please you by doing a thing in it self so inept and so insignificant to you I shall better do both if I shall offer any thing to you concerning this mentioned Subject your further consideration whereof may prove a further benefit to the World In what you have already said concerning it you have used that great Caution and so well guarded your self as not so far as I can apprehend to give an adversary in this single point the least advantage That which I would in the general humbly offer is whether you have said so much as with safety might be said and as the Case may require for the gaining of a just advantage to the common Christian Cause We design in fight not only to keep our selves safe but to overcome and not in praelio only but in bello In Wars indeed of this sort both our own safety and victory are less to be valued than truth Which being of a piece can be injured in no part without some dammage to the whole frame of congenerous Truth And as it is very possible while an Enemy is withstood attacking some one Fort a greater loss may not be provided against elsewhere it may so fall out in Affairs of this kind too that the Care of defending some one Truth may be accompany'd with a present not attending to the jeopardy of divers others The nearer we approach an Adversary within just limits in these rational decertations the less he can have to say against us But being well resolved our selves about the main point of disagreement we then take Care not to come so near as to fall in with him pass into his Tents and give away our main Cause I am worthiest Sir far from assuming so much to my self or detracting so much from you as to give a judgment that this really is done in your Discourses about the Trinity I only submit it to your own most penetrating judgment what may be further requisite and possible in this matter to take away any appearances hereof and prevent ill consequences that may too easily ensue I have for my own part long impos'd it upon my self to abstain from any positive Conceptions concerning the Godhead beyond what I find expresly contain'd in the divine revelation or what the reason of things either antecedently thereto or consequentially thereupon doth most evidently perswade and require and do greatly approve the same caution which I cannot but observe with you But desire it may be weigh'd whether such measures may not and must not lead us further As for the word person you prudently profess not to be fond of it the thing being agreed thô you also truly judge it a good word and sufficiently warranted For the Notion signify'd by it you all along seem to decline that of the Schools or the Metaphysical one which you know makes it to be a rational or intelligent suppositum and to take up with what I think I may wanting a fitter i. e. a more comprehensive word call the Civil Notion of it which will allow the same man to be capable of sustaining three or more persons supposing his circumstances or qualifications to be such or such as to that purpose you speak both in your Letters and Sermons Now whereas you have also told us Letter 1. that by personality you mean that distinction whatever it be by which the three persons are distinguished each from other that which with great submission and most profound respect to you I propose to your further Consideration will be capable of being resolved into these two Enquiries 1. Whether only such a distinction of the Divine Persons as this amounts to will be sufficient to found the several attributions which the Holy Scriptures give distinctly and severally to them and to preserve the Scheme of Christian Religion entire which is wont to be deduced from these Sacred Writings 2. Whether some further distinction may not be admitted as possible consistently with the salved unity of the Godhead As to the former 1. Whereas you think the word Person to be a good word and sufficiently warranted by Scripture Heb. 1. 3. where the Son is called the express Image of his Father's Person alledging that so we render the word Hypostasis which is there used and do mean by it what you think to be there meant I desire you would please to consider whether the word Hypostasis according to the common use of it will admit to be so taken as you explain your self to mean by the word Person For thô the Latine word persona as you say according to the true and ancient sense may well enough admit to be so taken as that the same Man might sustain three persons I offer it to your re-consideration whether ever you have observ'd the word Hypostasis in any sort of Authors when it signifies any Person at all for I know that it frequently signifies somewhat else than a Person to be taken in that sense And whether one Hypostasis so taken as it uses to be when it signifies a Person may not be capable of sustaining three of those Persons which you here describe And whether according to this sense you mean not God to be only one such Hypostasis 2. Be pleas'd further hereupon to consider how well it agrees with this supposition of God's Being but one Hypostasis or intelligent suppositum so frequently to speak as the Holy Scriptures do of the Father Son or Word the Spirit or Holy Ghost as three distinct I's or He 's The Lord possessed me as the Divine Word or Wisdom is brought in speaking in the beginning of his way I was set up from everlasting Prov. 8. 22 23. When he prepared the Heavens I was there vers 27. Then was I by him vers 30 c. The Word was with God Joh. 1. 1. He was in the World vers 10. We beheld his glory vers 14. And of the Spirit He dwelleth with you Joh. 14. 17. The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name He shall teach you all things vers 26. And whom I will send you from the Father he shall testifie of me Chap. 15. 26. And when he is come he will reprove the World Ch. 16. 8. And the observation seems to me as weighty as it is usual that in some of the mentioned Chapters the somewhat hard Synthesis of construing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not the nearer Suppositum but in one place a very remote one and one would think too remote to be referr'd to ch vers 13 14. is rather chosen to be used than that the Spirit should not be spoken of as a distinct he or rather than he should be called it which could not so fitly notifie a Person If the same man were a King a General and a Father I doubt whether that would give sufficient ground to his being called He and He and He. 2. But the distinct Predicates spoken
