Resemblances tho it continued the same at the bottom But the second Method fix'd on the Number Three which were always reckoned in the same Order and had almost always the same Names given them could not be liable to the same Confusion especially among Christians who applied it constantly to the Father Son and Holy Ghost Besides they could explain themselves clearly in this last Method and speak of it distinctly whereas the other in its very rise was a politick Method prudentially invented and which was understood either ill or not at all because it kept secret and allegorical Furthermore the same distinction of gross and subtil Platonism ought to take place in reference to the other two Systems viz. in relation to the Creator Matter and Form and with respect to the Father the intelligible World and the sensible World If you distinguish not well between the Allegory and the Letter nothing will prove more intricate or unintelligible Lastly the principal Cause of this Confusion is these two Methods being so often intermix'd for if you mind it the Fathers sometime philosophizing according to the spurious Platonism insist rigidly on the sense of the three Hypostases and sometimes treading in the Footsteps of the true and antient Platonism do only allegorize and by their Emanations seem rather to mean the Powers of the supreme Being than Spirits subsisting Sometimes nothing will serve their turn but Subsistences Substances a true Generation and a real Procession At other times 't is a quite different thing they mean only the Powers and different Oeconomies of God manifesting himself in the Creation of the World to which they seem to give improperly the Name of a generated Son and Wisdom brought forth which doubtless is the Cause why so much Sabellianism overspreads their Writings We need not wonder henceâ—â—â—th if their Trinity is sometimes so inconsistent with the Vnity of God this proceeds from their gross Platonism Whereas in other Places their Three Principles suffer the Vnity to remain intire which proceeds from their refin'd Platonism CHAP. XIII The Christians have contriv'd a twofold Word grounded upon the two Words of Plato They meant only by Generation the Prolation of the second Word which happened a little before the Creation of the World SOCRATES reduc'd Philosophy to Morality his Disciple Plato advanced it further even to Theology by making three Persons or three Divine Hypostases of the three Divine Properties by whose concurrence the World was created or rather by conceiving a Creator infinitely Good with an Vnderstanding drawing the Plan of the World and an Energy that performs it These Theologic Philosophers allegorizing after their wonted manner changed the intelligible World into the Word and the sensible World into a Son The one is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Fathers in like manner distinguish'd the two Words whereof the one is internal the other brought forth and consider'd only the second as a Son because properly speaing they called Generation only that which was perform'd at the beginning of the World They say When God wil'ed to create the World he brought forth or generated the Word May you not easily perceive that such Modes of Speech owe their rise to the Mystic Philosophy which consider'd the whole World as the Son of God and as a Son generated by his Word or Command Yes these Turns of Expression owe their birth to some Poetical ones of the Heathens like those of Orpheus related by Justin in Protrep ad Gentil I swear saith the Poet by that Voice which the Heavenly Father uttered when he formed the whole Creation Then it was according to Justin that God generated his Word because he brought it forth in order to create the World All this is well meant and grounded upon the Words of Moses The only difference I remark in the System about these two Words is seeing Allegory is arbitrary some have fix'd it on the sensible World which they made to be the Son of God as many of the Philosophers we quoted have done because they consider'd it as the Production of the Divine Speech or Power but others fixed their Allegory upon the intelligible or Ideal World even on the Speech it self as thrust forth which they considered as a Production of the Divine Vnderstanding This last System was followed by the Christians when they personalized either the Word brought forth as the first Fathers and the Arians or the Internal and Mental Word as the Fathers of the Council of Nice and the Athanasians did Dr. Bull being forc'd to own this Truth pretends to clear the difficulty by distinguishing a twofold Generation of the Word the one Eternal and the other Temporal and maintaining that the Fathers consider'd the first as Real the second as Metaphorical but just the contrary hereof is true Theophilus of Antioch distinguisheth carefully the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Thought of God from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Word generated Athenagoras and Tatian tell us of a Son who was in God in Idea and potentially before he actually existed as a Person Tertullian saith There was a time when the Son was not a Son and that the Father was not always a Father that the Word which he distinguisheth from Reason was not from the beginning Novatian declares expresly chap. 31. that the Procession of the Son which was done when the Father willed it that is to say when he resolved to create the World That this Prolation say I made the Son a second Person Origen and Clement make a difference between the Word which was God and the Word which was made Flesh meaning that the former was the internal Word which is the Divine Vnderstanding and God himself and by the latter the Word brought forth which is only an Emanation from the former Prudentius calls J. C. Verbigena begotten of the Word where you may see manifestly the two Words the one generating and the other generated the one being the essential Wisdom of God the other is its Production And the first Word is so far from being the Son that Prudentius considers it as the Father Lastly not to be redicus Marius Victorinus makes to great a difference between the Word speaking and the Word silent that he calls the former the Son and the latter the Father All these Fathers generally tell us that before the Word was generated it was in the Heart of God in the Womb of his Vnderstanding in his Bowels whence it came forth as it were from its Seed and Bud. Either all these Terms mean nothing or they denote that the Son did not then exist otherwise than in the Design and Intent of the Father that he came forth thence when by the virtue of the Divine Prolation he did receive a real Existence Now it is not the first Existence but the second which the Fathers constantly and properly call the Generation of the Son or in other words
the perfect Generation i. e. the real and actual Generation Mons Du Pin Bibl. Tom. 1. at the Word Theophilus saith That the Fathers affirm the Logos to be Eternal and that it was in God from all Eternity as his Counsel his Wisdom and his Word But they say the same Word which was in God did after some manner come out of God when God resolved to ereate the World because he then began to make use of that Word in order to act outwardly This is what they term to be the Procession Prolation and even the Generation of the Word This hinders not indeed the Word 's having been from all Eternity nor its eternal Generation of the Father as we conceive the manner thereof but this is not what they call Generation The same Author owns in his Notes upon the Article of Tertullian that this Father means not Generation to be the eternal Procession of the Son but only a certain Prolation or outward Emission conceiv'd by him to have been at the Creation of the World because God both created and governs it by the Word He saith further we need not wonder that he should tell us in his Book against Hermogenes that there was a time when the Father was not Father and that the Son began to be Son because he believ'd that the Son had neither that Quality nor Name but only when the Word was created Mons Jurieu expresseth himself as fully in his sixth Pastoral Letter of the third Year attributing this Sentiment to all the Antenicene Fathers viz. that the Word had not its perfect Birth before the World's beginning i.e. according to Mr. Jurieu the Word is not eternal as it is a Son but only was hid in the Bosom of his Word as Wisdom and that he was as it were produc'd and became a distinct Person from that of the Father a little before the Creation You must be wilfully blind if you perceive not from what source this Theology of the Word doth spring As it is certain that the Heathens ever philosophiz'd of their Gods but relatively to the Origin of this Universe and have always join'd Theogony with their Cosmogony So likewise these Platonizing Christians followed the Steps of this Pagan Philosophy their Creation of the World always accompanying the Prolation of the Word or the Generation of the Son This is noted by the same Mons Jurieu in the aforemention'd Passage when he speaks of Athenagoras and Tertullian They believed saith he that the Wisdom which was not the Son of God at first but only in a Bud or Seed having spread it self over the Chaos did not only generate the Creatures but did also as it were by the same Effusion give a perfect existence to the Word or to the second Person of the Deity This indeed may be said to philosophize like Heathens May it not be said that the Wisdom and the Chaos were the Father and Mother whose Children are the Word and the Creatures But this is not all they bring them in by Couples like the Aeons of Valentine so true it is that the Christians would not divide what the Philosophers and Poets had united so closely viz. Theogony and Cosmogony I return to Dr. Bull praying him to consider whether a real Generation and properly so called can be expressed better than by saying that it is perfect that it is in Act that it gave a perfect Existence to the Word that it made the Word a Person distinct from the Father and in short that it render'd the Father to be properly a Father and the Son properly a Son This the Fathers say of the second Generation which they consider as the only Generation and Birth of the Son On the contrary can an improper and Metaphoric Generation be expressed berter than by saying that the Son existed only in Idea potentrally in a Bud in its Seed in the Heart in the Womb and the Bowels of God For thus the Fathers talk of the first Generation or to express it better of the first Existence of the Son of God which they scarce reckon to be a Generation For can you for example-sake call the Metaphoric Existence of Levi in the Loins of his Father when he was decimated in Abraham a Generation But the Fathers think thus of the first Existence whilst they say that the Son existed then only in a Bud or Seed and not as Mons Jurieu pretends Tabl. du Socin Let. 6. Art 3. that he was contain'd in the Bosom of the Father as a Child is in its Mother's Womb as if the Word had need to form it self by degrees in the Bowels of the Father and wait its time to wit that of the Creation of the World which should likewise happen to be that of its Delivery If Mr. Jurieu had understood the Platonic Philosophy he had taken care to avoid such a ridiculens Thought CHAP. XIV The immediate Generation of the Word THE antient Doctors followed Plato and their meaning was that the Divine Understanding is the Principle and Bud where the Son existed from Eternity as to his Essence all Essences being eternal in this respect according to the Platonists because they are the Emanations of the Substance of God but particularly all generated Spirits hence Homousianism takes its rise The Son came forth out of this first source of all Essences being the chiefest of them in God's Design He came forth in Time as to his Person to be the first Minister of the Father in the Creation of this Universe This distinguisheth him from all the Creatures the Birth of which is less noble as not being immediate Hereupon if you had asked them the reason why the Word alone amongst all the generated Spirits should be called the Son or the only Son they could not have alledged any other than the Privilege of being generated immediately 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father whereas the other Spirits were so by the means of a second God and Minister The Author of the Apostolic Constitutions speaks thus Lib. 8. cap. 12. The Father who alone is above all Generation and Beginning having created all things by his only Son has immediately generated without any Intermedium that his only Son by his Will by his Power and Goodness He generated him before all the Aeons making use of him afterwards to create even the Aeons the Cherubims and Seraphims c. According to him the Angels were form'd by the Son but the Son was generated only by the Will and the immediate Power of God which is his Prerogative You need not doubt that Eusebius intended the same thing when he calls J. C. de Laud. Constan cap. 1. the most antient of all the Aeons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Other Fathers thought the same whenever they made use of these Words of St. John In the beginning was the Word for they did not mean that by the Beginning Eternity ought to be understood which this Word cannot denote as Maldonat confesseth
Virgin baptized with the Holy Ghost and invested with the Power of the Father who is that Word and that Oracle by which the Father has been pleas'd to speak to us in these last days His Oeconomy being no longer to reveal himself by the Angels but in the Flesh of his Son the visible Image of the Invisible God the Face the Character or the Person as he is called of the Substance of the Father And thus we Christians have but One God who in the way of Oeconomy governs his Family by the Ministry of an Inferiour and but One Lord who by this Oeconomy manages the same Family in the Name of his Superiour There 's a Tract among St. Austin's Works intitul'd De eo quod dictum est Ego sum qui sum which admirably well explains this matter without that mixture of Platonism that Lactantius and Tertullian have in Passages hereafter cited They says that Author making himself one of them who would have it to be an Angel that call'd himself Jehova ought to give us a reason why he calls himself so They answer that as 't is said in the Scripture that the Lord spoke when the Prophet spoke not that the Prophet was the Lord but because the Lord was in the Prophet So when the Lord vouchsafes to speak by an Angel as by a Prophet or an Apostle this Angel may very well be called an Angel upon his own account and the Lord with respect to God dwelling in him The same who speaks in the Man speaks in the Angel wherefore the Angel of God who appeared to Moses said I am what I am This is not the Voice of the Temple as he may be called but of him who dwelt in it Afterwards he having shewn that the Apparitions of Angels in the Old Testament cannot be understood of Jesus Christ he adds I suppose we shall understand this matter better by saying that our Fathers own'd the Lord that it was in the Angels or the Being who dwelt in those whom he imploy'd and so give Glory to the Lord who was personated by the Angels and not to the Angels who did personate him This Truth says he is confirm'd by the Epistle to the Hebrews where 't is said the Word spoke by Angels whereby the Apostle reaches us that they were Angels who spoke but that God was heard and honoured in the Angels We are told the same truth in the Acts of the Apostles where St. Stephen reproving the Jews says to 'em Ye stiff-necked c. who received the Law by the disposition of Angels and have not kept it If Stephen had said of an Angel and not of Angels there would be no need of saying farther this is Jesus Christ who is call'd the Angel of Great Counsel Call him one Angel as much as you please but can one call him Angels 'T was therefore One Angel and the Lord in that Angel who said to Moses that ask'd his Name I am what I am There are the same Proofs and Arguments in St. Austin's 3d Book de Trinit who observes That 't was said Angels and not one Angel in the Singular that it might not be said that it was the Son of God And putting to himself this Objection Why do we read God said unto Moses and not the Angel said unto Moses He replys As we say the Judg speaks when the Crier publishes the Lord said when the Prophet spoke So tho the Angel spoke the Word is ascrib'd to God who imploy'd him The same Father arguing strongly against those who believ'd that Jesus Christ appeared to the antient Patriarchs has these Words Lib. 16. cap. 29. de Civit. Dei. God says he appeared to Abraham in the Person of three Men that were without question three Angels tho some imagin'd that one of 'em was Jesus Christ But if Jesus Christ be pretended to be one of the three because Abraham addresses himself to one of 'em why is it not minded that the third who staid with Abraham is called Lord and one of the other two who came to Lot is call'd Lord too in the Singular by the Patriarch when he makes answer to the Lord who was in the two Angels Therefore 't is much more likely that Abraham understood the Lord to be in the three Men and that Lot thought him present in the two There 's the same arguing to be met with in St. Austin's Lib. 2. de Trinit c. 12. This Oeconomy of Angels as you see gives great light to the new Oeconomy of Jesus Christ and opens a way for our understanding it For 't is but to apply to this last Dispensation all that those Authors have said of the Angels and we shall have a Key to understand the Passages of the New Testament which speak of Jesus Christ as of God himself We need say no more than this that Jesus in himself was a Man and a God with respect to God dwelling in him So that the Man is not the Lord Jehovah but the Lord is in the Man and whatever Name he has or Power he claims 't is not the Voice of the Temple but of him who dwelt in it In short all that has been said of the Angel may it not be said of the Man except this that there are two Natures in him And if the Angel might assume the Names and Characters of Jehovah without being concluded to be himself the Jehovah why may not the like Names and Characters be given Christ without concluding thence that he is the Supreme God This Reflection sinks the great Objection of the Trinitarians their modish Argument I had almost said for 't is the beaten Track of the modern Disputants How strange must it be say they for the New Testament Writers if they did not look upon Jesus Christ to be the Supreme God to speak of him as of God himself Would those Holy Men have led us into so great an Error by their extravagant Forms of speaking if it were not so But this ambulatory way of discoursing is pure Declamation and may be ruinâ—d with ease at a blow by making 'em sensible that if one reasons after their fashion upon the Conduct of the Writers of the Old Testament who have spoken of an Angel as of God himself one may prove to 'em in their own beloved way that that Angel was the Supreme God But let 'em but once understand the Oeconomy and they will forbear to give us any further trouble in this particular THE SECOND PART OF Platonism Unveil'd CHAP. I. The Primitive Fathers deify'd Jesus Christ or give him the Title of a God HAD the Antients then no true Theology Yes without question and we shall infallibly find it if we ascend a little higher than the date of Platonism which afterward reduced it to that miserable state wherein I am going to represent it And I know not how it can be done better than in the Ideas of a Learned Trinitarian who has spoke the truth in
Principle of his Son whom he has made Lord. But the Son is the God of all the Creatures because God the Father has set him at their Head when he made him Lord. Whence it follows that Jesus Christ may well be called God when you consider him at the head of the New Creation which God has subjected to his Dominion But this Title vanishes when the Apostle St. Paul is speaking of the Father and the Son together then the Son can have no other Character but what is fully signified and explain'd in the Notion of God's Minister and Embassador So true is it that before the only True and Supreme God every other Deity must fall down and disappear So that Bp Pearson had reason to say that Ignatius imitates St. Paul for he says in his Epistle to the Ephesians that Jesus Christ was made God in the Flesh which can signify no more than that a Man was raised to Divine Power or Dignity Moreover Ignatius gives Jesus Christ the Title of God without any of those Additions which the Fathers after him make use of He does not call Christ in the Platonick Stile God the Word a God begotten God of God But if it should be said Ignatius has not used the Restrictions of St. Paul and that he calls Christ God simply and absolutely this is not true for he calls him a God made or our God to shew that he is not so but with regard to the Power he received of his Father and exercises over us CHAP. II. The first Fathers did not theologize Jesus Christ i. e. ascribe Divinity to him in the Sense and Terms of the Platonic Fathers who lived in after Ages but merely on the account of his miraculous Birth and Exaltation THAT the most Primitive Fathers gave the Title of God to J. C. in the sense I am about to explain will appear for three Reasons which amount almost to Demonstration My first Reason is taken from the manner wherein Clem. Rom. and Polycarp speak of J. C. Photius says that Clement has given our Saviour the Stile of High Priest but reproaches him for not giving Christ the Characters of a God Is it possible that Clement has done J. C. so great an Injury as not to give him the Character he merits By no means Photius is mistaken and 't is contrary to all reason to imagine so considerable an Omission can be found in a Letter wherein the Church at Rome as Irenaeus tells us lib. 3. c. 2. delivers to the Church of Corinth the Tradition she had received from the Apostles It must be said therefore that this great Critick Photius did not take notice that in the Apostolic Stile of St. Clement the calling J. C. our High Priest and Pontif is the same thing as to call him our God agreeable to the Doctrine of St. Paul who teaches us that when God rais'd his Messias to the Honour of the High Priesthood 't was then he said unto him Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten thee So that there 's nothing in my Opinion more reasonable and just than the Remark of Grotius Epist 347. Par. 2. who proves the Antiquity of this Epistle of St. Clement for this very reason because it does not speak of J. C. in the Platonic Way and Manner as was done by others in after Ages but in a Simplicity or Plainness altogether as St. Paul had spoken As to St. Polycarp one finds in his Epistle the same Character of Simplicity and Plainness as in St. Clement aforesaid which Photius takes notice of in the place forecited And St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. gives Polycarp's Epistle this fair Character That 't is a most compleat and very proper Instruction in the Faith and Doctrine of Truth Yet one meets with no Platonic Titles in this excellent Epistle In vain will you look for these Phrases the Eternal Word the Pre-existence of the Son of God the Generation from the Womb of the Father c. Nay you will not find in this Epistle so much as the Name of God applied to Christ Where then with respect to Christ are Polycarp's Characters of the true Faith and Doctrine Why they are in those Elogies which Polycarp often repeats as that Jesus Christ is the everlasting High Priest that he is the Son of God that the Father hath rais'd him from the Dead and made him to sit at his right Hand For pray observe St. Polycarp's Creed of the Divinity of the Father and the Son To pass over says he the Mistake and Babble of some Persons let us believe in him who rais'd our Lord Jesus Christ from the Dead and hath crowned him with Glory c. Let us keep our selves clear of the vain and false Doctrine of those Persons aforesaid and keep close to the antient Tradition and Word which was left us from the beginning In which Passage this Holy Person being willing to put the Philippians in mind of the vain Discourse of some and to guide 'em to the source of true Tradition which he makes to consist in believing J. C. was deified by his Father he meant no doubt to bring them off from the vain Philosophy of Plato's Second God and to engage them to that Divinity of J. C. which is founded on his Exaltation For 't is clear that Polycarp ealls here by the Name of true and antient Tradition this summary of the Faith expressed in these Terms Believe ye in him who hath raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the Dead c. This Symbol is agreeable to that of the Apostles and is directly opposite to that vain Doctrine he was about to condemn And this Symbol insisting upon nothing but the Glory J. C. acquired by his Sufferings it must necessarily follow that under the Name of Babble or vain Doctrine St. Polycarp censures that vain and false Glory which Platonizing Christians ascribed to Christ by their fancied Pre-existence In short instead of that unintelligible Babble of other Fathers and I know not what Jargon of a Son of God begotten before all Ages and emanated from the Divine Mind which is exactly the reverse of the Gospel Polycarp here speaks of none other Son of God but one who is an everlasting High Priest rais'd to a Sovereign Glory which is the real Gospel the Tradition of the Apostles and the antient Theology My second Proof is drawn from the Consession of the antient Martyrs there can be no doubt but that those faithful Witnesses of J. C. gave his Person the most illustrious and most honourable Testimony that they could and that they heighten'd their Theology as far as they could without the hezard of their Faith Let us hear therefore what as said of 'em in the Acts of those Marty 〈◊〉 St. Polycarp invokes a Trinity but what Trinity three Persons and one God as 't is expressed God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost God forbid He as Euseb tells us Hist lib. 4. c. 16.
