are of a Mind And the Dissent among them is so bitter and unreconcilable that the Anathema's fly as thick and fast at one another as at the Unitarians As many Parties as they are each Party is heretical and in a State of Damnation in the Opinion of all the rest Their Divisions do respect some of them the Doctrine of the Trinity and some the Incarnation I will reckon them up as they shall occur to my Mind without regarding that Method which might be given to Error 1. The first Difference is about the Filiâ—que or whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and the Son This Quarrel divides them into two great and almost equal Parties into the Church of the East and the Church of the West The Eastern Church that is to say all Asia and Africa Greece and the Islands of the Archipelago all Muscovy and the Provinces of Illyricum a good Part of Poland and some Part of Hungary all these maintain that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only But the Western Church that is all the Roman Catholick Nations and all the Reformed or Protestants contend that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son There is no Trinitarian but is in one of these Parties and consequently none of them but who is an heretick and in a State of Damnation in the Judgment and Opinion of the one Moyety or half of his Fellow-Trinitarians But because this damning of one another upon this Difference between them has been of late so confidently denied by Dr. Wallis and Dr. Sherlock I am obliged to take notice of the publick Declarations of these two Churches against one another The whole Western Church in the first Canon of the second general Council of Lions saith Damnamus reprobamiss c. i. e. We damn and reprobate all such as presume to deny that the Holy Spirit doth eternally proceed from the Father and from the Son On the other Hand the Eastern Church excommunicates as Scismaticks and Hereticks all the Latins so they call the Western Churches which hold the Filioque or that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son on every Holy Thursday and all other principal Holy-days F. Simon Crit. Hist of the Religions of the East p. 16 17. 2. These two mighty Parties are again subdivided into a great many factious Differences Into those for instance who teach that but one Person of their supposed Trinity was incarnate and those who contend that the whole Trinity was incarnate 3. Into those who say all the Persons in the Trinity are equal and those who on the contrary ascribe to the Father a Prerogative and Superiority above the other two Persons a Superiority not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Order and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Dignity but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Power 4. Into those who say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. hath underived Godhead or is GOD of himself and those that hold he is GOD of GOD that is deriveth from the Father Being Life and Godhead 5. Into those who say the Son is so the Wisdom of the Father that he is the Wisdom by which the Father is wise and into those who deny this as little better than Blasphemy because 't is as much as to say that the Father without the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irrational and unwise 6. In what Sense the three Persons are consubstantial that is have the same Substance or Essence or Nature doth unreconcilably divide them the Ancients from the Moderns and the Moderns from one another One Party saith Father Son and Spirit are generically or if you will specifically consubstantial that is as three Men are consubstantial to one another because all of them partake of the same specifick Nature even the humane or as three Guineas are consubstantial being all of them Gold The contrary Party saith the Divine Persons are numerically consubstantial i. e. do all subsist in the self-same Substance or Essence as Understanding Will and Memory subsist in one and the same Soul 7. They dispute whether upon the Incarnation of the Son the Lord Christ became two Persons or was only one Person whom they call by a compound and monstrous Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or GOD-MAN If the latter of these the Virgin Mary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God if the other she was only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of Christ 8. Besides the Dispute about the Persons there is a great Controversy among them about the Natures in the Lord Christ The Eutychian Trinitarians say the Lord Christ hath but one Nature the rest of them called Melchites affirm two distinct Natures an humane as well as a divine 9. 