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A62254
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An antidote against poyson, or, An answer to the Brief notes upon the creed of St. Athanasius, by an anonimous author by J. Savage ...
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Savage, J. (John), 1645-1721.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing S768; ESTC R19099
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21,469
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17
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AN Antidote against Poyson OR AN ANSWER TO THE Brief Notes upon the CREED OF St. Athanasius By an ANONIMOUS AUTHOR By J. SAVAGE Gent. Written for the Information of the Illiterate and Vulgar WHosoever will be saved before all things 't is Necessary that He hold the Catholick Faith A Good Life is of Absolute Necessity to Salvation but a Right Belief in these Points that have been always controverted in the Churches of God is in no degree Necessary much less Necessary before all things He that leads a Profane or Vicious Life sins against a plain acknowledg'd Rule and the express unquestion'd Words and Letter of the Divine Law and the Dictates of Natural Conscience He wilfully refuses to advert to these Monitors and therefore can no way palliate or excuse his Wickedness But he that errs in a Question of Faith after having used reasonable diligence to be rightly inform'd is in no fault at all his Error is pure Ignorance Not a culpable Ignorance for how can it be culpable not to know that of which a Man is Ignorant after a Diligent and Impartial Inquiry Which Faith except a Man keep Whole and Undefiled without doubt He shall perish Everlastingly By keeping this Faith Whole and Vndefiled must be meant if any thing be meant that a Man should believe and profess it without Adding to it or Taking from it If we take from it we do not keep it Whole if we add ought to it we do not keep it Vndefiled and either way we shall perish everlastingly First for Adding What if an Honest plain Man because He is a Christian and a Protestant shall think it Necessary to add this Article to the Athanasian Creed I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be a Divine Infallible and Compleat Rule both for Faith and Manners I hope no Protestant would think a Man shall be damned for such Addition And if so then this Creed of Athanasius is at least an Vnnecessary Rule of Faith Then for â—aking ought from this Creed the whole Greek Church diffused through so many Provinces rejects as Heretical that Period of it The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Sonâ— contending that the Holy Spirit is from the Father only Which also they clearly and demonstratively prove as we shall see in its proper place And for the Menace here of Athanasius that they shall perish Everlastingly they laugh at it and say He was drunk when he made this Creed Gennad Schol. A. Bp. of Constantinople And the Catholick Faith is this Catholick Faith is as much as to say in plain English the Faith of the whole Church Now in what Age was this which here follows the Faith of the whole Church Not in the Age of Athanasius himself who for this Faith and for Seditious Practices was banish'd from Alexandria in Egypt where he was Bishop no less than Four times whereof the first was by Constantiâ—e the Great He was also condemned in his own Life-time by Six Councils as an Heretick and Seditious Person Of these Councils that at Milan consisted of 300 Bishops and that at Ariminum of 550 the greatest Convention of Bishops that ever was This Consent of the Churches of God against him and his Doctrin occasioned that Famous Proverb Athanasius against all the World and all the 〈…〉 Athanasius For the times Before and After the curious Reader may see Chr. Sandius his Ecclesiastical History in which the Learned Author gives a large Account by what and whose means the Athanasian and Trinitarian Faith did at length prevail against the Ancient belief of but One God or but One who is God Therefore quaâ—e With what Forehead the Author of this Creed calls this the Catholick Faith or Faith of the whole Church when 't is certain it has been so in no Age and least of all in the Author 's The Catholick Faith is this That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity He means here that we must so worship the one true God as to remember He is Three Persons and so worship the Three Persons as to bear in mind that they are but one Substance or Godhead or God So the Author explains himself in the three next Articles which are these Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance for there is one Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one Therefore all these Articles make indeed but one Article which is this The one true God is Three distinct Persons and three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Spirit are the one true God Plainly as if a Man should say Peter James and John being Three Persons are one Man and one Man is these Three distinct Persons Peter James and John Is it not now a Ridiculous Attempt as well as a Barbarous Indignity to go about thus to make Asses of all Mankind under pretence of teaching them a Creed and things Divine to despoil them of their Reason the Image of God and the Character of our Nature But let us in two words examine the parts of this Monstrous Proposition as 't is laid down in the Creed it self Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance But how can we not confound the Persons that have they say but one numerical Substance And how can we but divide the Substance which we find in three distinct divided Persons There is one Person of the Father another of the Son another of the H. Ghost Then the Son is not the Father nor is the Father the Son nor the Holy Ghost either of them I shall not need to prove this Consequence not only because 't is evident but because 't is acknowledged by the Trinitarians But if the Father is not the Son and yet is by confession of all the One true God then the Son is not the One true God because He is not the Father the reason is self-evident for How can the Son be the one true God if he is not He who is the One true God After the same manner it may be proved that on the Athanasian Princiciples neither the Father nor Holy Spirit are or can be God or the One true God for neither of them is the Son who is the One true God according to Athanasius and all Trinitarians for thy all say the Father is the One true God the Son is the One true God and the Holy Ghost is the One true God Which is a three-fold Contradiction because there is but One true God and One of these Persons is not the other But if it be a Contradiction 't is certainly false for every Contradiction being made up of Inconsistences destroys it self and is its own Confutation The Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the Glory equal the Majesty coeternal The meaning of the last Clause is That
