THE SCRIPTURE-TERMS OF CHURCH-UNION With respect to the Doctrin of the TRINITY CONFIRMED By the Vnitarian Explications of the Beginning of St. John 's Gospel Together with the Answers of the Unitarians to the Chief Objections made against them Whereby it appears that Men may be Vnitarians and Sincere and Inquisitive and that they ought not to be excluded out of the Church-Communion WITH A POST-SCRIPT Wherein the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost according to the Generality of the Terms of Scripture is shewn not to be Inconsistent with the Vnitarian Systems Most Earnestly and Humbly Offered to the Consideration of those on whom 't is most particularly incumbent to examin these Matters By A. L. Author of the Irenicum Magnum c. LONDON Printed as abovementioned to be communicated to learned and inquisitive Persons and those who are most obliged to inquire into these Points Some TEXTS Authorising the Subject of this Writing PRove all things 1 Thess 5.21 Be ready to give an Answer to every Man that asketh you a Reason c 1 Pet. 3.15 Whereto we have attained let us walk by the same Rule Phil. 3.16 To the Law and to the Testimony c. Isa 8.20 Search the Scriptures John 5.39 Let us follow after the things which make for Peace Rom. 14.19 That I might by all means Save some 1 Cor. 9.22 Let us not therefore judge one another any more Rom. 14.13 What I tell you in Darkness that speak you in Light and what ye hear in the Ear that Preach ye upon the House tops Matt. 10.27 Overcome Evil with Good Rom. 12.21 To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is Sin Jam. 4.17 Who hold the Truth in Vnrighteousness Rom. 1.18 Whosoevâ—â— shall be ashamed of Me and of my Words of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when 〈◊〉 â—â—â—eth in the Glory of his Father Mark 8.38 They are the Enemies of the Cross of Christ Phil. 3.18 Is a Candle to be put under a Bushel Mark 4.21 Relieve the Oppressed Isa 1.17 We ought to obey God Acts 5.29 Chusing rather to suffer affliction with the People of God than to enjoy the Pleasuâ—â—â— of Sin for a season Hebr. 11.25 If the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch Matt. 15.14 In Vnderstanding be Men 1 Cor. 14.20 They began to make excuse Luk. 14.18 Wherefore when I came was there no Man Isa 50.2 They came not to the Help of the Lord Judg. 5.23 I pray God that it may not be laid to their Charge 2 Tim. 4.16 God has chosen the foolish things of the World to confound the wise 1 Cor. 1.27 Truth faileth and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a Prey And the Lord saw it and it dâ—spleased him that there was no Judgment And he saw that there was no Man and wondered that there was no Intercessour Isa 59.15.16 Whosoever shall not hear your words verily I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the Land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the Day of Judgment than for them Matt 10.14 15. Now they have no Cloak for their Sin John 15.22 Let us therefore fear lest a Promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Hebr. 4.1 I speak as to wise Men 1 Cor. 10.15 Whether in pretence or in truth Christ is Preached Phil. 1.18 He therefore that despiseth despiseth not Man but God 1 Thess 4.8 O that the Salvation were come to Israel Ps 14.7 We hid our Faces from him Isa 53.3 Blessed be he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Ps 118.26 God has made him both Lord and Christ Acts 2.36 The Son can do nothing of himself John 5.19 The Father loveth the Son and has given all things into his hand John 3.35 That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow to the Glory of the Father Phil. 2.10 11. The TITLES of the CHAPTERS I. THE Occasion and Design of this Paper Page 1. II. The Socinian Explication of the Beginning of St. John's Gospel p. 3. III. A Continuation of the Socinian Explication of the Beginning of St. John's Gospel p. 10. IV. The Arian System p. 15. V. The Answers of the Unitarians to the Chief Objections commonly made against their Expositions in general and first the Answer to the Objected Antiquity and Vniversality of the Trinitarian Sentiment p. 18. VI. A Continuation of the Answer to the first Objection p. 25. VII A Farther Continuation of the Answer to the first Objection p. 31. VIII The Conclusion of the Answer to the first Objection p. 46. IX A Second general Objection against the Unitarian System Answered p. 50. X. A Third general Objection stated consisting of Four Branches p. 60. XI An Answer to the first Branch of the Objection p. 65. XII An Answer to the second Branch of the Objection p. 69. XIII An Answer to the third Branch of the Objection p. 79. XIV An Answer to the fourth Branch of the Objection p. 88. XV. The Inferences most incontestably following from the whole foregoing Discourse and the Gospel-Terms of Communion p. 96. A Post-Script p. 104. A Table of the Chief Matters Treated of in each Chapter In CHAPTER I. THAT the Design of this Book is not to set up the Unitarian Sentiment but to vindicate and assert the Generality or Latitude of the Scripture Terms of Church-Communion with respect to such most intricate Points of Speculation p. 1. That there are some things exprest in a great Generality and left extremely Obscure in Scripture on purpose to try both our Industry and Sincerity and our Charity Christian Prudence and Moderation p. 1. 2. That the Unitarian Controversy is of that Nature that Men may be Unitarians and sincere and inquisitive and that the Unitarians therefore ought not to be excluded out of the Church-Communion p. 2. 3. In CHAP. II. In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God explain'd p. 3. 4. 5. The reason of Christ's being called the Word p. 5. In what sense Christ the Word is called God or a God p. 6. c. In CHAP. III. The Creation by this Word explained p. 11. 12. The Word was Flesh explained p. 12. 13. The remaining Verses explained p 14. 15. In CHAP. IV. The Proofs of the Arian System p. 15. The Arian Notion of the Word viz. That thereby is meant the Chief Officer or Minister of God the first and most excellent Creature a most sublime Spirit in some respect like the Holy Spirits or Holy Angels and Archangels but yet of another kind than they and surpassing in excellency all other created Spirits being extraordinarily united to and assisted by the Divine Wisdom and the whole God-head that this Divine Spirit is as it were the Mouth of God or his Word-bearer and that in process of time taking Flesh of the Virgin Mary by the Power of God it became the Soul of the Messiah p.
in the stead of God they do in some measure represent Him We see Exod. 23.21 that the Angel that conducted the Children of Israel had that High Name and Dignity for says God my Name is in Him There is nothing more common in Scripture than for those Beings to be said to be what they represent as also what they are figured by As Christ sais that He is the Door and the true Vine and that the Consecrated Bread is his Body So Angels and other God's Messengers are said to be God and are called Jehovah See Gen. 18.1 c. Gen. 19.13 compared with the 18th 24th and 29th Verses Gen. 31.11 and 13. Exod. 3.2.4 and 6. Exod. 4.16 compared with Exod 7.1 Exod. 14.19 and 24. 1. Sam. 3.21 c. Bishop Taylor in his Sermon on 1. Sam. 15.22 observes it is a Saying of the Jews that Apostolus cujusque est quisque every Man's Messenger is himself or is said and may be said to be himself and must be censed and reck'ned as himself The Names of some of the Chief Angels are God or the Great God which shews that God is the same with Prince or Sovereign such as was said As Gabriel which signifies the Mighty God and Michael which signifies Equal to God or Like the Highest Agreably to which Denominations the Samaritans thought they might give to Simon Magus the Name of the Great Power of God because probably they conceited him to be assisted of some Mighty Angel Act. 8.10 This Man is the Great Power of God The Superior Angels are called Gods by Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. L. 5. P. 598. The whole Army sais he of Angels and Gods is subjected to the Son Whereby as by many other Passages it appears the Primitive Christians thought it not repugnant to Christianity and the Scripture-stile to call others Gods besides Almighty God The Title of God is particularly given to some Men in Scripture Exod. 7.1 Moses is said to be God or a God to Pharaoh because he was sent on a wonderful and extraordinary Errand to him by God and was enabled to save and to destroy him Behold sais God there to Moses I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Aaron thy Brother shall be thy Prophet This Text may put us in mind or cause us to observe that as we shall see was remark'd by Eusebius Pamphilus De Ecclesiastie Theolog. Lib. 2. Cap. 17. St. John's Expression which we are considering should not be rendered the Word was God but the Word was a God there being no Article here before the Term God as there was in the foregoing Sentence where it was said that the Word was with God which Sentence therefore should have been Translated was with the God by excellency or the Supreme God the Sovereign of all This Passage of St. John would appear more easy to our Apprehension if instead of the term God we did read Lord or Sovereign because in the Stile of our Modern Languages we are not used to appropriate the Title of God to any Creatures as the Scripture doth but are only wont to give the Appellation of Lord in common tho' in divers Senses to God and to some Great Men in Authority Thus then we may conceive the First Verse of St. John's Gospel to run according to its true Signification In the beginning of the New Oeconomy while John the Baptist was Preaching the Baptism of Repentance as the immediate Introduction of the New Dispensation the Messiah himself was then in the World And the Messiah was with the Lord as Moses was with the Angel in the Mountain before the giving of the Law And the Messiah was then constituted a Sovereign Lord or the Chief of those Princely Ministers and High Officers who have the Title of Lord or God communicated to them tho' in an Inferior Sense to what it imports when it is attributed to the Eternal and Supreme Lord of all And the Word was with the God and the Word was a God Our Saviour himself observes John 10.34 that the Title of God was given to Men in the Holy Scripture Is it not written in your Law I said Ye are Gods If He called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came or to whom God gave a High Commission and the Scripture cannot be broken say ye of Him whom the Father has Sanctified and Sent into the World Thou Blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God We must needs then ever remember that the Stile of Scripture differs from ours and that we must not Interpret every thing according to the Sound of Words but consistently with the whole Scripture and the clear notions of Reason Verba non Sono sed Sensu sapiunt is an excellent Rule and a Sentence of St. Hilary's quoted in Bishop Taylor 's Second Sermon upon Tit. 2.7 A notable Example of the Title of God being given to Men is that of the 45th Ps at the 6. and 7. Ver. where the Author of this Psalm addresses himself thus to Solomon upon his Marriage with Pharach's Daughter and his being declared King or Heir of the Kingdom by his Father David Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Thou lovest Righteousness and hatest Wickedness wherefore O God thy God has vnointed thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellows Here Solomon is expresly called God It is undoubted that this Psalm in a mystical Sense is applicable to the Messiah and to his Spiritual Marriage with the Church But the mystical and secundary doth not take away the first and literal Sense And it would be most Unreasonable to pretend that this Psalm has no literal Signification It appears to be the usual way of the Holy Spirit under the Old Testament to Shadow the things pertaining to the Christian Oeconomy by real Acts or literal Events then verified or belonging to those times under the former Dispensations And accordingly we find all the reason in the World to ascribe a literal Sense to this prophetical and mystical Psalm and to understand it primarily or originally of the said Wedding of King Solomon We find it has always been generally so understood We find it as sitting for that Solemnity as it could be supposed to have been if it had been made for it and we see it is entituled a Song of Love or a Wedding Poem The Prince is represented as having his Title newly confer'd upon and assured to him and as being preferred before his Fellows or Brethren by his God or King This suits very well with Solomons Case and with the Secinian System But it is inconsistent with the Trinitarian Notions as much as the Trinitarian Interpretation is repugnant to the Truth of the Divine Unity For if there be but one God can it be said to Him thy God has c If the term God be here taken in the most eminent Sense of it there are two Supreme Gods the one spoken to and the other spoken of and said to be the God