'T is controverted among them whether in Consequence of the Incarnation of the Son or WORD there followed two Wills and two Actions in the Lord Christ or only one Action and one Will Also 10. Whether by Virtue of the Incarnation the Body of the Lord Christ became incorruptible and exempt from humane Affections and Passions or not Farther 11. Whether the humane Nature of Christ being personally united to the Son or WORD were not by Virtue of that Union Omniscient knowing even when the Day of Judgment shall be 12. Whether this Proposition be Orthodox or on the contrary the Seed of the Devil one Person of the Blessed Trinity hath suffered for us 13. Whether the Son and Spirit have been once generated and breathed and that from all Eternity or whether they are continually and always begotten and breathed 14. They all agree that there are three Divine Persons but to make this no Agreement they are divided in explaining what is to be understood by the Word Persons Some say the three Persons are three Properties of the Divine Nature But these agree not some making them to be Properties in the same numerical Nature Others take them to be discretive Properties in the specifick Nature Others say the three Persons are three Modes of Subsistence or three Relations or three Respects of GOD towards his Creatures or three Operations Others affirm the three Persons to be so many several or distinct intellectual Beings and Spirits as distinct from one another as three humane Persons or three Men are 15. To add now no more They require us to believe that three Almighty Persons are but one God but in what Sense or Manner three such Persons make one GOD is not only disputed among them but they are here also Apostates and Hereticks to one another Some resolve this Mystery as they call it by an Unity or Oneness of Affection Will and Design between the three Persons as St. Paul speaking of himself and Apollos saith He that planteth and he that watereth are one 1 Cor. 3.8 Others say the Son and Spirit are one GOD with the Father by their most perfect Subordination or Subjection to him All
three making but one Menarchy are therefore said to be but one GOD. Again some say the three Persons are one GOD by their Emperichoresis or In-being in one another But others by Emperichoresis or being in one another understand only this that the Relation of Father supposeth and includeth that of Son and vice versa and not that by an impossible real In-being the three Divine Persons are as it were mingled and so confounded We have been told by others that the three Persons are three distinct Minds and Spirits and that the only possible Union of Spirits is mutual Consciousness So that in short the three Divine Persons are one GOD as or because they are intimately conscious to one anothers Thoughts and Actions Finally Some say the three Persons are one GOD by their all having the same numerical Essence or Substance There are Sir you see no fewer than fifteen Divisions among our Opposers each Division consisting of two Parties at the least some of them of four or five So there are in all about forty Parties of them of which incomparably the greater Number are Hereticks and damned to all the other Parties among them Give me leave to make two Observations hereupon 1. The great and common Boast of Trinitarians even their Number on the Account of which they presume to call themselves the Catholick or Vniversal Church is merely a Boast It may be not untruly said They are the least of Parties that ever professed a Religion To comprehend this Sir you need only suppose a Person resolving to join himself to their universal Church and in order thereto determining upon all the forementioned Heads of Controversy among them For by that time he has so done that is has chosen his side in all the aforesaid Questions It will be no less than a Miracle if he finds himself Orthodox and Catholick in the Opinion of ten Persons besides himself it may be the universal Church will dwindle into his single Person For these forty Parties of Trinitarians are not all of them so many visible and associated Sects or Churches but divers of them are Divisions and Heresies in one and the same associated Church the Members of the same Church are in these Points divided and heretick to one another And the Number Forty affords so many Changes that as I said perhaps it will be impossible to find ten Trinitarians who are intirely of a Mind in all the abovesaid Points and Questions This evidently reduces the pretended Catholick Church or Vniversal Church to a much more contemptible Paucity than are the Worshippers of one only GOD or as our Opposers by way of Jest sometimes call us the little Flock to which however their Father hath promised to give them a Kingdom 2. Whereas Trinitarians generally pretend and that as an Argument which ought to end all further Dispute about these Matters that the Trinity and Incarnation are Traditions derived down to our times thrô all the intermediate Ages and by all the Churches professing Christianity these Divisions among them plainly demonstrate the contrary For if the Trinity and Incarnation are Traditions how comes it to pass that Trinitarians are in such contrary Tales