this nothing else but the Law of Moses which the Jews name Wisdom by way of Excellency For having spoken of Wisdom under other Figures than that of a Person I mean under the Figure of a Palm-tree an Olive-tree a Vine c he sums up what he had said in these words All these things are the Book of the Covenant of the most High even the Law which Moses gave Can the Law given by Moses be call'd more expresly not only an Olive-tree or a Vine but also the Word which came out of the Mouth of the most High and Wisdom which God created before the World Which are Expressions visibly figurative the which under the Fiction of a Person or the Figure of a Vine represent the Wisdom of God to us sometimes as revealing it self in the Creation of the World and again as replenishing Men with the Fruits of its Knowledg in the Dispensation of the Law This kind of Fictions was familiar to the Moralist Jews and to all the Oriental Philosophers You must be purblind if you discern not immediately the Genius of that People accustom'd to a figurative and parabolick Stile St. John imitates the Moralist Jews and according to the same Ideas hath at one view represented to us the Word or Wisdom of God manifesting himself to Men in two of the greatest of his Dispensations viz. in the Old and the New Creation The Method is the same absolutely you need only put the Gospel or the Author of the Gospel instead of Moses and the Law You may really see him join these two things together viz. The Wisdom of God residing in God himself and presiding at the Creation of the World and the same Wisdom descending upon J. C. in whom it was as it were incarnated and ordering the New World For if according to the Hebrews the Law was the Wisdom or the Word or Precept by way of Excellency much more doth this great Elogium belong to the Gospel namely to be the Word the Wisdom the Truth the Light and the Life by way of excellency An Elogium consequently belonging to J. C. who brought the Word and the Life and was the great Teacher of Truth Whatever the Scripture saith of the First Creation
It 's well known that the Latin Church has always read which was manifested in the Flesh We may be well assured that the whole Greek Church did not read otherwise by Gelazius of Cizicus's putting this Reading into the Mouths of the Fathers of the Nicene Council He says that Macarius Bishop of Jerusalem answering the Argument of a Philosopher cited this Passage of St. Paul But how In the same manner as we read it in the Vulgar Latin The Mystery of Godliness is great which was manifested in the Flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But that Father not fully satisfied with the Letter of the Text added this Gloss that is to say The Son of God a perfectly Spiritual Exposition which being since slid into the Text gave birth to our present Reading God manifested in the Flesh And here an Allegorical Exposition is again taken for an express Text of Scripture It is the same with the Word some one having allegorized according to the Custom of that time on the Words of Moses And God said or on those of the Psalmist My Heart hath uttered a good Word or on those of St. John In the beginning was the Word c. and having expressed his Allegory in too absolute Terms there needed no more to Men prepossessed with false Platonism to make them regard such an allegorical Exposition as the Doctrine of the Church The same thing that happen'd among the Hereticks has also fallen out among those who call themselves Orthodox And we need not wonder that the same Platonism which both the one and the other made profession of cast them both into the same Wandrings This is what I mean and my Conjecture comes near to Demonstration We have seen that Valentine a great Sectary of Plato having allegoriz'd on Divine Ideas and Dispensations and having spoken of them under the Fiction of as many Persons his Disciples not understanding his Allegory made Personal Substances of those feigned Persons If Valentine's Followers misunderstood the sense of their Master can we doubt but that the same thing happened to the Platonist Fathers in their misapprehending the allegorical way of philosophizing used by their Predecessors and in converting mere Divine Manifestations into Personal Substances For my part I do not at all doubt of their having imitated each other The Doctors of both sides had at the same time the same Ideas viz. the Principles of refin'd Platonism delighting in Allegory and the Fiction of Persons And the Disciples of each Party at the same time chang'd their Masters Ideas and fell into gross Platonism which finds Hypostases in every thing Whatever Party Men happened to be ingag'd in they rarely miss following the then prevailing Philosophy and suting themselves to the Humour and Genius of that Age. When Allegory was in vogue all as well Orthodox as Hereticks allegoriz'd each with reference to his own System some under the Fiction of Three Aeons and others under that of Thirty So also when gross Platonism had prevailed all delighted in Hypostases and follow'd the Philosophy in fash on 'T is the Fate of Hypostases the Hamour of the Age regulates them Thus refined Platonism degenerated into gross Platonism and allegorical Expositions into a gross literal Sense It often happening that Disciples much misunderstand their Masters or go further than they to say something new But to conclude which way soever Innovation begins it passes in very little time from Sect to Sect Heathens Hereticks Orthodox all embrace the new Method Their Doctrines are different but their manner of philosophizing on those Doctrines is alike and uniform Perhaps they may not agree in the Nature of what they call Principles nor in their Names Number or Order nor on their Age or Excellence nor in their other Qualities and Prerogatives but however it be with these they shall all agree that they are Hypostases Personal Substances because the Philosophy of the Age requires it CHAP. XIX A Digression concerning the pretended unalterable Faith of the Church T IS pretended that the Church is so faithful a Guardian of the Tradition that it cannot be liable to these sorts of Changes But one must have a slender Acquaintance with Antiquity and less Experience of what happens every day to deceive ones self with so wretched an Answer The Church is jealous of certain Terms and she is a faithful Repository that 's agreed But provided one does not meddle with the Terms which she holds sacred and inviolable one may change the Hypotheses as much as one pleases and they have been changed with Impunity and without giving much Trouble to the Church Dr. Wallis and Dr. Sherlock hold two Hypotheses directly opposite to one another for the first urges so strongly the Vnity of God that he loses the Trinity of Persons and the latter willing to maintain the Trinity has quite lost the Vnity One of these two no matter which has changed the Tradition Let the Church speak therefore and declare herself if she can for one of these Hypotheses Let her condemn and anathematize the other let her chastize the Authors of it and cast them out of her Bosom No she will nor do it she is not concerned whither a false Hypothesis may lead her provided it does not change her Terms which are Sacred and her Favourites For instance suppose that it has always been believed hitherto that three Persons signify but three Modes or three Relations or three Differences c. You may say notwithstanding without fearing the good Matron will formally declare himself that three Persons are no less than three Spirits and three Beings provided you retain the Terms she uses in her Prayers and say devoutly with her O holy blessed and glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have Mercy upon us miserable Sinners The Reason is plainly this she is very quick at hearing if you pronounce these Words one God and three Persons But with what Modesty will she judg of the sense of those Terms having no certain Idea for ' em If instead of three Persons I say four or five the Church will declare me an Heretick this is all she can do In short whether these three Persons are three Modes or three distinct Substances this is a Theology too nice and curious for the Church's Decision and as to this she leaves all her Children to their Liberty of believing as they can The Church has been always the same without doubt she might condemn as Hereâ—â—â—â— those who reckoned thirty Persons or thirty Aeons in the Divine Essence as the Gnosticks did But for others who did but change three feigned and allegorical Persons into three personal Substances she has let them alone or rather she has allowed them as her dear Children to accommodate and sure her to the prevailing Philosophy the better to draw into her Communion the grossest Platonists who made a great Figure in the Schools Isaac Vossius in his second Letter to Rivet goes farther and ventures to say
twofold Operation the one manifest which is Jesus Christ in the Flesh the other secret or hidden which is the Holy Spirit the one by way of Manifestation the other by way of Communication But after all 't is but a twofold Operation of one and the same Power I forbear to take notice of divers other Testimonies of Tertullian of the like kind as for instance at the beginning of his Book concerning Prayer in his Dispute against Marcion lib. 3. cap. 6 16. and in his Discourse of the Flesh of Jesus Christ cap. 19. the Reader may consult 'em if he pleases To the foremention'd Authoritys from Tertullian I will subjoin that of Novatian de Trinitate cap. 19. That which chiefly constituted the Son of God says he was the Incarnation of the Word of God which was formed by means of that Spirit of whom the Angel said the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. For this is the true Son of God who is of God who uniting himself to the Son of Man makes him by that Union the Son of God which he was not before So that the main reason of this Title the Son of God arises from that Spirit of the Lord which descended How the Word of God incarnate by means of that Spirit which descended on Mary Is the second Person incarnate by means of the third Very good Divinity Is it not rather this Divine Operation that bears the Name of the Word which manifested it self in the Flesh of Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit which insinuated it self into that Flesh That is to say that which is called the Spirit on account of its Substance is at the same time called the Word on account of its Manifestation and its Operation For this reason Novatian places not the chief ground of the Filiation of Jesus Christ in a Word which was a different Hypostasis from the Spirit but in the Word which is the Operation of that Spirit of whom the Scripture speaks saying the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. And it would not be understood what the Fathers mean when they confound the Word with the Spirit that over-shadowed the Virgin or when they distinguish these two Powers if it be not laid down for a Rule that by the Spirit they understand the very Nature of the Spirit the Principle or Source whence Prophecy comes and by the Word a certain and particular Operation of that Spirit as for instance the miraculous Conception of our Saviour I have yet an antient Doctor to alledg and he not of the meanest Rank I mean St. Cyprian who does not make any distinction between the Word the Spirit the Son of God the Wisdom c. This Father having cited the second Psalm de Mont. Sina Zion adv Jud. cap. 2. where he speaks of the King whom God had anointed on Mount Sion 'T is upon this Mountain says he that the Holy Spirit the Son of God was establish'd King to proclaim the Will and the Empire of God his Father and in the fourth Chapter of the same Discourse the Flesh of Adam says he which J. C. bore in a Figure that Term has a Tang of Marcion's Heresy this Flesh was call'd by his Father the Holy Spirit which came down from Heaven the Christ the anointed of the Living God a Spirit united to Flesh The same Father elsewhere in his Discourse de Idolor vanit cap. 6. expresses himself thus The Word and the Son of God is sent whom the Prophets had forespoken of as the Instructor of Mankind He is the Power of God his Reason his Wisdom and his Glory the Holy Spirit hath put on Flesh God is mingled or united with Man The Holy Spirit is the Son of God and at the same time the Word is the Son of God and which is more the Flesh of J.C. is called the Holy Spirit which came down from Heaven which could not be true but of its Celestial Origin and as it was formed by the Holy Spirit So that Cyprian seems to intimate thereby that 't is because of this Celestial Origin that the Scriptures say the Flesh of J. C. came down from Heaven that the Son of Man came down from Heaven for it may be very well said that J.C. came down from Heaven since his Origin was from Heaven in his Birth by the Holy Ghost And what is the Holy Spirit but the Word according to this Father The Word is the Holy Spirit which united it self to Man the Word is the Holy Spirit which put on Flesh In short 't is the Holy Spirit which is the Christ of God You 'll say what hinders but the second Person in the Trinity may have also the Name of the third That 's pure Fancy Why should one shut ones eyes when one sees as clear as the day that St. Cyprian alludes to the miraculous Conception of our Saviour and that these sublime Expressions of that Father have no other Foundation but that Mystery As for what Lactantius affords us I hope his Authority will not be contested with me in the decision of a Point wherein he does no more than confirm a Tradition elsewhere well supported and followed This pious Person having said in his Institutions lib. 4. c. 6. That God begat a Holy Spirit which he call'd his Son he resumes this Discourse in the 12th chap. of the same Book thus This Spirit of God says he coming down from Heaven made choice of a pure and holy Virgin into whose Womb he insinuated himself and this Virgin conceived being full of the Holy Spirit which embrac'd her That which Lactantius expresses by these Words descended on a Virgin can it be any other than that which St. Luke expresses in these The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee But the Holy Ghost of whom the Angel speaks is the same according to Lactantius with that Holy Ghost which God begat and which he called his Son Dr. Bull tells us the Fathers understood by the Holy Ghost the Divine Nature of J. C. Very well but why so If not for this Cause that J. C. had no other Divinity than that Spirit of Power and Holiness which form'd his Body in the Womb of a Virgin For in short the Fathers speak after this manner when they explain these words The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. or allude to them and always with regard to his Birth of a Virgin But the Holy Spirit in this Passage Luke 1. 35. signifies most certainly that Power which we Trinitarians call the third Person And if the Fathers had a mind to find the second there as is said there 's no knowing what the Words signify for it must be affirmed that they have strangely mistaken the Scriptures and in so unaccountable manner as I may say that there is no longer any certainty to be met with in their Writinâ—â—â—â—ll's in Confusion as in the antient Chaos There 's nothing whereby to discover the Names of the
Divine Persons nor by consequence the Persons themselves Be it as it will the Doctor will find it hard enough to apply his Solution to all the Arguments I am about to mention And if he can do it 't will be no more difficult for him to find the Divinity of J. C. in all the Passages of the Gospel where mention is made of the Holy Ghost I hope also that at last he 'l say that when J. C. promis'd his Holy Spirit to his Apostles he promis'd them his Divine Nature But I must beg my Reader 's Patience a little longer to see what Answer the Doctor will make against the last Authority I am going to alledg And that 's a Letter of the Council of Sardis in the second Book of Theodoret's Hist Eccles The Fathers there drew a Creed in three very distinct Articles the first concerning the Father the second the Son and third Article the Holy Ghost In the last which is so expresly distinguished from that of the Son they speak thus of the Incarnation by the Holy Ghost We believe also there is a Holy Spirit or Paraclet which the Lord promis'd and sent He did not suffer but the Man whom he assumed or took from the Virgin Mary he suffer'd because he was capable of it whereas God is immortal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Is passus non est Where one sees the Pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agrees with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a Neuter Now of this Spirit the Fathers say he cannot suffer but 't was Man whom he put on and took from the Virgin that did suffer This they speak I say of the Paraclet whom they confess after the Father and the Son and not of the Divine Nature of J. C. A Passage express and formal which clearly proves these Doctors understood nothing else by the Holy Ghost but that Power of God whereof the Word is the Manifestation and the Operation confounding the Spirit with the Word and very distinctly assuring us that the Paraclet was incarnate Is the Paraclet the Divine Nature of J. C. or the second Person of the Trinity Here we 'll wait the Doctor 's Answer Valesius not bearing with this Incongruity in the Council had the Boldness to corrupt this Passage in his Version by foisting in the word Christ for thus he has translated it He did not suffer but the Man whom Christ put on The Word Christ is not in the Text which intirely relates to the Holy Ghost or Paraclet In short that Word ruines the whole sense of the Period and strangely confounds all this third Article which belongs only to the Holy Ghost and is distinct from that concerning J. C. Both Translators and Copists are guilty of Falsification in this particular Give me leave to affirm one thing and that is that the Antients have often distinguished the Holy Spirit from the Power of the Highest whereof he is speaking in the same Text calling the latter the Word of God the Son of God and saying only of the former that he overshadowed the Virgin Now even this shews that by the Word they understood nothing but the Power and the Operation of the Holy Spirit which is the same thing with the Power and Operation of the Highest The Holy Spirit signifying the Substance and the Power of the Highest signifying the Operation it follows that the Word which is the Power of the Highest according to the Fathers is not otherwise distinguished from the Holy Spirit than as the Operation is distinguished from its Subject We may conclude therefore from Proofs so very evident that the Antients who have deified J. C. had no other ground for their Theology but the Birth of J. C. of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost that by the Word and the Son of God they always understood this miraculous Operation and that they never advanced any higher in their Discourses towards that which is called an eternal Generation CHAP. XII An Account of the Foundation of the Allegorical Theology of the Fathers concerning the Word and the Holy Spirit I Dare assure my Reader that I can shew him the very Foundation of this Allegorical Theology 'T is known that the Fathers imitated the Gnosticks in many things and particularly in the way of Allegory and Contemplation But 't was Mark the Valentinian as we are inform'd by Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 12. who was the Author of the Allegorical Exposition on the Birth of J. C. that is the first who elevated it to a sense of Contemplation and Mystery He makes a Quaternity of the Man and the Church which are the first Pair and of the Word and Life which are the second Pair But what sort of Theology does he couch under this Enigma or Allegory Why nothing less than the wonderful Conception of J. C. The Man says he is the Power of the Highest because that acted instead of the Man The Church is the Holy Virgin because she held the place of the Church The Angel Gabriel was instead of the Word and the Holy Spirit instead of Life Nothing can better convince us of the Allegory us'd by the Valentinians than this Passage in which the Angel is the Word and the Spirit is the Life the Power of the Highest is instead of the Man and the Virgin is instead of the Church I might also have produc'd this Passage for a Proof when I was arguing this Point but I have reserv'd it on purpose for this place to shew that the whole Mystery of the Word reduces it self to the miraculous Conception of our Saviour upon which both the Hereticks and the Orthodox have equally allegorized each taking his Flight as his Contemplation led him on And this is that famous Theology so much extolled by the Fathers I know most of them being entangled with their Platonism have mightily embroiled the first and antient Ideas of this matter But I know also that before they came to make two Hypostases of the Word and the Holy Spirit they were terribly perplexed about the latter and could not tell what to do Hence it was without doubt that they so long delayed the deifying of the Holy Ghost The Council of Nice has not at all touched upon its Divinity So far were they from it and the Holy Ghost made so small a Figure at that time that some Fathers of the Council made no difficulty to give its place to the Blessed Virgin by making her the third Person in the Trinity Of which we are informed by Elmacinus and Patricides in Hotting Orient Hist lib. 2. p. 227. The Council of Constantinople durst not speak openly upon the point And in S. Basil's time there was a little Shiness in calling the Holy Ghost directly and formally God 'T is worth our regard what Petavius de Trinit lib. 2. c. 7. § 2. says hereupon The Catholic Church says he accommodating it self for prudential Reasons to human Frailty came not to the full Profession of some
and Reasonings are the same with those of Beza concerning it we will not count him for a separate Witness The third Interpreter I shall alledg is Coelius Secundus Curio who speaks thus in his Araneus The Sacred History informs us that several have seen God present let it be so but the same History teacheth us that these were Angels and ministring Spirits who holding the Place of God did appear unto Men and spake in his Name in a visible Form and Person And not this only but the incomprehensible God being willing to make himself known in a more illustrious manner did moreover insinuate himself into J. C. with all his Majesty for we read thus in the Gospel The Father that dwells in me he doth the Works and he that seeth me seeth my Father also Add to these the Words of the Apostle God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself and these also He was pleas'd that all the Fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily in Jesus Christ Doth not all this manifestly prove this Author plainly acknowledges that as Angels had been the Person or the Word of God J. C. was so likewise but yet a Word more excellent and a Person more noble into which God insinuated himself not God the Son as they tell us but God the Father according to the Passage the Author quotes Pater in me manâ—â—s facit ipse opera The Paraphrase of the same Author on the beginning of the Gospel of St. John is yet more express Before saith he that God created the World he had in himself the Cause and the Reason of all things the Idea and the Design Altho this Reason was with God we must not therefore imagine that it was any thing else but God himself For God was that Reason but seeing God cannot be seen with our Eyes nor comprehended by our Mind he was pleas'd to put on a Person under which he might shew himself as it were in his natural and living Image Now seeing he is an only and simple Being and cannot borrow any form of himself he produc'd himself one without by the mean of a Voice and a Light wholly Divine which because he made use of it to instruct us and manifest himself was called his Word that is to say his Oracle and his Wisdom c. to the 14th ver where he proceeds thus Would you have me at last to discover this great Mystery And tell you under what Form God came unto Men This Word this Reason this Wisdom this Oracle was made Flesh and this Flesh which is called Man that he might raise ours to a Sovereign Immortality A Metamorphosis to be admir'd in all Ages God was the Word the Word was the Life the Life was the Light of Men the Light was Flesh the Flesh Man the Man God who is blessed for ever God and Man have join'd themselves together for God was in J. C. reconciling the Word to himself 'T is on this wise that God the Sovereign God Deus Deus ille O Man manifested himself in the Flesh and conversed amongst us Hence comes it that a great Prophet gives him the Name of Emanuel This Learned Man's Words are remarkable He saith that the invisible God being willing to make himself known was pleas'd to put on a Person that is to say give himself a Figure take a sensible Image under which he produced himself outwardly That this Image consisting in a Light and a Voice which he made use of to shew himself and to instruct us was for that reason call'd his Word So that the Word of S. John and the Image of the invisible God as S. Paul has it are the self-same thing Thus you have the Word excellently well defin'd according to the Ideas of Clement neither do I believe that a neater and more distinct Notion can be formed of it nor one more agreeing with the Scriptures which tell us so often of the Glory of God of his Face of his Dwelling of his Presence in an Angel in a Cloud in a Light in a Fire with a Clap of Thunder with a Voice or with a gentle and still Sound and what can this be I pray you but his Person and his Word You need only read Maimonides in his More Nevochim P. 1. ch 25 64. where with extraordinary Clearness he explains what the antient Word is saying that it is the Habitation of the Divine Majesty and Providence in some certain Place where he would make himself known which he causeth to dart forth miraculously under the Representation of a created Light Would you have the same Word under the N. Testament Consider the extraordinary Providence that presided at the Conception of the Messiah behold an Angel that speaks and is the Voice of God on this occasion a Spirit overshadowing the Holy Virgin the which resembles so much the light Cloud that cover'd the Tabernacle behold the Habitation of God in the Messiah dwelling himself amongst us In a word see the Majesty of the Father in the Son whose Glory we have beheld If this will not suffice get up the Mount to the Transfiguration of J. C. you will there see an Apparition of two great Prophets a Cloud that covers them a Light spreading it self over J. C. his Face becoming bright like the Sun and lastly a Voice coming out of the Cloud saying these Words This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleas'd hear ye him Behold here the Word wherein God gives all the Marks of his Presence and whence he declares his principal Will which is that we should give ear to his Son the only Oracle and the sole Word by which he would ever hereafter discover himself and speak to us Irenaeus had no other Idea of the Word Lib. 4. c. 37. where he saith That the Word designing to shew God in its sundry Dispensations shew'd him made like to a Man that by this mean he preserv'd to the Father his Invisibility lest Man should come to despise him that if the Manifestation of God which was at the Creation of the World did give Life unto Men how much more will the Manifestation of the Father by the Word give Life to all those who see God on this wise That the Prophets never saw the Face of God uncover'd but only certain Dispensations and certain Mysteries by which God began to shew himself that these first Sketches of the Divine Manifestation were only the Preludes of that which was to be made by J. C. That the Father is invisible in Truth that no Person ever saw him but that the Word manag'd the Dispensations of the Father and shew'd their Glory as it thought fit Irenaeus tells us afterwards That the Word appeared under different Figures of a Man a Wind a Light a Cloud a Fire c. which discovers to us that all external Manifestation whether it be by Angels or by the Flesh of J. C. is the Word of God as all internal Communication