of him that is spoken to and so a Supreme or Eternal and Infinite God has a God that is his Superior or which implies the same thing has a God that is his God and that confers Honours and Benefits upon him which is an Absurdity no less than that of supposing two absolutely Supreme or Essential Gods Besides a God in the most eminent Sense of the word cannot be said to be anointed For either his Deity is not true or not truely perfect in it self and so not absolutely divine or else it is all-sufficient and can need no anointing Even a Man Personally-United with God if that were possible cannot be supposed to be anointed with the Assisting Spirit seeing he cannot need it for such a Person must needs have in himself all that is Great and Necessary Howbeit it is the God that is here spoken to Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever c. And God in fine has no Fellows Nor even has a God-Man Fellows except there be more God-Men as there were more Kings Sons besides Solomon For all these reasons therefore those words of this Psalm cannot be understood as the Adversaries of the Vnitarians would understand them and it doth then appear that another is called God besides the Supreme God And so it is to no purpose here to Object that we do not read of any Children by Pharaoh's Daughter and that the Kingdom was not of long continuance in Solomon's Family as we suppose is here promised First these might be the Psalmists Wishes which were very natural on that Occasion and seemed requisite ex Epithalamii lege says Rivetus But besides that there are frequently in Scripture Conditional Promises even when the Condition is but Tacitely understood and not expressed And thus it might be promised to Solomon that his Throne would be for ever or that the Kingdom would be of a very long Continuance in his Family in Case he and his Children remained true to their Duty Ps 132.13 In like manner Pharaohs Daughter might here be promised many Children who would have been accounted Great Lords and Princes in all the Land of Judea and in all the Coasts of Israel And the Reason why that Promise took no effect might be because she revolted to the Idolatry which undoubtedly she had abjured at her Marriage At the 10th and 11th Verses the Psalmist addresses himself thus to the Queen Hearken O Daughter forget thine own People and thy Fathers House so shall the King greatly desire thy Beauty Doth not this Exhortation appear very Suitable to a Princess come out of an Idolatrous Family And at the same time doth it not hereby appear that She is Married to a Prince in whose Country Idolatry was not the National Religion What Country that was is evident And it is added in the following Verse that the City of Tyre famous for her Rich Trading would bring Presents to the Queen Which Suits well with Solomens prosperous Reign It must then be Unreasonable to suppose that this Psalm has not a literal Sense or that that is not the literal Sense thereof which so well Suits with it and which as was observed has always been reputed to be its primary meaning by the Generality of the best and most learned Interpreters in all Parties There is therefore visibly all the Reason in the World to believe that it is Solomon that is here called God And why should any tho' but the least number among the Trinitarians be so averse to own it or what need is there to be at so much pains to put that matter out of doubt Are not Great Men in other Places of Scripture said to be Gods I have said ye are Gods Ps 82.6 Ps 138.1 and 4. c. Why then should not Solomon here be called God that is a Sovereign Prince acting for God by Gods express Commission to that purpose and so in some measure or in some respects representing God Have we not seen that our Saviour himself observed it that they are called Gods unto whom the Word of God came John 10.35 And at what occasion did our Saviour make that Observation That also to the purpose before us is well worth the being noted It was when the Jews reproached to him that he Equalled himself to God and as they judged made himself the Most High God And now what doth he Answer to that Charge Doth he say that he was literally the Eternal God and that a Second Divine Person was incarnate in him or doth he leave any Room for any such conceit or rather do's he not expresly obviate and refute it This is manifestly the whole meaning of his Answer Why should you think that I make my self the Most High God Is it because I am called God or the Son of God And don't you know that in your own Law it is written of some Great Men I have said ye are Gods and the Sons of the Highest Were those Men therefore to be reputed Homousian Sons of God or of the same Essence with the Father No. Neither am I therefore any more to be thought so If we take not that Answer and Reasoning of our Saviour's in this Sense it seems we make of it a mere Shuffling and an Equivocating Discourse nothing to the purpose and absolutely unworthy the Gravity of the Speaker as seems obvious upon an impartial Reading of the Text. (*) John 10.33 34 35 36. The Jews answered him Saying For a good Work we Stone thee not but for Blasphemy and because that thou being a Man makest thy self God Jesus answered them Is it not Written in your Law I said Ye are Gods If He called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came and the Scripture cannot be Broken Say ye of Him whom the Father has Sanctified and Sent into the World Thou Blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God Howbeit it doth here suffice us that we see there is no necessity to take always the term God in the most eminent Sense seeing that some Men in the Scripture stile are called Gods For if we can take that term in an inferior sense when applied to Men we can shew that there is a great deal of Reason to understand it in that sense when appropriated to our Saviour who is the Word or High Officer of God and Chief Interpreter of the Divine Will and who as to his Person and Being and Constitution was in all things like unto us yet without Sin Heb. 2.17 and 4.15 It is to no purpose therefore for the Trinitarians to alledge any Text where they think Christ is called God unless they can expresly shew that he is the Supreme God actually equal to and of the same Essence with the eternal God and that the Father is not greater than he I shall only add concerning the aforesaid Answer of our Saviour's that if he had been the Most High God it seems he dissembled it at an occasion that required the speaking it out
it were a Property or a Faculty of God Christ a Man and a Creature should have the Preheminence over it and be named before it and be honour'd above it If these things are unaccountable what do the Vnitarians get by their differing from the Trinitarians Then the remoteness of the Vnitarian Interpretations may in particular be argued by these Instances When the generality of Christians read these Texts that the Word is God and that by him all things whether in Heaven or Earth were made and created is it likely that it will come into their minds that thereby is meant that all things were New-modelled by Christ or that supposing that all things were created by him yet he is but a Creature that bears the Name of God If these Senses are so far from being obvious that we may imagine they can scarce so much as enter into the thoughts of any ordinary Christians is it credible that they are the true Meaning of those Texts For can We think the Holy Writers have so expressed themselves as that it should not be possible for the greatest part of Men to understand them We may then be confident 3. That several Texts of Scripture whether put together or taken asunder amount to a firm Evidence of the Trinitarian Sentiment Besides those aforementioned these seem express which call Christ by way of eminency the Son of God and which not only shew that Christ may and is to be Pray'd to but declare that God will have Men Honour the Son even as they Honour the Father Which it seems after all that the Vnitarians have said concerning the Worship of the Man Jesus Christ is an invincible Demonstration that the Son is God like the Father In fine the Trinitarians esteem all these Arguments may also be strength'ned by the following and last proposed Consideration 4. That it seems there is no express Text for the Vnitarian Doctrin or against the Trinitarians If the Vnitarians will confute the Trinitarian System let them produce any decisive Text for their Sentiment thereby they will incontestably shew that all the Texts which the Trinitarians alledge must be understood in the Vnitarian Sense but this the Trinitarians do defy the Vnitarians to do This is so weighty a Consideration that Dr. Sherlock thinks sit to inculcate and repeat it a great many times in his last Book intituled The Scripture-Proofs of our Saviour's Divinity explain'd c. To this purpose for instance Page 47. How harsh and unusual soever the Expositions of the Vnitarians might appear I should allow them to be very Reasonable had they first well prov'd that Christ is but a Creature that is in the Vnitarian Sense and not the eternal and almighty God himself for that alone would be reason enough to attribute nothing to him which cannot belong to a Creature Page 50. We must understand Words in a proper and natural Sense where there is no apparent reason for a Figure and here is none to take figuratively as the Vnitarians do these words God and Son of God when applied to Christ unless they think fit to assign his being a mere Creature Which indeed would be a very good reason could they prove that Christ is but a Creature Page 55. Could any Text be produced that proves Christ to be but a Creature that is the Dr. must mean as was before remark'd but such a Creature as the Vnitarians hold as most eminently acts for God represents God and is assisted of and united to God according to the Vnitarian System it would put an end to this Controversy and either excuse or justify all their other Interpretations of Scripture how harsh soever they might otherwise appear Page 58. The whole Controversy may be put upon this Issue if they can confute ours or establish their own Interpretations of Scripture so as to prove ours to be necessarily false and theirs consequently necessarily true c. CHAP. XI An Answer to the First Branch of the Objection TO the Four Branches of the foregoing Argument the Vnitarians answer in these Four Particulars 1. The Vnitarians do not lay the whole stress of their Cause upon Arguments drawn from Reason yet very justly on the other hand they think like all Protestants that Reason ought not wholly to be Slighted 2. They maintain that none of their Assertions are uncredible and that their Interpretations are rational and agreeable to the stile and current of Scripture and therefore natural and obvious enough 3. It is possible and easy and warrantable to understand in an Vnitarian Sense all the Texts which the Trinitarians alledge for their Sentiment 4. The Vnitarians produce several Texts of Scripture which seem express and most evident for the Vnitarian System it manifestly appearing that they are not susceptible of any other tolerable Sense or that they cannot tolerably be reconciled to the Trinitarian Sentiment so that if Men do not own and discern the force of them it seems it must be either because they make no attention to them or because they are moved and acted by Passion blinded by Prejudice and Partiality and resolved not to acknowledge the Truth 1. The Vnitarians do not lay the whole stress of their Cause upon Arguments drawn from Reason yet very justly on the other hand they think like all Protestants that Reason ought not wholly to be Slighted If this Subject be duly consider'd it will be found that Protestants and Vnitarians do not differ in Principles concerning this Question What Vse of Reason ought to be allowed in Matters of Religion Now if it be so there can be nothing less pertinent than to make a Dispute about it or to pretend a Difference where there is none It is as if a Papist should make long Harangues to Protestants to prove that Scripture is the Word of God that God cannot be suppos'd willing to deceive Men and that therefore we must heartily assent to and firmly believe whatsoever is contain'd in the Bible Why Man What Protestant is there that knows not this or that denies it Protestants profess to believe the Holy Scripture as much to the full as any Member of the Church of Rome doth Pretty then make no Controversy about that Matter But if thou wilt do any thing to the purpose shew that Protestants reject some Doctrines certainly taught in God's Word In like manner Vnitarians maintain that a Protestant is out of the way who Quarrels with them about the Vse of Reason and they challenge him to shew that they make any other Use of it than Protestants themselves make in Matters of Religion So that whenever Protestants Quarrel with the Vnitarian Principles with relation to this Point they deviate from their own Rule and accuse their own Measures than which nothing can be more unreasonable and unwarrantable Either make not Use of the Principle or Quarrel not at a like Use of it If after all you think that Vnitarians make a different Use of Reason I say a different Use in