about them how is it that not ten of them perhaps not two of them are in the same Story concerning them They agree in nothing but the Words Trinity and Incarnation and are forced to acknowledg that those very Words are not only unscriptural but not very ancient Tertullian among the Latins and Clemens Alexandr among the Greeks were the first of Christians who used the word Trinity and for Incarnation I do not remember it to be so ancient But I have often wondred at this Pretence of most Trinitarians that these Doctrines are Traditions from the first Ages of Christianity On another Account it is this All the Criticks without excepting one who have made a Judgment of the Writings of the Fathers of the first 300 Years and particularly which of those Writings are genuine and uncorrupted which wholly feigned or otherways corrupted I say all the Criticks constantly make this a Note of Forgery or Corruption if those Writings speak any what expresly or evidently of these Doctrines namely the Trinity and Incarnation and the Questions on them depending If these Doctrines were Traditions from the first Ages the higher we ascend in Time the more express and clear would the Tradition about them be And in confessing that 't is quite contrary the Criticks that is the more Learned of the Trinitarians have given up the Pretence of Tradition and Antiquity and make it probable I may say unavoidable that these Doctrines are not Traditions from the Ancients but Novelties and Corruptions and Depravations of genuine Christianity Whereas some have indeavour'd to evade this by saying Those Fathers have made no distinct Mention of or Determination in these Points because they were not controverted in their times but afterwards began to be disputed and denied by Men affecting Novelty and Singularity I answer Nothing can be more frivolous or false than this Pretext For 1. 't is notoriously false that these Doctrines were not denied in the times of those Fathers The Nazarens and Theodotians are more ancient than any of the Fathers and yet 't is well known nay confess'd by all that those Sects held the very Doctrines that are now called Socinianism 2. Admitting there was as yet none or very little Controversy about these Points yet because they are pretended to be the Essentials and Fundamentals of Christianity so that he that denies them is an Heretick and he that knows them not is no Christian what can we rationally infer but this that the Fathers who have not delivered these Doctrines in any of their Writings neither believed nor knew them and that they are a part of the gradual Corruptions which have so unhappily deformed the Church 3. Admitting once more that there was as yet no Controversy about these Questions which is the thing for which these learned Men contend and their only Excuse on the behalf of those first Fathers yet this makes wholly for the Unitarians For besides this Defect the Fathers and first Ages have spoken in their Creed altogether as the Socinian Unitarians now do The Creed called the Apostles because it contains the true Apostolick Doctrine and Tradition was the only Creed of those Fathers and Ages it was as one of them speaks of it their Regula Fidei immobilis irreformabilis i. e. the unchangable unaltetable Rule of their Faith But this Creed expresses the very Doctrine of the present Socinians and not of the Church as our Opposers themselves are constrained to own It attributeth the Appellation GOD and the Creation of Heaven and Earth to only the Almighty Father It describeth the Son as only a Man declaring his Conception by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Mary his Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven without the least Intimation of an eternal Generation from the Essence
Authors that knew those Nations and Writers better than at this Distance of time we now can particularly the most learned Plutarch and Laertius these Authors say that those Philosophers and Nations did not hold a Trinity but a Duality of Principles or Gods that is a good and a bad GOD. And by what they say of those Gods or Principles they seem to mean no more than what we are taught in Holy Scripture concerning GOD and that malign but subordinate Spirit called the Devil and Satan But you will say the Platonists held a Trinity of Divine Persons Yes some of them did I say some of them for the more learned Platonists such as Jamblichus Proclus and Plato himself did not think their imagin'd Trinity to be the supream GOD but that over their Trinity there is one most simple Monadick or solitary Being who is GOD of Gods and the first Author of all things If you ask How the vulgar Platonists came to stumble upon a Trinity I answer They finding that the first Philosophers had called GOD Hen and Tagathon or the One and the Good as also Logos Nous and Sophia or the Reason or WORD the Mind and Wisdom And finally Psyche the Soul because he pervades and governs the World