if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter But tho' this be inartificial enough if no more yet that which is more grievously suspicious is that he calls the Catholick Faith but a meer Opinion and Perswasion of a Party * P. 31. The third Opinion saith his Lordship is that the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that the Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Term Person became applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word a complete intelligent Being but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two So again †P. 32 33. This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than three Names or three outward Oeconomies * P. 42. or Modes and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of Christ § 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this but there are indeed several and those of great Importance First That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church The truth is as his Lordship has stated it it has many meer Opinions in it but they are such as are not in the Faith and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith either as it is or ought to have been stated by him he ought not to have set it out as a meer Opinion or Perswasion of a third Party For a meer partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholick Faith whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion For the Act is meer Humane Conjecture without certain grounds and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain but only probable appearance which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority But Catholick Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholick Church and thereupon to be relied on and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church not the Opinion of any Party in the beginning and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since of what Cut or Size soever pertain not to this Holy Body in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity and as fundamental in the Christian Professions Now would it not be very Theological to say That all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles the whole Synagogue of the Jews and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion That there is one God only the Creator and Governour of all things That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ That it is our Opinion That he came down and dwelt among us died rose again and ascended into Heaven and shall come to Judgment at the general Resurrection Just so absurd it is to call the Catholick Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Perswasion of a Party 'T is true indeed his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine but this term is equivocal and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers But what I require is that the Catholick Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion or form of Faith †P. 26. See Discour 3. That we believe points of Doctrine because we are perswaded that they are revealed to us in Scripture which is so languid and unsafe a Rule that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions since each Man's Faith is his Perswasion that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Perswasions but by a primitive perpetual universal and unanimous Conviction and Tradition The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Perswasions is the cause of all Heresies and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruine of the true Christian and Catholick Faith I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversie What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgment and Knowledge herein must betake him †P. 63. to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirineâ—â— and take that for fundamental Doctrine which hath been received for such in all Ages Places and Churches A Rule very practicable and easie since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholick Faith which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages 'T is true indeed every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately perswaded but he that is not to be perswaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholick upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood and yet stands or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ though he fansies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures § 4. Secondly His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation for he tells us that this third Opinion is that by the Vnion of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity God and Man truly became one Person Now here first we are not taught whether there were three or any one Person in the
God-head before the Incarnation For this account will admit the Personality of Christ to be founded first †P. 32. in the Humane Nature according to some of his Lordship's Criticks which he dares not contradict who place the foundation of the Sonship in the lower Nature Yea this Description will admit the Patripassian Heresie of but one Person in the Deity For if the Eternal Word were no Person distinct from the Father the Union thereof with the Humanity constitutes the Father an incarnate Person or otherwise by this State of his Lordships Doctrine the Father Son and Holy Ghost may be conceived as one incarnate Person Whereas his Lordship well knows our Faith to be clear That the Eternal Word is personally distinct or a distinct Person from the Father and alone assumed the Humanity into a Personal Union with himself and so alone was the Person of Christ exceptively of the Father and the Holy Ghost from this Personality and Character § 5. Now if a Man would enquire into the Motives of this affected obscurity in his Lordship that leaves open a gap to so many Heresies his Lordship's Words would lead one to a conclusion or at least a fair jealousie that his Lordship does not believe any Distinction really Personal between the Father Word and Holy Spirit but that the true and real Personality of Christ is proper to the Humane Nature For he teacheth us that those whom the Church calleth Persons the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Where that