Kind and Extent or ascribe more to Reason than Protestants do then in God's Name shew it and don 't declaim against or invalidate your own Principles play not at fast and loose or sometime hold the same Principles of Reason and anon reject them and dispute against them This is what the Vnitarians answer in general But more particularly they represent The Vnitarians do not lay the whole stress of their Cause upon Arguments drawn from Reason For a Proof of this the Reader may be referr'd to Crell's Book Touching One God the Father where there are many Arguments from Scripture for one taken from the Topick of Reason If the Vnitarians did not appeal to Scripture and offerred not to put the Controversy upon that Issue and were not willing to be decided chiefly by that but proposed wholly to set the Divine Revelation aside and resolved only to hearken to what Human Reason can inform us of the Matter controverted the Trinitarians would have some grounds to blame them and to assert that they gave too much to Reason But the Vnitarians expresly acknowledge as well as the Trinitarians both that Reason's Sphere and Reach is not unlimited that there are many Truths above Reason and attended with inextricable Difficulties and incumbred with seeming Contradictions and that therefore what is credibly demonstrated to be is not to be rejected upon the account of such Reason-Objections as these where Reason is short and doth not see clearly and distinctly and then expresly the Vnitarians do hold that in Matters of Revelation the Holy Scripture is primarily to be consulted and followed as the Supreme Rule What will then the Trinitarians have or what can they require more and what is there here that they can justly blame It is true indeed that hereby the Use of Reason is not wholly discarded For On the other Hand the Vnitarians think like all Protestants that Reason ought not to be wholly Slighted For indeed what Reason shews clearly and distinctly no Man in his Senses that duely considers will contemn it or reject it And in reason We ought not lightly to take any Thing in a Sense that seems contrary to Reason when there is no absolute Necessity for it or when that Thing may be taken in another Sense It is certain that Protestants allow as much to Reason and hold that Scripture is to be understood consistently and agreably to these Natural Principles so that when the Words of Scripture in their literal Signification imply something manifestly contrary to Reason they must be taken in any other Sense that they may be susceptible of In short Protestants doubt not but that the whole Scripture perfectly agrees with Right Reason and therefore they take it as much as possible in Senses evidently agreable to Reason and they expresly reject those Senses which are plainly inconsistent with it Upon that account all Protestants hold that We must necessarily make Vse of Reason in interpreting of Scripture if We will understand it right Accordingly they consult and use Reason both in expounding the Text of Scripture and in drawing the natural and necessary Consequences from it And agreably to these just Measures they take in a Figurative Sense those Texts which according to the Literal Sound of the Words manifestly appear to our Reason to be unworthy of God and to be expresly contrary to Reason Upon that account they understand figuratively for instance that Saying of our Saviour's that the Bread of the Eucharist is his Body and that except We Eat his Flesh and Drink his Blood we cannot have Eternal Life as also those Expressions which ascribe to God a Body or bodily Parts the Saying of Moses that God laboured and rested the Term which imports that Jeptha Sacrificed his Daughter c. Now the Vnitarians desire not to make any other Vse of Reason But then they maintain that by no means they ought to be hindered to make the like Use of it that Protestants so justly do or so justly plead for for instance in the Controversies with the Church of Rome What Reason shews clearly and distinctly they esteem ought not to be unregarded They hold therefore that We are not rashly to understand or interpret Scripture in Senses manifestly contrary to Reason when especially that Scripture appears susceptible of some other Sense And they affirm that this is nothing but what is not only most evidently just and rational but also expresly agreable to the Protestant Principles and Practice as has been shewn So that We must needs conclude God surely will not take it ill but on the contrary He cannot but require that We should thus reason or make use of Reason and Consideration as the Vnitarians here would do so as to have some regard and make some inquiry Whether things agree or disagree with the Common Notions of Human Vnderstanding Indeed where Reason doth not see clearly and distinctly seeming Difficulties ought not to be looked upon as wholly conclusive and most particularly Difficulties then ought in reason to be reck'ned of no weight against a thing which manifestly or most credibly appears to be But the Vnitarians assert as has been shewn in the Apologia pro Irenico Magno that this is not the Case with the Trinitarian Doctrin They humbly represent that the Trinitarians cannot say that the Doctrin of three Persons in one God is most credible and manifest in it self nor incontestably express in Scripture But the Vnitarians assert on the contrary it is most clearly and distinctly evident that that Doctrin is inconsistent with several Texts as well as implies many most express Contradictions and manifest Impossibilities The Trinitarians then have no just grounds to compare this Point with some Things that are Incontestable or absolutely out of our Sight For tho' the Whole of God cannot be perfectly comprehensible yet in general some things of God may be clearly discerned and therefore God is unanimously acknowledg'd in that sense to be an Object of Reason and all Parties affirm or deny some things of God upon the account of their being evidently agreable or disagreable to Reason There is no reason consequently why the same Measures should not be followed with respect to the Trinitarian Controversy And plainly then that is very unreasonable which the Trinitarians so earnestly desire that no account at all should be made of the so many so express and so obvious Contradictions and Impossibilities which appear to be implied in the Trinitarian Doctrin If they were only obscure and uncertain Difficulties and if the Trinitarian Doctrin were most manifest and certain or unavoidable and not contradicted by any Scripture-Evidence the Vnitarians would be to blame to insist on this Plea of Reason But as was said the Case will be found to be quite otherwise if it be duly considered And if so the unjust and unreasonable Measures that are taken will be a Shame to the present and a Wondering to future Times The Arguments of the Trinitarians in
fine are not infallible which import that some certain and incontestable Truths are incumbred with any most express and unavoidable Contradictions It is certain that some Truths are above Reason to give an account How they are and those are true Mysteries but it doth not follow that they are contrary to Reason It were indeed the greatest Folly upon any Difficulties to deny any Thing which manifestly appears to be But if the Manner or the Things concerning those Difficulties were rightly stated understood they might appear to be free from Contradictions for real Contradictions cannot be true It is Men's rash Judgment then that concludes a Truth to be attended with Contradictions when really it is not so I doubt not but that those Systems if duly considered may be vindicated from Contradictions which assert that there is no Vacuum that Matter is divisible infinitely that Eternity consists in a perpetual Succession of Moments It is true We are not to lean too much to our own Understandings or to be stiff to our Prepossessions Imaginations without sufficient knowledge of the Cause and without due examination But then on the other hand it is known We are bid in Understanding to be Men to prove all things to the best of our power that is those things especially that concern our eternal Welfare And by that means God tries our Sincerity and our real Concernment for the most momentous Matters We must not then reject the Use of our Reason It is indeed certain and evident those are faulty and criminal who when Religion and Revelation are so well prov'd and credibly attested and confirmed dispute either of them because they do not know how things were created and with what Instruments God made the World as if He needed any or because they do not understand how God can forsee Events and why He permits Evil. No wise Man will agree that these Difficulties expresly imply unavoidable Contradictions And all good Men will grant that the grossest Solution of these Objections renders the Infidels utterly inexcusable Now what considering Christian will say that the said or any the like Objections are absolutely unanswerable The most difficult Objections incontestably are those of Spinoza and Bayle Yet we see them answered the one by the most Reverend Archbishop of Dublin in his Book De Origine Mali and the other by the Famous Dr. Henry More in the Second Part of his Metaphysicks There are some Answers to those Objections which need not take up above two Sheets and to which the Infidels can not reply with the least colour of Reason As to the rest the Reader may be referred to the 12th Chapter of the Apologia pro Irenico Magno which comprises a general Answer to the Objections against the Vse of Reason Yet certainly it is not necessary that all Difficulties against Religion should expresly be answered It is undoubtedly sufficient that it be solidly prov'd and that it appear most rational and credible And when we are assured that God says any thing we may rationally believe it and ought in reason to do so notwithstanding any seeming Difficulties inferior to a stronger and clearer Evidence Howbeit on the other hand that the Inferiority of such Difficulties be most fully evinced the essaying to resolve Difficulties as much as possible ought by no means to be discouraged For if things be duly considered Religion will then be sufficiently vindicated and illustrated and otherwise it may often be sadly misrepresented and corrupted as well as wretchedly exposed to the Calumnies of the Infidels CHAP. XII An Answer to the Second Branch of the Objection 2. THE Vnitarians maintain that none of their Assertions are incredible and that their Interpretations are rational and agreable to the stile and current of Scripture and therefore natural and obvious enough 'T is certain on the one hand the Trinitarian Tenets are most strange and unintelligible and on the other the Stile of Scripture like that of all Eastern Languages is most figurative Now this being duly weighed and it being withal consider'd that Reason is a Divine Light that ought not wholly to be slighted if some constraint is to be made either to some Difficult Expressions that may be taken with the help of a warrantable Figure in an accountable Sense or to the Common Notiont of Mankind that cannot be reconcil'd with the literal or first seeming import of those Expressions what course in this Case is it most pious and rational to take The Trinitarian Objection it self implying that what is incredible is to be rejected decides the Matter The chief Instances of the pretended Remoteness of the Vnitarian Interpretations are particularly concerning the Vnitarian Expositions of Christs Creating all things and in what Sense the Word is said to be God c. Now to the latter the Vnitarians observe that if we will understand that Text aright we must not determine our selves about the Sense of it before we have considered what the Scripture elsewhere teaches as well as Reason concerning this Person that is here called the Word and that if it appear that thereby a Creature is meant as even according to them it evidently doth then there can be no difficulty in explaining the Title of God which is attributed to the Word but we must necessarily take it in an Inferior Signification in which it may be applied and we find it is sometimes in Scripture communicated to a Creature especially our Saviour himself accordingly warning us that some Creatures in Scripture are called Gods John 10.34 35. Angels in the Original are termed Gods Ps 8.5 c. And it was common among the Heathens to give that Title to others beside those whom they accounted the Supreme Gods The giving then of that Title to some Creature in an Inferiour Sense was not at all unintelligible either to Jews or Gentiles Indeed one of the Designs of Christianity was to inform the Pagans that there are not many Gods in the supreme or proper Sense of that word but only One such God to whom alone Divine Worship is due But the Gospel never intended to signify that there are not many in Heaven and Earth that may be termed Gods in an inferior Sense according to the Scripture as well as the Gentile-Stile If St. Thomas directed his Speech to Christ in that exclamation My Lord and My God he might mean no more than if he had said My Prince and My Soveraign The Trinitarians own that by the Word in the beginning of St. John's Gospel is meant Christ Now Reason it self shews us manifestly that we must not take Christ to be the Supreme God For Christ is a Man and was always own'd to be but one Person but God is a distinct Spirit and consequenly a distinct Person for an intelligent Being whether Divine or Human has all that is requisite to the constituting of a Person and so cannot always but be a distinct Person two Spirits then must needs be two Persons
