their Authority I have but briefly toucht them As to my Method having first considered his Preface in the next place I have considered his Apology 3. I have made some general Reflections on the Book and lastly I have discovered what Socinian Doctrines are covertly delivered in each Chapter for I find his Oracles like those of old to carry a doubtful or double Sence to be as a Reserve and Refuge that being driven from the one he might flye to the other and indeed it is more difficult to discover and draw him forth from those Ambushes wherein he lies in wait to deceive than to baffle his greatest Strength in a plain and open Field the first is my chief endeavour though I have not on occasion declined the other what I have attempted was not in confidence of my own Abilities having never been exercised in this spiny Controversie and being now by Age Miles emeritus but only to excite and provoke others to contend for the common Salvation in the Faith once delivered to the Saints and whatever the success be I hope I shall obtain the Pardon of all good Men seeing I have according to my power cast in my Mite into the Church's Treasury AN ANSWER To a Late TREATISE ENTITULED The Naked Gospel THE Author of the Naked Gospel calls himself a true Son of the Church of England now the Doctrine of the Church of England is declared in her Liturgy her Articles and Homilies in her Liturgy she hath inserted the Three Creeds viz. that called the Apostles the Nicene and the Athanasian these two last our Author would have to be restrained to the Letter of the former because that only is used in the Offices for Administration of Baptism and Visitation of the Sick but if he be a true Son of the Church he hath or should ex animo have given his Assent and Consent to all the Doctrines avowed by the Church However it is well that the Doctor seems to approve of the Apostles Creed because I find the Socinians deny the Godhead of the Son and Holy Ghost being it is not expresly affirmed in that Creed yet certainly they had not been made Objects of our Faith if they were not of the Godhead This Creed is but a larger Profession of our Christian Faith which we made at our Baptism where we dedicate ourselves to the Service of that one God who is Father Son and Holy Ghost The Right Reverend Bishop of Chester hath sufficiently proved the Deity of the Son and Holy Ghost in his learned Exposition of that Creed Nor have we ever heard of any of the Fathers that have interpreted it otherwise than as the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds have done yet I have been credibly informed that a Doctor who stiles himself of the Church of England gravely declared That this Creed also might be reformed But in the Church of England we find the reiterated Acknowledgment of the Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost so in the Doxology in the Form used in Baptism and in the Litany O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and One God c And in that very ancient Hymn after the Communion it is said of our Saviour Thou only art Holy thou only art the Lord thou only O Christ with the Holy Ghost art most high in the Glory of God the Father In the Te Deum Thou art the King of Glory O Christ thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father In the first Article concerning the Trinity the Church of England says That in the Unity of the Divine Nature there are three Persons of the same Essence Power and Eternity Father Son and Holy Ghost In the Homely for Whitsunday she says The Holy Ghost is a Spiritual and Divine Substance the third Person in the Deity distinct from the Father and the Son Which thing may most easily be proved by most plain Testimonies of God's Holy Word Canon 〈◊〉 1640. And in the Canons it is forbidden to read Socinian Books And in the former Book of Canons we are forbid to teach any thing but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and what the ancient Fathers and Bishops have collected out of them It was therefore a Protestatio contra factum to stile himself a true Son c. and under that Title to publish to the World what is so opposite to her Doctrine May not the Church complain of such Sons in the words of the Prophet Isaiah c. 1. I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me But God be thanked the Church of England doth not want more dutiful Sons such as on all occasions are ready and able to vindicate her Doctrines and assert her Discipline That famous University whereof the Author was a Member seasonably manifested her Detestation of his Heretical Opinions by condemning them to the Flames that there might not be a Spark left to kindle such dangerous Fires in the Church which Decree for the Reader 's satisfaction is here inserted The Judgment and Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford delivered in a Convocation held August 19th 1690. against some Impious and Heretical Propositions transcribed and quoted out of an Infamous Libel of late perfidiously printed within the said Vniversity and published with this Title The Naked Gospel which do Impugne and Assault the principal Mysteries of our Faith alway retained and preserved in the Catholick Church and especially in the Church of England IMPRIMATUR Jonathan Edwards Vice-Can Oxon. WHereas there is lately published an Infamous Libel entituled The Naked Gospel which under that specious Title destroys the Foundation of the Primitive Faith once delivered to the Saints assaults the chief Mysteries of our Religion and not only denies but reproacheth him that bought us the Lord Jesus Christ who is God blessed for ever And whereas it appears that this Libel deserving to be condemned to eternal Flames hath been by an unheard of Persideousness printed and published within this University therefore for the Honour of the Holy and Individual Trinity for Preservation of the Catholick Doctrine in the Church and moreover for the Defence as much as in us lieth of the Reputation and Esteem of this University which with all care we desire to preserve intire and inviolable We the Vice-Chancellor Doctors Proctors the Regent and Non-Regent Masters convocated in a full Senate of Convocation on the 19th of August 1690 in manner and place accustomed certain Propositions in the said Libel contained which we have caused to be transcribed and hereafter recited being first Read have by our Common Suffrages and the Unanimous Consent and Assent of Us all Decreed in manner following I. We do Condemn all and every of these Propositions and others to them belonging which for Brevity's sake are pretermitted as False Impious and Contumelious to the Christian Religion and especially to the Church of England And we Decree and Declare most of them to be Heretical as contrary
of both which Nature 〈…〉 t was qualified for that Great End and Office of a Mediator and â—oth the Sanctification and Mission of our Saviour were but a Manifestation of his being qualified both as God and Man for that great End of our Redemption If our Saviour's Sanctification and Mission into the World were a sufficient reason to convince the Jews that he was not a Blasphemer in saying that he was the Son of God why may it not be a sufficient Argument to prove that the Socinians blaspheme Christ who say he was not the Son of God until his Conception and Ascention into Heaven Might not the Jews argue then as the Socinians now do Why tell you us of your Sanctification and Mission as if that made you the Son of God if we could see you ascend into the Heavens we might believe that you came down from Heaven but till then we must believe our eyes rather than your words we see you are a Man and know your Mother and Brethren and therefore you blaspheme in saying I am the Son of God The truth is that Christ's Sanctification or Unction his Mission c. were but as St. Paul speaks of his Resurrection a Declaration only of what he was before Again the Question was not in what respect he was the Son of God but whether he was the Son of God in any such manner as might excuse him by their Law from being a Blasphemer and herein also he shews his Divine Wisdom he argues from his Works and from their Law which they knew to convince them of what they were ignorant of if he should have proved that he was the Son of God because God was his Father by eternal Generation that had been to prove ignotum per ignotius and the Jews would have equally rejected both and adjudged him guilty of Blasphemy in the highest degree as not believing that God had a Son begotten of him from Eternity or that Christ was this Son but they having heard of a Messias whom they expected about that time to come into the World the best means to convince them that he who did the Works of God which no Man could do except God were with him was that Messias and if that he was first sanctified and then sent into the World in a more eminent manner and for higher End than any of those to whom the Word of God came in former times to commissionate them as Magistrates for the Government of Mankind then he did not blaspheme in saying I am the Christ or I am the Son of God So that if our Saviour's Argument were more opposite and convincing than those of the Socinians we have gained this Fortress from them and on their surrender of this their other little Sconces will fall into our hands for whatever is spoken of our Saviour as God or the Son of God they refer to his Designation and Mission into the World i. e. to his Humane Nature as where it is said He received power from the Father that he did the works of his Father that he was one with the Father by consent of his will And they will allow no such Phrases any way to imply his Deity because those expressions of Gods giving and Christ's receiving God's sending and his being sent imply a Superiority and Inferiority in the Persons and that the one received somewhat which he had not before But the Fathers and late Divines do easily answer all these thus To the Objection of Receiving 't is said what Christ received of his Father was not given as he was God but Man St. Ambrose de Fide l. 3. n. 22. Christ prayeth as the Son of Man and obtains as the Son of God he possesseth as the Son of God what he prays for as the Son of Man so he was anointed and grew in Grace c. not as God but Man Perfecit non Deus sed caro So the Father is greater than I and the Father giveth life to the Son and he received the Spirit without measure All such Phrases belonging to Christ as Man as Christ says of himself All things are delivered to me of the Father as he was then incarnate The next most considerable Objection is from 1 Cor. 15.24 c. How Christ can be said to be that true God it being there said he shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father and then the Son himself shall be subject to him Answ This doth not imply an Annulling or Abdication of his own Dominion as God no more than when God the Father is said to deliver all things to the Son and Matth. 28.18 All power is given to me in heaven and earth the Father did exclude himself by that Gift 2ly This Kingdom is peculiarly his Church and St. Aug. de Trinitate l. 1. c. 8. n. 60. thus explains that place Tradere regnum est credentes perducere ad contemplationem Dei To present his Church pure and without spot free from all impurity of Flesh and Spirit from all Sins and all Enemies which shall be trodden under their feet as Seneca's Phrase is Reddam te tibi meliorem that whereas God was obeyed by them formerly but in part now God shall be all in all And when it is said Christ shall reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet it doth not imply that he shall reign no longer but that he shall reign so long maugre all the Powers and Polity of the Gates of Hell which shall not prevail against him for the word until doth not exclude the future time as Matth. 28.28 But how shall the Son himself then be subject shall he become a subject of whose kingdom it was promised there should be no end and that he should reign forever Luke 1.33 Object Christ while on Earth and now in Heaven is subject to his Father What other Subjection can be conceived Then when he shall deliver up the Kingdom Answ This by the Ancients was understood of the mystical Body of Christ over which he is Head and King and when the whole Church is subject then Christ as the Head may be said to be subject so Athan. Contr. Apolon n. 22. and St. Ambrose de Fide l. 5. c. 6. n. 24. Christ shall be subject in us who are not yet fully made subject And St. Aug. Q. 93. 69. n. 87. it is spoken of Christ and his Members Christus universus est caput cum Membris This Subjection is spoken in the future Tense Then shall the Son be subject Now Gregory Nazian asks the question Annon nunc est subjectus est Orat. 36. Christ as Man never disobeyed or rebelled but we that are Members of his Mistical Body do sin and disobey God and Christ and till our mortal Body shall put on Immortality we shall not be wholly brought into subjection but when Christ shall have brought down all Authority and Power subdued all his Enemies purified all his Members and presents them to his Father
deny And though this Position were rash enough yet what he adds is much worse viz. That the Athanasian may be numbered among the Roman Doctrines and to be leveled with the Arian equally unworthy of not only our Faith but our Study Now the Athanasian Doctrine is not only agreeable to the Nicene but they are both retained in the Doctrine of the Church of England and how can he affirm himself a Son of the Church of England who bids such an open Defiance to the Doctrine of that Church The Nicene Council grounded their Decrees on the Scripture as they had been understood by the Primitive and Apostolical Fathers before there was either Imperial or Papal Power in the Christian Church and it is very strange if this be not a more firm Foundation than his corrupt Reason when it is contrary both to Scripture Antiquity and Councils and the sence of the Catholick Church in all Ages as much as to the Faith of the Church of England In this Chapter the Doctor tells us of the Council of Ariminum which was many Years after that of Nice and was the greatest for number that ever was but one of the worst for the major part were Arians the Doctor confessing p. 38. col 2. That the Arians had all the Eastern Churches except that of Hierusalem that in this Council the Latine Church were circumvented by the Greeks who when it was proposed by the Greeks Whether they would worship Christ or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they cried they believed not in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in Christ Before I answer this Objection I shall add another which the Doctor urgeth p. 14. c. 1. speaking of the Consubstantiality he says It was a Mystery to those very Councils which determined it and as it appears says he by those contrary Determinations of several Councils and by the wavering of the same Council for that of Sermium framed two or three one whereof they would have reneg'd and laboured to recal its Copies Answ This Variety of Councils was occasioned partly by the influence of Arian Emperors under whom at that time St. Hierome observed the whole World became Arians but more especially by subtilty of those Greeks of whom he speaks who pleaded the Cause of the Arians in that Council of Ariminum against the Latine Church for those sort of Greeks were possest of the Eastern Churches as our Doctor observes But the Latine Church adhered to the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds and as Ignorant as the Doctor accounts them they discovered and baffled the Sophistry of his subtile Greeks even in that Declaration of theirs That they believed not in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in Christ i. e. not in such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some of those subtile Greeks would have imposed on them contrary to the Opinion they had of Christ Now this piece of Sophistry will thus appear Athanasius speaking of some Hereticks who used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says That Paulus Samos used it in a sence that might confirm his Error and destroy the true Notion of the Word The Council of Nice agreed the meaning of it to be That the Son had a proper Personality which made him the second Person in the Trinity but was of the Substance with the Father And Socrates l. 1. c. 8. says They held the Son to be of the Father but not as a part of his Substance which was the Error of Paulus Samos Sabellius c. declaring the Divine Essence to be undivided contrary to the Opinion of those Hereticks that held the Divine Substance to be divided between the Father and the Son And in this sence they used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Council of Nice accounted Heretical this was known to the Latine Church and when they proposed that word in a sence opposite to the Nicene Faith they did as they had just cause reject it and answered that subtile Question with a plain renouncing of the Error of those Hereticks that thought to impose their sence on them We will not worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Christ In this sence it was that the Fathers in that Council renounced the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eustathius had this distinction from Marcellus his Master whom St. Hilary and St. Basil call an Heretick See Socrates l. 1. c. 23. and Sozomon l. 2. c. 11. I shall here once for all give my Reader a short Account of the Controversy between St. Athanasius and Arius Alexander Bishop of Alexandria having heard of the Blasphemy of Arius a Priest under his Jurisdiction called a Synod of his Province to enquire into his Opinions and censure him Arius appeared and maintained That there was a time when Christ was not that he was Deus Factus made a God and so a Creature For these and other Heretical Opinions he was Excommunicated together with some others whom he had drawn to his Opinion and by their means the People were also divided denying to hold Communion with each other The Emperor being informed how far the Dissention spread and what Tumults had been already occasioned by the Controversy between the Catholicks and Arians though not fully informed of the truth of the Question made it his business to apply a seasonable Remedy to so great an Evil and first he sent Letters by Hosius Bishop of Corduba both to Alexander and Arius enjoyning them to Peace and Brotherly Communion I find saith the Emperor that the rise of the Controversy between you is this That when you Alexander required of your Presbyters what they thought of a certain place in the Law or rather of a needless Question and you Arius did imprudently reply what you neither ought to think nor being thought you ought to have supprest by silence the Discord between you caused a breach in your Communion whereby the People also were divided from the Unity of the Church wherefore I Exhort that each of you pardoning each other do embrace what I your Fellow-Servant most justly require for it was neither fit to move such a Question at first nor being moved to return such an Answer to it for such Questions which no necessity of the Law doth prescribe ought to be kept in our own Breasts and not to be unadvisedly committed to the Ears of the Vulgar lest we for the infirmity of our Nature not being able to explain what is proposed and the People through their dulness being not able to apprehend it they necessarily fall into Blasphemy or Schism for the Contention is not about any great Command of the Law nor is there any new Opinion started concerning the Worship of God but you both retain one and the same Opinion so it seems the Emperour was informed and therefore may well live in the same Communion as the various Sect of Philosophers do Let us duly consider how unequal it is that by your Contention about light and vain words the People that lived as Brethren should
more c. 11. speaking of the Divine and Humane Nature of Christ he says That as Nature teacheth that he that is born of Man is Man so it teacheth that he that is born of God is God Theognostus of Alexandria as Athanasius quotes him taught the same Doctrine That the Son was begotten of the Substance of the Father as is Beams from the Sun and as the Sun is not lessened by the effusion of its Beams so neither is the Substance of the Father diminished by begetting the Son the Image of himself Dionisius Romanus wrote an Epistle against the Sabellians wherein he says It is necessary that the Word of God be united to the God of all and that the holy Spirit remains in God and so the holy Trinity doth unite in One as in a certain Head viz. the Omnipotent God of the Universe And he confutes those who hold the Son of God to be made as other Creatures as being contrary to the Scripture Lastly That the Trinity is not to be divided into three Gods nor the Dignity of it to be lessened by the name of a Creature but we are to believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ his Son and in the Holy Spirit And that the Son is united to the Father he proves from the words of our Saviour I and the Father are one for thus the Divine Trinity and the preaching of that Holy Monarchy is preserved Dionisius of Alexandria whom the Arians boasted to be of their Party wrote against them in his own defence an Epistle which he calls a Resutation wherein he declares That he never was of the Opinion of Arius but that he alway thought our Lord to be the Word and Wisdom undivided from the Father For saith he under the name of the Father I imply that he hath a Son and when I mention the Son I understand also that he hath a Father and so I joyn them together for from whom should the Son come but from the Father But the Arians will not understand that the Son cannot be separated from the Father the names implying a communion between them and the Holy Ghost is in both and cannot be separated from him that sends him How then can you suspect me who use those Names to have thought that they may be divided or separated wherefore you accuse me falsly as if I had denied that Christ is Consubstantial with God Thus I said that the Plant proceeds from the Seed or Root and is another thing from that from whence it proceeds yet is it of the same nature with that whence it proceeds the River which flows from the Fountain hath another name for we do not call the River the Fountain nor the Fountain the River yet both do exist and the Fountain is as a Father but the River is Water flowing from the Fountain Greg. Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocesaria hath left us this Confession of his Faith recorded by Eusebius Eccl. Hist l. 7. c. 28. There is one God the Father of the Living Word the Subsisting Wisdom the Eternal Power and Character the perfect Father of him that is perfect the Father of the only Begotten There is one Lord alone from him that is alone God of God the Character and Image of the Deity the efficacious Word the Wisdom comprehending the constitution of all things and the effective Power of all things the true Son of the true Father invisible of him that is invisible incorruptible from him that is incorruptible immortal and eternal And there is one Holy Spirit that hath its existence of God who by the Son hath appeared unto Men the perfect Image of the perfect Son the Life and Cause of the Living the Holy Fountain Sanctity and Giver of Sanctification in whom God the Father is manifest who is above all and in all and God the Son which is in all The perfect Trinity which is not divided nor separated in Glory Eternity Kingdom and Power so that there is nothing in the Trinity that is created or servile nothing added or superinducted which was not before The Son was never wanting to the Father nor the Spirit to the Son but the Trinity alway remained the same immutable and invariable In the Life-time of this Greg. Thaumaturgus a Synod of Bishops met at Antioch to Censure the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus who denied the Deity of Christ These Bishops denounced an Anathema against him having first admonished him of his Heresie and in that Epistle they say That they declare the Faith which they received from the beginning and alway held in the Catholick Church from the Apostles to that day even from those that had seen with their eyes and were made Ministers of the Word and which was preached in the Law and Prophets and in the New Testament And the Faith concerning Christ they say is this That he is the Word the Wisdom and Power of God that was before all Ages God the Son of God in substance and subsistance Pierius a Presbyter of Alexandria was of the same Opinion as Photius relates Cod. 119. That the Father and the Son were of one Substance and Equality St. Lucian a Presbyter of Antioch published the same Faith which is to be seen in Socrates l. 2. c. 10. We believe in one God the Father Almighty Maker of all things and in one Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son by whom all things were made begotten of the Father before all Ages God of God Whole of Whole Sole of Sole Perfect of Perfect King of King Lord of Lord the Living Word Wisdom Life the true Light Way and Truth the Resurrection Pastor and Gate not obnoxious to Change or Alteration every way the express Image of the Father's Deity Substance Power Counsel and Glory the first Begotten of every Creature who was with God in the beginning God the Word as is said in the Scripture who in the last times came down from Heaven and was born of a Virgin according to the Scripture and in the Holy Ghost which is given to Believers to comfort sanctifie and consummate them as our Lord Christ commanded his Disciples go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost who are three in Person but agree in One. Arnobius gives the like Testimony That Christ without any Instrument Help or Rule but by the power of his own Nature made all things and as it was worthy of God nothing that was hurtful but all beneficial and this is the property of the true God to deny his bounty to none Lastly Lactantius whom the Arians claim to be of their Opinion says thus When we say God the Father and God the Son we do not speak of what is diverse or separated because neither the Father can be so called without the Son nor the Son be begotten without the Father seeing therefore the Father makes the Son and the Son makes him a Father there is in both one Mind one Spirit and