Ghost as to their Nature and Person as we speak I say those three Articles whereupon we dispute are very antient 'T is true the antient Formulas of Faith contain'd scarce any thing besides these which are an Exposition of the Form of Baptism but then 't is of these only we are debating Yea the Liturgy ascribed to St. James and the Oriental Creed of Russinus give us these Articles in the proper Words of Scripture clean of all Platonism Is not such a piece of Antiquity more primitive and even antecedent to Cyril and all the Platonic Fathers But this Creed says Dr. Bull whatever Simplicity it has is to be understood in the Extent or Latitude the Platonizing Fathers took it in who made it always supposing as you see that it was not made till since the Church expounded in her larger Creeds her Platonic Faith I will turn this manner of reasoning upon him and say that supposing on the contrary the antient Liturgy had this Creed in the Simplicity wherein we have it at this time it cannot be understood but in the sense of the Nazarene Disciples of St. James who most certainly did not platonize as indeed we have prov'd Platonism owes not its Rise to the Jewish but to the Gentile Converts and such Gentiles too as were Followers of Plato True Orthodoxy at the very beginning of Christianity consisted in believing that J. C. was begotten of the Holy Ghost and consequently was of a celestial Race or Origin That he had a sort of Pre-existence in this H. Spirit of Power which was united to him and that upon these accounts he was really and in the Letter the proper and only Son of God A Doctrine which the Disciples of St. James maintained against the Cerinthians and Ebionites there being no other Controversy than concerning the Generation of the Son of God For which reason the Creed of Marcellus says barely that the only Son of God was begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin and not begotten before Ages which might have been said with as much ease as t'other and must necessarily have been said if the meaning of the Author of the Creed had been that only Son signifies begotten from all Eternity But after all what will the Doctor say with his Interpretations and his Expositions of the antient Creed I have observed in divers Passages of his Writings that he requires too much to be granted him For instance he will have it in his Judic Eccles p. 141. that this Elogy of the Holy Ghost in the Creed of Constantinople The Living Lord proceeding from the Father who is to be worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son That this magnificent Elogy was an Interpretation of the Word Paraclet in the Creed of Cyril Wonderful Paraphrase strange Interpretation that the Paraclet should signify all these fine things The Living Lord proceeding from the Father who is to be worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son Well! after this do we think the Doctor does not desire to be believed when he assures us that the Son begotten before Ages the true God by whom all things were made is the true sense of these Words the only Son of God With the good Leave of this Commentary-Maker 't is more natural to believe in adhering to the Terms of the antient Creed that begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin is the true Sense and the right Exposition In fine this pure simple Creed was not fram'd by a Cabal a Party as the Creeds of the Councils of Nice and Constantinople were c. 'T is not known if I may so speak whence it came 't is as it were fallen down from Heaven 't is the Suffrage of the Universal Church and 't is this Suffrage that has saved the Church from Shipwrack and gain'd her Reverence Ruffinus in his Expos Symb. makes no scruple to say that this Creed was establish'd to be a Mark of Distinction by which they might be known who preach'd J. C. truly according to Apostolic Rules But 't is proper I should here transcribe a fine Passage out of Dr. Hammond upon this Subject in his Discourse of fundamental Points chap. 8. Says he This Creed is the very Badge and Livery of the Apostles the Abridgment of that Faith which was received from the Apostles for altho in their Epistles written to such as were already Christians one finds no one complete Catalogue of these Articles which they taught every where because they suppos'd them sufficiently known yet however the most antient Writers of the Church assure us that in all places where the Apostles went to plant the Faith of Christ they publish'd there distinctly and left there all these Articles which serve for a Foundation to the Christian Life And 't is reasonable to believe that the Apostles Creed was the summary of these fâ—â—â—damental Articles 'T is certain that before the Nicene Creed was made all the Churches in the World us'd this formulary of Faith which they received from their Ancestors and they from the Apostles themselves See Irenaeus lib. 1. c. 2. lib. 3. c. 4. and there is not the least room to doubt but this is the very same with that we at this day call the Apostles Creed Marcellus gives us a Confession of his Faith which he says he received from his Predecessors which is found to be the same with our Apostles Creed See Epiphan Haer. 72. What I am saying may be confirmed by this Observation of St. Austin in his Discourse de Bapt. contr Donat. cap. 24. viz. that 't is reasonable to believe that what has generally been received in the Church and has always been held by it without being instituted by any Council comes to us from Apostolic Tradition also Tertullian de veland Virg. The Rule of Faith says he is one and immutable c. That this Abridgment of our Creed given us by Tertullian is one and immutable can be from no other Cause but from its Apostolic Origin which alone ought to pretend to that Privilege For this reason the same Father says elsewhere contr Prax. cap. 2. This Rule came down to us from the very first preaching of the Gospel 'T is true the Controversy that the Platonizing Christians had at first with the Christians of Judea made the Church when in power despise this Creed which favour'd its Adversaries so that it but rarely appears in its Simplicity but is for the most part clog'd and blended with Platonism But in the fourth Century the Dispute being only between the Athanasians and the Arians both good Platonists holding the Pre-existence this Creed was received for it oppos'd one no more than t'other and neither of these two Parties had then prevailed over one another The Church of Rome made it always her Creed for the Platonic Controversies were not so warm there as in the East But Dr. Bull will return to the Charge and tell us as he has done more than once that to
Testimony Every one frames for himself an Idea of sound Doctrine according to his particular Judgment of things Supposing therefore that this antient Author believed as the Orthodox Doctrine of his time was that J. C. was not the Son of Joseph and Mary and supposing on the other side there was none other Theology of his Birth than this that he was the Son of God by the Virgin Mary Hegesippus might very well say the Nazarene Bishops were sound in their Doctrine of the Person of J. C. without any ground for concluding thence that they held the Platonic Faith and were of Eusebius his Judgment 'T is enough that they were not engaged in the Error of the Ebionites because they were Orthodox To explain this by an example let 's suppose that Eusebius had said of some Arian Eishop that his Faith was sound as to the Person of J.C. could the Doctor and his Friends thence conclude that this Bishop believed the Consubstantiality and Equality of the Father and the Son By no means All they could hence infer is that the Bishop believed the Platonic Pre-existence which was the true Faith according to Eusebius who believed neither the Consubstantiality nor the Equality c. We ought to reason in the same manner from the Words of Hegâ—sippus who held that for a sound Faith which Eusebius would have called impious if he had known it as the Doctor would that which Eusebius thought sound Who does not know that those very Persons who held the Orthodox Faith of the first Ages I mean that of the miraculous Birth of our Saviour were accounted impious in the time of Eusebius Because they would not receive the Notion of the Platonic Word and the modish Philosophy of an Eternal Generation that was rashly superinduced or brought in the room of a plain Doctrine of a Generation in time of Mary by the Holy Ghost that is of a Woman by the Power of God But from the beginning it was not so they had another Theology for the better Demonstration of which I shall shew in the following Chapter that CHAP. X. The Word and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Antients were but one and the same thing I Shall lastly consider that the Word among the Antients and the Holy Ghost in the Evangelists are but one and the same thing and that the Platonizing Writers themselves led by an antient Tradition the Footsteps whereof remain'd a long time have confounded these two Terms having often used 'em in one and the same Signification An evident Proof that the Philosophy of the Platonic Word owes its Birth to Allegories made upon that Divine Power which overshadowed the Blessed Virgin which Power may be indifferently call'd the Holy Ghost or the Word But as the latter Term is more agreeable to the Doctrine of Plato so 't is more frequently used So that at last this Conformity of Terms brought the Platonic Fathers to a conformity in Doctrine with Plato that is to say they fell into two Errors directly opposite to the Doctrine of the Gospel One in that they have made of a Power or a mere Operation an Hypostasis the other in that they have made two Hypostases of the Word and the Holy Ghost which at the bottom are but two diverse Operations Where therefore they made two Hypostases of these two Operations they follow'd their own Philosophy but when they confounded these Operations they built without question upon this Passage of David which says The Heavens were made by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth where the Word and Breath of the Lord are put together as things inseparable which differ not in effect only in this that the Breath is the Substance of the Word and the Word is the Operation of the Spirit to use the Words of Tertullian adv Prax. I shall pass over Hermas who in his 5th 9th Similitudes says That the Holy Ghost is the Son of God I have already shewn that he speaks thus but in parable for which reason his Testimony would be of no use but to serve for an Illusion And I shall say nothing more of Ignatius who salutes the Church at Smyrna in the Inscription of his Epistle with these Words The Holy Spirit which is the Word of God as if he had said by or thro him who is the Holy Ghost or the Word of God This Passage is not very exact or clear so as to perceive the meaning of the Author and to be able to draw from it a convincing Proof Les us begin therefore with Justin Martyr He in his 2d Apol. p. 74 c. having stil'd Jesus Christ the first and principal Power the Son and the Word who had not his Birth from Man but by the Power of God he comes afterwards to examine the Passage in St. Luke The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall over shadow thee c. By the Holy Ghost or Spirit says he and the Power which came from God we ought to understand nothing but the Word which is the first-born of God And for the better understanding what Word he is speaking of he adds all in one Breath That 't is the Spirit which inspir'd the Prophets and which spake in the Person of a Prophet or in the Person of the Father or in the Person of Christ or in the Person of the People Here 's no difficulty either he has said nothing or he has formally said that the Holy Ghost which inspir'd the Prophets and the Power of the most High of which St. Luke speaks and the Word in St. John are all but one and the same thing After a Testimony so express I have no need to heap up other Passages out of the Writings of this Father wherein we may in part discover the same truth As when in his Dialogue with Trypho P. 327. he makes an Opposition between the Word of the Serpent by which Eve conceived and the Word of God by which the Blessed Virgin did conceive These are rather flights of Fancy and starts of Wit in a Preacher than an Exposition of the Christian Faith Only I would have it observ'd how in his 5th Book P. 284. he collects all the Qualities and all the Names which were usually given to the Word and to the Spirit that he may apply 'em to Jesus Christ First says â—he God â—eâ—â—t before all the Creatures a 〈◊〉 â—â—sonable Power which is sometimes called the Spirit the Glory of the Lord sometimes the Son sometimes the Wisdom sometimes an Angel sometimes God sometimes the Lord and the Word For all these Names are given to him either because he is the Minister of the Designs or Purposes of the Father or because he was begotten by his Will All this has much of the air of a theological Allegory by which one would express that Spirit and that Power of God which he imploy'd to execute his Counsels and
by his own Son This would be to no purpose But if on the contrary we understand by the Word a Divine Manifestation either by an Angel or by his Son the words of Clement will produce an excellent Sense He means therefore of old an Angel was the Word that is to say the Presence and the Oracle of God and this Manifestation being surprizing and illustrious was an Oeconomy of Fear But now a Man like unto us is the Word of God that is to say his Presence and his Oracle and this Manifestation being more adapted to our State becomes a Dispensation of Condescendence and Love So that if these words of Clement The Word was an Angel do signify that God did manifest himself then by Angels these words of St. John the Word was Flesh will signify likewise that God doth now manifest himself to Men by the Flesh or which is all one by a Man This is the best Notion we can have of the Word if we consult the Scriptures without troubling our selves with Platonick Visions Clement had the same Notion and his Words are remarkable since they give us a Definition of the Word and at the same time the true Meaning of it The Word saith he is nothing else but the Face of God by the which he makes himself known Three great Men amongst the Reformers have had the same Notion The first is Bucer who translates thus the words of St. John Et Deus erat Verbum illud conformably to the Syriac Version which hath it thus Deus erat ipsum verbum God was the very Word This Translation doth sufficiently declare the Sentiment of this Divine touching the Word He means that God speaking then without a Medium or the Organ of a Man or the Ministry of an Angel was himself the Word he put forth his Power by himself He explains these words thus I would saith he translate the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Oracle and if it were lawful go off a little from its first Signification and render it the Divine Love and Will Vis illa Numenve The reason is as he adds that we ought not to borrow the Meaning of this Word from the Platonists but of the Hebrews it being the same with their Davar which the Greeks have translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Assertion is sufficient we desire no more let us but understand this Word without the Platonick Notions of Hypostasis a Son begotten before all Ages c. let us hold fast the Notion of the Hebrews who never understood their Davar to be a Person or a Son Justin was the first of the Platonick Fathers that made an Hypostasis of a Power or a Manifestation having alter'd the Ideas of the Scripture by the Prejudices he brought from the School of Plato Bucer observes that the Greeks viz. the Version of the LXX render the word Davar by that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In effect these Interpreters meant nothing else by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only what the Hebrews understood by their Davar 1. That Virtue and Power which God thrust forth that I may so say out of himself when he was about to create the World Verbo Domini Coeli firmati sunt c. And 2. That holy Breathing which animated the Prophets Verbum Domini factum est ad Prophetam Now this twofold Power is found in J. C. both that which created the World and also that which inspir'd the Prophets You see in the very working of his Miracles this Sermo or this Jussus Divinus which said Let there be Light and there was Light His single Word suffic'd he needed not say any more than I will it Say only the word said the Centurion to him and my Servant shall be healed You see moreover by the Unction receiv'd from the Father this Sermo Propheticus by the means whereof he hath declar'd to us the whole Will of God is also to be seen For God who spake at other times to the Fathers by the Prophets hath spoke to us in these last Times by his own Son In these two regards J. C. shews to the Jews that he is the Son of God or the Messiah putting himself into the number of the Gods whom God sanctified and to whom the Word of God came John 10. viz. his Word of Authority and Power and his Word of Revelation and Prophecy 'T is in these two Senses that St. John calls him the Word and to put a Metaphysical Signification upon this Word is a piece of Philosophical Extravagancy Let us come now to Beza the second Interpreter I design to produce on John 1.1 This Author having related the subtile and Metaphysical Thoughts of the Fathers touching the Word 'T is not likely saith he that St. John would speak so subtilly on this Subject we ought rather have regard to the Hebrew than to the Greek Phraseology For altho St. John writ in Greek yet it may be said that in teaching of Divinity and above all in revealing his Mysteries he never departed from the usual ways of speaking used in the Holy Writings and in the Synagogues and such as were understood by the People Now according to him the Jews were wont to call the Messiah the Word as if it were said He of whom God had spoken or whom God had promis'd the blessed Seed whereof God spake so often to the Patriarchs and whom we may call the Word or the Promise of God by way of excellence Unless it be said as he goes on that this Name was given him because he is the only Interpreter of the Father by whom he hath manifested himself to the World But altho this last Interpretation doth not please him so much as the former yet he repeats continually that all the rest of those which the Greek and Latin Divines embrac'd so greedily do in no way agree with the Hebrew Tongue This is manifest and hath no need of Proof If we discard the Ideas of the Greeks and Platonists as Beza pretends that we ought farewel then eternal Emanations and Generations farewel internal Word and Word brought forth farewel Trin-Vnity and Hypostases with all that Theological Jargon which is pretended to be form'd upon the Stile of St. John And if on the contrary we go up to the Source and search into the Stile of the Hebrews themselves what this Evangelist meant the Word will then be only the so often promis'd and so long expected Messiah of whom God spake to the Patriarchs or if you please that Prophet who was to interpret to us the Word of the Father and that King of Glory in whom the whole Power of God was to be manifested Mr. Witsius may also be one of those Interpreters of the Logos of St. John who discards the Platonick Notions He doth not so much as believe that St. John borrow'd this Word from either the Cabala of the Jews or the Chaldee Paraphrasts but from the Sacred Writers And since his Explications
and Reasonings are the same with those of Beza concerning it we will not count him for a separate Witness The third Interpreter I shall alledg is Coelius Secundus Curio who speaks thus in his Araneus The Sacred History informs us that several have seen God present let it be so but the same History teacheth us that these were Angels and ministring Spirits who holding the Place of God did appear unto Men and spake in his Name in a visible Form and Person And not this only but the incomprehensible God being willing to make himself known in a more illustrious manner did moreover insinuate himself into J. C. with all his Majesty for we read thus in the Gospel The Father that dwells in me he doth the Works and he that seeth me seeth my Father also Add to these the Words of the Apostle God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself and these also He was pleas'd that all the Fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily in Jesus Christ Doth not all this manifestly prove this Author plainly acknowledges that as Angels had been the Person or the Word of God J. C. was so likewise but yet a Word more excellent and a Person more noble into which God insinuated himself not God the Son as they tell us but God the Father according to the Passage the Author quotes Pater in me manâ—â—s facit ipse opera The Paraphrase of the same Author on the beginning of the Gospel of St. John is yet more express Before saith he that God created the World he had in himself the Cause and the Reason of all things the Idea and the Design Altho this Reason was with God we must not therefore imagine that it was any thing else but God himself For God was that Reason but seeing God cannot be seen with our Eyes nor comprehended by our Mind he was pleas'd to put on a Person under which he might shew himself as it were in his natural and living Image Now seeing he is an only and simple Being and cannot borrow any form of himself he produc'd himself one without by the mean of a Voice and a Light wholly Divine which because he made use of it to instruct us and manifest himself was called his Word that is to say his Oracle and his Wisdom c. to the 14th ver where he proceeds thus Would you have me at last to discover this great Mystery And tell you under what Form God came unto Men This Word this Reason this Wisdom this Oracle was made Flesh and this Flesh which is called Man that he might raise ours to a Sovereign Immortality A Metamorphosis to be admir'd in all Ages God was the Word the Word was the Life the Life was the Light of Men the Light was Flesh the Flesh Man the Man God who is blessed for ever God and Man have join'd themselves together for God was in J. C. reconciling the Word to himself 'T is on this wise that God the Sovereign God Deus Deus ille O Man manifested himself in the Flesh and conversed amongst us Hence comes it that a great Prophet gives him the Name of Emanuel This Learned Man's Words are remarkable He saith that the invisible God being willing to make himself known was pleas'd to put on a Person that is to say give himself a Figure take a sensible Image under which he produced himself outwardly That this Image consisting in a Light and a Voice which he made use of to shew himself and to instruct us was for that reason call'd his Word So that the Word of S. John and the Image of the invisible God as S. Paul has it are the self-same thing Thus you have the Word excellently well defin'd according to the Ideas of Clement neither do I believe that a neater and more distinct Notion can be formed of it nor one more agreeing with the Scriptures which tell us so often of the Glory of God of his Face of his Dwelling of his Presence in an Angel in a Cloud in a Light in a Fire with a Clap of Thunder with a Voice or with a gentle and still Sound and what can this be I pray you but his Person and his Word You need only read Maimonides in his More Nevochim P. 1. ch 25 64. where with extraordinary Clearness he explains what the antient Word is saying that it is the Habitation of the Divine Majesty and Providence in some certain Place where he would make himself known which he causeth to dart forth miraculously under the Representation of a created Light Would you have the same Word under the N. Testament Consider the extraordinary Providence that presided at the Conception of the Messiah behold an Angel that speaks and is the Voice of God on this occasion a Spirit overshadowing the Holy Virgin the which resembles so much the light Cloud that cover'd the Tabernacle behold the Habitation of God in the Messiah dwelling himself amongst us In a word see the Majesty of the Father in the Son whose Glory we have beheld If this will not suffice get up the Mount to the Transfiguration of J. C. you will there see an Apparition of two great Prophets a Cloud that covers them a Light spreading it self over J. C. his Face becoming bright like the Sun and lastly a Voice coming out of the Cloud saying these Words This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleas'd hear ye him Behold here the Word wherein God gives all the Marks of his Presence and whence he declares his principal Will which is that we should give ear to his Son the only Oracle and the sole Word by which he would ever hereafter discover himself and speak to us Irenaeus had no other Idea of the Word Lib. 4. c. 37. where he saith That the Word designing to shew God in its sundry Dispensations shew'd him made like to a Man that by this mean he preserv'd to the Father his Invisibility lest Man should come to despise him that if the Manifestation of God which was at the Creation of the World did give Life unto Men how much more will the Manifestation of the Father by the Word give Life to all those who see God on this wise That the Prophets never saw the Face of God uncover'd but only certain Dispensations and certain Mysteries by which God began to shew himself that these first Sketches of the Divine Manifestation were only the Preludes of that which was to be made by J. C. That the Father is invisible in Truth that no Person ever saw him but that the Word manag'd the Dispensations of the Father and shew'd their Glory as it thought fit Irenaeus tells us afterwards That the Word appeared under different Figures of a Man a Wind a Light a Cloud a Fire c. which discovers to us that all external Manifestation whether it be by Angels or by the Flesh of J. C. is the Word of God as all internal Communication