fine pretended that it seems marvellous that a Creature should be named before and should be said to have the preheminence over the Power of God by the Holy Ghost understanding the Influence of the Divine Power and Divine Inspiration it must be remembred both that by the Divine Inspiration or Influence of the Divine Power the Vnitarians do not understand a Person but a Property or an Act and that agreeably to the express Doctrine of Scripture they hold that Christ is made partaker of the Fulness of the Godhead in the manner we have spoken of before and just now have further specified so that for Desiring the Father he may at any time Dispose of the Divine Power and Inspiration and doth actually dispose thereof as is said according to what he pleases to ask it of God and therefore the Holy Spirit is represented as proceeding from the Father by the Son and the Holy Spirit is said to be Christ's Now it is not strange that the Disposer should be mentioned before the thing disposed of as it is in the Form of Baptism There is then no need to insist any longer upon this And so we have don with the second Particular importing that the Assertions of the Vnitarians are not uncredible and that their Interpretations are rational and agreeable to the stile and current of Scripture and therefore natural and obvious enough And this together with the following Particular being considered the Trinitarian Sentiment will appear to be wholly groundless and incontestably therefore altogether incredible For indeed is it likely that Christianity for many Ages having been altered in many weighty Points the present Trinitarian at least seemingly impossible and contradictory System has all this while remained the same that it was from the beginning and by the hands of the Platonists and Scholasticks has passed pure and undefiled In Summ. When some Texts seem susceptible of two Senses the one more literal but expresly irrational or contradictory impossible manifestly inconsistent with other Passages and the Current of Scripture and the other more strained or figurative but agreeable to the Scripture-Stile and reconcileable with Reason which of the two Senses do the generality of Christians and in particular Protestants commonly prefer in their Interpretations They unanimously hold as a standing Rule by which the Scripture is to be interpreted that it may be rightly understood as was shewn in the last Chapter That We are to reject that Sense which is manifestly absurd and inconsistent with express Texts and are then to hold by that which is reconcileable to Reason and Scripture tho' somwhat more remote from the Sound of the Words And indeed it would evidently be most unreasonable to follow other Measures We ought then most incontestably constantly to prefer that Interpretation which is consistent with Scripture and Reason before that which is inconsistent with both And this Consideration leads Us to the next Particular CHAP. XIII An Answer to the third Branch of the Objection 3. IT is possible and easy and warrantable to understand in an Vnitarian Sense all the Texts which the Trinitarians alledge for their Sentiment To evince the truth of which Proposition we shall consider those Texts which are mentioned in the Objection and instanced in as the strongest for the Anti-Vnitarian Cause and as for the others we shall refer the Reader to the Brief History of the Vnitarians or even to Grotius his Annotations but especially to the Works of the Fratres Poloni The Texts instanced in for the purpose aforesaid are those which either call Christ the Son of God by way of eminency or shew that Christ may and is to be Pray'd to and declare that God will have Men honour the Son even as they honour the Father As to the Texts which call Christ the Son of God by way of eminency an Observation of Dr. Sherlocks will go a great way to give a light into that Matter These are his words at Pages 71st and 72d of his Book against the Bishop of Gloucester That which entitles Creatures to the natural relation of Sonship to God is to receive their being from God in the likeness and resemblance of his own Nature Thus Angels are called the Sons of God and so is Adam who was immediately formed by God in his own Image and Likeness And thus som think that Christ who was as immediately formed by a Divine Power in the Womb of the Virgin as Adam was of the Dust of the Earth is for this reason called the Son of God See Luk. 1.35 where that reason is expresly given of Christ's being call'd the Son of God The Vnitarians to this Observation will in particular add that no Creature was ever made in so great a Likeness and Resemblance of the Divine Nature nor designed to so high a Dignity as Christ was and that this particularly is the reason why Christ is called the Son of God by way of eminency besides that He is actually God's Only-Begotten Son as we did observe from Luk. 1.35 This is a plain and a rational and after all an unexceptionable account of the Matter and therefore what Dr. Sherlock adds thereupon serves only to shew that the Scholastick or Platonick Trinitarian Sentiment of Christ's Sonship is impossible For this is certain and undeniable and yet if the Platonick or Scholastick Sentiment were true this could not be allowed of according to that System for he says that System implies that there being but one Son in Christ it is Heresy to hold that Christ is the Son of God in any other sense than by an Eternal Generation Christ as we have seen is called the Only-Begotten Son of God because he is the only Person whom God caused to be born of a Woman without the help of Man And in that sense he is God's Only Son as well as in this respect that he is the only Lord whom God has placed at the head of the Vniverse and to whom he has subjected all Creatures For Soveraigns and Kings are called the Sons of God Luk. 1.32 John 1.49 c. as is shewn in the Introduction of Dr. Patrick's Witnesses of Christianity and this is the Only Soveraign and King who is constituted the Lord of all other created Lords and Kings in which respect he is like to God which we have not well translated equal to God as also in respect of the exercise of the Divine Power in working the greatest Miracles whenever be pleased and whenever he will Som People are apt to imagin that even God being called the Father is a valid Proof of more Persons than One in the Divine Nature But seriously do they think that the Samaritan Women and common Soldiers were acquainted with the Scholastick or Platonick Trinity Yet these speak of a Son of God Mat. 27.54 and to the other our Saviour speaks of the Father as of Somwhat intelligible to them John 4.21 Conclude we then that by the Father we must understand God the
and the special People of God may well be called his own And his own received him not These Men to whom were given the Divine Oracles and among whom Christ was born and lived and did mighty Works and was baptized and proclaim'd the Messiah by John the Baptist and by the Hoâ—y Ghost these blind and sensual Men liked him not they thought his Doctrin too pure to be a Religion fit for them and his Person too mean and despicable to be their Deliverer Thus the World knew him not and received him not notwithstanding all the Attestations of Heaven that this was their Maker their Saviour and the Mighty Prince that God design'd them Verse 14. And the Word WAS Flesh So we must render it and not was made It is the same Expression that is used at the beginning of the 6th Verse where it is said There WAS a Man sent from God If the Trinitarian Sentiment was not impossible concerning three eternal and supremely Divine Persons as it expresly seems to be yet it could not truly be said that God was made Flesh But the Trinitarian Sentiment appears to imply many express Contradictions It seems therefore every way against Reason to render this Text as the Trinitarians do It must then be Translated as we have done For as was observed the term doth bear that Sense The Word was Flesh Flesh that is to say a mortal Man encompassed with all the infirmities or appearing in the low form and meanest circumstances of Human Nature not implying Sin See Hebr. 2.14 Mark 13.20 Gen. 6.12 Deut. 5.26 Jerem. 12.12 1. Cor. 15.50 That is then it seems of somewhat a greater force and significancy than if the Evangelist had barely said that the Messiah was a Man the saying that He was Flesh being as much as to say that as to his Nature and Being he was but a Man an ordinary Man like other Men a very Man or true Man made up of Soul and Body subject to Want and Temptation to Hunger and Thirst and to all the like Frailties and Accidents of Human Nature By the last quoted Texts it appears that this is imported by the term Flesh which in the Oriental Languages is a proper expression to that purpose tho' in our Tongue like many other Scripture Phrases it seems odd but we ought to remember that the Bible was not originally written in English we must therefore carefully attend to the stile of the Scripture and explain one Place by another that we may understand it right But tho' it be certain the Messiah the Prime Minister and Chief Messenger of God was a poor mortal Man subject to the Pains and Sufferings incident to Humanity from which miserable state and wretched circumstances being perfectly innocent he might have been exempt but to which for the sake of Men and for the Redemption of Mankind he freely subjected himself yet as the Evangelist at the same time doth here observe he was not without some conspicuous and most illustrious Rays of Glory the Glory of being own'd by God for the Messiah the Glory of bringing and procuring the most excellent Revelation and the Glory of working as great and as many Miracles as he pleas'd and when he pleas'd such a Glory as declared that the Father dwelt constantly in him and as bespoke him to be the great Messenger or divine Word and the only-begotten or most beloved Son of God Such a Glory was seen in him as the Glory of the Son of God or as a Glory worthy of the Son of God by excellency Nevertheless to all other outward appearances and circumstances he was content to be as the meanest and most contemptible Men. And the Word was Flesh Now it was very pertinent to the Design of the Evangelist to use that expression For it seems to be his chief Aim to shew that Christ the Word was but a Man It is commonly thought that he wrote his Gospel purposely to oppose the Heresies of Cerinthus We are told Iren. L. 1. C. 25. and Euseb L. 3. C. 25. Cerinthus maintained that Jesus born of Mary was not the Word or Christ but that the Christ or the Logos that is to say the Word the Divine Messenger or Wisdom or Proclaimer of the Wisdom of God was an Hypostasis or real Person subsisting of it self an Eternal and Divine Substance different from Jesus but dwelling in him while he was on Earth and working wondrous Works by him Now in opposition to this St. John asserts that the Word was Flesh was truly a Man and but a Man a frail mortal Man like other Men tho' indeed the most dignified of all Creatures as he declares at the First Verse where he calls him a God which is the Highest Name that Cerinthus gave to the Word Well says St. John the Word was a God but then this God was but a Man tho' he was the Son of God the Prince of all Creatures and the designed Lord of Men and Angels The Word was a God and the Word was Flesh That is then as if the Evangelist had said The Gnosticks call the Word a God so do I too but at the same time I declare that the Word is such a God as is but a Creature and is no other but the Man Jesus who was God's only begotten Son being born of a Virgin by the Power of God and who was anointed with and constantly assisted by the Holy Spirit This is the Christ and the God Word Those then are mere Fables which the Gnosticks and Cerinthians hold of the Christ his being an I know not what uncreated Logos and Divine Hypostasis proceeding out of the Bythos or Abyss and ordered by the Father to dwell in the Man Jesus After all it is not absolutely certain whether St. John wrote against Cerinthus We have not so much as the Assertion of any one of the Ancients for it before St. Jeâ—om And as for Cerinthus his Opinions tho' it may be that some of 'em were extraordinary bad yet we know nothing of them but by the report of his Adversaries And t is no new thing for such to give but an indifferent and imperfect account of the Sentiments of those that differ from 'em and to raise Stories disadvantageous to them which good Men such as was Ireneus took afterwards upon trust Howbeit we see that St. John decares the Word to be the Man Jesus Christ and in many Places of his Gospel shews him to be a Creature And if Ireneus was well informed himself and has informed us right Cerinthus held this erroneous Opinion that the Word is a real eternal Divine Person and consequently that there are more Divine Persons than one Those of Ireneus his Party most probably found fault with Cerinthus because besides his Superstition for the Law he had not the same Notion of the Word that they had Cerinthus it seems believed the Word to be a real Divine Person equal to the Father as the real Trinitarians do And