in his Disputation against Socinus concerning the Adoration of Christ where be adds that Jesus signifieth a Saviour but who can so save us as the Father Socinus replys That the name Jesus here is the proper name of a Person not an Appellative of his Office for then it should be read O Lord of Jesus which though they do confute the trifling of Franken in the Interpretation of this place yet they do not answer it by shewing how Adoration may be given to Christ whom they account to be a Creature seeing that of Isa 42.8 saith expresly I am Jehovah that is my name and my glory will I not give to another This Knot Socinus could not untie with all his skill 5ly We might urge the Works of Christ 1. The Creation for by him all things were made Col. 1.16 2. Conservation He sustains all things by the word of his power Heb. 1.3 3. He wrought Miracles in his Name and Authority 4. He forgave Sins Mat. 9.5 He sent the Holy Ghost Acts 2. Which things do exalt him above the rank of Creatures but because the Adversaries do refer all these things to a delegated and derived Power and not to an innate Power which we have already proved this may suffice In the last place we shall shew some Absurdities which will follow on this Heterodoxy of our Adversaries for if Christ being of the same Nature with the Father were not the Supreme God it would follow that the Scriptures do exhibit to us great Uncertainties in the great business of Salvation 2ly That the Churches the Councils the Fathers of all sorts of all Ages in all places have recommended to Posterity Heretical Creeds and monstrous Comments 3ly That the Martyrs have sealed ridiculous things with their Bloud 4ly That we have given up our names in Baptism to a Creature as well as to a Creator and Worship and Invocate a Creature with the same Religious Worship And seeing it is acknowledged that Christ sent the Holy Ghost which received from Christ what he delivered John 16.14 It would follow 5ly That a Creature did contribute something to the Eternal Power and made use of his Service 6ly From hence it may be concluded that our Mediator was insufficient for so great an Office seeing all that he did perform was due Debt every Creature being so subject to the Creator that it can merit nothing from him Whence it followeth lastly That the publication of the Law was in vain and the punishment threatned to Offenders frustrate because it was impossible that a Finite Creature could satisfie Infinite Justice Therefore if our Saviour be not only the Son of Man but also the Eternal Son of the Living God that Lord God the Α and Ω which is which was and is to come the Almighty if he were in the beginning with God if he is God over all blessed for ever if he thought it no Robbery to be equal with God and the essential Attributes of Jehova are every-where attributed to him if he did by his own Power do such Works as no Creature could do then those Blasphemies which follow on the Opinions of the Adversaries are intolerable and we may truly and confidently conclude Jesus Christ our Saviour to be of the same Essence and Power with the Father and Holy Spirit which was to be demonstrated An Answer to the Objections of the Adversaries Jo. Crellius in his two Books of One God the Father urgeth sixty two Objections which we will reduce to seven Heads under which the rest will be easily considered and confuted First He argues from exclusive Particles that the Father only is the Supreme God So Joh. 17.3 This is life eternal to know thee only the true God There is one God the Father of all who is above all Eph. 4.6 To us there is one God the Father of whom are all things 1 Cor. 8.6 And Rom. 16.27 To God only wise be glory Hence he concludes that Christ is not the Supreme God 1. Answer in general These Particles do exclude only the Creatures and Idols not the Persons of the Son or Holy Ghost and the Particle only in S. John doth not limit the word thee but God and it may be referred to the word know as if it had been said This is sufficient to eternal Life if they only know him that did send and him that was sent or as St. Chrysostom reads This is life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to be the only true God otherwise nothing is to be known concerning Christ but that he is sent To that in the Corinth as it is attributed to the Father that he is the One God so Christ is called the One Lord now if because the Father is called the One God the Son be excluded from the Deity by the same reason because the Son is called the One Lord the Father may be excluded from being our Lord. The same Answer serves to that in Ephes 4. and Jude 4. as to that of Rom. 16. it expresly includes Christ the Wisdom of God as the name God also includes the Trinity where there is not a distinct mention of Persons 2ly They urge our Saviours own Confession Of that day and hour knoweth none neither the Angels in heaven nor the Son and as St. Mark adds But the Father only Therefore the Son is not Omniscient and by consequence he is not the Supreme God Ans No one knows i. e. no Creature for so Christ appeared and was accounted by them that questioned with him But this doth not exclude Christ as God nor the Holy Spirit which searcheth the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 Thus when it is read No man knoweth who the Father is but the Son will you therefore conclude that the Father knoweth not himself or that the Holy Ghost knows him not Or when you read that none knows the things of God but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.11 therefore the Son and the Father do not know the things of God Men of reason should be ashamed of such an Inference The word alone therefore doth not exclude all simply but such in a certain sort whom it concerned not to know and therefore ought to watch lest that day should come on them sleeping and unprepared 2ly Others add that the word knoweth doth not denote simply to know a thing but as in the Hebrew Conjugation Hephil to make others know which they confirm from 1 Cor. 2.2 I determined not to know any thing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified i. e. it is my Office not to teach any other thing But I think this not so applicable for then neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit did so know as to teach or make others to know it But Christ as the Son of Man did not know it simply but as the Son of God the same God with the Father and the Holy Spirit 3ly They urge two Visions the first from Dan. 7.13 14. Where
I hope he will make his Notion more intelligible how a Thought which he calls the first-begotten Son of God may also be called the only begotten Son of God And how a Thought or Word mental or declared could intimately vitally and perfectly unite itself to a divinely begotten Child which whatever he says to the contrary is much more obscure than what the Scripture and the Church of England have said When he says p. 54. He can see no great reason why Socinus who contended for the Worship of Christ should also contend against his Eternity I should think he means he sees no reason for it at all and seeing he hath so much Charity for those that altogether deny our Saviour's Deity and dare not worship or invoke him at all as not to deny them the Name of Christians or hope of Salvation I beseech him to extend a more affectionate and real love and good will to all such as heartily profess to believe the one and sincerely devote themselves to the practice of the other But this seeming Reproof of Socinus for his Opinion concerning the Divinity of Christ is no more than that for which David Franken and others that agreed with Socinus to deny his eternal Deity did more severely reprimand him for viz. for worshipping him whom he affirmed to be but a Creature contrary to the Scripture To confute and silence this new Notion of the Doctor and to shew how much more intelligible and rational the Doctrine of the Eternal Generation of the Son of God as professed in the Church of England is I shall inform the Reader of that demonstrative Explanation of it which the learned Dr. Pearson Bishop of Chester hath elaborated Dr. Pearson on the Creed p. 267. Printed 1659. The third assertion to be demonstrated is That the Divine Essence which Christ had as the Word before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary he had not of himself but by communication from God the Father for this can not be denied That there can be but one Essence properly Divine and so but one God of infinite Wisdom Power and Majesty that there can be but one Person originally of himself subsisting in that infinite Being because a Plurality of more Persons so subsisting would necessarily infer a multiplicity of Gods Wherefore it necessarily followeth that Jesus Christ who is certainly not the Father cannot be a Person subsisting in the Divine Nature originally of himself and consequently being we have already proved that he is truly and properly the Eternal God he must be understood to have the Godhead communicated to him from the Father All things whatever the Father hath are mine saith Christ John 16.15 Because in him is the same fulness of the Godhead and more than that the Father cannot have p. 269. Being the Divine Nature as it is absolutely immaterial and incorporeal is also indivisible Christ cannot have any part of it only communicated to him but the whole by which he must be acknowledged co-essential of the same Substance with the Father as the Council of Nice determined and the Fathers before them taught Hence Christ says I and the Father are one Joh. 10.30 which raised a second motion in the Jews to stone him and though Christ saith The Father is in me and I in him yet withal he saith I came out from the Father by the former shewing the Divinity of his Essence by the later the Origination of himself We must not look on the Divine Nature as sterile but rather acknowledge and admire the secundity and communicability of itself upon which the Creation of the World dependeth God making all things by his Word to whom he first communicated that Omnipotency which is the cause of all things The fourth assertion followeth which is That the communication of the Divine Essence by the Father is the Generation of the Son and Christ who was eternally God not of himself but from the Father is the Eternal Son of God That God alway had a Son appears by Agur's Question Who hath established all the ends of the Earth What is his Name And what is his Son's Name if thou canst tell And it was the chief design of Mahomet to deny this truth because he knew it was not otherwise possible to prefer himself before our Saviour wherefore he frequently inculcates that Blasphemy in his Alchoran that God hath no such Son nor any equal with him and his Disciples have corrupted the Psalm of David Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee into Thou art my Prophet I have educated thee But by the consent of the ancient Jews and the interpretation of the blessed Apostles we know these words belong to Christ and in the most proper sense to him alone Now that the communication of the Divine Essence by the Father was the true and proper Generation by which he hath begotten the Son will thus appear because the most proper Generation which we know is nothing else but a vital production of another in the same Nature with a full representation of him from whom he is produced Thus Man begetteth a Son that is produceth another Man of the same humane Nature with himself and this production as a perfect Generation becomes the foundation of the relation of Paternity in him that produceth and of Filiation in him that is produced This is the known Confession of all Men That a Son is nothing but another produced by his Father in the same Nature with him The similitude in which the Propriety of Generation is preserved is that which consists in identity of Nature and this communication of the Divine Essence by the Father to the Word is evidently a sufficient foundation of such a similitude from whence Christ is called The Image of God the brightness of his Glory the express Image of his Person Then he proceeds to shew That this communication of the Divine Essence is a more proper Generation than any Generation of the Creatures not only because it is in a more perfect manner but also because the identity of Nature is most perfect As in the Divine Essence we acknowledge all the Perfections of the Creature substracting all the Imperfections which adhere to them in things below so in communication we must look upon the reality without any kind of defect blemish or impurity In humane Generation the Son is begotten in the same Nature with the Father which is performed by derivation or decision of part of the Substance of the Parent but this decision includeth imperfection because it supposeth the Substance divisible and consequently corporeal whereas the Essence of God is incorporeal spiritual and indivisible and therefore his Nature is really communicated not by derivation or decision but by a total and plenary communication In natural Generation the Father necessarily precedeth the Son and begets one younger than himself for seeing Generation is for the perpetuity of the Species where the individuals successively fail it is sufficient if the
Father can produce another to live after him and continue the existence of his Nature when his Person is dissolved but this supposeth the imperfection of Mortality wholly to be removed when we speak of Him who inhabiteth Eternity the Essence which God alway had without beginning without beginning he did communicate being alway Father as alway God Animals when they come to perfection of Nature then become prolifical in God eternal Perfection shews his eternal Fecundity And that which is most remarkable in Humane Generations the Son is of the same nature with the Father and yet is not the same Man because though he have an Essence of the same kind yet he hath not the same Essence the power of Generation depending on the first prolifical benediction increase and multiply it must be made by way of Multiplication and thus every Son becomes another Man but the Divine Essence being by reason of its simplicity not subject to division and in respect of its infinity uncapable of multiplication is so communicated as not to be multiplied insomuch that he which proceedeth by that communication hath not only the same Nature but is the same God the Father God and the Word God Abraham Man and Isaac Man but Abraham one Man Isaac another Man not so the Father one God and the Son another God but the Father and the Word both the same God Being then the propriety of Generation is founded in the essential Similitude of the Son to the Father by reason of the same Nature which he receiveth from him being the full perfect Nature of God is communicated to the Word and that more intimately and with a greater Unity and Identity than can be found in Humane Generations it follows that this communication of the Divine Nature is the proper Generation by which Christ is and is called the true and proper Son of God this was the foundation of St. Peter's Confession Thou art Christ the Son of the living God This the ground of our Saviour's distinction I go to my Father and to your Father Hence did St. John raise a Verity more than only a Negation of Falsity when he said We are in the true Son for we which are in him are true not false sons but such sons we are not as the true Son Hence did St. Paul draw an Argument of the infinite Love of God towards Man in that he spared not his own proper Son Multum distat inter dominationem conditionem inter generationem adoptionem inter substantiam gratiam ideoque non hic permixte nec passim dicitur ascendo ad patrem nostrum aut deum nostrum sed ad patrem meum patrem vestrum ad deum meum ad deum vestrum Aliter enim deus illi pater est aliter nobis illum siquidem natura coaequat misericordia humiliat nos vero natura prosternat misericordia erigit Capreolus Carthag Epist Thus saith this Incomparable Author we have sufficiently shewed that the eternal Communication of the Divine Essence by the Father to the Word was the proper Generation by which Christ Jesus always was the true and proper Son of God which was our fourth Assertion And now I may hope that the Doctor will be as big as his word not to rise up any more against the Doctrine and Authority of the Church whereof he stiles himself a true Son and in which he acknowledgeth a Power to impose Silence though not Faith To the Readers p. 7. FINIS ERRATA PAge 20. l. ult read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 22. after ground of add denying p. 27. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 35. l. 16. for contra r. colta and l. 21. for nosce nosse p. 38. l. 15. for left r. best known p. 49. l. add is to the word Religion p. 56. l. 3. r. apposite and l. 20. profecit p. 57. l. 16. dele est and l. ult for which r. what p. 61. l. 16. Anomaeus i. e. p. 65. l. 11. for Eastern r. Western p. 66. l. 4. for Valence r. Valens p. 69. l. 3. r. sentiâ—e de fillo p. 70. l. 4. dele either Imperial or p. 80. l. 6. r. prosecute p. 84. l. 27. r. deterted for detected p. 87. l. 33. by commodious Interpretations p. 95. l. 13. after Doctrines add Than p. 96. l. 20. Calonius p. 106. l. penult add is before Christ. p. 119. l. 1. Prateolus p. 13â— l. 14. add by before the word Father p. 154. l. 36. r. eternal for external
wicked Mâ—n were risen up in his Diocess teaching such a Defection as may be rightly called A Fore-running of Antichrist I could wish says he this mischief might have been confined among the Apostates but seeing Eusebius of Nicomedia undertakes their Patronage and hath written Letters to recommend them and their Heresie I could not forbear to forewarn you of these Apostates and their Opinions and that you attend not to the Writings of Eusebius The Names of those that have forsaken the Church Arius Achillas Aithales Carpones another Arius Sarmates Euzoius Lucius Julianus Menas Hellodius Gaius and with these Secundus and Theanas who were formerly called Bishops That which they rashly publish is this God was not alway a Father the Word of God was not alway but had its beginning of nothing for God which is created him that was not out of that which was not and so the Son they say is a Creature not like his Father in Substance nor the True Word of God nor his True Wisdom but one of his Works and Creatures but abusively so called being made by the Word and Wisdom which is in God that made him and all things That the Son knows not the Father nor can perfectly know him nor doth he know his own Substance what it is but was made as an Instrument by which God would create us nor had he been made unless God would have made us by him To them that ask whether the Word of God could be changed as the Devil was they answer Yea that he is of a mutable Nature because he was created Arius with great impudence affirming these Things We together with almost an hundred Bishops of Egypt and Lybia did anathematize him and his Adherents but Eusebius hath received them that he may joyn Impiety to Piety Falshood to Truth but they shall not prevail for Truth will overcome for whoever heretofore heard such things or now hearing them doth not stop his Ears who hearing St. John say In the beginning was the Word will not condemn these Mens sayings There was a time when he was not c. These Letters had various effects on a great many and not much to the advantage of Alexander for Arius and his Party were very diligent in writing on the contrary behalf Eusebius also Bishop of Nicomedia heartily espoused his Cause partly out of a private grudge between him and Bishop Alexander and partly through his own Opinion which agreed with those of Arius and the Emperour being then at Nicomedia with whom he was in favour and by this opportunity he had great influence on the neighbouring Bishops to whom he wrote divers Letters on the behalf of Arius he wrote also to Alexander himself admonishing him to receive Arius again into his Communion and by these means the Divisions were so great that not only the Bishops but the People also ran into Parties and the Meletians also joyned with Arius so that they wrote to Alexander to recall the Excommunication against him pleading that his Opinions were right for Arius did so palliate his Heresie as that to the unwary and more ignorant sort both of Clergy and People it seemed nothing different from the Orthodox Doctrine The Emperor also wrote to a contrary purpose to the Church of Alexandria Socrates p 30. That all things concerning the Controversies that were moved had been acurately discussed and examined by the Council But O! what great and grievous Blasphemies some did declare against our Saviour and our Hope of Eternal Life producing things contrary to the Scripture inspired from above and to the Faith yet professing their belief of them whereas therefore more than 300 Bishops which were to be admired for their modesty and diligence conformed by their unanimous consent that which according to the Rule of the Divine Law is the only Faith Arius only was found who overcome by diabolical fraud and design did first sow this mischievous Evil among you and others but let us embrace the Opinion which Almighty God hath delivered and return to our Brethren from whose Fellowship that impudent Minister of the Devil hath separated them for that which hath been decreed by more than 300 Bishops is to be esteemed as the Divine Sentence seeing that the Holy Ghost residing in their Minds hath revealed his Divine Will unto them He assured them also That the Definitions of the Council were not made without diligent examination Wherefore in another Epistle to the Bishops and People mentioned by Socrates p. 32. of the Edition by Valesius he says That the Arians following evil and malitious Men deserved to suffer the same infamous punishment with them and as Porphyry who wrote against the Christian Religion had his Books destroyed and himself branded to Posterity so it is my Command That Arius and his Followers shall be call'd Porphyrians and that if any Book written by Arius be found that it be consumed by Fire that no remembrance of him may remain and that such as conceal his Books shall suffer Death These were the Emperour's second thoughts It hapned that Constantia the Emperour's Sister had entertained an Arian Presbyter who often talkt of Arius complaining to her how much he was wronged by the Council at Nice but she durst not commend his Case to the Emperour till being sick and often visited by the Emperour she commended this Presbyter to the Emperour as a devout and faithful Person who having got into the Emperour's favour he told him as he had done his Sister of the hard measure Arius had from the Council whom he affirmed to be of the same Judgment with them and that if he might be admitted to the Emperour's presence he would declare his consent to their Decrees The Emperour wondered to hear this and said That if Arius would subscribe those Decrees he would not only admit him to his presence but send him home to Alexandria with Honour and wrote to him to that purpose See the Letter Socrat. Hist l. 1. c. 25. wondering that he had not declared sooner seeing as the Historian says the Emperour had often exhorted him to it but being come to Constantinople he with Euzoius and some others presented the Emperour an Account of their Faith in Writing which was this To believe in One God the Father Almighty and in the Lord Jesus Christ his Son who was made by him before all Ages God the Word by whom all things in Heaven and Earth were made who came down and was incarnate who suffered and rose again and ascended and shall come to judge the Quick and Dead and in the Holy Ghost the Resurrection of the Flesh and the Life to come in One Catholick Church of God from one end of the World to the other this we believe as God shall judge us now and in the World to come On this Confession the Emperour ordered his Return to Alexandria whether he went and revived the Divisions among the People framing new Accusations against Alexander the Emperour therefore