is difficult to find the Father of the Universe he shews by this not only that the World was generated but also that it was generated as his Son Plato himself gives us the Substance of his System in his 2d Letter to Dionysius with this caution that it is altogether aenigmatical All things says he are round about the King of the Universe the things of the second Order are about the Second and the things of the third Order are about the Third Which is thus interpreted by Marsilius Ficinus The Ideas are about the Good the Angelic Spirits about the Reason and the Forms about the Soul of the World He adds that Plato calls them three Principles not because they are equally such but inasmuch as they are subordinate the one to the other The Good is such of himself the Reason inasmuch as it is the nearest to God and the Soul inasmuch as it is produced by the first and second God Now this Order whatever it be hath no relation at all to an invisible Trinity but is manifestly refer'd to the World and Creation seeing the Second and the Third God are nothing else but the Vnderstanding and the efficacious Will of the supreme God the one being filled with the Ideas of all Beings and the other producing their different Forms Thus you have the Riddle unfolded I am not ignorant that Clemens Alexandr pretends in the same Book I have quoted that these Words of Plato mean nothing else but the Christian Platonic Trinity if I may express my self thus but without any ground as is evident by the Commentary of Ficinus Clement endeavours to shew in this whole Book that there is no Tenent in the whole Christian Religion but what is found in Plato and the other Philosophers Now seeing the Doctrine about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Darling of Plato we need not wonder if the Platonic Fathers search'd for all the possible Resemblances between the Second God of Plato and the only Son of God on whose behalf and to this purpose they imagin'd a Generation and Pre-existence before Time was having chang'd all the Gospel matters of Fact concerning the miraculous Birth of our Saviour into vain and empty Contemplations which suppos'd in him another distinct Nature from that which he received from the Holy Ghost and the Virgin To conclude whoever insists as it is usual on the seeming Resemblance found between the Word of St. John and that of the Divine Plato seems willing to deceive himself seeing the most able Criticks have own'd already that there is no Resemblance at all between these two Words Desiderius Herauldus as he is quoted by Mons Le Clerc Biblioth Vniv Tom. VI. p. 24. remarks judiciously That the Christians of that Time strain'd to their Advantage all the Actions Words and Writings of the Pagans which they often interpreted contrary to the true Meaning of the latter I shall now quote Casaubon who is not at all suspected in this Affair This Critick having related a Passage of Cyril against Julian where this Father pretends that Plato ascribing the Creation of the World to the Word speaks the same with St. John that Critick declares that himself is not at all of that Opinion You have here the Word saith he Exercit. in Baron pag. 5. by the which Plato assures the visible World was made He indeed seems to say what St. John did which is what Cyril pretends to but if we take a nearer view of this Affair this Word or this Reason as Plato would have it which the supreme God employed in the Creation of the World is visibly and wholly different from the Word Jesus Christ whereof St. John speaks which Word is unknown to those to whom the Revelation is known There are found many such like Expressions in the Fathers where the Ambiguity of the Words may deceive those who do not examine them with a requisite Attention See here in brief what may be gathered from the Platonists Writings of the Platonic Philosophers These Philosophers considering the Trinity always with respect to the Creation of the World built three Systems thereon We shall name the first a Theologic System which puts down the supreme Being for the first God the intelligible and Ideal World for the second and the sensible World for the third The first is the Father because he is the Understanding generating the Ideas the other is the Son the internal Word or the Thought of the Father because he is immediately generated and subsists always in the Ideas of the Father the last is the Spirit and Soul or the Creature proceeding from the other two because it receives the Form from the Idea but its Life and its Motion from the first Author of all things I shall name the second System of the Platonists the Ailegoric System which considers a Trinity of Properties in the second God or the Word in relation to the Creation meaning by the Divine Word nothing else but the infinite Goodness the admirable Wisdom and the immense Power which have form'd the Universe as we have observed it above in a Passage of Clemens Hence it appears on what account they called it the Maker and Creator of all things Lastly we will name the third the Physical System which considers in relation to the World an efficient Cause viz. a Creator and a Father a Matter subsisting from all Eternity in this first Author which proceeded from him by the way of Prolation or Emanation and a Form produced resulting from the other two both from the Matter and the first Cause The one is the internal Word the other the Word brought forth and the third is the animated World These three Systems and perhaps many others that may be found in the allegorizing Platonists pregnant with such like Methods are the Cause of Plato's Doctrine being so consus'd and difficult to be penetrated Therefore Mr. le Clerc was in the right when he says Biblioth univ Tom. X. p. 396. That there is a great deal of Confusion in the Platonists System that they have even contradicted themselves not having a clear and distinct Idea of what they would say We may affirm the same of the antient Fathers who follow'd this Philosophy in relation 〈…〉 But he did not observed 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 remarkable hereof proceeds not only from the Diversity of their Systems but also for want of a good distinction between the subtil Platonism for so I shall call it which treated allegorically of the Goodness Wisdom and Power of God under a Figure of three Gods who created the World and the gross Platonism which perceiving not the subtil part of this Allegory and following the Letter made three Hypostases of these three Powers The first Method being allegoric and arbitrary might without contradicting it self change the Name Order and Number c. of the Figures it made use of to express always the same thing This was an ingenious Invention that varied its Representations and
ingenuously in Joan. 1.1 they only meant that the Word was not created in the beginning of all things when God created the Heavens and the Earth after the manner of other Creatures or that of the other generated Spirits because it had a Being then already the Father having begotten it before by an immediate Generation For this Reason the Author of the Recognitions lib. 3. cap. 11. denies formally that the Holy Spirit may be called Son because there is saith he but one ungenerated and but one generated it cannot be said that the Holy Spirit is a Son having been made by another who was likewise made Eusebius delivers this Doctrine as a * Such is the Argument of that Chapter Tradition of the Church De Eccles Theol. lib. 3. cap. 6. The Spirit the Paraclet saith he is neither God nor Son because he took not his Origin from the Father after the same manner as the Son did being of the Number of those things that were made by the Son for whom all things were made All things saith the Evangelist consequently then the Holy Spirit also Origen's Doctrine is the source of all this who maintains in his 1 Tom. upon St. John that the Holy Spirit is a Creature of the Son relying with Eusebius upon this Expression that all 〈◊〉 not excepting the Holy Spirit were made by the Son This Theology of the Antients â—â—â—hing the immediate Generation of the Word at the time of the World's Creation was follow'd by many other Doctors even after the Council of Nice Marius Victorinus is of this Number who would have it in his first Book that the Generation of the Word is only an Effusion and Manifestation of that Power which created the World and which was hid in God before You may join Zeno of Verona with him de aeterna Filii Generatione Serm. 3. who moreover explains this Generation by referring it to the Creation of the World For as he saith it was then that the Word which was as it were buried in the Abyss of the Divine Understanding in profundo sacrae Mentis Serm. 1. was thrust forth and begotten Would Valentine have expressed himself otherwise about his Word which came forth out of the Understanding than this Man doth of his come out of the Deep and Silence But we ought not to forget Rupert who unfolds admirably this Philosophic Cabala saying That the Father actually begot the Word which contain'd potentially all things when he created the Heavens and the Earth Yes he goes on the Father thrust forth this good Word out of his Heart and before the Morning-Star begot him out of his Bosom viz. out of the Bottom of his Substance when he said Let there be Light Nothing can be more like to Origen's Expression That the Generation of the Light is the Generation of the Son Mr. Huel excuseth Origen alledging that he spoke allegorically we do not doubt it all this Theology is Allegorick The Word or Command which God utter'd to the Creature is the Son of God but improperly so and in the same sense that my Thought or my Speech are the Sons of my Understanding which both conceives and brings them forth This is too evident and for this Cause Dr. Ball had reason to retrench out of his Quotation Desen Fidei Nic. p. 395. these last Words of Rupert's Passage That the Father beget the Son when he â—â—id Let there be Light But Lactartius goes beyond all these Doctors I quoted for he allows not to the Word so much as the Advantage of an immediate Generation above the other generated Spirits He finds no difference between them but only in the different manner of their Prolation and in the different Design God had in the begetting of them The Holy Scriptures teach us saith he Lib. 4. c. 8. that the Son of God is the Word of God even as also the other Angels are the Spirits of God For the Word is a Spirit which was brought forth with a significative Voice But because the Spirit Breath and Speech are thrust forth by different Organs the Spirit proceeding out of the Nostrils and the Speech out of the Mouth consequently there is a great difference between this Son of God and the other Angels caeteros Angelos these being come forth out of God as silent and mute Spirits because they were not created to preach the Doctrine of God but only for the executing of his Orders But the Son notwithstanding he is a Spirit yet he came forth of the Mouth of God with a Sound and a Voice like unto Speech because God was to make use of his Voice to instruct the People c. You see manifestly how he confounds the Angel who is called the Word with the other Angels that he makes them all to proceed out of God equally by an immediate Prolation and that the only difference he makes here consists in this that the common Angels proceeded out of the Nostrils of God as mute Spirits design'd only to execute his Orders by Deeds whereas this chief Angel whom he calls the Son doth proceed out of the Mouth of God as a vocal and sounding Speech design'd to deliver his Oracles and to reveal his Will Lastly Origen or some body else under his Name goes beyond even Lactantius himself in that he confounds the Generation of the Word with that of common Creatures Homil. 2. in diversos For tho on the one hand he seems to say That the Word was born before all things and that all things were made by him yet he advanceth at the same time that these Words all things were made by him signify only that at his being born of the Father all things were likewise born together with him the Generation of the Word-God being the same with the Creation of all things And tho he saith That the Son is of a different Substance from the Creature that he hath the same Nature with the Father and that he had a beginning before Time was He seems to destroy all this by adding That the Substance of the Father is the Cause of the Son's Substance and that Jesus Christ intended so much when he said that his Father was greater than he which asserts evidently that the Substance of the Father is greater than that of the Son As also when he goes on To exist before Time is to exist not in Time but with Time His Conclusion will tell us his Meaning We ought then saith he to believe three things the Father bringing forth the Son begotten and the things that were made by the Word the Father speaks the Word is begotten and all things are made Conformably to what he was saying viz. that the Father bringeth forth the Word that is to say begetting his Wisdom all things were then made It is not difficult to sound the Depth of this Philosophy The Word is of the same Substance with the Father because it is the proper Power of the Father but it is less than
If it be so his History of a Phaenix ought not to seem so strange to us it is a Fable containing a great Truth in his Opinion he makes use of it as of an ingenious Allegory that seems to have been made expresly to represent to Men the Doctrine of the Resurrection As to the rest whenever Clement doth not allegorize he explains to us simply his Sentiment about the Word and the Trinity As to the former he saith in Chap. 27. of his 1st Ep. to the Corinthians That God founded all things by the Word of his Power and that he can destroy them by the same Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utrobique Whence it is evident that the Word in his sense is only the Power and Efficacy of God by which as he created the World he can also destroy it when he pleaseth This agrees with the Scriptures saying By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the Breath of his Mouth Psal 33.6 and that by the same Breath he destroys the Wicked Isa 11.4 2 Thess 2.8 We cannot find here the Platonic Ideas of a Personalized Word so that Photius had reason to complain Bibl. Cod. 126. that Clement did not speak of J. C. in that sublime Stile which is made use of when God is spoken of His Simplicity has offended those that love only the high-flown Philosophy of Plato For whereas a Platonic Christian would never have omitted on such an occasion to inculcate that God the Father created all things by his Son who is his Word and eternal Wisdom Clement is dumb here and contents himself to attribute the Creation to the Power or the Command of God Elsewhere when he speaks expresly of J. C. he withholds himself from giving him any other Excellencies or Titles than those resulting from the Offices he possesseth by the Gift of God as a Recompence for his Sufferings viz. those of an High-Priest and Lord never quoting any other Passages but those that serve to this purpose As to his Trinity nothing is more simple for being willing to move the Corinthians to Concord and Union he alledgeth this Motive among the rest Have we any other but the same God the same Christ and the same Spirit of Grace shed upon us This is a Trinity of a Man truly Apostolic one God one Messiah and one Spirit shed upon the Faithful CHAP. XVIII Of the Method of the refin'd Platonists and of Allegory in General FROM these Disciples of the Apostles let us come to the Disciples of Plato Peruse the Platonist Writers and you 'll therein find yet some remains of well contrived Platonism They having conceived the Ideas and Archetypes of all Creatures which are in the visible World to be in the intelligible World did easily invent a Spiritual and Intelligible Gospel which is the Substance and First Form of the sensible Gospel a Distinction which Origen did not fail to make as he distinguisht between the exemplary and ideal Word different from the sensible Word and as he expresses it in his second Tom. on John A Word which was in God and which was as different from that which was made Flesh as an Original is from the Copy Substance and Reality from the Shadow They use the Comparison of an Architect who has in his Mind the Idea and Plan of a House he intends to build Whereon they giving themselves liberty find all the Wonders of our Gospel in the Ideas of the Divine Understanding If in the sensible Church there be found an Oracle and Interpreter from God born of the Father by the Holy Ghost making the new Creature by the Power and Wisdom which he has received from the Father To this they make another Answer in the intelligible Church a Word proceeding from the Bosom or Understanding of God begotten of his Substance who is the Eternal Wisdom of God and secondary Cause of all things subsisting in the World Take off the veil of Allegory or rather suppose all that to be Allegory and 't is a rational Philosophy which reduces all to God's eternal Decrees as the prime Cause of all existent Beings but particularly of Christ who being with respect to his Essence the only Son and First born of all Creatures consequently is in God's Vnderstanding the Idea which God immediately begets whereon all others depend He is I say the noblest Idea or as some speak the Idea of Ideas And if they found this Christ in the Ideas and Decrees of God it is not to be wonder'd if they found him also in the antient Dispensation of Angels while 't is not more difficult seeing him in those first Sketches than in the Design and Idea which God had fram'd of him Thus far I perceive right Platonism I see in it the Foot-steps of what it was when in its Purity and I at the same time observe in it fair remains of antient Allegory either of the Jews or of the Chaldaeans who delighted in profound Senses and theological Interpretations But I no sooner cast my eye on those eternal Substances conceiv'd as real Emanations those Emanations as real Generations and those Generations as subsisting Persons than I see only deprav'd Platonism as absurd as the Theology of the Poets and as unpolish'd as the Religion of the most superstitious Vulgar To make this Truth the more evident 't will be necessary to say somewhat of Allegory and of the use which the Antients made of it But we must as I promis'd in Page 64. at the same time shew that Disciples who ofttimes change their Masters Method do nevertheless retain certain Remains of the antient Discipline which betrays them and discovers their Innovations That is we will shew the tracks of the antient manner of allegorizing even in those very men who have abandon'd the Allegory of the three Principles and chosen the literal Sense of three Hypostases I have already given some account of it which ought to be recall'd to mind by the Reader to join to what I have farther to say thereon Allegory is a Figure in Speech whereby one thing is expressed and another intimated by rising from the literal to a nobler and more theological Sense See Grotius on Matth. ch 1.22 I shall not here speak of the Enigmatical Science of the Chaldeans and Egyptians but come directly to the Philosophy which is most known to us But before I come to Particulars I must advertise my Reader that if he would be fully inform'd on this Head he may read all the 5th Book of the Stromates of Clemens Alexandrinus I 'll content my self with quoting thence the following Words which give us a general Idea of the Antients Method in the use they made of Allegory All those says that Father who have treated of Divine Matters as well Greeks as Barbarians concealing the Principles of things wrap'd the Truth in Enigma's Symbols Allegories and Metaphors as intricate as those of the Oracles Even the Poets who
have innovated He must know little of Plato who can believe that he could fall into so dull a Philosophy as that God did from all Eternity necessarily beget a Son a second God putting him forth out of himself with his proper Hypostasis which distinguisheth him from the Father and that he made use of him to create the World unless 't were perhaps to deceive the vulgar People But that God did voluntarily conceive a Design of creating the World that he did actually create it by his efficacious Word that that Word is his Son in an allegorical Sense because it was emanated from the Divine Understanding that it was in an allegorical sense the Creator because it was the Means and Instrument which the Wisdom of God made use of to give Life and Being to all things Then indeed I own literally Moses saying that God spake and the Creature obey'd then I shall own Plato's Allegory telling me the same thing with Moses but in the Stile of the Religion wherein he was born Then to conclude I own the good Divinity of Clemens Alexandrinus who assures me that the Word of the Father is not that which was begotten but supreme Goodness profound Wisdom and infinite Power manifesting it self in the Work of this Universe This is without doubt the true way of understanding Plato and we have a famous Platonist as our Warrant for it 't is Coelius Rhodoginus Lect. Antiq lib. 9. c. 12. For that Great Man very judiciously observes that one can never be a good Platonist if he do not reckon that Plato is to be understood allegorically Good Platonists like the Author of the Recognitions discover to us the Origin of this allegorical Philosophy by saying That from the first Will proceeded another Will and from this the World Lib. 1. c. 24. That is to say that from the first eternal and internally begotten Will proceeded at the beginning of all things a second Will externally begotten an express Command which spoken all things were made And this second Will is metaphorically the Son because proceeding from God himself and from the Invisibility which is proper to his Nature it is a kind of Generation producing his Image every Manifestation being the Image of God Irenaeus is also another of the good Platonists who allegoriz'd In many places of his Treatise against Heresies he supposes God not to have needed any more than his two Hands to create the World There 's no difficulty in perceiving his intention thro those Words Whereas the Hereticks maintain'd that all was made by Angels and that those Spirits had created the World Irenaeus in opposing that Doctrine flies into the opposite extreme viz. That God who had no need of Angels made use of no more than his two Hands his Word and his Spirit to do all things not that by those two Powers he understood two Hypostases but only personaliz'd them in opposition to the Aeons or to the Gnosticks Angels which were esteemed Persons And he meant nothing more than that God needed not any other than himself as he explains himself in the 19th Chapter of his first Book and in no wise any Power separate from him having an Hypostasis distinct from his This God says he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ What do these words signify That God needed no other than himself if not that God had no need of any more than his Command and Power to operate what he will'd Now this Command and this Power are not two Hypostases separate and distinct from his which was the Opinion of those Hereticks but two Powers which he imploy'd as his two Hands Either let 's blind our selves or see Allegory in all this Again it 's by a common Figure that the Name the Qualities and even the Personality of the thing which ceaseth to be or which is rejected is given to that which takes its place tho it be of a different nature God rejecting Sacrifices gives the name of Sacrifice to the Obedience which he accepts There is nothing more natural says Dr. A. in his Manuscript concerning the Satisfaction than to give to a thing which supplies the place of another and which procures all the fruits of it the Name of that instead whereof it is substituted St. Paul observ'd this Rule in his Epistle to the Hebrews If he gave the Name of Sacrifice to the Obedience of Jesus Christ it was to sute his Expressions to the Ideas which prevail'd under the antient Dispensation wherein the principal Acts of Piety consisted in Sacrifices he applied those antient Sacrifices to the Death of Jesus Christ without intending any other Mystery in it Whereto may be added that Jesus Christ speaking of the Holy Ghost who was to teach the Truth by his Inspirations as he himself had taught it by Preaching speaks of him as of a Teacher as of a Person because he was to supply the absence of a Teacher and fill the place of a Person So as the Gnosticks spake of nothing but Angels who had created the World and govern'd the antient People and of Emanations and Generations from the Supreme Being Irenaeus answers The true Angels which created the World and taught the Prophets are the Word of God and his Spirit and that Word and Spirit are his true Emanations So making of a Manifestation and of a Communication God's Helpers his Coadjutors in the Creation his Ministers in the Government of the World making I say so many Hypostases of the Godhead of those Powers because he substitutes them in lieu of the Hypostases rejected by him It is by the fame method that Theophilus of Antioch made intirely allegorical Commentarys on the four Gospels Thus he allegorizes the first words of St. John The Beginning says he that is God The Word that is the Son of God Jesus Christ of whom the Voice of the Father saith in the Psalm My Heart hath uttered a good Word that is to say Christ by whom all things were made And without him nothing was made Nothing that is to say an Idol which as the Apostle saith is nothing in the World It is apparent by the Method of this Author who designs the explaining the Gospels allegorically and particularly by the allegorical Explanation he gives of the word Beginning and of that of Nothing that what he says of the Word is likewise allegorical The Word says he is the Son of God that is to say the Christ by whom all things were made Is not that saying that it is the Christ the Man whom God hath anointed who is the Son and the Word by whose Power all under the Gospel was made even the Idol which was made without him having been destroy'd and the World reform'd Let us deal plainly Christ is the Word only by virtue of an allegorical Sense which considers him as a second Word in as much as he is with respect to the spiritual World what the Word-God was with respect to the sensible World It