wanderers strayed aside from the Simplicity of Religion and preferred the arbitrary Notions of a vain Philosophy before it doth it follow that the generality of the Jews were Platonists As for Philo Eusebius conjectures and Photius expresly affirms that he was a Christian if so it must be a Platonick Christian or kind of Semi-Arian Some then have thought it not impossible but that this Philo whose Works we have is not he who went on the Embassage to Caligula but is another Philo of the Second Century Neither do they think it impossible but that the Monks may have very much corrupted his Writings Indeed it seems improbable that a Jew should have written all that is attributed to Philo. Howbeit it suffices that he was a Platonist and had a great many extravagant Notions See Mr. Nye's Second Letter to a Peer p. 66. c. After all the Platonists as was observed are very obscure And some contend that all that Philo says of a Trinity amounts not above Arianism See Sandi Hist. Eccl. enucl Lib. 1. Secul 1. But what do we say of the Cabbala or Traditionary Knowledg delivered from Father to Son since the time of Moses Why in good earnest what can we say of it but that it is a Chimera a rabinnical Legend a pharisaïcal Device to deceive the People and make every thing pass as Sacred that the Doctors please All Protestants look upon Tradition as a most unsafe and uncertain Means of transmitting from Age to Age Divine Truths and as no fixed Rule of Religion And we see Our Saviour never mentions the Jewish Tradition but to oppose it After all it can never be shewn that the Cabbala asserts a Trinity of Persons in God Ever since that Doctrin has been broached the generality of the Jews have expressed the Offense they have taken at it and have made it an Objection against Christians Origen says that tho' he had often disputed with the Jewish Rabbins that were of most esteem he never saw any of them approve this Doctrin that the Word is God or a God in the Platonick or Trinitarian Sense And he asserts that it is not the Opinion of the Jews that the Messias whom they expect is to be a God or a Divin Person but they believe he is to be a meer Man and an Earthly King Con. Cels. L. 2. p. 79. and L. 4. p. 162. See Bull. Judic Eccl. p. 170. And in Mr. Nye's 2d Letter to a Peer p. 50 51 52. you may see some more Quotations to the same purpose out of Justin Martyr St. Athanasius and others Indeed some Jewish Books treat very mysteriously and sometimes almost unintelligibly of the Names and Attributes of God Howbeit the Authors never meant thereby so many Divine Persons or any more than one such Person the Jews all along strongly opposing the Doctrin of more Persons than one in God As for the manifestly forged Writings of some Christians they are not to be attributed to the Jews See Mr. Nye's 2d Letter p. 53. You may see his Account of the Cabbala in his 3d. Letter p. 100. c. Maimonides determines this Matter in these words There are some things says he in which Jews Mahometans and Christians do agree But the Mahometans and Christians have divers Doctrines that are peculiar to themselves the Doctrin for instance of the Trinity is proper to Christians and to defend it they have been obliged to invent some very singular Principles More Nevochim Part. 1. Chap. 71. Mr. Nye has several other Quotations to the same import as also Vorstius in his Bilibra veritatis But what do we say to the Chaldee Paraphrase which often mentions the Word of God and represents him as a Person We say perhaps it is not exactly known what Philosophical Notions Onkelos and Jonathan might have who were the Authors of that Paraphrase it may be they were Platonists and accommodated some of Plato's expressions to the Jewish Sentiments howbeit we do not doubt but that all which they say of the Word is consistent with the Vnitarian Sense and we are certain that as we have shewn the Body of the Jews were Vnitarians The same Expression then in an Author may somtimes be taken in divers Significations The Word of God may sometimes signify the Message and somtimes the Messenger of God somtimes the Command it self and somtimes the Person that carries the Divine Command to Men somtimes a Divine Influence or a Divine Virtue the Wisdom and Energy of God or his Inspiration figuratively represented as a Person or his Will and Decree and somtimes a Creature in Office and Dignity an Archangel a Minister of God or one who acts for God and by God's Commission and who in some measure represents him By these Observations 't is easy to explain in an Vnitarian Sense all the Places where the Chaldee Paraphrasts mention the Word of God Probably they thereby commonly understand in speaking of God the Wisdom of God attended and set forth with Command and Authority in acting which Word or Authority God somtimes communicates in different manners or measures to some Creatures And therefore somtimes by the Word of God they understand a Creature for instance at the 1st Verse of the 110th Psalm they give that Name to Solomon because the Kings of Israel were God's Deputies and perhaps they interpreted that Verse like some other Places of the Messiah to whom it is applicable and who as they expected was to be a Temporal King of the House of David No reason can be assigned why they could not give that Title in that sense to the Messiah holding him only as a Creature tho' sometimes they gave it to some of God's Attributes Dr. Allix fancies that Philo actually personalized one of the Divin Attributes namely the Divin Wisdom whom he called the Word of God Yet as we have before remark'd the Dr. himself observ'd that Philo calls also Angels in the Plural the Words of God Philo. De Migrat Abrah p. 415. The same Title then may be given both to God or some Divin Influence or Divin Virtue and to some Creatures who act for God and who peculiarly represent him and in and by whom he extraordinarily manifests his Wisdom and Authority What belongs to God may be accomodated or figurativly attributed to such Crearures And it is incontestable that by the Word in speaking of God and by the Divin Spirit or the Breath of his Mouth may be meant the Actings or most eminent Manifestations of his Wisdom and Power As for such expressions as these in the Old Testament O God I have waited for thy Salvation when they are accommodated to the Messiah or the times of the Messiah they may import no more than this O God I have waited for thy Succor or the Deliverance of thy People from the Power of their Enemies by the means of thy Victorious Messenger the Great King of Israel Howbeit the Messiah acting for God and being a King might be called
Psalms wrote from the beginning by the Brethren which speak of Christ as the Word of God and attribute to him Divinity Upon this Famous Passage these Remarks may be made 1. Whereas these Ancient rigid Vnitarians said that the Primitive Doctrin was adulterated in the Times of Victor their Meaning without doubt was not that before him there was never a Platonick Christian but only that the Platonick Christians then prevailed and grew violent and began to discountenance the Truth 2. All those Writers whom this Author or Answerer and Antagonist of the rigid Vnitarians mentions as the Ancientest Assertors of the Divinity of the Word after the Platonick System were except Justin but Contemporaries to Victor and Zepherin or after them As for those Hymns which he speaks of we shall see that no stress can be laid on them or that they conclude nothing against the Vnitarians Hereby then the Novelty of the Platonick Christianity appears seeing no vouchers for it can be produced before Justin Martyr and it is therefore evident that what the Vnitarians said could not be disproved that the Times of Victor and Zepherin were the Fatal Epoche of the violent Opposition and Oppression of Vnitarianism seeing that the Crowd of fierce Antagonists then began and it cannot be shewn that the Vnitarian Doctrin was before then persecuted and discountenanced or that it was not during all the first Century the current Doctrin of the generality of Christians 3. It is probable that some of the Writers whom that Author opposes to the Vnitarians were but of that Sentiment which was afterwards so unjustly condemned in Arius Why else had their Writings been suppressed by the Platonists Perhaps also by the Word and the Spirit they understood two Divine Powers or Influences which God communicates in divers manners and degrees It was easy for the philosophizing Doctors following Plato's Notions and accommodating them to the Expressions of Scripture by those two Powers or Influences to understand so many Persons or Hypostases and so to alter insensibly the Primitive Doctrin which if they had not done they would not have suppressed the Writings of their Predecessors but they judg'd that to be the only way effectually to compass their design 4. As to those Hymns or Psalms in question which he says spake of Christ as the Word of God and which attributed to him Divinity nothing can from thence be concluded against the Vnitarians for the following reasons First taking those terms in a right sense the Vnitarians will by no means deny that Christ is the Word of God and that Divinity may be attributed to him We have seen that very eminent Doctors among the Primitive Christians called the Angels Gods much more then might they give that Name to Christ It would indeed have been somthing to the purpose if that Author could have pleaded that those Psalms of which he speaks ascribed to Christ the same or an equal Divinity with that of the Father or expressed that he was absolutely Eternal and of himself Omniscient like the Father But merely in general their attributing Divinity to Christ decides nothing not only considering the improper way of speaking of those tho' so early Times after the Apostles but also considering that the Scripture gives the Name of God to some Creatures And in Ch. 5th we observed the Vnitarians ever thought it their Duty to Sing Hymns in Honour to Christ Howbeit Secondly that Author produces no grounds for the Authority of those Psalms which he mentions He only affirms that they were wrote from the beginning by the Brethren but that is precariously said without any Proofs If he had had any evidence for his assertion no doubt he would have offered it and would thereby if that could have done it have convinced or confounded the Vnitarians But surely it was not fit for them to take things upon trust Satan then chiefly made it his particular business by his Emissaries to bring in what confusion he could by forg'd Writings If those Psalms had not been spurious and counterfeit the Authors or Primitive Abettors of them had been named It is probable that these were the Psalms that were censured by the Church of Antioch as new and dangerous See Eusebius's Eccles Hist. L. 7. C. 29. 