in prejudice of the Text but for the help of reasoning from the Text. First It is agreed that there is a Trinity and in this Trinity there is a Priority of Origination acknowledged by all So Smalsius I deny not that there is Father Son and Holy Ghost and that this may be called a Trinity So the Nicene Fathers say of the Son that he is God of God Light of Light true God of true God which expressions imply at least a Prerogative of Order though not of Nature in which respect Eusebius Caesar scarce deserves to be accused of Arianism by the Papists for affirming the Co-eternity of the Son with the Father against the Arians only he is observed to hesitate at their Co-equality where if he only mean the Co-equality of Order not of Nature he may pass for a good Catholick Secondly It is agreed that Christ is truly and properly called the Son of the Living God seeing he took his Original not after Humane manner from mortal Seed but was conceived in the Virgin 's Womb by the Holy Spirit over-shaddowing her and the Power of the most High coming upon her and is therefore called the Son of God Luke 1.35 Thirdly It is agreed that Christ is expresly called God in respect of his Mission office and Dominion and therefore is exalted above all Creatures to be adored with Divine Worship together with the Father and to be invoked as the Searcher of Hearts and Omnipotent as Smalcius confesseth in his Book of the Divinity of Christ and Socinus in his Defence against Christianus Franken The Question then may be reduced to these Terms Whether Christ the Messias the Redeemer and Saviour of us all be God not by Donation only from the Father by Pre-eminence of Authority or Dominion but by Nature not as to Indetermination Continuation or Signification Eviternal but Eternal without beginning or end not of an inferior or another but of the same Essence with the Father and the Holy Ghost not of alike but the same Nature as the Ancients speak and as our second Article expresseth it Consubstantial here the Papists Lutherans the Greek Asian and African Church affirm as we do The Transilvanians some Polonians and some Apostate Hollanders as appears by their Writings which are in too many hands do deny The principal Arguments for Confirmation of our part are these Here we shall not heap up all the Arguments but choose such as time will permit to handle 1. From the Text Thou art Christ the Son of the living God whence I argue The Son is of the same Nature with the Father so Man begets Man c. but Christ is the Son of God the first begotten not the first created the only begotten his proper Son therefore he is of the same Essence with the Father and consequently as is exprest in the first Article of the same Power and Eternity Crellius endeavours to avoid the edge of this Answer by this sorry Evasion That the Son of God signifies no more than the Anointed of God so that he is called Son not by Nature but Unction and therefore the addition of The living God is omitted in St. Mark and Luke Ans This is to find fault with the Text rather than the Inference from it as if St. Matthew did intend to deceive and not inform us and were to be corrected by St. Mark and St. Luke as Crellius would have it 2. 'T is no contradiction to say less than had been said by another now in St. John we have the same Confession as herein Matthew Joh. 6.69 3. By Unction Kings and Priests are made but Sons by Generation and therefore the Word Son expresseth his Person as the word Christ his Office Christ and the Son of God signifies the same Person but not in the same respect Socinus objects That the same manner of expression is Isa 1.10 where the Israelites are called the Sons of the Living God not that they were Sons co-essential with God but that they were Sons of the Living God as opposed to Idols whence it appears this Epithet of God viz. Living shews of what sort of God Christ is Son not what sort of Son he is To which we answer That by the Adversary's confession this Epithet Living declares what sort of God the Father is therefore I infer that it shews also what sort of Son the Son is as the Maxim is Qualis pater talis filius i. e. In living Beings he that begets and he that is begotten is of the same sort 2. In Hosea Sons of the Living God are opposed to such as were not the People of God not as if they were natural Sons but adopted by calling not by being begotten as it is express They shall be called c. Rom. 9.26 So that here is no relation to Idols who neither beget nor are begotten 3. The Text shews the Son of the Living God is opposed to the Son of a Mortal Man as being of a more excellent kind for all saw him to be the Son of Man some said the Baptist others that Elias or Jeremiah were revived But this inspired Confession of St. Peter signifies something more sublime Q. P. we profess that thou art not meerly the Son of mortal Man as the Baptist and others of Humane Seed but that thou art the Son of that Eternal God which alway liveth As therefore he was of the same Nature with his Mother as the Son of Man so it is necessary that he be of the same Nature with the Father as the Son of the Living God Here Ostorodius objects That begetting of a Son implys the Mortality of the Parent for to what purpose are Sons begotten but to continue the succession of those that are mortal Ans This is very acute as if there were no difference between natural and temporal Generations and this which is eternal and ineffable Sons are adopted to supply succession and did the Ancient of days adopt the Son of Man for succession's sake See to what our Rationalists reduce the matter Socinus more distinctly explains the Mystery It is not to be denied that the Power of God did convey into or create in the Virgin 's womb some substance out of which conjoyn'd with that which was of the Virgin 's substance Christ became true Man who on that account had not only the Virgin for his Mother but God also for his Father considered as Man Ans Where doth the Scripture speak of this Socinian Mass Yes say they The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the most High over-shaddow thee True but doth it follow hence that he â—â—eated any such Substance as they feign this is Logick above our apprehension The Text speaks of a Vertue and Power not of any Substance now a Son is product from the Substance of the Father and in likeness of Nature whence he is called Son of the Virgin not of the Holy Ghost who communicated a power of Conception to her
one like the Son of Man came to the Ancient of Days and received from him Glory and Power and a Kingdom The second from Rev. 5.7 Where the Lamb whom all confess to be Christ received a Book from him that sate on the Throne Where the Giver and the Receiver are really distinguished Ans If the Son of Man in the first Vision doth denote Christ as we acknowledge then he did exist before he was born of the Virgin which confutes the Adversaries In the second the Lamb had the same Honour given him from the twenty four Elders and from all the Creatures as he that sate on the Throne which argueth an Equality of Excellency so that all these imply a distinction of Persons not a diversity of Nature 4ly They urge those places wherein Christ is said to receive all things from the Father as Matth. 28.18 All power is given to me in heaven and earth Joh. 5.26 The Father hath given to the Son to have Life in himself whence he is said to be the Image Brightness and Character only of his Father's Person Heb. 1.3 Now it is say they necessary that he who receiveth be inferior to him that giveth and the Image or Character to its Proto-type Ans John 5.2 resolves all these Objections That God gave him authority of exercising Judgment as he is the Son of Man not of God for so he is God of God Light of Light the essential Image and Character of the Person of his Father and inferior only in Order not in Nature or Time But these Men will not distinguish with St. John between Christ's Humane and his Divine Nature nor with St. Paul between the Form of God and the Form of a Servant but this is their constant practice to confound the Essence and the Person 5ly They object that Christ is numbred among the Creatures being called the first born of every Creature Col. 1.15 and the beginning of the Creation Revel 3.14 He that shall deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father and be subject to him therefore he cannot be of the same Nature and Excellency To this it is answered before That he is called the first begotten not the first created for he was begotten from Eternity before all Creatures which were made by him as it there followeth he was not created in Time as the Creatures were And if he had been so the first born he had been before the Angels and the Virgin Mary which the Socinians do deny against the Arians 2. The Apocalipt calls him the beginning of the Creatures of God as the Active Principle from whom all the Creatures had their beginning not the Passive as if he were the first of those things that were created 3. The delivering of the Kingdom into the hands of the Father and his subjection thereupon is not the subjection of the Nature but of the Economy after the finishing of the Mediatorial Office or if I may so speak the resignation or laying down of that Office that he might resume that Glory forever which he affirms he had with his Father before the World was John 17.5 6ly They oppose this External Generation and Glory of the Son by reasons for upon supposition of such Generation Crellius saith it would follow 1. That the Son would be the Son of himself 2. There would be infinite Sons 3. That the Son would be from Eternity and not from Eternity 4. That the Son was yet to be generated and to be generated to Eternity which are things irrational and not to be admitted Ans Reason doth not comprehend things Infinite though Faith may apprehend them therefore it is unreasonable to measure by the Rule of Reason those things which are peculiar to Faith only and depend on Revelation only and it is sufficiently revealed to us in the Scripture that there is One God and that in this Unity there are three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost This we believe because it is written and do not doubt though it appear not by Humane reasoning how this can be however we deny that from the Arguings of the Adversaries or from Reason rightly informed it would follow First That according to our Opinion the Son should be the Son of himself because one Essence doth not beget another but one Person begets another as the Father the Son who of him becomes another Person not another thing 2. It is but his Dream of infinite Sons seeing that the only begotten is of infinite Perfection which is not divisible or multiplicable 3. Nor is Eternity repugnant to Generation for Moscorovius against Smigletius defends the probability of it the Materia Prima to be eternal and uncreate and so still to remain which yet the Leaders of this Opinion will not grant to be and not to be from Eternity thus supposing the Sun to be eternal its splendor which all would grant to have been to be and to endure with it must be eternal 4. Therefore when the Nicene Fathers do express this eternal Generation of the Son by the Emanation of Light from Light they do not mean that which is fleeting from that which is fixed but do manifest as much as they could the Equality and Co-eternity of Persons in their Order affirming the Son to be begotten Genitum non generandum 7. Lastly They load the Incarnation with so many Absurdities as if from thence it would follow 1. That the Father and Holy Spirit were as much incarnate as the Son 2. That the Person of the Son did wholly cease 3. That things in themselves different did unite Or 4. or at least that as Nestorius says two Persons did yet subsist in the Son But this Heap of Trifles hath been long since confuted by those of our Party Hierome Zanchy whose words are worthy to be repeated treating of this Controversy saith I affirm that I never read any thing in the Writings of Lelius Socinus Ochinus Servetus and the rest of that Bran whose Dirt is flung about by the Modern Socinians that hath any thing of that Accuracy which many Books of the Ancient Hereticks had for they are all either the old Song repeated an hundred times or new Impertinencies condemned before they were conceived Thus that Strenuous Doctor a Person of Primitive Discipline and of great Learning and Experience in these Controversies To whom we may add the Acurate Bisterfield The Sum of all is this We do not say that the Essence was Incarnate but the second Person in the Trinity 2ly That he did not by this cease to be a Person because he assumed the Humane Nature not a Person 3ly Not that by this Assumption the Divine Nature were any way perfected but that he thereby perfected the Humane Whence 4ly different Natures as the Soul and Body in Man did unite in one Person by an ineffable but possible Union not making two Persons as Nestorius dreamed because they have but one Subsistence which the Humane Nature that was assumed brought not with
of the Church of England where this Christian Religion is established Every good Protestant will readily answer these Queries And notwithstanding the Protestation of the Doctor in the close of his Epistle to the Reader That he is not conscious of having contradicted any of the Church's Articles in any one word The impartial Reader will perceive by what hath been discovered to be the design of the Naked Gospel in the foregoing Exercitations that it was mainly intended against the most important of those Articles I only recommend to the Doctor 's serious Consideration that as it is an unaccountable Phrensie for any that abhors Popery and Slavery to grow weary of the present Government and to desire the return of the late King by a French Power so it is the highest degree of impiety for a Person that hath been long educated and instructed in the Doctrine of the Church of England which teacheth to adore the blessed Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords not only to dethrone but debase him as a meer Creature and esteem no otherwise of him than as a King de Facto made and advanced by Imperial and Papal Edicts and Decrees not so ancient as Constantine but by Theodosius and Damasus bishop of Rome See p. 38. of the Edition in two Colums From what Point the Wind blew that hath caused the Doctor to steer a course contrary to what he intended at his first setting out is not so intelligible as to guess at what Harbor he intends to lay up he doth seemingly at least recant many of those Heretical Opinions which he had asserted in the first Edition of the Naked Gospel but so inconsistently that the New Piece which he hath patcht on upon the Old Garment will make the Rent worse But this is no other artifice than what hath been practised by the Arians and Socinians heretofore whose feigned Confessions and Recantations they on occasion recanted again and their later Deeds have been worse than the former Chap. 7. of the Holy Trinity The D.'s first care is to give us a right notion of the usual words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Person which he would translate beingness and propriety The word Substance he says p. 45. is so much applied to matter that some with great confidence deride it as a contradiction to say that a Substance can be immaterial of this Opinion were Vorstius and Hobs and how much the Doctor differs from them that which follows may evidence The more we attend to our own Senses says the Doctor or Aristotle's Predicaments the more strongly are our Minds possest that Substance must be material c. As to the word Person p. 46. he says Could we be as sensible that the word Person in its metaphysical height is no less improperly applied to the second Distinction in the Trinity than the word Begotten is in its Physical baseness and could we cast away that improper word and use the warier word Subsistence and Propriety we should more easily satisfie our selves and others Wherefore taking the word Substance for Subsistence and Person for Propriety he proceeds to give us a new Notion of the Trinity such as agrees with the Doctrine of Paulus Samosatenus and Sabellius That the one high God is both Father Son and Holy Ghost His Positions are these 1. That God is a Being absolutely perfect 2. That Mind is the most perfect Being The same with Plato's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Original being derived from none but Author of all and therefore properly stiled the Father As Mind is the most perfect Being so the most perfect Being must be a perfect Mind but an unthinking Mind cannot be a perfect one God therefore was never unthinking and since thought is the first and proper Issue of a thinking Mind therefore may it most properly be stiled The first begotten Son and co-eternal with the Father because the Father was never before him p. 48. A thought is no less than a word conceived and a word is no more than a thought brought forth The Mind or its Wisdom cannot be absolutely perfect if they do not or cannot perform or want Power to act there must therefore be a third Person which the Scripture calls the Holy Ghost which is constantly described by Power and Action This is the Doctor 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he thinks he hath obliged all Mankind displayed the Mystery of the Trinity which hath been the trouble of all Ages and in which he hath not advanced one Proposition without warrant from the Scripture the Church of England the Fathers of the Church and the best Champions for that Doctrine and that which is his greatest hope is that the Unitarians will not dissent from one of them if taken in that sence which their terms freely offer p. 51. And I fear it is to serve their Hypothesis that the Doctor hath conceived and published this Notion It is not a little surprising that the Doctrine which was so lately ridicul'd under the term Mystery and which must remain so still a point of Push-pin Divinity The Athanasian Doctrine fit to be numbred with the Roman and would be fairly dealt with if left on the same level with the Arian equally unworthy not onely of our Faith but our Study see The Naked Gospel printed in two Columns p. 38. A long and mischievous Controversie and Behold now the ground on which one of our Fundamental Articles is built should now deserve another Ecce to behold p. 49. of the Doctor 's Edition how the very Light of Nature demonstrates St. John's Mystery There are three that bear witness in heaven c. And p. 53. How our Platonizing Doctor confutes the Atheists who accuse this Mystery as contrary to Reason which he now saith reason in Plato discovereth the Doctor having adapted a Natural Trinity for his Natural Religion But the Doctor is conscious of another Error viz. That he hath Sabellionized with Sabellius for mentioning St. Augustine's Opinion concerning the Trinity p. 50. says that it favors more of Sabellianism than his as above explained As the Doctor 's Opinion is by him explained it may serve as the Center wherein all the Opinions of the Ancient and Modern Hereticks may meet and acquiesce Vm. Lirinensis asks Quis ante sceleratum Sabellium Unitatis Trinitatem consundere Ausus est Whoever so confounded the Doctrine of the Trinity as the impious Sabellius Of whom Sandius says Sabelliani tribuendo patri essentiam filio scientiam sancto vitam videntur negasse subsistentiam filii sancti Sandius p. 120. Consonant to this our Doctor says The Mind is Beingness or the Father the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Power and Activity Again Sandius p. 111. Sabellius taught the one God in Essence and Substance to be the Father Son and Holy Ghost which three he called three Vertues or Proprieties three Names three Persons and for proof of this Opinion
produced these Scriptures He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also I and the Father are one And I in the Father and the Father in me Which Scripture were commonly used by the Noetians and Samosatenians Patris voluit esse substantiam solidam propriam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filium autem sanctum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. as our Doctor renders it Wisdom and Power to act Sandius goes on Sabellius compared the Father to the Hyposi asis of the Sun the Son to the Light and Rays the Holy Ghost to its Calefaction he so taught the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one that they were but one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence his Followers as Sandius observes were called Patropassians as teaching God the Father by the assumption of Humane Nature to be called the Son and in that Nature the Father suffered because one and the same God was Father Son and Holy Ghost without distinction of Persons which as Lirinensis said was to confound the Trinity and as our Doctor doth make it to consist of one Substance and two Proprieties or Energies viz. to Think and to Act. The Doctor says that Thought is the first begotten Son of God that Thought is a Word brought forth and is the same in substance with the Mind whence it issueth but if it issueth from the Mind it becomes separate and cannot be any longer the same with the Mind And this Opinion is the same which Philastrius notes to be the Opinion of Paulus of Samosata That the Word was not the substantial Son of God co-eternal with the Father but the Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the enunciative or prolative Word only an aery Sound not a living and sempeternal Person co-equal with the Father An Opinion somewhat like that of Mr. Hobbs concerning the Trinity which he makes God the Father speaking by Moses in the Old Testament and by Christ in the New Sandius observes the like of Cosmas who taught with Sabellius That the Word of God was naked and without any subsistence which his Followers called Verbum vocale enunciativum and sometime internal or mental p. 117. And he tells us that though the Modern Socinians detest the Error of Sabellius yet they are ignorantly guilty of it p. 120. Near of kin are the Doctor 's new Notions of the second Person in the Holy Trinity to the old Heresies so often condemned making the second Person a Thought the third a Power and he might have named as many more of the Divine Propriety viz. Holiness Love Justice c. as would have made a Denary of Persons The Doctor describes the third Person in the Trinity by Power and Action and this description he says is constantly used in the Holy Scripture Though we find the Attribute of Holy more frequently annexed to that of the Spirit as Eph. 4.30 Grieve not the holy Spirit Eph. 1.13 and the Holy Ghost in almost an hundred places We find also that of Power attributed to the second Person more eminently than to the third as 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ is called the power of God and the wisdom of God Matth. 28.18 All power is given to me in heaven and earth Hebr. 1.3 He upholds all things by the word of his power Matth. 9.6 The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins And he that made and upholds and shall judge all Men may most properly be called the power of God How vain then is that boast of the Doctor 's p. 49. That this his way of tracing the Holy Trinity agrees to a syllable with the words of the Holy Scripture and the Church of England and is more plain to be understood and proved than that magisterial way vulgarly used wherein Reason is not permitted to speak p. 50. This is Platonis fastum Majore fastu to oppose his private Reason against both the Reason and Authority of that Church whereof he professeth himself a Son and impose on it an old Heresie in a new Dress Bellar. in Cronol says That Fr. David held the Son and Holy Spirit to be Virtutes Dei non distinctas a Patre persona relatione vel essentiae Chap. 8. p. 53. Treateth of the Incarnation The Doctor entituled Chap. 7. of the first Edition thus Of Belief with meer respect to the Person of Christ Inquisitiveness concerning his Incarnation censured first because Impertinent And he endeavours to prove it impertinent to our Lord's design viz. That we should enquire after the Dignity of his Person that he was the Eternal Son of God this he calls Boys play and Push-pin and quotes the Judgment of Constantine for it When the Game as he calls it was first set on foot Then p. 29. of the first Edition It was no more necessary to understand the Dignity of the Person of Christ than for a Traveller to understand the Features of the Sun Now p. 55. of the new Edition If we regard the Dignity of the Person it is plainly more honourable to believe him God the Creator than a Creature Deified Then p. 30. he says That part of Mankind which our Lord most favoureth are most unable to pay him such a belief Now p. 54. If we consider the thing it self it appears much more credible that the Eternal Son of God should descend to the Nature of Man than that a Man should be made God endued with a new Omniscience to hear and Omnipotence to grant the Prayers of all Supplicants Then it was fruitless to the Enquirer's satisfaction p. 31. Now p. 55. If we consider the fruits our thankfulness must be greater our love more inflamed our obedience more quickned our hatred to sin more sharpned and all the good ends of Faith much more promoted Then it was dangerous lest we should blaspheme p. 36. and because we have no firm ground to go upon Now p. 55. Upon all accounts were the Scriptures so doubtful as to leave us to our choice we ought rather to carry our biass toward our Lord 's eternal Divinity than against it In this and what other Disputes may arise for I have not leisure to enquire what other Additions or Alterations are made I doubt not but the Rector of Exeter-Colledge will sufficiently answer the private Opinions of Dr. A. B. In the mean time I am very glad to hear and heartily congratulate the Doctor for what he hath declared p. 53. That though there be in the Trinity a great Mystery yet now nothing is more plain than that of St. John The word became flesh and dwelt among us or those words of St. Paul Great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh And that these and several other words of Scripture so plainly speak our Lord's Divinity that whoever otherwise interprets them will no less rob the words of their meaning than Christ of his honour And what is there in this wonderful Mystery that Reason cannot comprehend p. 54. And