created by the Word of God c. by a Comparison taken from the Kings of the Earth whose Word is the only Instrument they imploy to execute their Wills Indeed God has no need of any Instrument whereby to act he does all by the sole Act of his Will And Ibid. c. 65. The Word of God says he signifies no other than his Will But because Men cannot presently apprehend how a thing can be made by the Will only thinking it necessary that he who will make any thing must either do it himself or cause it to be done by others the Scripture says that God commands that a thing be when he will have it to be not only by comparison to our manner of acting but also because those Expressions do also signify the Will So as often as in the Work of the Creation we meet with the words God said it is the same as God willed And these that the Heavens were created by the Word of God is the same thing as by the Spirit of his Mouth For as his Mouth and his Spirit are Metaphorical Expressions so his Speech and his Word are also Metaphorical the meaning whereof is that things exist by his Will only And lastly in Cap. 66. mentioning these Words of Psal 8. The Heavens are the Works of thy Hands or of thy Fingers he says that the Finger of God is the same thing with the Word of God and the Word of God the same thing with the Will of God Grotius makes almost the same Observation on John 1.1 Because says he Moses wrote God said Let there be Light the Hebrews have thence call'd Devar the Word that Power or Divine Emanation by which God brought things out of Nothing and worketh all that is uncommon and extraordinary Psal 33.6 148.8 That which we read of Isaiah My Hand hath laid the Foundations of the Earth is in the Chaldee I have laid the Foundations of the Earth by my Word St. Peter uses the same Expression 2 Ep. 3.5 And that Paraphrast uses it so when treating of Miracles Prophecy or God's extraordinary Assistance and particularly when the Hebrew says the Eyes the Hand or the Face of God Whence it appears that in Scripture saying that the Hands of God laid the Foundations of the Earth or that he laid the Foundations of it by his Word or by his Spirit are equivalent Expressions and consequently that there is no Mystery in this Term Word or Speech Otherwise we must seek it also in Hand Finger Mouth c. and make of 'em so many Persons of the Trinity 'T would be much more proper to say with the Bishop of Meaux as above noted that thereby is signify'd nothing more with respect to God than that the doing great Works costs him but one single Word In truth this literal Sense is much more reasonable than the suppos'd Mystery But I said in the second place that there is another more excellent Communication when God fills with his extraordinary Gifts and if I may so speak overflows with his Favours those of Mankind whom he appoints to execute his Decrees as his Prophets and other Messengers and particularly the Messiah whom he sent into the World with all the Characters of an extraordinary Consecration This latter kind of Communication is called the Holy Ghost And here again we see on the one hand the Word and the Commission of God address'd to his Minister and on the other the Holy Ghost confirming God's Order to the Minister and conferring on him Power to discharge all the Duties of his Office So true it is that the Word and the Spirit are two united Powers which ordinarily work 〈…〉 I say ordinarily because Cases 〈…〉 een seen where the Communication 〈…〉 ut any Manifestation and on 〈…〉 trary others where God manifested himself by meer Apparitions which do not imply any Union of the Godhead with the Person who was honour'd with them But here it must be observ'd with respect to Prophetical Communication that there are two kinds of it whereof each hath its specifick Character The first which was when God spake by the Prophets was only for particular Dispensations for certain Times and Ministrys The other which was demonstrated in Jesus Christ to whom the Divine Nature was communicated in a much more perfect manner was inseparable and perpetual The first is called the Holy Ghost the second is not only called the Holy Ghost but also the Word because Jesus Christ was not only a Prophet by reason of the Gifts received from the Holy Ghost but also because he was begotten a Prophet and born a Prophet a distinction which raises him infinitely above all other Prophets This is the Truth which St. John design'd to teach us in writing the Preface or Prologue to his Evangelical History viz. that the same Jesus who was born of a Woman was born the Christ or is the Christ in right and by the advantage of his Birth And the reason which he gives for it is that the Holy Ghost or the Word for that 's the same thing did not only make his Flesh but also insinuating himself into it as the antient Doctors speak did there sow the Principles of his Prophetical Operations in the same manner as our bodily Fathers do not only give us Birth but often transmit to us the Seeds of their Inclinations and Vertues Now that which had never been seen in any other Prophet obliged the Evangelist to call Jesus Christ the Word to distinguish him from all other Prophets and Interpreters of God and to express himself in so forcible a manner on the Birth of this great Prophet in saying that the Word was made Flesh The old Translation was Verbum Domini factum est ad Prophetam The new has something more emphatical Verbum Domini factum est caro the Word insinuated it self into the Flesh and prepared it for Prophecy Marius Victorinus to give an Idea of this twofold Divine Dispensation Manifestation and Communication says in his 3d Book against Arius That there is a double Energy or Operation of the Word the one in a manifest way Christ in Flesh the other in a secret way the Holy Ghost Whereupon he calls the Father a Voice in silence the Son the Voice and the Holy Ghost the Voice of the Voice Which shews that the Holy Ghost is the Word of the Son as the Son is the Word of the Father And it is in this manner that St. Basil speaks 5 advers Eunom The Son is the Word of the Father and the Holy Ghost is the Word of the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now we see by what means Error was introduc'd God having reveal'd himself to his Creature by way of outward Manifestation and by way of inward Communication out of those two Dispensations have been made so many Divine Persons distinct from God the Father that is a second Person was made of the Manifestation and of the Communication was made a third It
most commonly in the Shape and Figure of a Man Some of the Antients were bold enough to say that this Word shew'd himself to the Patriarchs in the same shape of Face with which Jesus Christ should one day appear and they suppos'd as Servetus has well explain'd it lib. 3. p. 108 seq That the Word was no other than God's Person that is to say the Image whereby God manifested himself and that that Image was the very shape of Jesus Christ Man there being according to them but one only Divine Person one only Face one only Representation which has always been the same whether in God's immediately shewing himself in created Light or in Angels or in the Messiah who spake to us in his Name And 't is in this sense that we may say that the Person of the Son is Eternal 'T is easy to apprehend the Mind of the Fathers They meant that the Word was no other than the Idea of Jesus Christ Man who being in God's Understanding from all Eternity was put forth in a visible Form God who designed to manifest himself in time by his Messiah having from the beginning even in the Creation of the Universe given Preludes of his great Design in shewing himself to either Angels or Men only under the visible Form which his Son was in time to have which he describ'd in the Symbol of the Manifestation and of his Presence whether by an Angel by Light or by a Cloud So that to speak properly the Word was made Flesh because the same Power which made the World became the Power of Jesus Christ and the same shape of Face which appear'd to the Patriarchs was made the shape of his Face and the Figure of his Flesh I do not defend this Opinion of the Fathers I only shew what it was without obliging my self to maintain it and this ought likewise to be understood of all their other Hypotheses Be that as it will the Patriarchs being by those kind of Apparitions accustom'd to represent God to themselves in humane Shape God was also pleas'd to speak to them of his Perfections in a manner suted to the Idea of his Person which they had fram'd to themselves Whereon Maimonides observ'd that the Chaldean Paraphrast to rectify that Idea of the Deity uses the Term Word to signify in a less familiar manner the several Dispensations of Providence which the Scripture calls the Eyes Hands and Affections of God It is true that the Paraphrast intending to soften all those Expressions which seem to attribute to God corporeal Parts and human Passions unworthy of his Majesty did in their stead use this Term The Word of God which seems to bring into our Minds more Spiritual Ideas of the supreme Deity But he did not consider that if 't is unworthy of God to have Eyes Hands and Ears attributed to him it will not be less so to give him a Mouth Breath a Voice and Speech So that it must be granted that if by a kind of Figure the Scripture mentions the Eyes of God the Hands of God c. it is by the same Figure that we say the Breath of God and the Word of God Whereby all the Mystery pretended to be found in this latter Expression must vanish and we learn not to philosophize so nicely on the Oeconemies wherein God takes various Forms to make himself the better known to us or on manners of speaking which he has suted to our weak Conceptions CHAP. V. How the Philosophers and particularly Plato attain'd the Knowledg of the three Principles A right understanding of the three Principles IT has been said of the most famous Philosophers Pythagoras Socrates and Plato that they heard the Voice of God Which rightly understood signifies no more than that they had heard that silent Language of the Heavens which publish the Glory of God and declare the Works of his Hands Clemens Alexandr Strom. l. 5. p. 547. who so explains it say further That those Philosophers considering the Structure of the Universe heard Moses himself saying God spake and things were made and teaching them that the Word was the Work of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in truth after throughly philosophizing on the Principles of the World they always came thence to conclude and say that it was the Production of an Universal Reason and of an infus'd Spirit which animated it And they held these first Causes to be the Properties of one only Maker I mean the most perfect Being in philosophizing it was natural first to consider whether the World had always existed or whether it had been made 'T is a Question which Clem. Rom. makes to himself Recognit l. 1. c. 27. Some chose to believe the World's Eternity but they were but few and they follow'd the System of Ocellus Lucanus Other who were wiser and more enlighten'd apprehended that it must have had a beginning and these last philosophiz'd according to the Principles of Time is Lacrus The Question was farther to know how and by whom the World had been made The whole System of the antientest Philosophy run upon this Question The Philosophers made their Enquiries on it and after Attention and Study the most knowing among them heard the Voice of God or the Voice of Nature which taught them that the World was the Workmanship of an infinitely good all-wise and omnipotent God Plato was the first who brought this System to Perfection Thales Hermotimus and Anaxagorus discover'd a Spirit which dispos'd Matter and cloth'd it with its several Forms Socrates added that this Spirit which govern'd the World was the Son of the most high God and then Plato philosophizing yet farther fram'd a kind of Trinity 〈◊〉 Pâ—tav l. 1. c. 1. For he conceiv'd a most good God whom he call'd the Father or the Good most wise whom he call'd the Reason or the Word most powerful whom he call'd the Spirit or Soul of the World But then after all as they are three Perfections which are inseparable from the Idea of the Creator he often confounded their Operations As then these three Properties Goodness Wisdom and Power make up the whole Idea which we have of God with respect to the Creation It 's not to be wonder'd that the soundest Philosophy fix'd on these three first Causes when 't was seeking the Origin of the World by studying and contemplating on the World it self The invisible Grandeurs of God says St. Paul Rom. 1.20 as well his Eternal Power as the other Attributes of his Godhead become as 't were visible in being clearly understood by his Works from the Creation of the World 'T is therefore certain that 't was by beholding these Works that the Author of them was found out and that it was discover'd that they were the effect of Infinite Goodness Wisdom and Power And they went no farther because the System of good Philosophy with respect to the Creation proves compleat with these three Principles as has been already
the Reason and Soul of the World hath thereby laid down as the Principle of the Creation of the Vniverse the Goodness Wisdom and Power of God But the best Interpreter of this Platonick Trinity is Galen in his third Book de Vsu Partium his Words are plain and may be call'd the right Key of Platonism I do not says he make true Religion and Piety towards God to consist in sacrificing Hecatombs or in sending up the Smoke of much Incense but in knowing and making known to others what God's Wisdom Power and Goodness are For in my opinion that God has been pleas'd to fill the World with so many good things is a Mark of his Goodness which deserves our unmost Praise That he has found the way of putting it into so good Order is the highest pitch of Wisdom and that he could execute so vast a design is the effect of Almighty Power Nothing is plainer than this Comment He fully explains the Doctrine of the Three Principles without mixing any Philosophical Subtleties or Cabalistick Mysteries with it Here all refers to the Creation of the World and shews no more than a natural Trinity which all may read in these three admirable Properties which God has if I may so speak made visible in his Works And lastly Clem. Alexan. Lib. 5. Strom. p. 547. Edit Lutet 1629. fully shews Plato's mind in the Definition he gives of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Word of the Father of all things says he is not that which was utter'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a most evident Wisdom and Goodness of God with an Almighty and truly Divine Power This is plain here you have the Wisdom Goodness and Power whereof Plato made his Three Principles and whereof Clemens makes only the internal Word the Word of the Father in opposition to the utter'd Word So free and unlimited is this Allegorical Philosophy Observe farther That the words most evident refer to what appears of God in the Creation of the World which is properly the Word of God according to all the Platonical Allegorists As to the Begotten Word which is not that Wisdom nor that Goodness nor that Power which was manifested in the Creation of the World what can it be but the World it self Nevertheless the Fathers believ'd the Prolation of this Word to be the true Generation and consequently when they spake of a Begotten Son understood it of this World without thinking of it Plato then having so personaliz'd the several Operations of the Godhead spake of many Gods to please the People Populo ut placerent quas secisset fabulas reserving to himself the liberty of owning but one God when he convers'd with the Learned or as appears by his Epistles when he wrote to his Friends CHAP. VIII That the Pleroma of the Valentinians was an Allegorical Theology With a Digression concerning the Fanaticism of both the Antient and Modern Gnosticks I Pass from the Philosophers to the Hereticks who imitated them It is certain that there was a hidden and mystical Theology in the Pleroma of the Valentinians That prodigious number of Emanations which seems so monstrous an Opinion to us was at bottom but either a System of the several Orders of Angels who are often call'd Aeons I mean such a Celestial Hierarchy as that of Dionysius was or that Collection of Ideas those different Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Valentin calls them apud Iren. l. 1. c. 5. those several Dispensations which they conceiv'd in one and the same God For they did consider him 1. without regard to the Creature as incomprehensible and retir'd into a profound Silence that is as not having yet spoken that efficacious Word which was to make the Creature and then he call'd him the Profound and the Silence that was the first Order of Aeons 2. They consider'd God with respect to the intelligible World as having his Vnderstanding fill'd with Ideas Ideas being the Essence and the Truth of things according to the Platonists and then they call'd him the Vnderstanding and the Truth that was their second Syzigy 3. They consider'd God with respect to the sensible World as executing his Design and speaking that powerful Word which gave Life and Being to all Creatures and then they call'd him the Word and the Life that was their third Syzigy 4. They consider'd God with respect to the Spiritual and Evangelical World as working Redemption and there they found the Mediator Jesus Christ Man with the new Church which he made by his Preaching and Death and then they call'd him the Man and the Church that was their fourth Alliance But after all these several Emanations rightly taken are but the several Respects in which they conceived one and the same God who having been hid in an Abyss of Light did outwardly manifest himself in these two admirable Works of the Old and New Creation That is the Testimony which Irenaeus l. 2. c. 15. gives of them The Valentinians says he after having divided their Emanations did however return to the Unity holding that all together made but one And in Lib. 1. c. 6. the same Father's relating that Ptolomy gave the most High God two Wives Vnderstanding and Will which they called the Father's two Powers apparently shews that Ptolomy fell into Plato's Allegory in ascribing Wisdom and Power as two Properties inseparable from one and the same Spirit to the Good or Creator of all things And I don't see why Ptolomy might not as well Allegorically say that the supreme Father had two Wives as Philo in the like case that the World had God for its Father and Knowledg for its Mother But if all these several Powers of the Valentinians did not destroy the Unity of God whence then comes it you 'l say that their Doctrine was so abhor'd The reason is apparent viz. That in avoiding the Christian Simplicity they run the Faith into terrible Confusion exposing God's Unity to Peril by their idle Speculations As for the Basilidians they did also allegorize on the word Abraxes whereby they understood that Supreme Power from which all the other Aeons or Spirits proceeded This Name has in its Greek Letters the Number 365 which is that of the Days of the Year or according to Basilides of the Celestial Orbs. And he intended to signify that Abraxas or the most High God was the Father of the Celestial Orbs Ages or Aeons and Creator of the Universe 'T is probable that this is a Hebrew Word and that it comes from Ab Ben Rouach Father Son and Spirit Menage would with his Etymological Sagacity find no difficulty in proving this to be its Derivation thus Ab Ben Rouach Abenrach Aberach Abrach and adding a Greek Termination Abrachas Abraxas Serenus the Physician of the Sect of the Basilidians lengthening the Word fram'd Abracadabra of it which is another mysterious Name which he made use of as an Amulet or Preservative for the Cure of all intermitting
Fevers almost as the Superstitious use some Words of the beginning of St. John's Gospel which they hang about the Patient's Neck as I my self have seen Now in as much as the Basilidians pass for the first Authors among Christians of the Discipline of the Secret and of the Platonick Trinity it is very likely that they design'd to hide it under this Allegorical and Symbolical Name But it is also possible that this Name contains only the Gospel-Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost whereon they allegoriz'd extravagantly according to the Custom of that Time By this Essay which we have been making it sufficiently appears that we could give a rational Meaning to the other Orders of the Aeons wherewith the Gnosticks did also enlarge their System With a little labour in taking off the Veil of Allegory which covers the hidden Meaning of this mysterious Theology one might easily enough discover that the true aim of these Christian Philosophers was to set off the lowness of the Gospel by the suppos'd depths of their Mysteries But we 'll go no farther on this Article The Sample given is sufficient But if any one desires proof of this our Explication of Valentin's Aeons that he conceiv'd them only as the several Affections of the Divine Understanding or as so many Dispensations of Providence let him but consult Chap. 12. of Danaeus de Haeresib To be brief we 'll here quote only the famous Pearson Vindic. Ignat. Par. 2. c. 5. Valentin says he made an open Profession of believing but one God and tho Tertullian asserts somewhat Rhetorically that this Heretick believ'd as many Gods as he number'd Aeons that Father himself did nevertheless own that Valentin's Aeons were nothing else but the Divine Propertys and Affections whereof his Disciples afterwards made Personal Substances Gallasius had before Pearson observ'd the same thing in Annotat. in lib. 1. Irenaei for he recites the Words of Tertullian Ptolomy says that Father follow'd Valentin's Doctrine only he made Personal Substances subsisting distinctly from God of what Valentin had consider'd only as Affections and Ideas internal and intimate to the Godhead Irenaeus also informs us that by these Aeons Valentin understood only certain Dispositions and Powers of the most High God Summi Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tantum quasdam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he clearly explains in his L. 1. c. 6. where he relates the System of the discreet Valentinians When say they the Supreme God would produce any thing he was in that respect call'd Father but because his Productions are true he was at the same time called the Truth and then when he would produce and manifest himself he was called the Mun. The Man by speaking begat the Word which is the first-born Son All which shews that Allegory being undetermin'd every one took it the way which best pleas'd him But however it appears that they all agree that these Aeons are nothing else but God's several Affections or Dispensations What 's peculiar in this last Hypothesis is that Man which signifies God manifesting himself utters the Word his First-born Which yet has a good Sense according to Mark the Valentinian who in Chap. 10. of the same Book says That God to give a visible Form to the invisible Grandures which are in him utter'd his Word like himself Understanding by the Word only the visible Form which God takes to manifest himself in So our Quakers understand no more by the Word than the Goodness of the Supreme God manifesting himself to Men. This was the Opinion of the Sabellians who by the Christ did not any way understand a Man but only Divine Clemency and Heavenly Aid manifesting it self to Men in the Work of Redemption It may perhaps also have been the Opinion of Clemens Alexandrinus who as we have already seen calls the Word the most manifest Goodness of God That of Origen and of many other Allegorists does not at all differ from it since they did not so much believe in the Son of Mary as in their Theologiz'd Son as they speak much slighting Faith and the sensible Gospel as we shall shew hereafter and valuing only Contemplation This Platonick Fanaticism has Cerinthus for its Author who carefully distinguish'd Jesus the Son of Mary from this Christ or this Celestial Aid which came to enlighten and guide Men and it is now adopted by Father Malebranche Dr. More and Mr. Norris This last is a right Platonick Fanatick who has brought disorder and confusion into both the Speculative part of Religion and the Duties of Christian Piety His several Treatises of Doctrine and of Morality shew that the Dreams of a contemplative Man are capable of converting the most sensible Lights of Reason and Revelation into Smoak Can we forbear judging of what he has written of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato as we judg of what he has written concerning the Love of God which he makes to consist in such refin'd Contemplations and Enthusiasms as render Gospel-Morality tho of it self so plain and natural wholly impracticable Fanaticism all over And if we see it in the Morality of these Visionaries why do we not perceive that their strain'd Platonism is no less the fruit of Mystical Theology The Fathers were right Quakers in their System of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if we will not be Quakers in point of Morality let us keep close to our Principles and neither be so in the Doctrine of the Word and such other speculative Points as have been render'd incomprehensible by too much refining of them If I may say what I think this Gallimaufry about the Divine Word which is defin'd see the Treatise intitul'd Reason and Religion An intelligible World Archetype and Ideal or even the Essence of God as far as it is variously imitable variously exhibitive and representative of all things which exist This Cant I say is suspected by me and I am tempted to believe that under these specious Names nothing more is given us than a fair System of my Understanding with its Reason and Ideas or to speak better its universal and unchangeable Natures which the Philosophers call'd the Reality and Truth of things and whereof they made even the Essence of God Yea I dare venture to say that 't is Deism or Atheism disguis'd The Accusation is heinous and requires Proofs of the utmost evidence Well and we shall produce them Read and weigh these Words ubi supra p. 209. that Author says The Idea of a Triangle has a determinate and immutable Nature such as it is not in my power to make the least alteration in which is a certain Proof that it is not of my making for then it would be arbitrary and I might change it as I pleas'd but that it is an absolute Nature distinct from and independant of my Understanding And to say the truth it is nothing else than the Essence of God himself modify'd and as it is exhibitive and imitable
God And behold here the ground of my Allegory viz. that the Holy Spirit who insinuated himself into J. C. becoming his Director and Master may justly be compar'd to the Son of the Family but J. C. himself having always obeyed the Holy Spirit must be compared to a Servant It is therefore in Allegory that J. C. is the Servant and so likewise in Allegory that the Holy Spirit is the Son of God It is in Allegory that the Church is the first of all the Creatures and consequently in Allegory that the Son of God is more antient than all the Creatures and that he assisted at the Council of God The whole is Allegory in Hermas the whole is Vision Similitude and Parable there The Faith in his Writings Simil. 9. § 13 and 15. and all the other Vertues are called Holy Spirits he ushers them in like Virgins well apparel'd kissing the Son of God who also lie with Hermas himself as with a Brother The Fiction of Persons is so familiar to this Author that if you would find a Person of the Trinity there you shall but catch at a shadow Let it then be acknowledged by all that we ought not to look for any thing but Allegories and Similitudes in this Book of his bearing the same Title Whereas in the second Book entituled the Commandments where the Doctrines are set forth more simply he speaks not from the very first Commandment but of one God the Creator which is the whole Idea he gives us of this supreme Being without any mention of three Persons of an eternal Generation or Incarnation Which demonstrates that he had a different Idea from that of a Consubstantial Trinity or of three equal Hypostases whatever he said elsewhere of the Father Son and Holy Ghost But as this Allegory of Hermas touching Christ misled the Platonic Fathers who took it literally being prejudiced by the Philosophy they were brought up in There is another in the sixth Commandment by which they were no less impos'd on There is saith he two Genius's in Man the one of Justice the other of Iniquity The Greek had it no doubt two Angels and so this Passage is read in the Translator of Origen Hom. 35. in Luc. duos Angelos Hereupon the Fathers have gravely handed down to us that there are two Angels the one of Good the other of Evil that attend a Man from his Birth Just as they have told us that the Angels fell in Love with the Daughters of Men having mistaken the Allegory of the Souls that delight to abide in our Bodies But let the Fathers talk on This being taken in a literal sense is ridiculous and contrary to Scripture especially the evil Angel Can it be doubted here that Hermas intended only to allegorize upon the twofold Inclination in Men towards Good and Evil It is certain that the Chaldeans Jews and Mahometans as also some Pagan Philosophers did affect such like Allegories and personalized these two Inclinations Every thing was an Angel to the Jews especially with the Pharisees when they disputed against the Sadduces who denied their Existence As to the Heathens we have shewn before that the Wisdom of Socrates was his Demon and Genius We have stumbled at this Oriental Philosophy which allegorized upon every thing spiritualized and personalized all It is by the like Mistake that gross Platonism took literally what the subtil Platonism said only in Allegory and made three Hypostases of the three Divine Powers concurring in the Creation of the World Now these Divines who turn'd these two Inclinations in Man into two Angelical Persons are the same that metamorphosed the Power of God which created the World into a Divine Person a Son begotten of God and consubstantial with his Father Will you trust 'em still and boast notwithstanding of the Acuteness and Penetration of our Age yet foolish enough to be besotted with all these Chimeras Shall we never comprehend that what Moses said in a literal sense that by the Word of God or his Command all things were created in the beginning the Apostles spake it in a mystic sense of J. C. who is the Word of the Father which created all things to wit in the new Creation having put all things into a new Form and Order as well the Angels in Heaven as the Men here on Earth It is evident by Clemens Romanus that the Antients made use of continual allusions to the first Creation wherein they sought for a mystic sense in reference to the second performed by J. C. In his second Ep. c. 1. he speaks thus of our Redemption When we were without Understanding and worshipped Stone and Wood God had pity on us for he call'd us when we were not in being and would have us to pass from no Being into a Being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Without doubt he speaks of the New Creation and that in Terms as strong as were used in reference to the First causing us to pass from no Being into a Being as if we were form'd out of nothing when we were reformed by the Gospel These Terms seem to be absolute but we ought not to be deceived by them and will do well if we seek here for a comparative sense considering that Authors neglect very often to use the Particles denoting this Figure which soften the Expression as for example As it were That we may say so If I may speak thus All may perceive that if Clement had said of J. C. as he might have done That he called us when we were not in Being and made us to exist out of Nothing these Words would have been stretched as if they attributed our Creation out of Nothing to J. C. It would have been said Behold here J. C. particularly described to be him that calls Things not in being as if they were Now by a stronger Inference this sense ought to be given them seeing they were spoken of the Father who is the Creator of Heaven and Earth yet we must agree however herein for the Scope of the Subject requires it that they intend only the New Creation and consequently must own that when the Sacred Authors and their Disciples seem to attribute the Creation of all Things to J. C. we have the same Reason to look on such like Expressions as Allegories which set before our Eyes the forming of the New Creature by Representations drawn from the old Creation The same Clement Ep. 1. c. 12. allegorizeth upon the Scarlet Rope of Rahab Good Criticks do not question this tho he speaks as if his Allegoric Sense were the only true one for he praiseth not only the Faith but also the Prophecy of this Woman declaring by it the future Redemption by the Blood of J. C. This Allegory of Clemens saith Cotelier in his Notes is approved of by many of great Note quoting the Fathers that followed him therein Note he calls it an Allegory altho in Clement it hath all the Air of a simple and natural Sense