5. The Assertion of the Unitarians that Victor and Zepherin were the first Oppressors of Vnitarianism is undeniably confirm'd by this consideration that the Platonists before those Popes looked even on the most rigid sorts of Vnitarians as their Brethren suffered those among them and owned them as Christians who not only believed Christ not to have pre-existed before his Conception in his Mothers Womb but who also held that he was a mere Man begotten like other Men and that Joseph was truly his Father God as they thought having only removed for that once some Obstacles which hindred the Virgin from being a Mother Notwithstanding the reputed grosness of this Error we see that Justin Martyr the Patriarch of the Platonists acknowledges that it is not destructive of Christianity For he thus argues with Trypho the Jew If I do not demonstrate that Jesus did pre-exist and according to the Counsel of the Father endured to be Born a Man of like Affections with us being endued with Flesh it is just and fit to say that I am mistaken in this only and not to deny that he is the Christ if he appear to be a Man born of Men and to have become the Christ by Election For there are some of our kind who confess him to be the Christ yet hold him to be a Man born of Men. To whom I assent not no not tho' very many of the same Opinion with me should speak it c. Col. cum Tryphon Jud. P. 207. One may perceive how wary or artificial Justin here is in his Expressions as if most Christians in his time were already Platonists It is credible that they were not the greatest number who held that Jesus was Josephs Son 't is certain many of the Ebionites were of another Opinion Euseb L. 3. C. 24. most probably the generality of Christians believed like our Socinians and the rest of the present Christians that Christ had no other Father but God and if that was the Apostles Sentiment which Arius afterwards defended at least we may imagin that it did then still prevail with many But Justin as we have seen seems to have held somthing more than this tho' very different from the Nicene or Post-Nicene Platonists and it is not impossible not only that his Sentiment was confounded or generally taken for much the same with that which afterwards Arius was of the which it is credible was then in Justin's time the most current Standard of Orthodoxy but also that several others Platonized then like him a little above Arianism Nevertheless Justin dares not be too positive for his Opinion he proposes it only as probable and he insinuates that very many were not of his Sentiment which one would be
and Capacity extends is in some most sublime Points short-sighted and blind and consequently an incompetent Judge then they might discern that the Vnitarian Interpretations besides that they imply most unlikely Assertions are forced and unnatural and so remote from the obvious Import of the Words that 't is not to be conceived the generality of Christians when they read the Scripture can find out such Interpretations and imagin that it is to be understood in that Sense and therefore it is incredible that that is the true Meaning thereof moreover in opposition to all Reasonings it is to be observed that there are many Texts of Scripture which make up a strong Evidence of the truth of the Trinitarian Sentiment whereas in fine the Texts that the Vnitarians alledge seem not express and positive for their System All these things are put together in one Objection because they depend of or expresly support one another the Intendment of the Argument being to convince the Vnitarians that they hearken too much to Reason and too little to Scripture This Objection then is properly made up of these Four Branches which if the Reader pleases he may consider as so many distinct Objections and which are so considerable that they very much deserve to be illustrated and carefully weighed to understand the utmost force of them 1. That Reason tho' an excellent Light and Guide so far as its Province and Capacity reaches is in several mysterious Instances short-sighted and blind and consequently an incompetent Judge 2. That the Vnitarian Interpretations imply some most unlikely Assertions and are besides that forced and unnatural and so remote from the obvious Import of the Words that 't is not to be conceived the generality of Christians can understand the Scripture in that Sense 3. That there are many Texts of Scripture which even taken asunder but especially being put together make up a strong Evidence for the Trinitarian Sentiment 4. That the Texts which the Vnitarians alledge seem not express and positive for their System 1. That Reason tho' an excellent Light and Guide so far as its Province and Capacity reaches is in several mysterious Instances short-sighted and blind and consequently an incompetent Judge The generality of Men attribute either too little or too much to Reason Howbeit if things be calmly and very carefully considered it will be found that We ought to keep to a Mean betwixt these two Extremes Reason is to the Mind what the Eyes are to the Body None but the Blind can think that the Eyes are of no use to judge of Material Objects Nevertheless if we should take no other Counsel but that of our Eyes we could not avoid the being deceived in several Instances The same must be said of Reason Undoubtedly it is a noble and excellent Faculty By a right use of it We may credibly demonstrate the Being of a God the Duties of Holiness and Vertue the Futurity of Reward and Punishment and all the eternal Truths of Natural Religion Notwithstanding all this it is certain those have not thorowly considered the most obvious things who do not discern that in many Cases Reason is not only at a loss but directly leads us to Error actually representing to us several things as false contradictory and impossible which yet we may be sure are not such We see then by experience that there can be nothing more unreasonable and unsafe than this Resolution To believe Reason in nothing or to believe it in all things If we were to trust our Eyes at all times or else at no time at all We must be forced to deny our being sensible that the Sun Shines when in its greatest Splendor or We must be confident that all Sticks are Crooked when part in Water as they seem then to be and that all Towers are Round because they appear so at a certain distance Every Man knows that there are some Means to be assured when We ought and when We ought not to credit our Eyes In like manner it cannot be doubted but that there are some Rules whereby if We carefully attend to them We may be satisfied when our Reasonings are true and certain and when not If these Rules were set into the greatest Light possible by considering Men that could not but be an excellent Means to detect manifestly all dangerous Errors Then it might be shewn that Transubstantiation need not be believ'd tho' the Trinity may For instance We see by experience as was observed that our Eyes deceive us when for instance they will judge of the nicest Circumstances of Objects at a great distance from Us. And therefore We find it rational not to determine our Judgement concerning these Particulars without further Evidence But if credible Persons assure us that to their certain knowledge that Tower for instance is Square which at a distance appears Round We do not at all esteem it irrational but most agreable to Reason to credit them before or rather than the present Judgement of our own Eyes Likewise concerning our Spiritual Eye-sight There are undoubtedly several mysterious or sublime Matters above the reach of Human Understanding There are several things which expresly appear to be impossible which yet We are sure are certainly true We have before suppos'd that there are many such things To give now some Instances of them There are Demonstrations against the Possibility of Motion holding that there is no Vacuum and holding a Vacuum there are other Demonstrations against it And yet there must either be a Vacuum or no Vacuum and whether there be a Vacuum or no We actually see there is Motion In like manner We are sure there must be such a thing as Eternity and it must either consist of an eternal Succession of Moments or else it must be an eternal Instant without Succession the whole Eternity always present without any part of it past or to come yet which of the two ways We hold We find therein express and most manifest and unavoidable Contradictions We meet likewise with evident Contradictions and Impossibilities whether We assert Matter to be divisible infinitely or whether We suppose the contrary and yet 't is plain there can be no Medium but it must necessarily be either the one or the other There are many such Cases Now what can We say to such things but that they are mysterious and that so far as they are so they are above our Capacity to judge of them or to determine our selves about the contrary Contradictions concerning them But suppose a competent and credible Judge should certify to us which side the truth lies so far as that Judge should appear to be a good Judge it would be rational to assent to his Declaration notwithstanding the Contradictions which our Reason finds in the Subject If such a Judge for instance should tell us that Matter is divisible infinitely that Eternity is a perpetual Duration without Succession and that there is no Vacuum it would be irrational
And therefore Christ being but one Person and being known to be a Human Person or a Man cannot in reason be imagined to be the Most High God And there cannot be more than one Person in God for God is always spoken of and to in the Singular Number by Pronouns that imply a Person c. Now the Scripture speaks to us as to Men who are bound to make use of their Sense and Reason and for a trial thereof Figurative Expressions are sometimes employed But besides all the Considerations flowing from the Tâ—pick of Reason the Vnitarians as is to be observed in the Fourth Particular shew by divers unanswerable and express Arguments taken out of Scripture that Christ is a Creature and is not literally the God Almighty himself but only his Chief Minister and Representative and the most excellent and most dignified Creature in whom God most extraordinarily and most intimately dwells and in and by whom God most wonderfully works And therefore if by the Word in the beginning of St. John's Gospel should literally be understood God himself or some Influence of the Divine Nature as it were incarnated with or constantly dwelling in and assisting the Man Christ Jesus it would not follow that Christ is literally the Supreme God himself or that there are more Persons than one in the God head As to the Creation attributed to Christ it is sufficiently evident it must be understood of such a Creation as a Creature is capable of if Christ appear to be a Creature Prophets God's Creatures and Ministers are said to do Super-natural Works and raise the Dead tho' it be not they properly that do such things but God by them at their presence at their streching out of their hand at their word or request and the like They do not the Miraculous Work by their mere Strength or by their own Power but by a Divine Power thus inherent in them or annexed to them accompanying and assisting them and working at their desire and yet they themselves are said to do the Work For instance in Mat. 10.8 Our Saviour bids his Disciples Heal the Sick Cleanse the Lepers Raise the Dead and in John 14.12 he tells them that they should do most wonderful Works now incontestably that signifies that God would do those Works by them or that they should do 'em by God's Assistance or with the concurrence of the Divine Power working at their desire In like manner the First-born might Create the World or might be said to Create the World and God might be said to Create the World by him as it is said that by the Hands of the Apostles were many Signs and Wonders wrought Acts 5.12 God was pleas'd to work by those Hands which of themselves were not able to do these Miracles but were enabled to do them by the concurring Assistance of the Power of God annexed to them or accompanying them To Raise the Dead or Cure the Blind is as well above Natural Power as to Create the World tho' to Create the World be more than to Cure the Blind and tho' a Creature which Creates the World or which may be said to Create the World has a greater Concurrence of the Divine Power annexed or united to him than one that only Cures the Blind Howbeit certainly a Creature which so represents God as to be Worshipped with God tho' but as the most highly dignified Creature possible must undoubtedly be infinitely more united to the God-head than one which only doth some Miracles or than any Prophet or Apostle before whom 't is not lawful to bow the Knee or on whose Name 't is not lawful to call Moreover we must consider it is undoubted and most obvious that often in Scripture by Creating is only meant disposing or modelling fashioning and setting in order Ephes 2.10 and 4.24 c. There is then not only no reason why the Creation attributed to Christ even if it were the First Creation should not be taken in that Sense but there may be an absolute necessity it should be so understood if Christ appear to be a Creature tho' never so intimately united to the God head And so that is then obvious