granted and all sort of Heresies were impunely permitted and Orthodox Doctrines discountenanced there are so few persons infected with Heresie and so many learned persons left us to vindicate the Truths of the Gospel yet are there some Thousands infected with Anabaptism and Quakerism among whom the Pelagian and Socinian Doctrines have got the Ascendent They talked formerly of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ and now they deny the Godhead of Christ and Man it with Man what number of such Hereticks are now among us the Author of the NAKED GOSPEL may know better than others doubtless he presumes of a large Muster otherwise he would not appear as a Leader to head them but that he should appear under the Notion of a Son of the Church of England is the greatest Affront that could be done it for as Plutarch says he had rather Men should say there was never such a Man as Plutarch than that they should say he was a Vicious Person So is it a less reproach for the Papists to say there never was such a Church as the Church of England than to say it is a Church professing Pelagian and Socinian Doctrines The Fathers and Sons of our Church have not and by the Grace of God will not be wanting in their Duty to Assert her Doctrines and to Silence all her Adversaries The University of Oxford have manifested their Abhorrence of it in Condemning the Book to the Fire And the Right Reverend the Bishop of Exeter Visitor of that Colledge whereof the Author was Rector hath as the Statutes of the Colledge directed him in Case of Heresie very seasonably repremanded him whereby it is hoped the Gangreen of his Heresies will be mortified and cut off from infecting the Members of that Famous Colledge Nor do I doubt but all that have any Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical will shew the like Detestation of that Damnable Heresie that denieth the Lord that bought them The Ancient Fathers were very severe against such Ignatius mentioning that passage in Jer. 17. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man saith that they are under the Curse that affirm Christ to be a meer man Origen on Job l. 1. c. 4. Whatever men shall do without Faith in the Holy Trinity they do in vain and shall have no reward Fulgentius de fide p. 9. saith he cannot be a Christian that shall not confess the Lord Christ to be his God The Fathers have said as much concerning the Arians that they were Antichristians rather than Christians Yea they say the like of Arius as of Julian That they were both guilty of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and if to the rest of our National Sins we should add this to suffer the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity to be thus publickly derided and made the Subject of profane Pamphlets that the Writers should confidently own them and falsely profess themselves Sons of the Church of England that there should be a Secret Press still in Labour to be delivered of such Monsters that there should be a Club to Father them and such Hectors to defend and support them and so many to applaud them and such Books as were long since written in Latin are taught to speak English and French and our English Books in requital are taught to speak Latin and French Arrianism is one of the great Provocations for which the Lord's hand is not withdrawn but is still stretched out to be avenged on us Luther on his Death bed was wont to exhort those who came to visit him Oremus pro Domino nostro ejus Evangelio Let us pray for our Lord and for his Gospel The Gospel was then reviving and gaining its liberty it is now imprisoned in all Countries where Popery doth prevail and it is like to be stript Naked at home if some charitable Hand doth not seasonably prevent it to which that Doom which our Saviour hath denounced Mat. 25.43 Go ye cursed for I was naked and ye cloathed me not should excite every good Christian otherwise we may justly fear that for all the Affronts and Indignities which the Prophane on the one hand and the Hereticks and Blasphemers on the other hand between whom our blessed Saviour is crucified afresh and put to open shame he deal with us as he did with the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2.5 I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick except thou repent And the great haste which so many do make to banish the true knowledge of God out of the Land is a fearful Prognostick that our Saviour will come quickly to be avenged on such a People My present Undertaking is only to do the Office of a Watch-man or Sentinel to discover the approach of an Adversary and to sound an Alarme to such as are better furnished with Arms and Abilities to vanquish them of which by the Blessing of God our Church is provided with many thousands who I doubt not will fight it out Usque ad Triarios If I have for the sake of my Country-men collected a few Arguments against the Socinian Tenets it is what the Discourse of the Author led me to my intent was to discover the dangerous Design of the Naked Gospel which the Author pretends was for the enlarging of Charity and for condemning of Impositions in Matters of Faith under which Notion he industriously condemns those Doctrines of the Nicene Fathers and of Athanasius which have been received in the Church of England not only from them but from the most Primitive Times But the Doctor says We have no firm ground to go upon not from Scripture because the Arrians capt Scripture with the Orthodox nor from Antiquity which they claimed with the same confidence nor from Councils which determined sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other p. 37. c. 1. Yet he grants that the Catholicks have the advantage of long possession and that after Sentence and at last leaves both the Arrian and Athanasian Doctrines on the same level with Roman Impositions equally unworthy of our Faith or Study By this and what I shall further urge from the Naked Gospel it will evidently appear that if the Doctor be of any Religion that names the Name of Christ he must be a Socinian As to the Author's design he pretends it to be 1. For the enlarging of Charity i. e. for a Toleration of his Opinions 2. To prevent Impositions in Matters of Faith to both which I have replyed and shewn that the real design is to ridicule the Athanasian Creed and the Council of Nice and to prefer a Natural Religion above that which is taught by them which he accounts among his unreasonable Impositions as having 1. No footing in Scripture in answer whereto I have shewn the Harmony of the Old and New Testament in Confirmation of those Doctrines 2. Whereas he says they have no Foundation in the Fathers I have produced their Authorities And thirdly as for the Councils Because the Socinians decline
to the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Faith received and inviolably preserved by all Orthodox Christians in all the World in all Ages from the beginning of the Church to this present time and as repugnant to the Decrees of Councils especially that of Nice the most Solemn of all that are extant and most worthy of our Faith and Acceptation And lastly as contrary to the Writings of the Fathers especially of St. Athanasius whole Faith and Patience in Defence of the Cause of Christ was great beyond Example will be memorably celebrated wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached II. Moreover We injoyn under the Penalty of the Law all Students not to read the said infamous Libel or any of that kind which do re-call as from Hell those anciently condemn'd Heresies commanding and firmly enjoyning all and every the Praelectors Tutors Catechists and others to whom the Institution of Accademical Youth is intrusted that they diligently instruct and establish those that are committed to their Charge in that chief and necessary Article of our Faith upon which as on a Foundation all the rest do depend by which we are taught to believe and profess That there is One Living and True God and in the Unity of this Nature there are Three Persons of the same Essence Power and Eternity Father Son and Holy Ghost III. We Decree the above-named Infamous Libel to be Burnt by an Infamous Hand in the Area of our Schools The Propositions referr'd to in the Decree Pref. That Mahomet profest all the Articles of the Christian Faith Whether Mahomet or Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel is not so plain by the light of Scripture as it is by that of Experience that the later gave occasion encouragement and advantage to the former For when by nice and hot Disputes especially concerning the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity the minds of the whole People had been long confounded and by the then late Establishment of Image-Worship the Scandal was encreased so that to vulgar Understandings the Doctrine of the Trinity appeared no less guilty of Polytheism then that of Image-Worship did of Idolatry Then was there a tempting Opportunity offered to the Impostor and he laid hold on it to set up himself for a Reformer of such Corruptions as were both too gross to be justified and too visible to be denyed Cap. 7. pag. 40. The great Question concerning the Godhead of Christ is 1. Impertinent to our Lords design 2. Fruitless to the Contemplators own purpose 3. Dangerous Cap. 8. pag. 46. Two Evangelists trace our Lord's Genealogy but as they derive it not from his real but supposed Father so do they take two several ways not to satisfie but to amuse us What is this but to admonish us against Curiosity The Pedigree of his Flesh might easily have been either cleared or unmentioned Had the Evangelists been wholly silent concerning it we had less wondred but that they should profess to instruct us yet doubly disappoint us first by deriving it from a wrong Father and then by distracting us between two ways What is this but to verify the Prophets description Who shall declare his Generation And what doth this so careful Concealment of his Generation according to the Humane Nature signify more plainly than a warning against searching after his Eternal Generation of his Divinity If it were needless and therefore left impossible to prove him derived from David which was one of his most revealed Characters how can it be otherwise to understand that Generation of his which must needs be so much the more above our Understanding as the Nature of God is above our own Pag. 48. And might not a Heathen at this rate justify Polytheism provided his Gods disagreed not among themselves The Schoolmen therefore will not stand to this State of the Question but distinguish between Person and suppositum rationale which yet they cannot so do as to satisfy themselves and therefore shelter themselves in their impregnable Fort Mystery and thence thunder upon the Adversaries both of this and of another no less beloved Mystery For they make this their Cock argument for Transubstantiation That since the Scripture is no less express for the One than the Other and the Contradictions no less gross in the One than in the Other therefore we must embrace the one as well as the other To this Objection of the Romanists and to others of the Unitarians we have found an Answer That we must not infer from our Own Nature to God's for that Ours is finite and God's is infinite Three Persons among Us are Three Men because they agree in one Common Nature but the Divine Nature is not a Common One but a Singular and therefore Three Persons do not make Three Gods If you understand not this you must not wonder or at least you must not Gainsay it for it is a Mystery which Reason may not pretend to fathom Pag. 51. Thus have we pointed and only pointed at some of the many intangling Questions which puzzeled and divided the subtilest Wits of seveal Ages and were at last decided by no other Evidence but of Imperial and Papal Authority sufficient to silence Disputes but not stablish Truth And who is he that is not discouraged from giving a confident Assent to what is this way obtruded upon his Belief Cap. 9. pag. 53. I. There is danger of Blasphemy in examining the Silly Question as he calls it concerning the Eternity of the Godhead of Christ This is a second danger That we have no firm ground to go upon Pag. 54. The only advantage of the Catholicks is long Possession and that after Sentence They have indeed so handled Matters as to hide much and varnish all yet even so we may pick out enough to justify an Appeal by observing how that Possession was first obtained then continued and at last setled The Sentence which first determined the Controversy in the Council of Nice was not by the Merit of the Cause but Interest of the Parties Pag. 56. This long and mischeivous Controversy was at last setled by Theodosius who having received his Instructions and Baptism from a Consubstantialist required all his Subjects to conform to that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles from the beginning had delivered to the Romans and which at that time Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria held and that Church only should be esteemed Catholick which worshipped the Divine Trinity with equal Honour and those which held the other should be called Hereticks made infamous and punished This therefore we may call setling the Controversy because thenceforth all succeeding Emperors and Bishops wrote after this Copy and both the Parties have ever worn these Titles which the Emperor by his Imperial Power as the unquestionable Fountain of Honor was pleased to bestow upon them Behold now the Ground upon which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is Built behold the Justice of that Plea
which from such a Possession would prescribe to our Belief Pag. 57. of the Interpolated Edition What more ridiculously silly than to build so weighty a Doctrine upon Implicit Faith in two Bishops partial to their own Sees whereof the one gave it Birth and the other Maintenance And what more odious than to persecute as Hereticks and Malefactors all such as should refuse to be so grosly imposed upon Pag. 57. of the first Edition Certainly whoever shall carefully observe how the now established Doctrine was from first to last advanced by gross Partiality of the most guilty kind and at last imposed by a Novice Emperor upon Implicit Faith of two Bishops of whose Sees the one brought it into the World and the other maintain'd it and a new coin'd Tradition lately obtruded by the guiltier of those Sees but unpleaded because unheard of in those former long and miserable Times which it might and ought to have delivered from the Convulsions they suffered Whoever I say shall carefully observe this and withal what foul Tricks the Church of Rome used in the West and with what ill Success in the East whose Churches did at last more Universally embrace Arrius 's Opinion than at first they condemned it may be tempted to number the Athanasian among the Roman Doctrines and cannot but think it fairly dealt with if its boasted Possession pardoned it be left upon the same level with the Arrian equally unworthy not only of our Faith but of our Study Pag. 57. If further we consider what the Historian expresly declareth that at the rise of this Controversie most of the Bishops understood not it's meaning we cannot think it necessary to Salvation that every private Christian should believe that as an Article of Faith which the best Ages of the Church thought not worth knowing This upon second thoughts is thus express'd in a 2d Edition An Opinion which so many wise and good Men as lived within 300 Years after Christ were so far from believing Matter of Faith that they did not receive it as Matter of Certainty nor perhaps of Credibility Pag. 59 Pag. 58. The Athanasians abhor Polytheism no less than do the Arrians If their Positions seem to infer it they deny the consequence if this contradict the Rules of reasoning they avow it for they allow Reason no hearing in Mysteries of Faith if this make them Hereticks it is not in Religion but in Logick On the other side the Arrians profess to believe of Christ whatever himself or his Apostles have spoken and where one expression in Scripture seemeth to contradict another they take such a Course to reconcile them as the Laws and Customs of all the World direct It is very frequent for Rhetorick to exceed but never to diminish the Grammatical Character of a Person whose honour the Writer professeth to advance and upon this account they think it more reasonable that those Expressions which exalt our Saviour's Person to an Equality with the Father should stoop to those which speak him Inferior than that those which speak him Inferior should be strained up to those which speak him Equal And however this is the safer Way since it will lead us to such a Belief as will suffice for that end for whose sake alone Belief itself is required Pag. 70. To this Question Whether any Promise of God does necessarily import a Restitution of the same Numerical Matter He answers That the Words of St. Paul Thou fool that which thou sowest c. plainly deny the Resurrection of the same Numerical Particles P. 70. To another Question Whether it be more honourable to God and more serviceable to the design of the Gospel that we believe the Contrary He answers That it is the same as to ask Whether it be more honourable to salve all his Perfections or to robb one that we may cloath the other The very mentioning of these Opinions is a sufficient Confutation to all such as have heartily imbraced the Doctrine of the Church of England But the Author in his Vindication pretends that what he hath written was only to enlarge Charity i. e. to procure a Toleration of such Opinions as he hath published I shall only discover that Line of Socinianism much blacker than his Ink which runs through his whole Book and then the Reader may judge to what his inlarged Charity doth tend The Design of the Preface is to shew saith the Doctor that the Success of the Gospel which made such great Conquests at first hath been hindred by the difference of the Modern Gospel from the Primitive in its Doctrine which difference he says is so great that if an Apostle should return into the World he would be so far from owning it that he would not be able to understand it Answ If the Gospel which we receive be so intirely corrupted he doth utterly overthrow that Providence of God which he admires in giving it so great a success whereas all good Christians believe the Gospel to be the same and bless the Providence of Almighty God in preserving it pure and uncorrupt to this present time and we still say if an Apostle or an Angel from Heaven shall preach any other Gospel contrary to or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides what we have received let him be accursed I hope therefore the Doctor doth not think of setting up any other Judge of Controversies than what the Church whereof he calls himself a True Son doth own and profess if the Success of it hath been hindred in any Age it may not be imputed to the Doctrine therein delivered nor to the Providence of God in preserving it intire but to those false and contrary Doctrines which by the Instruments of Satan transforming themselves into Angels of Light endeavoured to destroy in its infancy such as St. Peter calls damnable errors denying the Lord that bought them and teaching that Jesus Christ was no◠come in the flesh i. e. that God the Word was not made flesh but the flesh was made God Such were Ebion a Jew Cerinthus and Marcion who spread their Errors against the Deity of Christ while St. John was living with which Errors the Church of Ephesus was so infested that she besought St. John to write in confutation of them as he did both in his Gospel and Epistles The other Apostles were diligent in confuting the Errors of the Gnosticks who would have brought in the worshipping of Saints and Angels as inferior Gods These generally condemned St. Paul's Epistles and kept to the Jewish Observations which the Apostles wrote against the Nicolaitans also mentioned Rev. 2.6 were of the like Opinion with the Gnosticks and Cerinthus For hating of whose Deeds the Church of Ephesus is commended Ireneus l. 3. c. 11. says that St. John wrote his Gospel to destroy that Error which had been sown by Cerinthus and before him by the Nicolaitans So that the Success of the Gospel was hindred by not only those false Doctrines but the impure Lives of
the Gnosticks and Nicolaitans whose deeds God hated Mahomet was of the same Opinion with those Hereticks for though the Doctor says he professed all the Articles of the Christian Faith yet it 's evident he denied the Deity of Christ though he owned him to be a true Prophet and Messenger of God in which respect the Doctor might say he owned as much of the Christian Faith as the Socinians do and we may say he was for a Naked Gospel as well as the Doctor The Question therefore which the Doctor makes whether Mahomet or Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel and hindred the success of it is easily resolved for the Gnosticks Cerinthians Ebionites c. all which called themselves Christian Doctors and Reformers of the Gospel as he calls Mahomet Were those Christian Doctors who by their corrupt and Antichristian Errors defamed the Gospel and opposed the Deity of its Author And these and such others made way for Mahomet by shewing that they held a Gospel whereof every Article was to be found in the Alchoran And had our Doctor lived in the days of Mahomet it 's not unlike but he might have been one of those Christian Doctors that would have reformed the Gospels according to the Alchoran As for any new Additions or Impositions in Matters of Faith the Doctor knows the Church of England utterly disclaims them And to avoid such traditionary Impositions the Church of England retaining whatsoever is agreeable to the Scriptures and Primitive Churches hath reformed herself from all the corrupt Innovations and Impositions of the Church of Rome as well in Matters of Doctrine as of Government and Discipline And now to the Doctor 's Question Whether Mahomet or the Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel c. This was the Tempting Opportunity says the Doctor offered to the Impostor and he laid hold on it to set up himself for a Reformer Sir W. Temple p. 107. of the Second Part of his Essays may inform him who was the fore-runner of Anti-Christ as the Fathers termed Arius About the Year 600 the time when Mahomet appeared the Provinces of the East were over-run with Arianism who denied or undermined the Divinity of Christ and allowed only his Prophetical Office The Countries of Arabia and Egypt were filled with great numbers of the scattered Jews who on the destruction of their Country in Adrian's time had fled into these Provinces to avoid the utter ruine of their Nation threatned by that Emperour Arabia and Egypt were inhabited by Gentiles who were given to pleasures and Riches Mahomet to humour and comply with these three sorts of men and by assistance of Sergius a Monk an Arian Heretick who fearing the Censure of the Church of Constantinople which then resolved to suppress that and the Heresie of the Monothelites fled into Arabia and was entertained by Mahomet's Master where he grew into acquaintance with Mahomet and became his only Confident framed a Scheme of Religion which might take in the common Opinions and Dispositions of all those three Parties which yet might be agreeable to his own temper and designs He professed One God Creator of the World and that God sent Moses his first and great Prophet to give his Laws to Mankind which were not obeyed by the Jews nor received by the Gentiles therefore in later Ages he sent Christ who was the second Prophet and greater than Moses to preach his Laws in greater purity but to do it with gentleness patience and humility which found no better reception or success among Men than Moses had done and therefore God had now sent his last and greatest Prophet Mahomet to publish his Laws with more Power to subdue them by Force and Violence who would not willingly receive them that such as would not obey should be ruined but the obedient should have the possession of his and their Enemies as a Reward in this Life and a Paradise hereafter with all sensual enjoyments especially of beautiful Women newly created for that purpose these prevailed with Arians Jews and Gentiles in those parts c. Hence it appears what this Reformer was and what were the tempting opportunities which he laid hold on To please the Jews Mahomet observed Circumcision in imitation of Abraham and recommended to them the Laws of Moses to please the Gentiles he permitted Polygamy to the number of four Wives and as many Concubines as they could maintain and to please the Christians he permitted them to have a Naked Gospel and a Natural Faith in Christ as a Messenger of GOD greater than Moses but not God or the Saviour of the World for they deny that he was crucified but was taken up alive into Heaven but these are not all the Articles of the Christian Faith he denied the Crucifixion of our Saviour his Resurrection Ascention and that he should come to Judge the World to reward or punish Men according to their Works Sandius p. 347. mentioneth some other of Mahomet's Doctrines As that God is One both in Essence and Person and that there are not Father Son and Holy Ghost that Christ is to be worshipped but not with that Divine Worship as his Lord and God is He says That Jews and Gentiles and every one that worshippeth and feareth God and doth Good Works may be saved and he quotes Baronius saying That the Mahomitans do worship Christ as the Arrians and Nestorians do p. 348. The Author of Mahomet's Life Printed before the English Alchoran says He was ordained to be a Scourge for the Christians who in multitudes at that time had forsaken the Truth to follow the Sects and Heresies of the Arrians Nestorians Donatists and others By such as these the Candlestick by God's just Judgment was removed out of the Asian Churches at first and the pure Light of the Gospel is much darkned in these later Ages by Anti-Trinitarians Servetians and Socinians who have well nigh extinguished that Gospel which is the Light of the World and would leave Mankind as naked and as much ashamed as our first Parents when they had eaten of the forbidden Fruit. I confess that when I first read that Mahomet profest all the Articles of Christ's Faith I was not aware that the Doctor might mean according to his New Gospel or the Socinian Creed but on enquiry into the Alchoran and computation of Time when the Alchoran was written viz about the year 600 before which time the whole World as St. Hierome observed was become Arrian and Sergius the Monk that had a chief hand in contriving it was an Arrian I found that the Doctor makes a very great Agreement in Matters of Faith between the Alchoran and his Naked Gospel so that as he says Mahomet set up for a Reformer of the Gospel in his time so we have another Sergeus who sets up for a Reformer of the Gospel according to the Alchoran in our time as by the following particulars will appear The English Alchoran as it is Reprinted 1688 is that