delicious if he had some one to whom to express his sense of the whole We are not I say strictly to measure God by our selves in this further than as he himself prompts and leads us But if we so form our Conception of Divine Bliss as not to exclude from it somewhat whereof that Delight in Society which we find in our selves may be an imperfect faint resemblance it seems not altogether disagreeable to what the Scriptures also teach us to conceive concerning him when it brings in the eternal Wisdom saying as one distinct from the prime Author and Parent of all things then was I by him as one brought up with him and daily his delight XXIII However let the whole of what hath been hitherto proposed be taken together and to me it appears our conception of the sacred Trinunity will be so remote from any shadow of inconsistency or repugnancy that no necessity can remain upon us of torturing Wit and racking Invention to the uttermost to do a laboured and artificial violence by I know not what skrews and engines to so numerous plain Texts of Scripture only to undeify our glorious Redeemer and do the utmost despite to the Spirit of grace We may be content to let the word of God or what we pretend to own for a divine revelation stand as it is and undistorted speak its own sense And when we find the Former of all things speaking as WE or US When we find another I possessed by the Lord in the beginning of his way before his works of old so as that he says of himself as distinct from the other I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was And when he prepared the Heavens I was there c. When we find the Child born for us the Son given to us called also the mighty God and as in reference to us he fitly might the Everlasting Father When we are told of the Ruler that was to come out of Bethlehem-Ephrata that his goings forth were from everlasting That the Word was in the beginning with God and was God That all things were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made That this Word was made flesh That His glory was beheld as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth Even that same he that above was said to have been in the beginning with God and to be God That when he who was said to have come down from Heaven was even while he was on Earth at that time said to be in Heaven That we are told by himself he and his Father are one thing That he is not only said to know the heart but to know all things That even he who according to the flesh came of the Israelites is yet expresly said to be over all God blessed for ever That when he was in the form of God he humbled himself to the taking on him the form of a servant and to be found in fashion as a man That 't is said all things were created by him that are in heaven and on earth visible and invisible thrones dominions principalities powers and that all things were created by him and for him than which nothing could have been said more peculiar or appropriate to Deity That even of the Son of God it is said he is the true God and eternal Life That we are so plainly told he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last he that was and is and is to come The Lord Almighty the beginning of the creation of The searcher of hearts That the Spirit of God is said to search all things even the deep things of God That lying to him is said to be lying to God That the great Christian Solemnity Baptism is directed to be in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That it is so distinctly said there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and that these three are one thing I cannot imagine what should oblige us so studiously to wiredraw all this to quite other meanings XXIV And for the leaving out of this last mentioned text in some copies what hath been said not to mention divers others by the famously learned Dr. Hammond upon that place is so reasonable so moderate so charitable to the opposite party and so apt to satisfie impartial and unprejudic'd minds that one would scarce think after the reading of it any real doubt can remain concerning the authentickness of that 7 th verse in 1 Joh. 5. Wherefore now taking all these texts together with many more that might have been mentioned I must indeed profess to wonder that with men of so good sense as our Socinian Adversaries are accounted this consideration should not have more place and weight viz. That it being so obvious to any Reader of the Scriptures to apprehend from so numerous Texts that Deity must belong to the Son of God and that there wants not Sufficient inducement to conceive so of the Holy Ghost also there should be no more caution given in the Scriptures themselves to prevent mistake if there were any in apprehending the matter accordingly And to obviate the unspeakable consequent danger of erring in a case of so vast importance How unagreeable it is to all our notions of God and to his usual procedure in cases of less consequence How little doth it consist with his being so wise and so compassionate a Lover of the souls of men to let them be so fatally expos'd unto so inevitable and so destructive a delusion That the whole Christian Church should thorough so many Centuries of years be even trained into so horrid and continued Idolatry by himself who so severely forbids it I cannot allow my self to think men of that perswasion insincere in their professing to believe the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures when the Leader and Head of their Party writ a book that is not without nerves in defence of it But I confess I cannot devise with what design they can think those Scriptures were written Or why they should count it a thing worthy of infinite wisdom to vouchsafe such a revelation to men allowing them to treat and use it as they do And that till some great Socinian wits should arise 1500 years after to rectify their notions in these things men should generally be in so great hazzard of being deceived into damnation by those very Scriptures which were professedly writ to make them wise to Salvation XXV Nor is it of so weighty importance in this controversie to cast the ballance the other way that a noted Critick upon what introducement needs not be determined chang'd his judgment or that his Posthumous interpretations of some texts if they were his interpretations carry an appearance of his having changed it because he thought such texts might