enough to those who will diligently attend to the Stile of the Scripture and it is not God's intendment that any others should come to the true knowledge of it See Bishop Taylor 's 2d Sermon on Tit. 2.7 He that will understand God's Meaning must look above and below and round about c. The Secret of the Lord is with them who fear him and who consequently do what they can to know exactly his Law and reveal'd Will. Will any say that there are not some Expressions in Scripture to be understood in as seemingly a far-fetch'd Sense as any given by the Vnitarians If Men mistake when they have done what they well can in their circumstances to be informed aright it is credible that God will judge that a pitiable Case so they be humble and moderate and be not violent magisterial and imperious and do not pretend to impose their Sentiment on others but be willing in abstruse Matters to unite in the Generality of the Terms of Scripture In that manner the most ignorant not being so thro' their fault may be safe But God has not left the Scripture into tho hands only of unlearned and unthinking Men immersed in and mostly taken up with the concerns and businesses of this Life Tho' all Christians are bound in some measure to search and meditate upon the Scriptures God has set up an Order of Men whose particular Vocation is to assist other Men as much as possible in the right understanding of the Divine Revelation And surely no possible Means ought to be neglected which are Subservient to that great end And if these Means were freely calmly and impartially us'd which would be if Ministers were fairly to represent the Reasons Pro and Con in Difficult Matters without deciding condemning and imposing then all necessary Truths would soon be discern'd and it would therefore easily be made to appear to all Christians what may be meant by the Creation attributed to Christ in Scripture or how far the understanding of that Point is necessary and in what Generality this and the like ought to be lest The Chief Instances then which the Trinitarians give of the pretended incredible Assertions implied in the Vnitarian Expositions are these That a Creature could perform the Office of a Creator And then That one in whom the Fulness of the God-head dwells should need the Assistance of Angels and on the other hand That a Creature should be more honourable than and should have the preheminence over and be named before the Power of God by the Holy Ghost understanding an Influence of the Divine Power or the Divine Inspiration That a Creature could perform the Office of a Creatour Even at most upon as good grounds the Trinitarians might make the same Difficulty against Men producing other Men or the
the Ephesians is that as we would stand in aw before the King of Kings so in proportion of the Subordination Servants ought to demean themselves before their Masters The Sense of the Text of the 5th of St. Mathew is that as God is truly perfect so we ought effectually to strive to be perfect with that Perfection which our Natures are capable of And in like manner the Sense of the 23d Vers of the 5th of St. John is that as we honour God we must also honour his Deputy Vicegerent tho' nevertheless the one as properly God's Chief Minister as was said the other as expresly the Almighty himself The Kings of England may use the same Phrase to declare it their Will Pleasure That the Subjects in Ireland should honour the Viceroy even as they honour the King But that doth not imply that the one must absolutely be taken for the other consequently that is not to give the Supreme Royal Glory itself to the Viceroy no more than to honour Christ is to give expresly God's Supreme Glory to Another as the Arians do well observe besides that the Saying that God will not give his Glory to Another may signify that He will not give it to be dispos'd of that He will not give the disposition of it to Another or that He will not give to Another that Glory which is peculiar to Him of disposing of religious Honour and appointing Rites of Religion or that He will not give or impart a Sublime Heavenly Honour to Strangers or Aliens from Him neither will give his Praise to Idols that is He will not patiently suffer or allow that Men should make to themselves Objects of Religious Service at their Pleasure like the Heathens that the Religious Worship which is properly ultimately due to Him should be paid to Unfit Beings to Stocks Stones or to Daemons which are not truly in any holy scriptural sense Gods being neither the Supreme God nor Soveraign Officers of God commissionated with Power Authority thus to act for God so as most eminently to represent god and so to receive a Suitable Honour appointed to terminate ultimately to God So that God then doth not give properly the Religious Honour to Another tho' He commands us to bow the Knee to the Man Jesus Christ as we do to God If He pleased He might set Angels over Us or any Good Spirits and command Us to bow to them and ask and receive Graces of them tho' his Holy Nature cannot permit him to give any such Glory to his Enemies or ever to allow that Impure Spirits be sought to and reverenced That could not redound to God's Glory or the Good of his Creatures whereas the other might See a Passage of St. Gregory's quoted in the 1st Part of Bishop Taylor 's Sermon on Ps 86.5 where St. Gregery observes that Angels were Worshipped under the Old Testament But if so yet to be sure not only that was not a Divine Worship but even that Worship so far as it extended was for the sake of and terminated to God whose Immediate and Highest Officers and Messengers the Angels then appeared to be and so that hindred not but it might truly be said that God alone was properly Worshipped The Text Gal. 4.8 which we translate doing Service to them which By Nature are no Gods may be translated doing Service to them which TRUELY are no Gods yet it is the same if we read Of their Nature whether Supreme according to the proper and eminent sense of the word or Inferiour of God's creating and constituting according to the Scripture-Stile See Grotius on the Place Certainly we are expresly Commanded in Scripture to Serve the Man Jesus Christ Phil. 2.9 Yet incontestably the Man Jesus Christ properly is a God but in an inferiour sense We are then without doubt to serve the Man Jesus Christ as such a God appointed and dignified by the Supreme and Eternal God Act. 2.36 and we are to serve the Supreme God as absolutely being the Supreme God or as Him who is of himself God and who consequently is God in the most proper and eminent sense of that word Howbeit this doth not imply that Christ is not as intimately united with the Divine Nature as possible For all Power is given him in Heaven and Earth and acting for God in the highest Post he represents God at the Helm of the Universe But a Creature cannot thus represent God and govern the World and have all Power given it except God be with it and assist and direct it so as that that Creature have the enjoyment and disposition of the Divine Nature as of it's own Being whereby it's Power and Understanding being enlarged it may in a high measure Know and Act as God And accordingly as Sandius observes the Vnitarians held from the Beginning of Christianity that an Influence of the Divine Nature was incarnated in and most strictly united with the Man Christ Jesus So that Christ is not Worshipped neither is God's Representative or the Father's Universal Vicegerent merely as he is a Creature A mere Creature cannot comprehend in it's Thoughts and under it's Care the whole Universe and can never be such a Representative of the Father 's at the Helm of the Universal Government Nor can a mere Creature be Worshipped by all the Creatures in the Universe as Christ by God's Appointment is to be It seems God neither can nor will be thus represented by any Creature as a Creature Christ then is God's Representative and is Worshipped in his Mediatory Kingdom over the whole Universe Inasmuch as an Influence of the Divine Nature most intimately Dwells in him Assists and Directs him and Worketh in and by him and Inasmuch as the Divine Majesty is Conspicuous in him and As by his Intercession and by the Merit of his Death and the Vertue of the Covenant of Grace and of his Union with God and his Exaltation he Disposes of the Divine Power in the Gospel-Oeconomy A mere Creature may have a vast Honor and Power but not like that which appears in Christ in his Government of the Universe Whereas God has given us two Eyes whereby we may perceive three or four Objects at a time at a certain distance and two Ears which may imperfectly discern some few several Sounds also at the same time as the Sounds of certain several Voices and of some Instruments and two Hands by which we may take hold of several Particies of Matter and strike ten Strings at a time and move a certain Mass and steer a Ship and but a narrow Understanding according to the present Needs and the Capacity of our bodily Organs God might give a freer Carrier to our Spirits and endue us with more noble and vaster Capaeities and give us two hundred or two hundred thousand Hands and Ears and Eyes and enable our Souls to use them all fitly in reference to so many several Objects in the same instant
and consequently vastly enlarge the Natural Understanding in order to it's forming at the same time so many Thoughts and Conceptions It may be that an Angel or a Human Soul in a Spiritual Body has greater Capacities than we conceive and is all Hands and Eyes and Fars and Tongues and can clearly discern and hear and discourse and act upon a whole Nation But after all a finite Creature with the mere Strength of a Creature cannot comprehend the Universe Therefore an Angel or a Human Spirit cannot have all Power given him except God be with and in him in the manner aforesaid Likewise God may set up particular Kings in particular Places and give them vast Dominions and oblige their Subjects to be uncovered in their Presence and to bow the knee before them But in order that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow of Things in Heaven and Things in Earth and Things under the Earth and that Christ may be enabled to receive these Homages and to govern the Universe and dispose fitly of all Creatures it is necessary that the Divine Majesty and Power and Wisdom be with and in this Man in the manner aforesaid Thus all the Lines of a Circle terminate to an individual Point in the Center A Spider circumscribed by and fixed in a Place teaches of its self no further than that Place but when it has weaved it's Web it may by the Means of those wonderful Threads act at a Distance from it's self and above it's own Power A Man with a Telescope pierces the Skies and discovers undiscerned Stars All this and infinitely more is the Divinity to the Man Jesus Christ He is in the Center of God and the Godhead is to him an infinite Circle all the Lines whereof as far as is necessary act upon him and uphold him and so he acts thereby The Influence of the Divine Nature dwelling in Christ and extending it self all over the Universe is the mighty Telescope whereby Christ sees all things and the infinite Web by which he is enabled to act every where And this acting is to be ascribed to him as well as to God or the Father and to him in this respect primarily or chiefly inasmuch as God doth all things in the Christian Oeconomy upon Christ's Account and at his Desire Indeed Christ wills nothing but what God wills But then God is pleas'd and willing now to do many things for the Sake of Christ and through his Mediation which He would not have done if it had not been for his Undertaking and his free and wonderful Condescension and Humiliation for the Race of Mankind and the Merit of his Death and the Covenant of Grace purchased by his Blood and his continual Intercession at the right hand of the Majesty on high Thus God and Christ are to be considered and sought to and honoured and worshipped and the Distinction that is to be made between them is evident God is of himself God and his Dominion is ever the most Supreme and thus He is to be Worshipped And Christ receives all things of God and his Kingdom is a Mediatory Kingdom and he is thus to be Worshipped And this is the Primitive and Scriptural Notion of Christ's Divinity The Heathens were particularly Criminal in these 3 respects 1. They set up of their own Heads and without any Warrant or Command some Mediators and some Symbols and Schechinas which they worshipped with likewise devised strange Rites and they made the Chiefest Part of their Religion to consist in the Worship of these they had such a vast Number of them 2. They set up many Supreme Gods Yet 3. They passed by the true God and worshipped Creatures and many of them Most Vicious Wicked Creatures for their Supreme Gods Which is the Meaning of Gal. 4 8 and Rom. 1 25. Whereby Religion became perfectly corrupted and unfit to purify Men and actually did as much harm as it was designed to do good Wherefore God would be own'd for the Only true God and requir'd to be Serv'd and Obey'd as such so willed that Men should not introduce any thing in his Service but what they had express Warrant for from Him either by the Light of Nature or the Light of Positive Revelation And that is the Meaning of Deut. 6 13. and Matth. 