artificial Word only derogates from the propriety and fitness of the term Person as if the Scripture terms did not come up to it nor justifie it And if his Lordship will stand by the †P. 45. plain intention of his Words elsewhere he places Christ's Personality only in his Manhood in these words That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word So that the Word must be different from the Person in whom it dwelt which must be the Heresie of Sabellius Maâ—… or Nestorius In short while he 〈◊〉 the Canonical term of Person to contain some notion in it not imported in the Scripture terms he seems for that cause to censure it for that the Scripture does not come up so far as to teach three Persons but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost But when he says this third Opinion is than by the Incarnation God and Man truly became one Person I would fain know whether the term Person be proper for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no If not the Doctrine is to be blamed that teaches him to be truly one Person since the truth of a Character is the greatest propriety and if it be not true the Doctrine that teaches it is to be cashiered But if to avoid this it be true then I would fain be instructed whether the Church does not use the term Person in the same formal intention concerning the Father Son and Holy Spirit when She calls them three Persons as She does when She calls Christ or the Son of God incarnate a Person For if She uses the term in the same formal intention then if the Christ be a proper Person so are the Father and Holy Spirit two other Persons properly and truly distinct in the sense of the Church but if the Church has one intention in the Term when applied to Christ 〈◊〉 God-man and another when applied to the Eternal Trinity let this be made out by just Authority and I have done § 6. But the Order of his Lordship's Discourse obliges me to break off a little from this Disquisition till the next Section where we must resume it For he tells us if we will believe him that the term Person by those of our Perswasion came to be applied to the three to discover those who thought that these three were different names of the same thing which were for the most part and were generally called Patripassians and were expelled as Hereticks from the Church Now wherein lay their Heresie Why in this That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were not three co-essential Persons really distinct which was the Catholick Faith instead of which they coined this pretence That those Names had not three distinct subjects of which they were predicates or denominations but only were three titles of God the Father who became incarnate and suffered for us Now hence it appears that their Heresie consisted in the denial of what was ever before received in the Church That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were three Persons And if so then is his Lordship's insinuation false and injurious that the term Person had its rise and occasion from Patripassianism and consequently is of a later Date that by this fraudulent Hypochronism the term and the sense of it may be taken for not Primitive and Traditional but a mere later and artificial invention Now to prove what I say to be true I am to produce authentick Testimonies Now in the Latin World the first I ever have read of that taught Patripassianism was Praxeas against whose Heresie herein Tertullian wrote and charged in for denying the Eternal Word to be a * Tert. ad Praxeam Non vis enim eum substantiâ—um habere in re per substantiae proprietatem ut res persona quaedam videri possit substantial and real Person which Tertullian though then a Montanist then asserted with the Church though his †Tert. ibid. Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam Personam conditam Sic Filius in suâ personâ profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae Novatian de Trinit secundam Personam efficiens terms and senses were sometimes very singularly odd concerning the production of the second Person In the Eastern Church several lapsed into the like Error the most famous of which was Sabellius from whom the Heresie was entitled Sabellianism which denied what that Church also had ever asserted That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were three Persons instead whereof they asserted them to be but one Person For the truth hereof I shall recite the Words †Athan. con Sabell Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Athanasius as beyond all Exception valid From whence it appears that the Sabellians asserted but one Person against that Plurality of Persons fore-acknowledged in the Church And now I leave it to his Lordship to explain how the denial of three Persons could be Apostasie as this Father calls it had not the Faith of them been before expresly avowed and received For Heresie is an opposition of true received Faith and Apostasie must be from an antecedent Profession So that the Doctrine of a Personal Trinity was not later than Patripassianism but the Original Faith Nor does his Lordship seem candid in concealing this which was the substance of that Heresie while he mentions only their teaching three Names of one thing or Person which was a Conâ—ectary or at least a Colour added to
their Heresie against the Trinity of real Persons 'T is true a Man may innocently say That the term Person was used against Patripassians while he contends for the proper truth of their Personality as the Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity †P. 25. Ubi citatur Facund pro defensione triâ—â— capit c. 1. p. 19. cites Facundus's Saying that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie but to throw out such Expressions with a Design to deny the Primitive Antiquity of this Faith of Three proper Persons or Personalities is extremely perfidious of which this is a certain Sign when Men avoid the use of these Terms as a stock of Offence as his Lordship appears industriously to do in his State of the Doctrine I have not Facundus by me and so cannot so well judge of the convenience of his Words But as to the Term Hypostasis or Subsistence tho' it was in use long before Sabellianism and used of the Person of the Father * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1.2 yet was that use promiscuous for Essence and Subsistence long after Sabellianism and the determinate use thereof for the distinct Persons was later than the Sardican Council and was indeed at last so fixed to denote their substantial Personality or personal Subsistence against the Sabellians who asserted the Word and Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-subsistent that is not distinctly subsistent from the Person of the Father in the Unity of Essence but the Term Person both in the Eastern and Western Churches was ever received from the beginning without any variety or ambiguity § 7. Now that my Surmises against his Lordship's Integrity herein are well grounded will appear from his Lordship's explanation of this Term which tho' it be received in the third Party yet he dares not make his own nor allow for proper By Person saith he is only meant that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other Two Here it is plain that by using the Term Three so often without adding Person he shuns the Word as much as he dares at present to do and assigns a distinction which is not any way personal For it being only such a diversity that one is not the other it will as well agree to two or three Tobaco pipes for these are truly different from each other I would therefore ask his Lordship Does the Name of Father as distinct from the Son import no more than that one is not the other or does it import a Personality really Paternal If he will grant only the former part of the disjunction as he grants no more in his Discourse then there really was no God the Father from Eternity till the Creation of Christ which was the first Article of Arianism nor was he who is by all called God the Father even a true Person which yet however all have ever acknowledged But if he ever was a true Person and Father then first as to him the Term is elder than Patripassianism and I demand a good reason why the Eternal Word is not as much and as true a Person also especially if he be the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father For otherwise the Father and the Son will be of Dignities specifically different if one be of a personal and the other of impersonal Character tho' how a real Son can be a thing really impersonal I cannot conceive and then be that allows no more distinction but only this that one is not the other tacitly denying the relative distinction between Father and the Son doth really deny both the Father and the Son When these Words were orally delivered at Warmister I observed them to my self but looked on it as a slip only of an extemporary speaking but when I see it also after the last concoction delivered from the Press I suspect somewhat more than should be I am sure the Dictate is rotten and tacitly imports a renunciation of our Christianity § 8. And yet after all so great is the force of Truth that it will maintain its Evidence even in the Tongues and Pens of its Adversaries For though some part of his Lordship's Doctrines denies the Personality yet others unwittingly concede it For first of all when he calls the Trinity the Blessed Three not daring to say Persons the Character of Blessed doth import a Peal Personality For whether it be taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of God's essential Happiness or in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the objects of our religious Praises yet if the Three are either or both ways Blessed they must be Persons For among created Beings none are internally or effectually blessed but what are Personal but if any Man will cavil and say that God in the Creation blessed things Impersonal and promised such Blessings also in the Mosaical Covenants it is enough to reply That these Blessed Three are uncapable of those lower forms of Benediction and must have a Divine Blessedness if they are of a Divine Nature Now his Lordship will not say that these are Three Distinct Blessed Essences and he says they are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes so that he cannot with consistence call them three Blessed Names Oeconomies or Modes and then what can he or any one else conceive by Three Blessed but Three Blessed Persons For though it may be truly said that the highest Blessedness is that of Essence yet none but a Person or Persons can be essentially Blessed So that his Lordship asserting a Blessed Three must against his will yield them to be three Persons really distinct though not divide And so when he says that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself this Pronoun himself is expresly Personal and so either the Personality is Real or his Lordship very unaccurate in attributing a Personal Pronoun to every one of the Three and so is at his choice either unaccurate or self-contradictory or heretical or for the sake of a blessed Comprehension all together § 9. Let us now consider his Lordship's proper Tradition of this third Opinion or perhaps his own under the Colour of that for 't is not easie to find him This saith he is in general the Sum of the Received Doctrine that in God's undivided Essence there are Three really different from each other that are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes But here is not one word of Persons though asserted by the whole Catholick Church by our own Articles and Liturgies which his Lordship has sworn his unfeigned Assent and Consent to and is by his Station bound to defend and for which he has the great example of his late Metropolitan What latent Ulcer is the Cause of this tergiversation I cannot exactly tell but something there must be at the bottom But since this being matter
of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation †P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus
but only in the Humanity if one could see his inside since he * 45. That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word c. makes the Manhood it self a Person distinct from the Eternal Word that dwelt therein and instead of confuting †P. 32. helps those Criticks that place their first Conceptions of the Sonship in the Humanity and as to the Union he is so ambiguous that he tells us not whether the Father and the Holy Spirit came into this resulting Personality or no only saying without any peculiar restriction that God and Man became one Person thus leaving a latitude for various Heresies in this Mystery § 11. So much then for the Personality Advance we next to the Deity of the Messias * P. 40. We believe saith he that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him The Jews could make no Objection to this who knew that their Fathers had worshipped the Cloud of Glory because of God's resting upon it And this he lays as a foundation on which he may properly Deifie Christ's Humane Nature But this Jewish Doctrine is absolutely false and is but either an heedless or willfull Depravation of the Learned Dr. Whithy's chast and accurate * Tractat. de ver Jes Christ Deitat p. Theories herein To make which appear in its proper visage let us consider what Worship is in the sense of his Lordship with whom it imports †Lord of Sarum P. 38. not only Incurvation of Body which may be paid to Creatures but Acts of Faith and Trust Prayers and Praises c. Now will his Lordship stare me or any Man in the face and say that the Jews did thus Worship the Cloud of Glory This I think will be routed by one Syllogism whatsoever the Jews worshipped according to the Law was God The Cloud of Glory was not God Ergo the Jews did not Worship the Gloud of Glory I take it for granted that this Syllogism is impenetrable and let his Lordship try his skill upon it if he please It is indeed agrecable to truth and learned Men teach that Isreal worshipped God in the Cloud over the Ark in the Temple as in all the Symbols and Places of his especial Presence but the Symbols or Places themselves were not the Objects of the Jewish Adoration though Papists bend this to the Adoration of the Host And as simple as the Fathers are they can inform his Lordship †Just Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. ad ista Psalm 24. Quis est Rex Gloriae Dominus Exercitumm c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that every Man whatsoever will own that in Psalm 24. neither Solomon nor the Tabernacle or Ark of the Testimony was the King of Glory which they adored Yet that his Lordship's Concelts may have fair usage I am content to lay together all that he has said to this purpose to try whether they are in truth sound or adulterated or whether they can bear a fair Tryal He therefore teaches †P. 36. that 't is evident from several forms of expressing that Cloud of Glory that a constant and immediate visible Indwelling of the Jehovah was according to Scripture Phrase said to be Jehova which was applied to nothing else This the Greek render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Term the Apostles universally applying to our Saviour could mean no other but that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect dwelling of the Deity in him c. Now here are two great Absurdities first that the visible Indwelling of the Jehovah is in Scripture phrase called Jehova and secondly that this Name was applied to nothing else For first 't is he that dwelt between the Cherubims in a symbol of Glory over the Ark first in the Tabernacle after in the Temple is called Jehovah not his very Habitation 'T is the Title of the Resident not the Residence and so his Lordship himself applies it also in contradiction either to himself or the Scripture if he expounds it rightly That which perhaps led his Lordship into this fancy is that Shechinah Grammatically signifies Habitation and is thence taken by the Rabbins in a sense peculiarly sacred for the Majestick Presence of God between the Cherubims c. and that he takes to be called Jehova But his Lordship was not at leisure to apprehend that the Rahbinick use has turned the Grammatical notation of Habitation that is but an accident and made it to import that substantial Light and Glory the Symbol of the Divine Presence the Scripture word Glory and the Rabbinick Term Shechinah being equivalent For the Rabbins by Shechinah mean not mere presence but that Lucid Glory by which God presentiated himself But if his Lordship will excuse this unacouracy and say That This Glory is called Jehova in the Scripture yet this is also false and will not serve his turn For this Shechinah is called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Glory of Jehovah and God is called †Psal 24. the King and * Act. 7.2 God of Glory with relation to the Shechinah yet no Man will change the terms Glory of Jehovah thus The Jehovah of Jehovah or the God or King of Glory into this form The God or King of Jehovah which yet might be done if Jehova were the name of that Glory When Moses asked Jehovah to see a greater and more Majestatick Glory of the Divine Presence and that Jehovah made his Glory to pass by Exod. 33.18 21 22. The Glory is plainly distinguished from the Jehovah For Moses would not pray thus O Jehovah shew me thy Jehovah nor would the Jehovah say my Jehovah shall pass by Jehovah therefore was not the mere Shechinah either God's Habitation or the Cloud of Glory but he that presentlated himself therein And hence the ritual Worship of Israel though performed toward that Cloud was yet performed not to it but to him whose Majesty so appeared in or by it Nor does this Symbol adequately come up to the Mystery of the personal Union for God's inhabiting in a Cloud of Glory did not make a personal Union between God and the Cloud as the in habitation of God in Christ Humane Nature being of an higher and more intimate and unitive Connexion did which yet however doth not really turn our Nature in Christ into Deity except we will go over to Eutychianism and a confusion of Substance nor do we adore his Humanity as so Deified but we Worship the Eternal Son of God united to and mediating for us in our Nature § 12. But whereas his Lordship has out-pitched all Mortals in saying That in Scripture Phrase Jehova never imports any thing else but a constant and visible immediate Inhabitation which has been sufficiently baffled in the precedent Section I will adventure to advance and say that in the Scripture the word Jehovah is used for God without any imaginable respect to such a Shechinah In the Book of Job it is