entred into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh This is a deceiver and an Antichrist And 1 Job 5.7 he plainly asserts the Doctrine of the Trinity There are three that bear witness in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One. It is very observable what Grotius says in the Preface of his Annotations on St. John The Ancients among other causes of St. John 's Writing this Gospel do generally assign this as the chief that he might apply a Remedy to that Poyson which at that time was dispersed in the Church among all that professed the Name of Christ which could be no other than the denying of the Eternal Deity of the Son of God which that Evangelist asserted Now tho' it may seem a superfluous work to enquire into the Opinions of the Author of the Naked Gospel after the Censure of the University the reading whereof may satisfie any Judicious and Impartial Reader yet least I should seem to make an Adversary where I find none and to fight against my own Shadow as against some formidable Monster I shall 1. Consider what the Author hath said to clear himself from the Reasons of that Decree 2. Make some few general Remarks on the design of the Naked Gospel And 3ly More particularly Examine the Opinions asserted or insinuated by the Author In his Vindication p. 4. he declares his Faith to be no other than that of the Church of England and renounceth any word which in that or any other Book may seem to contradict it The Contradiction is not seeming but real and differs as much as Time doth from Eternity or the Doctrine of the Church of England of which I have given an account from the Arrian and Socinian Heresies if he renounceth any thing he must renounce almost all but how he will do it so as to remove the Scandal from the Church of England which as Monsieur Jeru observes is now conceived to be tainted with Socinian Doctrines from such Writings as this of the Naked Gospel I cannot well conceive unless he disclaim his being a true Son of the Church of England He says The Author of that Book is so far from denying the Divinity of Christ that he plainly asserts it But what Divinity is that is it the Eternal Godhead and Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father This is not to be found yea it is the whole design of the Author to impugne it he grants him no other Divinity than the Arrians did of a created God nor indeed so much for he speaks of our Saviour under the same Notions and Expressions as Socinus and Smalâ—ius did granting him a Divinity but not a Deity of which more hereafter But he would prove his Assertion from these words of his That the Author of our Gospel was not only great but infinite But the Question is whom he means by our Author whether God the Father the prime or God the Son as the immediate Author for thus the Moral Law was given by Moses yet God was the prime Author and in this sence an Arrian may and the Socinians do say Christ waâ— the Messenger of God and received all his Commands from God and so the Author of the Gospel in the Socinians sence is infinite for thâ—s Crellius on Heb. 2. v. 3. says Christ was not the first Author of the Gospel as neither were the Angels of the Law but God was the prime Author of both the Law and Gospel though the Law was published by Angels and the Gospel by Christ so that Christ was no otherwise a Law-giver in publishing the Gospel than Moses was in proclaiming the Law which Crellius in his Book de Uno Deo endeavours to maintain at large and in the same sence I fear the Doctor calls the Author of our Gospel infinite viz. that God the Father is the Author of the Gospel But being conscious that some Expressions unsuitable to so plain an Assertion as that of the Infinity of the Author of the Gospel might drop from his hasty Pen he says p. 5. that such hasty Expressions ought to be thereby i. e. by the word Infinity to be interpreted Answ And so it might if he had applied it to the Person of Christ but he tells us the occasion of that Expression was Ch. 11. from the assurance of a Christian grounded on the Resurrection beyond the hopes of a Heathen and the Persons in whom the one and the other believed Now whom do the Arrians believe to be the Author of that Resurrection but God the Father whom they often affirm to have raised our Saviour from the Dead and it s no wonder if they own his Infinity this being the substance of what they say is necessary to be believed viz. That God raised Jesus from the Dead and to confess him our Lord denying that Christ arose by any power of his own Therefore he would not have his Expressions imputed to his setled Opinion but his too great hast and heat in a Question which did nor concern the Divinity of Christ but the manner of his Generation the former as he adds was on both sides acknowledged the latter was the whole subject of the Dispute which Constantines Letter so often calleth Silly Answ If the Divinity of Christ in its proper sence i. e. his Deity had been acknowlegded I believe there had been no dispute concerning the manner of his Generation the Question was Whether he were Consubstantial with the Father or not not concerning the manner or modus but whether he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Substance with the Father If the Dispute in Constantine's time had been only about the manner of Christ's Generation the Doctor might have taken in the Parenthesis of Dr. Wallis that it is not distinctly declared by God nor are we able fully to comprehend it nor is it necessary for us to know but it is necessary to know that this Generation was from Eternity that we may ground our Faith and Hope in him that is God and so is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him he being the Lord i. e. Jehovah our Righteousness What the Controversy in the Nicene Council against Arrius was and how it was decided shall appear anon 2ly He says the design of his Book was only to disable Humane Authority from imposing on our Belief more Doctrines than Christ and his Apostles declared to be necessary Here are two bold Strokes first the Doctor will determine what those necessary Doctrines are and then he will disable Magistrates from imposing any other and so we shall lose the great Fundamental the Eternal Godhead of Christ which his Naked Gospel doth impugne 3ly Another design of this Author he says is By a due confinement of Faith to enlarge Charity Ans The Apostles method to enlarge Charity was not to confine but propagate the Faith once delivered to the Saints as the best motive
which held the contrary should be called Hereticks made infamous and punished All this Constantine and the Council of Nice had done long before He adds Behold now the ground on which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is built The meaning of this is that it is an Imperial Imposition to which we shall give an Answer anon Prop. 9. What more ridiculously silly than to build so weighty a Doctrine upon implicite Faith in two Bishops partial to their own Sees whereof the one gave it Birth the other Maintenance and what more odious than to prosecute as Hereticks and Malefactors all such as should refuse to be so grosly imposed on Answ What can be more falsly said than that this Doctrine hath no other Foundation than what this Author allows it When it was confirm'd by that famous Council not as their own Opinions only but as the constant Doctrine of the Churches of God in former Ages grounded on the Holy Scriptures and therefore to reflect on it as the first and most uncharitable Dispute that ever rent the Christian World doth not become any Christian much less a true Son of the Church of England See p. 55. col 1. In the 10th Proposition he affirms That on his Premises being considered Men may be tempted as it seems he hath been to number the Athanasian among the Roman Doctrines and to leave it on the same level with the Arrian equally unworthy of our Faith and Study It appears then that our Doctor never studied this Doctrine whereof he hath long been a Professor so far as to make it an Article of his Faith and if his Pelagian Doctrines and Sermons concerning Original Sin for which many learned Men have severely censured him with which the University was so offended as to oblige him to explain by way of a Recantation and of his Opinion of Turkish Devotion and his Naked Gospel were duly considered the Considerator must be perswaded that the Doctor had made the Socinian Doctrines his constant study and never thought the Catholick Doctrines worthy of his Study or Faith or that instead of not bestowing one days study in reading Socinian Writers he had not bestowed so much time in reading the Articles or Liturgy of the Church of England In the 11th he saith We cannot think it necessary to Salvation that every private Christian and by the same reason that no private Christian should believe that as an Article of Faith which the best Ages of the Church thought not worth knowing Which in the Second Edition he thus expresseth An Opinion which so many good and wise Men as lived within three hundred years after Christ were so far from believing as matter of Faith that they did not receive it as matter of certainty nor perhaps of credibility Answ St. John lived many Years after Christ he not only received it but asserted it throughout his Gospel and Epistles against Ebion and Cerinthus St. Ignatius calls them Serpents that did deny it Polycarp called Marcion The first begotten of the Devil for believing the contrary these I trust every true Son of the Church of England will acknowledge to have been good and wise Men. But you shall hear anon of an Army of Martyrs that have sealed it with their Blood and what a fruitful Seed of this saving Doctrine the Blood of these Martyrs hath been in the Church of God That learned and seasonable Collection of Mr. Bull 's concerning the Judgment of the Fathers in the first 300 Years after our Saviour shews abundantly what was their belief concerning the Deity of our Saviour which may silence the Dispute and save the labour of any farther Collection an account whereof for my Country-mens sake who either understand not the Latin Tongue or cannot compass the Book I shall present to my Reader and refer the Learned to the Book itself where they may find all their Testimonies vindicated and irrefragably asserted against the Objection of Sandius Petavius and other Socinian Authors in their proper place In the Twelfth Proposition he insinuates That the Positions of the Athanasians seems to infer Polytheism and when they deny the consequence he says They contradict the Rules of Reasoning and that they do so because they allow Reason no hearing in Mysteries of Faith and that this cannot excuse them from being Hereticks in Religion or Logick Whereas for the Arrians he pleads That they profess to believe of Christ whatever himself or his Apostles have spoken and where-ever one expression seems to contradict another they take such a course to reconcile them as the Laws and Customs of all the World direct This shews plainly what Party he adheres to The Rule which he gives us for the justification of the Arians is this It is frequent for Rhetorick to exceed but never to diminish the Grammatical Character of a Person whose Honour the Writer professeth to advance and therefore they think it more reasonable that those expressions which exalt our Saviour's Person to an equality wth the Father should stoop to those which speak him inferiour rather than those which speak him inferiour should be strained up to those which speak him equal As if Christ and his Apostles which wrote the History of Christ did not deal more faithfully in relating the truth concerning his Person as being one and equal to the Father than those Rhetoricians who to advance the Doctrine of Arius would depress him beneath himself and leave him as Naked as the New Gospel doth stripping him of all those glorious Attributes that should support his Worship and depriving the Church of that satisfaction which he made for it when he redeemed it with his own most precious Blood which by the Socinian Doctor 's is trampled under foot and counted a vain thing These Propositions will fall under our farther Consideration of the several Chapters To which I now proceed Chap. 1. He treats of the Gospel preached by our Saviour and his Apostles as necessary to Salvation the Character whereof is either that of a Covenant or a Message Of the Gospel as a Covenant he speaks as slightly as short quoting only Jer. 31.33 and Heb. 8.8 and says It is delivered more succinctly ch 10.17 This Covenant he says Leans on the Law of Nature which also keeps it firm in its place Thus the Covenant of Grace is confounded with the Law of Works though the Apostle sets them in opposition We are not under the Law but Grace That Christ is the Foundation of the Evangelical Covenant ratified and sealed by his Blood the Scripture teacheth so plainly that he that runs may read Covenants were wont to be made by Sacrifice as Dr. Outrede hath proved and so was this Covenant it was sealed in the Blood of the Son of God without which there could be no remission The Apostle calls him the Surety of a better Covenant and bringing in a better hope the first Covenant was Do this and live the second is He that believes and is
as his Church and his Body then the Son is said to be subject not the Godhead of Christ but the whole Church of Christ which is the Head and Members which then make one Christ It is the Mediatorial Kingdom that shall be delivered up not his Everlasting Kingdom he shall reign in the one till he hath subdued all his Enemies but of the other there shall be no end P. 27. c. 1. The Doctor restrains his Singularity of being the only begotten Son of God to his being anointed before his coming into the World And p. 26. c. 2. he says That anointing was a Complement of the greatest Kindness and Honor that could be bestowed on a Guest and from that Office in Festivals was preferred to a Ceremony for enseating Kings Priests and Prophets and our Lord by it is character'd but indefinitely whether Prophet Priest or King or all I perswade myself that the Doctor learnt this from Crellius on Heb. 1.9 upon which he says Our Saviour received an immense measure of the Holy Ghost but not as the Scripture says without measure but some degrees more than what other Messengers of God received Chap. 7. is to shew That it is no more necessary that we should understand what the Person of Christ is than for a Traveller to understand the Features of the Sun c. Which he says concerning Constantine's calling this Enquiry a Silly Question hath been already considered to which he adds That our Saviour could not require a belief of the whole truth concerning the Dignity of his Person because the Gospel was preached to the Poor And must they says he be excluded from the means of Redemption because they are excluded from the means of understanding the Mysteries of his Incarnation Must they perish for want of such a belief as is morally impossible for them to acquire Ans But is it morally impossible to believe what the Blessed Jesus hath revealed of himself Indeed if the Traveller shut his eyes he may walk in the Dark though the Sun shine clearly on him And is the Traveller benefited only by the light of the Sun doth he owe nothing to the comfortable influence of it Or the Poor to whom the Gospel belongs are they only the Ignorant and Unbelievers Christ tells us That the poor to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs are the poor in spirit such are sensible that they are naturally blind and miserable and poor and naked not such as are rich and increased in Goods and have need of nothing as the Laodiceans Revel 4.17 This is the Doctor 's Pelagian sence which hath led him into other gross Errors The Poor in the Gospel are such as can submit their understanding to the Revelations of God and though with the Blessed Virgin they doubt a while how these things can be true yet they believe them to be true on the Revelation and this is that Humility and Lowliness for which she is commended and this is the Power of the Gospel which is mighty through God to cast down the strongholds and imaginations of every one that exalts himself against the knowledge of God and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5 6. Is it not necessary we should know him in whom we believe Then is not the knowledge of God necessary Is it not necessary to know him on the knowledge of whom our Hope and Belief of Eternal Life is founded Then it is not necessary to know whether CHRIST or Mahomet were an Impostor and if Mahomet have delivered as good Natural or Moral Precepts as our Saviour hath done we may make him the Object of our Faith and expect Eternal Life by Mahomet as well as by Christ Therefore doubtless it is necessary to believe of Christ as St. Peter and St. Thomas did That he is the Son of the living God our Lord and our God which Flesh and Blood hath not revealed to us and on which Faith Christ hath promised to build his Church They who saw his Miracles and heard his Doctrine confessed that God was with him but in the Confessions of St. Peter and St. Thomas there was something extraordinary which they believed of the Person of Christ P. 32. c. 1. Two Evangelists says the Doctor trace our Lord's Genealogy but as they derive it not from his real but supposed Father so they take two several ways not to satsfie but amuse us The design of St. Matthew was to shew that Christ descended from Abraham and David by Joseph's being of that Tribe viz. of Juda being the natural Son of Jacob to which it is objected That though Joseph more of that Tribe yet Christ could not be so by descent from Joseph who was not his natural Father and by the Virgin Mary he could not be of the seed of David she being of the Tribe of Levi and not of Juda. Vossius recites the Opinion of some Ancients who thought it was enough to entitle Mary to the Tribe of Juda because she married into that Tribe therefore he proves Mary to be of the same Tribe with Joseph because Numb 36.6 It was not lawful for a Virgin to marry out of her own Tribe Nor would Joseph being a just Man have taken one of another Tribe and this practise of marrying in the same Tribe was especially observed where the Virgin was an Heiress that the Inheritance might be kept not only in the Tribe but the Family and therefore they usually married the next of kin the Virgin therefore having no Brother was married to Joseph who was of near consanguinity with her See Vossius's Genealogy And he proves the same Descent of the Blessed Virgin from St. Luke's Genealogy viz. from David to which I refer the Reader But if it he questioned why if Joseph and Mary had been both descended from David why St. Matthew had not named Mary rather than Joseph who was only a supposed Father To this he answers 1. Because the Husband was not to be bard of his Honour 2. It was not the Custom of the Jews to derive the Genealogy from the Woman and the Kinred of Joseph and Mary being well known there was no necessity of mentioning it among the Jews which dwelt in Palestine to whom the Evangelist wrote And they were very curious in preserving their Genealogies and it would much have prejudiced St. Matthew's Gospel if undertaking to prove the Descent of Christ from David he should have failed in that chief design and in the beginning of the Book and doubtless the Jews who were living at that time when he wrote which was about forty Years after our Lord's Nativity had their Genealogy preserved and probably some of our Lord's Kinred then living and they having seen his Miracles by which they were induced to believe him to be the Son of God knew also that he descended of David according to the Flesh as the Gospel teacheth and there was no Objection made to the contrary by Jews
or the Phariâ—â—s his greatest Enemies who heard how he was honoured by the Name of the Son of David and knew that the Messias was to be of the Seed of David the contrary whereof if they could have proved it would have been their first and best Argument against our Saviour Now it is a prophane thing to think that the Evangelists did undertake to prove what they were not able to perform and that they should be guilty of such an Error as the Doctor imputes to them in the beginning of their Gospels to amuse us with Uncertainties and so draw an invincible Prejudice upon their Gospels That the whole Mystery of the Incarnation should be understood was not necessary but that it should be believed was so and this was not impossible to the Poor except upon the Socinian grounds viz. That we cannot believe what our reason cannot comprehend The belief of the Virgin Mary on the Message of the Angel That she should conceive a Son that should be called i. e. be the Son of God for which the Angel pronounceth her Blessed The belief of St. Peter of Martha St. Thomas and the Eunuch who believed Christ to be the Son of God do shew that such a belief was not impossible though they understood not the whole Mystery of the Incarnation the Blessed Virgin did question How shall this be Luke 1.34 she could not conceive the manner but believed the Message and v. 45. Blessed is she that believeth He quotes Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Triphon the Jew p. 31. c. 1. in these words Though I shall not prove that Christ is God otherwise than by proving that this is the Christ and that it was foretold that Christ should be such i. e. by the Harmony of the Old and New Testament Yet there are some among us my Friends who profess him to be the Christ and affirm him to be a Man born of Men with whom indeed I do not agree nor will many speak so who are of the same Opinion with me By which words it is plain saith the Doctor that however the belief of Christ's Godhead was then most generally received yet were not the otherwise minded excluded from the benefit of his Redemption as Unbelievers How this Conclusion can be inferred from his saying that he doth not agree with such is not so plain to me the right Inference from these words of Justin Martyr is That the Godhead of Christ was generally received in his Age. What he adds That the Controversy hath gotten a new value not from any new intrinsick Worth but from the Price which it hath cost is an invidious Reflection on the Orthodox Christians who were on the defensive Part being as he grants in possession and in all Ages suffered more vexation and cruelty from the Arians Donatists and other Sectaries that joyned with them than from their Heathen Persecutors whom yet the Doctor would accuse as the Authors of all that Confusion and Bloodshed occasioned by the Heresies and Divisions of the Arians and Donatists This I suppose the Doctor knew so well that he seems ashamed to retort as he offered p. 39. c. 1. The Sentence of Theodosius of Heresy Infamy or Punishment Chap. 8. is spent to prove That the Question concerning Christ's Godhead was decided by no other Evidence but of Papal and Imperial Authority whereas indeed it was determined by the first Christian Emperor in the Council of Nice wherein I agree with the Author That if Authority must determine it none is better than that of the Great Constantine whose Decision you have heard before and may more fully hereafter Certain it is that there was no Papal Authority when the Question was first determined P. 33. The Doctor endeavours to expose Athanasius as saying in defence of the Trinity That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are as Bishop Priest and Deacon but Bishop Priest and Deacon are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore so are Father Son and Holy Ghost The words indeed are mentioned by Athanasius but as the words of Anonaeus the Arian which Athanasius retorts upon him for thus saith Orthodox He that owns the Coessentiality is a Christian but he that thinks him to be no Christian who owns the Coessentiality and yet owns it himself condemns himself as that wicked Servant by his own mouth Anom But where am I found to own it Orth. You said We think the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be as Bishop Priest and Deacon Anom I confess that I said so as Bishop Priest and Deacon Orth. But Bishop Priest and Deacon are Coessential therefore you confess Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Coessential It is evident then that Athanasius only takes advantage of his Adversary by a necessary consequence from his own Argument Sandius as learned a Person as the Doctor is much more ingenuous for p. 71. l. 1. he says Thus I do certainly think the Arians to have taken this Comparison of Father Son and Holy Ghost with Bishop Priest and Deacon from Clemens Rom. and Ignatius for so we read in Athan. Diolog 1. de Trinit And then repeats the same words Thus some furious Men resolve to hurt their Adversaries through the sides of their own Friends And all Men may perceive how irrational that Inference is which immediately followeth in the Doctors Discourse Might not a Heathen at this rate saith he justify Polytheism c. The Doctor represents Athanasius as a Man void both of Reason Religion and Sence p. 33. Might not a Heathen says he justify Polytheism at the same rate viz. as Athanasius doth the Trinity Thus the Arians represent all the Nicene Fathers as a company of stupid and ignorant Dunces and the Socinians think the Trinitarians Idolaters and Blasphemers void of common Reason and in their sence the Worship of God by our Liturgy is in many parts counted Idolatry And if the Doctor had bestowed but as much time to read the Arian Controversy as the Socinian which he says was not more than the space of one Day we should likely have had all the Sham-plots which were so shamefully detected and exploded against Athanasius revived as some modern Arians have done And in truth their Slanders and false Reports are the best Weapons they have hence it is that they attempt for the Reputation of their Cause to blast the Honour of the Great Constantine as if he became an Apostate and died an Arian Which is as true as the Fiction of the Heathen That he was a Leaper and intended to make a Bath of the Bloud of Christian Infants for his Cure Whereas Eusebius who knew him intimately doth testify that at sixty Years old he was in perfect health active strong and fit for Military Exercises L. 4. c. 53. Nor hath any Heathen however provoked by Constantine through his Zeal for the Christian Religion ever mentioned him to be an Arian which had there been any truth in it either Julian Marcellinus Zosimus or some other