that the Church made no difficulty even of tolerating the Valentinians that is the Doctrine of them who held thirty Persons in the Deity and that she admitted them into her Communion She had more Indulgence than I should have The first Christians says Vossius did not presently cast Hereticks out of her Communion they came not to that Extremity but did it when the Hereticks went so far as expresly to contradict the Christian Faith As to others who did but alter the Truths of the Gospel by mixing with them the Gentile Fables they dealt not so rigorously with them but allow'd them some kind of Liberty He puts down Valentinian among these last whence it follows that if the thirty Aeons of that Heretick were tolerated there would have been no difficulty to admit of three Hypostases instead of three Attributes or three Modes These good Men thought it not amiss to accommodate the Truths of the Gospel with the Fables of the Pagan Philosophers and Poets but rather a Service to Religion Hence it was without doubt that Platonism which at first served her only for Ornament at length became under favour of this Toleration the very Support of her Mysteries This brings to my remembrance a Remark of Mons Le Clere in his Rules of Criticism Biblioth Vniv Tom. 10. p. 334. which very well deserves our Reflection It has so fallen out that tho there have been always in use among Christians some certain Terms yet they have insensibly departed widely from their Ideas which they who first used the Terms fixed to them and tho the Words remain the same yet the Sense of them has passed thro divers Revolutions The Phrases or Expressions being says he written in sensible Characters in a great many Books could not suffer any great Alteration but the Ideas first belonging to those Expressions being things not to be seen with ones Eyes and their Rise and Disappearance and their several Changes being all secret things within the Mind of every Man and invisible to every body else 't is hard to guess what has happened by the means of equivocal Sound One sees on a Theater the Actors come forth from behind the Curtains in certain Habits may one therefore conclude that always when one sees the same Habits they are the same Actors who have them on 'T is the same with Thoughts and the Words wherein they are dressed In these Words you have an account as it were of the Comedy our Trinitarians act at this day They put on all the Dresses of the Church and say with her Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity three Persons and one God But does it follow therefore that under the same Words they conceive the same Ideas or that they are the same Actors always when seen in the same Habits Not at all Some are Sabellians others are Rigid and others are moderate Trinitarians and all together have Ideas so confus'd and so contrary to one another that it may be one should not be much mistaken if one said that this Expression three-Persons in their Mouths has as many senses as there are Divines who pronounce 〈◊〉 if it be true that they six any meaning to them and that they form any Ideas about them So that altho the Blatonists and the Christians have used these Terms yet it does not follow thereupon that they had the same Ideas nor that the Platonists had the same among themselves nor that all Christians among themselves in all Times and Places affix'd to the same Terms one constant uniform Signification The present Time sufficiently shews us what one ought to judg of the past The Terms have been always the same but they are only sensible Objects that are not ◠to change but the Meaning and the Ideas being things invisible which pass within the Mind they may be and are changed without being perceived To conclude I make this Reflection only with regard to metaphysical Terms whereof we have but unsteady and confus'd Ideas and by consequence they are liable to very great Alterations As these Ideas do not enter into our Minds without difficulty so they are not maintained there with a little Pains sooner or later they vanish and after all they cannot pass from the Master's Mouth to the Scholar's Ear without some Revolutions The Unity of God is one thing with a Jew and another with the Trinitarian The Term Consubstantial with the Samosatenians carrys a different Idea with it in the Mind from that of the Nicene Fathers Three Hypostases have one sense with the Platonists and another with the Athanasians one with the Followers of Arius and another among Vs And certainly the Fathers of the Council of Alexandria had reason to give this Advice to them at Antioch in the Letter they writ to them apud Athan. vid. Dupin Tom. 2. p. 138. That they should not differ among themselves about the Hypostases since they who owned three in the Trinity and they who allowed of no more than one are both of the same Opinion and differed only in the manner of their Expression We understand well enough what this means the metaphysical Terms are capable of the most contradictory sense one may make them as we make the Clock strike what we please If you own three Hypostases you are Orthodox if you acknowledg but one you are still so nevertheless This Term is a sort of Prote is that takes in all senses In some mens mouths it signifies the manner of subsisting and then 't is three with others it signifies Substance and then 't is but one You see here both are sound to be of the same mind before they are aware Alas I really think that I and the Church shall be of the same mind too if when she owns one Essence and three Persons I should say on the contrary one Person and three Essences we mean the same thing it may be We express our selves indeed differently but after all we shall agree at the bottom 't will always be three somewhats in one I know not what for that 's all that the Terms Essence and Persons signify in the Mouths of Tripitarians But Raillery apart who would nor pity St Jerom who takes so much pains Epist ad Damasum to enquire whether he should say one Hypostasis or three Hypostases What! Learned Doctor must the Pope be consulted about that Say what you please for you may with a very safe Conscience Sr. Austin much better understood the sense of his Party as to the Word Person de Trinit lib. 5. cap. 9. When says he 't is asked what the Three are human Langnage is scanty and affords not Terms to express it 't is therefore answer'd three Persons not as if that was some what to the purpose but something must be said and one must not be silent to the Question As for Terms which express things that fall under our Senses or Actions whereof we have a distinct and perfect Idea it falls out quite otherwise they may
of them being confecrated by the Power of the Word are the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ incarnate The Protestant Writers observe from this Passage as Dr. Stilling-fleet for one in the 35 p. of his first Dialogue of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compar'd That Justin really ascribes to the same Logos or Word of God the Body that was in the Womb of the Virgin and that Body which is upon the Altar and that in like manner the Holy Ghost makes the Elements to become the Body and Blood of Christ not by an Hypostatic Union but by Divine Influence and Operation But I must tell you too that the Fathers understood no more than Operation or Influence by the Word or the Spirit which they say did consecrate the Elements and change them into the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ So also they meant no more than Influence and not a Person by the Word or the Holy Ghost which formed and sanctified the Body of Jesus Christ in the Womb of the Virgin whereby he was properly the Son of God For why should an Hypostatic Union be rather infer'd from this Passage The Word was made Flesh than from This Bread is my Body Either there is an Hypostatic Union of the Bread and Flesh of Christ or there 's none at all of the Word and Flesh of Christ By the Power of the Word the Bread becomes the Body of Christ by the same Power the Man or the Son of Mary was the Son of God the Case is the same What then is to be done Why Mysteries must be had at any rate and the Machines of Platonism will bring upon the Stage as many as you please of the grossest and most absurd You must abandon your Reason 't is rashness to be inclined to hearken to Reason Let Reason submit herself to Faith and give her alone leave to speak The Papists require us to abandon our Senses but the Trin ns will have us renounce our Reason I am no Christian in the Judgment of the latter if I am not a Brute a Brute did I say if I am not a Block Error is fruitful and leads us into the grossest Absurdities and 't is the System of these Absurdities that is stiled Theology CHAP. XXII Of the True Oeconomy 'T IS certain then that the Antients were unacquainted with good Divinity and knew less of the true Oeconomy They believ'd their Platonism whereof they were mighty fond gave 'em great advantages over the Pagan Philosophers and they us'd it for Reasons of Prudence And as they were for the most part Gentiles by birth they knew not the antient Jewish Oeconomy which would have put 'em in the right way or it may be they were rather inclin'd to pursue their own Bigotries Their Oeconomy is this As in a Family the Father and the Son are but One Lord when the Son rules in the Name and by the Authority of his Father who has transfer'd the Exercise of that Right to him 't is the same thing say they in the Church which is the Family of God The Father and the Son are but One by virtue of that Oeconomy which lodges a Power in the Son's hands to dispose of the Father's Favours and to exercise all Authority 'T is thus Tertullian explains the Oeconomy in his Discourse against Praxeas He shews him that he does not destroy the Notion of a Monarchy or the Government of One over the Universe because the Father may exercise it by the Ministry of his Son or such as he shall think fit to substitute in his room as the Angels his Officers and Commissioners but chiefly because the Son does nothing but at the Will of his Father and with a Power he has receiv'd Which is evident even from this that he shall one day surrender it to his Father as the Apostle tells us and the Son himself shall be subject to him Lactantius pursues exactly the Steps of Tertullian in lib. 4. c. 29. When a Father says he has a Son whom he dearly loves giving him the Title of Lord with Authority if notwithstanding this Son continues in his Father's House under him it may be said however according to the Civil Law that 't is but one House and one Master or Lord. So this World is but one House or Family and the Father and the Son who governs it with the Father's Consent are but One God since that One is as Two and the Two as One. And 't is not to be wonder'd at seeing that the Son is in the Father because the Father loves the Son And the Father is in the Son because the Son obeys faithfully the Father's Will and does nothing but what the Father wills or commands him God therefore as Tertullian shews may communicate his Right to all intelligent Creatures and use in a way of condescension their Ministry to make himself known to his Children For as he is by his Nature incomprehensible his Supreme Majesty being far above all his Creatures he stoops as it were by this Method to their shallow Capacities 'T is thus at other times that he us'd the Ministry of Angels and at that day the Ministry of a Man whom he made his Son and Heir of his House In short this Dispensation by his Son under the New Testament differs not from that of the Angels in the old Administration only in this that the latter was temporary and provisional but that of Christ is perpetual The Angels exercis'd their Oeconomy as Ministers commission'd and delegated Jesus Christ exercises his in the capacity of a Son and Heir who continnes always in the House or Family They who know the antient Oeconomy to be such as St. Paul and St. Stephen have discover'd it to be who acquaint us that 't was Angels or an Angel which gave the Law and said I am the Lord c. I am the God of Abraham c. They I say were in no danger of believing that 't was the Incomprehensible and Invisible God who appear'd to the Jews They were assur'd that it was none other than his Angel his Word his Face or his Person by which he made himself to be seen and understood accommodating himself by this Dispensation to the Weakness of Men who could not see God and live But they who comprehended not this Oeconomy of Goodness and Condescension grosly fancied this Angel to be an uncreated One as they call'd him or the Supreme God himself As if it were not the grossest absurdity to imagine that the Supreme God had put his Name upon the Supreme God If this Angel was really Jehovah by Nature could he receive this Name from another Has he in his Manifestations occasion for another Name and another Authority besides his own The same Mistake has happen'd with regard to the true Oeconomy by Jesus Christ The Mystery and Secret of the Dispensation being not known that Man has been taken for the Supreme God or an uncreated Angel who was born of a
J. C. the only Son of God our Lord how I pray is he God's only Son Why that 's explain'd in these Words he was conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost and born of a Virgin his miraculous Generation and Nativity made him a God and how he became our Lord appears in these Words he was raised from the Dead and ascended into Heaven whence he shall come to judge the Quick and the Dead his Obedience and his illustrious Vertue rais'd him to this supreme Dignity These two Articles make up the whole of the antient Theology with respect to the Person of Christ but the latter of the two without dispute was the most important and is only insisted on for our Salvation J. C. never preach'd to the Jews his miraculous Birth but he always proved his Mission from Heaven by Miracles wrought publickly and openly The Apostles in the History we have of their first Sermons have spoken nothing more they insist not on any other Topic concerning their Divine Master but those of his Resurrection and Exaltation St. Paul lost his Life for preaching that last Mystery But in how many Passages does he press as essential and necessary to Salvation the Belief of Christ's Exaltation If thou confessest with thy Mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believest with thy Heart that God hath rais'd him from the Dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.9 The earliest Antiquity was of the same Judgment as it appears by two Instances The first is that of Victor Bp of Rome who excommunicated Theodotus altho he believed J. C. was born of a Virgin by the Holy Spirit because as is remarked by the Author of a Catalogue of Heresies suppos'd to be Tertullian Theodotus believed Christ to be a mere Man who had no other Advantage or Prerogative above other Men but what he had from his own Righteousness This is plainly to say that tho he believed him a Man extraordinary in his Birth and his Vertue yet he did not therefore believe him to be that Christ and that Lord whom the Father had rais'd above all other Men and even above Angels whereby Theodotus rejected a fundamental Article of Christianity The other Instance is that of Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho He there owns for his Brethren that there were some Christians of his time who held for a Truth that J. C. was but a mere Man the Son of Joseph and Mary but however believed him to be the Christ which plainly intimates that they did not look upon him barely as a Prophet who only preached Righteousness to the Jews but besides they thought him to be the Messias sent to all Nations and the Lord whom God had made such over all Men and in this they retain'd the fundamental Article of Christianity After this Opinions changed as Pearson before cited has remarked Those says he who wrote just after the purer Ages of the Church borrowed the Sentiments of the Pagans and mingled them with the Christian Religion following those Principles of Philosophy which they had imbibed before they embraced the Christian Religion That was the source of the ensuing Evils the Exaltation of our Saviour which had been esteemed the chief point in Christianity as we have seen in the Writings of Polycarp and Clement was no longer regarded as such But his miraculous Birth was the only Article insisted upon The Reason whereof is plainly this that in their Disputes with the Philosophers they did not so much insist upon the High Offices of the Messias as upon the Excellency of his Nature and Person for they wanted a Parallel with the emanated Word of the Philosophers And indeed this miraculous Birth was much more sutable to the Principles of Plato's Philosophy which enter'd into the Christian Religion upon the Conversion of some Learned Men. An holy Spirit coming down from Heaven upon a Virgin and begetting in her that holy Man who from that is stiled the Son of God An Event I say so extraordinary as this was without doubt the most proper thing in all that Gospel to serve for a Foundation of the Platonic Doctrine 't was easy with a little philosophic Dexterity to find in it the second God the begotten Son the Son of God the Word the Mind or Vnderstanding and in one word the whole Train of the Platonic Preexistence Ignatius Justin Martyr and Irenaeus began with an Accommodation of these Terms more or less You may see in their Writings not that naked downright Platonism as one sees in Origen for example and Clemens Alexandrinus but Platonism in disguise which appeared in the Mask of Christian Religion Plato's Logos or Word and the Holy Spirit which overshadowed the Virgin Mary always keep company in their Writings For this Passage in St. Luke The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee c. one shall meet with blended throughout with their starch'd and most affected Speculation The Platonic Opinion did not enter all at once into Christianity which then would have been sensible of the Innovation but crept in by little and little under the Mask of Explication and Illustration Any change in the Christian Religion was not intended hereby but to set it off to the best advantage and make it fit for the 〈◊〉 of the Philosophers And hereupon they went on philosophizing upon a point incontestably Christian viz. upon the Sovereign Power that form'd the Body wherein Jesus dwelt till they quite lost the sight of it The Philosophers could not endure that so plain a Doctrine as that of J. C. should pretend to combat their Notions They always twitted the Christians with the Unskillfulness Coarseness and Ignorance of their Writers The Christians asham'd of this Reproach endeavour'd to obviate it Some coming fresh from the Pagan Schools made a show of their Learning and mingled it with the Christian Doctrine Others applied themselves so well to human Learning to Rhetorick and Philosophy that they excelled and â—iâ—ied the Pagans but at the eâ—pence of the Christian Religion the Simplicity of which they alter'd I say to obviate the Reproach aforesaid they made use of two Expedients first they dressed up suppositions Pieces containing the most subtil and most refin'd Philosophy and publish'd them under the Names of Dionysius the Areopagite Clemens Romanâ—â— and many others To make it appear that the first Preachers of Christianity were not 〈◊〉 illiterate aâ— was supposed this very Observation is made even by Mons Daille and Dr. Cave Yet those sparious Pleces published for the Credit of the pretended Authors among the Pagans under great Names had this effect besides that they adulterated the Christian Religion In the second place those platonizing Doctors 〈…〉 pted the Simplicity of the Gospel by their Allegories and other Helps to Contemplation to heighten the Christian Doctrine by sublime Terms and profound Notions Thus by the force of a philosophic Management of the Doctrine of the Generation of the Son of God by the Operation of the Holy Spirit this Point at last was changed into that of a Generation of Plato's Word or
and of Spirit begotten and unbegotten made a God in the Flesh the true Life in Death born of Mary and of God This Father arguing against the Josephites does not oppose to their Error the eternal Generation of the Son of God but his Birth of a Virgin by the Holy Spirit I would say he does not speak of a God incarnate but of a Man who was made God in the Flesh that is to say who was born a God or made a God by his Birth because he was born of God and of the Virgin Mary In this Sense Ignatius assures us that our Physician is partly Flesh and partly Spirit since by his wonderful Conception he partook equally of the fleshly or Human and of the Spiritual and Divine Nature He adds this Physician is begotten and unbegotten since he was begotten of a Woman like other Men and at the same time unbegotten having no Man for his Father Lastly he says that this Physician was born of the Virgin Mary and of God which explains all the rest for 't is as much as to say that he was born of the Virgin Mary by the Power of the Spirit of God and not by her Intercourse with Joseph This word God as you may see being there manifestly oppos'd to Man or to Joseph Jesus Christ our God as Ignatius further says in the same Epistle was conceived of the Virgin Mary according to the Divine Dispensation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in truth of the Seed of David but by the intervention of the Holy Spirit Where one sees the same Antithesis continued which we observ'd in the foregoing Passage that is between God and Mary and between the Seed of David and the Power of the Spirit The true Oeconomy according to Ignatius is not the Incarnation of the Supreme God but the miraculous Conception of the Messiah who is both God and Man by his Birth of a Woman by the Power of God This is a Physician who was made God in the Flesh being born of the Virgin Mary and of God of David and of the Holy Spirit This is the true Divine Dispensation this is the great Mystery of the Christians The same Author in his Epistle to the Church of Smirna presents us with another Passage sutable to this occasion For thus he speaks of Jesus Christ That he was truly of the Race of David or the Son of David according to the Flesh but the Son of God according to the Will and Power of God in that he was truly born of a Virgin Monsieur Daillé having mark'd out this Passage of Ignatius as Heretical since he makes the Generation of the Son to depend on the Will and Power of the Father Bp Pearson gives this account of it in his Vindic. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 9. That 't is clear this Father does not speak of the Eternal Generation of the Son but of his Incarnation which as the World owns was by the Will and Power of God For which reason adds Pearson the Interpolator having a mind to pervert these Words by applying 'em to the Divine Nature he was forc'd to change their Order 'T is sufficient that this Learned Person affirms that in this Passage there 's nothing of an eternal Generation and that Ignatius speaks not but of Jesus Christ in allusion to the Words of the Angel The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee c. Wherefore that which c. shall be called the Son of God 'T is enough that he owns this Conception was so wonderful as to intitle Jesus Christ to the Name and Dignity of the Son of God As for the word Incarnation which Ignatius does not use we 'll excuse it in Pearson 't is a Term of art unknown to the good Father and signifies in the Platonizing Divinity that the Supreme God was made Man And if it be certain that Ignatius did not speak in this Passage but of the miraculous Conception of Jesus Christ can it be doubted whether he discours'd upon that same Subject and by no means on the eternal Generation in the two other Passages I am about to cite and which are very like to this here In the mean time Dr. Bull has the rashness to produce them for a Proof of that which he calls the two Natures of our Saviour that is that of a Supreme God and that of a Man like one of us in his Judic Eccles p. 5 seq Who would not wonder at the Artifice of Divines who have the Skill to pervert these Passages to serve their Notion of the Eternal-Generation We can furthermore shew you the Footsteps of this plain antient Divinity in other of the Fathers who Platonize more than Ignatius as in Justin and Irenaeus But we shall have another opportunity of examining the Theology of those two Fathers at present the Passage in Ignatius will suffice whereby to judg of the rest The only Reflection that remains is that Ignatius having so often distinguish'd between the Son born of God and of Mary and the Son born of David and the Holy Spirit 't is upon this Foundation that the distinction of the two Natures in Christ is founded in the true sense of it or if you please his twofold Filiation the one Divine the other Human. He is the Son of God says the Author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox Quest 66. in that he was born of the Holy Spirit and the Son of Joseph in that he was born of Joseph's Wife 'T is in this the Mystery consists He was born of Joseph's Wife this is but a legal Filiation with regard to Joseph and he was born of the Spirit of God this is a proper and natural Filiation with respect to God So that in this last respect it may be said that he is truly Light of Light and God of God I have already said it and I 'll repeat it again The Fathers thought that the Holy Spirit which overshadowed the Virgin Mary in some sort united it self to the Flesh of Jesus Christ so as never to be separated from it and 't is upon this perpetual Inhabitation that they have philosophized in their manner upon the two Natures of our Saviour Grotius aim'd at this Theology in one of his Notes upon Colos 1.19 The Plenitude of Divine Vertues says he dwelt in Jesus Christ that is to say 't was perpetually and inseparably united and not by intervals as in the Prophets This is what 's called the Hypostatick Vnion This in effect is the personal Union of the Divine with the Human Nature even this Shekinah or this perpetual Inhabitation of the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ To go farther in quest of other Mysteries betrays a Vanity of Mind The Fathers compriz'd all in what I have said and upon it they built those profound Speculations with which their Books are fill'd If at some times they went farther and spoke of the Word in a manner not agreeable with the ground I have laid down 't is
because they have suffer'd themselves to be surpriz'd and their eyes to be dazled with cheir Platonick Philosophy The Wonderful and the Sublime are very tempting Schemes These Platonists are a sort of Philosophers or rather of Divines who have made a Voyage to the World of Ideas and some Christians are so weak as to swallow all their Visions for Mysteries But let us always remember for the honour of the Fathers that how far soever they wander'd in their large Field of Platonick Contemplation they never advanc'd so far as to equal the Divinity of the Word with that of his Father Origen who is one of them that went farthest never carried his Theology to that extreme Whatever lofty Idea he had of the Son he declares however in his 14th Tome on St. John That the Son was so much below the Father as he and the Holy Spirit were above the most noble Creatures Go we now after this and say that the Fathers held the necessity of believing that the Supreme God was incarnate and that Jesus Christ is that Supreme God Monsieur Huet had good reason to acknowledg upon this Passage of Origen that it could not be excus'd and to attempt to find an Orthodox Sense in it could not be consistent with Sincerity or Honesty CHAP. VII The same Proof continued together with an Examination of the Sense of Antient Creeds thereupon WE have no more to do but to consider the antient Creeds and to compare those which were form'd upon the Apostolick Theology with such as were fram'd according to the Platenick Scheme and we shall find in these latter that the Article of the Generation of the Word and of his Incarnation came in the room of that of the Conception of the Son of God which is found in the former Creeds The universal Church says Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 2. hath received this Faith from the Holy Apostles which is to believe in one God the Father c. and in Jesus Christ his only Son incarnate for our Salvation c. There 's nothing in this Confession of the Faith of the Catholick Church which is not in the very Creed of the Apostles excepting the word Incarnate But 't is clear that it stands in the very place of those other words conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary which are wanting in this Creed of Irenaeus He would say that the Spirit of God united it self to real and not to celestial and aerial Flesh as some Hereticks imagin'd The turn is somewhat Platonizing but after all he did not intend to advance any thing but the antient Doctrine since he disputes against those men who held that Jesus Christ was pure Spirit clothed with celestial Flesh and he on the other hand supposed that Jesus Christ was a real Man true Flesh animated with a Divine Spirit a Man born of a Virgin truly born of the Substance of a Woman altho form'd by the Power of a Spirit Tertullian in one of his Tracts de veland Virg. in initio having given us this plain Rule of Faith which he calls the immutable and unchangeable Rule to this purpose That we must believe in one God alone c. and in his Son Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary c. in another Tract de Praescrip adv Haeres presents you with another Rule of the Platonizing Faith which is to believe that the same Word by which God created the World spoke to the Patriarchs and inspir'd the Prophets coming forth from the Spirit and the Power of the Father it lit upon the Virgin and was made Flesh and wrought in J.C. all sorts of Miracles Had he forgot that the Apostolick Faith is not to be changed or reformed No without doubt he does not pretend to change any thing but only gives the antient Opinion of the Conception of J. C. in Platonick Stile in Philosophick Jargon or to speak better he substitutes an Allegory manag'd with force and violence in the room of this Evangelical Expression born of a Virgin by the Power of the Holy Ghost which is plain and literal This Spirit as Tertullian says being an Emanation from the Spirit and the Power of the Father may be said in a mystick and sublime Sense to be the same Spirit who created the World and inspir'd the Prophets St. Cyril in his Catecheses explains a Creed purely Arian which Dr. Bull pretends to be the antient Creed of Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches I believe it says in One God the Father c. and in One Lord Jesus Christ the only Son of God begotten of the Father before Ages true God by whom all things were made incarnate and made Man c. I said this Creed is Arian for 't is expressed in the same Terms as all the Arian Confessions that are now extant And if the Doctor pretends that 't is Orthodox at the best hand it can pass for no more than the Creed of Constantinople as Monfieur Le Vassor has observed Traité de 〈◊〉 Examen ch 6. p. 226. This Creed of St. Cyril says he is almost the same with that of Constantinople especially in the Article concerning the Holy Spirit If it be true that the Catecheses we have are those which Cyril made in his Youth as St. Jerom reports it this Prelate reviewed and augmented 'em after the Council of Constantinople whose Creed he explains almost word for word In this case it will not be certain that the Article concerning the Church was in the Creed of Jerusalem Cyril might have added it to his Catecheses after the Synod If this Conjecture holds as to the Article of the Church much more will it do so as to the Platonick Word We can but say in this case it will not be certain that the Article concerning a Son begotten before Ages was in the Creed of Jerusalem Cyril might add to his Catecheses after the Synod of Constantinople Let 's join with this Learned Proselyte the famous Mons du Pin who in his second Tom. of his Bibliotheque p. 413. inunuates the Novelty of Cyril's Creed upon this account 1. That it has the Article of Life Everlasting which is not in all the antient Creeds And in his 1 Tom. Paris Edit p. 30. he says that Cyril in his Catecheses makes a particular Creed which the Church of Jerusalem us'd at the time that this Father wrote his Catecheses That those who have made Commentaries upon the Creed have omitted among others these Words Life everlasting And that St. Jerom observes in his Letter to Pammachius that the Creed ended with these Words The Resurrection of the Flesh These Words of du Pin are remarkable He says Cyril made a Creed which was peculiar to him and that it cannot be ascribed to the Church of Jerusalem till the time when this Father wrote For 't is certain that this is the sense of their Words in an Author that professes to believe that the Creed is not antient But however