the Union is between two finite things but in the pretended Personal Vnion of God to Man and Man to God the Union is between Finite and Infinite which on the Principles of the Trinitarians is impossible For we must either suppose that Finite and Infinite are Commensurate that is equal which every one knows is false or that the Finite is united but to some part of the Infinite and is disjoyned from the rest which all Trinitarians deny and abhor You will say If they admit neither of these how do they shew the Possibility of the Incarnation or Union of God to Man They tell you God indeed is Infinite and every reasonable Soul and Body even that of Christ is Finite yet the whole God and whole Man are united because As the whole Eternity of God doth coexist to a moment of Time so the whole Immensity of God is in every Mathematical Point of Space The very Truth is they cannot otherways defend the Incarnation or Personal Vnion of an infinite God to a finite Man but withal it must be owned that then the Doctrins of the Trinity and Incarnation do infer imply and suppose all the Contradictions that Mr. Johnson has objected to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation in that little Golden Tract so deservedly esteemed by All. His whole Book and all his Demonstrations are founded on these two Suppositions that a longer time doth not all of it coexist to a shorter nor is a greater Extension constipated or contained in a less much less in a Mathematical Point Therefore all his Books and all that he hath so well said and argued in the Preface concerning the Authority and Judicature of Reason in Matters of Religion equally and effectually destroys the Ductrins of the Trinity and Transubstantiation If the Reader would have an excellent Book let him procure that But Oh! were the Press as free for the Unitarians as 't is for other Protestants how easily would they make it appear that the Follies and Contradictions so justly charged on the Transubstantiation are neither for Number Consequence nor Clearness any way comparable to those implied in the Athanasian Creed and that the Trinity hath the same and no other Foundation with the Transubstantiation so that we must of necessity admit both or neither If the Church is to interpret Scripture for us we must admit both but if Reason we can admit neither and this I think the Trinitarians will not deny But secondly In the pretended Incarnation or Union of God with Man the Union cannot be Personal as 't is between the Soul and Body it cannot I mean be such an Union as to make but one Person The Union of the Soul and Body may be properly Personal that is may constitute or make one Person because 't is not the Union of two Persons but only of one Person the Soul to a thing otherways without Life Reason Memory or Free-will The Body is but as it were the Garment of the Soul and is wholly acted by it and depending on it But in the pretended Union of God with a Man there are two distinct and very different Lives Memories Reasons and Free-Wills which utterly destroys a Personal Union for that supposes but one Life one Reason one Memory one Free-Will for if these things which constitute a Person are sound more than once there is no longer one Person but two and consequently no Personal Union in the sense of which we are speaking This is the Catholick Faith which except a Man believe faithfully he cannot be saved By believing Athanasius doth not mean bare believing but he includeth also therein Profession for He saith a little before The right Faith is that we Believe and Confess c. So that a Man cannot be saved unless he Believes and Professes as this Creed directs him First for Believing What if a Man cannot believe it Are we obliged under the Penalty of the loss of Salvation to believe it whether we can or no Doth God require of any Man an impossible Condition in order to Salvation Secondly As to professing under pain of Damnation What if it be against a Man's Conscience to profess it The Scripture saith Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin if therefore a Man profess against his Conscience He sins and if notwithstanding this a Man must either Profess or be Damned then God requires some Meâ— to sin in order to their Salvation but this we are sure is false and therefore that the Menace in the Artide is vain And now I appear to all Men that have any freedom of Judgment remaining Whether this Creed is fit to be retained in any Christian much less Protestant and reformed Church Since it subverts the Foundations not only of Christianity but of all Religion that is to say Reason and Revelation there being no Principle in Reason and Scripture more evident than that God is One or that there is one Almighty only-Wise and Good Person or Father of all If we cannot be sure of this then Religion and Christianity are built upon Fancy only and have no solid Foundation This Creed may be profess'd by the Roman Political Church because it gives countenance to their Absurd Transubstantiation and Cunning Traditions added to Scripture as those Doctrins do to the gaining of Veneration and consequently Dominion and Riches to their Clergy But in a eformed Church where the Scripture is held to be a Compleat Rule of Faith and Manners and also to be Clear and Plain in all things necessary to Salvation even to the meanest Understanding that reads it or hears it with Sobriety and Attention such a Confession of Faith is I think intolerable as being utterly inconsistent with those Principles and reducing us back to the Roman Bondage Besides Nothing has been or is more scandalous to Jews and Mahometans than his Creed the chief Article of whose Religion is that there is one only God The evidence of which Principle is such in nature as well as Scripture that it has propagated Mahomatism among greater Numbers than at this day own Christianity for the sake of that one Truth so many Nations have swallowed all the Errors and Follies of the Alchoran or Book of Mahomet as on the other Hand Christianity has been rejected and detested among them on the account of the Christians Three Persons who are severally and each of them God But the Mischiefs of this Creed do not stay here it is levelled not only against the True Faith but is destructive of that Love and Charity Which is the Spirit and Life of Christianity and without which Faith is but a Life-less Body For as if it would effectually inspire all its Believers with a Spirit of Judging Damning and Uncharitableness it pronounces the Sentence of Eternal Damnation in the Beginning Middle and Conclusion upon all that do not both Believe and Profess this Faith and keep it whole and undefiled that is upon the whole Greek Church and other Churches in the East and upon