Three first Centuries nor even in the Three next without much opposition 3. I think that Curcellaeus has proved as well as any thing can be proved out of Ancient Writings That the Doctrine of the Trinity about the Time of the Council of Nice was of a special Union of Three Persons in the Deity and not of a numerical as it is now taught and has been taught since the Chimerical Schoolmen were hearkned unto 4. I wonder how Dr. Wallis reckons the Christian Church since he knows there were divers Arian Councils and one of them that of Ariminum consisted of 550 Bishops the most numerous Assembly of Bishops perhaps as ever was except he accounts A ians for Trinitarians which if he do then he cannot chuse but reckon Mr. Biddle for one too for he Titles his Book The Apostolical and True Opinion concerning the Holy Trinity revived and asserted 5. According to what I have given my self leave to read in the Controvertists of these Times concerning that Matter I mean Curcellaeus and Maresius Sandius and Gardner and Bull Petavius Biddle Estwich and Le Clerk I reckon Curcellaeus Biddle and Le Clerk to be the more free and ingenuous Writers and therefore more likely to give a true Judgment concerning the Matters they enquire of But 6. I conclude my Judgment with that of the great Protestant Champion Chillingworth chap. 6. n. 56. By the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburgh nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all Subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect Rule of their Faith and Actions that is the BIBLE the BIBLE the BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable Consequences of it well may they hold it as a Matter of Opinion but as Matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own Grounds believe it themselves nor require the Belief of it of others without most high and most schismatical Presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true Way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own Eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering Man to build upon I would not have Dr. Wallis think to impose upon us in this Reign of a Protestant King and Queen the Doctrine of Tradition he had better have done it in the late King's Time then it would have been acceptable to the Court. Sir I hope proceeded my Neighbour you are by this time convinced how unjustly and unlike a Scholar the Doctor pardon I pray my Resentment has drawn so black an Indictment against the Socinians upon false Grounds taken for granted by him to be true I am ashamed to read his words Nor do the Anti-Trinitarians insist on any other Ground why they deny it the Trinity or Three Persons of One God save only That it seems to them absolutely impossible and therefore think themselves bound to put another sense on all places of Scripture how clear soever they be or can be which prove or favour it It 's the contradiction of that Doctrine to a Thousand clear places of Scripture which they insist upon as I have shew'd before But I will pursue it a little further Will the Doctor deny that the Person of the Father is God No his Opinion asserts it Will he then deny That he who is God is not All-sufficient or Almighty If that One Person be All-sufficient and he is not God if he be not then all other Persons besides him must of necessity be superfluous and the introducing them into the Godhead is plain Polytheism and a direct Contradiction to the first Commandment of the Decalogue and to all those Texts that assert God to be One and consequently to those Scriptures that speak of God as One Person which are without number No they first devis'd an Opinion which is contrary to the clearest Scriptures and the most evident Reasons and then they would perswade us it is a Mystery either which we cannot understand and therefore must be blind to the Contradictions that are in it or if we will not be so satisfied they call us Clamorous and Importune and persecute us with the most odious Imputations they can invent and then with Fire and Faggot But that they may seem to give some Answer to those plain Scriptures and Reasons that shine in their Eyes they soar aloft quite out of sight with Metaphysicks or so near out of sight that we can see nothing but a Cloud The Notion of One God and One Person that is that One God every Man and Woman can understand that is they know perfectly that One Person that is God cannot be Two Persons each of which is God and except they had been us'd from their Infancy to say like Parrots that Three Persons are One God and each One of them is that God they would easily see the Contradictions of it And indeed the Common People do worship God far more agreeable to his Will than the Learned for these are obliged by the Athanasian Creed in worshipping One God to mind him as Three Persons that is to have in their Mind the Idea of One Almighty and only wise Person who is One God by himself and in the same Act to Adore two other Persons each of which is as much God by himself as the former To worship Three that are equal one to another and at the same time and in the same Act to worship but One. But the Common People worship One only Almighty and most Merciful Father through the Son as Mediator except they confound them with express Mention of Two other Persons and then they worship expresly Three Gods as the Learned do always more subtilly God Almighty even the Father knows he has given us a Commandment That we should worship him as One the only Wise the only Good the only True the only Holy the only Potentate and none other as God besides him which Commandment is as easy to be known by all the People that have Reason enough to understand Numbers the difference between One and more than One as it is necessary to be observed but is impossible to be observed because impossible to be apprehended by the Common