Testimony Every one frames for himself an Idea of sound Doctrine according to his particular Judgment of things Supposing therefore that this antient Author believed as the Orthodox Doctrine of his time was that J. C. was not the Son of Joseph and Mary and supposing on the other side there was none other Theology of his Birth than this that he was the Son of God by the Virgin Mary Hegesippus might very well say the Nazarene Bishops were sound in their Doctrine of the Person of J. C. without any ground for concluding thence that they held the Platonic Faith and were of Eusebius his Judgment 'T is enough that they were not engaged in the Error of the Ebionites because they were Orthodox To explain this by an example let 's suppose that Eusebius had said of some Arian Eishop that his Faith was sound as to the Person of J.C. could the Doctor and his Friends thence conclude that this Bishop believed the Consubstantiality and Equality of the Father and the Son By no means All they could hence infer is that the Bishop believed the Platonic Pre-existence which was the true Faith according to Eusebius who believed neither the Consubstantiality nor the Equality c. We ought to reason in the same manner from the Words of Hegâ—sippus who held that for a sound Faith which Eusebius would have called impious if he had known it as the Doctor would that which Eusebius thought sound Who does not know that those very Persons who held the Orthodox Faith of the first Ages I mean that of the miraculous Birth of our Saviour were accounted impious in the time of Eusebius Because they would not receive the Notion of the Platonic Word and the modish Philosophy of an Eternal Generation that was rashly superinduced or brought in the room of a plain Doctrine of a Generation in time of Mary by the Holy Ghost that is of a Woman by the Power of God But from the beginning it was not so they had another Theology for the better Demonstration of which I shall shew in the following Chapter that CHAP. X. The Word and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Antients were but one and the same thing I Shall lastly consider that the Word among the Antients and the Holy Ghost in the Evangelists are but one and the same thing and that the Platonizing Writers themselves led by an antient Tradition the Footsteps whereof remain'd a long time have confounded these two Terms having often used 'em in one and the same Signification An evident Proof that the Philosophy of the Platonic Word owes its Birth to Allegories made upon that Divine Power which overshadowed the Blessed Virgin which Power may be indifferently call'd the Holy Ghost or the Word But as the latter Term is more agreeable to the Doctrine of Plato so 't is more frequently used So that at last this Conformity of Terms brought the Platonic Fathers to a conformity in Doctrine with Plato that is to say they fell into two Errors directly opposite to the Doctrine of the Gospel One in that they have made of a Power or a mere Operation an Hypostasis the other in that they have made two Hypostases of the Word and the Holy Ghost which at the bottom are but two diverse Operations Where therefore they made two Hypostases of these two Operations they follow'd their own Philosophy but when they confounded these Operations they built without question upon this Passage of David which says The Heavens were made by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth where the Word and Breath of the Lord are put together as things inseparable which differ not in effect only in this that the Breath is the Substance of the Word and the Word is the Operation of the Spirit to use the Words of Tertullian adv Prax. I shall pass over Hermas who in his 5th 9th Similitudes says That the Holy Ghost is the Son of God I have already shewn that he speaks thus but in parable for which reason his Testimony would be of no use but to serve for an Illusion And I shall say nothing more of Ignatius who salutes the Church at Smyrna in the Inscription of his Epistle with these Words The Holy Spirit which is the Word of God as if he had said by or thro him who is the Holy Ghost or the Word of God This Passage is not very exact or clear so as to perceive the meaning of the Author and to be able to draw from it a convincing Proof Les us begin therefore with Justin Martyr He in his 2d Apol. p. 74 c. having stil'd Jesus Christ the first and principal Power the Son and the Word who had not his Birth from Man but by the Power of God he comes afterwards to examine the Passage in St. Luke The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall over shadow thee c. By the Holy Ghost or Spirit says he and the Power which came from God we ought to understand nothing but the Word which is the first-born of God And for the better understanding what Word he is speaking of he adds all in one Breath That 't is the Spirit which inspir'd the Prophets and which spake in the Person of a Prophet or in the Person of the Father or in the Person of Christ or in the Person of the People Here 's no difficulty either he has said nothing or he has formally said that the Holy Ghost which inspir'd the Prophets and the Power of the most High of which St. Luke speaks and the Word in St. John are all but one and the same thing After a Testimony so express I have no need to heap up other Passages out of the Writings of this Father wherein we may in part discover the same truth As when in his Dialogue with Trypho P. 327. he makes an Opposition between the Word of the Serpent by which Eve conceived and the Word of God by which the Blessed Virgin did conceive These are rather flights of Fancy and starts of Wit in a Preacher than an Exposition of the Christian Faith Only I would have it observ'd how in his 5th Book P. 284. he collects all the Qualities and all the Names which were usually given to the Word and to the Spirit that he may apply 'em to Jesus Christ First says â—he God â—eâ—â—t before all the Creatures a 〈◊〉 â—â—sonable Power which is sometimes called the Spirit the Glory of the Lord sometimes the Son sometimes the Wisdom sometimes an Angel sometimes God sometimes the Lord and the Word For all these Names are given to him either because he is the Minister of the Designs or Purposes of the Father or because he was begotten by his Will All this has much of the air of a theological Allegory by which one would express that Spirit and that Power of God which he imploy'd to execute his Counsels and
which comes not from his Vnderstanding by a necessary Emanation but by his Will by a free Operation That Power I say which may be called his Word or his Spirit according to the different respects wherein one considers it I will produce another Proof of this important Truth from Theophilus Antiochenus in his 2d Book to Autolycus Who says he speaking of the Word being the Spirit of God the Beginning the Wisdom the Power of the Highest came down into the Prophets by whom he spake What could he say more formal to make us understand that he took for one and the same thing the Spirit of God his Word his Wisdom and his Power His meaning cannot be mistaken when one considers that the Spirit and the Word whereof he speaks is the same that inspir'd the Prophets Words that very well agree with those of Justin which I now come to examine These two Fathers understood by the Word nothing but that prophetick Spirit the fulness whereof dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ and that St. Paul calls the fulness of the Godhead This is in effect the Explication that the Author of the Homilies ascrib'd to Origen has given in Diversos Homil. 2. St. Paul says he calls the fulness of the Godhead those mystick Senses or the truth of those legal Shadows which dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ that is to say truly and really because that he is the Fountain and Fulness of Grace the truth of the antient Symbols and the accomplishment of Prophetick Visions But according to the Fathers Jesus Christ was sill'd with this Prophetick Spirit not only when the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a Dove and that God made him a Prophet but especially when he was conceived by the Power of the Highest and he was as I may say begotten a Prophet that is to say when by virtue of his Generation his Body was formed for the Office of a Prophet And 't is chiefly this last Consideration that is urg'd against the Josephites because this Privilege of his Birth makes us to regard him not only as a Man who was a Prophet but as a Prophet who was also the Son of God But to return to the Passage from Theophilus if it be read thruout one shall find a fine Allegory upon the Word and the Holy Spirit which he calls the Wisdom of God Sometimes he considers 'em as two Divine Emanations proceeding from the Bowels of God and which God us'd as his two Hands or two Ministers by whom he created the World And sometimes he makes 'em but one Operation and so both are the Spirit and the Word the Wisdom and the Power of God c. Why so If not because that this Spirit takes divers Names either for the diversity of its Prolation or for its different Operations For the Word is the Spirit or Breath prolated with a Sound and a Voice and the Spirit is a Word brought forth tacitely and in silence the one with the other without sound One acts inwardly in a hidden and secret manner and the other outwardly and openly 'T is thus the Fathers speak In my opinion 't is idle to look for any exactness in these sort of allegorical Discourses which are loose and where the Fancy taking its swing drives on in full Career Irendus one of those Fathers who was obliged to urge the miraculous Conception of our Saviour against the Epionites confounded the Holy Ghost with the Word These Hereticks would not own says Ireraeus lib. 5. cap. 1. the Vnion of God with Man Why Because says he they believed the Lord Jesus to be a mere Man How a mere Man Because they believed him to be the Son of Joseph and Mary like other Men and not of a Virgin by the Operation of the Holy Ghost What says the Holy Father to this He laments that they would not consider how in the first Creation the Breath of God uniting it self to the Body of Adam animated the Man and made him a reasonable Creature So in the New Creation the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God being united to the old Substance of Adam hath form'd a living and perfect Man who contains in himself the perfect Father Dr. Bull in his Judic Eccles p. 10. having cited this Passage takes no notice of these words who contains in himself the perfect Father it may be because Irenaeus seems to say that 't was the Father who was incarnate or as 't is more probable because these Words expresly demonstrate that by the Word Irenaeus understood nothing but the very Power of God The living Man of whom he speaks containing in himself the perfect Father only because he was filled with God's Spirit and God's Word which were united to the Man But whatever he himself thought this is a truth that one perceives at first in reading the Text of Irenaeus 'T is at least most evident that he confounds the Spirit of God with the Word of the Father as one and the same Power which formed the New Adam and that he opposes it to the Divine Breath and Spirit of God which animated the first Adam His only aim being to oppose the Ebionites who denied that the Spirit of God interven'd in the Conception of Jesus Christ His only concern is also to establish firmly this miraculous Conception and to make 'em regard Jesus Christ as the most perfect Man whom the Father who is perfect had miraculously begotten by his Word and by his Spirit in the same manner as by the means of his Almighty Word he animated the first Man with the Breath of Life To make Irenaeus his Conception of the Word the same with the Moderns is to see and not perceive In short by reading his Text alone one shall be convinced that in his stating the Divinity of Jesus Christ he goes no farther than his miraculous Conception by the Holy Ghost He not only confounds the Word with the Spirit but calls the Word the Descent of the Holy Spirit into the Womb of Mary He calls it I say the Union and Mixture of God with Man He says the Father wrought at the Incarnation of his Son or at the new Generation with the same Hands excuse his Phrase as he did at the Generation of the Old Adam If we ask him what he means by Hands in this place he tells you in his 4th Book 37 Chap. that he understands thereby the Word of God his Son his Wisdom and his Spirit He means that powerful Command which God us'd in the Creation of things which is called his Spirit forasmuch as it is in God and is in a manner his Soul and which is also call'd his Word and his Son in regard that it came from his Mouth to form the Creation it was in a manner begotten That is to say by the same manner of speaking that the Wisdom and the Power of God are called his Hands by the same they are called his Son his Word
and his Spirit And further to make it clearer that this Father always confounds the Holy Ghost with the Word I must observe that in the last Passage I am about to cite he applies to the Holy Ghost the same Words of Solomon which are ordinarily applied to the Son The Word says he who is the Son was always with the Father and because the Wisdom which is the Holy Ghost was also with God before the Creation it speaks thus by Solomon God hath founded the Earth by his Wisdom c. and again The Lord created me c. There is therefore but One God who hath made all things by his Wisdom and by his Word CHAP. XI A Continuation of the same Proofs that the Antients understood by the Word and the Holy Ghost one and the same thing BUT after all you will say Irenaeus makes an express distinction between the Word and the Spirit I answer Yes But David makes the same distinction too and from him I believe the Fathers borrowed theirs The Heavens says he were formed by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth By the way who will be so weak as to affirm that he did not mean by these two words the same Power of God as if the Word was not the Breath of his Mouth and the Breath of his Mouth the Word Can one forbear smiling when one sees our Divines put David in the number of the Trinitarians In fine Irenaeus extols the Generation of the son of God by the Operation of the Holy Ghost as infinitely more excellent than the Generation of the first Man which was by breathing Life into him or by the Divine Breath Irenaeus affirms it but Dr. Bull denies it maintaining that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God by virtue of his miraculous Conception in a manner more excellent than Adam was by virtue of his immediate Generation or Formation by God's own hand Let us suppose it as the Doctor would have it yet after all he must agree that this Holy Father carries the Parallel that he makes between the first and second Adam no further than their Generation which was equally extraordinary in both This appears in the 31st Chapter of his 3d Book If the first Adam says he had his Being from a Man it might be said with some shew of reason that 't is the same as to the second Adam and that Joseph was his Father But if it be true on the contrary that the first was form'd out of the Earth by the Word of God must not the same Word acting with the same Power as he did at the Formation of Adam carry a resemblance of the same Generation Let this Comparison be a little minded it contains this clearly that God did no more in the Generation of the second Adam in whom he would dwell than in that of the first Adam that Adam and Jesus Christ are the immediate Production of this Word Consequently there 's no more reason to infer the hypostatick Union of the Word with Jesus Christ than with Adam this Word being as you see nothing but the Power of God which having immediately formed the first Man did also form Jesus Christ after the same primitive manner of Generation All the difference is that God was pleas'd to dwell in the latter after an extraordinary manner Let 's see in the next place what Tertullian has to say He was a great Platonist but that Party does not always strictly observe the Rules of Platonism They have their lucid Intervals wherein some Remains of the antient Tradition drop from their Pens Whenever they philosophize according to the humour of that Faction they are to be suspected 't is the effect of their Prejudices but when they happen to speak to the disadvantage of their own Hypotheses what is it that could oblige them to it but the Power of Truth alone Tertullian therefore at the end of his Discourse against Praxeas sisting this matter of the Nature of the Word and the Holy Ghost to the bottom speaks of 'em as one and the same Power 'T is worth while to read the whole throughout but I shall content my self with this following Passage which is decisive and beyond dispute Contra Prax. cap. 26. The Spirit of God i. e. Holy Ghosi shall come upon thee c. By saying the Spirit of God altho the Spirit of God be God nevertheless he not calling it directly God he would have us understand a Part of the Whole which was to attend the Person of the Son and get him the Name that he has This is that Spirit of God which we call the Word also For as when St. John says the Word was made Flesh by the term Word we understand the Spirit so in this Passage we understand the Word under the Name of the Spirit since the Spirit is the Substance of the Word and the Word the Operation of the Spirit and these two are but one For if the Spirit be not the Word and the Word be not the Spirit 't will follow that he of whom St. John says that he was made Flesh will not be the same with him of whom the Angel says that he shall be made Flesh Let us weigh well all these Words By the Spirit Tertullian understands nothing but a Portion of the whole a Beam of the Substance of God as he expresses himself elsewhere because otherwise it would follow according to Praxeas that the Father himself was incarnate He will have it that this Portion makes the Son what he is that is the Son of God He confounds the Spirit with the Word and will have St. Luke and St. John speak the same Language and that the first might have said the Word shall come upon thee and the latter the Holy Ghost was made Flesh since that by the term Holy Ghost the Word must be understood and by the term Word the Holy Ghost and that 't is not likely St. John would speak of one particular Spirit and the Angel of another And more than this he acquaints us what use we ought to make of these two Words which at the bottom signify but the same thing and that is we ought to call this Power Spirit when we would express its Substance and Word when we would express its Operation In short he decides our Question by saying that these two are but one and the same thing that is to say the same Power For the Word says he in his Rule of Faith de Praescript descended from the Spirit and the Power of God into the Womb of the Virgin What does this import viz. the Word descended from the Spirit and the Power of God if not this that the Word is nothing else but an Emanation a Manifestation of the Power which is internal and essential to God And 't is almost in the same sense that Marius Victorin contra Arium lib. 1. states a twofold Power of the Word that is to say a
Platonism Unveil'd OR AN ESSAY Concerning the Notions and Opinions OF PLATO And some Antient and Modern Divines his Followers In relation to the LOGOS or WORD in particular and the Doctrine of the Trinity in general In TWO PARTS Anno Dom. 1700. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER THE Author of this Piece as I may say was stopped in the very middle of his Course he intended to have added a third Part to the two others which were publish'd and in it to have examin'd what Divinity the Holy Scriptures attribute to Jesus Christ He would have confin'd himself to what the four Evangelists acquaint us concerning it and made it appear to the meanest Capacity that the Ideas those Sacred Writers have given us are very wide from such as the Antients put upon 'em and the Moderns have espoused But Death prevented the Execution of this Design and hindered the Publick from reaping the Benefit of it However if this Essay meet with the Approbation it merits the World may be oblig'd with a Dissertation the Author has left upon the Gospel of St. John It may be said of this excellent Man that he was a Person of very great Penetration as well as Piety and that he made the Study of the Holy Scriptures his greatest Entertainment He had nothing in view but a Search after Truth which when he had found he embrac'd it with all his Heart for he was incapable of betraying or disguising it for any secular Interest whatever This plain dealing drew upon him many Enemies but his Patience in a manner overcame all and the firm hopes he had of a better Life after this did always support him under all the Tryals thro which the Calumnies and Malice of his Enemies had forc'd him His Friends have this Comfort however That those very Persecutors could not refuse him when alive nor since his Death the Elogies that his Vertues drew from 'em and according to the Custom of this present Age they took care in his behalf to distinguish the Morals from the Doctrine The Publick will see by what is bere represented to 'em what Judgment ought to be made of the latter THE TRANSLATOR TO THE READER THERE are several Passages in the ensuing Discourse that are very uncommon and extraordinary which if they should happen to be true will be much surprizing to the World And if they are not the Author has to appearance supported them with such Authorities from Antiquity that besides the Importance of the things themselves it will deserve the Pains of some Learned Pen to confute this Discourse to reclaim some who have and others who may imbibe this Author's Opinions ERRATA PAG. 4. Col. 2. Lin. 26. for Love r. Power P. 13. c. 2. l. last save one r. in Isaiah according to the Hebrew P. 21. c. 1. l. 22. r. acquir'd P. 36. c. 1. l. 5. dele of P. 39. c. 1. l. 37. r. dwelt in him P. 42. c. 2. l. 29. r. it was P. 45. c. 1. l. 4. r. World P. 49. c. 2. l. 40. r. contained P. 64. c. 2. l. penult r. however P. 81. c. 1. l. 20. r. herself Platonism Unveil'd c. The FIRST PART CHAP. I. The true Idea of the Logos GOD dwelling in an inaccessible Light where no one can either find or comprehend him was yet willing to reveal himself to his Creatures either by the way of a Manifestation without or by the way of Communication within To manifest himself 1. He environs himself with a supernatural Light whence he causeth his Voice to be heard and declares his Will 'T is thence that he speaks to Angels For being invisible by his Nature even in reference to Angels it is necessary that whenever he is pleas'd to declare his Orders to these Ministring Spirits he should give them some marks of his Presence in some certain Place in the Heavens and make his Will known This Manifestation is so lively and luminous that the Eyes of Men cannot bear the Splendor of it in this mortal Life None but the glorified Spirits may enjoy this Privilege in common with the Angels and which St. Paul calls the seeing of God face to face It is thus without doubt that Jesus Christ beheld him Mr. Le Clerc hath very well observ'd on Exod. 34.18 that Moses who had such frequent Testimonies of the Divine Favour desir'd this as a singular advantage that God who us'd to shew himself in a Cloud would vouchsafe at last to discover to him his Glory in the same manner as he doth in Heaven But this is too much for a Mortal this Glorious Presence is an advantage reserv'd for the Angels as I said before And without doubt it was in such like Splendor that he presented himself before them when he design'd to create the World and pronounc'd these words Let there be Light At least this is the Sentiment of Basil of Seleucia in his first Oration upon these words In the beginning God created c. God said Let there be Light The Voice was heard and the World produc'd But could not he have perform'd what he design'd in silence and without uttering a word Would not the Work have obey'd the least token of his Will Certainly the Heaven and the Earth with the Waters were already produc'd without any preceding Voice But it was not so with the Light the Voice preceded the Production What sort of a Voice is this and what was the cause of it Let us learn to hearken to Scripture even when it is silent and instruct our selves when it speaks Behold here you have it The infinite Companies of Angels that were created saw indeed the things that were a doing but could not perceive their Author nor discover the Cause for the Divine Essence is really even above the Contemplation of Angels 'T is not then without reason that God usher'd in his Voice to make himself sensible to those Celestial Spirits and to stir up their admiration that seeing the Effect follow'd immediately the Word and Command they being astonish'd at the Prodigy should turn themselves wholly to the knowledg of their Creator and celebrate his Praises saying Is there any greater than this God himself teacheth us this Truth in his Discourse with his Servant Job Job 28.7 apud LXX When I made the Stars all the Angels prais'd me with a loud Voice For by reason of their astonishment proceeding from the Greatness of that Spectacle they repeated their Acclamations and redoubled their Applauses at every Work that God was a doing 2. God makes use of the Person of an Angel that bears his Name and speaks by his Authority 'T is thus that he appear'd and spoke to the Patriarchs and this is the reason why Philo calls Angels Words so often The Author of Questions and Answers to the Orthodox speaks thus of this Manifestation All the Angels saith he which appeared unto Men instead and in the Person of God have born the Name of God Men likewise have been call'd