have innovated He must know little of Plato who can believe that he could fall into so dull a Philosophy as that God did from all Eternity necessarily beget a Son a second God putting him forth out of himself with his proper Hypostasis which distinguisheth him from the Father and that he made use of him to create the World unless 't were perhaps to deceive the vulgar People But that God did voluntarily conceive a Design of creating the World that he did actually create it by his efficacious Word that that Word is his Son in an allegorical Sense because it was emanated from the Divine Understanding that it was in an allegorical sense the Creator because it was the Means and Instrument which the Wisdom of God made use of to give Life and Being to all things Then indeed I own literally Moses saying that God spake and the Creature obey'd then I shall own Plato's Allegory telling me the same thing with Moses but in the Stile of the Religion wherein he was born Then to conclude I own the good Divinity of Clemens Alexandrinus who assures me that the Word of the Father is not that which was begotten but supreme Goodness profound Wisdom and infinite Power manifesting it self in the Work of this Universe This is without doubt the true way of understanding Plato and we have a famous Platonist as our Warrant for it 't is Coelius Rhodoginus Lect. Antiq lib. 9. c. 12. For that Great Man very judiciously observes that one can never be a good Platonist if he do not reckon that Plato is to be understood allegorically Good Platonists like the Author of the Recognitions discover to us the Origin of this allegorical Philosophy by saying That from the first Will proceeded another Will and from this the World Lib. 1. c. 24. That is to say that from the first eternal and internally begotten Will proceeded at the beginning of all things a second Will externally begotten an express Command which spoken all things were made And this second Will is metaphorically the Son because proceeding from God himself and from the Invisibility which is proper to his Nature it is a kind of Generation producing his Image every Manifestation being the Image of God Irenaeus is also another of the good Platonists who allegoriz'd In many places of his Treatise against Heresies he supposes God not to have needed any more than his two Hands to create the World There 's no difficulty in perceiving his intention thro those Words Whereas the Hereticks maintain'd that all was made by Angels and that those Spirits had created the World Irenaeus in opposing that Doctrine flies into the opposite extreme viz. That God who had no need of Angels made use of no more than his two Hands his Word and his Spirit to do all things not that by those two Powers he understood two Hypostases but only personaliz'd them in opposition to the Aeons or to the Gnosticks Angels which were esteemed Persons And he meant nothing more than that God needed not any other than himself as he explains himself in the 19th Chapter of his first Book and in no wise any Power separate from him having an Hypostasis distinct from his This God says he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ What do these words signify That God needed no other than himself if not that God had no need of any more than his Command and Power to operate what he will'd Now this Command and this Power are not two Hypostases separate and distinct from his which was the Opinion of those Hereticks but two Powers which he imploy'd as his two Hands Either let 's blind our selves or see Allegory in all this Again it 's by a common Figure that the Name the Qualities and even the Personality of the thing which ceaseth to be or which is rejected is given to that which takes its place tho it be of a different nature God rejecting Sacrifices gives the name of Sacrifice to the Obedience which he accepts There is nothing more natural says Dr. A. in his Manuscript concerning the Satisfaction than to give to a thing which supplies the place of another and which procures all the fruits of it the Name of that instead whereof it is substituted St. Paul observ'd this Rule in his Epistle to the Hebrews If he gave the Name of Sacrifice to the Obedience of Jesus Christ it was to sute his Expressions to the Ideas which prevail'd under the antient Dispensation wherein the principal Acts of Piety consisted in Sacrifices he applied those antient Sacrifices to the Death of Jesus Christ without intending any other Mystery in it Whereto may be added that Jesus Christ speaking of the Holy Ghost who was to teach the Truth by his Inspirations as he himself had taught it by Preaching speaks of him as of a Teacher as of a Person because he was to supply the absence of a Teacher and fill the place of a Person So as the Gnosticks spake of nothing but Angels who had created the World and govern'd the antient People and of Emanations and Generations from the Supreme Being Irenaeus answers The true Angels which created the World and taught the Prophets are the Word of God and his Spirit and that Word and Spirit are his true Emanations So making of a Manifestation and of a Communication God's Helpers his Coadjutors in the Creation his Ministers in the Government of the World making I say so many Hypostases of the Godhead of those Powers because he substitutes them in lieu of the Hypostases rejected by him It is by the fame method that Theophilus of Antioch made intirely allegorical Commentarys on the four Gospels Thus he allegorizes the first words of St. John The Beginning says he that is God The Word that is the Son of God Jesus Christ of whom the Voice of the Father saith in the Psalm My Heart hath uttered a good Word that is to say Christ by whom all things were made And without him nothing was made Nothing that is to say an Idol which as the Apostle saith is nothing in the World It is apparent by the Method of this Author who designs the explaining the Gospels allegorically and particularly by the allegorical Explanation he gives of the word Beginning and of that of Nothing that what he says of the Word is likewise allegorical The Word says he is the Son of God that is to say the Christ by whom all things were made Is not that saying that it is the Christ the Man whom God hath anointed who is the Son and the Word by whose Power all under the Gospel was made even the Idol which was made without him having been destroy'd and the World reform'd Let us deal plainly Christ is the Word only by virtue of an allegorical Sense which considers him as a second Word in as much as he is with respect to the spiritual World what the Word-God was with respect to the sensible World It
Constitutions I place Ignatius who in his Epistle to those of Tarsus calls those Hereticks Ministers of Satan who held these two extremes the one that J. C. is God over all the other that he was but a mere Man In his Epistle to the Philippians he explains wherein Orthodoxy truly consists viz. in believing Christ born of God by a Virgin for not only they who believed him a mere Man denied this Truth but Ignatius farther insinuates that this Truth was denied no less even by such who believed him to be God over all How says he to them do you not believe that J. C. was born of a Virgin but that he is God over all I would say him who can do all things Tell me then I pray who is he that sent him To whose Will is he subject And whose Law did he fulfil How dare you maintain that the Christ was by no means generated that the Lawgiver is unbegotten and that he who is without beginning was nail'd to a Cross This Passage is the clearest Proof The Generation of J. C. by the Power of the Holy Ghost was the true Theology concerning his Person and those who held him to be the Supreme God contested this miraculous Generation pretending that he was unbegotten For this reason Ignatius adds a little after This is not he who is God over all but the Son meaning thereby one who was begotten Daille exclaims upon the Passage aforesaid saying Ignatius distinguishes the Son from that God who is over all which is Blasphemy And he has reason to speak in the Orthodox way because the Character of a God over all is not properly of the Person but an Attribute of the Substance So that it cannot be taken from J. C. without robbing him of the Divine Nature and Substance It will be said perhaps that the Constitutions are not Clement's and that the two Epistles under the Name of Ignatius are falsly ascribed to him But this is trifling as to our Question for be it as it will my Citations are from Authors of great Antiquity and who pass for Trinitarians they are Witnesses of the Faith in that Age wherein they lived and whose Testimony consequently ought not to be suspected by us Moderns So much the rather because the same is confirmed by a Doctor of great Name and Reputation For is it not well known that Origen attacked the same Error in his 32 Tom. on St. John and in his eighth Book against Celsus Mons Huet in his Quaestiones Origen 2. is much scandalized that Origen should say Some maintained that Christ was God over all This Proposition saith Huet is true and Orthodox with respect to the Divine not the Human Nature Origen on the contrary denies our Saviour to be God over all and proves him to be inferiour to the Father by this Reason because the Father is God over all He takes away then from the Divine Nature of J. C. the Character of supreme Divinity and ascribes it to the Father But let us hear Origen himself I mean says he that there are some among the great Number of Believers who widely differing from the Opinion of others rashly maintain that our Saviour is God over all for our parts we have no regard for that Opinion believing these Words of our Saviour himself viz. The Father why sent me is greater than I. 'T is trifling to answer here that Origen meant some Hereticks who held that J. C. was the Father This takes not off from the Force of the Argument for Origen maintains that the Son is not the Father for this reason because he is not as the Father God over all and because Christ himself confesses that the Father is greater than himself supposing that it was the Father alone who had this supreme Prerogative To conclude Dr. Bull in his Judicium Eccles Cath. and his Defender in his Fathers vindicated citing the famous Passage of Justin when that Father consents to a Toleration of the Josephites who believed Jesus to be the Son of Joseph yet nevertheless believed him to be Christ These Authors I say insist much upon the opposition which Justin Martyr makes between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the small number of Josephites and the many who oppos'd ' em Now we have our Turn to boast in this Passage of Origen and may take the same Advantage they who believed J. C. to be God over all were but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or some Persons and by consequence they were the Hereticks because the few are always such But for those who opposed this Error they beyond contradictions were the Orthodox because they were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Multitude CHAP IV. General Remarks upon the forecited Authorities of the Fathers IT remains that I make two Remarks upon these Passages in general one is that since 't was Heresy in these first times of Christianity to affirm that J. C. is the supreme God it follows that Orthodoxy was either the Opinion of Arius which will not be granted or that of the Socinians which ought to be admitted since 't is taken from the Scriptures by the Confession of the Trinitarians The other Remark is since such Fathers condemn this Expression as heretical viz. that the Lord Jesus is God over all without taking any notice of the Objection now drawn from that Passage in Rom. 9.5 which one wou'd think was very natural for them to have solv'd it follows that in their time either they gave those Words another sense or that they read it otherwise than we do at this day Supposing then as I am about to demonstrate that to ascribe to J. C. the Prerogative of the Father viz. of being God over all was Heresy in the first Ages of the Church One sees clearly in what sense a Remark of Sulpitius Severus may be true which was this that almost all Christians in Palestine in the time of Adrian believed Jesus Christ to be a God Not the supreme God as Sulpitius pretends nor a God begotten a little before the Creation as Eusebius would have us believe by perverting some Passages of the Antients and by making them to serve his own Prejudices Not I say once more the supreme God this would have been a damnable Error What then Why a God because he was received or owned not only as a Just Man and a Prophet but as the Christ of God whom he made Lord giving him a Name above every Name the Name of God Note here the manner of Christ's Deification In short one cannot believe without Heresy according to these Primitive Doctors that he was a mere Man having no more Authority than other Holy Persons One cannot therefore better state the Orthodoxy of those venerable Doctors than in avoiding these two Extremes And we find it to be so in the most famous and most antient Monument of the Christian Church I mean the Apostles Creed which says I believe in
because they have suffer'd themselves to be surpriz'd and their eyes to be dazled with cheir Platonick Philosophy The Wonderful and the Sublime are very tempting Schemes These Platonists are a sort of Philosophers or rather of Divines who have made a Voyage to the World of Ideas and some Christians are so weak as to swallow all their Visions for Mysteries But let us always remember for the honour of the Fathers that how far soever they wander'd in their large Field of Platonick Contemplation they never advanc'd so far as to equal the Divinity of the Word with that of his Father Origen who is one of them that went farthest never carried his Theology to that extreme Whatever lofty Idea he had of the Son he declares however in his 14th Tome on St. John That the Son was so much below the Father as he and the Holy Spirit were above the most noble Creatures Go we now after this and say that the Fathers held the necessity of believing that the Supreme God was incarnate and that Jesus Christ is that Supreme God Monsieur Huet had good reason to acknowledg upon this Passage of Origen that it could not be excus'd and to attempt to find an Orthodox Sense in it could not be consistent with Sincerity or Honesty CHAP. VII The same Proof continued together with an Examination of the Sense of Antient Creeds thereupon WE have no more to do but to consider the antient Creeds and to compare those which were form'd upon the Apostolick Theology with such as were fram'd according to the Platenick Scheme and we shall find in these latter that the Article of the Generation of the Word and of his Incarnation came in the room of that of the Conception of the Son of God which is found in the former Creeds The universal Church says Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 2. hath received this Faith from the Holy Apostles which is to believe in one God the Father c. and in Jesus Christ his only Son incarnate for our Salvation c. There 's nothing in this Confession of the Faith of the Catholick Church which is not in the very Creed of the Apostles excepting the word Incarnate But 't is clear that it stands in the very place of those other words conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary which are wanting in this Creed of Irenaeus He would say that the Spirit of God united it self to real and not to celestial and aerial Flesh as some Hereticks imagin'd The turn is somewhat Platonizing but after all he did not intend to advance any thing but the antient Doctrine since he disputes against those men who held that Jesus Christ was pure Spirit clothed with celestial Flesh and he on the other hand supposed that Jesus Christ was a real Man true Flesh animated with a Divine Spirit a Man born of a Virgin truly born of the Substance of a Woman altho form'd by the Power of a Spirit Tertullian in one of his Tracts de veland Virg. in initio having given us this plain Rule of Faith which he calls the immutable and unchangeable Rule to this purpose That we must believe in one God alone c. and in his Son Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary c. in another Tract de Praescrip adv Haeres presents you with another Rule of the Platonizing Faith which is to believe that the same Word by which God created the World spoke to the Patriarchs and inspir'd the Prophets coming forth from the Spirit and the Power of the Father it lit upon the Virgin and was made Flesh and wrought in J.C. all sorts of Miracles Had he forgot that the Apostolick Faith is not to be changed or reformed No without doubt he does not pretend to change any thing but only gives the antient Opinion of the Conception of J. C. in Platonick Stile in Philosophick Jargon or to speak better he substitutes an Allegory manag'd with force and violence in the room of this Evangelical Expression born of a Virgin by the Power of the Holy Ghost which is plain and literal This Spirit as Tertullian says being an Emanation from the Spirit and the Power of the Father may be said in a mystick and sublime Sense to be the same Spirit who created the World and inspir'd the Prophets St. Cyril in his Catecheses explains a Creed purely Arian which Dr. Bull pretends to be the antient Creed of Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches I believe it says in One God the Father c. and in One Lord Jesus Christ the only Son of God begotten of the Father before Ages true God by whom all things were made incarnate and made Man c. I said this Creed is Arian for 't is expressed in the same Terms as all the Arian Confessions that are now extant And if the Doctor pretends that 't is Orthodox at the best hand it can pass for no more than the Creed of Constantinople as Monfieur Le Vassor has observed Traité de 〈◊〉 Examen ch 6. p. 226. This Creed of St. Cyril says he is almost the same with that of Constantinople especially in the Article concerning the Holy Spirit If it be true that the Catecheses we have are those which Cyril made in his Youth as St. Jerom reports it this Prelate reviewed and augmented 'em after the Council of Constantinople whose Creed he explains almost word for word In this case it will not be certain that the Article concerning the Church was in the Creed of Jerusalem Cyril might have added it to his Catecheses after the Synod If this Conjecture holds as to the Article of the Church much more will it do so as to the Platonick Word We can but say in this case it will not be certain that the Article concerning a Son begotten before Ages was in the Creed of Jerusalem Cyril might add to his Catecheses after the Synod of Constantinople Let 's join with this Learned Proselyte the famous Mons du Pin who in his second Tom. of his Bibliotheque p. 413. inunuates the Novelty of Cyril's Creed upon this account 1. That it has the Article of Life Everlasting which is not in all the antient Creeds And in his 1 Tom. Paris Edit p. 30. he says that Cyril in his Catecheses makes a particular Creed which the Church of Jerusalem us'd at the time that this Father wrote his Catecheses That those who have made Commentaries upon the Creed have omitted among others these Words Life everlasting And that St. Jerom observes in his Letter to Pammachius that the Creed ended with these Words The Resurrection of the Flesh These Words of du Pin are remarkable He says Cyril made a Creed which was peculiar to him and that it cannot be ascribed to the Church of Jerusalem till the time when this Father wrote For 't is certain that this is the sense of their Words in an Author that professes to believe that the Creed is not antient But however
be begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin is no such glorious Privilege for the Messias that it does not give him any Preheminence above some other Men who have been miraculously begotten and by the immediate Power of God That in a word it answers not that great Idea which those Words the only Son of God naturally raise in our Minds I have already answered this Objection with a Passage of Bartholomew of Edessa I could further say that according to this way of reasoning of the Doctor 's J.C. is no longer by his Hypothesis the only Son of God if we take those Words as he does in their strictest sense because he has a Brother begotten of God as well as himself I mean the Holy Ghost He will clear himself of this when he can shew me what the difference is between Generation and Procession that is to say between Emanation and Emanation I mean such a difference that makes the one a Son and the other not this is what we expect from him He knows very well that this knotty difficulty put St. Austin hard to it This Father in his 5th Book 9. ch de Trin. puts this Question Whence is it that the third Person is not the Image of God as well as the second Why not his Word Why not his begotten Son He protests that 't is hard to give a reason why the Father did not beget one as well as t'other since as the Intellect begat its Wisdom by knowing it self it seems likely it should beget its Love by loving it self And at last finding himself too weak to master this difficulty he betakes himself to his usual Sophistry and makes you a rare Medley of Discourse wherein he understands not what he says himself After so great a Master what may we expect from Dr. Bull or rather who will not be surprized to hear his Objections 'T is not enough says he that God begets a Son of the Substance of a Woman by his own Power without the Intervention of a Man 'T is not enough that this Generation is without Example This extraordinary Son if he be not the Supreme God he is not therefore the Son of God 'T is not enough that God has given us an extraordinary Man for the Messias If he be not the Supreme God he cannot be the Messias Wonderful What! if God had thought fit to send none other than such a Man a second Adam not a jot more the Son of God than the first Adam was shall this be no Messias And would this be done upon a Principle of Religion Should this Messias be thought unworthy of us because he does not answer the Idea and the Expectation of the Doctor I am astonish'd when I consider the extravagant Hypothesis of our Trinitarians God in their opinion will not make good his illustrious Promises his Word given to Abraham and his Seed and his Oath sworn to David that he would raise him up a Son to reign upon his Throne God I say will do nothing that will answer the Greatness of his Promise and the Expectation of the Patriarchs if the Blessed Seed if the King so often promis'd and so long expected if the Messias who is so glorious be not the supreme God himself Nothing is magnificent according to these Gentlemen if it be not extravagant God may do well in raising a miraculous Seed to Abraham from the Womb of a Virgin And he may do well in raising up to David a King and a Prophet drench'd with the Fulness of his Spirit and reigning at the Right Hand of his Majesty All this has nothing great in it this will not come up to their System of the Messias nor deserve place in their sublime Theology if the supreme God himself be not incarnate and suffers not himself to be crucified to merit by his Sufferings the same Glory he voluntarily abandon'd This is what they call a glorious Gospel not that plain simple Religion which presents you with a Man ascending into Heaven but that which without Machines or Hocus Pocus brings the supreme God down from Heaven Good God! What vain Imaginations are in the Heart of Man CHAP. IX The Theology of the Primitive Church went no farther than the miraculous Conception of the Messias c. IT is time to consider in the third place that the Theology of the Primitive Church went no farther than the miraculous Conception of the Messias Which appears from this that the Expression mere Man which she condemned as heretical was not oppos'd to an Eternal Generation but to Christ's being begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin So that the Platonizing Christians themselves who have us'd it in this last sense have been as it were forced to do it thro Custom What remains of the antient Tradition obliging them to speak in that manner Yea the Force of the antient Tradition has made them to betray themselves as we are about to shew The Terms mere Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bear at this day in our Minds a different Idea from that which was in the first Ages of the Church With us now it is supposed to exclude I know not what sort of a Generation of the Substance of God But with the Antients it was purely oppos'd to the miraculous Generation of the Substance of a Virgin We find at this day some Footsteps of the antient usage of these Words The Author of the Apostolic Constitutions lib. 6. c. 26. giving an account of the Opinion of the Ebionites says They hold J. C. to have been a mere Man by maintaining that he was not begotten any other way but by the conjugal Intercourse of Joseph and Mary There cannot be a better account than this of what the Antients meant by a mere Man A Man begotten by Joseph and not a Man who is not the supreme God Justin or the Author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox Quaest 66. expresses himself thus Who says he speaking of J. C. was begotten or conceived by the Holy Ghost the Son of God but being born of the Wife of Joseph was the Son of Joseph The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. Wherefore c. shall be called the Son of God It must be observed here 1. That Son of Joseph and Son of God are two Terms oppos'd J.C. is called the Son of Joseph as he was born of the Wife of Joseph and the Son of God as he was begotten by the Holy Ghost 2. That J. C. is called Son of God on the account of his being begotten by the Holy Ghost in a sense directly opposed to Son of Man that is to say in a sense of excellence which Dr. Bull is so bold as to deny 3. That the Text of St. Luke which Justin cites as a Proof demonstrates in some sort that the Antients did not at first ascribe any other Divinity to J. C. but that which was grounded upon his being conceived and born of a Virgin by the
