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B27515
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Reflections on two discourses concerning the divinity of our Saviour, written by Monsieur Lamoth in French, and done into English written to J.S.
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Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; E. E.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing N1508B
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32,573
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26
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him should have obliged the Holy Ghost not to speak of him Or at least seeing it was not possible to teach his Doctrine without speaking of his Person to make use of such Expressions as might make it evident that he is not God It was necessary in most express Terms and on several Occasions to tell Men this Jesus whom you worship is not God for all that Neither can any thing be said in the Case he meaneth that the Holy Ghost has not spoke as Mr. Lamoth here directs but only this that the Holy Ghost was willing to deceive us Hold Jehu lest instead of hearing that thou drivest furiously they call to thee that thou drivest madly Declamations did I call these Sermons they are Debacchations For I will affirm that no Example or Instance can be given of a bold and heady Writer who hitherto ever durst exalt his Opinion or the Opinion of his Party above the Apostles the Scriptures and the Holy Ghost it self so that if the former were not allowed or supposed to be true the other must be mere Blasphemies Blasphemers and Fools If the hundred and fifty Sects or more into which Christianity is divided should all fall to scribling and should be as extravagant in their Imputations on the Bible as this Frenchman has dared to be what would become of the Christian Religion It would be turned into Ridicule by all that heard us magnifying so much our own Glosses Interpretations or Opinions and regarding the Text it self and the Authors of it so little Our present Author's Book is vouched or licensed by two French Ministers who tell us that being appointed by the rest of their Brethren to read it they find it entirely conformable to the constant Doctrine of the French Protestants I will not believe them though they gave it upon Oath for it never was the Doctrine of the French Protestants nor of any Protestants no nor of any Christian that if their Creed be not true the Apostles were Mad-men the Scriptures Blasphemies and the Holy Ghost knew not how to speak as he ought which are Words often repeated by Mr. Lamoth But you will say Sir but Mr. Lamoth has perhaps some particular and especial Grounds for his unusual Confidence he hath advanced something that is wholly new and very forcible in behalf of the Doctrines of the Trinity and our Saviour's Divinity Nothing less I assure you you may meet with as much in every Catechism and with much more in every little System I mean setting aside his gaudy Flourishes and childish Exaggerations upon mere Nothings his Exclamations and other Schemes of School-boys and Preachers Rhetoric with which the World has been so long tired as to nauseate them But this you will better see when we come to the Examination of his Texts 2. To his own ridiculous Confidence of his Opinion he adds as a farther Strength to it some impertinent Quotations out of the Fathers particularly from Tertullian and Gregory surnamed Thaumaturgus He says farther at p. 61. that the Doctrine he has asserted in these Sermons is the Doctrine of the Primitive Church And at p. 162. that Christians have been in possession of it above these sixteen Centuries I suspected all along what an observant Reader of Fathers and Church-History Mr. Lamoth is but here he himself has shewed us he considers not so much as how many Years he is to reckon from this present Year to our Saviour Why Man the Socinians will give to thee and thy Fellow Tritheists the whole 16 Centuries which thou here insistest on and are content with the seventeenth of which it should seem thou knowest nothing The Century of our Saviour and the Apostles the seventeenth from us is to us instead of all the rest and in the Opinion of all true Protestants that alone is worth more than all the rest if they were never so many Sixteens more But we are ready to contest it in the Presence of all the learned World from the genuine Writings of the Fathers before the Nicene Council that the Doctrine of the present Church of three equal consubstantial and co-eternal Persons now called the Trinity was expresly rejected by them that is to say as consubstantial co-eternal and co-equal are now understood by the Church and opposed by the Unitarians Trinitarians boast in vain of the pretended Consent of the antient Church with them till they can answer the first Dissertation the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Quaternio of Dissertations written by S. Curcellaeus against S. Maresius concerning the Judgment of the Fathers and the Primitive Church in the Questions of the Divinity of our Saviour the Words Trinity Consubstantial c. Neither Maresiuâ— though an able and learned Person nor any for him have offered to reply and the more learned