by his own Son This would be to no purpose But if on the contrary we understand by the Word a Divine Manifestation either by an Angel or by his Son the words of Clement will produce an excellent Sense He means therefore of old an Angel was the Word that is to say the Presence and the Oracle of God and this Manifestation being surprizing and illustrious was an Oeconomy of Fear But now a Man like unto us is the Word of God that is to say his Presence and his Oracle and this Manifestation being more adapted to our State becomes a Dispensation of Condescendence and Love So that if these words of Clement The Word was an Angel do signify that God did manifest himself then by Angels these words of St. John the Word was Flesh will signify likewise that God doth now manifest himself to Men by the Flesh or which is all one by a Man This is the best Notion we can have of the Word if we consult the Scriptures without troubling our selves with Platonick Visions Clement had the same Notion and his Words are remarkable since they give us a Definition of the Word and at the same time the true Meaning of it The Word saith he is nothing else but the Face of God by the which he makes himself known Three great Men amongst the Reformers have had the same Notion The first is Bucer who translates thus the words of St. John Et Deus erat Verbum illud conformably to the Syriac Version which hath it thus Deus erat ipsum verbum God was the very Word This Translation doth sufficiently declare the Sentiment of this Divine touching the Word He means that God speaking then without a Medium or the Organ of a Man or the Ministry of an Angel was himself the Word he put forth his Power by himself He explains these words thus I would saith he translate the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Oracle and if it were lawful go off a little from its first Signification and render it the Divine Love and Will Vis illa Numenve The reason is as he adds that we ought not to borrow the Meaning of this Word from the Platonists but of the Hebrews it being the same with their Davar which the Greeks have translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Assertion is sufficient we desire no more let us but understand this Word without the Platonick Notions of Hypostasis a Son begotten before all Ages c. let us hold fast the Notion of the Hebrews who never understood their Davar to be a Person or a Son Justin was the first of the Platonick Fathers that made an Hypostasis of a Power or a Manifestation having alter'd the Ideas of the Scripture by the Prejudices he brought from the School of Plato Bucer observes that the Greeks viz. the Version of the LXX render the word Davar by that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In effect these Interpreters meant nothing else by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only what the Hebrews understood by their Davar 1. That Virtue and Power which God thrust forth that I may so say out of himself when he was about to create the World Verbo Domini Coeli firmati sunt c. And 2. That holy Breathing which animated the Prophets Verbum Domini factum est ad Prophetam Now this twofold Power is found in J. C. both that which created the World and also that which inspir'd the Prophets You see in the very working of his Miracles this Sermo or this Jussus Divinus which said Let there be Light and there was Light His single Word suffic'd he needed not say any more than I will it Say only the word said the Centurion to him and my Servant shall be healed You see moreover by the Unction receiv'd from the Father this Sermo Propheticus by the means whereof he hath declar'd to us the whole Will of God is also to be seen For God who spake at other times to the Fathers by the Prophets hath spoke to us in these last Times by his own Son In these two regards J. C. shews to the Jews that he is the Son of God or the Messiah putting himself into the number of the Gods whom God sanctified and to whom the Word of God came John 10. viz. his Word of Authority and Power and his Word of Revelation and Prophecy 'T is in these two Senses that St. John calls him the Word and to put a Metaphysical Signification upon this Word is a piece of Philosophical Extravagancy Let us come now to Beza the second Interpreter I design to produce on John 1.1 This Author having related the subtile and Metaphysical Thoughts of the Fathers touching the Word 'T is not likely saith he that St. John would speak so subtilly on this Subject we ought rather have regard to the Hebrew than to the Greek Phraseology For altho St. John writ in Greek yet it may be said that in teaching of Divinity and above all in revealing his Mysteries he never departed from the usual ways of speaking used in the Holy Writings and in the Synagogues and such as were understood by the People Now according to him the Jews were wont to call the Messiah the Word as if it were said He of whom God had spoken or whom God had promis'd the blessed Seed whereof God spake so often to the Patriarchs and whom we may call the Word or the Promise of God by way of excellence Unless it be said as he goes on that this Name was given him because he is the only Interpreter of the Father by whom he hath manifested himself to the World But altho this last Interpretation doth not please him so much as the former yet he repeats continually that all the rest of those which the Greek and Latin Divines embrac'd so greedily do in no way agree with the Hebrew Tongue This is manifest and hath no need of Proof If we discard the Ideas of the Greeks and Platonists as Beza pretends that we ought farewel then eternal Emanations and Generations farewel internal Word and Word brought forth farewel Trin-Vnity and Hypostases with all that Theological Jargon which is pretended to be form'd upon the Stile of St. John And if on the contrary we go up to the Source and search into the Stile of the Hebrews themselves what this Evangelist meant the Word will then be only the so often promis'd and so long expected Messiah of whom God spake to the Patriarchs or if you please that Prophet who was to interpret to us the Word of the Father and that King of Glory in whom the whole Power of God was to be manifested Mr. Witsius may also be one of those Interpreters of the Logos of St. John who discards the Platonick Notions He doth not so much as believe that St. John borrow'd this Word from either the Cabala of the Jews or the Chaldee Paraphrasts but from the Sacred Writers And since his Explications
whether it be by an Angel or by an immediate Virtue is the Holy Spirit And all this is call'd the Oeconomy or as Irenaeus saith they are mysterious and extraordinary Dispensations of the Divinity which environ his Majesty to temper its great Splendor and adapt it to our Curiosity For to imagine that this is a second Person of this Divinity as invisible and as infinite as the first would make all the Reasonings of the antient Fathers not only useless but also absurd for they all unanimously declare not only that the Father never makes himself visible but also that he cannot do so It is impossible saith Eusebius Demonstr Evang. lib. 5. cap. 20. That the Eyes of Mortals should ever see the Supreme God to wit him who is above all things and whose Essence is unbegotten and immutable It is absurd and against all reason saith the same Author Hist Eccl. lib. 1. c. 2. that the unbegotten and immutable Nature of Almighty God should take the Form of a Man and that the Scripture should forge such like Falsities God forbid saith Novatian de Trinit cap. 26. that we should say that God the Father is an Angel lest he should be subjected to him whose Angel he were Et ibid. cap. 31. If the Son saith he were as incomprehensible as the Father the Objection of the Hereticks would have some ground that then there are two Gods It is an Impiety say the Fathers of the Council of Antioch Epist adv Paulum Samosat to fancy that that God who is above all things can be called an Angel Lastly otherwise I must transcribe all the Fathers Justin Martyr explains himself on this wise in his Dialogue with Tryphon No body saith he unless he be out of his Wits will dare to advance that the Father and Author of all things did quit the Heavens to cause himself to be seen in a small part of the Earth I thought to have finished but that I can by no means pass by that excellent Passage of Tertullian against Praxeas cap. 16. That he would not believe that the Sovereign God descended into the Womb of a Woman tho even the Scripture it self should say it This Father being persuaded by Reason and Philosophy that the supreme God is immense immutable and invisible demands how it could come to pass that the Almighty God whose Throne is the Heaven and the Earth his Footstool that this most high God should walk in the terrestrial Paradise should converse with Abraham should call to Moses out of a Bush c. and what is yet worse that he should descend according to Praxeas into the Womb of Mary that he should be impeached before Pilate and be shut up in the Sepulcher of Joseph He goes on Really one would not believe this concerning the Son if the Scripture did not speak it and perhaps would not believe it of the Father tho even the Scripture should say it How so would he mistrust the Scripture No he means only that he should mistrust the literal sense and search there for an Allegory Consequently then all these Fathers own that the Word by which the Father makes himself visible is not of a Nature incapable of causing it self to be seen but something sensible which represents God to us It matters not whether they conceive by it an Hypostasis a Spirit an intelligent Being or any other kind of Representation in a bright Cloud animated with a Voice This will always remain true that they did not understand the Word to be a Spirit equal to the Father as invisible by its Nature as the Father but only a certain Emanation where God produceth himself outwardly and discovers himself in a sensible manner And tho they might have sometimes spoken of the Word as of something invisible they meant not by this that it was invisible by its Nature but only that it was not visible to Men out of the time of its Oeconomy retiring it self from their Presence and becoming as it were hid in God Sometimes they would denote by it even the Energy and the Power of God wherewith his Manifestation is always accompanied but never a second Hypostasis in the Divine Nature For we must observe here sincerely once for all that the Word if you consider it only in its Energy is no other thing but God himself but when it is consider'd as it is a Mark of the Divine Presence then it is something sensible a Voice a Light or some external Form such like as was seen in Angels or in the Man J. C. our Lord. CHAP. II. The Antients believed that the Word was Corporeal WHerefore the Antients attributed a Body to the Word as Servetus very well observed Apolog. ad Philip Melanct. and so Tertullian speaks in his Book of the Flesh of Jesus Christ against Praxeas chap. 7. where he proves at large that when God uttered his Word he gave it a Body indeed not a Body of Flesh but an Hypostasis that is Solidity and Substance which is the true Signification of the Word That 's probably what he means when in chap. 6. of the Book of the Flesh of Christ he assures that Jesus Christ appeared to Abraham with Flesh which was not yet born non nata adhuc that is to say not indeed with such Flesh as ours but with a solid Body which had more than appearance A Body I say which he in the 8th Chapter calls the Seed of God from which as from a Heavenly Seed the Messiah was to be born and this Seed is the Holy Ghost or the Substance of the Word which insinuated it self into it Thence the antient Docetes and all the other Hereticks who held the pre-existence of the Word suppos'd that the Word did not take true Flesh of Mary but that he contented himself with the Celestial and Etherial Body which he formerly bore in the Apparitions of the Old Testament which had no more than the Appearance and Figure of a Man which the Scripture calls the Face of God Mons le Moyne did not understand the thing otherwise in his Varia sacra p. 415. The Docetes says he compared the Apparitions of Jesus Christ to the Apparitions of the Old Testament which having been in Etherial Bodies for certain times vanished into the Air as soon as the Dispensation was finish'd imagining that the Body of Jesus Christ was not of any other Nature And it is in the same sense that Cerinthus and Ebion suppos'd that Jesus Christ had not taken true Flesh as St. Jerom assures in the Preface to his Commentary on St. Matthew As Cerinthus held Iren l. 1. c. 25. Epiph. Haeres 28. That the World had been created by a Power he also maintain'd that Jesus who was begotten of the Seed of Joseph and Mary was the Son of the Creator As to the Christ or the Word he made him the Son of another Power superiour to the Creator and attributed to him a Celestial Body which he had always kept without
said And indeed on the least Application in considering the Existence of this Universe it s well contriv'd Disposal its Parts so exactly adjusted to each other its admirable Order its regular Motion its Vastness Form Laws and Proportions its Corruptions and Productions its Duration Stability and Variety and in a word all the Wonders wherewith it is filled one must necessarily conclude the Meditation in confessing that immense Goodness gave Birth to the Design of it that profound Wisdom fram'd its Model and Figure that Infinite Power executed so great a Project and that these three Properties together preserve it and give Motion to all its Springs This Philosophy was not unknown to Caelius Rhodoginus as he expresses himself clearly enough on it in his Preface to his 1st Book Lection antiq The Heavens says he relate God's Glory c. It is certainly so the Greatness of so exquisite a Work its Strength and Motion do well shew the astonishing Power of its Maker Its Oeconomy and so well contriv'd Disposal publish his Wisdom and we discover Infinite Goodness in its Usefulness and Advantages Wherefore the Divine Platonistâ— rever'd this Universe as the most August Representation of the most High God Thâ—sius in his Notes on Lactanius de Opific c. â— did also penetrate to the prime source of this good Philosophy consisting in a Trinity of Principles God says he created this beautful World and has adorn'd it with a thousand Wonders to the end that the Mind of Man contemplating so amazing a Work might admit the Wisdom Goodness and Power of the great Maker of it So Minutius Felix reasons in his Octavius Observe says he all things which have Being God makes them to be by his Word disposes them by his Reason and brings them to their Perfection by his Power Good Philosophy went directly to a Trinity which may be known by the Light of Nature Some difference will be seen in the manner of expressing but in the main 't is always the same Truth Plato saw this great Truth Some others had seen it before him tho not so distinctly However they all saw it not only by way of the Cabala and Tradition as is now pretended but as a natural Thing and as a Truth which was owing to their diligent Search and Enquiry A modern Author hath with much Reason acknowledged Graverol in his Moses vindicatus p. 89. That all that is said of the Origin of Philosophy among the Egyptians Chaldeans and Grecians is a most uncertain Tradition and his Opinion is that 't was the Fruit of their Study and Experience What he says of Philosophy in general is yet in particular more true of this part of it which treats of the three Principles whereof we have been speaking It is by their long Searches into the Origin of the World and not by Tradition at least by a very uncertain and confus'd Tradition that they attain'd to the Knowledg of these three Principles Goodness Wisdom and Power CHAP. VI. A Digression concerning Socrates's Genius THose are the invisible Excellencies which are discover'd in the visible Works of the Creation and a natural Philosophy which does not depend on Tradition but on Contemplation and Study Socrates did not take any other Method to find the Truth as Apuleus relates after Plato de Deo Socratis Socrates says he being inspir'd by his Genius has assur'd us that he heard a Celestial Voice These Words rightly understood prove what I have been asserting For I don't think this Celestial Voice can signify either the Chaldeans Cabal or any particular Revelation He must be little skill'd in the Allegorical Philosophy of those Times who does not see that by these Words Genius Demon Celestial Voice was meant nothing more than that Socrates by the force of his own Genius and Reason which he always consulted had apprehended this Divine Language of Nature which declares a Creator to us Reason duly consulted and Nature well understood are the Oracle of wise Men Reason says Heraclides Ponticus explaining Homer's Allegories Reason is a Demon which God hath planted in the superiour part of the Body to inspire us with truly Celestial Inclinations The Author who gives us the Life of Socrates in French having mention'd the several Opinions of those who literally believ'd that Socrates had a familiar Demon adds That some others suppos'd that this Genius was only his natural Judgment or his Soul that 't was that which he called his Demon according to the manner of speaking us'd by Philosophers who sometimes gave that Name to that Divine Part of Man which guides and governs him This Doubt adds he is also propos'd by Plutarch in the first Question concerning Plato where speaking of Socrates he says Did he not give the Name of God to his own Nature Thereon quoting the Opinions of Menander Heraclitus and Xenocrates who say that every ones Soul is his God or a Demon. A Friend of Socrates having gone down to Trophonius his Cave on purpose to know from the Oracle what the Demon of Socrates was brought no other Answer thence than that the superiour Part of our Soul which is not overpower'd by our Passions is by the vulgar call'd Vnderstanding but that those who speak better call it a Demon. Another Oracle answer'd Socrates's Father That he should let his Son do whatever came into his Mind without thwarting his natural Inclination because he had in him a Guide and Director more worth than ten thousand Masters As to the Voice which he heard 't is a manner of speaking like the Phrase we daily use my Mind tells me because there is nothing more natural than ascribing Speech and a Voice to that secret Motion of the Soul from which as from a faithful Voice we receive so many Counsels and Informations Whereto add his Prudence solid Judgment and great Experience in the things of the World For why might not such a piercing Mind as his exercis'd by long Study in Philosophy and by attentive Observation of the Manners and Affairs of Men which might have requir'd an extraordinary Facility of Reasoning on all sorts of Circumstances Why I say might he not have seen clearer than others and have discover'd things which are most commonly hid from vulgar Understandings By this Discourse of Monsieur Charpentier it appears that Philosophers have a Mysterious and Theological Language distinct from that of the Vulgar and that we must not suffer our selves to be so deceiv'd by their pompous Words as to make a venerable Mystery of a mere Allegory It is what Father Simon did not omit observing Crit. Hist of the New Testament p. 95. The Platonists says he who have often express'd themselves more like Divines than Philosophers meant nothing more by the Demon or God of Socrates than Reason The Author of the Critical Moral and Historical Reflections is also of this Opinion p. 66. Socrates says he was so wise that foreseeing all things it was believed that he had a familiar Demon
Fevers almost as the Superstitious use some Words of the beginning of St. John's Gospel which they hang about the Patient's Neck as I my self have seen Now in as much as the Basilidians pass for the first Authors among Christians of the Discipline of the Secret and of the Platonick Trinity it is very likely that they design'd to hide it under this Allegorical and Symbolical Name But it is also possible that this Name contains only the Gospel-Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost whereon they allegoriz'd extravagantly according to the Custom of that Time By this Essay which we have been making it sufficiently appears that we could give a rational Meaning to the other Orders of the Aeons wherewith the Gnosticks did also enlarge their System With a little labour in taking off the Veil of Allegory which covers the hidden Meaning of this mysterious Theology one might easily enough discover that the true aim of these Christian Philosophers was to set off the lowness of the Gospel by the suppos'd depths of their Mysteries But we 'll go no farther on this Article The Sample given is sufficient But if any one desires proof of this our Explication of Valentin's Aeons that he conceiv'd them only as the several Affections of the Divine Understanding or as so many Dispensations of Providence let him but consult Chap. 12. of Danaeus de Haeresib To be brief we 'll here quote only the famous Pearson Vindic. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 5. Valentin says he made an open Profession of believing but one God and tho Tertullian asserts somewhat Rhetorically that this Heretick believ'd as many Gods as he number'd Aeons that Father himself did nevertheless own that Valentin's Aeons were nothing else but the Divine Propertys and Affections whereof his Disciples afterwards made Personal Substances Gallasius had before Pearson observ'd the same thing in Annotat. in lib. 1. Irenaei for he recites the Words of Tertullian Ptolomy says that Father follow'd Valentin's Doctrine only he made Personal Substances subsisting distinctly from God of what Valentin had consider'd only as Affections and Ideas internal and intimate to the Godhead Irenaeus also informs us that by these Aeons Valentin understood only certain Dispositions and Powers of the most High God Summi Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tantum quasdam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he clearly explains in his L. 1. c. 6. where he relates the System of the discreet Valentinians When say they the Supreme God would produce any thing he was in that respect call'd Father but because his Productions are true he was at the same time called the Truth and then when he would produce and manifest himself he was called the Mun. The Man by speaking begat the Word which is the first-born Son All which shews that Allegory being undetermin'd every one took it the way which best pleas'd him But however it appears that they all agree that these Aeons are nothing else but God's several Affections or Dispensations What 's peculiar in this last Hypothesis is that Man which signifies God manifesting himself utters the Word his First-born Which yet has a good Sense according to Mark the Valentinian who in Chap. 10. of the same Book says That God to give a visible Form to the invisible Grandures which are in him utter'd his Word like himself Understanding by the Word only the visible Form which God takes to manifest himself in So our Quakers understand no more by the Word than the Goodness of the Supreme God manifesting himself to Men. This was the Opinion of the Sabellians who by the Christ did not any way understand a Man but only Divine Clemency and Heavenly Aid manifesting it self to Men in the Work of Redemption It may perhaps also have been the Opinion of Clemens Alexandrinus who as we have already seen calls the Word the most manifest Goodness of God That of Origen and of many other Allegorists does not at all differ from it since they did not so much believe in the Son of Mary as in their Theologiz'd Son as they speak much slighting Faith and the sensible Gospel as we shall shew hereafter and valuing only Contemplation This Platonick Fanaticism has Cerinthus for its Author who carefully distinguish'd Jesus the Son of Mary from this Christ or this Celestial Aid which came to enlighten and guide Men and it is now adopted by Father Malebranche Dr. More and Mr. Norris This last is a right Platonick Fanatick who has brought disorder and confusion into both the Speculative part of Religion and the Duties of Christian Piety His several Treatises of Doctrine and of Morality shew that the Dreams of a contemplative Man are capable of converting the most sensible Lights of Reason and Revelation into Smoak Can we forbear judging of what he has written of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato as we judg of what he has written concerning the Love of God which he makes to consist in such refin'd Contemplations and Enthusiasms as render Gospel-Morality tho of it self so plain and natural wholly impracticable Fanaticism all over And if we see it in the Morality of these Visionaries why do we not perceive that their strain'd Platonism is no less the fruit of Mystical Theology The Fathers were right Quakers in their System of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if we will not be Quakers in point of Morality let us keep close to our Principles and neither be so in the Doctrine of the Word and such other speculative Points as have been render'd incomprehensible by too much refining of them If I may say what I think this Gallimaufry about the Divine Word which is defin'd see the Treatise intitul'd Reason and Religion An intelligible World Archetype and Ideal or even the Essence of God as far as it is variously imitable variously exhibitive and representative of all things which exist This Cant I say is suspected by me and I am tempted to believe that under these specious Names nothing more is given us than a fair System of my Understanding with its Reason and Ideas or to speak better its universal and unchangeable Natures which the Philosophers call'd the Reality and Truth of things and whereof they made even the Essence of God Yea I dare venture to say that 't is Deism or Atheism disguis'd The Accusation is heinous and requires Proofs of the utmost evidence Well and we shall produce them Read and weigh these Words ubi supra p. 209. that Author says The Idea of a Triangle has a determinate and immutable Nature such as it is not in my power to make the least alteration in which is a certain Proof that it is not of my making for then it would be arbitrary and I might change it as I pleas'd but that it is an absolute Nature distinct from and independant of my Understanding And to say the truth it is nothing else than the Essence of God himself modify'd and as it is exhibitive and imitable
a Million Dr. Bull himself owns some of them concerning the Holy Ghost how many would there be if we should collect those which they have misapply'd concerning the Word But what do I say That bad Interpreters may nevertheless be good Witnesses of the Faith of their Age Mons le Vassor in his Traité de l'Examen ch 1. p. 10. is not so ready to grant it he denys and I believe he 's in the right That any Advantage can be had from the Testimony of the Antients towards the Decision of the Points now controverted because of the Confusion which arose from their Philosophy Origen and St. Augustin says he have so perplex'd Theology one in the Eastern and the other in the Western Churches where they both had their Disciples and Admirers by endeavouring to adjust Christianity to Philosophy that we meet with a thousand Difficulties in determining what those two Authors and those who have follow'd their Steps really thought on several important points of Religion They give nothing but Allegorical Senses to the Texts of the Holy Scripture their Explications appear so very far distant from what the Sacred Writers meant that one knows not where to begin to disintangle the true Doctrine of the Apostles from the particular Speculations of the greatest part of those to whom we are sent as to irreproachable Witnesses of what was believ'd in their time If it be so I don't see that Justin and Irenaeus can be better Interpreters of the Scripture than Origen and St. Augustin they were not less corrupted by Philosophy nor less confus'd and perplex'd and consequently they cannot be good Witnesses of what was believ'd in their Time For how is it possible to distinguish the sound Doctrine of the Apostles in their Writings from their Platonick Speculations Let us therefore without hesitation rank all these fine contemplative Men as well Antient as Modern in the order of the Gnosticks and return to treat of them Lastly Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. l. 5. p. 587. Edit Lutet 1629. explaining that Text of St. John The only Son who is in the Bosom of the Father gives us plainly to understand what was the Language of the Valentinians St. John says he having called the invisible and unspeakable Excellencies of the Godhead the Bosom of the Father some have thence taken occasion to name him the Profound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as containing all things in his Bosom and being impenetrable and infinite Novatian reciting the same Text de Trinit c. 26. quotes it twice in the same Chapter thus The Son hath revealed the Bosom of the Father to us Tertullian adv Prax. c. 8. did the same that is in the Valentinian manner That the Son hath revealed to us the impenetrable Depths of the Father Read the 51st Heresy of Epiphanius in the 22d and 28th Chapters where may be distinctly seen that Valentin's Fable of the thirty Aeons was allegorically taken from the Scriptures Some may perhaps wonder that they so dispos'd their Deitys by Couples They therein imitated the Heathens who attributed both Sexes to each of their false Gods Rep. des Lett. Tom. 1. p. 84. But however that be it ought not to seem strange to those who know that they allegoriz'd Sinesius tho a Christian and a Bishop made no scruple to call God Male and Female Hymno 2. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tu Mas tu Femina an Opinion so much blam'd by Lactantius in Orpheus l. 4. c. 8. He calls him also That which brings forth and which is brought forth the Father of himself Son of himself and to conclude Father of the Aeons Valentin himself would not have said more His fourth Hymn is diverting He there sets the whole Trinity to work on the Begetting of the Son particularly the Holy Ghost whom he brings in as a mediating Power to be assistant to the Father and the Son For after having said to the latter I praise you with the Father and with you I praise that other Fruit which the Father could not hinder himself from putting forth when he intended to produce you He speaks to the Holy Ghost thus It is of you I speak secund Wisdom mediating Principal holy Respiration Center of the Father and also Center of the Son you may be called altogether Mother Sister and Daughter you came to the assistance of the Father who could not beget his Son without you obstetricata es abditam radicem For the Father designing to pour himself into the Son that pouring was the Bud of a Third who was a Medium between the Father and the Son You see Poets are not very scrupulous neither were their Imitators the Valentinians any more so than they Synesius was not without Company in expressing himself like the Valentinians If his Hymns are full of these Cabalistick Terms the Profound the Silence the Ineffable c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we find also the same Cant in many other Platonick Fathers Do they speak of the incomprehensible Nature of God you presently see the Profundity and the Silence Are they to say how God passed from that State of Silence to a State of Revelation You shall there see every where this inseparable Pair of Aeons the Internal Word and the Vttered-Word Clemens and Origen expresly distinguish the Word-God from another Word which was made Flesh In short nothing so much resembles the Gnoslick Heresy as Tertullian's two Gods the Rationalis and the Sermonalis the Rational God and the senerous and speaking God One may also range in the same Category the Verbum silens and the Verbum sonans of Marius Victorinus And many other chimerical Ideas of the Antients which tho they would be tolerable in a figurative and allegorical Stile yet become insupportable and worse than Valentine's Aeons by being personaliz'd and made Spirits distinct from the supreme God This is the Case Some Philosophers in endeavouring to avoid the Opinions of the Ebionites thereby fell into so ridiculous an extreme as to reject the God and the Messiah of the Jews They spake ill of the God who had given the Law and pretended Irenaeus l. 1. c. 25. that the Christ was the Son of another superiour God and therefore apply'd themselves to sublime Generations of the Substance of the most High God and to other such extravagant Conceits which the Orthodox greedily embracing out of hatred of the Jews and of Judaizing Hereticks at first they were only mystical senses to set off the Glory of Jesus Christ but afterwards these metaphorical Generations degenerated to real Generations and what had at first been conceiv'd only as Operations and Powers was converted into Hypostases and Personal Substances To conclude as I make no difference between the Jewish Cabals and the Valentinian Pleroma these two Systems are either equally ridiculous if examined according to the strict literal sense or equally rational if you seek in them the concealed sense which lies under the Bark of Allegory For 't was indeed