Ghost and in this Sense they called him the Son of God and not only so but they confess'd this Son of God to be the Christ For 't is thus the Words of St. Austin must be understood de Haeres c. 9. and not as Dr. Bull expounds 'em Judic Eccles p. 47. by a Hysteron Proteron in this manner that the Christ was the Son of God that is according to him a Son begotten before all Ages Danaus a better Critick than he made no blunder in his Exposition of St. Austin's Words The Nazarens says he believ'd that Jesus the Son of Mary was the Christ and 't is certain the Words ought to be taken in this Sense Dei filium consitentur Nazaraei esse Christum says the Father In short they did not oblige the Gentiles to observe the Law which they thought themselves ought to keep as being Jews by birth but they afterward abandon'd it too as an Obligation that ceas'd as soon as they were driven out of Judea by the Emperor Adrian There is a great confusion among Ecclesiastical Writers in their Judgment of these Nazarens Some look upon 'em as Hereticks with others they pass for Orthodox The latter Fathers as Epiphaenius St. Austin and Theodoret place 'em in their Lists of Hereticks but the more antient Fathers as Irenaeus and Tertullian have not set 'em down in that Catalogue 'T is easy to conjecture whence this Disagreement comes Sometimes they pass'd for Orthodox 1st Because their Opinion that Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost c. being originally the Orthodox Faith some Remains of that Tradition maintain'd their Honour for a time 2ly Because Eusebius after Hegesippus had given 'em this Testimony that their Faith was sound as we have before shewn Now this Historian who gave his Opinion of 'em according to his own Prejudices mistaking their true Sentiments has drawn other Platonizing Christians after him into the same Mistake 3ly The Nazarens believ'd that by virtue of the miraculous Conception of our Saviour God was truly his Father and for this reason they give him the Title of the Son of God and it may be of God too sometimes The Platonizing Christians suffered themselves to be amused with big Words having their Minds pre-ingaged in Ideas they had put upon 'em beforehand so that they were so far from treating the Nazarens as Hereticks that they have often made 'em speak in the Platonick manner always supposing thro prejudice that whoever said these Words Son of God meant by 'em a Son begotten before all Ages But sometimes also they reckened 'em Hereticks either because they confounded 'em with the Ebionites or because their Opinion rightly understood was look'd upon as Heretical after Platonism prevail'd When all those in short who went for the Divinity of Christ no farther than his Generation from God and the Virgin Mary and who refus'd to subscribe or assent to the Platonick Generation before all Ages all such I say were no better treated than the Ebionites who believed Christ to be the Son of Joseph they were all anathematiz'd without hopes of absolution 'T is from this confusion of Ideas that we meet with so much obscurity in the History of the Nazarens Dr. Bull who knew not how to clear up this Perplexity runs himself into greater Difficulties He teazes and fatigues himself to maintain his own Sentiments under the Expressions of the Nazarens and to reconcile the irreconcilable Censures of the Platonizing Fathers about ' em But what signifies all this ado The truth is nothing of his Platonism was in the least known to the Nazarens All his Citations are grounded upon the equivocal Sense of these Words the Son of God True it is they went beyond the Ebionites and believ'd Jesus Christ was more than a mere Man because they believ'd him to be born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost Yet the Nazarens must be Hereticks say the Doctor what he will if they are to be try'd by his Platonick Faith But they are also Orthodox say others what they please if they are examin'd by the Rule of Orthodoxy that prevail'd in the first Age of the Church the Footsteps whereof have been preserv'd by some Writers in succeeding Ages as I have already proved FINIS
whether it be by an Angel or by an immediate Virtue is the Holy Spirit And all this is call'd the Oeconomy or as Irenaeus saith they are mysterious and extraordinary Dispensations of the Divinity which environ his Majesty to temper its great Splendor and adapt it to our Curiosity For to imagine that this is a second Person of this Divinity as invisible and as infinite as the first would make all the Reasonings of the antient Fathers not only useless but also absurd for they all unanimously declare not only that the Father never makes himself visible but also that he cannot do so It is impossible saith Eusebius Demonstr Evang. lib. 5. cap. 20. That the Eyes of Mortals should ever see the Supreme God to wit him who is above all things and whose Essence is unbegotten and immutable It is absurd and against all reason saith the same Author Hist Eccl. lib. 1. c. 2. that the unbegotten and immutable Nature of Almighty God should take the Form of a Man and that the Scripture should forge such like Falsities God forbid saith Novatian de Trinit cap. 26. that we should say that God the Father is an Angel lest he should be subjected to him whose Angel he were Et ibid. cap. 31. If the Son saith he were as incomprehensible as the Father the Objection of the Hereticks would have some ground that then there are two Gods It is an Impiety say the Fathers of the Council of Antioch Epist adv Paulum Samosat to fancy that that God who is above all things can be called an Angel Lastly otherwise I must transcribe all the Fathers Justin Martyr explains himself on this wise in his Dialogue with Tryphon No body saith he unless he be out of his Wits will dare to advance that the Father and Author of all things did quit the Heavens to cause himself to be seen in a small part of the Earth I thought to have finished but that I can by no means pass by that excellent Passage of Tertullian against Praxeas cap. 16. That he would not believe that the Sovereign God descended into the Womb of a Woman tho even the Scripture it self should say it This Father being persuaded by Reason and Philosophy that the supreme God is immense immutable and invisible demands how it could come to pass that the Almighty God whose Throne is the Heaven and the Earth his Footstool that this most high God should walk in the terrestrial Paradise should converse with Abraham should call to Moses out of a Bush c. and what is yet worse that he should descend according to Praxeas into the Womb of Mary that he should be impeached before Pilate and be shut up in the Sepulcher of Joseph He goes on Really one would not believe this concerning the Son if the Scripture did not speak it and perhaps would not believe it of the Father tho even the Scripture should say it How so would he mistrust the Scripture No he means only that he should mistrust the literal sense and search there for an Allegory Consequently then all these Fathers own that the Word by which the Father makes himself visible is not of a Nature incapable of causing it self to be seen but something sensible which represents God to us It matters not whether they conceive by it an Hypostasis a Spirit an intelligent Being or any other kind of Representation in a bright Cloud animated with a Voice This will always remain true that they did not understand the Word to be a Spirit equal to the Father as invisible by its Nature as the Father but only a certain Emanation where God produceth himself outwardly and discovers himself in a sensible manner And tho they might have sometimes spoken of the Word as of something invisible they meant not by this that it was invisible by its Nature but only that it was not visible to Men out of the time of its Oeconomy retiring it self from their Presence and becoming as it were hid in God Sometimes they would denote by it even the Energy and the Power of God wherewith his Manifestation is always accompanied but never a second Hypostasis in the Divine Nature For we must observe here sincerely once for all that the Word if you consider it only in its Energy is no other thing but God himself but when it is consider'd as it is a Mark of the Divine Presence then it is something sensible a Voice a Light or some external Form such like as was seen in Angels or in the Man J. C. our Lord. CHAP. II. The Antients believed that the Word was Corporeal WHerefore the Antients attributed a Body to the Word as Servetus very well observed Apolog. ad Philip Melanct. and so Tertullian speaks in his Book of the Flesh of Jesus Christ against Praxeas chap. 7. where he proves at large that when God uttered his Word he gave it a Body indeed not a Body of Flesh but an Hypostasis that is Solidity and Substance which is the true Signification of the Word That 's probably what he means when in chap. 6. of the Book of the Flesh of Christ he assures that Jesus Christ appeared to Abraham with Flesh which was not yet born non nata adhuc that is to say not indeed with such Flesh as ours but with a solid Body which had more than appearance A Body I say which he in the 8th Chapter calls the Seed of God from which as from a Heavenly Seed the Messiah was to be born and this Seed is the Holy Ghost or the Substance of the Word which insinuated it self into it Thence the antient Docetes and all the other Hereticks who held the pre-existence of the Word suppos'd that the Word did not take true Flesh of Mary but that he contented himself with the Celestial and Etherial Body which he formerly bore in the Apparitions of the Old Testament which had no more than the Appearance and Figure of a Man which the Scripture calls the Face of God Mons le Moyne did not understand the thing otherwise in his Varia sacra p. 415. The Docetes says he compared the Apparitions of Jesus Christ to the Apparitions of the Old Testament which having been in Etherial Bodies for certain times vanished into the Air as soon as the Dispensation was finish'd imagining that the Body of Jesus Christ was not of any other Nature And it is in the same sense that Cerinthus and Ebion suppos'd that Jesus Christ had not taken true Flesh as St. Jerom assures in the Preface to his Commentary on St. Matthew As Cerinthus held Iren l. 1. c. 25. Epiph. Haeres 28. That the World had been created by a Power he also maintain'd that Jesus who was begotten of the Seed of Joseph and Mary was the Son of the Creator As to the Christ or the Word he made him the Son of another Power superiour to the Creator and attributed to him a Celestial Body which he had always kept without
it saith the same in the same words of the New All the Encomiums it gives to the Law are applied more truly to the Gospel and lastly it saith nothing of God the Father which it doth not accommodate to J. C. his Son who is the Vicarius of the Father as Tertullian calls him and who saith he makes us to hear the Father in his Words and makes us see him in his Actions By this Rule you get the Key to all the Passages that seem to give the Son the same Names Prerogatives and the same Properties that God the Father hath it is because J. C. being the Vicarius of God both the Words and Actions of the Father are attributed to him by the virtue and upon the account of the Reprejentation if I may thus express my self For it is not as I judg by a mere Accommodation but by a Subordination Whatever is said of the Father in an exact and rigid Sense may also be said of the Son as of a Minister and Ambassador that represents God or to speak better that executes in a visible manner what the Invisible Father had already promis'd should be done Now lest any one should wrangle about this Title of Ambassador I shall say more namely that there is more than a Subordination because we see in J. C. not only the Character of an Envoy but likewise an Abode and an immediate Presence of the Father's Person He that receives a Prophet receives him who sends the Prophet therefore when J. C. came vested with the Authority of the Father to accomplish what God had promis'd should be perform'd by the hands of the Messiah God himself came in his Person and we have receiv'd him in the Person of Christ Hence it comes to pass that J. C. is adorn'd with all the Characters of Glory and Power which God attributes to himself when he promiseth that signal Deliverance by the Prophets which he design'd to perform one day for the good of his Church For this reason J. C. is call'd Emmanuel God with us which is a Symbolical Name by which the Scripture denotes the extraordinary Presence of God in the Messiah and teaches us that it is not so much the Man but that it is the Sovereign and Inviable God that acts I speak not of my self I speak only the things my Father taught me I do nothing of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me he doth the Works These in one word are the constant Expressions of J. C. he refers all the Authority of his Doctrine and all the Glory of his Miracles to the Father dwelling in him This the Jews call'd Shekinah the Habitation of God Here is more than the Abode of God in the midst of his People of old this is a more sensible and magnificent Presence and to say all 't is God's dwelling in the Messiah for God was with him saith the Apostle You have need only of this Reflection to foil the strongest Objection of the Trinitarians They say that the New Testament attributes constantly the same Properties and the same Perfections to the Son and to the Holy Ghost which the whole Scripture attributes to God the Father Granted What follows then Necessarily one of these two things Either you prove by it that there are three Gods all which have the same Properties and equal Perfections which is contradictory and disown'd even by those that make this Objection or you must acknowledg with us that the Perfections of the Son are nothing else but the Perfections of the Father dwelling in him and communicating himself to him And the Holy Ghost is likewise only the Virtue and Power of God It is objected against this Doctrine I am now establishing that it is not customary to call the Ambassador by the Name of the King that sends him I will not enter now upon the Particulars of this Controversy nor even examine the History of the Centurion related by St. Matthew Chap. 8. and by St. Luke Chap. 7. which alone were sufficient to decide it It will be enough for me to remark at present that tho this Custom were not us'd by Men in their Transactions yet it is incontestably so in God's Method Drusius De Nomin Tetragram in Epist ad Conrad Vorstium grants that it may be said the King doth what the Ambassador transacts in his Name but he denies at the same time that you may give to the Envoy the Name of the King that sends him And thereupon he will not receive without some alloy that Rule of the Hebrews That the Angel bears the Name of God who sends him But with all the respect I owe this Great Man I affirm that this Rule of the Hebrews is well grounded it being taken from the Scripture it self where God declares that he will put his Name on the Angel whom he design'd to send It is no matter then whether this be the Custom of Kings or no seeing it is clear by this Place that it is the Custom of God to give his Name to his Envoys at least on some occasions and in extraordinary Cases And this Name that I may take notice of it by the by doth not denote only that they may call themselves the Lord the Jehova but indeed they have all the Glory the whole Authority and all the Power yet not absolutely but only in reference to that Commission they are then honoured withal that is to say they appear with as much Majesty they act with as much Authority and Power as God would in the like case were he pleas'd to act without a Medium and by himself alone And this is a great reason why God should act thus for seeing he could not manifest himself if the Angels by whom he was manifested had never taken his Name upon them it would have come to pass that the Jews having the knowledg only of Angels would have totally forgotten God whereas the Angels by taking the Name of God upon them on some extraordinary occasions put that People from time to time in mind of him by the Idea of his Presence After all seeing God is invisible by his Nature and cannot manifest himself by himself it follows then that every time he manifests himself by an Angel this Manifestation will not be regarded as an Appearance of an Angel but as that of God himself whom that Angel represents and consequently it is not so much the Angel that bears the Name of Jehova and is ador'd by Men but God himself that Angel being his Person and Presence This will be clear if you regard these three Rules 1. That according to the Oriental Idiom the Envoys make their Masters speak always directly as for example instead of saying The Lord saith he is the Jehova they speak thus The Lord saith I am the Jehova 2. They suppress often these Expressions The Lord saith and speak absolutely without making use of that Preface I am the Jehova 3. That you ought to supply those Words and
by his Word that is to say by the Command and Order of God See Grotius on Joh. 10 3◠What is become now of the Mystery Whence comes such a gross Mistake The Learned Hammond quoting this Paraphrase in Luke 1.2 doth read it indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his Word which is just what these Gentlemen would be at but if I am not mistaken 't is without any Authority nor do I think that if such a Reading were sound in any Copy either in Manuscript or printed it ought to be prefer'd to the common Reading which is grounded as we have shewn on the Custom of the Hebrews Besides we may assert without any fear of being in the wrong that if there be any alteration in the original Term it was not done to favour the Hereticks we may presume the contrary It is true indeed that Dr. Bull in his Defence of the Council of Nice quotes a Paraphrase we have not to prove the false Reading But it is likely that those who say they have seen it saw but a Latin Translation which hath it Verbo suo in the Ablative as the Grammarians term it by his Word and it is the ambiguity of the Latin Construction that impos'd on those who saw not the Original So true it is that Error always begets a Mystery and that even a Grammatical Ambiguity is capable to furnish us with high-flown and gorgeous ones What makes me think so is this that I have observ'd the like ambiguity in the Author of the imperfect Work on St. Matthew in Mat. 8.8 This Evangelist brings in the Centurion speaking Lord speak the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this Author allegorizing no doubt on the Term Word makes him deliver himself thus Lord you have need only to command one of your Messengers and Angel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and my Servant shall be healed whereas he meant only that our Saviour should speak the Word altho I would not condemn absolutely the Explication of this Author because it is somewhat plausible if we regard how the Centurion goes on For I am saith he a Man under Authority having Soldiers under me and I say unto this Man Go and he goeth and to another Come and he cometh and to my Servant Do this and he doth it These Expressions seem to insinuate indeed that he intended J. C. should command some one of his Servants as he commanded his own Speak to an Angel or to any one of your Disciples to go and heal my Servant and my Servant shall be healed And in this sense an Angel or an Apostle would have been the Word of J. C. even as J. C. himself was the Word of the Father If you take it thus I shall grant with all my heart that the Paraphrast in this place means the Messiah by that Term Word The Judgment of Father Simon upon these Paraphrases deserves your notice Hist critic du V. T. lib. 2. ch 18. It is true saith he that Galatine and many other Divines after him made use of these Paraphrases to establish some Articles of our Faith in opposition to the Jews principally those relating to the Messiah But altho these Proofs seem conclusive as to the Jews because they are taken out of their Books yet I do not think it advantageous to the Christian Religion to have recourse to Books stuff'd with Fables Besides the Passages we believe to favour our Religion consisting chiefly but in Allegories it will be easy for the Jews to evade them for we cannot prove the Truth of our Mysteries invincibly by Allegories But if notwithstanding all these Discoveries the Trinitarians will still insist upon these Paraphrasts to authorise their pretended Mystery we shall be alarm'd so little at the advantage they pretend to get by them that we shall over and above lend them this Passage of the Targum of Jerusalem extremely fit to prove the Pre-existence of their Word Glassius relates it Philol. p. 22. The Paraphrast expounding these Words Behold Adam is become as one of us brings in the Word speaking to his Father Papa behold Adam whom you have created who is your only Son on Earth as I am your only Son in Heaven It seems as if the Word was pleas'd that he had a Brother and a Compare on Shall we never be asham'd of these Rabbinick Frenzies or rather of these Platonick Impostures CHAP. XVII Concerning the Method of the Sacred Writers and some of their Disciples viz. Hermas Barnabas c. in the Interpretation of the Scriptures THE Writers of the New Testament being Jews by Birth did affect according to the Genius of that People an analogick Sense and Accommodations finding every where Relations between the Old and the New Testament Every body knows how they have adapted one History to another one Event to another Event and of what nature are their frequent Allusions and Allegories On this wise to omit other Examples what Moses saith of the Word of God producing the Creature out of nothing St. John accommodates to that Word of J. C. which forms Men anew and manifests the Power of God demonstrating by Miracles that all Creatures obey him J. C. being not so much the Interpreter of the Will of God as the Instrument of his Power You will find this Analogick Sense may be observ'd in most of the Passages of the Old Testament which the Apostles have applied to the New Beza on 2 Cor. 4.6 calls this Sense Anagogical that is to say Spiritual Sublime Mystical and exalted above the pitch of the Letter See Scult Exerc. Evangel lib. 1. cap. 62. where he speaks at large of the manner how the Sayings of the Prophets are accomplish'd analogically under the New Testament The Testimonies of the Old Testament saith he are not always alledg'd to confirm a thing but to illustrate it by an ingenious and well-contriv'd Accommodation which is very familiar to the Holy Ghost The Therapeutes or Jewish Philosophers of Alexandria retain'd this way of interpreting the more willingly because it was altogether conformable to the Method of the Platonists among whom they liv'd Eusebius relates Hist Eccl. lib. 2. c. 16. that they had the merely Allegorical Commentaries of the Antients and that in expounding the Scriptures they philosophiz'd after the manner of their Predecessors that is to say by the way of Figures and Allegories pretending that the Letter is but a Shell wherein many Mysteries are inclos'd The most antient Fathers of the Church viz. Hermas and Barnabas did follow this Method of the Jews searching for a Spiritual Meaning in the Facts and Rites of the Old Testament in order to adapt them to the New but yet not so as to bring in such Platonick Ideas as obtain'd some time after in the Christian Religion The following Fathers having not only carry'd their Allegories too far and exceeded the antient manner of affecting mystical Senses but also spoil'd this Method by joining gross Platonism with it which personaliz'd every thing
this Author recommends it and that not in opposition to the false one as Clement of Alexandria did afterwards but absolutely as it is in it self As for me I doubt not at all that the Jargon of the ensuing Fathers who blended the Platonic Studies with the Jewish Method did proceed from this way of philosophizing allegorically on the Scriptures which was very innocent at first or rather they coupled together the two Methods of allegorizing namely the Oriental and the Greek Clement Hermas and Barnabas carried on their Allegory according to the Oriental Custom in order to find out the mystic sense The ensuing Fathers newly come out of Plato's School and having an extraordinary conceit of his Principles did from an innocent Allegory build up a Pagan Philosophy which in giving us three Hypostases gives us also three Gods literally so and well told Father Simon both saw and own'd this Truth in his Supplement to the Ceremony of the Jews pag. 16. Some of the Jews saith he applied themselves to the Platonic Philosophy which they have blended with their Phrenzies whence arose a great part of their Cabalistic Sciences We ought also to attribute to this their studying of the Platonic Philosophy many Expressions found in their antient Allegorical Books which are not far distant from those the Christians use to explain the Mystery of the Trinity Let us consider well this Remark It demonstrates that the Trinity was not drawn from the Christian Religion for if the Platonic Jews who had not a grain of Christianity did talk of this Mystery like the Christians and that we ought to attribute these Expressions only to the Mixture of the Platonic Philosophy with their Phrenzies it will follow then that the Christians likewise either brought this Doctrine out of the School of Plato or took it from the Phrenzies of the Jews and we are induced to believe this to be so because the Fathers who talked of it came out of that School and professed Platonism before they were ingaged to Christianity or at least before they had betook themselves to the Study of the Scriptures as Justin Aâ—â—â—magoras Yatiâ—â— Theophilus Irenaeus Clemeâ—â— of Alea. c. who were all professed Sophisâ— Shew us I pray but one Writer who spake of it from a Principle of Religion without bringing in the Prejudices of Philosophy Did this come to pass because there were no Christian who without having studied Plato could speak of the Word out of the Scriptures alone if so be the Scriptures had spoken of it in the sense of Plato Where is that Christian that talked of it upon the Basis of Religion alone Let him be produced There have been no doubt some who wrote concerning Religion but we have lost their Works and why Because they had not the stamp of Plato Moreover seeing these Gentlemen maintain that the Christians of Judea had the same Sentiments in this Affair with the Gentile Christians whence comes it that no Fathers but the Gentile are produced and not so much as one of the Brethren of the Circumcision and Successors of St. James Are there none but Philosophers that can write of the Mysteries of Religion The Writings of Hegesippus the most considerable of the Christian Jews of whom we have any account perish'd because of his Errors as Valesius upon Eusebius observes it viz. because he spoke not the Language of Plato The rest had the same Fate there being but few that remain as Barnabas and Hermas But have these talked of a Pre-existent Word Not at all unless it be in Allegory The Reason of this I pray Certainly because they found it not in the Christian Religion nor yet in the Jewish and having not studied in the School of Plato they could not bring it thence into the Church of J. C. As to the Books of Hegesippus which perished because of their Errors I remember that the Defender of the Fathers doth somewhat exclaim that Valesius did not declare expresly that they perished by reason of any Errors contrary to Platonism A mere wrangling As if the Doctrine of Plato were not at that time and many Ages after the only Rule by which Truth and Error were determin'd Valesius in this place speaks of two sorts of Books that perished because of their Errors The first that gave him occasion to mention the other were the Hypotyposes of Clement of Alexandria who had positive Errors wherewith Platonism was offended Pray read the 109 Cod. of Photius where this Critic relates them I dare say that the Eternity of Matter the Transmigration or the Revolution of Souls the Commerce of Angels with Women and other such like Errors which Photius ascribes to Clement troubled not much the good Platonists We know that for the greatest part these were their Darlings What was it then at which they were so much offended Those other Errors which overthrew the Platonic Hypotheses concerning the Generation and Incarnation of the Word viz. The Son 's being numbred among the Creatures and that neither of the two Words that came out of the Father was incarnated not so much as the lesser of them but only that a certain Virtue flowing from the Word it self did insinuate it self into the Minds of Men and there became their Understanding or Reason This good Father believed no other Incarnation than that of Human Reason which flowed out like a Ray from the Substance of God and descended into the Flesh of Men to become their Guide and Light He was a true Quaker The other Books Valesius names are those of Hegesippus and Papias which in relation to Platonism could not be guilty of other Errors but those of Omission that is to say they perished because of their Simplicity and because they talked not like Plato And we have reason to believe the same Fate had likewise attended some other of the Antients that remain which as Photius judges are too simple and too much reserved in relation to the Divinity of J. C. but that some small respect for them preserved them The first Ages regarded them as parts of the Holy Scripture and this Credit they had got in the Church preserv'd them from Shipwrack The Defender is then to know that the Tenent about the Trinity and Incarnation did always regulate the Fate of Books and Authors and that Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy were judged of according to these Favourite Tenents of Plato Why I pray have the four first General Councils of which the World rings so much destroyed so many Books and Men Was it not for these two Tenents All the rampant Disputes ever since turn'd upon those Hinges The reason hereof is for that the Truth of these two Articles lies in an indivisible Point all around are Precipices of Error there being so small a distance between Truth and Error that it is altogether imperceptible The Trinitarians are divided into Real and Nominal Among the Real Dr. Sherlock hath his particular Hypothesis the Bishop of Gloucester his as also