Heathen that wrote his History would have done but we see some that call themselves Christians dare to do what the Heathen abhor And of this kind is that Calumny of Sandius which I could not read without great wonder That Constantine the Great did never intirely believe the Unity of the Trinity L. 2. p. 186. for proof whereof he produceth one Benedictus Presbyter who might be an Irish Priest for ought I know or can judge by his evidence his words are these p. 159. l. 2. Constantine was not wholly a Christian but as Tentator one that would make trial was baptized by Silvester in the name of the Trinity but not confessing the Unity And he was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia And having obtained Victory but lost his Sence Sensu alienatus said I will go to Nicomedia where he was rebaptized declining to the Opinion of the Arians Such a rambling inconsistent Evidence as this is enough to draw a Prejudice against all the rest I have not all the Records whereby to examine the other Witnesses which he doth produce to prove Constantine an Arian Orosius whom he quotes says nothing of it Sulpitius Severus l. 2. p. 138. says That by the two Arius's the great Authors of the Arian Perfidy the Emperor was corrupted and thinking to do a religious Office he became a Persecutor he banished the Bishops delt severely with the Clergy and Laity that departed from the Communion of the Arians Now this being the first particular which this Witness mentioneth of Constantine and for remedy whereof he says the Nicene Council was called cannot be understood of Constantine's setled Judgment or constant Practice which is otherwise related by other Authentick Historians and by himself who says afterward that the Emperor embraced the Decrees of the Nicene Council which condemned the Arians who thereby were calmed and joyned in Communion with the Catholicks So that neither is this Witness consistent with himself for he was a profest Enemy to the Arians Who he says not being able to overthrow the Faith by Argument sought to destroy the Champions of it by suborning false Accusers and feining Faults where they could find none of which he gives Instances 3ly That Optatus calls Constantine an Apostate he only says but quotes not the place which is so much for his Cause that I believe he would not have omitted it if it were really so for it would have weighed much more than that rabble of Quotations which he collects as so many St. Omers Evidences such as Philostorgius and his Rhemenses and his Anonymous Authors what Socrates Sozom. Evagr. and other known Writers especially Eusebius Pamph. have said he durst not produce though he useth their names But he quotes at large the words of St. Heirome Chron. ad Am. 340. That Constantine at the end of his life was baptized by Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia declining to the Opinion of Arius And saith Sandius here is no Evasion left that it may be understood of Constantine the Son c. Perhaps Sandius had read that it was Constantine the Son that was baptized also at Nicomedia as he may in Marianus Scotus and certainly it was after his Death that the Persecution of the Catholicks begun when Constantius favoured the Arians By the way I observe that the first Witness Benedictus said Cessavit persecutio That on the Death of Constantine the Great the Persecution ceased which is contrary to what St. Heirom says That from the time of his Baptism the spoil of Churches and Discord of the whole World was continued home to his days But there is more to be replied to St. Heirome as first He doth not say he was of the Arian Opinion but declined to it which was only a Conjescture of St. Hierom's because he was baptized by Eus Nicod who was reputed an Arian But as it is observed by Richerius a Doctor of Sorbon p. 639. in his History of General Councils That this Eusebius did not openly profess himself an Arian as long as Constantine lived and the opposition that he made against Athanasius was persued on other pretences and that Constantine banished him upon a false Accusation that he had intercepted the Customs which were to be sent him from Alexandria to Constantinople And he was also so kind to Arius upon another false Suggestion That he differed nothing from the Nicene Faith Now St. Hierom hearing of these Actions of Constantine and not being truly informed of the reasons of them might conjecture that he inclined to the Arian Opinion and why might he not be mistaken in his Relation of Constantine as well as in that concerning Meletius in the same Chronicle whom he reports to be an Enemy of the Church and yet it is most certain saith Richerius that none besides Athanasius did do or suffer more for the Catholick Faith as St. Basil in his Epistles and Greg. Naz. who familiarly conversed with him have attested Doubtless neither Eusebius Pamph. nor Athanasius nor the rest of the approved Catholick Writers would have so recommended the Actions of Constantine if he had been a known Arian and for the sake of that Opinion had persecuted the Orthodox and Bishops such are the Weapons of Naked Gospellers who licking themselves clean with their Tongues are wont to spit out the Filth and Venome in Calumnies and Reproaches in the face of their Adversaries hence Athanasius is represented as a Drunkard and incontinent Person and the Fathers of the Nicene Council as a company of rude unexperienced unlearned and inconstant Men and the great Constantine who confirmed the Nicene Faith suffereth as an Arian to this day See Sandius p. 167. It is the Judgment of a very great Man Gothofred in his Notes on Philostorgius That while Constantine was living no Man durst open his mouth against the Nicene Creed and that those who followed Eusebius did profess their assent to it p. 62. And that Eusebius Nicomed and others of his Party in that Council did subscribe to the same p. 36. which Theodoret says they did that putting on the Sheep's skin they might act the more like Wolves Theod. l. 1. c. 19. As they did shortly after the Death of Constantine And Philostorgius says Some of them recanted while Constantine lived and confessed that they had done wickedly in subscribing to that Council for fear of his displeasure Gothof p. 43 44. And Photius observes it to be a Fiction of Philostorgius That Constantine sometime after the Nicene Council should send forth his Letters condemning the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that Alexander Bishop of Alexandria should subscribe to the same of whom Athanasius Orat. contra Arianos p. 132. says That he died firm in the Nicene Faith about a Year after that Council viz. Anno 326. And that Constantine dyed in the same Faith besides the Testimony of Athanasius in his Ad vitam Solitariam agentes Epiph. Her 69. Theod. l. 2. c. 5. And Lex 1. Cod. Theodos contra Heretic do attest
of Rome Was St. Peter Popish or was his Confession viz. Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God a Popish Confession Were his Successors for Three hundred Years who were Confessors and Martyrs for the same Faith Papal I am heartily sorry and ashamed to hear how to recommend the Socinian Doctrine he proclaims the Arian as well as the Athanasian Doctrine equally unworthy not only of our Faith but our Study Is not this the Quintessence of Socinianism See p 39. c. 1. A very bold assertion is that which followeth That at the rise of the Controversie most of the Bishops understood not its meaning and that the best Ages of the Church thought it not worth the knowing If by the first rise of this Doctrine he means the Council of Nice as it is evident he doth how they understood and valued it is beyond Controversie and how far it was tolerated by Bishop Alexander whom he calls the first Author of the Nicety tolerated Arius and his Confederates by excommunicating and persecuting him until God by an extraordinary Judgment took him from troubling that Church which he had redeemed by his own Blood is known in the Ecclesiastical History of those times if his Scholars can presume of God's Pardon or of Communion with his Church from that instance it is a strong presumption indeed the best means is to do what he derides that is to herd with the Primitive Christians and Martyrs as he expresseth it which departed the World before this unhappy Question was proposed those I mean who died in the belief of their Saviour's Deity and I hope it is of them he says and not of Cerinthus Ebion the Sabellians and Samosatenians that they are saved without dispute Athanasius challenged the Arians to produce one Father of any repute in the Church of God that was of the same Judgment with them which they always studiously declined as Socrates shews by the instance of Sisinnius l. 5. c. 10. And how the World came to be so much Arian as St. Hierom reports is evident from St. Hilary viz. Because their Teachers concealed their own Opinions and used such words in their Homelies to the People as the Catholicks did whereby not only the People but Bishops and Emperours were deceived by them they told them Christ was God the true God and God by Nature perfect God before all Ages And hence as St. Hilary notes the People remained Catholicks under Arian Bishops but as he observes Contra Arium Auxentium p. 215. They had their reserves They give Christ the Name of God says he but as they give the same to Men they confess him to be the Son of God but as others in the Sacrament of Baptism are made the Sons of God They say he was before all Ages and so they say were the Angels and Devils but that Christ is the true God that is that the Deity of the Father and the Son is the same this they deny and hence it is says he that under the Priests of Antichrist the People of Christ are not corrupted while they believe that to be the Faith which they hear in their Teachers words They hear that Christ is God they believe what they hear they hear that he is the Son of God they believe it to be true they hear in Dei nativitate inesse Dei veritatem they hear that he was before all Ages they think he was Eternal Sanctiores sunt aures Plebis quam corda Sacerdotum There is more Sanctity in the Ears of the People than in the Hearts of the Priests Thus was Constantius deceived the Arian Priest whom on the commendation of his dying Sister he took into favour perswaded him that Arius did believe all the Decrees of the Nicene Council and as an ancient Writer says Hereticos admisit Constantius Heresin non Amplexus If Constantius favoured the Arians it was not from any favour he had to their Heresie and it is observed by Theodoret l. 3. c. 8. that though he disliked the word Consubstantial yet he owned the sence of it That the Word was God that Christ was the true and natural Son of God begotten of the Father before all Ages and condemn'd them that call'd him a Creature And Greg. Nazianzen had the same Opinion of him for he term'd him The most Divine Emperour and greatest Lover of Christ and he was never accounted a Flatterer The Councils also under him profest all the Articles of the Nicene Creed the word Consubstantial only omitted Elias Cretensis gives this reason for the Laws which he made on the behalf of the Arians That being deceived by wicked Men he made Laws for their Toleration against them that were pious But this trick was learn'd them by one George Bishop of Laodicea who argued thus Seeing that God made all things and all things were made of what was not therefore the Son was made of things that were not yet was he the Son of God as made by him Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia and Theognis who after great obstinacy subscribed to the Nicene Decrees but would not consent to the Condemnation of Arius gave this reason for it because partly in the Letters which he wrote to them and in the Conference they had with him they could not judge him guilty of the Opinions charged on him See Constantine's Letter in Socrates l. 1. c. 38. He used that Maxime of Matchiavel He that knows not how to dissemble knows not how to live and therefore he complied with the Opinions of all of other Hereticks but never could with the Orthodox for which reason he was compared to the Camelion of which Creature it is said it could conform itself to all Colours except the White P. 39. col 2. The Doctor seems to accuse our Saviour of a Rhetorical Hyperbole in appropriating to himself such great Titles It is very frequent for Rhetorick saith he to exceed but never to diminish the Grammatical Character of a Person whose Honour the Writer professeth to advance and on this account they i. e. the Socinians think it more reasonable that those expressions which exalt our Saviour's Person to an equality with the Father should stoop to those which speak him inferiour than that those which speak him inferiour should be strained up to those which speak him equal as if ourself had exalted himself above his degree who so humbled himself as to become obedient to death even the death of the Cross But this is an Argument for which he is beholding to Sandius the Arian who p. 139. of his Appendix speaking of the Omniscience of our Saviour pleads That such expressions are taken from the Flowers of Rhetorick by which the things treated of are sometimes exalted and sometimes depressed and in the present Subject saith he is often given in the Praises due to Christ against the Jews and Gentiles thereby to aggrandize not to depreciate him Wherefore the Doctor commends the Arians for a truer Method who when one expression
was apparently designed by the Compilers for some special use to fence the Catholick Faith from the Corruptions Depravations Doubtings and Contradictions of Hereticks as in the Nicene Creed the Oneness of our Lord Jesus Christ was added when the Arians opposed the Apostolick Tradition and by corrupting detected the words of Scripture to their sence which Dr. H. shews more largely in his Note on 1 Joh. 5.7 and of such Additions he says That when the Church hath thought meet to erect an additional Bulwark against Hereticks such as reject them may be deemed to side with those Hereticks p. 86. And this is the summ of what he says concerning the Athanasian Creed the Doctrine whereof he says is well nigh all to assert the Unity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Persons against those Hereticks who had brought Novel Propositions into the Church of which Doctrinal part he says that Athanasius being only a Father of the Church they were not necessary to be explicitely acknowledged nor absolutely imposed on any but such as were Members of some Church that had actually received Athanasius's Explication or than it appeared concordant with the more authentick universal Confessions as every Doctrinal Proposition of it will be found to do As for the Damnatory Sentences Dr. Ham. supposeth them to be interpreted in opposition to those Heresies that had invaded the Church not that it defined it to be a damnable sin to fail in understanding or believing the full matter of any of those Explications Dr. Ham. having as a wise Master Builder laid this Foundation shews how necessary it is for the end of building on it a holy Life and an uniform universal Obedience to the Commands of Christ in opposition to Idolatry Formality Hypocrisie and to Sacriledge Profaneness and Impiety as also to improve the Vertues of Obedience to Superiours Charity to all Mankind Purity of Flesh and Spirit Contentedness and taking up the Cross and lastly how useful it is to confute false Doctrines 1. Of the Romanists as Penances Indulgences of Supererrogating Merits of Attrition improved into Contrition by the Priest's aid without change of Life Dispensableness of Oaths Arts of Equivocation Purgatory Cessation of Allegiance and especially of Infallibility 2ly Of the Solifidians and Fiduciaries the Predestinarians and irrespective Decrees of Election and Reprobation of the Divine Prescience against the Socinians who deny that God foresees all things and though they grant his Omnipresence and Omnipotence yet question the infinity of his Science which is apparently false as appears by God's Predictions to the Prophets When I considered the Writings of both these Doctors their Foundations and Superstructures it brought to my mind those two sorts of Builders and Building mentioned by our Saviour Mat. 7. the one built on that approved Rock of St. Peter 's Confession the other on that Sand whereon Arius Socinus and that Man of an ominous Name Sandius pitcht their Tabernacles the one stands firm tho' for 1600 Years the Rain descended Flouds came and the Wind blew on it the other tho' like the Walls of Jerusalem it hath been often attempted to be fastned hath still been blown down and may the Fall of it be still great P. 41. c. 2. Our Doctor says If the Relation between the written Word and rational Consequence be so remote as none but a skilful Herald can derive its Pedigree then is a good Christian no more obliged to believe such an Inference than is every good Subject to be a good Herald As if the Ignorant were no ways obliged to follow the Directions of the wise and good Men or as if Subjects were not bound to obey those Laws whereof they cannot ken those Reasons which the wise and consulting Legislators on good Reasons have established for their Security What tho' the Papists do most absurdly infer from Christ's Command to St. Peter to feed his Lambs that all those Popes which pretend to be his Successors are thereby commissioned to Rule and Govern all Nations and Persons in all Ages Cannot so enquiring a Person as the Doctor or one that is more or one that is less rational from such Scriptural premises as God was made Flesh Christ is God over all equal and one with his Father with undeniable Reason infer as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath done That he is the Eternal Son of God But such an Inference is so contrary to the Socinian's Reason that it is equally rejected with contempt and derision as Popish Impositions and by the Doctor numbred among them But Bernardus non videt omnia He undertakes therefore to bless the World with such a description of them that it shall be as easie to know them without pains or art as it was for the meanest Beggar in the street to understand whom King Ahasuerus would Honour when he caused Mordecai in Royal Manner to be publickly honoured and by Proclamation enjoyned the People to bow the Knee as he past by them The Qualifications for Matter of Faith he says must be these 1. It must be easie to be understood by the meanest capacity and therefore he rejects any thing that is called a Mystery though God manifested in the Flesh be so called by the Apostle yea though the same Mystery be implied in that very Scripture which he quotes to prove his assertion viz. Rom. 10.9 If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus i. e. that Jesus is the Lord which no man can say but by the Holy Ghost i. e. not by a natural Faith but by a supernatural Revelation such as our Saviour says Flesh and blood hath not revealed And it is observable that though in the Title of this Chapter he mentioneth the Word as well as the Matter to be believed yet he makes no mention of the Word by which the Person of our Saviour is generally understood so that Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ the Foundation of our Faith is excluded from being the Object of our belief for he writes the WORD in a larger Character which might induce the Reader to believe that he meant as St. John 1.1 The Son of God which is the adequate Object of Christian Faith but speaks nothing of him in all that Chapter 2ly He says It must be an express Word of God This no Protestant denieth but they do generally urge it against the Papists who teach as necessary Articles of Faith the Commandments of Men And may we not conclude by this Position that they who oppugne such a Fundamental to which Eternal Life is promised may come short of Salvation Christ saith He that believes and is baptized this is but one entire proposition as our Author observes that it is not only he that believes but he that believes and is baptized and Salvation cannot belong to them that put asunder what Christ hath joyned as the Socinians do in the Case of Baptism which they call only a Rite and Ceremony 3ly He says It must be expresly honoured with
stupid belief of a multitude of impertinent and incredible Propositions without yea some of them against all Reason without any fruit but strife contrary to the Simplicity wherein the Gospel glorieth and to that contempt which God himsef sheweth to acts of mee◠Understanding which opprobrious Terms he mentioneth also p. 51. c. 1. Doth not the Doctor fix these opprobrious Terms on our Blessed Saviour when it is evident that our Saviour instituted the Sacrament of Baptism to be administred in his Name as well as in the Name of the Father and the Holy Ghost especially seeing the Doctor cannot deny Baptism to be a Fundamental of the Christian Religion as having an express Precept and a Promise of Eternal Life annexed to it And to be baptized in the Name of the Father c. is to devote ourselves to the Worship and Obedience of the Person in whose Name we are baptized and by consequence being we are baptized equally into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost we acknowledge them to be of equal Dignity and are obliged to pay them equal Worship This Precept of our Saviour being no part of the Doctor 's Natural Religion but a prime Fundamental of the Christian doth irrefragably convince the Doctor to be guilty of gross Impiety when he in p. 57. c. 2. and p. 51. c. 1. discoursing of the Changes which later Ages have made in Matters of Faith under which by the tendency of the whole Book that of the Doctrine of the Trinity is chiefly intended he infers our Saviour to be a humorous and capricious Lord and what means this passage p. 30. c. 1. That it must cast dishonour no less on his Wisdom than his Majesty c. if we think he will grant Salvation on no other Terms than a belief of the whole truth concerning the Dignity of his Person for this will imply that he came and suffered on purpose to purchase to himself the honour of such a Belief c. P. 52. c. 2. The proper Dominions of Faith he says exceed not this one proposition That God cannot lye Ans What difference then is there between the Faith of a Jew or a Turk and that of a Christian they believe this as firmly as the Doctor doth and are they as much Christians as he He allows it no value from its relation to the Person of Christ though he doubteth not the Person of Christ to be infinitely valuable The Turks grant he was a just Man and a true Prophet but not an All-sufficient Saviour But who are they that advance Faith above Holiness yea against it too not only the thorough pac'd Antinomians and Solifidians but many who call themselves Orthodox who say Faith is the hand whereby we apply Christ to ourselves and by this application Christ is made ours and his Righteousness imputed to us as if it were our own and it justifies not by its own worthiness but by the Merit of Christ which it lyeth hold on and applieth I perceive the Doctor learnt this from Mr. Beedle's Preface to his Socinian Catechism where he rejects the same Tenets because they are not to be found in express terms in Scripture viz. The apprehending and applying of Christ's righteousness to ourselves by Faith of Christ's righteousness imputed to us of Christ's dying to appease the wrath of God and reconcile us to him of Christ's Merits or his meritorious Obedience both active and passive of which he says That as these forms of speech are not owned by the Scripture so neither the things contained in them I doubt not but the Doctor read that Preface and applies it to the same end And where in the name of Christ saith our Author do we in all the Book of God or in Reason which he alway equalleth with the Scripture meet any intimation of this fine Doctrine Application of Christ to our selves the hand of Faith imputed Righteousness c. What are they but Terms of Art invented by false Apostles But were the Compilers of our Liturgy false Apostles Or do we not find the matter if not the words therein when we pray God to deliver us by his Cross and Passion Or is there no Merit in them when we are taught to pray That by the Merits and Death of Jesus Christ and through Faith in his Bloud we and the whole Church may obtain Remission of Sins and all other benefits of his Passion See the Prayer after the Communion Do not they inform us of the * In Warning the Communion meritorious Cross and Passion of our Saviour whereby alone we obtain Remission of our Sins and are made Partakers of the Kingdom of Heaven Or was he a false Apostle that teacheth us That Christ was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him But the Doctor will not recede a hairs breadth from his Socinian Principles lest he should acknowledge that Christ died for our Sins and rose for our Justification which he says the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not bear p. 14. c. 2. The Doctor is much pleased with his Microscope which discovers a multitude of little Animals where the best eye sees nothing but limpid Water But had he a spiritual Eye he might by the Mirror of the Gospel discover many saving Truths which to a carnal Eye are not discernable Another Complaint against Faith is p. 54. That it is exalted above and against Charity and he calls the Dispute between the Arians and Catholicks concerning the Eternal Deity of Christ the first and most uncharitable Dispute that ever rent the Christian World P. 55. c. 1. But who began these Disputes but Ebion Cerinthus and the Arians who used the Gospel as the poor Man was used that fell among Theives left it naked and wounded and opposed all that came to its relief were we all united in the Faith of the Gospel which teacheth us that we have one Lord one Faith one Baptism viz. in the Holy Trinity it would be a more effectual means to enlarge Charity than the new Heresies that deny the Lord that bought them and being uncharitable to their Lord cannot be otherwise to his Servants they that thus wound the Head the Deity of Christ cannot but rent the Members who by that Faith are united to him The old Serpent was permitted to bruise the Heel of the Messiah i. e. as Commentators say his natural Body of flesh and blood but these Serpents attempt his Head i. e. his Divinity but in vain for he shall break their heads The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against our Faith that Christ is the Son of the Living God upon which Christ hath founded his Church The great Complaint against Faith is yet behind That it is exalted above and against Reason for nothing is to be believed further than Reason proveth it to be true p. 56. c. 1. That is the Socinians Reason But by the assistance of Faith the Christian may believe