very often found yet there being no Shechinah in his Land of Vz the Author or Translator could not use the term Jehovah concerning God appearing in the Shechinah of the Children of Israel for Job was an Alien and of the Line of Esau In those infinite Places where the Creation and all other Divine Works without the Land of Canaan are attributed to Jehovah there the name has no respect to the Shechinah Wheresoever he is mentioned by this name in Affairs among the Ten Tribes after their separation by Jeroboam from the Worship at Jerusalem there is no respect to the Shechinah for he had no such among the Ten Tribes When Ezekiel in Captivity before the destruction of the Temple mentions the Oracles of Jehovah or God by this name in the Land of the Chaldeans he has no respect to a Shechinah When the Temple was destroyed there was never any Shechinah restored to that Temple any more yet the inspired Pen-men after this call him by the name Jehovah for which I referr his Lordship to the Bible or the Concordances And to conclude the Eternal Wisdom of the Father speaking by Solomon calls him Jehovah with respect to such a time as was before all possibility of a Shechinah Prov. 8.22 Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old And truly if Jehovah were the name of God only as in the Shechinah then as it did not belong to him before the Shechinah so it ceases to appertain to him since the extinction thereof in the dissolution of the first Temple except his Lordship will have it revive again by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Habitation of God in Christ's Humane Nature But then as often as it was used by the High Priest if not others under the second Temple and after the cessation of other Prophets till Christ came by his Lordship's Criticism it must be improper and the Prophets that called God Jehovah after the Destruction of the Temple did misname him But after all to keep up an old custom his Lordship adds another contradiction for he says * P. 38. Jehovah is a federal name of God Now if so then was it properly used of God all the while the Jews were in the Old Covenant with God which was till the Death of Christ surely and consequently all that tract of time in which there was no Shechinah from the ruin of the first Temple was this name most proper § 13. From the Jewish Shechinah come we to Christ of whom his Lordship thus teaches * P. 40. that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him †P. 35. that the Jehovah dwelt so immediately and bodily in Christ Jesus that by that Indwelling he was truly Jehovah * P. 37. that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect Indwelling of the Deity in him than that had been which was in the Cloud Now this must be grounded upon a Principle or Maxim That whatsoever the Delty immediately inhabits as it did the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ that thing becomes God and the true Johovah by virtue of that Inhabitation and therefore the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ were the true Jehovah by this Residence and if so the Cloud and Christ are substantially the same thing though yet the Cloud hath ceased to be for many Ages And by the same Doctrine the inner Sanctuary of the Tabernacle and the Temple and much more the Temples of our Bodies and Souls in which Christ as God dwells immediately by his Holy Spirit are the true Jehovah also by virtue of this Inhabitation And besides all these absurdities his Lordship's terms exclusively diversifie the whole Christ who is inhabited from the Eternal Word which does inhabit in him and so according to his Lordship he becomes if not a Socinian yet a sactitious God one way or other § 14. Ay But does not the Apostle justifie his Lordship's form of speaking when he saith * Col. 2.9 that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily which his Lordship †P. 40. cites for his Authority These are indeed the Apostle's Words and his Lordship cunningly referrs to them though never intended to his Lordship's Consequences and Imagnations For the Apostle seems to oppose the Gnostick Pleromata excluding Christ from the Supreme Pleroma and Divinity Now things are inexistent in others either as things contained in things containing or as parts in the whole or one part in another The first Mode cannot belong to the inexistence of the Deity in our nature the second or third form of inexistence may be conveniently asserted here For first the whole Christ being a Compositum of the Word and Manhood the God-head of the Word may be said to be in Christ as part in the whole But if you take Christ here Synecdochically for that part of him which is distinct from the God-head which is often done sometimes expresly as the Man Christ Jesus sometimes implicitly from the necessary sense of the Texts then this Text will be thus interpretable In Christ i.e. the Man Christ or his Manhood dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead as the superior in the inferior part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the Soul in a Body But neither of these Senses inferr that all that in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily as a Soul in a Body is thereby really God and the true Jehovah for this would inferr an Eutychian confusion of Natures and Attributes To illustrute this his Lordship may observe that we say an excellent Soul is found in this Man either as part in the whole or strictly as the whole Man is put only for the Body yet no Man will hence inferr that all that in which the excellent Soul dwells thereby becomes a true Soul for this would confound the two Natures into one And truly as the formal Structure of his Lordship's words is heretical so his Arguments for it from the Jewish Shechinah are Idolatrous and will justifie Idolatry i.e. Creature-Worship both in Jews and Christians 'T is true indeed the Fathers generally teach a gracious adoptive and metaphorical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our nature in Christ and of all Saints by him but not so as to make that Nature or these Saints the true Jehovah notwithstanding their mutual coinhabitation to all Eternity § 15. It must be allowed and I allow it freely that the Argument brought from the perpetual rendring of Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the signal appropriation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament to our Lord while both Testaments establish only one and the same Lord is in it self exceeding good and urged generally by most learned Men to this purpose but however it is almost marred by his Lordship's conjuring up an Objection which he had not skill enough to lay The great Objection * P. 37. says he that ariseth