of the Trinitarians among the rest D. Petaviâ—s and the learned and exact Dr. Cudworth have owned the Dissent of the ancient Church from the present about the Sense of the Words Consubstantial Co-eternal and Co-equal in which the whole Controversy concerning the Trinity doth consist 3. From p. 55 to p. 61. he considers the Difficulties advanced by the Socinians or Unitarians on behalf of the Unity of God and against the imagined Divinity of our Saviour he learnedly distinguishes them into Heart-Difficulties Wit-Difficulties and Scripture-Difficulties Heart-Difficulties being a new sort of Cant he explains by saying p. 55 56. that such is the Temper the Heart of Man hath received from the Impressions of Sin that whatsoever comes from Heaven is suspected though indeed there be no other Reason to suspect it but that it comes from Heaven And again Heaven saith it this is sufficient for Man to doubt deny it contradict it This is a Slander upon humane Nature 't is inconsistent with our rational Faculty or Power of Reasoning and the Experience of Mankind contradicts it For every Body knows that the general Fault of the World is not Vnbelief but Inconsideration and an Omission or Neglect of Duty from a vain Hope and Expectance that we have yet time enough and to spare in which to amend all Faults and make our Peace with Heaven But if Mr. Lamoth is indeed acquainted with any who therefore will not believe because Heaven hath said it as he affirms my Advice to him is to let those resolute People alone for if they will not believe Heaven they will much less believe him But as to all these Difficulties the Heart-difficulties Wit-difficulties and Scripture-difficulties which he hath pursued in divers Pages he hath represented them so meanly as well as answered them so weakly that the Socinians own them not for theirs We define the Reader to inform himself of the Diffiâ—â—â—â— or Arguments advanced by the Socinians not from Mr. Lamoth but from our own Writings that is to say from the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius the first Letter in the brief History of the Vnitarians the Letter of Resolution concerning the Trinity and Incarnation the
Doctrine was ever so displeasing to Mr. Calvin and his Followers the French Ministers that sometimes they deny there is any such thing as good Works and otherwhile they affirm that good Works are not only no necessary Conditions of Salvation but are even pernitious dangerous and destructive thereof They are so much of this Mind that they make the contrary Doctrine to be Heresy and because they think they cannot any way render it more odious they call it Socinianism but I advise them seeing Popery is now so much abominated in England that they would rather call it Jesuitism they should have prosecuted this Dr. A. L. as a Jesuit rather than as a Socinian that had been a way to set the Rabble as well as the Spiritual Court upon him But if Socinianism and the English Socinians are indeed such Eye-sores to these Ministers as seems by their frequent Prosecutions of divers Persons on that Account before the Ecclesiastical Judges and in other Courts they should at least have shewn so much Justice as not to misplace their Accusations so grosly too as they have done This Dr. A. L. is the fourth or fifth Person to whom they have given a Publick Trouble on the Account of Socinianism they have been always baffled and sometimes severely check'd by the Judges and Court all this has not discouraged them they having no Reputation to lose from renewing their Persecutions of innocent Persons But I advise them much to lay the Saddle upon the right Horse and let them not so wholly despise the Imputations of Calumny and Malice Vices so unsutable to their Profession of Ministers Let them cease to accuse those that are not guilty when they may easily find so many who are not only guilty of Unitarianism if it be a Guilt but are also liable upon that Account my meaning is have preach'd up and written for Unitarianism They have for Instance the four Evangelists and the Apostles notoriously guilty of the Heresy now called Socinianism and their Words are so clear and express for it that the Ministers need not fear the Imputation of Slander if they shall article against them at the Places and Courts where they have lately libelled Dr. L. and Mr. Gr. If the Reader will pardon me and not abate of his due Reverence I will be content to prepare the Articles for the Ministers in their own Forms and Terms they shall have no other Trouble but what they so much affect and like even to exhibit them in the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts 1. You Matthew stiled Apostle and you Mark called an Evangelist have mal and wic complotted together to teach and write the Heresy which denieth the Omniscience of the Son our Lord Christ while you have reported and published as from the Mouth of Christ himself that the Son knoweth not the Time of the last Judgment and that only the Father whom all Men grant not to be the Son knoweth of that Day Mat. 24. 36. Mark 13. 32. 