Mr. How Amongst the Nominal the Bishop of Salisbury is of one Opinion Dr. Wallis of another Dr. South differs from them both Range them by Hundreds there will not be one that will keep to the precise Point that forms this Chimerical Orthodoxy which is boasted of by every one but attained to by none for they treat one another as Hereticks Here is a large Field for you to scour about and raise a thousand nice Questions in which the most acute can't perceive and to find Heresies in those that have had the Misfortune to displease you Must an overgrown Bishop be depos'd whose See lies convenient for me or a Competitor stopt in his Career I have no more to do but only examine them about these two Points in question if they have not found the indivisible Point precisely and who can do it They are undone I will prove demonstratively that their Opinion is Heretical Impious and Blasphemous I shall call both the East and West to my Aid and what is more I shall have the Pleasure to see three or four hundred Bishops assembled in a General Council who shall unanimously vote for me for the accused is always in the wrong the Thunderbolts and Anathemas shall follow Thus the whole World will be in a Flame for a Trifle Alas the Memory of such a Number of vain Disputes between Nestorius and Eutyches cannot be renewed without making the Christian World to blush But whoever could give us the secret History of all the antient Councils like to that of the Council of Trent would certainly infinitely oblige the Christian World But lastly perhaps the Defender did not perceive my having answer'd his trifling Difficulty before hand let us then make him sensible of it Let us examine the Relish of the Antients and see what Books they have preserved for us what Character they bear and of what Stamp they are I told you already that they have not left us any Father of the Christians of the Circumcision but only some Gentiles brought up in the School of Plato We have indeed a Justin Athenagoras Theophilus Tatian Irenaeus Clement of Alexand Origen Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius and some others of the same sort Fathers indeed who breathe nothing but Platonism This is the precious Relick Antiquity has left us It is easy then to draw the consequence What Books hath it destroyed All those that shocked Plato that spake not as Plato We do the Defender Justice if from the Books that Antiquity chose we point out those it rejected He hath then lost his Cause for the Collection we have could not be such by Chance the Caprice of the Times or such like Accidents No it is too uniform Choice presided here at least as to the Character of these Books but Time and the Fate of Libraries may have had a share in the rest I return to my Subject and must observe here that if the Allegories of Barnabas are very evident because they are so frequent and characteriz'd by the Terms of Spirit and Figure which he makes use of to denote them to be so yet this happens not always The Fathers speak them out often so absolutely that it is only the Matter it self that can make us discern them Thus the Allegories of Origen have often deceived his Readers For this Father as Mr. Huet observes it Origen Quaest 14. passing often from the Explication of the Letter to a Spiritual Sense imperceptibly his Readers took his Allegories for Dogmatical Assertions What he hath said of Origen may be applied to all the rest of the Fathers Irenaeus for example Lib. 4. cap. 37. speaks out in downright Terms without any hint of a Figure an Allegory he made upon the Spies sent by Joshua to Jericho Rahab the Harlot saith he in receiving the Spies conceal'd in her House the Father Son and Holy Ghost Who would not believe if you take this literally as the Trinitarians are wont but that these Spies were actually the Father Son and Holy Ghost in a human Shape there being nothing in the Words here to hint the Adaptation and Allegory Really if Irenaeus had said as he might very well at this rate that Abraham receiving the Angels that went to destroy Sodom gave a Dinner to the Father Son and Holy Ghost a Mystery would certainly have been found in these Words pretending that Abraham did entertain these three Persons of the Deity who appeared to him in the Form of three Angels or three Men What difference is there I pray between this way of speaking we now suppose and what Irenaeus really made use of None and you must grant that if you think you have good ground from such like Expressions to make a supreme God in three Persons of the three Angels you may likewise conclude the Spies of Jericho to have been the Father Son and Holy Ghost really and literally so For whatever may be said to the contrary it is as impossible that Angels should be God as for the Spies to be so Surely the Repugnancy in the Nature of the things themselves which Authors compare mutually ought always to determine us to look for a figurative and allegoric sense there especially when it appears to us that these Allegories are agreeable to the Genius and Custom of those Authors or at least of their Predecessors and Masters it being certain that tho the Disciples often alter the Method of their Masters yet there will still remain some Footsteps of the antient Doctrine betraying and discovering their Innovations This is the Lot of the Platonic Fathers as we shall show hereafter For the present the Example of Irenaeus is sufficient to inform us that according to the same way of speaking which calls the Spies the Father Son and Holy Ghost we may also say that J. C. was the Word which created the World and the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs See what Annotator Feuerdentius saith on this Passage of Irenaeus An old Copy adds the Word Three to the Spies which would agree very well with the three Divine Hypostases had not the Scripture assured us that there were but Two and not Three Justin hath also much the same Allegory in his Dialogue It is likely that Irenaeus carried on his Allegory but to the Father and Son in relation to the two Spies but for fear the Holy Ghost should be thereby excluded some Knave put him in too and then the Word Three must be added to the Spies that so all might be adjusted to the three Divine Persons Thus various Readings proceed from the Boldness of the Orthodox but howeven it be you see the Allegory either reject it in this Place or acknowledg it every where else where there is the like necessity for it As the Father Son and Holy Ghost were allegorically in the Spies of Jericho in like manner J. C. was allegorically in all the Dispensations of old in the Word that created the World in the Angels and the Prophets that spake to
Men because if I may say so these Dispensations were the Figures of the great Oeconomy of J. C. or rather of God the Father manifesting himself in the Flesh of his Son Therefore Irenaeus calls it the Dispensation which was from the Beginning You may see what Vossius saith in his Notes concerning these Allegories of Barnabas and the other Fathers It is known by all saith he how these first Christians interpreted the Scriptures after a mystic and superstitious manner I was like to say childish and foolish Cotelier saith almost the same and shews their Absurdities But take this along with you that these dull Allegories did not by far so much Mischief as that Christianity in Masquerade which some other Fathers borrowed from Plato It is of these you may more justly say than of the Allegorists according to one of our Criticks that the Day these good Fathers were writing so many philosophic Visions they voided a Purge Purgamentum aliquod cacasse Let us now come to Hermas who is as well stored with Visions and Parables as Barnabas At least his Method is the same In his Parable or Similitude the 9th § 12. he saith That the Rock is the Son of God now the Rock is of old because the Son of God is more antient than any Creature inasmuch as he assisted in the Council of his Father in order to form the Creature All this is said in a mystic and an allegoric sense to explain that the Father did all in regard to his Son and the new Creation The Author having said as much in his first Vision § 4. concerning the Church for asking of the Angel Why the Church of God is an old Woman the Angel answers because she was the first thing that was created and that it was by reason of her the World was made It is likely in the Greek it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Translator rendered not per illam but propter illam You see then that this Father saith no more of J. C. than he doth of the Church and that these Words antiquior omni Creatura mean the same thing with anus prima omnium creata which are true only in a mystic sense but false in the Letter Consequently then J. C. is from the Beginning in the same sense that the Church is so I mean in the Decree and Design of God which the Author expresseth by his being in the Council of the Father which he borrowed manifestly from the Author of the Book of Wisdom I shall now produce a remarkable Instance of the Alteration that ensued as to the Tenent it self notwithstanding the Terms remained the same You see that Hermas saith here the Son of God is more antient than any Creature and that he speaks so allegorically Let us get over one Age or two and you shall see Origen making use of the same Expression but in an Arian sense The Holy Scriptures saith he Lib. 5. contra Cels discover the Son of God to us as the most antient of all the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He means that he was created a little before the World but let us return to our Subject Justin Martyr who first taught the Pre-existence of the Word imitating the Notion of Hermas did teach the Pre-existence of Christians no less than that of Christ himself whilst Apol. 2. he saith That all those who were Partakers of the Word or Reason as well Greeks as Barbarians were Christians and consequently Christians did not commence yesterday or to day but were always and every where a principio saith he from the beginning attributing to them the very Prerogative of the Word it self These good Men turn'd themselves every way to ward off the Reâ—roach of Novelty wherewith Christianity was charged In like manner Eusehius endeavouring to prove that the Christian Religion was not new maintains that the Patriarchs profest it and that it was instituted from the beginning Hist Eccles Lib. c. 4. Thus much he cannot advance but in a mystic sense as he observes it himself because all those who acted justly and served that God who is above all were Christians Consequently then Christ could not converse otherwise with them but in the same manner as they professed Christianity which cannot be true but by way of Analogy and Accommodation Christ then pre-existed as the Christian Religion and Christians did pre-exist Let us return to Hermas It is manifest that he allegoriz'd even by his entituling his third Book where he speaks of the Pre-existence of J. C. Similitudes or Parables which carry on throughout spiritual and mystic senses as is evident by Similitude 5. where he explains the Parable of the Father of a Family in a theological manner in relation to the Father the Holy Ghost and the Son The Father in the Plan of his Allegory is the Landlord the Holy Spirit is the Son of the Houshold and he who out of Allegory is called the Son is but a Servant in the Allegory The Landlord saith he is the same who created all things the Son is the Holy Ghost and the Son of God is the Servant He goes on and adds a little after The Holy Ghost insinuated himself into the Body wherein God was to dwell and this Body whereinto the Holy Ghost did insinuate himself having served the Holy Ghost and having been faithful to him always did obtain the Approbation of God by his Labours and Obedience By the Holy Ghost cannot be meant here the second Person which is called the Divine Nature of J. C. as Dr. Bull pretends for who sees not that Hermas speaks here of that Spirit of Sanctification which prepared the Body of J. C. for Prophecy and consecrated it for a Temple for God to dwell in And seeing this Idea of the Holy Spirit 's being infus'd into the Body of J. C. is so conformable to what the Holy Scriptures deliver concerning it you must be very extravagant if you think that Hermas differed from it Besides what could he mean if his sense were the same with that Dr. Bull attributes to him Would he introduce two Sons of God so opposite one to the other The one who serves and obeys and the other who is served and obeyed and what is yet more strange two Sons of God in the self-same Person of J. C. our Lord. The Son saith Hermas is the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is the Servant Now if the Divine Nature of J. C. be denoted by the Spirit and that the Servant signifies the Human Nature you will have two Sons according to the very Letter Thus the Orthodox embroil all things to fish for Mysteries in Troubled Water whereas nothing is more clear than the meaning of Hermas He allegorizeth and would say By him whom the Parable calls the Son I mean nothing else but the Holy Spirit and by him whom the Parable calls a Servant I mean J. C. our Lord who out of the Parable is the proper Son of
It 's well known that the Latin Church has always read which was manifested in the Flesh We may be well assured that the whole Greek Church did not read otherwise by Gelazius of Cizicus's putting this Reading into the Mouths of the Fathers of the Nicene Council He says that Macarius Bishop of Jerusalem answering the Argument of a Philosopher cited this Passage of St. Paul But how In the same manner as we read it in the Vulgar Latin The Mystery of Godliness is great which was manifested in the Flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But that Father not fully satisfied with the Letter of the Text added this Gloss that is to say The Son of God a perfectly Spiritual Exposition which being since slid into the Text gave birth to our present Reading God manifested in the Flesh And here an Allegorical Exposition is again taken for an express Text of Scripture It is the same with the Word some one having allegorized according to the Custom of that time on the Words of Moses And God said or on those of the Psalmist My Heart hath uttered a good Word or on those of St. John In the beginning was the Word c. and having expressed his Allegory in too absolute Terms there needed no more to Men prepossessed with false Platonism to make them regard such an allegorical Exposition as the Doctrine of the Church The same thing that happen'd among the Hereticks has also fallen out among those who call themselves Orthodox And we need not wonder that the same Platonism which both the one and the other made profession of cast them both into the same Wandrings This is what I mean and my Conjecture comes near to Demonstration We have seen that Valentine a great Sectary of Plato having allegoriz'd on Divine Ideas and Dispensations and having spoken of them under the Fiction of as many Persons his Disciples not understanding his Allegory made Personal Substances of those feigned Persons If Valentine's Followers misunderstood the sense of their Master can we doubt but that the same thing happened to the Platonist Fathers in their misapprehending the allegorical way of philosophizing used by their Predecessors and in converting mere Divine Manifestations into Personal Substances For my part I do not at all doubt of their having imitated each other The Doctors of both sides had at the same time the same Ideas viz. the Principles of refin'd Platonism delighting in Allegory and the Fiction of Persons And the Disciples of each Party at the same time chang'd their Masters Ideas and fell into gross Platonism which finds Hypostases in every thing Whatever Party Men happened to be ingag'd in they rarely miss following the then prevailing Philosophy and suting themselves to the Humour and Genius of that Age. When Allegory was in vogue all as well Orthodox as Hereticks allegoriz'd each with reference to his own System some under the Fiction of Three Aeons and others under that of Thirty So also when gross Platonism had prevailed all delighted in Hypostases and follow'd the Philosophy in fash on 'T is the Fate of Hypostases the Hamour of the Age regulates them Thus refined Platonism degenerated into gross Platonism and allegorical Expositions into a gross literal Sense It often happening that Disciples much misunderstand their Masters or go further than they to say something new But to conclude which way soever Innovation begins it passes in very little time from Sect to Sect Heathens Hereticks Orthodox all embrace the new Method Their Doctrines are different but their manner of philosophizing on those Doctrines is alike and uniform Perhaps they may not agree in the Nature of what they call Principles nor in their Names Number or Order nor on their Age or Excellence nor in their other Qualities and Prerogatives but however it be with these they shall all agree that they are Hypostases Personal Substances because the Philosophy of the Age requires it CHAP. XIX A Digression concerning the pretended unalterable Faith of the Church T IS pretended that the Church is so faithful a Guardian of the Tradition that it cannot be liable to these sorts of Changes But one must have a slender Acquaintance with Antiquity and less Experience of what happens every day to deceive ones self with so wretched an Answer The Church is jealous of certain Terms and she is a faithful Repository that 's agreed But provided one does not meddle with the Terms which she holds sacred and inviolable one may change the Hypotheses as much as one pleases and they have been changed with Impunity and without giving much Trouble to the Church Dr. Wallis and Dr. Sherlock hold two Hypotheses directly opposite to one another for the first urges so strongly the Vnity of God that he loses the Trinity of Persons and the latter willing to maintain the Trinity has quite lost the Vnity One of these two no matter which has changed the Tradition Let the Church speak therefore and declare herself if she can for one of these Hypotheses Let her condemn and anathematize the other let her chastize the Authors of it and cast them out of her Bosom No she will nor do it she is not concerned whither a false Hypothesis may lead her provided it does not change her Terms which are Sacred and her Favourites For instance suppose that it has always been believed hitherto that three Persons signify but three Modes or three Relations or three Differences c. You may say notwithstanding without fearing the good Matron will formally declare himself that three Persons are no less than three Spirits and three Beings provided you retain the Terms she uses in her Prayers and say devoutly with her O holy blessed and glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have Mercy upon us miserable Sinners The Reason is plainly this she is very quick at hearing if you pronounce these Words one God and three Persons But with what Modesty will she judg of the sense of those Terms having no certain Idea for ' em If instead of three Persons I say four or five the Church will declare me an Heretick this is all she can do In short whether these three Persons are three Modes or three distinct Substances this is a Theology too nice and curious for the Church's Decision and as to this she leaves all her Children to their Liberty of believing as they can The Church has been always the same without doubt she might condemn as Hereâ—â—â—â— those who reckoned thirty Persons or thirty Aeons in the Divine Essence as the Gnosticks did But for others who did but change three feigned and allegorical Persons into three personal Substances she has let them alone or rather she has allowed them as her dear Children to accommodate and sure her to the prevailing Philosophy the better to draw into her Communion the grossest Platonists who made a great Figure in the Schools Isaac Vossius in his second Letter to Rivet goes farther and ventures to say
change or vary and the things we make them to signify may not vary at all in our Minds or suffer the least Alteration The Facts for instance mention'd in the Apostles Creed are things of that nature the Ideas whereof are preserv'd without any Change As its Articles are plain few in Number without any Speculations and contain only the Primitive Doctrines of Christianity it was easy therefore to preserve the sense and to have always a true Knowledg of them 'T is a Faith as I may say that 's born with us that offers it self to our Understandings from the Moment we enter into the Church that is in the Mouth and Heart or every Christian and there is no need of ascending into Heaven of consulting Councils nor of descending into the Deeps to know it and employing Missions of Dragoons to impose the Lelief of it Wherefore Cyril in Catech. 5. Ruffinus in Expos Symbol Jerom in Epist 61. ad Pâ—mmach c. 9. Hilarius de Synod had good reason to say That the Creed was not only written upon Paper but upon the Tables of the Heart and in the Mind of Man Expressions that Jeremy and St. Paul make use of about the Precepts of the Gospel to signify that there 's no need of a Teacher to learn them because Reason is capable of suggesting them and Memory of retaining them The Passage of St. Hilary is the more remarkable because he makes an express Opposition between this Faith graven upon the Heart and that which is only in the Letter and the Writings of Men For he congratulates the Western Bishops for their maintaining the Apostolic Faith for the Spirit wherewith they were animated and that they knew not the Forms of Faith which were written by Mens Hands The Spirit here does not signify the Holy Ghost as Mons Du Pin supposes but the Spiritual Sense in opposition to the Literal Which shews that there was no need of writing down the Apostles Creed in the first Ages of the Church Every one had the sense of it in his Mind As it was short and plain and consisting only of the principal Facts and Primitive Truths which constitute the very Essence and Spirit of the Christian Religion it was easy for the most illiterate to keep it in mind as to the Substance of it for the rest every one expressed himself as he pleased Hence it was that 't was very late before any Formula was drawn up and that too with some difference in the Terms and Number of Articles particularly in those which seem to explain one another It ought not to be wonâ—red at after this if it be not found among the antient Doctors to be just as we have it at this day They received it only by Tradition and worded it upon occasion every one in his own way The Christians says Dupin Tom. 1. p. 30. had this Faith so ready in their Minds that they did not stick to any certain Form hence came the difference in point of Form of the Creeds mentioned by the Fathers Moreover it must not be supposed that when some particular Christians came at length to enlarge the Apostles Creed by their Platonic Speculations the People entered into those Notions and Philosophical Ideas They always kept themselves to that Simplicity of Faith which the general Spirit of Religion had imprinted upon their Minds The Christian Religion says Mons Le Vassor Traite de l'Examen ch 2. p. 69. was at no great distance from its first and primitive Simplicity till the Council of Nice If Origen and some others before that attempted to adjust it to the Principles of Pagan Philosophy their novel Speculations were not generally received In short Origen shews us that nothing but the Word revealed was preached to the People that is to say Jesus Christ crucified but the Word-God glorified was reserved for Persons of the higher Class that is for Favourite Souls who had spiritualized themselves in Plato's School Wherefore History tell us that to bring in this Platonizing Faith into the Church and to make Entrance for it into the Minds of ordinary Christians there was â—eed of no less than the Anthority of Emperors the Cabals of Councils and the Violence of Penal Laws Monsieur Jurieu speaks to the very same effect Says he all the vain empty Speculations of the Doctors of that time the Fathers of the three first Ages did no harm to the pure Faith of the Church that is the People Tabl. du Socin 1 part Let. 6. p. 269. The Speculations had not yet reached the People they continued in the Simplicity For the rest it was for the Speculative Divines and Philosophers bred in Plato's School such as the Justin Martyrs the Tatians and the Athanagoras's were and other Platonizing Doctors of that sort Then Jurieu concludes saying There 's no body but knows that Theological Explications are not matters of Faith 'T is true we must do this Justice to Jurieu as to own that he made room for the Mystery of God in three Persons in this Simplicity of the Primitive Faith But it would really be a wrong done to his Judgment and good Sense to believe that he spoke it seriously For in short if he would not affirm that the Belief of three Persons which are but one God was one of those Platonizing Speculations against which he so much declaims at least he ought to own that 't is an Explication that has nothing of Simplicity in it and which by consequence cannot be a matter of Faith I desire him to remember a Remark he has made in his seventh Pastoral Letter That when Learning was scarce among Christians two or three Learned Men drew the People into their Opinions He could have informed us better that two or three Platonizing Fathers for they were the Learned Men of the Age were able to mislead the People from the Simplicity of their Faith to the Theology of Plato If it be true that the People knew this profound Theology Mons Jurieu has spoken more truly than he thought For we find at the bottom of the Letter that two Learned Platonists Origen who had his Admirers in the East and St. Austin who had his in the West have not only led the People into their Opinions but likewise all the Learned Men that came after them who have only copied from them And consequently this Theology whether it be to be found only among the Learned or with the People too was none other than a strange Faith which the Learned brought into the Church and after drew the People into it It amounts to the same thing either the People understood it not or if they did 't was by surprize that the Learned impos'd their Mysteries and made the common People receive a Pagan Notion for the Doctrine of J. C. CHAP. XX. Of the Divine Polity or Oeconomy taught by the Fathers HAving given some account of the way of Allegories us'd by the Fathers I must not forget to say something