denied when it is only their irresistible Grace that is rejected which they have been pleas'd to conceit as such Sandius who maintain'd a Word brought forth and stood for the Hypostases yet owns Nucl Hist Eccl. lib. 1. that Marcellus Photinus Sabellius Paul of Samosata and even Ebion who believ'd only an Hypostasis of the Father held notwithstanding that in that Hypostasis alone there were two Energies or Divine Operations to wit the Word and the Holy Spirit and that by these two Operations God created the World and manifested himself in J. C. Petavius acknowledges the same De Trinit lib. 1. c. 13. as to Paul of Samosata and Marcellus Dr. Pearson agrees with him That the last Vind. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 3. believ'd an existent Word in the Hypostasis of the Father and which came forth thence as a single Operation to create the Universe Dr. Bull Judic Eccles c. p. 67. recounting the Opinion of Paul of Samosata attributes to him constantly that he believ'd an efficacious Word descended from Heaven on J. C. And by the Word saith he Paul did not intend that Hypostasis which we call the Son of God but a Power and a Divine Virtue which form'd him in the Virgin and which was closely united to him to work the Miracles he did Neither can it be denied that this was the Opinion of Beryllus Those Expressions of Eusebius that have given so much trouble to the Learned are not difficult to be understood provided you supply them with some Particle and add a word or two as you must sometimes in all other Authors In my opinion Eusebius intends nothing else Lib. 6. c. 33. but that this Bishop maintain'd that the Man J. C. did not pre-exist in another Essence or another Nature that was proper to him before he liv'd among Men And consequently that the Deity which dwelt since he liv'd among Men was not an Hypostasis of his own but the Divinity and Virtue of the Father This is a right Notion the Word is nothing else but a Divine Power distinct from the Son and a Heavenly Wisdom descended on J. C. Beryilus Paul and Marcellus had it perhaps from Ignatius who calls J. C. Epist ad Magnes The Eternal Word that came not forth out of silence i. e. that he was not a Word brought forth and be otten with its proper Hypostasis but the Operation and the essential Virtue of God manifesting himself outwardly For I frankly agree that this Passage of Ignatius which hath given so much trouble to the Abettors of his Epistles is not intended against Valentine but I say it attacks those Platonick Doctors who asserted a Generation of the Word a little before the Beginning of the World and who believ'd that it was brought forth and consequently proceeded out of Silence This was the Opinion of Tertullian and many of the Fathers who preceded him that the Word that was brought forth which they believ'd to be the only that was begotten and the only one that might be call'd the Son did come forth in time of another mute Word which they call'd Reason or Wisdom eternal Tertullian teacheth us positively adv Prax. that before the Word that was brought forth came out of the Wisdom or the Divine Reason God had it in himself in his Thought as a silent Word habebat intra semetipsum tacitè cogitando You cannot express more clearly that the Word brought forth came out of Silence This Opinion no doubt began to glide in at the time of Ignatius who laughs at it and refutes it rejecting this Word brought forth and proceeding out of Silence which receiv'd its Hypostasis a little before the Creation as being a Word merely Flatonick and he admits no other Word to be real but that essential Virtue which was eternally in God which is God himself which created the World and was as it were incorporated in J. C. And this Ignatius's way of speaking that J. C. is the eternal Word is grounded on the Words of St. John that the Word was made Flesh that is to say that the same Virtue which created the World is become the proper Virtue of J. C. in such a manner that you may say rightly that J. C. made the Ages by his Power and consequently by himself for that which is done by my Power is done by my self When therefore the Apostles say that all things â—ere made by J. C. or by the Son their meaning is no other but that they were made by the immense Power of the Father which was in J.C. he becoming that Power that Spirit that Wisdom of the Father because all the Miracles effected by that Power are said to be done by J. C. in whom it resided In this sense Simon Magus call'd himself the great Power of God and boasted that he had made the Ages not that he believ'd himself as the Antients would have it to be a Divine Hypostasis sometimes the Father sometimes the Son and sometimes the Holy Ghost He was not so extravagant but only aping J. C design'd to say that the Divine Power which actuated him was the Power of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost the same Power that created the World J. C. is in the same sense call'd the Power of God 1 Cor. 1.24 We may enforce the Explication we have given of Ignatius his Words by the manner how Irenaeus disputes against the Valentinians Lib. 2. c. 47. seq It is true saith he that in regard to Man he is sometimes silent sometimes speaks sometimes he takes his rest and sometimes acts But it is not so with God who being all Understanding all Reason all Spirit is not liable to such like Changes Meaning that God is always a Reason an internal Word but never a Word brought faith as he explains himself afterwards saying That God being all Reason thinking in him is speaking and speaking nothing else but thinking For his Thought is his Speech and his Speech is his Vnderstanding and this Vnderstanding which comprehends all things is the Father himself Further to make us the better comprehend that he speaks thus against the Word brought forth or begotten he accosts the Valentinians with this smart Raillery The Valentinians saith he speak of the bringing forth and Generation of the Son as if they had assisted the Father at his Birth I shall leave you to consider whether this Raillery spares our Scholasticks He that would be at the pains about it needs only make a Parallel of their System concerning the Generation of the Son with that of the Valentinians and he might soon see whether those Hereticks only were ridiculous herein CHAP. XII Plato speaks but aenigmatically His Word is not that of St. John Several Systems of the Platonists explain'd I Could produce many more Platonists but to be brief I come now to Plato himself See then what Clement of Alexandria saith of him Strom. lib. 5. p. 592. of the Paris Edition When Plato saith that it
Mr. How Amongst the Nominal the Bishop of Salisbury is of one Opinion Dr. Wallis of another Dr. South differs from them both Range them by Hundreds there will not be one that will keep to the precise Point that forms this Chimerical Orthodoxy which is boasted of by every one but attained to by none for they treat one another as Hereticks Here is a large Field for you to scour about and raise a thousand nice Questions in which the most acute can't perceive and to find Heresies in those that have had the Misfortune to displease you Must an overgrown Bishop be depos'd whose See lies convenient for me or a Competitor stopt in his Career I have no more to do but only examine them about these two Points in question if they have not found the indivisible Point precisely and who can do it They are undone I will prove demonstratively that their Opinion is Heretical Impious and Blasphemous I shall call both the East and West to my Aid and what is more I shall have the Pleasure to see three or four hundred Bishops assembled in a General Council who shall unanimously vote for me for the accused is always in the wrong the Thunderbolts and Anathemas shall follow Thus the whole World will be in a Flame for a Trifle Alas the Memory of such a Number of vain Disputes between Nestorius and Eutyches cannot be renewed without making the Christian World to blush But whoever could give us the secret History of all the antient Councils like to that of the Council of Trent would certainly infinitely oblige the Christian World But lastly perhaps the Defender did not perceive my having answer'd his trifling Difficulty before hand let us then make him sensible of it Let us examine the Relish of the Antients and see what Books they have preserved for us what Character they bear and of what Stamp they are I told you already that they have not left us any Father of the Christians of the Circumcision but only some Gentiles brought up in the School of Plato We have indeed a Justin Athenagoras Theophilus Tatian Irenaeus Clement of Alexand Origen Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and some others of the same sort Fathers indeed who breathe nothing but Platonism This is the precious Relick Antiquity has left us It is easy then to draw the consequence What Books hath it destroyed All those that shocked Plato that spake not as Plato We do the Defender Justice if from the Books that Antiquity chose we point out those it rejected He hath then lost his Cause for the Collection we have could not be such by Chance the Caprice of the Times or such like Accidents No it is too uniform Choice presided here at least as to the Character of these Books but Time and the Fate of Libraries may have had a share in the rest I return to my Subject and must observe here that if the Allegories of Barnabas are very evident because they are so frequent and characteriz'd by the Terms of Spirit and Figure which he makes use of to denote them to be so yet this happens not always The Fathers speak them out often so absolutely that it is only the Matter it self that can make us discern them Thus the Allegories of Origen have often deceived his Readers For this Father as Mr. Huet observes it Origen Quaest 14. passing often from the Explication of the Letter to a Spiritual Sense imperceptibly his Readers took his Allegories for Dogmatical Assertions What he hath said of Origen may be applied to all the rest of the Fathers Irenaeus for example Lib. 4. cap. 37. speaks out in downright Terms without any hint of a Figure an Allegory he made upon the Spies sent by Joshua to Jericho Rahab the Harlot saith he in receiving the Spies conceal'd in her House the Father Son and Holy Ghost Who would not believe if you take this literally as the Trinitarians are wont but that these Spies were actually the Father Son and Holy Ghost in a human Shape there being nothing in the Words here to hint the Adaptation and Allegory Really if Irenaeus had said as he might very well at this rate that Abraham receiving the Angels that went to destroy Sodom gave a Dinner to the Father Son and Holy Ghost a Mystery would certainly have been found in these Words pretending that Abraham did entertain these three Persons of the Deity who appeared to him in the Form of three Angels or three Men What difference is there I pray between this way of speaking we now suppose and what Irenaeus really made use of None and you must grant that if you think you have good ground from such like Expressions to make a supreme God in three Persons of the three Angels you may likewise conclude the Spies of Jericho to have been the Father Son and Holy Ghost really and literally so For whatever may be said to the contrary it is as impossible that Angels should be God as for the Spies to be so Surely the Repugnancy in the Nature of the things themselves which Authors compare mutually ought always to determine us to look for a figurative and allegoric sense there especially when it appears to us that these Allegories are agreeable to the Genius and Custom of those Authors or at least of their Predecessors and Masters it being certain that tho the Disciples often alter the Method of their Masters yet there will still remain some Footsteps of the antient Doctrine betraying and discovering their Innovations This is the Lot of the Platonic Fathers as we shall show hereafter For the present the Example of Irenaeus is sufficient to inform us that according to the same way of speaking which calls the Spies the Father Son and Holy Ghost we may also say that J. C. was the Word which created the World and the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs See what Annotator Feuerdentius saith on this Passage of Irenaeus An old Copy adds the Word Three to the Spies which would agree very well with the three Divine Hypostases had not the Scripture assured us that there were but Two and not Three Justin hath also much the same Allegory in his Dialogue It is likely that Irenaeus carried on his Allegory but to the Father and Son in relation to the two Spies but for fear the Holy Ghost should be thereby excluded some Knave put him in too and then the Word Three must be added to the Spies that so all might be adjusted to the three Divine Persons Thus various Readings proceed from the Boldness of the Orthodox but howeven it be you see the Allegory either reject it in this Place or acknowledg it every where else where there is the like necessity for it As the Father Son and Holy Ghost were allegorically in the Spies of Jericho in like manner J. C. was allegorically in all the Dispensations of old in the Word that created the World in the Angels and the Prophets that spake to
in the 33d and 45th Psalms which they made use of to prove that the term Word had no other Signification than that of Prolation properly so called For he supposes that these Words My Heart hath utter'd a good Word do not signify such a Prolation a proper and literal Generation but a metaphorical Prolation and that from this reason that the word Heart in this Text being figurative the term Word must also be figurative And that we may the better apprehend how far Origen carrys the Figure of this Word the other Text which he quotes from the Psalms so fully clears the matter as to leave no room for cavilling The Valentinians says he believe that these Words The Heavens were created by the Word of God and by the Spirit of his Mouth were said of our Saviour and of the Holy Ghost tho it be certain that one may give them this other Sense That the Heavens were establish'd by Divine Reason and Wisdom ratione Dei as we say that a House was built by that Skill which is the Art of building Houses I leave the Reader to judg whether an Vnitarian could more plainly remove all the Idea of Hypostasis from our Minds Therefore when the same Origen does elsewhere argue concerning the Word as if he himself believ'd it an Hypostasis his so speaking was according to the Principles of the Greek Philosophy For as Porphyry rightly observes Origen having continually apply'd himself to reading the Writings of the Platonists and the Pythagoreans and having therein learnt the allegorical way of those Philosophers expounding the Mysteries of the Greeks made use of it himself in his Interpretation of the Scriptures apud Euseb l. 6. c. 19. See likewise Bibl. univ T. 6. p. 50. That declared Enemy of the Christian Religion is not the only Person who has given that judgment of Origen Mr. Huet does not treat him more favourably in his Origeniana l. 2. c. 2. Origen says he was one of Plato's greatest Admirers insomuch that instead of suting the Platonick Tenents to the Christian Doctrine he regulated the Doctrine of Christianity by the Dogma of the Platonists And a little lower he adds That Origen had been carry'd to those Excesses by the example of his Preceptor Clemens Alexand. who us'd to embelish the Religion of Jesus Christ with the Academick Paint Can any one think that Justin did not discourse by the Principles of this Allegorical Philosophy when in his second Apology he calls the Reason which is in Man a Part and Seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Word The Divine Word is in his sense only that universal Reason that Source and Fulness of Wisdom-which resides in the Divine Understanding whereof ours is a Stream and a part Is our Reason an Hypostasis distinct from Man How shall we then imagine that this Father ever intended to say that Divine Reason is an Hypostasis distinct from God I may very well say that my Reason has taught me such a thing and that I consulted my Reason without supposing my Reason to be any other Person than my self Then why may we not say God made use of his Reason to create this Universe that his Reason was his Counsellor and his Minister without making a second Person of his Reason Certainly my Reason cannot be personalized any otherwise than by the Power of Allegory neither can that of God be any otherwise Nay it may be that Justin strain'd his Allegory yet farther and that he intended to say that Reason or the universal Seed is no other than the Gospel which is not a part of the Seed as the Precepts of Reason which enlighten'd the Philosophers are but the fulness of that incorruptible Seed which regenerates the Heart I will produce another Example of this allegorical way of interpreting the Scripture St. Cyprian explaining that famous Passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.8 concerning the three Witnesses on Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood has spoken of them as of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which are the three Witnesses in Heaven now found in our Bibles but were not there in the days of that Father Some as Fulgentius having confounded St. Cyprian's Discourse with the Sacred Text did not doubt but that Holy Martyr had spoken literally and as words of the Scripture what he said only in Allegory not observing that what he asserted of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is a spiritual Sense which he had drawn from the Three Witnesses on Earth as if the Spirit were the Father the Blood the Son and the Water the Holy Ghost But Facundus did not suffer himself to be at all deceiv'd by it for he informs us Defens Trinit Capit. l. 1. c. 3. That St. Cyprian will have that to be understood of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost which St. John said of the Spirit Water and Blood which can be only an allegorical Interpretation And that Allegory was followed by St. Augustin contra Maxim lib. 3. c. 12. where he expresly says That the Spirit the Water and the Blood are the Sacrament of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost What 's the meaning of the Sacrament if it be not the Mystery and Allegory Now I pray who can warrant me that the Fathers who so strained the Allegory on the three Witnesses on Earth to find the Trinity therein have not also strained it on the Word of St. John to find in it their Favourite Doctrine Plato's second God If they misapplyed these Words My Heart hath uttered a Good Word and these I have begotten thee in my Bosom before Aurora how can I be assur'd that they have not deceived me or that their Infatuation for Plato has not deceived themselves when they Platonically interpret those other Places where it is said That the Word was God and that the Word was made Flesh However that be it must be granted me That the Fathers made no difficulty of seeking sublime senses in the Scriptures and of raising themselves up very high above its plain and natural meaning That appears by the use St. Cyprian and St. Augustin made of the Epistle General of St. John Now the same Fathers having expressed their Allegories in too absolute Terms without characterizing them by some Mark whereby they might be distinguished from a proper and literal sense it has in succeeding time happened that the literal sense of what they said has been followed We have seen it in the Example of St. Cyprian that Father expressing himself absolutely It is written says he of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And these three are one Now that was written only of the Spirit the Water and the Blood Then the Allegorical Exposition has been taken for an express Text of Scripture I strongly suspect that the same thing has happen'd to that noted Text of St. Paul 1 Tim. c. 3. v. 16. The Mystery of Godliness is great God manifested in the Flesh
to the Learned and the Philosophers with whom they convers'd 'T is this mischievous Policy that has brought so much confusion into the Christian Religion that there can be no appealing to pretended Antiquity the testimony whereof is become altogether useless and liable to great illusion One may think of having recourse to the Antients as to very good Witnesses but instead of that we meet with Oracles ambiguous and unintelligible A Person of good Abilitys in the last Age complains of this as well as I. Michael le Vassor Traite de l' Examen ch 1. p. 10. Since Philosophy says he was brought into Christianity the latter has so visibly degenerated from its primitive Simplicity that the Pagans themselves have taken notice of it The Men of thought believ'd it would be a great Service done to Religion to render it agreeable to the taste of the Philosophers they had a mind to reconcile our Mysteries with Plato's Principles which were extremely in fashion when the Gospel first went abroad into the World Origen and St. Austin afterwards have so embarass'd Theology the former in the East and the latter in the Western Churches where both had their Admirers and Disciples by endeavouring to adjust Christianity to that Philosophy that 't will cost one a world of pains to distinguish that which they and their Followers have said with any exactness of thought upon divers important points of Religion They give us none but allegorical Senses to divers Passages in the Holy Scriptures Their Expositions appear so wide from the Sense of the Sacred Authors that one knows not how to understand it so as to discern the true Doctrine of the Apostles from the particular Speculations of the major part of those Fathers to whom we are refer'd as to faithful Witnesses of the Faith of the Times they liv'd in But the Fathers were not content to accommodate their Doctrines to the Platonick Word or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but enquir'd further after another Pre-existence of Jesus Christ for the satisfaction of the Jews and they found it in the Angel that spoke to Moses and the other Patriarchs Tertullian in his Dispute against Marcion lib. 3. speaking of the State of Christ before the Revelation of the Gospel says that he was in that allegorical State of spiritual Grace c. These few Words seem to discover the whole Mystery of the Oeconomy of the Antients For they signify that Christ was not only represented in the Figures of the Law but as Origen speaks that he was substantially present in Moses and the Prophets Tract 26. in Mat. meaning thereby that Moses and the Prophets were if one may so speak substantial and personal Types of Christ to come or rather that Christ was then present in the Person of Moses and the Prophets who were his Types On the like ground may we not say that he was allegorically present in all the Angels who spoke from God to Men and that he was also allegorically present in that Word of God which created the World that powerful Word which said Let there be Light being a Type of this powerful Word which said by Jesus Christ Let the Light shine in the Hearts of Men. This allegorical Pre-existence of Christ is very agreeable with the Scriptures which say that of him which cannot belong to any thing but these Types as the Reproach of Christ the Spirit of Christ prophesying tempted of Christ and other Expressions of that kind which represent to us Jesus Christ in his allegorical State Those particular Commissions of Angels and Prophets being in some sort the Preludia of this universal and extraordinary Commission of Jesus Christ with regard to the whole World I ought not to pass over the Remark of Father Simon upon this Occonomy of the Antients Hist Crit. du N. T. Tom. 1. chap. 2. The mingling says he of the Platonick Philosophy with the Christian Religion was not intended to ruin the Orthodox Faith but the more easily to persuade the Greeks to embrace the Christian Religion The Fathers were in this for imitating the Apostles especially St. Paul who sometimes did stoop to the Infirmitys of the Weak becoming all things to all men Father Simon observes further that Clemens of Alexandria does sometimes carry this Occonomy too far that he applies himself intirely to Allegory it being fashionable in his time amongst the Christians especially with the Gnosticks who thought thereby to raise the Credit of the Scriptures that he is no ways behind 'em in point of Invention and Subtilty That this was the more excusable in him because he liv'd in a great City where 't is likely they affected those kind of Subtilties and that he believ'd 'em of use to establish the Christian Religion it being a prudent part in an able Master to adapt things to the capacity of them he is to instruct That his Paedagogus wherein he was to lay down nothing but plain Instructions was drawn up with this design and that in it he explains the Scriptures in the sublime and allegorical Sense He observes also Chap. 4. That those who had not these sublime Notions pass'd for plain weak Christians who knew not the design of Religion that the Gnosticks imagin'd themselves outdid all others in this kind of Knowledg and that it had been better if the Orthodox had not imitated them therein but had contented themselves with the literal Expositions of the Scriptures He goes forward to say that the Jews had mingled in their Religion divers Platonick Notions whereof one finds at this day not a few in their Cabalistick Writings This made some impression on the Minds of some of the first Christians who read with pleasure Books that treated of Angels and their Converse with Men. The same Author makes it appear That not only those who rejected the allegorical way were accounted illiterate but even pass'd for Hereticks too ibid. chap. 31. and that Theodorus of Mopsues who followed the literal Sense of the Bible according to the Method of his Master Diodorus and avoided the spiritual and allegorical Sense was reckoned for a Person who favour'd Judaism by his too literal Expositions For my part I make no doubt but 't was of that Set of Divines who imitated Theodorus that Pamphilus is speaking when he complains Apol. pro Orig. That they who charg'd Origen with so many Absurdities would not admit Allegory to be us'd in expounding the Holy Scriptures It may be conjectur'd from these words that the great reason why the Ebionites and Nazarenes were accounted plain simple People and poor in the Faith was this that they rejected the allegorical Theology of the Platonizing and Gnostick Christians The Word Ebionite which signifies poor and the other Word Gnostick which signifies knowing being directly oppos'd 'T is certain Origen calls the Ebionites poor in Spirit Philoc. c. 1. because they adher'd too much to the Poverty of the Letter or literal Sense and despis'd the rich and the sublime