the highest to the lowest had been taught the mystery of the Trinity in Unity and to these St. Paul's words are as intelligible in their truth as the Apostles Creed or any other which an uninitiated Heathen might easily misunderstand either to conclude our Lord not to be God as being not called God in the Apostles Creed which Hereticks and Latitudinarians lay hold of to their evil Ends or another God because in other formularies he is called God of God But this fundamental Institution that we have no other God nor Lord than the Jews had and that Lord of the Jews being only one God Almighty we cannot err in understanding this Creed of St. Paul or any other to believe that Christ is a Lord in nature different from God the Father Almighty To exhibit this more clearly I will set these words of St. Paul and those of the Nicene Creed that are most apposite to them and liable to an Heathen misconstruction St. Paul's Creed To us there is one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things The Nicene Creed We believe in one God the Father Almighty Maker of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God very God of very God by whom all things were made Now to shew the most designed intention of St. Paul's words and that they do not at all give any colour to the Socinian notion of one advanced to Divine Honour but make him with God the Father Creator of all things I shall digest them into a due Paraphrase thus For though the Heathen Worshippers of Idols have many celestial and terrestrial Gods as they call them which they Worship by their Idols their Superstition to their falsly so called Gods arising from this truth that God hath set Presidential and Tutelary Powers over us who are therefore by Office though not by Nature Gods and Lords as the Angelical Princes of Greece and Persia and here on Earth the Kings and Rulers of the World yet we Christians have but one Almighty God the Father from whom all things originally are and we are in him or for him and one only Tutelar Lord next God the Father Jesus Christ by whom we were created and by whom we subsist for the Object of our Adoration By this Paraphrase it appears that the Father is called God and Christ Lord but the Creation attributed to both in this form of distinction that all things are of or from God the Father as the first Original and by the Lord Christ because by him the Father created all things and hence it follows that the Lord Christ in that nature which created all things is uncreated and if uncreated then of the same Deity of the Father who by him created all things and hence adorable with the Father whereas the Heathen Gods and all other Gods by deputation or advancement are not adorable as not being Authors of our Creation and Being nor uncreated in themselves Whatsoever Hebrew word therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place may be referred to yet our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Jesus being as our Lord and Creator the Object of our Adoration is vindicated from the reproach of a Creature advanced to the Honour of Divine Adoration by the very context it self And to this sense the words were fully clear to the Christian Church who knew St. Paul both as a Jew and Christian an utter Adversary to all Creature-worship But however I note here that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of Christ answers not to the Hebrew Jehovah for being set opposite to the many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must answer to a word in Hebrew that is capable of a plural number which Jehovah is not for there cannot be a plurality of Jehovahs But what shall be done to convince an Arian who will confess our Lord a Sub-Creator of all things beside under the Father and so their Lord on the Title of that Creation though himself was created by God the Father Why this place must be interpreted by others such as that he is God the true God God over all blessed for ever that he was ever in the form of God and equal with God the Father and one with him all which will bear weight while the federal whimsie vanishes into soft air And therefore after all his critical trisling he wisely †P. 38.40 comes to this way of interpretation and says a great many Good and Orthodox truths on this Article so far as that that Christ was God who manifested himself in our flesh which being so dissonant to all his former Modes of expression and avowed Notions seem to have dropp'd from him either unawares or for a colour of defence against a foreseen charge of Heresie or perhaps the singular Providence of God might so over-rule the madness of the Prophet to make him speak that for the Christian Faith which he had no mind to that his manifest inconsistencies might render him of no Authority for the use of Hereticks either in present or suture Ages § 16. His Lordship's last Argument for the Deity of Christ is †P. 39 40. that the Jews and Apostates from Christianity never charged the Apostles nor the Church with Idolatry or Creature-Worship which they would certainly have done had the Christian Principles been Arian or Socinian And had there been any such Objection we should have had the Apologies of the Apostles against it For so we find them vindicating themselves against the Charge of the Jews for quitting the Mosaical Ordinances and calling the Gentiles things of less prejudice than the worshipping and Deifying a Creature Now for my part I believe it was the common opprobrium both of Jews and Gentiles and perfect Apostates that the Christians adored a mere Malefactor and that surely is an imputation of Creature Worship and though we find it not in the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles expresly charged yet many passages asserting his Deity seem directly set in opposition to such calumnies In the Acts of the Apostles the recorded disputes with the Jews are whether our Jesus was the true Messias for on concession of this all the other Doctrines of Christianity were to have been admitted without scruple and so the questions of his Deity and Adoration came not into course with the Jews while they denied this Truth that was first to be proved in order to their conviction that he was the Christ And all that is written against Judaism in the Epistles is against Judaizing Christians or Semi-Christian Judaizers that adhered to the Levitical Institutes as necessary to all Christians Now these not making Christ an Idol or a mere Creature there was no need of a Vindication of us with them against an Idolatry that they charged us not with but against those Hereticks that made Jesus a mere Man and consequently would impeach us for the Worship of