possibly admit to be interpreted otherwise than they usually were by such as alledged them for the Trinity or the disputed Deity of the Son or Sipirit or that the cause must be lost upon his deserting it or that he was still to be reckoned of the opposite party as this Author calls it and that such texts as we most rely'd upon were therefore given up by some of our own And it is really a great assuming when a man shall adventure to pronounce so peremptorily against the so common judgment of the Christian Church without any colour of proof that our copies are false copies our translations our explications false and the generality of the wisest the most inquisitive most pious and most judicious assertors of the Christian cause for so many continued ages fools or cheats for owning and avowing them for no other imaginanable reason but only because they make against him How will he prove any Copies we rely upon to be false Is it because he is pleased to suspect them And is an interpretation false because the words can possibly be tortur'd unto some other sense Let him name me the Text wherein any Doctrine is supposed to be delivered that is of meerly supernatural revelation of which it is not possible to to devise some other meaning not more remote alien or unimaginable than theirs of most of the disputed Texts Nor indeed do we need to except that natural sentiment it self that there is but one God which this Author takes such Pains to prove as if he thought or would make other men think we deny'd it For tho' it is so generally acknowledged doth he not know it is not so generally understood in the same sense Against whom doth he write Doth he not know they understand this Oneness in one sense he in another They in such a sense as admits a Trinity he in a sense that excludes it But for such things as did need a superadded verbal revelation how easie is it to an inventive pervicacious Wit to wrest words this way or that XXVI The Scriptures were writ for the instruction of sober learners not for the pastime of contentious wits that affect only to play tricks upon them At their rate of interpreting among whom he ranks himself 't is impossible any Doctrine can with certainty be founded upon them Take the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel for instance and what Doctrine can be asserted in plainer words than the Deity of Christ in the three first Verses of that Chapter Set any man of an ordinary unprepossest understanding to read them and when he finds that by the Word is meant Jesus Christ which themselves admit see if he will not judge it plainly taught that Jesus Christ is God in the most eminent known sense Especially when he shall take notice of so many other Texts that according to their most obvious appearance carry the same sense But it is first thorough meer shortness of discourse taken for granted and rashly concluded on that it is absolutely impossible if the Father be God the Son can be God too or the Holy Ghost upon a presumption that we can know every thing that belongs to the Divine Nature and what is possible to be in it and what not and next there is hereupon not only a license imagined but an obligation and necessity to shake Heaven and Earth or tear that divine Word that is more stable into a thousand pieces or expound it to nothing to make it comply with that forelaid presumptuous determination Whereas if we could but bend our Minds so far to comply with the plain ducture of that revelation God hath made unto us of himself as to apprehend that in the most only Godhead there may be distinctions which we particularly understand not sufficient to found the Doctrine of a Trinity therein and very consistent with the unity of it we should save the divine Word and our own Minds from unjust torture both at once And our task herein will be the easier that we are neither concerned nor allowed to determine that things are precisely so or so but only to suppose it possible that so they may be for ought that we know Which will I am certain not be so hard nor so bold an undertaking as his who shall take upon him to prove that any thing here supposed is impossible Indeed if any one would run the discourse into the abyss of Infinity he may soon create such difficulties to himself as it ought not to be thought strange if they be greater than any humane understanding can expedite But not greater than any man will be intangled in that shall set himself to consider Infinity upon other accounts which yet he will find it impos'd upon him unavoidably to admit whether he will or no. Not greater than this Author will be equally concern'd in upon his doing that right to Truth in opposition to the former leaders of his own Party as to acknowledge the Omnipresence of the Divine essence p. 32. which he will find let him try it when he will Nor yet so great nor accompanyed with so gross so palpable and horrid absurdities as he will soon be encountred with should he retract his grant or entertain the monstrously maimed and most deformed impious conceit of a finite or limited Deity XXVII Yet also in this present case the impossibility to our narrow Minds of comprehending Infinity is most rationally improveable to our very just advantage It ought to be upbraided to none as a pretext or a cover to sloth or dulness 'T is no reproach to us that we are creatures and have not infinite capacities And it ought to quiet our minds that they may so certainly know they have limits within which we are to content our selves with such notions about indemonstrable and unrevealed things as they can with greatest ease to themselves find room for I can reflect upon nothing in what is here proposed but what is intelligible without much toil or much Metaphysicks As matters of so common concernment ought to our uttermost to be represented in such a way that they may be so We need not be concern'd in Scholastick Disquisitions about Union or by what peculiar Name to call that which is here supposed It 's enough for us to know there may be a real natural vital and very intimate union of things that shall notwithstanding it continue distinct and that shall by it be truly one Nor do we need to be anxiously curious in stating the Notions of Person and Personality of suppositum and suppositality tho' I think not the term Person disallowable in the present Case Nor will say what that noted Man so noted that I need not Name him and who was as much acquainted with Metaphysicks as most in his Age published to the World above twenty Years ago that he counted the Notion of the Schools about Suppositum a Foolery For I do well know the thing it self which our Christian Metaphysicians