Sense of Contemplation 'T is moreover upon the same account that so many great Men are said to Judaize because they were for keeping the Scriptures in their natural and literal Sense such were Aquila Symmachus Theodotion and others 'T is evident that the Fathers who were for appearing Learned and would not be outdone by the Gnosticks have allegoriz'd after the very manner of those Hereticks but upon such things that had some sort of Foundation in the Scriptures and in the Philosophy of those Times embrac'd by the Jews or the Platonick Party As for instance about the Ideas and Decrees of God concerning the Messiah about the Soul of the Messiah about the Spirit that form'd and after sanctified him about the Angels that were the Preludia of his Mission or lastly about that Word of God which created the World to whom they ascrib'd Personality after the Platonick way The Word or Logos might signify all these things the Wisdom of God that dwelt in Jesus Christ his pre-existent Soul the Spirit that form'd him and the facility with which he wrought so many Miracles only as it were at the expence of a Word After this manner the Jews have allegoriz'd upon the seven things that they say were created before the World among which they count the Name or the Glory of the Messiah To say the truth the Oeconomy of the Fathers very often varys For at one time they are for concealing the sublimer part of their Mysteries that they mayn't give offence to some sturdy Minds that will not so readily give way to mystical Notions At other times they pass over the plainer part of Religion to gain upon their speculative Gentlemen who admire chiefly what we call the Wonderful But however they are always constant in pursuing this Design of their Oeconomy and Rule of Prudence in adapting themselves to the Genius and Relish of every body in making Mystery of every thing to beget in their Scholars a Veneration for their Opinions when they come to be acquainted with ' em And further they take care to distinguish between those Opinions which were transmitted to 'em by the Writings of the Apostles and others which came from the same Apostles by Tradition only and in Mystery as St. Basil speaks Lib. de Spir. S. ad Amphil. Cap. 27. that is by the way of secret Discipline and Instruction Clemens of Alexandria makes mention of these last Opinions Stromat 5. p. 576. and calls 'em The Lesson of the Perfect which consists in certain spiritual and sublime Senses which were deliver'd vivâ voce and by Tradition but the Apostles could not set 'em down in their Epistles This Expedient of setret Tradition open'd a wide Field for philosophizing according to their humour and is adapted to the purpose of introducing new Opinions into Religion We must be upon our guard when we are reading their Writings and take very little of them in the literal Sense where every thing almost is allegorical and they are throout pursuing what we call the Wonderful 'T is well known to the Protestants that the Declamations and Apostrophe's of the Fathers have given birth to some Errors and the Idolatry practis'd at this day They know well enough how to account for the hyperbolical Expositions of the Antients upon the Eucharist as that Jesus Christ was offer'd upon an Altar that he was slain strangl'd extended died carry'd bury'd c. And these ridiculous Apostrophe's O great and sacred Passover the Purgation of our Sins c. Greg. Naz. O Divine and sacred Mystery vouchsase to remove the Veil wherewith we are encompassed and manifest your self clearly to us by enlightning with your brightness the Eyes of our Mind See Counterseit Denis These Apostrophe's seem to deify the Sacrament and to make it a Person Why should we not acknowledg at the same time that the over-curious Platonism of the same Fathers has led 'em into those extravagant Descriptions whereby they have made a second God a Person of the Word or Logos a Son begotten before Ages and incarnate in time Mysteries no less strange than that of Transubstantiation Who does not see that they had a mind to speak magnificently of every thing They ascrib'd a Divine and extraordinary Virtue to the Oil and the Cream They say that the Holy Ghost has chang'd and transform'd 'em by a Divine Emcacy They have said no less of Baptism for they believ'd the Divinity and the Holy Ghost descending and insinuating it self into the Water us'd in that Sacrament imparts to it the Power and Virtue of regenerating They allow that the Eucharist shews a Divine and quickening Virtue emanating from the Body of the incarnate Word The Word according to them is an Emanation from the Substance of God The Body of Christ is hypostatically united to the Word The Bread is hypostatically united to that Divine Body and consequently hath the quickening Virtue of the Word They own a twofold Emanation the Word is the Emanation of God and the quickening Virtue of his Flesh is an Emanation of the Word And they hold a twofold Incarnation one of the Word in the Body of Jesus Christ and another of the quickening Virtue of the Body of Christ in the Bread of the Sacrament This was a System of Policy well contriv'd whereby these cunning Doctors brought nothing less than Divinity into every thing and spoke with advantage upon the meanest Subjects to make 'em look mysterious and venerable It may be said of them as has been observ'd of those who make Canons in Councils that they spake more than they meant so that many Ages after Mysteries are discover'd in their Expressions which they never dreamt of I have met with nothing so like that as these two Apostrophe's which the Church of Rome chants in her Liturgy One is address'd to the Trinity O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and One God have Mercy upon us miserable Sinners The other is address'd to the Cross of Christ O Cross my only Hope I salute thee at this time of the Passion increase the Righteousness of Good Men and pardon the Crimes of the Wicked Here you have two Saints which one and the same Superstition hath canoniz'd two Prayers cast in the same Mould for both one and t'other are the fruit of Idolatry and of false Eloquence Upon which I will make this Observation that it has fal'n out with the Oeconomy of these Primitive Fathers as it has with the Admirers of Episcopacy here in England who having retain'd a Liturgy and divers Ceremonies that they might bring over the more Papists to their Communion yet they still continue to look upon those things at this time in a sort necessary to Religion altho there 's now no more occasion for that Reason of Prudence and even as great a Reason of Charity and a second Reason of Prudence should oblige 'em to relax or lay 'em by to gain the Non-Conformists 'T is the same case with the Allegorical
their profound Speculations For to theologize according to them is not only to speak of God and his Attributes but of Angels too of Aeons of Ideas of Emanations and in a word of every thing that belongs to the intelligible World of the Platonists Theology being a Term affected by all the contemplative Gentlemen whether Orthodox or Gnosticks These sort of Folks did not regard the Facts of the Gospel which prove its Divine Authority any otherwise than as grosser Proofs proper for vulgar weaker Minds But for Contemplation the Case was quite otherwise this they thought a noble and powerful Medium by which Souls of the first Rank elevated themselves to the Knowledg of the noblest Truths Yet the Gospel is not founded upon any thing but Facts and the chief Objects of our Faith are certain Facts contained in the Apostles Creed Is it not therefore a putting the Gospel upon another Foot if we carry on our Contemplations to Abstractions and the Ideas of a crude chimerical Metaphysicks 'T is an extravagant System if instead of Facts well proved and rightly circumstanced there be nothing left but a mere Operation of the Understanding and an Ens Rationis which these Gentlemen are pleas'd to call the Word or the Son theologized That great Man Mons Jurieu whom God was pleased to favour with the knowledg of every thing did not fail to set aside this false Theology of the Fathers 7 Ler. Past de la 3. Année Besides the Faith of the Vulgar says he which was immediately founded upon the Sacred Writings the Doctors fram'd a Theology that is they undertook to expound the Mysteries in a sense beyond that wherein the Holy Scriptures themselves have delivered them And 't is in that they have disagreed and one must not wonder at it because the things they went about to explain were profound and it may be inexplicable and because they made use of a false Philosophy which they brought into their Theology And by so doing they have ruined Theology and at last Religion in all Ages The Faith of the Antients therefore must not be condemned as if it were changed altho they disagreed in their Theology And it must be noted that this Theology should not be admitted into the Faith that is Articles of Faith should not be formed out of Theological Expositions Is not this much for the Honour of the Theology of the Antients According to Mons Jurieu these good Doctors could not theologize the Son without hazarding the Faith and consequently one ought not to receive amongst the Articles of Faith their theological Explications concerning a Son begotten and not made an Internal Word and a Word brought forth c. Nevertheless it 's well known that the Fathers consider'd the theological Sense not only as true but as that which the Spirit of God had chiefly in its view So that they who would impose the Faith of the theological Sense of the Word because the Fathers urg'd it are themselves obliged to receive all the other theological Senses which the same Fathers have given to so many other Terms in Scripture and which they believe to be no less the Purport and Design of the Holy Ghost which yet is not done but they are looked upon even as ridiculous Why therefore is it not acknowledged bona Fide also that the Exposition of the Logos or Word is one of those wretched Allegories so much declaimed against at that day and an Article of that false Theology which is incompatible with the Christian Faith But let us pay as much respect to the Fathers as we can let us preserve their Theology be it so provided that the theological Sense be not said to be designed for any other than contemplative and seraphic Minds and that no more than the Faith or Belief of the plain natural sense be requir'd of Men as Men Origen was too fair to desire more than this he acquaints his Readers at the beginning of his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Sacred Writers did not concern themselves with abstruse Matters and speculative Subjects which few of them whom they called to the Christian Religion were capable of understanding but confined themselves to those few clear Articles which were necessary for the Reformation of the World to bring them into a State of Righteousness and give them hopes of Immortality Leaving the more refined Contemplations which were not contrary to prime Truths to the commendable Curiosity of those whom Nature and Education had qualify'd for such Enquiries Dr. Rust in his Discourse of Origen and the chief of his Opinions has observed also That there were necessary Truths which the Apostles had clearly taught and the Church received the contrary whereto cannot be received without retrenching an essential part of Religion But that there were besides some Contemplations about which the Scriptures had not determin'd any thing and that the Truth as to these matters was purposely concealed by the Holy Ghost as Origen thought to excite their Study and Industry who were Lovers of the Truth that the Discovery of so great a Treasure might be a Recompence for their pious Enquiries Without doubt all the other Fathers agreed in this very Principle with Origen that the contemplative Subjects were not necessary nor essential to Religion that they did not oblige ordinary Christians and that they were left to the commendable Enquiries of the Curious Servetus who constantly imitates the Fathers agrees in this tho he was in other respects a great Admirer of Platonism and Contemplation The Apostles says he de Trinit lib. 2. p. 50. did not rashly publish this great Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word 't was after several Essays and having fasted and prayed that St. John pronounced these Words In the beginning was the Word c. 'T was sufficient to Salvation to believe that Jesus was the Christ or the Messias the Son of God the Saviour of the World The common People were justified by this Faith alone altho they did not exactly know his Divinity You therefore pious Readers who are not able to comprehend the manner of his Generation nor the whole Fulness of his Divinity always believe that he is the Messias begotten of God and thy Saviour This is the only thing you should believe that you may live by him But let us hear Origen speak for himself 't is in his Preface to St. John that one shall find the famous distinction he makes between the intelligible and the sensible Gospel and how he there divides Christians into two Classes the one of those who are Children in the Faith and are led by the Rudiments of the Gospel and the other of those intelligent and elevated Minds who are capable of understanding the Divinity of the glorified God That Doctor or Teacher says he who is willing to profit all Persons cannot however make the secret and sublime Christianity known to such who can only understand the plain and the revealed Christianity Wherefore
this matter before he was well aware 'T is Bp Pearson I mean in his Vindication of Ignat. Epist Part. 2. cap. 1. where he tells you Ignatius was one of those Primitive Fathers qui Christum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is who deify'd Jesus Christ or gave him the Title of a God which was also done by the Catholick Doctors and Christians of his time who as Pliny reports it sang Hymns to Jesus Christ as to a God and who as one of the Antients tells us in Euseb Eccl. Hist lib. 5. c. 28. did celebrate the Praises of Jesus Christ the Word of God by ascribing to him Divinity But after the Philosophy of Plato was received in the Church the Writers of the second and third Century are not wont to speak of Jesus Christ with so much simplicity as barely to call him God This manner of speaking of Jesus Christ has the relish of St. Ignatius his time who simply or barely call'd him God Photius reproaches Clemens Romanus for not giving the Title of God to Jesus Christ which so well became him Hence it appears that this able Critick thought the Practice of giving Christ the Title of a God was peculiar to this first Age of the Church But the Title God so often given to Christ by Ignatius tho not with the restriction with which 't is done by the succeeding Fathers but simply and by it self is indeed a mark of the Antiquity of St. Clemens his Writings He imitates throughout the Epistles of St. Paul which had been received from the beginning in all Churches but he rarely cites the Gospels which had been more lately received He has nothing in his Epistles of human Learning nothing that does not become the Simplicity of an Apostolick Man and the Purity of the Gospel They who wrote after him usually borrow from the Pagans and sometimes blend their Opinions with the Christian Religion which every one did according to the Principles of that Philosophy they had imbib'd before they embrac'd Christianity Ignatius had for a long time been a Bishop and became a Christian at a time when very few of the Learned Gentiles turn'd Christians but we find him to be purely the Christian not form'd in the Schools or nurs'd up in Librarys and without the Sentiments of the Academy or the Portico Bp Pearson acquaints us in this fine Passage that the Antients did theologize that is attribute Divinity to Jesus Christ and spoke of him as a God This taken in a good Sense very well explains what they understood by the title of a God when they gave it to Jesus Christ They meant nothing else by it but this that they look'd upon him as a Divine and extraordinary Man and that they honour'd him as such In short it would not be proper to say that the Antients sang Hymns to the Father as to a God quasi Deo that they celebrated the Praises of the Father by ascribing Divinity to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deifying him this would be ridiculous Language We don't use to speak thus of the Supreme God These Expressions cannot sute any other Object but one who has not Divinity in an absolute Sense but in certain respects only And 't is upon the following accounts that Jesus Christ was spoken of as a God either with regard to his Nature being the Son of God form'd by the Operation of his Spirit or with regard to his Dignity since that the Father by making him Lord and Christ had made him God as St. Ambrose reads this Passage Lib. 1. de fide ad Grat. Aug. Cap. 7. 'T is true this Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in another sense is sometimes us'd with respect to God the Father but then it signifies nothing else but to speak with reverence of the Deity to celebrate his Praises and not to deify or ascribe Divinity to him Vide Euseb Hist Eccles lib. 10. cap. 3. In the first of the Senses abovementioned the term may be well applied to Jesus Christ to express the Divine Honours they gave him For if he was Man because a Woman was his Mother it might also be said that he was a God and a God by Nature for being born of a Virgin he had none other Father but God Natura a nascendo But he deserves this high Character yet further forasmuch as the Father has highly exalted him and given him a Name above every Name By this Name says Novatian de Trinit cap. 17. we understand nothing else but the Name of God Because he was faithful says Lactantius Institut lib. 4. cap. 14. and had exactly done the Will of his Father he received the Name or Title of God 'T is in this sense that the Author of the second Epistle ascrib'd to Clemens Romanus exhorts us to think of Christ as of a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he explains that by subjoining as of the Judg of Quick and Dead Shewing us thereby that he gave him not that Name but with regard to the Power the Father bestowed upon him for his Obedience This is the very Theology of St. Paul Heb. 1. who tells us that God made Christ more excellent than the Angels when he said to him thou art my Son that is plainly that then he made him a God For 't is of his Exaltation the Apostle speaks as appears by his Citation out of the Psalms O God thy God has anointed thee for so I read it as the Trinitarians do Now a God anointed and consecrated is nothing but a King and consequently Jesus Christ is God with regard to the Dominion he has received from the Father over the New Creation But with respect to God the Father he is nothing but the Minister of his Will If he be called Lord that 's no more than a Term of Inferiority in the New Testament which signifies one whom the Father hath appointed his Vicegerent and it cannot be understood otherwise because 't is said the Father has made him Lord. St. Paul exactly follows this Sense for in all the Symbols he mentions he takes care to ascribe the Name of God only to the Father excluding the Son and saying the Father is the One God and the Son the One Lord which St. Paul does always when he speaks of Father and Son together And this is an Observation I had from Tertullian who speaks thus in his Dispute against Praxeas I will not say two Gods and two Lords but I will follow the Apostle St. Paul and if the Father and the Son are to be nam'd together I 'll call the Father God and Jesus Christ Lord. But if Jesus Christ be named alone then I may call him God as the Apostle himself does when he says Of whom is Christ who is God over all things blessed for ever But in my opinion Novation expresses the thing more clearly in his Discourse de Trinitate cap. ult God the Father says he is without contradiction the God of all and the very
that be Dr. Bull deceives himself grosly in supposing this Creed of Cyril to be the antient Creed of Jerusalem We can produce another of greater Antiquity which the same Church ascribes to the Apostle St. James Bishop Vsher de Symbol p. 10. presents us with it It must be minded says the Primate that there were two sorts of Creeds us'd by the Easterns one contracted which Ruffinus compares with that of Rome and Aquileia the other fuller and larger Among the first we place the Creed of Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I believe in one God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God c. Thus 't is read in the antient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem ascribed to St. James who is held to have been the first Bishop of that Place and with this Creed an Office was read once a year in memory of its Antiquity And since the Articles that follow have which I mightily regret been left out as suppos'd to be generally known I thought it proper to repair this Loss by substituting in the room of what is wanting the entire Confession of the Apostolic Faith that Cyril expounded to the Illuminated at Jerusalem which indeed is somewhat larger as it appears by this addition at the beginning viz. visible and invisible The short Creed which Vsher gives us being made by St. James it follows that of Cyril is an Exposition and Commentary And 't is impossible on the contrary that this should be an Abridgment of Cyril's Creed for nothing can be more antient than the draught of an Apostle Without doubt the shorter Creed is the Original and the larger none other than a Copy stuffed and lengthened with a wretched Platonism and has not Simplicity enough to pass for an Apostle's but it may without wrong be accounted the Work of a Platonizing Faction But let that be as it will there is good ground for believing that Dr. Bull had a mind to deceive us in dissembling his Knowledg of this antient Creed of St. James of which Bishop Vsher makes mention and in palming upon us for the most antient Eastern Creed that of S. Cyril which is so very different For altho we have but two Articles of the Jerusalem Creed which is the same with what we call the Apostles yet these two are sufficient to shew that the Apostles Creed is in effect the most antient of all however Dr. Bull Jud. Eccles p. 128. pretends it to have been of later Date And I say further this may satisfy us that at this time of Cyril the Mother of all Churches had strangely alter'd her Faith Bishop Vsher observed what was added to the first Article Who doubts but that like might have been done to others about which there were far greater disputes He might have observed the same and the thing is obvious that the second Article concerning the Person of J. C. being entire as it appears by the Oriental Creed of Ruffinas which goes no further it follows then that all that which is in Cyril upon the same Article has been added since Platonism prevailed Ruffinus says Bishop Vsher has compar'd the shorter of these two Oriental Creeds with the Roman wherefore this shorter Creed was not the same with the Roman let the Doctor say what he will nor are we to be much concern'd as the Primate speaks for the Loss of it◠Ruffinus has preserv'd it Almost all the Eastern Churches says he in Symbol Apost give us their Creed after this manner I believe in one God the Father Almighty and then in the following Article whereas we say and in J. C. his only Son our Lord they say in one Lord J. C. his only Son professing one God and one Lord according to the Doctrine of St. Paul Note here all the difference the Easterns made between their Creed and that we call the Apostles There 's nothing in 'em of the Pre-existence of J. C. and his Generation before Ages as you have it in Cyril's Creed This shews that the Article concerning J. C. goes no farther in this part of the Oriental Creed which Bishop Vsher gives us that the etc. does not retrench any part of it but is plac'd at the end of the Article only to shew that the remaining Articles are omitted We may conclude therefore that all the Jargon of the Platovic Philosophy in Cycil's Greed took place of the antient simple Tradition which was I believe in J. C. the only Son of God who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary And consequently the antient Opinion of the Filiation and Deification of J. C. ran no higher than his being born of a Virgin by the Power of the Holy Ghost this was the true Theology concerning him Ruffinus had reason for calling this plain Confession the Tradition of his Ancestors meaning thereby not the Doctors bigotted with Plato's Enthusiasm but the whole Body of the Church the People as Du Pin observes Tom. 1. p. 30. who doubtless never enter'd into the Speculations of those Doctors Let us see what Marcellus wrote to Pope Julius Epiphan haeres 72. where after he had said what he thought fit concerning the Word which he denies to be an Hypostasis distinct from the Father saying it subsists in the Father and that 't is his very Wisdom and his inseparable Power he confines himself to this Confession of Faith which he says he had received from the Scripture and his Ancestors I believe in God Almighty and in J. C. his only Son our Lord begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried the third day be was raised from the Dead and ascended into Heaven and sat at the right hand of God Whence he shall come to judg the Quick and the Dead And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Holy Church the Remission of Sins the Resurrection of the Flesh the Life everlasting See here in express words the Creed we call the Apostles the antient Theology without Platonism without Speoulation There 's nothing retrench'd from the antient Confessions of Faith yet Retrenchments were not unusual amongst some of them If therefore some Creeds are found to be larger in some of the Antients 't is according to their laudable Practice by an addition of their novel Interpretations This is the more evident because that pretended Interpretations are found to be pure Platonism with which 't is known they were extremely bigotted CHAP. VIII Reflections upon the Apostles Creed with respect to the foregoing Doctrine TO render the Antiquity of the Apostles Creed doubtful 't is said that 't is notorious that the greater part of the Articles have been added from time to time and upon divers occasions What of that if those additional Articles are not in the present Contest Is it not enough that the three Articles concerning the Father the Son and the Holy
Holy Ghost In the next place let 's attend to Irenaeus who takes the Terms mere Man in the same sense as Justin They says he lib. 3. c. 23. who call him i. e. Christ a mere Man begotten by Joseph continue in the Bondage of the antient Disobedience They then according to Irenaeus held J. C. to be a mere Man who believed he was begotten by Joseph and consequently not begotten by the Holy Ghost of a Virgin To make good this Charge against those Persons it was not it seems necessary they should have denied a Platonic Generation But the Passage is so clear it needs no gloss I proceed to another Father and that is Euseb in his 3. B. c. 27. where he speaks thus of the Ebionites They believe J. C. to be a mere Man an ordinary Person begotten by Joseph and Mary but otherwise a just Man and extraordinary for his Vertue You see how Eusebius when Platonism did not run in his Head acquaints us that they were none other than Ebionites who held J. C. was begotten by Joseph and Mary upon which account it may be truly said that they made him a mere ordinary Man This scap'd Eusebius without doubt by his following the Mode of speaking according to antient Tradition which opposed in the Hereticks of that time not those Christians who denied an eternal Generation of the Substance of God for where was that Notion then but the Ebionites who contested the miraculous Generation of the Substance of a Virgin It remains that I examine two Passages of Epiphanius The 1st is in his account of the 29th Heresy which is that of the Nazarenes whom he ranks among the Hereticks altho Irenaeus who must have known them better has made no mention of this pretended Heresy I do not affirm says Epiphanius of those Nazarenes whether following the Impiety of Cerinthus they received J. C. to be but a mere Man or whether they acknowledged which is the Truth that he was begotten by the Power of the Holy Ghost on the Virgin Mary The two things oppos'd in this Passage make it evident to our present Trinitarians that it is not believing J. C. to be a mere Man when with Socinus 't is own'd that he was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary The second Passage of Epiphanius is in his 54th Heresy which is that called the Theodotians who he tells you held J. C. to be a mere Man How so Why because they believed he was begotten by a Man This is clear one Proposition explains t'other to be a mere Man and to be begotten by a Man are Phrases equivalent And by the Rule of Contraries to be begotten by the Holy Ghost is to be more than a mere Man that is to be the Son of God The Angel tells us as much and without doubt these were the Words which were the Foundation of the Theology of the Antients For says the Angel The Power of the Highest shall overshaddow thee and that which shall be born of thee not that which was begotten from Eternity but that which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God The Angel alludes to the Spirit of God which overshadowed the Chaos as if he would say that the same Power of God which drew the World out of that unshapen Mass would likewise cause the Messias to be born of Matter as infertile as the Chaos it self even of the Womb of a Virgin and that because of this extraordinary Birth he should be called the Son of God See Maldonate in Loc. The Expressions of the Angel have that force in them that the Moderns themselves when they are free from Prejudice and their Minds are not engaged in the Controversy have made them their Rule according to which they express themselves as to the Filiation of J. C. often alledging his Conception of the Holy Ghost as the formal Reason that made him the Son of God in opposition to Son of Man Thus Bishop Vsber us'd them in explaining a Passage of Ignatius Dissertat in Ignat. cap. 12. where he says The Devil knew not whether the Mother of our Saviour who was married to a Man was a Virgin at the Birth of the Child nor whether the new-born Infant ought to be called the Son of God or the Son of Joseph This Learned Person explaining an Apostolic Doctrine speaks in an Apostolic Manner He opposes Son of Joseph to Son of God but to what Son of God To a Son begotten from all Eternity 'T is plain enough of what Son he is speaking 't is to a Son of God who was begotten by the Holy Ghost who was not the Son of any Man altho he was born of a Woman and who had none but God for his Father So Grotius upon Mark 1.1 having given the reason why St. Mark spoke nothing of the miraculous Birth of J. C. he adds That 't was not necessary to speak of it till there were such who held that J. C. was no more than a mere Man From which Words of this great Critic it follows that to hold J. C. to be a mere Man is not to deny him to be the supreme God but to deny that he was born of a Virgin Dr. Bull in his Judicium Eccles p. 43. objects against this antient Faith that no Writer has spoken of it as of a Tradition different from the Platonic Faith which is pretended to have prevailed afterwards That on the contrary Eusebius gives this Testimony of the Bishops of Jerusalem that they had a right Knowledg of J. C. and that their Doctrine was sound on this Article But that which I am now going to say concerning this antient Faith and that which shall be said hereafter makes it evident enough that 't is to little purpose for the Doctor to boast that Antiquity is altogether silent in this matter As for his Proof from Eusebius 't is too uncertain and general to be us'd as an Argument in our Question Eusebius says in general that the Antients were sound in their Opinion or had a right Knowledg of J. C. Who doubts it Since in believing him to be born of a Virgin by the Operation of the Holy Ghost and not by her Conversation with Joseph they professed the sound Doctrine of that time and they rejected the Error oppos'd to it which made J. C. but a mere Man But Eusebius 't will be said could not speak so but with regard to his own Opinion which was that of the Pre-existence But I shall reply whence had Eusebius his Information that the Doctrine of the Antients was sound Was it not from Hegesippus or as he himself says from Monuments of the Antients which is the same thing But if this antient Author Hegesippus did not believe the Platonic Pre-existence as Eusebius did will it not follow that the Doctrine of these Bishops was sound not with respect to the sense of Eusebius but with regard to the antient Author who gives them that