things above Reason though to a carnal Apprehension they seem contrary to Reason Why else doth our Saviour pronounce them blessed that have not seen and yet believed viz. as St. Thomas did that Christ is their Lord and their God This is another great Fortress of the Socinians from which they tell us in the Doctor 's Language That Articles of Faith above the apprehension of Reason are like the Ravings in Bedlam p. 56. c. 1. A cast of Tertullian's Montanism Credo quia impossibile and that excess of Confidence he means our Christian Faith in defect of Reason is a certain symptom of Madness To this Fortress as their Frontier Garison all the Socinians resort nothing can be believed which cannot be understood and comprehended by Reason So Schlinchtingius against Meisner It implies a Contradiction that what exceeds the reach of Reason should be made an Article of Faith As if when the God of Heaven revealing his Will doth injoyn any Commandment or requires the belief of any Proposition upon his Authority which the reason of his Creatures is not able to comprehend or demonstrate to itself he did enjoyn the belief of Contradictions As in our Author's instance when Abraham believed against Hope and against his Reason he believed on the Authority of God that required him to offer up his only Son Isaac And why may we not as well believe that God sent his Eternal Son to be Incarnate and come down from Heaven for our Redemption tho' we cannot comprehend it we ought to believe the thing tho' we cannot comprehend the manner Natural Faith relieth upon natural Reason but Divine Faith upon Revelation which may be above but not against Reason If you require any other Testimony it is not Faith Vides saith St. Augustine non est fides what thou assentest to because thou seest a reason for it is not Faith Faith is the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 That properly is Faith which gives up its assent to a Proposition on the Testimony of him that propounds it and in this case we say with the Doctor Let God be true and Humane Reason a Lyar. Humane Reason hath the judgment of Discretion the judgment of Decision belongs to the Scriptures to the Scriptures I say not as understood by any private Interpretation but as interpreted by the Analogy of Faith by the Harmony of the Old and New Testament and by the general Consent of the best Teachers in all Ages and to this we shall Appeal for the Decision of this great Truth That our Saviour is the Eternal Son of God There are certainly more plain Contradictions in the Arian Doctrines in this viz. That there should be an Omnipotent and Omniscient God that created all things and knows the secrets of all hearts and that this should be a created God for the Arians grant Christ to be the Creator of the World That God should be reconciled to Man that by Transgression is his Enemy hating and hateful to God without any satisfaction to his Justice this is to reconcile Light and Darkness Heaven and Hell or that a Finite Creature as a Created God must be could satisfy an infinitely offended Justice Nor is there any Article of our Christian Faith that seems so contrary to Reason as is their measuring of an Infinite Essence by Finite Reason that which measureth should be able to contain the thing that is measured Again To give Divine Worship to a Creature by what Name soever it be dignified or distinguished which is due only to the Almighty God our Creator is contrary both to sound Reason and Scripture which the Socinians some of them at least do and on their own Principles are guilty of Idolatry The Difference among the Socinians concerning giving Divine Worship to Christ will save us the labour of proving them to be Idolaters if Christ be not the Eternal Son of God Socinus would not hold him for a Christian that would not worship Christ with Divine Worship But Christianus Frankin Francis David and some others who agreed with Socinus that Christ was but a Man urge this Argument to prove Socinus and his Followers to be Idolaters because they worshipped him whom they believed to be but a Creature The Argument is thus formed As great as is the distance between a Creator and a Creature so great ought the difference be of the Honour that is given to the Creator from that which is given to the Creature but the distance between the Creator and Creature is the greatest distance therefore there ought to be the greatest difference in the Honour that is given to the Creator from that which is given to a Creature Hence they conclude Socinus and his Followers who worshipped Christ with Divine Worship were Idolaters But to this they answer That if it be the pleasure of God to have it so so it must be and for this they quote St. John 5.23 That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father To this Franken replys That by Socinu 's own Doctrine the Scripture he says must not be believed because it is contrary to Reason and therefore there is some other hidden sence in that Scripture which must be searched out N. B. and Franken urgeth Deut. 6.13 repeated Matth. 4.10 Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And it is farther urged that Crellius saith the word only in John 17.3 where Christ says This is life eternal to know thee the only true God that by it Christ excludes himself from being the true God And by the same word say his Adversaries Christ excludes himself from being the Object of Divine Worship This Franken confirms farther against Socinus from Isa 42.8 My glory will I not give to another Isai 48.11 and observe who speaks I am Jehovah that is my name and my glory c. What Glory is that Gloria Jehovitatis mea as Calomus's Phrase is that is The Glory of my Godhead So in Jer. 3.18 That men may know that thou whose name alone is Jehovah art the most High Jehovah then is the Name of the most high God and his alone so that it cannot be given to any other who is not the most high God but this name Jehovah is given to Christ in the Scripture therefore he is the most high God This Argument shall be confirmed hereafter In the mean time we have gained this Point viz. That if Christ be the Object of Divine Worship as the Socinians grant then must he be the Eternal Son of God of the same Essence with his Father and as St. Paul speaks God over all blessed for ever Now if the word only in St. John exclude Christ from being the true God then the same word in Deut. and St. Matthew exclude him from Divine Worship wherefore if his being the true God be against the Reason of Socinians though never so plain in Scripture we must search out some other hidden sence as Socinus says
and what other or better sence can we find than what the Catholick Church alway affirmed viz. That Christ with his Father and the Holy Ghost is the only true God And thus St. Augustine as hath been said renders it This is Life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to be the only true God Cont. Arium Tom. 6. n. 17. P. 54. Against Christ's Righteousness imputed to us he tells a Story of a Land that was wasted with a raging Plague to whom came a great Physitian declaring he had a Nostrum which never failed to cure those that trusted it that it cost him dear but he would freely communicate it to all that needed and desir'd it and exhorted all to come to him which many did and were cured but some said there needed no more but to trust to the Medicine The Physitian was infinitely skilful in his Art and faithful in his Promises wherefore by confidence in him they should have all his health imputed to them and that should cure them as perfectly as if they received real health by the use of his Prescriptions This is a Fiction of his own to serve his Hypothesis which I shall answer by a more probable Story out of the Midras Tehillim or the Exposition of the Psalms where on those words Kiss the Son we have this Parable This is as when a certain King was displeased with the Inhabitants of a great City the Citizens went and made Supplication to the King's Son to appease his Father's displeasure The Son went and effectually prevailed with his Father to forgive them and take them into his Favour which the King's Son having signified to the Citizens they addressed their Thanks to the King The King bid them go and give Thanks to his Son for had it not been for his Mediation their City had been destroyed This is that which is said Kiss the Son and it may be well for the Doctor if he would go and do likewise It is not good to make sport of holy Things and droll on the Mysteries of our Salvation comparing them to Fables and this in Scripture Phrase ridiculing the Peace of God as passing all understanding and the Meritorious Death of our Saviour to the Prescriptions or Juggles of a Quack as if Faith in the Power and Merits of our Saviour were as vain as the Opinions of the Mobile concerning an Empyrick yet we read of great Miracles wrought by Faith in the Person of Christ P. 41. Thus the Leaper by his Faith Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean And the Centurian's Faith prevailed for his Servant Matth. 8. And as many as touched the hem of his garment were healed by their faith in his almighty power There could not therefore be a more odious Comparison he says of the Mystery which the Apostle spake of to the Ephesians That though it were hard to be believed yet it was easie to be understood for it signified only That the Gentiles were Fellow-Heirs with the Jews But was not this a Mystery hid from that Nation until Christ and his Apostles revealed it wiser Men than the Doctor do rightly admire some Secrets in Nature which when their Causes and Natures are discovered very ignorant Men may apprehend this the Doctor says to shew That it is so far from being an honour that it is rather a defect As if there were no difficulty in Matters of Faith and the Mystery of Godliness mentioned by St. Paul in Timothy viz. God manifested in the flesh were no harder to be understood than that Mystery which had been so clearly revealed The admission of the Gentiles to a fellowship with the Jews This is to serve another Hypothesis of his That we are not bound to believe what we cannot understand by our Reason and so to invalidate our belief of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ for saith the Doctor p. 32. col 1. If we will needs enquire into the Mysteries of Christ's Divinity and Incarnation we shall find our Understandings no less confounded by the brightness of the Mystery than our Eyes are by the Sun and of this the Holy Ghost warns us not only by a careful silence concerning our Lord's Genealogy but by express Types and Prophesies concerning its inscrutability So that by the Doctor 's Propositions neither our Knowledge nor our Faith have any thing to do about the Divinity he will not call it the Deity of our Saviour or his Incarnation it matters not whether we know or believe any thing concerning either I shall not charge the Dr. with any thing that he hath not expresly said and therefore do acknowledge that what he speaks of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation falls not under our debate but I know that the Socinians say that there is no firmer footing for the Doctrine of the Trinity in the holy Scripture than for Transubstantiation and the Socinians at Alba Julia in a Treatise printed 1568. say thus Whoever believes the Pope to be Antichrist doth truly believe the Popish Trinity Infant Baptism and other Popish Sacraments to be the Doctrines of Devils And when I consider that the Naked Gospel is bereaved of this Doctrine and intended not so much against the Doctrine and Sacraments retained in that Church as against what is maintained in the Church of England I submit it to the Judgment of others whether these following expressions of the Authors do not reflect on the Doctrine of our Church when he speaks of a pack of impertinent Mysteries p. 58. col 2. And that Mahomet among all his Whimsies hath nothing comparable to it p. 59. col 1. And that the Athanasian Doctrine may be numbred with the Papal and of the Contradictions which are in the one as well as in the other P. 41. c. 1. P. 21. c. 1. P. 56. c. 2. The Doctor seems much offended at the word Mystery thô he knows thereis nothing reserved from the youngest Catecheumen in the Church of England who is diligently instructed in the Principles of Religion by order of the Church yet he must grant that there were many things in the Scripture which continued to be so until they were revealed such were those Mysteries mentioned by St. Paul 1 Tim. 3.16 Without question great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of angels believed on in the world received up into glory And such were those Parables which our Saviour proposed to his Disciples which exceeded their apprehensions until they were expounded to them by our Saviour And such was that Mystery which the Apostle speaks of Ephes 1.10 and Ephes 3.6 which was not made known to the Sons of Men in other Ages as it was revealed to the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit viz. That the Gentiles should be Fellow heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his Promise in Christ by the Gospel But when the Gentiles were taken in to be
call me Ishi my Husband for v. 19. I will betroth thee to me for ever c. 1 Kings 8.39 and 2 Cron. 6.30 compared with Revel 2.23 The words are Thou only knowest the hearts of the sons of men All the Churches shall know that I am he that searcheth the Hearts and Reins to give to every Man according to his works The Argument is this The God of Israel only knows the hearts of Men Christ knows the hearts of Men therefore Christ is the God of Israel Both these Propositions are express Scriptures therefore the Consequence is undeniable Isa 63.1 compared with Revel 19.13 c. The words are Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments I that spake in righteousness mighty to save St. John speaking of Christ says He was clothed with a vesture dipt in bloud and his name is called the Word of God Now the Prophet speaks of the God of Israel and St. John applys it to Christ as by the Context in both doth appear therefore Christ is the God of Israel These among many others may suffice concerning the Harmony of both Testaments to which I may add those express Testimonies concerning the whole Trinity in the New Testament The first that I shall mention is such of which I may say as the Doctor doth of his Fundamentals p. 43. c. 1. That if all the rest of the Scripture were lost this alone would be sufficient to confute the Socinians viz. Mat. 28.19 Go ye and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost where we have three distinct Persons of equal Dignity and Power to whom under the same Name we dedicate ourselves and promise Worship and Obedience The Socinians are not ashamed to say That this place is added by Athanasius or some of his Perswasion though not only the practice of the Apostles and the Primitive Fathers may evince the contrary but it is read in all the Greek Copies the Syriack and Aethiopick and Ignatius Tertullian and other Fathers have quoted and expounded this Text and the Socinians retain it in their German Edition of that Gospel An. 1630. 2ly They object That to be baptized in the Name of any doth not conclude him to be God seeing the Israelites were baptized into Moses and some Disciples into the Baptism of John Acts 19.3 Ans To be baptized into Moses was to be baptized by the Ministry or Hand of Moses as the Syriack Version reads and hence St. Paul says That none of the Corinthians were baptized in his name 1 Cor. 1.14 15. lest any should infer that he expected Obedience from them And it is one thing to be baptized in the Name of John and another to be baptized by the Administration of St. John's Baptism the import of Baptism is to believe as we have been baptized and to Worship as we believe i. e. The Father Son and Holy Ghost There are many other Scriptures that confirm the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Judgment of our Divines as Joh. 15.26 When the Comforter is come whom I will send from the Father where we have the Father from whom the Son by whom and the Person of the Holy Ghost that is sent So also 2 Cor. 13.13 in that Benediction The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost we have a plain distinction of three Persons the Authors of the same Grace So also 1 Cor. 12.5 6. And there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit and diversities of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but the same God where we have three Persons and but one God It is evident from these and many other Scriptures that by Concession of the Arians our Saviour had the Divine Attributes of Omnipotence and Omniscience communicated to him and if these were imparted to him by his Father it is not against reason that that other Attribute of Eternity might be also for to be Omnipotent and Omniscient implies an Infinity as the properties of the Eternal God nor can our Saviour be thought less than Infinite when we believe that he hears the Prayers searcheth the Hearts and knows the Thoughts of all Men and shall come to be the Judge of all without which Attributes he could not judge rightly The Creation and Conservation of all things do prove the same for he that made all things is God And so doth his being the only Law-giver and the only Judge and to qualifie him for these Offices he must be God to bind our Consciences to his Laws and to judge righteous Judgment And shall not the Judge of all the Earth judge righteously which none can do but the Omniscient and Omnipotent God Estius one of the best School-men asserts That no Creature can be so highly elevated by a supernatural power as to co-operate by way of a Physical Instrument in the Creation because it is a property that belongs to such an Instrument to have something of its own whereby to week dispositive for the effecting of the Creation Whence he says no Creature can be assumed to the power of Creation as a Physical Instrument the nature of that Instrument still remaining And nothing can be the cause of Creation which hath not an infinite Power because by how much the Form to be produced is removed from the Power of Production by so much a greater power is required in the Agent so that for the production of something out of nothing there is required an infinite Power because the distance between something and nothing is infinite so that our Saviour being as the Scripture affirms the Creator of the World he is also God over all blessed for ever Hence Origen against Celsus proves That God neither did nor could make the World by any thing without himself as the Angels of which it was discoursed were and hence he concludes That Christ by whom the World was made was God See also Ireneus l. 2.55 and l. 4. c. 37. St. Peter in Epistle 2.2.1 speaking of false Prophets that privily should bring in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them says That they should bring upon themselves swift destruction And v. 3. Their judgment lingreth not and their damnation slumbreth not It may therefore be a good argument with many a person not yet infected with such Heresies to give a short Account of the manifest Judgments of God upon the chief Founders and Patrons of the Arian and Socinian Doctrines for for such Opinions of the Doctrines of the Gnosticks Cerinthus and Ebion c. which had infected the Asian Churches and for the wicked Lives of such as entertained those Heretical Doctrines it was that they had their Candle-stick removed and were left in Darkness and under the Dominion of Mahomet to this day Olimpius an ancient Arian Bishop publickly blasphemed our Saviour in a Bath and suddenly felt as it were three
the same God the Holy Spirit in whom all things subsist and this Deity spoken of in three Persons is one individed God And Chap. 11. When we are freed from this Body we shall be in Heaven with Christ God and Man whom we worshipped here on Earth Polycarp an Apostolical Author in his undoubted Epistle to the Philippians says Thus God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest and Son of God Build you up in the Faith and Truth c. Such an Invocation is proper only to God with whom the Son is joyned And again We are all in the sight of God and the Lord and must all stand before the Tribunal of Christ And in another Fragment of Polycarp's mentioned by Eusebius l. 4. c. 15. we have these words I bless thee in all things and glorifie thee by the Eternal High-Prist Jesus Christ thy beloved Son by whom to thee together with him in the Holy Spirit be glory now and for ever Ignatius Bishop of Antioch and a Martyr was the Disciple of Polycarp he begins his Epistle to the Smyrnians thus I glorifie Jesus Christ God who hath made you so wise And thus he salutes the Ephesians In the good will of the Father and Jesus Christ our God there is one Omnipotent God who manifested himself by Jesus Christ his Son who is his substantial Word and not by pronunciation but the begotten Essence of the Divine Power Ad Magnes 3. So in the 5th to the Philip. The Lord commanded his Apostles to baptize in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost not in one that had three names only nor in three that were Incarnate but in three of the same Dignity for one of them was made Man neither the Father nor the Holy Ghost but the Son only who was so not in opinion nor in Phantasie but indeed for the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us How should not he be God who raised the Dead made the Lame to walk cleansed the Leapers and gave sight to the Blind And to the Philadelphians There is one God the Father unbegotten one Son the only begotten God the Word and Man one Paraclete the Spirit of Truth If any one say there is one God and confess Jesus Christ but conceives him to be a meer Man and not the only Begotten the Word and Wisdom of God but thinks him to consist only of a Body and a Soul this Man is a Serpent as Ebion was who taught error and deceit Epist 6. To those of Smyrna Epist 7. he calls Christ the God that bore flesh And Epist 8. to Polycarp He that was not passible as God suffered for us as he was Man In the 9th to the Antiochians He who acknowledgeth one only God to deny the Deity of Christ he is a Devil and Enemy of all Righteousness And in the Conclusion of that Epistle He who only is unbegotten preserve you both in Body and Soul by him who was born before Ages Epistle 11. ad Ephes The Word was made Flesh the Incorporeal in a Body the Impossible in a Body passible In his Epistle to the Romans Suffer me to be an Imitator of the Passion of Christ my God And in another Epistle to the Ephes There is one Physitian Carnal and Spiritual made and not made God in the Flesh the true Life in Death of God and of Mary Clemens Romanus useth the same distinction of our Saviour according to the Flesh and attributing to him the Splendor of the Magnificence of God preferring him above the Angels And his Expressions do so agree with those in Heb. 1. that Junius after St. Heirom and others have supposed him to be the Author of that Epistle he exhorts the Corinthians to Humility because saith he Our Lord Jesus Christ the Scepter of the Magnificence of God came not in Pride Consider says he what an Example is set before us if the Lord so humbled himself what should we do who live under the yoke of his grace There is a second Epistle of St. Clement mentioned by Eusebius l. 3. c. 38. And in the Apostolical Canons which speaks thus Brethren we ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God nor ought we to think meanly of our Salvation for if we think too meanly of him we can hope but of little things from him St. Justin Martyr who being a Philosopher became a Christian in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew calleth Christ King and God he wrote an Exposition of the Faith and of the Trinity in the same Essence There is one God of all saith he who is known in the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit for since the Father begot the Son of his own Nature and Essence and produced the Holy Spirit from the same therefore those which are of one and the same Essence are rightly esteemed to be of one and the same Dignity And he calls Christ God before all Ages And in his Apology to the Senate he saith That Son of God who alone is properly called his Son is the Word that was with him before the World was made as the Light is with the Sun Ireneus in his third Book against the Heresie of Valentinian c. c. 6. saith Neither the Lord nor the Holy Spirit would have absolutely named him God who was not God unless he had been the true God Thus the Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy enemies thy foot-stool For the Father speaks it to the Son to whom he had given the Heathen for his Inheritance and put all things under his feet thus also it is said Thy throne O God is for ever c. Therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee where both he that anointeth and he that is anointed are both called God by the Holy Spirit and speaking of the Personal Union c. 20. he says The merciful God in his love to Mankind did unite God and Man together and that it behoved the Mediator of God and Man to partake of the Nature of both This Author blames those that deny the Father of the Universe to have a Son who being the Word is the first Begotten and so is God and again in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew he reproves them who deny Christ to be God being the Son of the Ineffable and Singular God and therefore calls him the Lord and God as being the Son of God And p. 33. he calls him The only Begotten of the Father of the Universe the Word and Power properly begotten by him and afterward made Man by the Virgin And he tells Triphon That the Son was begotten of his Father not by way of Abscission as if the Substance of the Father was divided but as one Fire is kindled by another without any diminution of the first which remains the same still viz. the Fire kindling and that which is kindled are of the same nature still Among many other I shall mention only