2. You John calling your self Evangelist and Apostle have not spared to write and publish scandalous heretical and blasp Words against the Omnipotence of the same our Lord Christ affirming most injuriously and falsly that he can do nothing of himself and further that it was not be but the Father dwelling in him that did all the miraculous Works So you have said expresly John 5. 19 30. John 14. 10. With which monstrous Doctrine you Peter also symbolized when you preached to the Jews concerning the Lord Christ for thus you say of him Jesus of Nazareth a Man approved of God among you by Miracles and Wonders and Signs which God did by him Acts 2. 22. Et objicimus articulamur ut supra 3. You the said John not having the Fear of before your Eyes but led by an heretical and blasp Spirit have written and published and as from the Mouth of our Saviour that the Father is greater than he John 14. 28. To which Heresy you Paul have consented when you do write to the Corinthians that the Head of the Woman is the Man and the Head of Christ is God 1 Cor. 11. 3. But the divine Athanasius hath in his Creed expresly contradicted you 4. And further you John have written and published Words in which 't is evident that you designing to deny the supreme Authority of the Son our Lord Christ for you make him to say that he came not of himself but as sent by the Father and that his Doctrine was not his own but the Father 's that sent him and that as the Father had commanded him so in all things spake he John 8. 42. John 8. 28. John 12. 49. 5. You Luke called also an Evangelist have been yet more audacious you have published to the World that the Lord Christ was not only not God but that he needed to be strengthned in his Agonies before his Passion by an Angel and that he prayed earnestly to God as if he who was himself God and the only true God could need the Aid of an Angel or to make Prayer to any whomsoever The others your Companions in this Heresy have with some Modesty contented themselves to deny our Saviour's Omnipotence but you have represented him as in some Respects impotent and weak Luke 22. 43 44. 6. All of you jointly and severally have spoken of God by only the singular Pronouns I Thou Me Him Himself Thy self and such like which Pronouns are never used in any Language but only of one single Person not of more Persons and hereby you have fully assured us that your Belief is that there is but one Person of God not three Persons or a Trinity of Persons But you Paul have presumed to say even in Terms that God is but one Person for you write to the Hebrews that the Son is what God No but the Image of God's Person Heb. 1. 3. 7. To leave no Place for doubt you John and Paul have expresly taught and published that only the Father is true God and him you make to be even the God of the Son or the God whom the Son worshippeth and serveth You have said and written Father This is Life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent or Jesus Christ thy Messenger And again To us there is but one God the Father and one Lord or one Master that is Teacher Jesus Christ. And you Paul above all others have inculcated and repeated this Doctrine You tell the Corinthians that Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to God even the Father And you advise the Romans that with one Mouth they should glorify God even the Father Plainly as if only the Father were God John 17. 1 3. 1 Cor. 8. 6. 1 Cor. 15. 24. Rom. 15. 6. 8. To burden you at present with no more All of you jointly and severally have in such manner distinguished between God and the Lord Christ that your way of speaking amounts to a plain Denial that the Lord Christ is God You make our Saviour himself to say to the young Man whom he loved Why callest thou me Good there is none Good save one that is God You say There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Jesus Christ You exhort Let every Tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord Gr. that the Lord Jesus is the Christ to the Glory of God the Father You cry out To God only Wise be Glory through Jesus Christ You have taught that the Son shall be subject to him that put all things under him that God may be all in all Luke 18. 19. 1 Tim. 2. 5. Phil. 2. 11. Rom. 16. 27. 1 Cor. 15. 28. If we put all these Expressions together you are found to deny the Omniscience the Omnipotence and the supreme Authority of the Lord Christ and in some Cases you make him to be even impotent and weak and having thus divested him as much as in you lies of all the Grand Characters and Attributes of the Divine Nature you add that God is but one Person and that this one Person is only the Father and that Christ is a Man whom we must always carefully distinguish from God Thus it is and these are the Men against whom the French Ministers in pursuance of their Principles should have articled in the Ecclesiastical Courts these are the true Unitarians and Fathers of Unitarianism on whom the Blame and Charge should light 'T is in vain for the Ministers to rail at and be Informers in a strange Land against modern Unitarian Books and Persons unless they can first get the Apostles and Evangelists censured and their Writings suppress'd But in presenting the Articles I would have Mr. Lamoth be Foreman because they are suted to his Doctrine I need not Sir add any more I am of Opinion that the Ministers for one while may have enough of this I am your Assured E. E. FINIS