as the Soul does the Body They being the most fanciful and Enthusiastical of all Men exceeding the Quakers in Enthusiasm and the Behmenists in Fancifulness and Affectation of Mystery mistook the aforementioned Properties of the Divine Nature for Persons or wilfully and affectedly allegoriz'd them into Persons Hen and Tagathon the One and the Good they made to be the same even the Father and Fountain of the Deity because all Number proceeds from One or Vnity and because Goodness as these Philosophers often speak is better than Reason or Wisdom Nous Logos and Sophia that is Mind Reason and Wisdom being but equivalent Words of these they made the second Person or as some of them call him the Son Psyche or the Mundane Soul was the third because Reason or Wisdom is better than and superiour to all things but Tagathon or Goodness There is Sir a certain Fate always attending on Error by which she is first or last betrayed and exposed even by those who seek to maintain and defend her Therefore though Dr. Cudworth hath spent so ma-many Sheets in discovering a Trinity among several Philosophers and Nations more ancient than the Platonists yet he hath somewhere unsaid all again and confess'd that the Platonick Trinity was nothing but an Affectation or Blunder of those Philosophers and as I just now said either their Mistake or their Exchange of the Properties of the Divine Nature for so many Divine Persons His own Words at p. 206 of the Intel. System are these We have proposed the three principal Properties or Attributes of the Deity The first whereof is infinite GOODNESS with Fecundity the second infinite WISDOM or Knowledg the third infinite active and perceptive POWER From which three Divine Attributes and Properties the Pythagorians and Platonists seem to have framed their Trinity So at legnth this learned Person hath given it up to us after so great Endeavours to prove the contrary that the Trinity is of mere Paganick and Heathen Original the Device or the Mistake of the Platonists Our last Exception or Reason is this As the Trinity when first brought into the Church by the Platonists did by its natural Absurdity and Impossibility give a Check and Stop to the Progress of the Gospel so ever since it has served to propagate Deism and Atheism and to hinder the Conversion of the Jews and Mahometans and the Heathen Nations not yet turned to Christianity You cannot Sir expect in a single Letter a large and ample Proof of this Assertion of mine but however I will say hereupon enough to convince you or any other unprejudic'd Person that I am able to make such a Proof of it whenever it shall be denied by our Opposers as will very much surprize the Idolaters of these Doctrines For the first Part of this Assertion I will now content my self with the plain Acknowledgment of Lactantius Instit l. 4. c. 29. This learned and eloquent Father disputing concerning these very Doctrines says Fortasse quaerathìc aliquis c. Here some one may perhaps ask How though Christians profess to worship but one GOD yet we seem to believe and hold two Gods GOD the Father and GOD the Son This Doctrine hath been a great Stumbling-block to many who confess that in other Points of the Christian Doctrine we speak what is probable and fit to be imbraced but in this they think we sumble that we hold a second GOD and him also a mortal one or one who could die You may please Sir here to take notice that the Reason why Lactantius mentions only two Gods the Father and the Son was because the Divinity of the Holy Spirit was not yet believed or I think so much as mentioned by any The Council of Nice it self durst not say the Holy Ghost is GOD no nor the Council of Constantinople in express Terms For as Petavius has noted the Party of the Pneumatomacht i. e. those who denied the Divinity of the Spirit were yet the more powerful Party in the Church D. Petav. de Trin. l. 1. c. 14. s 14 and 21. See also Huetius Origenian l. 2. c. 2. q. 2. sect 10. As to Deism and Atheism Some other-ways discerning Men have not Judgment enough to distinguish between the corrupted and the sincere Parts of Religion but they consider the whole of Religion together and judg it to be all of it false or all true From these two sorts of Men proceed all the Deists and most if not all Atheists The Atheist reiects all Religion whatsoever for the sake of some unaccountable and absurd things which vulgarly pass for the principal Articles of Religion The Deist far more judicious rejects hereupon only all positive or revealed Religion and takes up with natural Religion i. e. with the Belief of a GOD whose Power and Wisdom he plainly sees in the Structure and Contrivance of the World and with the Dictates of Reason and our congenit and natural Notions concerning moral and immoral or good and evil This Sir is not a Place to argue either against the Deist or Atheist I had here only to observe that from the absurd Corruptions of true Religion by injudicious or fanciful Men have and do arise all the Deism and most part of the Atheism with which our Age is infested There is so much the more Reason for our utmost Indeavours to withstand the farther Progress of those two Deism and that Pest of Atheism by purging Religion of all the contradictory and impossible Doctrines which give occasion to those Mistakes because Christianity has already lost so much ground to Mahometism or Turcism Mahomet is affirmed by divers Historians to have had no other Design in pretending himself to be a Prophet but to