viz. 1. Papists 2. False Lutherans 3. Anabaptists 4. Disciplinarians 5. Weigelians 6. Remonstrants 7. Socinians The others being either sufficiently vanquisht or removed far from us the Socinians in our time do more secretly creep in and more dangerously undermine for these are not content wholly to obliterate Original Sin and the Satisfaction of our Saviour unless withal they wholly abolish the Eternity of the Son of the Living God so that he may be no longer called God man but a Man of God and not the Eternal Son of God but the Son of the Eternal God as dying Sermatus did blaspheme It were to be wished that such Prodigies of Opinions had never toucht our Shoars and it had been better that in their passage hither they had been sunk in the bottom of the Sea with a Mill-stone about their necks But what must be done when they daily rise up to the scandal of the Weak and no small disgrace to Religion in forreign Parts their wicked Attempts have been opposed by Bellarmine Scarga Weike and Smiglicius Jesuits by Francisco Stegmannus Prolaeus Meisner Martinius Hunnius Winkelman Gawerus Gerrardus Brochmand Himelius Thralieus among the Lutherans and by Calvinists Lubertus Lucier Gasmannus Jacobus a Porta Jo. Junius Maccovius Ravenspergerus Wendeline Zarnovicius and Covet with many others Calvin against Servetus Zanchius in thirteen Books De Tribus Elohim dedicated to Archbishop Grindal and the Earl of Bedford Zach. Ursme against the Cracovian Catechism Franciscus Junius against an Anonimus Arian and others these had diligently trodden down those Tares for a time which now spring up again with pestilent increase by the sowing of the wicked Enemy Our Country-men I confess were flower in weeding out these Tares whether it was as surprized at the return of those Blasphemies from Hell or whether they thought it more adviseable to let them dye in silence than curiously to examine them to feed Curiosity But moderate Counsels cannot withstand importunate Attempts their petulancy compels me to speak as St. Hilary to undertake Difficulties and as it were to speak things that ought to be kept secret especially seeing our Adversaries triumph at our silence boasting that they have over-come where no opposition is made Now there are three things wherein we place the main hopes of our Salvation I. The Knowledge of our Misery by Original Corruption II. The Knowledge of a Saviour by his redeeming Satisfaction III. A grateful Return of faithful and due Obedience But those who deny Original Sin and the Redemption of Christ are not likely to be truly Grateful Of Original Sin and the Satisfaction of Christ I have already treated against these subtile Enemies who neither acknowledge their Misery nor grant the Necessity of any Satisfaction I now stand up by the assistance of Christ and your leave for the Defence of the Deity of Christ especially seeing not long since Jo. Crellius by the united Strength and Arts of the whole Sect hath so boldly assaulted the chief Foundation of our Salvation therefore the Question to be now discust is Whether Christ be Eternal God Co-essential with the Father and Holy Spirit 3 S. This Question that we may handle with due Reverence and saving Advantage do Thou O Son of the Living God Illuminate me with the Rays of thy Eternal Deity and grant me a Mouth and Wisdom which they that Gainsay may not be able to resist Being thus prepared that I may not stop at the Threshold it must be observed That the Adversaries grant to the Father both Eternity and Personality to the Son a Personality but not Eternity but to the Holy Ghost an Eternity but not Personality And in this they differ from the ancient Arians that these acknowledge the Son of the Living God to be the first Born of the Creatures but the Socinians that he was born after his Mother For which reason Smiglerius doth not well imputing Arianism to them while with more labour than success he disputes against those New Monsters as he calls them for the Socinians attribute less to our Saviour than the Arians both affirm him to be a Creature but the Arians a more noble Creature as is manifest by the Disputation held at Cracow between Faustus Socinus and Erasmus a Minister of Transilvania and therefore they affect to be called the Reformers of Arius rather than his Disciples as it is in the Answers of Moscorovius and Smalsius against Smiglesius 2. It is to be observed That the Papists give no small advantage to the Cause which they oppose while they tenaciously hold in their School-Divinity that Christ merited for himself and that he was our Mediator according to his Humane Nature only for hence the Adversaries infer that that which he performed was but due and therefore it was to be to his own advantage only Whence therefore is that superabundant Merit by which he satisfied the Father for us And if his Humane Nature only were sufficient for the Work of our Redemption what need was there of his being God and Man I know what the Jesuits are wont to answer here but in my opinion we ought not rashly to grant any thing to such Sophisters as wrest all things to their own ends with great Art 3. This must not be omitted that in Scripture he is called God that is so by Nature or Donation and by gift either in regard of Sanctification or Mission or Commission or all these joyntly 4. Observe that a thing is counted Eternal as to Duration Indetermination Continuation and Signification to Duration because it wants beginning or end and so God alone is Eternal or because it wants an end only so Angels and Humane Souls which are called for distinction sake Eviternal as to Indetermination Aaron's Priesthood was called Eternal because no determinate end was appointed to it as to Continuation that is called Eternal that flows on without interruption as to Signification Circumcision is called Eternal not as to itself but its Anti-type 5. These words Essence Existence Subsistence ought acurately to be distinguished one from the other so that Essence may be fitly applied to the Nature Subsistence to Persons Existence to Notions and for clearer distinction Nature answers to the question what Person to the question who and Notion to the manner how But we have no dependance on these Terms of the Fathers and Schools but use them not as if our Faith needed them but because the Perversness of our Adversaries hath forced the Orthodox to express themselves after this manner to defeat the Devices of those Men who seek to hide themselves in the dark Labyrinths of Humane Reason whence we affirm that these ten words Essence Coessential Subsistence Substance Person Propriety Relation Notion Circumcission Trinity have been rightly though unwillingly devised by the Fathers retained by the School-men explicated by Bellarmine Zanchy c. to serve in this business as Prospective to discover the Subtilties of the Adversaries which otherwise might escape their sight not
these things were clearly and more at large treated of by the preceding three Evangelists And I would willingly learn from these quick-sighted Innovators how it can agree with the gravity simplicity and fidelity of an Apostle to promise a History and propose Riddles and so to involve and cloath the Matters proposed with such mistical words as might rather send away the Hearer with Astonishment than Instruction to invite to Secrets when he only offers things obvious which cannot satisfie expectation and which might better expedite the thing in fewer words as it was done by others Lastly Let all wise Men judge that are not partial how well these Photinian Glosses do clear the Text which says In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God The Gloss says Not in the beginning but before the beginning of publishing the Gospel Christ was hid known only in secret to God Which Fiction Martyn Cherovicius a Confident of that Party could not digest 2ly It follows in the Text And that Word was God The Gloss says He was but a made God he might have said a feign'd God 3ly The Text says All things were made by him The Gloss says Not all things but the things concerning the Gospel only were not made but reformed by him The Text says The World was made by him The Gloss says Not the World which we see but which we expect The Text says The Word was made Flesh The Gloss says The Word was not made Flesh but only subjected to the Miseries of the Flesh Do not these seem to you that hear them ingenious Glosses which so limit the Text as to eliminate them Let us now weigh the second place Rom. 9.5 Whose are the Fathers and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is God over all blessed for ever The Apostle doth here distinguish of Christ as considered according to the Flesh and so he descended from Jewish Ancestors or as he is the Son of God and so he is God over all blessed for ever What need was there of this restriction according to the Flesh if Christ were only a meer Man They answer with Erasmus that perhaps the word God was not in the Text being omitted by St. Cyprian and Hilary but Erasmus notes that this might be omitted by the Carelesness of the Transcribers for Athanasius mentions it against the Arians Ambrose and Theophylact confirm it and Pamelius testifies that it was in the most ancient Manuscripts the Socinians have it in their German Translation as it is reported and Socinus himself doth not deny but if that word were wanting it is supplied by what follows blessed over all Therefore 2ly they flye to the pointing of the words and read the words thus Of whom is Christ according to the flesh over all here they make a Full-point and then as a Doxology they read thus adding the word sit Let God be blessed for ever So that Christ is not here stiled God but God who sent Christ is praised and thus indeed the German Translation of the Socinians is pointed Ans Matthias Glirius as Socinus on Aristole's Elenchs relates undertook to prove from 1 John 2.22 that Jesus was not the Christ but by what Artifice to wit by thus wresting the Text Who is a lyar says he but he that denieth here he placeth a note of Interrogation then he proceeds and reads thetically because Jesus is not Christ. But Socinus explodes him as a wicked Man let them therefore look to it who imitate him in the same Cause how they may avoid the same Condemnation The third place we urge from Philip. 2.6 Who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal to God but emptied himself taking the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man Here we have a manifest difference between the form of God and the form of a Servant and these most certain Propositions 1. That both these Forms were united in the Person of Christ 2. That by reason of the first he was equal to God and by reason of the later he was like unto Men. 3. That the first Form did assume the later by emptying himself so that his Divinity Equality with his Father Incarnation Hypostatical Union and Theanthropy which are severally spoken of in other places are here found joyned The Transilvanians with Maximinus the Arian in St. Augustine answer That the words of the Apostle are to be read thus Not thinking that rapine should be made so as to equal himself with God for so he should be injurious to God therefore that he might not do this he emptied himself i. e. he chose rather to be a Servant than an Invador of undue Dignity Ans It is a most filthy addition of the word made the Text says only he thought it no Robbery to be equal or as Tertullian says Pariari or be compared with God where it is expressed what Christ did not what he deliberated to do Socinus replies by retorting the Argument Christ is equal to God and hath the form of God therefore he is not that God Ans Yea therefore he is that God for to whom the form agreeth the thing formed agreeth also and nothing can be equal to God but God But the word Form he says doth not here denote an essential but accidental Form only nor can it consist with God so to humble himself Ans The Form of God here is to be taken in the same sence as the Form of a Servant because there is the same reason of things opposed but this of a Servant was true and essential and why not the other So that to be in the form of God is nothing less than to be the true God who lost nothing by humbling himself but by assuming what he had not before conferred many things to the Nature which he assumed And all the Authority and Majesty which was added to the Son was not added to him as God but as he was the Son of Man John 5.27 Our third Argument is drawn from the Harmony of the Old and New Testament in which those things which in the Old Testament are attributed to the only true God of Israel are in the New expounded of Christ Out of eleven Instances that have been mentioned three only shall suffice the first is Numb 21.5 The people spake against God and against Moses The Apostle in 1 Cor. 10.9 expounds this of Christ Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of Serpents Socinus objects 1. That by Eloim in the Old Testament God is not necessarily understood but frequently an Angel and by Christ in that place our Saviour is not necessarily understood but Moses 2. It may be said that the Israelites tempted Christ in the Wilderness not in his own Person which then was not but in Moses his Type Ans But Eloim which is here put absolutely in the six and seven Verses following is expresly called Jehovah which agrees
not with Angels And let Socinus shew where ever Moses in the Old Testament is called Christ or where the name of Christ put absolutely is attributed in the New Testament to any other than to our Saviour 3ly To tempt any one before he was is said gratis but thus they fall into temptation who attempt to deprive the Son of the Living God of his Deity and Eternity The second Instance is out of the Psalms where that which is proposed of the glorious going of Jehovah Psal 68.19 is expounded of Christ ascending on high and leading Captivity Captive Ephes 4.8 2ly That which is ascribed to Jehovah Worship him all ye Angels Psal 97.7 is affirmed of Christ Heb. 1.6 Let all the Angels of God worship him 3ly That which is affirmed of the Creator of Heaven and Earth Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the Works of thy hands Psal 102.26 is attributed to Christ in the self same words Heb. 1.10 The Adversaries are diligent to decline this either by denying that these things in the Old Testament are to be understood of the most high God or to be repeated in the New Testament concerning Christ or by affirming that these things may be accommodated to Christ but not as God of the same Nature with the Father but because he did represent the Person of the most high God Ans Not only the words but the scope of those Texts do exclude these Evasions That if in any manner our Saviour represented the Person of his Father in the Old Testament it was then necessarily before he was born of the Virgin which wholly destroys the Cause of our Adversaries 3ly The same is proved out of the Prophets for that Majesty of the most High which is so magnificently described Isa 6.1 is applied unto Christ by Name These things spake Esay when he saw his glory and spake of him John 12.41 Many others of this sort may be produced Socinus objects That these things are either spoken figuratively or are adapted to Christ only by way of accommodation but conclude nothing of his Eternal Deity Ans Then those Apostles and Evangelists which urge and accommodate them to that purpose do deal with us sophistically or unskilfully and are to be corrected and explained by Posterity viz. the Socinians The fourth Argument is drawn from certain Attributes ascribed to Christ which clearly evince that he is of the same Nature and Excellency with the Father of very many I shall only name three viz. Eternity in respect of Time Omnipresence in respect of Place and Adoration in respect of Sovereign Majesty and Dominion Now his Eternity is asserted from these places The Lord hath possest me in the beginning of his ways from the beginning before he made any thing Prov. 8.22 The Syriack read from Eternity the Arabick I have begot thee before the Morning-star Ps 110. 2ly His coming forth is from the days of eternity To which 3ly our Saviour confirms the same of himself Joh. 8.58 Before Abraham was I am Here Socinus objects That in the first place Wisdom signifies not the Son of God but the Wisdom of God nor doth this expression of the beginning of his ways signifie Eternity but Antiquity But this Interpretation is excluded by the following Verse I was set up from everlasting from the beginning before the earth was The Apostle confirms our Argument We preach Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.4 To our second Argument he cavils That thence it would follow that Christ from Everlasting came forth from Bethleam This is a shift for the Text of the Prophet suggests a double going forth a temporal concerning which 't is said in the Future Tense He will go forth the fulfilling of which Prediction the Evangelists observes Mat. 2.6 And an eternal of which it is said in the Preterperfect Tense His going forth was from eternity To the third he trifles that the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not onely to be but to become and hence the Vulgar reads Before he became Abraham i. e. a Father of Nations I am i. e. I was sent to pluck down the partition wall to bring the Gentiles into the Church Ans The Question was not concerning the calling of the Gentiles but whether Christ preceded Abraham so as he might see him our Saviour affirms that he was viz. by the glory which he had with the Father before the World began Joh. 17.5 which the Jews endeavoured to refute with Stones as now the Socinians by Subterfuges Again we assert his Omniprefence from Joh. 3.13 None hath ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven the Son of Man which is in heaven where he was before John 6.62 Now this he spake to Nicodemus while he was on Earth and yet he declared that he was then in Heaven therefore at the same time he was in Heaven and on Earth The Innovators do here betake themselves to an unheard of Comment viz. That as Moses was taken up into the Mount and St. Paul into the third Heavens that they might be instructed of God speaking to them as it were face to face so it was more convenient that the Son should be assumed into Heaven and instructed by the Father Which they think was done during those forty Days which intervened between his Baptism and his Conflict with Satan this though they do not urge as an Article of Faith yet Smalcius saith We are fully perswaded of it and greatly rejoyce that this Mistery is revealed to us by God in the Scripture But this Mistery nor the Revelation of it doth please us for what need was there that he should be taken up into Heaven for a more perfect Information on whom the Holy Spirit did descend and in whom the Godhead dwelt Bodily in whom the Father was always and he in the Father 2ly He was amongst the wild Beasts in the Wilderness for the space of those forty Days the Devil tempting him and the Angels ministering unto him as St. Mark expresly saith Was the Desart Heaven and were Satan and the Beasts admitted into it Nor doth this Fiction satisfie the Argument seeing we thus urge the Text That the Son of Man whom Nicodemus saw and spake to saith expresly of himself that he was then in Heaven which could not be as he was a Man therefore it must be as he was God Omnipresent The more the Adversaries do strive in this Point the more they intangle themselves Lastly We infer the Deity of Christ from the Adoration which was performed unto him for he was adored as God by Stephen the Proto-Martyr calling on him Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my spirit Francis David answereth That that Jesus here is of the Genitive Case and the sence is this O thou Lord who art the Father of Jesus making the Father to be the Object of Invocation not the Son Christianus Franken presseth the same Argument
itself but the Divine Nature assuming did confer And thus you have as time gave leave in one View the chief Points of this large and intricate Controversie To God the Father to the Son God and Man and to the Holy Ghost be all Honour Praise and Glory now and for ever Amen The CONCLUSION St. Hilary having vindicated the Doctrine of the Trinity l. 6. n. 2. says Lord I believed thy words if I am deceived Moses David Solomon and thy Apostles have deceived me if it be a Fault to believe these pardon me Almighty God for in this belief I can die deny it I cannot We have been baptized in this Faith we have offered up all our Prayers in this Faith and payed all our Thanksgivings to the Blessed Trinity and therefore we cannot dye comfortably in any other And with much more confidence may the Devout Trinitarian say as St. Heirome expresseth it Ecce Crucifixus meus Deus Behold my God which was crucified for me when he sees him coming in Judgment than the Arian or Socinian who proudly deny his Godhead and Satisfaction who may too late complain in the words of St. Augustine in his Confession l. 5. c. 9. I was going towards Hell laden with all my Sins while I believed not that Christ had satisfied for them FINIS ANIMADVERSIONS ON The Naked Gospel As now Published By ARTHVR BVRY D. D. THat this Book is now first published by the Doctor whose Name is prefixed cannot in Justice be denied by them that have read the former for it is quite another Book and it may be true though either one or the other if not both of the former Editions of the Naked Gospel were published by the same Author because they are not the same Books yet the one which he having caused to be printed and dispersed among his Friends in several parts of the Nation and the other wherein he made several Alterations may be affirmed to be published by the same hand the truth whereof needs no farther enquiry after the Oxford Animadversions That this present Copy is another Book appears by its divers Alterations and Additions which are made whether for the better or the worse will appear to every judicious Reader and that there needs no other or severer Reflections on it than what the Author himself hath made He seems so to tumble in the Net which he hath woven as to be more intangled by striving to get out In his Preface to the Reader he confesseth He had not patience to be silent at such a time when the suppression of such Opinions as he hath published would have been greatly advantagious both to Truth and Peace And whether it would not have been a great degree of sauciness by a point blanck Address of such a Present as the Naked Gospel to direct the Venerable Body of the Convocation of the Clergy in what they had to do is put beyond doubt by the Oxford Convocation I cannot find as he says that it was intended that the Convocation of the Clergy was called to make Alterations in Matters of Faith nor that we are to weigh at the same Beam a Rite in the one and a Doctrine in the other Seale The Convocation I believe would have given up all their Rites and Ceremonies rather than the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation which the Doctor on pretence of Charity would have them to abandon He confesseth That his Book was penned with less caution than was necessary for what was to be exposed to every vulgar eye But how could he imagine that so many learned and good Men would be pleased with his questioning or denying the truth and belief of such Doctrines as they themselves believe to be necessary to Salvation He might therefore very well have spared his unbecoming Reflections on that Body That the Doctor was suspected to disbelieve the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation was not because he did not expresly declare his Opinion concerning them which a true Son of the Church of England and one that had been long before suspected as Heterodox writing on that subject was highly concern'd to do but because he hath slily and frequently insinuated divers Arguments against them and his daubing with untempered Mortar in his two new Chapters of the Trinity and Incarnation will render the matter more obscure and defaced As for those words in the conclusion which he conceives some are most offended with wherein he cannot submit to the least compliance Let him enjoy his own Sentiments only I cannot perswade my self that more than his an hundred years experience calls on us to tack about and steer a contrary course to what our Pilots in the greatest part of that time have steered As the number of those Men who are as sick of King William as they were lately of King James is so small that they may be all written in a Ring If he intends as the current of his Discourse would carry it such as were in the late Convocation all which had testified by solemn Oaths and divers of them by their learned Arguments and Exhortations their cheerful Obedience to their present Majesties whom God preserve as the most hopeful Defenders of our established Religion so I heartily pray there may not be one such Prevaricator left among us though even among the Twelve Disciples of our Saviour there was a Judas and I hope there is not one of a thousand among our Clergy that is so ill as the Doctor would represent them such I mean as he says would wish for the cruel French to deliver them from the present Government or that is so unreasonably jealous as to think that his present Majesty designs to make this Church not unlike to that in which himself was educated for which his vile suggestion contrary to His Majesties most gracious Assurances the Doctor is concern'd to beg His Majesty's Pardon and I pray God to pardon him also It is a most invidious and malicious Quere which he adds Which of the two are the truer Church of England-men those who dread the return of King James with his Jesuits or those who wish and labour for it Those who are so stiff as rather to hazard the whole than to part with the least circumstance And cover their stiffness to their own humours and interests with the specious pretence of zeal for the Church To which I answer That as I do not know so if I did know any person so ill affected I should abhor them as the Pests of the Nation To those of the Doctor I shall oppose these Queries Which are the truer Church of England men those who dread the growth and success of the Arian and Socinian Heresies or those who adhere to the established Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation of our blessed Saviour Those who would erect a Natural Religion a Jewish or Turkish Faith on the Ruines of that which is truly Christian Ancient and Catholick or those who live in the Communion