him as One single Person except only two or three obscure Passages in Genesis Neither can we have any Idea or Conception of God but Person is included in it taking Person for an intelligent Being so that all plain and clear Scriptures militate for them and the Trinitarians or those that say there are Three Persons in God or that Three Persons are all one God as your Doctor says have no Scriptures left but those that are obscure And that they are obscure appears clearly by this That there is scarce one Text alledged by them which is not otherwise expounded and in consistency with the Unity of the Person of God by their Writers You may see a great number of these Texts and Expositions in a Book entituled Scriptura S. Trin. Revelatrix under the Name of Cingallus Your Doctor proceeds he names but two Texts for he rakes his Opinion for granted as sufficiently proved by others His first Text is 1 John 5.7 There are Three that bear Witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One. One would expect now that the Learned Doctor naming but two Texts should cull out those that were strongest for his purpose and yet this Text is so far from being clear and strong That 1. it has not the Authority as other Scriptures have for it appears not in the most ancient Copies of the Greek nor in the Syriack nor Arabick nor Ethiopick nor Armenian Bibles nor in the most eminent Latin Bibles 'T is not urged by the Fathers in their Disputes about this Question It 's wholly rejected by some and counted doubtful by almost all Learned Men. You may see saith he in Dr. Burnet Bishop of Salisbury his second Letter in his Travels how variously and uncertainly that Text appears in Ancient Manuscripts Here my Neighbour crav'd my Pardon went to his Closet and presently brought me a Greek Testament printed at Strasburg by Wolfius Cephalaeus Anno 1524. in the beginning of the Reformation wherein this Verse is wanting Bur 2ly allowing it to be Authentick yet the most Learned even of the Trinitarians understand it not thus These Three are One God but These Three are One in Testimony or agree in Testimony See Beza Vatablus Calvin Erasmus the English Geneva Notes As for his other Text Matth. 28.19 I refer you to The Brief History of the Vnitarians c. in four Letters whereof he gave me a Copy Only I desire you says he to consider how clear a Proof this Text is which must run thus We are Baptized in or into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Therefore these Three Persons are One God and each of them by himself God As if the Israelites by being Baptized into Moses and believing in the Lord and in Moses his Servant so Marg. Exod. 14.31 did acknowledg Moses to be a Person of the most high God though he was indeed in some sense a God to them for he was so to Aaron their High Priest for thus it is read in the Margin of the English Bible printed in 1660. He shall be to thee a Mouth and thou shalt be to him a God Exod. 4.16 You may see the Hebrew so render'd Jer. 31.33 and the Greek Heb. 8.10 I must confess to you Sir I could not tell what to oppose to this Argument of his which shew'd the obscurity of our Texts and he now made a Pause and expected my Answer Wherefore to divert him from taking notice of my Convictions I asked him if he had any other Argument to prove that Obscurity He answered Yes And that also is taken saith he from our Adversaries the Trinitarians I mean the Romanists For they are told by Mr. Chilling-worth the Glory of English Protestants and since that by Dr. Tennison in his words thus For Scripture your Men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine of the Trinity can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinal Hosius de Author S. Script l. 3. p. 53. by Gordonius Huntlaeus contr Tom. 1. Controv. 1. de Verbo Dei c. 19. by Gretserus and Tannerus in Colloquio Ratisbon and also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and others Now it is to be observed That these Learned Men especially Bellarmine and Wiekus after him have urged all the Scriptures they could with their utmost industry find out in this Cause and yet after all they acknowledg their Insufficiency and Obscurity whereby they give a clear Testimony to the Doctrine of God's being One Person which to deny were even to deny the whole Bible But besides the current of all Scriptures on our side we have many clear Texts that prove the Father only to be God I 'll name but two Our Lord himself professes in his solemn Prayer to his Father in the presence of his Disciples saying This is Eternal Life that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent John 17.3 And the Apostle St. Paul says in opposition to Gods many and Lords many But to us there is but One God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8.6 Can any words be more express to prove that there is but One true God and One Person of that One God to wit the Father of our lord Jesus Christ who is oppos'd to him by his Names Relations and Characters Again there be a multitude of Texts that deny those things of Christ which cannot be denied of God and that affirm such things of him that cannot agree to him if he were a Person of God In like manner of the Holy Ghost Which of both sorts you may find urg'd and defended in the two Books of John Crellius touching One God the Father and abridg'd in Wolzogenius's Praeparatio ad utilem Lectionem Lib. N. T. cap. 2 3 4 5. So also in your Brief History c. the first Letter I then desired to know of the Gentleman what he could say to the Tradition of the Christian Church for you say that That from the Time of Christ and his Apostles hitherto as well before as since the Council of Nice hath ever held the Divinity of these three Persons and that these three are but One God This also you take for granted He answered 1. It is the Catholick Principle of all Protestants that the Holy Scriptures are a compleat Rule of Faith and Manners and clear and plain in all things necessary Now since this Doctrine of the Three Persons in One God is held a Fundamental and Necessary Doctrine it must consequently be clear and plain to all honest Enquirers which I clearly see it is not therefore I can satisfy my self concerning it without an endless Enquiry into the Fathers and Tradition 2. I am sure it has not been held in the Apostles Time nor I believe in any of the