a Creature St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expresly written and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors So that his Lordship's Observation though never so well intended is however partly false and partly impertinent And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it it will amount to no more than this That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature because he whom the Christians worshipp'd in our flesh was by them owned to be the Eternal God Yet no doubt the Jews ever did and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature who really as they think had no Deity in him else had they also thought him to be God they had been ipso facto converted to us the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine So unlucky is his Lordship even in the fairest part of this Discourse as if God had laid this Curse on him that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum c. PART II. § 1. I Have now I think performed my first undertaking that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith A truth so evident to his own Clergy even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities that they ascribe all or seem willing so to do to haste inconsideration and want of judgment not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse I cannot tell but at the best they are but Fig-leaves For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor first uttered to a learned Body and after exposed to the Censure of the World in a matter most fundamental in Christianity most liable to prejudices and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith with their unaccuracies and impertinencies and this not in their particular and private conceptions which the Church hath not authorized but in their most Catholick and established Theories Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men and not to have needed the Candor of a Reader § 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality that 't is not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character The Fathers it is true were Men and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these not with a design to blacken their memory but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions he had dealt very commendably But it falls out quite otherwise For he Taxes them for no real obliquities but their Catholick Principles fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamed of and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them he gives them not so much as one good word but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Bablers which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresie I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England Sure I am as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith so modesty ought to have repressed it if for no other consideration yet for this one reason That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers § 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies which he introduces thus by telling his Clergy that †P. 31. he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood and in what respect these Persons which he calls so according to custom not his own sense are believed to be one and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any other Account of it is to take away its mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible Now what doth this prima facie intimate but that it is not laid down in the Scripture in what respect the Persons are one nor in what respect they are Three But first in the Doctrine of Unity I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence notwithstanding all the wriggles of Hereticks not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7 which his Lordship has exposed * Letter I from Zurich for doubted but in many others And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity I will adventure the proof of it But if his Lordship be not so hardy then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip not a designed Artifice Let it be so yet is it a dangerous one and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction to the service of heretical Comprehensions The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One. This saith he is Scripture * Antap. p. 5. but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not What is this fetch for but that we may not press the Heretick's to own an essential Unity but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith But secondly his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three according to the Scriptures which do instruct us herein with certain notions and respects by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence For are not Father and Son Personal Characters and founded on a substantial generation the Father being the Person Generant as such and the Son the Person generated as such And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind and as such distinguished from its Parent The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and