Sense of Contemplation 'T is moreover upon the same account that so many great Men are said to Judaize because they were for keeping the Scriptures in their natural and literal Sense such were Aquila Symmachus Theodotion and others 'T is evident that the Fathers who were for appearing Learned and would not be outdone by the Gnosticks have allegoriz'd after the very manner of those Hereticks but upon such things that had some sort of Foundation in the Scriptures and in the Philosophy of those Times embrac'd by the Jews or the Platonick Party As for instance about the Ideas and Decrees of God concerning the Messiah about the Soul of the Messiah about the Spirit that form'd and after sanctified him about the Angels that were the Preludia of his Mission or lastly about that Word of God which created the World to whom they ascrib'd Personality after the Platonick way The Word or Logos might signify all these things the Wisdom of God that dwelt in Jesus Christ his pre-existent Soul the Spirit that form'd him and the facility with which he wrought so many Miracles only as it were at the expence of a Word After this manner the Jews have allegoriz'd upon the seven things that they say were created before the World among which they count the Name or the Glory of the Messiah To say the truth the Oeconomy of the Fathers very often varys For at one time they are for concealing the sublimer part of their Mysteries that they mayn't give offence to some sturdy Minds that will not so readily give way to mystical Notions At other times they pass over the plainer part of Religion to gain upon their speculative Gentlemen who admire chiefly what we call the Wonderful But however they are always constant in pursuing this Design of their Oeconomy and Rule of Prudence in adapting themselves to the Genius and Relish of every body in making Mystery of every thing to beget in their Scholars a Veneration for their Opinions when they come to be acquainted with ' em And further they take care to distinguish between those Opinions which were transmitted to 'em by the Writings of the Apostles and others which came from the same Apostles by Tradition only and in Mystery as St. Basil speaks Lib. de Spir. S. ad Amphil. Cap. 27. that is by the way of secret Discipline and Instruction Clemens of Alexandria makes mention of these last Opinions Stromat 5. p. 576. and calls 'em The Lesson of the Perfect which consists in certain spiritual and sublime Senses which were deliver'd vivâ voce and by Tradition but the Apostles could not set 'em down in their Epistles This Expedient of setret Tradition open'd a wide Field for philosophizing according to their humour and is adapted to the purpose of introducing new Opinions into Religion We must be upon our guard when we are reading their Writings and take very little of them in the literal Sense where every thing almost is allegorical and they are throout pursuing what we call the Wonderful 'T is well known to the Protestants that the Declamations and Apostrophe's of the Fathers have given birth to some Errors and the Idolatry practis'd at this day They know well enough how to account for the hyperbolical Expositions of the Antients upon the Eucharist as that Jesus Christ was offer'd upon an Altar that he was slain strangl'd extended died carry'd bury'd c. And these ridiculous Apostrophe's O great and sacred Passover the Purgation of our Sins c. Greg. Naz. O Divine and sacred Mystery vouchsase to remove the Veil wherewith we are encompassed and manifest your self clearly to us by enlightning with your brightness the Eyes of our Mind See Counterseit Denis These Apostrophe's seem to deify the Sacrament and to make it a Person Why should we not acknowledg at the same time that the over-curious Platonism of the same Fathers has led 'em into those extravagant Descriptions whereby they have made a second God a Person of the Word or Logos a Son begotten before Ages and incarnate in time Mysteries no less strange than that of Transubstantiation Who does not see that they had a mind to speak magnificently of every thing They ascrib'd a Divine and extraordinary Virtue to the Oil and the Cream They say that the Holy Ghost has chang'd and transform'd 'em by a Divine Emcacy They have said no less of Baptism for they believ'd the Divinity and the Holy Ghost descending and insinuating it self into the Water us'd in that Sacrament imparts to it the Power and Virtue of regenerating They allow that the Eucharist shews a Divine and quickening Virtue emanating from the Body of the incarnate Word The Word according to them is an Emanation from the Substance of God The Body of Christ is hypostatically united to the Word The Bread is hypostatically united to that Divine Body and consequently hath the quickening Virtue of the Word They own a twofold Emanation the Word is the Emanation of God and the quickening Virtue of his Flesh is an Emanation of the Word And they hold a twofold Incarnation one of the Word in the Body of Jesus Christ and another of the quickening Virtue of the Body of Christ in the Bread of the Sacrament This was a System of Policy well contriv'd whereby these cunning Doctors brought nothing less than Divinity into every thing and spoke with advantage upon the meanest Subjects to make 'em look mysterious and venerable It may be said of them as has been observ'd of those who make Canons in Councils that they spake more than they meant so that many Ages after Mysteries are discover'd in their Expressions which they never dreamt of I have met with nothing so like that as these two Apostrophe's which the Church of Rome chants in her Liturgy One is address'd to the Trinity O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and One God have Mercy upon us miserable Sinners The other is address'd to the Cross of Christ O Cross my only Hope I salute thee at this time of the Passion increase the Righteousness of Good Men and pardon the Crimes of the Wicked Here you have two Saints which one and the same Superstition hath canoniz'd two Prayers cast in the same Mould for both one and t'other are the fruit of Idolatry and of false Eloquence Upon which I will make this Observation that it has fal'n out with the Oeconomy of these Primitive Fathers as it has with the Admirers of Episcopacy here in England who having retain'd a Liturgy and divers Ceremonies that they might bring over the more Papists to their Communion yet they still continue to look upon those things at this time in a sort necessary to Religion altho there 's now no more occasion for that Reason of Prudence and even as great a Reason of Charity and a second Reason of Prudence should oblige 'em to relax or lay 'em by to gain the Non-Conformists 'T is the same case with the Allegorical
their profound Speculations For to theologize according to them is not only to speak of God and his Attributes but of Angels too of Aeons of Ideas of Emanations and in a word of every thing that belongs to the intelligible World of the Platonists Theology being a Term affected by all the contemplative Gentlemen whether Orthodox or Gnosticks These sort of Folks did not regard the Facts of the Gospel which prove its Divine Authority any otherwise than as grosser Proofs proper for vulgar weaker Minds But for Contemplation the Case was quite otherwise this they thought a noble and powerful Medium by which Souls of the first Rank elevated themselves to the Knowledg of the noblest Truths Yet the Gospel is not founded upon any thing but Facts and the chief Objects of our Faith are certain Facts contained in the Apostles Creed Is it not therefore a putting the Gospel upon another Foot if we carry on our Contemplations to Abstractions and the Ideas of a crude chimerical Metaphysicks 'T is an extravagant System if instead of Facts well proved and rightly circumstanced there be nothing left but a mere Operation of the Understanding and an Ens Rationis which these Gentlemen are pleas'd to call the Word or the Son theologized That great Man Mons Jurieu whom God was pleased to favour with the knowledg of every thing did not fail to set aside this false Theology of the Fathers 7 Ler. Past de la 3. Année Besides the Faith of the Vulgar says he which was immediately founded upon the Sacred Writings the Doctors fram'd a Theology that is they undertook to expound the Mysteries in a sense beyond that wherein the Holy Scriptures themselves have delivered them And 't is in that they have disagreed and one must not wonder at it because the things they went about to explain were profound and it may be inexplicable and because they made use of a false Philosophy which they brought into their Theology And by so doing they have ruined Theology and at last Religion in all Ages The Faith of the Antients therefore must not be condemned as if it were changed altho they disagreed in their Theology And it must be noted that this Theology should not be admitted into the Faith that is Articles of Faith should not be formed out of Theological Expositions Is not this much for the Honour of the Theology of the Antients According to Mons Jurieu these good Doctors could not theologize the Son without hazarding the Faith and consequently one ought not to receive amongst the Articles of Faith their theological Explications concerning a Son begotten and not made an Internal Word and a Word brought forth c. Nevertheless it 's well known that the Fathers consider'd the theological Sense not only as true but as that which the Spirit of God had chiefly in its view So that they who would impose the Faith of the theological Sense of the Word because the Fathers urg'd it are themselves obliged to receive all the other theological Senses which the same Fathers have given to so many other Terms in Scripture and which they believe to be no less the Purport and Design of the Holy Ghost which yet is not done but they are looked upon even as ridiculous Why therefore is it not acknowledged bona Fide also that the Exposition of the Logos or Word is one of those wretched Allegories so much declaimed against at that day and an Article of that false Theology which is incompatible with the Christian Faith But let us pay as much respect to the Fathers as we can let us preserve their Theology be it so provided that the theological Sense be not said to be designed for any other than contemplative and seraphic Minds and that no more than the Faith or Belief of the plain natural sense be requir'd of Men as Men Origen was too fair to desire more than this he acquaints his Readers at the beginning of his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Sacred Writers did not concern themselves with abstruse Matters and speculative Subjects which few of them whom they called to the Christian Religion were capable of understanding but confined themselves to those few clear Articles which were necessary for the Reformation of the World to bring them into a State of Righteousness and give them hopes of Immortality Leaving the more refined Contemplations which were not contrary to prime Truths to the commendable Curiosity of those whom Nature and Education had qualify'd for such Enquiries Dr. Rust in his Discourse of Origen and the chief of his Opinions has observed also That there were necessary Truths which the Apostles had clearly taught and the Church received the contrary whereto cannot be received without retrenching an essential part of Religion But that there were besides some Contemplations about which the Scriptures had not determin'd any thing and that the Truth as to these matters was purposely concealed by the Holy Ghost as Origen thought to excite their Study and Industry who were Lovers of the Truth that the Discovery of so great a Treasure might be a Recompence for their pious Enquiries Without doubt all the other Fathers agreed in this very Principle with Origen that the contemplative Subjects were not necessary nor essential to Religion that they did not oblige ordinary Christians and that they were left to the commendable Enquiries of the Curious Servetus who constantly imitates the Fathers agrees in this tho he was in other respects a great Admirer of Platonism and Contemplation The Apostles says he de Trinit lib. 2. p. 50. did not rashly publish this great Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word 't was after several Essays and having fasted and prayed that St. John pronounced these Words In the beginning was the Word c. 'T was sufficient to Salvation to believe that Jesus was the Christ or the Messias the Son of God the Saviour of the World The common People were justified by this Faith alone altho they did not exactly know his Divinity You therefore pious Readers who are not able to comprehend the manner of his Generation nor the whole Fulness of his Divinity always believe that he is the Messias begotten of God and thy Saviour This is the only thing you should believe that you may live by him But let us hear Origen speak for himself 't is in his Preface to St. John that one shall find the famous distinction he makes between the intelligible and the sensible Gospel and how he there divides Christians into two Classes the one of those who are Children in the Faith and are led by the Rudiments of the Gospel and the other of those intelligent and elevated Minds who are capable of understanding the Divinity of the glorified God That Doctor or Teacher says he who is willing to profit all Persons cannot however make the secret and sublime Christianity known to such who can only understand the plain and the revealed Christianity Wherefore
Virgin baptized with the Holy Ghost and invested with the Power of the Father who is that Word and that Oracle by which the Father has been pleas'd to speak to us in these last days His Oeconomy being no longer to reveal himself by the Angels but in the Flesh of his Son the visible Image of the Invisible God the Face the Character or the Person as he is called of the Substance of the Father And thus we Christians have but One God who in the way of Oeconomy governs his Family by the Ministry of an Inferiour and but One Lord who by this Oeconomy manages the same Family in the Name of his Superiour There 's a Tract among St. Austin's Works intitul'd De eo quod dictum est Ego sum qui sum which admirably well explains this matter without that mixture of Platonism that Lactantius and Tertullian have in Passages hereafter cited They says that Author making himself one of them who would have it to be an Angel that call'd himself Jehova ought to give us a reason why he calls himself so They answer that as 't is said in the Scripture that the Lord spoke when the Prophet spoke not that the Prophet was the Lord but because the Lord was in the Prophet So when the Lord vouchsafes to speak by an Angel as by a Prophet or an Apostle this Angel may very well be called an Angel upon his own account and the Lord with respect to God dwelling in him The same who speaks in the Man speaks in the Angel wherefore the Angel of God who appeared to Moses said I am what I am This is not the Voice of the Temple as he may be called but of him who dwelt in it Afterwards he having shewn that the Apparitions of Angels in the Old Testament cannot be understood of Jesus Christ he adds I suppose we shall understand this matter better by saying that our Fathers own'd the Lord that it was in the Angels or the Being who dwelt in those whom he imploy'd and so give Glory to the Lord who was personated by the Angels and not to the Angels who did personate him This Truth says he is confirm'd by the Epistle to the Hebrews where 't is said the Word spoke by Angels whereby the Apostle reaches us that they were Angels who spoke but that God was heard and honoured in the Angels We are told the same truth in the Acts of the Apostles where St. Stephen reproving the Jews says to 'em Ye stiff-necked c. who received the Law by the disposition of Angels and have not kept it If Stephen had said of an Angel and not of Angels there would be no need of saying farther this is Jesus Christ who is call'd the Angel of Great Counsel Call him one Angel as much as you please but can one call him Angels 'T was therefore One Angel and the Lord in that Angel who said to Moses that ask'd his Name I am what I am There are the same Proofs and Arguments in St. Austin's 3d Book de Trinit who observes That 't was said Angels and not one Angel in the Singular that it might not be said that it was the Son of God And putting to himself this Objection Why do we read God said unto Moses and not the Angel said unto Moses He replys As we say the Judg speaks when the Crier publishes the Lord said when the Prophet spoke So tho the Angel spoke the Word is ascrib'd to God who imploy'd him The same Father arguing strongly against those who believ'd that Jesus Christ appeared to the antient Patriarchs has these Words Lib. 16. cap. 29. de Civit. Dei. God says he appeared to Abraham in the Person of three Men that were without question three Angels tho some imagin'd that one of 'em was Jesus Christ But if Jesus Christ be pretended to be one of the three because Abraham addresses himself to one of 'em why is it not minded that the third who staid with Abraham is called Lord and one of the other two who came to Lot is call'd Lord too in the Singular by the Patriarch when he makes answer to the Lord who was in the two Angels Therefore 't is much more likely that Abraham understood the Lord to be in the three Men and that Lot thought him present in the two There 's the same arguing to be met with in St. Austin's Lib. 2. de Trinit c. 12. This Oeconomy of Angels as you see gives great light to the new Oeconomy of Jesus Christ and opens a way for our understanding it For 't is but to apply to this last Dispensation all that those Authors have said of the Angels and we shall have a Key to understand the Passages of the New Testament which speak of Jesus Christ as of God himself We need say no more than this that Jesus in himself was a Man and a God with respect to God dwelling in him So that the Man is not the Lord Jehovah but the Lord is in the Man and whatever Name he has or Power he claims 't is not the Voice of the Temple but of him who dwelt in it In short all that has been said of the Angel may it not be said of the Man except this that there are two Natures in him And if the Angel might assume the Names and Characters of Jehovah without being concluded to be himself the Jehovah why may not the like Names and Characters be given Christ without concluding thence that he is the Supreme God This Reflection sinks the great Objection of the Trinitarians their modish Argument I had almost said for 't is the beaten Track of the modern Disputants How strange must it be say they for the New Testament Writers if they did not look upon Jesus Christ to be the Supreme God to speak of him as of God himself Would those Holy Men have led us into so great an Error by their extravagant Forms of speaking if it were not so But this ambulatory way of discoursing is pure Declamation and may be ruinâ—d with ease at a blow by making 'em sensible that if one reasons after their fashion upon the Conduct of the Writers of the Old Testament who have spoken of an Angel as of God himself one may prove to 'em in their own beloved way that that Angel was the Supreme God But let 'em but once understand the Oeconomy and they will forbear to give us any further trouble in this particular THE SECOND PART OF Platonism Unveil'd CHAP. I. The Primitive Fathers deify'd Jesus Christ or give him the Title of a God HAD the Antients then no true Theology Yes without question and we shall infallibly find it if we ascend a little higher than the date of Platonism which afterward reduced it to that miserable state wherein I am going to represent it And I know not how it can be done better than in the Ideas of a Learned Trinitarian who has spoke the truth in
that be Dr. Bull deceives himself grosly in supposing this Creed of Cyril to be the antient Creed of Jerusalem We can produce another of greater Antiquity which the same Church ascribes to the Apostle St. James Bishop Vsher de Symbol p. 10. presents us with it It must be minded says the Primate that there were two sorts of Creeds us'd by the Easterns one contracted which Ruffinus compares with that of Rome and Aquileia the other fuller and larger Among the first we place the Creed of Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I believe in one God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God c. Thus 't is read in the antient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem ascribed to St. James who is held to have been the first Bishop of that Place and with this Creed an Office was read once a year in memory of its Antiquity And since the Articles that follow have which I mightily regret been left out as suppos'd to be generally known I thought it proper to repair this Loss by substituting in the room of what is wanting the entire Confession of the Apostolic Faith that Cyril expounded to the Illuminated at Jerusalem which indeed is somewhat larger as it appears by this addition at the beginning viz. visible and invisible The short Creed which Vsher gives us being made by St. James it follows that of Cyril is an Exposition and Commentary And 't is impossible on the contrary that this should be an Abridgment of Cyril's Creed for nothing can be more antient than the draught of an Apostle Without doubt the shorter Creed is the Original and the larger none other than a Copy stuffed and lengthened with a wretched Platonism and has not Simplicity enough to pass for an Apostle's but it may without wrong be accounted the Work of a Platonizing Faction But let that be as it will there is good ground for believing that Dr. Bull had a mind to deceive us in dissembling his Knowledg of this antient Creed of St. James of which Bishop Vsher makes mention and in palming upon us for the most antient Eastern Creed that of S. Cyril which is so very different For altho we have but two Articles of the Jerusalem Creed which is the same with what we call the Apostles yet these two are sufficient to shew that the Apostles Creed is in effect the most antient of all however Dr. Bull Jud. Eccles p. 128. pretends it to have been of later Date And I say further this may satisfy us that at this time of Cyril the Mother of all Churches had strangely alter'd her Faith Bishop Vsher observed what was added to the first Article Who doubts but that like might have been done to others about which there were far greater disputes He might have observed the same and the thing is obvious that the second Article concerning the Person of J. C. being entire as it appears by the Oriental Creed of Ruffinas which goes no further it follows then that all that which is in Cyril upon the same Article has been added since Platonism prevailed Ruffinus says Bishop Vsher has compar'd the shorter of these two Oriental Creeds with the Roman wherefore this shorter Creed was not the same with the Roman let the Doctor say what he will nor are we to be much concern'd as the Primate speaks for the Loss of it◠Ruffinus has preserv'd it Almost all the Eastern Churches says he in Symbol Apost give us their Creed after this manner I believe in one God the Father Almighty and then in the following Article whereas we say and in J. C. his only Son our Lord they say in one Lord J. C. his only Son professing one God and one Lord according to the Doctrine of St. Paul Note here all the difference the Easterns made between their Creed and that we call the Apostles There 's nothing in 'em of the Pre-existence of J. C. and his Generation before Ages as you have it in Cyril's Creed This shews that the Article concerning J. C. goes no farther in this part of the Oriental Creed which Bishop Vsher gives us that the etc. does not retrench any part of it but is plac'd at the end of the Article only to shew that the remaining Articles are omitted We may conclude therefore that all the Jargon of the Platovic Philosophy in Cycil's Greed took place of the antient simple Tradition which was I believe in J. C. the only Son of God who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary And consequently the antient Opinion of the Filiation and Deification of J. C. ran no higher than his being born of a Virgin by the Power of the Holy Ghost this was the true Theology concerning him Ruffinus had reason for calling this plain Confession the Tradition of his Ancestors meaning thereby not the Doctors bigotted with Plato's Enthusiasm but the whole Body of the Church the People as Du Pin observes Tom. 1. p. 30. who doubtless never enter'd into the Speculations of those Doctors Let us see what Marcellus wrote to Pope Julius Epiphan haeres 72. where after he had said what he thought fit concerning the Word which he denies to be an Hypostasis distinct from the Father saying it subsists in the Father and that 't is his very Wisdom and his inseparable Power he confines himself to this Confession of Faith which he says he had received from the Scripture and his Ancestors I believe in God Almighty and in J. C. his only Son our Lord begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried the third day be was raised from the Dead and ascended into Heaven and sat at the right hand of God Whence he shall come to judg the Quick and the Dead And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Holy Church the Remission of Sins the Resurrection of the Flesh the Life everlasting See here in express words the Creed we call the Apostles the antient Theology without Platonism without Speoulation There 's nothing retrench'd from the antient Confessions of Faith yet Retrenchments were not unusual amongst some of them If therefore some Creeds are found to be larger in some of the Antients 't is according to their laudable Practice by an addition of their novel Interpretations This is the more evident because that pretended Interpretations are found to be pure Platonism with which 't is known they were extremely bigotted CHAP. VIII Reflections upon the Apostles Creed with respect to the foregoing Doctrine TO render the Antiquity of the Apostles Creed doubtful 't is said that 't is notorious that the greater part of the Articles have been added from time to time and upon divers occasions What of that if those additional Articles are not in the present Contest Is it not enough that the three Articles concerning the Father the Son and the Holy