of excellence that is the Gospel Decree as it is taken also in Titus 1.3 where the Apostle Paul having mentioned the Truth which is after Godliness in hope of Eternal Life goes on and says which God that cannot lye promised decreed to promise or in purpose promised before the World began hath in due time manifested his Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through preaching This Word was with or in God not yet manifested and the Word was God here God being the Predicate must have such a Sense as can agree to the Subject Word either most Divine as Spirit for Spiritual John 6.63 and the very term God Gal. 1.10 for the Doctrine of the Gospel and in the 18th Verse of this Chapter John 1. in the same Sense or as Grotius would have it for the Word of God but die former Sense seems far better All things were made by it to wit as a Rule or chief Design According to this Exposition the Word must not be taken for a Person in the first five Verses nor till the Evangelist had said in the sixth and seventh Verses That the Baptist being a Man sent of God was not the Light which was in the Word mention'd that is was not the Bringer or Preacher of the Light for that must be the Sense when a Man is said to be or not to be the Light But that which is denied of John is affirmed of another to whom he bare Witness and that was Jesus as appears afterwards He was the true Light that is Light-Bringer which coming into the World enlightneth every Man And now having laid a sufficient Ground for taking the Light in an improper Sense for Light-Bringer his meaning cannot easily be mistaken when in the fourteenth Verse he calls the same Man The Word that is the personal Word or Great Gospel-Prophet and says That The Word was was made or was born Flesh that is a Frail and Mortal Man not barely a Man for so the Word Flesh does always signify when it 's applied to Man and Christ is now a Man but not Flesh The Word wets made Flesh does not imply that this great Word Prophet or Messenger of that Word did exist before he was born no more than that Phrase in 1 Cor. 15.45 The first Man Adam was made a living Soul proves or implies that Adam did pre-exist before he was made a living Soul Here Sir I interposed and told my Gentleman That this Exposition seem'd very uncouth and strange I had never heard of it before and therefore it was not easy for me to apprehend it much more to receive it He readily consented to what I said and added That it 's a thing which makes Unitarian Interpretations seem forc'd and unnatural namely because we have imbib'd from our Youth and even from our Catechisms contrary Expositions But if they were both propos'd to one that had never heard of either of 'em before he was perswaded the Trinitarian Expositions would seem far more harsh and forc'd nay contradictious and absurd For to instance in this very Text of John what un-prejudiced Man could ever imagine that this Text should be the Ground of the Doctrine of Two Persons in God when nothing is more clear in Scripture and Reason than the Unity of God which necessarily implies the Unity of his Person I have been the larger in setting out this Exposition saith he because I knew it would be difficult for you to apprehend it There is yet another Exposition of this Scripture which is derived from the Great Grotius and may be found in the Brief History of the Vnitarians which I spoke of But I think I have said enough to convince any Man that is not extreamly prejudic'd that this is an obscure Scripture For as every one of these Senses finds some specious Grounds in the Text so never a one of them can clearly answer all the Objections that are levied against them and that of the Trinitarians least of all Therefore your Doctor writes either unlike a Divine or like a Censorious I will not say Malicious Person when he says If God say The Word was God and The Word was made Flesh shall we say not so only because we cannot tell How As if these Sayings were so clear that they admitted no Sense but his which understands by The Word an Eternally pre-existing Person whereas the term Ho Logos in Greek which we translate The Word Speech or Saying is found I suppose forty times in the New Testament taken impersonally for the Gospel or some Speech It 's Three and twenty times so used in this One Evangelist of St. John and for the most part oppos'd to the Person of Christ and on the other hand there is not one Text except this in 1 John 1.14 where it can reasonably signify a Person except we reckon that in 1 John 5.7 for one which I have shew'd to be uncertain and not to have the Authority of other Sacred Scripture As for that in Rev. 19.13 his Name is called The Word of God that is not the same with The Word simply and though it denote a Person yet it 's one whose Vesture was dipt in Blood which shews him to be a Man a glorious Captain Let all rational Men judge Whether it 's more reasonable to take a term in such Sense as it 's almost always to be found in in the same Divine Author than in the Sense of Philo a Jew or Plato a Heathen So that the Vnitarians have far the most reason to cry out of forc'd Interpretations whereby to deprive God of an incommunicable Attribute even his Unity And they defend these Interpretations with such Distinctions as are either not intelligible or which infer absurd Consequences Such are the Distinctions between the Essence and the Divine Persons of the threefold manner of Existence of God of Circumincession or the mutual Penetration or mutual Inexistence of the Divine Persons among themselves of God taken personally and essentially in Scripture of the Name Father sometimes signifying the Father alone sometimes the Father Son and Holy Ghost of the Eternal Generation or God's Eternal begetting a Son equal to himself and yet not another God of the Divine Operations within and without the Essence whence it is that the Internal are attributed to the Persons distinctly the External to them all Three though One only be named of the Incarnation or God the Son not being made a Man but joyning himself to a Man in an Hypostatical Union hence of two Natures in One Person of the Communication of Properties whereby that which is spoken of Christ's Divine Nature is understood to agree to him according to his Humane Nature and vice versâ and many more confounding Distinctions they use without which the Holy Scriptures cannot be understood in the Sense of Trinitarians but I am weary with reciting them Here he broke off and I rose to take my leave of him I told him as the truth is That I had long