grant such a conception allowable that there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies For if he be no Tritheist in allowing this Conception why does he reflect on it as Tritheite in the Fathers And yet his Lordship diversifies the Operations much more exclusively each of other Person than any Fathers do and in such a manner as inferrs a Tetrad in the Deity in which according to his Lordship the Father must be a second Principle For his words run thus †P. 42. In the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Vnity there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies By the first God may be supposed to have made and to govern all things by the second to have actuated and been most perfectly united to the Humanity of Christ and by the third to have inspired the Penmen of the Scriptures and the Workers of Miracles and still to renew and purifie all good Minds all which notwithstanding we firmly believe there is but one God Now whatsoever acts by another is distinct from that other by which it acts and prior in the Agency by the order of Reason If then God acts by the first which is the Father that God is in Nature and Subsistence antecedent to the Father and the first hath a former and if God who acts by three be distinct from those three by which he acts there are then four Distincts and Distinctions in the Deity or else the three are not essential in the Deity but only operant and unsubstantial Powers and Qualities Yet is it against Faith to say that God acts or creates by the Father because it makes him secondary by an unallowable conception the Canonical Faith herein being that God original or God the Father acts by his Son and Holy Spirit But whether we make the Father primary or secundary if we attribute the Creation to him exclusively of the Logos and Holy Spirit and the Inspirations to the Spirit exclusively of the Father and the Son and the Divine Operations in the Union of our Nature with the Logos to the Logos only exclusively of the Father and Holy Spirit according to his Lordship's scheme of conceptions we rove from truth from Scripture from Catholick Tradition which ascribes these to the single Persons by a peculiar respect of Oeconomick Order but not by an exclusive propriety of Operation And yet though his Lordship recommends this conception of such a separate Agency in his three Divine Anonymities yet can he find no such incongruities in the received Doctrines of those his despised Fathers But 't is time to take breath and consider what reformation following extinguished this Tritheism in the Catholick Church and Faith Why Others therefore laid another foundation in one numerical Deity or Being Now what is this but to insinuate nay openly to assert that the former Fathers that believed Emanations and Foecundity and argued from the specifick Homoousion with the respective Operations did not fundamentally own one individual Deity And yet how could they that stuck to the Nicene Creed deny the fundamental Article of one God which yet all the taxed Fathers defended as the Faith of all the former Fathers who made the Monarchy a fundamental Principle against Gentilism and were herein exactly and professedly followed by all their Successors Nay the feature of his Lordship's reflexion seems to attaint all Antiquity of Tritheism till after the Doctors of the specifick Homoousion and distinct Operations ceased as not holding the Unity of the Godhead for his conjunction therefore makes this Unity a post-nate Principle taken up upon the apprehension that the former Doctrines of the Church were Tritheite according to his Lordship's general Imputation § 14. And now it seems high time to observe upon what fancies for they are represented as such these Tritheite Principles were reformed by these over seri patrum nepotes * They then observed †P. 32. that the Sun besides its own Globe had an Emanation of Light and another of Heat which had different Operations and all from the same Essence And that the Soul of Man had both Intallection and Love which flowed from its Essence So they conceived that the Primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an Eternal Word it designed all things This they thought might be called the Son as being the generation of the Eternal Mind while from the fountain Principle together with the inward Word there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and that was to be the Soul of the Creation and was more particularly to animate the Church and in this Love all things were to have life and favour This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark nicety by the Schools and grew to be the universally received explanation So that it seems these conceptions these reforming conceptions are very novel and the Doctrine derived from them became not universal but by the Definitions of the Schools § 15. But before we come to justifie their due Antiquity let us consider whether as his Lordship represents them the Tritheism of the former Fathers were really amended by them For in this Simile here are two Emanations from the Globe of the Sun Light and Heat which have different Operations which if they represent different Operations of the different Persons in the Deity this reduces that Tritheism which the Simile was designed to avoid So unhappy were these Theological Tinkers in mending the former Theories § 16. But however let us see whether these Theories had not really a more early Original and Reception in the Universal Church I begin with the Simile of the Sun †Apolog c. 21. sup citat §. 7. Vide. Now Tertullian the most ancient of all our Latin Writers used this Simile and says that in respect thereof the Logos was ever backward celebrated under this Title as the Ray of God So * Instit l. 4. c. 29. ille tanquam Sol hic quasi radius à Sole porrectus Lactantius had learned the same Simile from Tertullian or his Church So †In Evan. Joh. c. 5. Tract 20. Si separas candorem Solis à Sole separa Verbum à Patre St. Austin an African likewise had from his Fathers derived the same Example of the Sun The Greek Fathers that lived in and just after the Nicene Council so often so uniformly and canonically use it who yet argued from the specifick Sense of the Homoousion that the citations of them would fill a Volume so this Fancy is not later than these Tritheit Homooufiasts And to let his Lordship see that it was an Ante-Nicene Simile not only the Scripture term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may convince but the express production of it * Theognost ap Athan de Syn. Nic. con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