Ghost as to their Nature and Person as we speak I say those three Articles whereupon we dispute are very antient 'T is true the antient Formulas of Faith contain'd scarce any thing besides these which are an Exposition of the Form of Baptism but then 't is of these only we are debating Yea the Liturgy ascribed to St. James and the Oriental Creed of Russinus give us these Articles in the proper Words of Scripture clean of all Platonism Is not such a piece of Antiquity more primitive and even antecedent to Cyril and all the Platonic Fathers But this Creed says Dr. Bull whatever Simplicity it has is to be understood in the Extent or Latitude the Platonizing Fathers took it in who made it always supposing as you see that it was not made till since the Church expounded in her larger Creeds her Platonic Faith I will turn this manner of reasoning upon him and say that supposing on the contrary the antient Liturgy had this Creed in the Simplicity wherein we have it at this time it cannot be understood but in the sense of the Nazarene Disciples of St. James who most certainly did not platonize as indeed we have prov'd Platonism owes not its Rise to the Jewish but to the Gentile Converts and such Gentiles too as were Followers of Plato True Orthodoxy at the very beginning of Christianity consisted in believing that J. C. was begotten of the Holy Ghost and consequently was of a celestial Race or Origin That he had a sort of Pre-existence in this H. Spirit of Power which was united to him and that upon these accounts he was really and in the Letter the proper and only Son of God A Doctrine which the Disciples of St. James maintained against the Cerinthians and Ebionites there being no other Controversy than concerning the Generation of the Son of God For which reason the Creed of Marcellus says barely that the only Son of God was begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin and not begotten before Ages which might have been said with as much ease as t'other and must necessarily have been said if the meaning of the Author of the Creed had been that only Son signifies begotten from all Eternity But after all what will the Doctor say with his Interpretations and his Expositions of the antient Creed I have observed in divers Passages of his Writings that he requires too much to be granted him For instance he will have it in his Judic Eccles p. 141. that this Elogy of the Holy Ghost in the Creed of Constantinople The Living Lord proceeding from the Father who is to be worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son That this magnificent Elogy was an Interpretation of the Word Paraclet in the Creed of Cyril Wonderful Paraphrase strange Interpretation that the Paraclet should signify all these fine things The Living Lord proceeding from the Father who is to be worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son Well! after this do we think the Doctor does not desire to be believed when he assures us that the Son begotten before Ages the true God by whom all things were made is the true sense of these Words the only Son of God With the good Leave of this Commentary-Maker 't is more natural to believe in adhering to the Terms of the antient Creed that begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin is the true Sense and the right Exposition In fine this pure simple Creed was not fram'd by a Cabal a Party as the Creeds of the Councils of Nice and Constantinople were c. 'T is not known if I may so speak whence it came 't is as it were fallen down from Heaven 't is the Suffrage of the Universal Church and 't is this Suffrage that has saved the Church from Shipwrack and gain'd her Reverence Ruffinus in his Expos Symb. makes no scruple to say that this Creed was establish'd to be a Mark of Distinction by which they might be known who preach'd J. C. truly according to Apostolic Rules But 't is proper I should here transcribe a fine Passage out of Dr. Hammond upon this Subject in his Discourse of fundamental Points chap. 8. Says he This Creed is the very Badge and Livery of the Apostles the Abridgment of that Faith which was received from the Apostles for altho in their Epistles written to such as were already Christians one finds no one complete Catalogue of these Articles which they taught every where because they suppos'd them sufficiently known yet however the most antient Writers of the Church assure us that in all places where the Apostles went to plant the Faith of Christ they publish'd there distinctly and left there all these Articles which serve for a Foundation to the Christian Life And 't is reasonable to believe that the Apostles Creed was the summary of these fâ—â—â—damental Articles 'T is certain that before the Nicene Creed was made all the Churches in the World us'd this formulary of Faith which they received from their Ancestors and they from the Apostles themselves See Irenaeus lib. 1. c. 2. lib. 3. c. 4. and there is not the least room to doubt but this is the very same with that we at this day call the Apostles Creed Marcellus gives us a Confession of his Faith which he says he received from his Predecessors which is found to be the same with our Apostles Creed See Epiphan Haer. 72. What I am saying may be confirmed by this Observation of St. Austin in his Discourse de Bapt. contr Donat. cap. 24. viz. that 't is reasonable to believe that what has generally been received in the Church and has always been held by it without being instituted by any Council comes to us from Apostolic Tradition also Tertullian de veland Virg. The Rule of Faith says he is one and immutable c. That this Abridgment of our Creed given us by Tertullian is one and immutable can be from no other Cause but from its Apostolic Origin which alone ought to pretend to that Privilege For this reason the same Father says elsewhere contr Prax. cap. 2. This Rule came down to us from the very first preaching of the Gospel 'T is true the Controversy that the Platonizing Christians had at first with the Christians of Judea made the Church when in power despise this Creed which favour'd its Adversaries so that it but rarely appears in its Simplicity but is for the most part clog'd and blended with Platonism But in the fourth Century the Dispute being only between the Athanasians and the Arians both good Platonists holding the Pre-existence this Creed was received for it oppos'd one no more than t'other and neither of these two Parties had then prevailed over one another The Church of Rome made it always her Creed for the Platonic Controversies were not so warm there as in the East But Dr. Bull will return to the Charge and tell us as he has done more than once that to
be begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin is no such glorious Privilege for the Messias that it does not give him any Preheminence above some other Men who have been miraculously begotten and by the immediate Power of God That in a word it answers not that great Idea which those Words the only Son of God naturally raise in our Minds I have already answered this Objection with a Passage of Bartholomew of Edessa I could further say that according to this way of reasoning of the Doctor 's J.C. is no longer by his Hypothesis the only Son of God if we take those Words as he does in their strictest sense because he has a Brother begotten of God as well as himself I mean the Holy Ghost He will clear himself of this when he can shew me what the difference is between Generation and Procession that is to say between Emanation and Emanation I mean such a difference that makes the one a Son and the other not this is what we expect from him He knows very well that this knotty difficulty put St. Austin hard to it This Father in his 5th Book 9. ch de Trin. puts this Question Whence is it that the third Person is not the Image of God as well as the second Why not his Word Why not his begotten Son He protests that 't is hard to give a reason why the Father did not beget one as well as t'other since as the Intellect begat its Wisdom by knowing it self it seems likely it should beget its Love by loving it self And at last finding himself too weak to master this difficulty he betakes himself to his usual Sophistry and makes you a rare Medley of Discourse wherein he understands not what he says himself After so great a Master what may we expect from Dr. Bull or rather who will not be surprized to hear his Objections 'T is not enough says he that God begets a Son of the Substance of a Woman by his own Power without the Intervention of a Man 'T is not enough that this Generation is without Example This extraordinary Son if he be not the Supreme God he is not therefore the Son of God 'T is not enough that God has given us an extraordinary Man for the Messias If he be not the Supreme God he cannot be the Messias Wonderful What! if God had thought fit to send none other than such a Man a second Adam not a jot more the Son of God than the first Adam was shall this be no Messias And would this be done upon a Principle of Religion Should this Messias be thought unworthy of us because he does not answer the Idea and the Expectation of the Doctor I am astonish'd when I consider the extravagant Hypothesis of our Trinitarians God in their opinion will not make good his illustrious Promises his Word given to Abraham and his Seed and his Oath sworn to David that he would raise him up a Son to reign upon his Throne God I say will do nothing that will answer the Greatness of his Promise and the Expectation of the Patriarchs if the Blessed Seed if the King so often promis'd and so long expected if the Messias who is so glorious be not the supreme God himself Nothing is magnificent according to these Gentlemen if it be not extravagant God may do well in raising a miraculous Seed to Abraham from the Womb of a Virgin And he may do well in raising up to David a King and a Prophet drench'd with the Fulness of his Spirit and reigning at the Right Hand of his Majesty All this has nothing great in it this will not come up to their System of the Messias nor deserve place in their sublime Theology if the supreme God himself be not incarnate and suffers not himself to be crucified to merit by his Sufferings the same Glory he voluntarily abandon'd This is what they call a glorious Gospel not that plain simple Religion which presents you with a Man ascending into Heaven but that which without Machines or Hocus Pocus brings the supreme God down from Heaven Good God! What vain Imaginations are in the Heart of Man CHAP. IX The Theology of the Primitive Church went no farther than the miraculous Conception of the Messias c. IT is time to consider in the third place that the Theology of the Primitive Church went no farther than the miraculous Conception of the Messias Which appears from this that the Expression mere Man which she condemned as heretical was not oppos'd to an Eternal Generation but to Christ's being begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin So that the Platonizing Christians themselves who have us'd it in this last sense have been as it were forced to do it thro Custom What remains of the antient Tradition obliging them to speak in that manner Yea the Force of the antient Tradition has made them to betray themselves as we are about to shew The Terms mere Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bear at this day in our Minds a different Idea from that which was in the first Ages of the Church With us now it is supposed to exclude I know not what sort of a Generation of the Substance of God But with the Antients it was purely oppos'd to the miraculous Generation of the Substance of a Virgin We find at this day some Footsteps of the antient usage of these Words The Author of the Apostolic Constitutions lib. 6. c. 26. giving an account of the Opinion of the Ebionites says They hold J. C. to have been a mere Man by maintaining that he was not begotten any other way but by the conjugal Intercourse of Joseph and Mary There cannot be a better account than this of what the Antients meant by a mere Man A Man begotten by Joseph and not a Man who is not the supreme God Justin or the Author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox Quaest 66. expresses himself thus Who says he speaking of J. C. was begotten or conceived by the Holy Ghost the Son of God but being born of the Wife of Joseph was the Son of Joseph The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. Wherefore c. shall be called the Son of God It must be observed here 1. That Son of Joseph and Son of God are two Terms oppos'd J.C. is called the Son of Joseph as he was born of the Wife of Joseph and the Son of God as he was begotten by the Holy Ghost 2. That J. C. is called Son of God on the account of his being begotten by the Holy Ghost in a sense directly opposed to Son of Man that is to say in a sense of excellence which Dr. Bull is so bold as to deny 3. That the Text of St. Luke which Justin cites as a Proof demonstrates in some sort that the Antients did not at first ascribe any other Divinity to J. C. but that which was grounded upon his being conceived and born of a Virgin by the
Holy Ghost In the next place let 's attend to Irenaeus who takes the Terms mere Man in the same sense as Justin They says he lib. 3. c. 23. who call him i. e. Christ a mere Man begotten by Joseph continue in the Bondage of the antient Disobedience They then according to Irenaeus held J. C. to be a mere Man who believed he was begotten by Joseph and consequently not begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin To make good this Charge against those Persons it was not it seems necessary they should have denied a Platonic Generation But the Passage is so clear it needs no gloss I proceed to another Father and that is Euseb in his 3. B. c. 27. where he speaks thus of the Ebionites They believe J. C. to be a mere Man an ordinary Person begotten by Joseph and Mary but otherwise a just Man and extraordinary for his Vertue You see how Eusebius when Platonism did not run in his Head acquaints us that they were none other than Ebionites who held J. C. was begotten by Joseph and Mary upon which account it may be truly said that they made him a mere ordinary Man This scap'd Eusebius without doubt by his following the Mode of speaking according to antient Tradition which opposed in the Hereticks of that time not those Christians who denied an eternal Generation of the Substance of God for where was that Notion then but the Ebionites who contested the miraculous Generation of the Substance of a Virgin It remains that I examine two Passages of Epiphanius The 1st is in his account of the 29th Heresy which is that of the Nazarenes whom he ranks among the Hereticks altho Irenaeus who must have known them better has made no mention of this pretended Heresy I do not affirm says Epiphanius of those Nazarenes whether following the Impiety of Cerinthus they received J. C. to be but a mere Man or whether they acknowledged which is the Truth that he was begotten by the Power of the Holy Ghost on the Virgin Mary The two things oppos'd in this Passage make it evident to our present Trinitarians that it is not believing J. C. to be a mere Man when with Socinus 't is own'd that he was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary The second Passage of Epiphanius is in his 54th Heresy which is that called the Theodotians who he tells you held J. C. to be a mere Man How so Why because they believed he was begotten by a Man This is clear one Proposition explains t'other to be a mere Man and to be begotten by a Man are Phrases equivalent And by the Rule of Contraries to be begotten by the Holy Ghost is to be more than a mere Man that is to be the Son of God The Angel tells us as much and without doubt these were the Words which were the Foundation of the Theology of the Antients For says the Angel The Power of the Highest shall overshaddow thee and that which shall be born of thee not that which was begotten from Eternity but that which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God The Angel alludes to the Spirit of God which overshadowed the Chaos as if he would say that the same Power of God which drew the World out of that unshapen Mass would likewise cause the Messias to be born of Matter as infertile as the Chaos it self even of the Womb of a Virgin and that because of this extraordinary Birth he should be called the Son of God See Maldonate in Loc. The Expressions of the Angel have that force in them that the Moderns themselves when they are free from Prejudice and their Minds are not engaged in the Controversy have made them their Rule according to which they express themselves as to the Filiation of J. C. often alledging his Conception of the Holy Ghost as the formal Reason that made him the Son of God in opposition to Son of Man Thus Bishop Vsber us'd them in explaining a Passage of Ignatius Dissertat in Ignat. cap. 12. where he says The Devil knew not whether the Mother of our Saviour who was married to a Man was a Virgin at the Birth of the Child nor whether the new-born Infant ought to be called the Son of God or the Son of Joseph This Learned Person explaining an Apostolic Doctrine speaks in an Apostolic Manner He opposes Son of Joseph to Son of God but to what Son of God To a Son begotten from all Eternity 'T is plain enough of what Son he is speaking 't is to a Son of God who was begotten by the Holy Ghost who was not the Son of any Man altho he was born of a Woman and who had none but God for his Father So Grotius upon Mark 1.1 having given the reason why St. Mark spoke nothing of the miraculous Birth of J. C. he adds That 't was not necessary to speak of it till there were such who held that J. C. was no more than a mere Man From which Words of this great Critic it follows that to hold J. C. to be a mere Man is not to deny him to be the supreme God but to deny that he was born of a Virgin Dr. Bull in his Judicium Eccles p. 43. objects against this antient Faith that no Writer has spoken of it as of a Tradition different from the Platonic Faith which is pretended to have prevailed afterwards That on the contrary Eusebius gives this Testimony of the Bishops of Jerusalem that they had a right Knowledg of J. C. and that their Doctrine was sound on this Article But that which I am now going to say concerning this antient Faith and that which shall be said hereafter makes it evident enough that 't is to little purpose for the Doctor to boast that Antiquity is altogether silent in this matter As for his Proof from Eusebius 't is too uncertain and general to be us'd as an Argument in our Question Eusebius says in general that the Antients were sound in their Opinion or had a right Knowledg of J. C. Who doubts it Since in believing him to be born of a Virgin by the Operation of the Holy Ghost and not by her Conversation with Joseph they professed the sound Doctrine of that time and they rejected the Error oppos'd to it which made J. C. but a mere Man But Eusebius 't will be said could not speak so but with regard to his own Opinion which was that of the Pre-existence But I shall reply whence had Eusebius his Information that the Doctrine of the Antients was sound Was it not from Hegesippus or as he himself says from Monuments of the Antients which is the same thing But if this antient Author Hegesippus did not believe the Platonic Pre-existence as Eusebius did will it not follow that the Doctrine of these Bishops was sound not with respect to the sense of Eusebius but with regard to the antient Author who gives them that
that he did not believe Ignatius favour'd the Opinion of Christ's Pre-existence or that the Epistles of that Father were a Forgery after his time 'T is to the first and earliest Antiquity we must ascend Artemon will be in the right if he rejects those latter Testimonies and produces more antient ones for his own Doctrine But the Anonymous cites Scripture and so does Artemon appeal to it alledging that his Doctrine is the same Truth that the Apostles had taught That therefore is the thing in question We shall see hereafter who has the most reason to appeal to this most Primitive Authority for I intend to examine in what sense the Son of God is there deify'd The Anonymous makes another small attack upon the Artemonites for their seeming to insinuate that Victor was not against their Doctrine but that Zephirin was the first that did persecute it I will not repeat here what I have remark'd touching the deposing of Theodotus that Victor might excommunicate him as an Ebionite without breaking Communion with the Artemonites who maintained the Orthodox Doctrine of the miraculous Conception of our Saviour 'T is sufficient at present to shew that the Words of Artemon may fairly signify that Victor was the first who attack'd the Apostolick Faith but that Zephirin intirely destroy'd it So far is Artemon from ranking Victor among those who preserv'd the Truth intire that he seems to say on the contrary that he began and Zephirin completed its Ruin Victor began by excommunicating one single Christian Theodotus and certainly Zephirin concluded by excommunicating the whole Orthodox Church or all the other Great Men who joined with Artemon in the defence of expiring Truth as the Fable concerning their Bp Natalis that comes after inclines one to think I call it a Fable for nothing is more extravagant than to talk of Angels whipping and scourging the Artemonite Bishop into the bosom of the Church How were the Angels the first who made Converts by Dragooning Is there any thing that can more discredit this Romance of the Anonymous Another Story that Eusebius has tack'd to this is when he makes the Anonymous say that Theodotus was the first Author of the Error ascrib'd to him which is false take his Heresy in what sense you please Dr. Bull endeavours to cover the Reputation of Eusebius by a certain wretched distinction but he does not observe that Eusebius contradicts him for he goes on to say in the same Book that Theodotus was the first whom Victor excommunicated which supposes that he was the first who suffer'd for his adherence to this Doctrine but not the first who published it If he was the first Martyr for it it does not follow that he was the first Author of it 'T is highly probable that the great noise of the Excommunication of Theodotus upon the very account that this Persecution was new and unheard of made him pass in after-times for the very Author of that Opinion for which he was persecuted Not to insist on it at present that Eusebius makes no scruple a little to corrupt the Story at all times when he can by that Fraud give the Air of Antiquity to his Platonick Logos or of Novelty to the opposite Doctrine which he hated with all his heart he has been catcht in so many other Places that the Presumptions against him cannot but be very violent For instance where he makes Josephus say that on the Day of Christ's Passion a Voice was heard in the Temple of Jerusalem saying Let us go hence And witness another Passage where he makes the same Josephus say Euseb Hist Eccl. lib. 2. c. 9. that 't was an Angel who appear'd over the Head of Herod Agrippa whereas Josephus expressy says it was an Owl One plainly discerns where the pious Fraud lies he would not have it be thought that the Jewish Historian did not agree with St. Luke Thus it appears in spite of all the Efforts of Eusebius that 't was in the time of Victor and Zephirin that the pure Faith of the first Christians fell with the Church of the Nazarens which from that time have often pass'd for Hereticks The new Succession of Gentile Bishops Euseb lib. 4. c. 5. began with one Mark and Platonism enter'd into the Church with the new Bishops Saturninus Basilides and the whole Class of the Gnosticks made a mighty progress afterwards under colour of discovering Secrets unknown heretofore to the Church About the same time Carpocrates his Heresy was broach'd another Mysteryman To speak the truth the infamous Practices of these Pretenders to Illumination were not long born withal in the Church Human Nature alone without the Succours of Religion knew how to quit it self of it in a short time But as for their Philosophy the Church managed that to her purpose after some sifting and refining 't was adjusted to the more specious part of her Religion for the support of her new Opinions which being pure Speculations the Affections were not so far concern'd about 'em as to take notice of their Repugnancy And the Mind which is naturally desirous of Knowledg found its account in 'em and the natural Veneration Men have for Mystery and for every thing they do not comprehend had the greatest Stroke in this matter and gained the Point So one sees how by insensible Methods and Degrees the Gospel which is a Doctrine purely practical was exchanged for Contemplation Mystery and Fanaticism CHAP. XIII An Account of the first Christians call'd Nazarens TO conclude it may not be amiss to give my Readers an Idea of the first Christians called Nazarens There were two sorts of 'em as many of the Fathers and some of the Moderns have observ'd The former improperly so called and more properly Ebionites for they believ'd Jesus Christ to have been the Son of Joseph and obliged the Gentiles to keep the Law of Moses Among these such who held Jesus to be the Christ were tolerated and accounted Christians but the others had not that Character because they made Moses's Law necessary to Salvation and held Jesus for no more than a just Man or a Prophet who suffer'd in the Cause of Righteousness and Truth They would not have the Benefits of his Mission to extend to the Gentiles or in a word that he was the promis'd Messiah and had any Power in Heaven Some believed he was not truly rais'd from the Dead others believed he was that he might receive the Reward of a Good Man but not that he might be made Lord of the World They could not be persuaded to think that Jesus who was come in the Flesh that is in so low and mean a Condition could be the glorious Messiah the Christ so often promis'd by the Prophets The other sort of Nazarens properly so called were the Believers of Judea to whom that Name was given as the Name Christian was to the Gentile Proselytes These believ'd Jesus Christ to be born of a Virgin by the Holy
Ghost and in this Sense they called him the Son of God and not only so but they confess'd this Son of God to be the Christ For 't is thus the Words of St. Austin must be understood de Haeres c. 9. and not as Dr. Bull expounds 'em Judic Eccles p. 47. by a Hysteron Proteron in this manner that the Christ was the Son of God that is according to him a Son begotten before all Ages Danaus a better Critick than he made no blunder in his Exposition of St. Austin's Words The Nazarens says he believ'd that Jesus the Son of Mary was the Christ and 't is certain the Words ought to be taken in this Sense Dei filium consitentur Nazaraei esse Christum says the Father In short they did not oblige the Gentiles to observe the Law which they thought themselves ought to keep as being Jews by birth but they afterward abandon'd it too as an Obligation that ceas'd as soon as they were driven out of Judea by the Emperor Adrian There is a great confusion among Ecclesiastical Writers in their Judgment of these Nazarens Some look upon 'em as Hereticks with others they pass for Orthodox The latter Fathers as Epiphaenius St. Austin and Theodoret place 'em in their Lists of Hereticks but the more antient Fathers as Irenaeus and Tertullian have not set 'em down in that Catalogue 'T is easy to conjecture whence this Disagreement comes Sometimes they pass'd for Orthodox 1st Because their Opinion that Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost c. being originally the Orthodox Faith some Remains of that Tradition maintain'd their Honour for a time 2ly Because Eusebius after Hegesippus had given 'em this Testimony that their Faith was sound as we have before shewn Now this Historian who gave his Opinion of 'em according to his own Prejudices mistaking their true Sentiments has drawn other Platonizing Christians after him into the same Mistake 3ly The Nazarens believ'd that by virtue of the miraculous Conception of our Saviour God was truly his Father and for this reason they give him the Title of the Son of God and it may be of God too sometimes The Platonizing Christians suffered themselves to be amused with big Words having their Minds pre-ingaged in Ideas they had put upon 'em beforehand so that they were so far from treating the Nazarens as Hereticks that they have often made 'em speak in the Platonick manner always supposing thro prejudice that whoever said these Words Son of God meant by 'em a Son begotten before all Ages But sometimes also they reckened 'em Hereticks either because they confounded 'em with the Ebionites or because their Opinion rightly understood was look'd upon as Heretical after Platonism prevail'd When all those in short who went for the Divinity of Christ no farther than his Generation from God and the Virgin Mary and who refus'd to subscribe or assent to the Platonick Generation before all Ages all such I say were no better treated than the Ebionites who believed Christ to be the Son of Joseph they were all anathematiz'd without hopes of absolution 'T is from this confusion of Ideas that we meet with so much obscurity in the History of the Nazarens Dr. Bull who knew not how to clear up this Perplexity runs himself into greater Difficulties He teazes and fatigues himself to maintain his own Sentiments under the Expressions of the Nazarens and to reconcile the irreconcilable Censures of the Platonizing Fathers about ' em But what signifies all this ado The truth is nothing of his Platonism was in the least known to the Nazarens All his Citations are grounded upon the equivocal Sense of these Words the Son of God True it is they went beyond the Ebionites and believ'd Jesus Christ was more than a mere Man because they believ'd him to be born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost Yet the Nazarens must be Hereticks say the Doctor what he will if they are to be try'd by his Platonick Faith But they are also Orthodox say others what they please if they are examin'd by the Rule of Orthodoxy that prevail'd in the first Age of the Church the Footsteps whereof have been preserv'd by some Writers in succeeding Ages as I have already proved FINIS