restore the Belief of the Vnity of GOD which at that time was extirpated among the Eastern Christians by the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation They will have it that Mahomet meant not his Religion should be esteemed a new Religion but only the Restitution of the true Intent of the Christian Religion They affirm moreover that the Mahometan learned Men call themselves the true Disciples of the Messias or Christ intimated thereby that Christians are Apostates from the most essential Parts of the Doctrine of the Messias such as the Unity of GOD and that he is to be worshipp'd without Images or Pictures in Spirit and in Truth But whatsoever the Design of Mahomet was 't is certain Mahometism has prevailed over greater Numbers and more Nations than at this Day profess Christianity Nay it has worn Christianity out of great part of Europe most of Asia and all Roman Africa not by Force and the Sword for the Mahometans grant Liberty of Religion to all the conquered Provinces of Christians but by that one Truth in the Alchoran the Unity of GOD. The Naturalness of their Belief of the Unity of God and the unreconcilable Inconsistence of the Trinity with that Belief make it impossible ever to reconcile the Mahometans whether Turks Moors or Persians to Christianity This is that by which both they and the Jews are perpetually and without Hope of regaining them alienated from us that they suppose the Trinity to be the Doctrine of all Christians and from thence conclude that modern Christianity is no better nor other than a sort of Paganism and Heathenism The Nations also who are yet Pagans reject Christianity for the sake of the corrupt Doctrines against which we are arguing Of this there has been a calamitous Instance in the Tartars This warlike People who have made themselves so terrible by their Cavalry to the great Kingdoms of Poland and Muscovy and even to Germany it self were lost to Christianity by Occasion of the Doctrines of the Trinity c. In the Year 1246 Pope Innocent IV sent an Ambassage to Bati Cham of Tartary inviting him to the Christian Religion Bati received the Ambassage civilly but when he heard from the Religious sent to instruct him what were the chief Points of the Christian Faith the Trinity the Incarnation the Transubstantiation c. He thank'd the Pope for his Kindness and promised to make no Incursions into the Christian Countries for five Years next insuing but withal declared himself not satisfied with the Christian Religion as represented to him Immediately after the Saracens sent a like Ambassage to Bati recommending to him saith the Historian Mahometis sectam tanquà m plausibiliorem i. e. The more plausible Sect of Mahomet And these prevailed Bati and the whole Nation of the Tartars submitting to Mahometism in which they continue to this Day and are both the Shield and Sword of that way of acknowledging and worshipping GOD. L. Surius Comment rerum in Orbe Gest These Sir are the Damages sustained by Christianity by occasion of these Doctrines I believe by that time you have well considered them you will conclude these Doctrines will never repair half the Wastes they have already made in our Holy Religion and that they are honest Men who are jealous of and desirous to inquire very strictly into the Grounds of such Paradoxical Perswasions as have already given such deep Wounds to our common Cause of Christianity I will conclude Sir for this time with only telling you that the Reasons I have given might all of them have been much amplified and illustrated and some of them greatly exaggerated But that is a Design hardly practicable in a Letter the Brevity of a Letter even constrained me to lay before you what I had to say in few Words and in a plain and sincere Discourse without the Arts or Pomp of Rhetorick Nor am I offended at it for our Cause needs not those Helps Till our Opposers can extinguish Reason and common Sense in Men while there are any left who are not wholly Priest-ridden who have not abandoned the Conduct and Guidance of Reason and natural Knowledg for that of a Confessor that is to say a Divine Light for an Ignis fatuâ—â—s or Will-a-wisp So long I think we need not be very sollicitous whether our Discourses or Writings concerning these Doctrines be altogether so laboured and artificial as our Opposers must take Care that theirs are SIR I am your most Obliged and Assured FINIS