and his Spirit And further to make it clearer that this Father always confounds the Holy Ghost with the Word I must observe that in the last Passage I am about to cite he applies to the Holy Ghost the same Words of Solomon which are ordinarily applied to the Son The Word says he who is the Son was always with the Father and because the Wisdom which is the Holy Ghost was also with God before the Creation it speaks thus by Solomon God hath founded the Earth by his Wisdom c. and again The Lord created me c. There is therefore but One God who hath made all things by his Wisdom and by his Word CHAP. XI A Continuation of the same Proofs that the Antients understood by the Word and the Holy Ghost one and the same thing BUT after all you will say Irenaeus makes an express distinction between the Word and the Spirit I answer Yes But David makes the same distinction too and from him I believe the Fathers borrowed theirs The Heavens says he were formed by the Word of the Lord and by the Breath of his Mouth By the way who will be so weak as to affirm that he did not mean by these two words the same Power of God as if the Word was not the Breath of his Mouth and the Breath of his Mouth the Word Can one forbear smiling when one sees our Divines put David in the number of the Trinitarians In fine Irenaeus extols the Generation of the son of God by the Operation of the Holy Ghost as infinitely more excellent than the Generation of the first Man which was by breathing Life into him or by the Divine Breath Irenaeus affirms it but Dr. Bull denies it maintaining that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God by virtue of his miraculous Conception in a manner more excellent than Adam was by virtue of his immediate Generation or Formation by God's own hand Let us suppose it as the Doctor would have it yet after all he must agree that this Holy Father carries the Parallel that he makes between the first and second Adam no further than their Generation which was equally extraordinary in both This appears in the 31st Chapter of his 3d Book If the first Adam says he had his Being from a Man it might be said with some shew of reason that 't is the same as to the second Adam and that Joseph was his Father But if it be true on the contrary that the first was form'd out of the Earth by the Word of God must not the same Word acting with the same Power as he did at the Formation of Adam carry a resemblance of the same Generation Let this Comparison be a little minded it contains this clearly that God did no more in the Generation of the second Adam in whom he would dwell than in that of the first Adam that Adam and Jesus Christ are the immediate Production of this Word Consequently there 's no more reason to infer the hypostatick Union of the Word with Jesus Christ than with Adam this Word being as you see nothing but the Power of God which having immediately formed the first Man did also form Jesus Christ after the same primitive manner of Generation All the difference is that God was pleas'd to dwell in the latter after an extraordinary manner Let 's see in the next place what Tertullian has to say He was a great Platonist but that Party does not always strictly observe the Rules of Platonism They have their lucid Intervals wherein some Remains of the antient Tradition drop from their Pens Whenever they philosophize according to the humour of that Faction they are to be suspected 't is the effect of their Prejudices but when they happen to speak to the disadvantage of their own Hypotheses what is it that could oblige them to it but the Power of Truth alone Tertullian therefore at the end of his Discourse against Praxeas sisting this matter of the Nature of the Word and the Holy Ghost to the bottom speaks of 'em as one and the same Power 'T is worth while to read the whole throughout but I shall content my self with this following Passage which is decisive and beyond dispute Contra Prax. cap. 26. The Spirit of God i. e. Holy Ghosi shall come upon thee c. By saying the Spirit of God altho the Spirit of God be God nevertheless he not calling it directly God he would have us understand a Part of the Whole which was to attend the Person of the Son and get him the Name that he has This is that Spirit of God which we call the Word also For as when St. John says the Word was made Flesh by the term Word we understand the Spirit so in this Passage we understand the Word under the Name of the Spirit since the Spirit is the Substance of the Word and the Word the Operation of the Spirit and these two are but one For if the Spirit be not the Word and the Word be not the Spirit 't will follow that he of whom St. John says that he was made Flesh will not be the same with him of whom the Angel says that he shall be made Flesh Let us weigh well all these Words By the Spirit Tertullian understands nothing but a Portion of the whole a Beam of the Substance of God as he expresses himself elsewhere because otherwise it would follow according to Praxeas that the Father himself was incarnate He will have it that this Portion makes the Son what he is that is the Son of God He confounds the Spirit with the Word and will have St. Luke and St. John speak the same Language and that the first might have said the Word shall come upon thee and the latter the Holy Ghost was made Flesh since that by the term Holy Ghost the Word must be understood and by the term Word the Holy Ghost and that 't is not likely St. John would speak of one particular Spirit and the Angel of another And more than this he acquaints us what use we ought to make of these two Words which at the bottom signify but the same thing and that is we ought to call this Power Spirit when we would express its Substance and Word when we would express its Operation In short he decides our Question by saying that these two are but one and the same thing that is to say the same Power For the Word says he in his Rule of Faith de Praescript descended from the Spirit and the Power of God into the Womb of the Virgin What does this import viz. the Word descended from the Spirit and the Power of God if not this that the Word is nothing else but an Emanation a Manifestation of the Power which is internal and essential to God And 't is almost in the same sense that Marius Victorin contra Arium lib. 1. states a twofold Power of the Word that is to say a
twofold Operation the one manifest which is Jesus Christ in the Flesh the other secret or hidden which is the Holy Spirit the one by way of Manifestation the other by way of Communication But after all 't is but a twofold Operation of one and the same Power I forbear to take notice of divers other Testimonies of Tertullian of the like kind as for instance at the beginning of his Book concerning Prayer in his Dispute against Marcion lib. 3. cap. 6 16. and in his Discourse of the Flesh of Jesus Christ cap. 19. the Reader may consult 'em if he pleases To the foremention'd Authoritys from Tertullian I will subjoin that of Novatian de Trinitate cap. 19. That which chiefly constituted the Son of God says he was the Incarnation of the Word of God which was formed by means of that Spirit of whom the Angel said the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. For this is the true Son of God who is of God who uniting himself to the Son of Man makes him by that Union the Son of God which he was not before So that the main reason of this Title the Son of God arises from that Spirit of the Lord which descended How the Word of God incarnate by means of that Spirit which descended on Mary Is the second Person incarnate by means of the third Very good Divinity Is it not rather this Divine Operation that bears the Name of the Word which manifested it self in the Flesh of Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit which insinuated it self into that Flesh That is to say that which is called the Spirit on account of its Substance is at the same time called the Word on account of its Manifestation and its Operation For this reason Novatian places not the chief ground of the Filiation of Jesus Christ in a Word which was a different Hypostasis from the Spirit but in the Word which is the Operation of that Spirit of whom the Scripture speaks saying the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. And it would not be understood what the Fathers mean when they confound the Word with the Spirit that over-shadowed the Virgin or when they distinguish these two Powers if it be not laid down for a Rule that by the Spirit they understand the very Nature of the Spirit the Principle or Source whence Prophecy comes and by the Word a certain and particular Operation of that Spirit as for instance the miraculous Conception of our Saviour I have yet an antient Doctor to alledg and he not of the meanest Rank I mean St. Cyprian who does not make any distinction between the Word the Spirit the Son of God the Wisdom c. This Father having cited the second Psalm de Mont. Sina Zion adv Jud. cap. 2. where he speaks of the King whom God had anointed on Mount Sion 'T is upon this Mountain says he that the Holy Spirit the Son of God was establish'd King to proclaim the Will and the Empire of God his Father and in the fourth Chapter of the same Discourse the Flesh of Adam says he which J. C. bore in a Figure that Term has a Tang of Marcion's Heresy this Flesh was call'd by his Father the Holy Spirit which came down from Heaven the Christ the anointed of the Living God a Spirit united to Flesh The same Father elsewhere in his Discourse de Idolor vanit cap. 6. expresses himself thus The Word and the Son of God is sent whom the Prophets had forespoken of as the Instructor of Mankind He is the Power of God his Reason his Wisdom and his Glory the Holy Spirit hath put on Flesh God is mingled or united with Man The Holy Spirit is the Son of God and at the same time the Word is the Son of God and which is more the Flesh of J.C. is called the Holy Spirit which came down from Heaven which could not be true but of its Celestial Origin and as it was formed by the Holy Spirit So that Cyprian seems to intimate thereby that 't is because of this Celestial Origin that the Scriptures say the Flesh of J. C. came down from Heaven that the Son of Man came down from Heaven for it may be very well said that J.C. came down from Heaven since his Origin was from Heaven in his Birth by the Holy Ghost And what is the Holy Spirit but the Word according to this Father The Word is the Holy Spirit which united it self to Man the Word is the Holy Spirit which put on Flesh In short 't is the Holy Spirit which is the Christ of God You 'll say what hinders but the second Person in the Trinity may have also the Name of the third That 's pure Fancy Why should one shut ones eyes when one sees as clear as the day that St. Cyprian alludes to the miraculous Conception of our Saviour and that these sublime Expressions of that Father have no other Foundation but that Mystery As for what Lactantius affords us I hope his Authority will not be contested with me in the decision of a Point wherein he does no more than confirm a Tradition elsewhere well supported and followed This pious Person having said in his Institutions lib. 4. c. 6. That God begat a Holy Spirit which he call'd his Son he resumes this Discourse in the 12th chap. of the same Book thus This Spirit of God says he coming down from Heaven made choice of a pure and holy Virgin into whose Womb he insinuated himself and this Virgin conceived being full of the Holy Spirit which embrac'd her That which Lactantius expresses by these Words descended on a Virgin can it be any other than that which St. Luke expresses in these The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee But the Holy Ghost of whom the Angel speaks is the same according to Lactantius with that Holy Ghost which God begat and which he called his Son Dr. Bull tells us the Fathers understood by the Holy Ghost the Divine Nature of J. C. Very well but why so If not for this Cause that J. C. had no other Divinity than that Spirit of Power and Holiness which form'd his Body in the Womb of a Virgin For in short the Fathers speak after this manner when they explain these words The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee c. or allude to them and always with regard to his Birth of a Virgin But the Holy Spirit in this Passage Luke 1. 35. signifies most certainly that Power which we Trinitarians call the third Person And if the Fathers had a mind to find the second there as is said there 's no knowing what the Words signify for it must be affirmed that they have strangely mistaken the Scriptures and in so unaccountable manner as I may say that there is no longer any certainty to be met with in their Writinâ—â—â—â—ll's in Confusion as in the antient Chaos There 's nothing whereby to discover the Names of the
Points but by little and little and by degrees For it did not define nor pronounce any thing in express Terms about the Deity of the Holy Ghost during the four first Ages very near 'T is certain Gregory Naz. Orat. 20. Ep. 26. excuses the Conduct of St. Basil who tho he was right in his Opinion of the Deity of the Holy Ghost would not however for Peace-sake call it God openly and expresly because he knew there were many otherwise good Catholicks who would be offended if that Name should be given to the Holy Ghost that being not ordinarily and publickly done among the Catholicks till after the second General Council held in 381. Which is as much as to say that at last Time and Custom had placed the Holy Ghost in the Number of the Gods Good God! almost four intire Centuries of the Church which were the brightest and the purest did determine nothing about the Deity of the Holy Ghost just before the end of the 4th they durst not speak of it but shily for fear of offending the very Orthodox themselves Where was then the Trinity Was the Tradition then lost What that of the Orthodox and the Catholicks who rejected or at least were offended at an Article so fundamental What greater Crime could Hereticks have been guilty of Whence came it that the third Person was admitted so very late Prudence they tell us would have the Notion conceal'd for a time But why was not that of the second Person concealed too Are there not the same prudential Reasons for that too I think I perceive the difference of the case The third was not known to the Platonizing Fathers themselves but in a very confused manner and was not by the greatest part of them held for any other than a Creature The Second was in high esteem with all the Platonic Party deifyed by the whole Sect the Favourite Notion and principal Machine of the System 'T was easy to introduce this among the Gods of their Christian Religion which at that time was modell'd according to Plato's Notions But for the third which was not so much in favour 't was difficult to admit it into that Rank without great Address and Precaution In the mean time their over-cautiousness has prov'd a Disadvantage to both the third interferes with the second who should have been produced at the same time with his Brother or both eternally concealed For it the third cannot defend it self what will become of the second which is his elder Brother He is not of better Blood nor of a nobler Stock Can we doubt after such convincing Proofs of the antient Tradition but by the Virgin Church whereof Hegesippus speaks in Euseb Hist Eccles l. 3. c. 32. this antient Nazarene meant the Church of the Circumcision which had not yet imbibed Platonism as by the Seducement of Error and Science falsly so called that had its Birth under Adrian's Reign he meant the Platonizing Doctrine of the Gnostics which was then brought into the Church 'T was Philosophy that intirely ruin'd the true Religion as the Apostles had foretold In short Valesius observes upon the Passage I shall by and by cite out of Eusebius that this Historian too much extends the words of Hegesippus ascribing thro Mistake to the Universal Church what Hegesippus spoke only of the Church of Jerusalem or Judea But Hegesippus his being so particular is remarkable He would have us observe by it that fatal Epocha when the Nazarene Christian Bishops were succeeded by the Gentiles and by that means Platonism came in the room of that pure and unmixt Truth which St. James his Successors had preached which happened exactly in the Reign of Adrian that is when the Jews were driven out of Judea and the Christians of the Circumcision with them Sulpitius Severus in his Hist l. 2. c. 45. had reason to say the Christian Faith which according to him is the Platonizing Doctrine drew great advantages from this Dispersion He would have said that the Nazarenes then ceasing the Observation of the legal Ceremonies made no further scruple to unite with the Gentile Church But this is not all the greatest advantage that accrued to the Gentile Church was that Platonism meeting no longer with any Opposition from the Primitive Faith which the Nazarenes had inviolably preserv'd it spread far and wide and like an Inundation overspread the whole Church not excepting that of Jerusalem that antient Repository of the Apostolick Tradition which then lost its Simplicity and Virginity as Hegesippus expresses it 'T was at this time the Gentiles in the Person of Pope Victor rose up against the Christians of the Circumcision and oppress'd 'em by taking from 'em an Apostolick Tradition touching the Day when the Passover was to be celebrated And if they could wrest from 'em this Tradition in a point of mere Practice it was more easy to strip 'em of a Tradition in a point of Doctrine concerning the Nature and Person of Jesus Christ the former being much more easily retained than the latter There must have been a great noise and hurly-burly to alter the former whereas for the latter 't was enough if they took the method of explaining and illustrating or pretended an accommodation to a Sense more noble and profound 'T is of this Innovation attended with Tyranny that the Artemonites complain as Euseb tells us Hist Eccles lib. 5. c. 28. Their Complaint was that their Doctrine which was the same Truth that the Antients and Apostles had taught and which had been preserved intire till the time of Pope Victor was corrupted under Zephirin his Successor The Anonymous who relates this endeavours to confute 'em by alledging Authors who liv'd before Victor and had ascrib'd Divinity to Jesus Christ or had called him God But I have demonstrated that this Theology of the Antients is grounded only upon the Birth of our Saviour of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost and does by no means go so far as the Platonick Notion of his Generation The first of these the Artemonites did not disown for they believ'd Jesus Christ to be the Son of God by Mary If the Anonymous would prove from the Antients against the Artemonites that Jesus Christ was God's Son begotten before all Ages how comes it to pass that he finds no antienter a Patron of his Platonizing Opinion than Justin Martyr who wrote after the fatal Epicha when the Succession of the Nazarene Bishops ended and after the rise of the first Gnosticism Basilides and Valentinus c. that is after the Church had lost its Virgin Purity and the Gnostick Opinions had corrupted the antient Theology The Authorities of his date are to be suspected Why does he not ascend as high as Barnabas Hermas Clemens Romanus and Polycarp Would he have wanted the Honour of having these Apostolick Men for his Vouchers if he had thought 'em opposite to Artemon He does not go so far back as Ignatius which makes it to be suspected either
invoked God the Father thro his Everlasting High Priest Jesus Christ our Lord in the Holy Spirit Who sees not that he gave Glory to J. C. and that he deified him by stiling him the everlasting High Priest If he could have said any thing greater he would have said it Rusticus Praefect of Rome demanded of Justin Martyr what was the Christian Religion This Confessor answered we believe one only God who is the Creator of all things visible and invisible and we confess that J. C. our Lord is the Son of God foretold by the Prophets and who shall come one day to judg the World Observe here such a Son of God whose whole Pre-existence consists in his being foretold by the Prophets and whose real Greatness is not his having created but because he will judg the World This Creed is Apostolic and has the Air and Simplicity of the first Ages One may dextrously philosophize upon the Christian Religion and speak in the Platonic way in ones Closet as Justin has often done but when he was to make a sincere Consession before the Magistrate and to seal it with his own Blood Plato has nothing to do with it the Confession is made with Simplicity and in conformity to the Holy Scriptures then 't is no longer Justin the Philosopher but Justin the Confessor and the Martyr Lastly Hegesippus acquaints us in Euseb-Eccles Hist lib. 2. c. 23. that James the Just being conjur'd by the Jews to declare to them what he thought of Jesus Why says he do you put this Qacst'en to me concerning Jesus the Since Mâ—n He sits in Heaven at the Right Hand of the Power of God and he must come again in the Clouds of Heaven This Holy Man says the Historian was a Witness very credible both with Jews and Gentiles that Jesus was really the Christ His Confession is not long however it comprehends that which may be said to be the most august and considerable and confirms all the Theology which concerns the Persons of Christ To these Testimonies of antient Martyrs give me leave to add another Instance which is not much from the purpose Eusebius tells us in his Eccles Hist lib. 1. c. 13. That Thaddeus going to see King Agbarus he preached to the King J. C. our Lord and our God the Messias or the Sent of God Valesius remarks in his Notes that the Word God is wanting in good Copies which are in other Passages confirmed by Nicephorus and Ruffinus And I don't think says Mons Valois any one dares deny but that the Reading wherein the Word God is wanting is more agreeable to the Text For 1st the Antients us'd not that Word but of the Father only 2ly If Thaddeus speaking to a King who was a new Convert to and weak in the Faith had call'd J. C. God this might have perplexed him and made him to think that two Gods were preached to him 'T is plain and fair dealing to affirm the Antients by no means gave the Name of God to J. C. but 't is mincing to say that they did it not in the case of weak Christians this is a mere Evasion For why was not the like Tenderness us'd towards others in the following Ages Is it because there was less danger of spreading Polytheism Were not the Catechumens both weak and Novices too whom the Pantaenusses the Clements Alexandrinusses the Origens and the Cyrils taught the second God of Plato with all the Niceties of the mystic Theology Be that as it will it appears from this Passage and many others that one has not good ground to trust much to the Testimonies of the Antients where the Name of God is given to J. C. The Word God has been inserted in such Places by Trinitarian Copists and without doubt many other Terms have been retrench'd as they thought fit What an Abyss of Uncertainty is here then Besides Mons Du Pin believes this History of Thaddeus to be fabulous See his Biblioth Tom. 1. p. 1. Eusebius has amassed all sorts of Memoirs without much Judgment He often misunderstands the Authors he cites sometimes he corrupts them to reconcile them to the Arian Scheme What endless Uncertainties must this occasion Mons Valois himself falls under the same Guilt he taxes in others and we must not only be upon our Guard against the Fraud of Copists but of Translators too Observe how he reads the Text in the eleventh Chapter of the eighth Book of Euseb Eecles Hist The Martyrs of Phrygia as he makes the Historian word it called upon Jesus Christ who is God over all Now these Words God over all are not found in the Greek of Christopherson nor in the Latin Version of Ruffinus nor in Cousin's French Version And Valois takes no notice whence he had this Reading which in other Places is so contrary to the Doctrine of Eusebius himself and to other Invocations to be met with in great Numbers in his History the ordinary Form thereof is to invoke him who is God over all by or through J. C. our Lord and in short is contrary to the Usage and constant Practice of the Primitive Church as we are going to shew in our third Proof CHAP. III. A Continuation of the Proofs that the first Fathers did not deify Christ upon any other account but that of his miraculous Birth and Exaltation I Affirm in the third Place that the Antients grounded their Deification of J. C. upon nothing beyond his being born of a Virgin and his Exaltation in the highest Heavens and that for this decisive Reason because they held all those were Hereticks who gave J. C. the Title of God over all To this purpose speaks the Author of the Apostolic Constitutions lib. 6. c. 26. There are some says he who have the Impiety or are so impious as to say that J. C. is God over all fancying that he is the Father himself and at the same time both Son and Paraclet Can any thing be conceived more execrable Upon this Passage Mons Daille in his Pseudepigr Apost blesses himself and says Then was St. Paul an Heretick and the whole Church is heretical which constantly maintain'd against the Arians that J. C. was God over all So that heretofore 't was Heresy to affirm J. C. to be God over all tho now-a-days 't is Orthodoxy But that Christ was the Father himself and the Son and Paraclet too is a consequence drawn from their Doctrine which they rejected without doubt as 't is disavowed by others in these days The distinction of Persons was not then in fashion which is nothing but three different Names for the same thing as that word is now understood For it must signify with some nothing but a Mode a Relation a nescio qâ—â—d which are words that signify nothing less than what we commonly call a Person Wherefore If the consequence above be good against the antient Hereticks 't is e'en as good against the modern Sabellians After the Author of the