4 10. But all this hinders not but that tho' God is the Only Absolute and Independent Being who Only is to be Served as such and who Only is to be Worshipped with Ultimate or Divine Worship and who Only is the Fountain of Honour so that None besides Him ought to be Honoured but Those whom He Honours yet for all that Others besides God may when God pleases be Served and Honoured in an Inferiour Degree Relatively and in Obedience to God and so to his Glory and He may appoint a Mediator thro' whom We may come to Him Ephes 2.18 John 20 31 Phil. 2.11 God requiring it in order to his Glory and so it being done to that intent that is actually to glorify God and so is not to give his Glory to Another but to Himself Himself Only being ultimately served thereby See the aforequoted 18th Chap. of the 5th Book of Limborch's Theologia Christiana § 10. and an Vnitarian Pamphlet intituled A Vindication of the Worship of the Lord Jesus Christ P. 23 c. We may then incontestably Serve and Honour our Lord Jesus Christ as our Mediator and Mediatory King as was said tho' God Only is to be Served and Honoured as the Most Supreme and as the Eternal Fountain of Honour At the 11. Ve. of the 2. Ch. of the Phil. as we have intimated the Apostle shews expresly how that Matter ought to be distinguished when he says that it is God's Will we should honour and worship our Saviour and subject our selves to him and own him as our Lord viz. to the Glory of God the Father So that as was said it is evident the Honour we are to give to Christ is a Mediatory or Inferior Honour and is not ultimately to terminate on him but on the Father for whole Sake and at whose Command the said Honour is paid Howbeit tho' the Worship of Christ be not properly the Most Supreme yet it may be termed a Divine Worship in that Sense that Christ is said to be God We must needs then observe with St. Hilary concerning the difficult or figurative Expressions of Scripture that they are to be understood with Reason or in a reasonable sense Vâ—rba non Sono sed Sensu sapiunt Thus we may understand how Christ is God how we are to Call upon his Name and how he is to be Worshipped All Soveraigns are jealous of their Honour the Soveraigns of Great Britain would not endure that Wro-would of their Subjects should have Guards or should be served Kneeling Yet they freely allow it to their Lieutenant or Deputy because the Glory of it terminates to them For tho' the Lord Lieutenant be
or else as was said it seems there can be shewn no connection or coherence in his Reasoning For so it would run according to the Trinitarian Exposition Jesus answered them are not some Men called Gods in Scripture How can ye then say of Me that I Blaspheme because what I say implies I am the Most High God CHAP. III. A Continuation of the Socinian Explication BUT it is time to go on to what remains to be explained of the beginning of St. Johns Gospel We have done with the First Verse wherein it is generally thought there lies the greatest Difficulty In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God That last Clause the Word was God may seem to most of us the hardest expression that was of speaking not being usual with us as was observed But at the same time we have seen that the Scripture calls Kings and Great Men Gods I have said Ye are Gods We have no reason therefore to think it strange that the Messiah the Highest Officer in the World the Prince of Men and Angels and the King of Kings should be also honoured there with the most Illustrious Title that was ever given to any in the most eminent Station and be accordingly called God or a God or Sovereign Lord. The Scripture called them Gods unto whom the Word of God came John 10.35 That is to say those whom God made his Chief Officers and to whom God gave Commandment and Commission to act in some measure in his stead Thus it appears Christ might well be called God the Mediatory Kingdom of the Universe being given â—im or he being made the Sovereign of all under the Father Which being set into so great a light we need but to paraphrase a few Verses more and give some reasons for our Exposition of one Expression or two therein Verse 3. All that concerns the Establishment of the Christian Oeconomy and of the Christian Church which is the New Creation has been dene by Christ and by his orders and procurement Here on Earth having Preached the Doctrin of Repentance by his immediate Precursor and by his other Ministers as he had even done in some measure before his Birth by the Prophets and Patriarchs for it was upon his account that God sent them the Messiah being before them in God's Decree and they being therefore to be looked upon as the Messiah's Officers and what the Officers do being to be ascribed to him in whose Name or in whose Stead they act and himself having fully declared the nature and intendment of the Gospel He offered up himself as a Sacrifice for our Sins to God and thus having laid the Foundation of his Church confirmed his Doctrin by his Resurrection and innumerable Miracles and Commissionated his Apostles and Chief Disciples all which may be called the Building of his House which he purchased with his Blood He left this World Being alcended into Heaven He New-modelled things there too by his Presence He ordered and disposed them on a new foot and in a new manner For being exalted at the right hand of God He took possession of his Dignity and Authority of a Sovereign Prince in the Heavenly Places Angels were there then no longer God's Chief Ministers but were then most particularly subjected unto the Lord Jesus Christ and He appointed them their Stations or confirmed them in their Places and Offices and He daily gives them orders and commissions as he sees best for the Service of his Church and the Government of the Universe Yet it is not to be forgotten that Christ is but a Mediatory or Subordinate King having not his Kingdom of himself but from the Father and by the Fathers gift wherefore the Honour to be paid to Christ is not direct or ultimate but Inferior and Mediarory to the Glory of the Father Christ tho' a Sovereign and the King of a Creatures being the Father's Substitute or Sub-delegate and acting in the Father's Name and by the Father's Power and Wisdom And therefore he thus representing God at the Head of the Universe we accordingly honour him and worship the Divine Wisdom and Power in him Verse 4. In him was Life God was with him directed and assisted him and dwelt in him By him then Life was procured to fallen Mankind And the Light of his Doctrine of his Works and Miracles and of the Spirit or Divine Inspiration dwelling in and communicated by him was the Life of Men He brought Immortal Life to light thro the Gospel And God gave him Power to give Eternal Life to his Obedient Disciples Verse 9. That was the true Light which coming into the World lighteth all Men Jews and Gentiles Our Saviour when he appear'd in the World did not design to instruct a particular Nation only but purposed to set up such a Light as might shine to the utmost Parts of the Earth Verse 10. This Great Messenger of God appear'd among Men and Men were as it were a new Created by him for He Redeemed the Race of Mankind with his Blood yet the generality of Men perceived not that that Illustrious Person was Him whom God did set forth for their Saviour Men loved Darkness rather than Light tho' it was so abundantly and so mercifully offer'd them Verse 11. He came unto his own c. If God had not intended to have given a Saviour to Men as was said He would have destroyed this World but having resolv'd in the case of Man's Fâ—ll to provide a Redeemer God had this Intercessor in his eye and mind when He created our Heaven and Earth and some understand in that Sense those expressions that in the beginning the Word was with God that from the beginning this illustrious Messenger was design'd to be the Messiah to be the Sovereign of the Universe to be the great King most eminently representing God and the general Governor for God and in God's stead at God's right Hand and that therefore God made this World by him that is to say for him and so by him intentionally the business of his Dispensation to the highest Glory of God being the final Cause of the Creation of this World and accordingly when our Saviour let upon his Office God upon the Conditions of his Undertaking gave Mankind to him to be saved and reform'd by him particularly those that had some good dispositions and primarily and especially the People of the Jews These were then his own most peculiarly He made them As it is said in the foregoing Verse he had made the World or the World was made by him in that he preserved them and all the World by his Undertaking seeing that without it after Adam's Fall Mankind had perished like the fall'n Angels He ought then truly to be considered as the Maker of Men or as the Person from whom all fall'n Men held their Life and Being And therefore without doubt fall'n Men and among them the Jews in particular his Countrymen
probably Ireneus was an Arian or at most a Semi-Arian What Grotius says of the Occasion of St. John's writting this Gospel may be seen in his Annotations The Vnitarians consistently to their System may hold all that he there says of the Word Verse 15. John the Baptist bare witness of him saying This is he of whom I spake He that cometh after me is preferred before me for he is before me As if the Baptist had said Tho' then this Man as it is at the 30th Verse that cometh after me enters upon his Office but when I have almost done mine yet he is called to an Higher Office and Dignity than mine for he is my Superior my Lord and my Prince he is the Messiah the Saviour of the World a most Holy Man the Son of God the designed Sovereign of the Universe and I am but his Servant and Harbinger Whereas the Vulgate has translated This WAS he of whom I spake Beza shews there is no reason but that it may be rendred This IS he In like manner we need not read he WAS before me but he IS Thus it runs more naturally This is he of whom I spake or said He that cometh after me is preferred before me for he is before me Is preferred before me That is then is preferred to an Higher Office and Dignity than mine Which saying the Baptist explains tho' somewhat obscurely as are expressed all the like Mysteries on the infallible understanding of which most credibly Salvation depends not and which seem intended to try our Humility and Moderation as well as our Attention and Industry by adding For he is before me Before me Or as it is in the Original Protos mou Princeps meus My Primate the designed Head and Saviour of the Church and Lord of Men and Angels And this explains and particularizes or intimates how Christ's Office is greater than that of the Baptist's See Erasmus and Grotius upon the Place Verse 18. Which is in the Bosom of the Father Or which WAS or has been namely when immediately before his entering on his Office Christ was taken up into the Highest Heavens See John 3.13 Sometimes that Phrase to be in the bosom signifies to be most Dear See Numb 11.12 Deut. 13.6 By these remarks and hypotheses the Socinians conceive the beginning of St. John's Gospel is made plain and intelligible And they believe that by the same means by using the like care and attention all the other Texts which the Trinitarians object may also be made to appear consistent with the Unity of God with the whole Scripture and with Reason CHAP. IV. The ARIAN System THE Arians do not much dislike the foregoing Exposition excepting that they are persuaded it is short as to these Particulars in that the Socinians do not hold our Saviour's Soul to have prae-existed before its Conception and consequently do not admit it to have been an Instrument in the first Creation of the World But the Arians maintain both these Points It is true say they the Word the Son of God by excellency is a Creature tho' most intimately assisted of God which the Socinians do not deny Christ is a true Man made up of a Body and Soul only and not of an absolutely eternal Hypostasis also or infinite Person of the same numerical Essence with the Father But then say they this Man's Soul was not only before Abraham but even was the first Created Spirit John 17.5 For so the Scripture calls him expresly the First-born of every Creature or the Beginning of the Creation of God and terms him by eminency the Image of the invisible God Col. 1.15 Revel 3.14 c. Moreover it is asserted that by him God made the Worlds Heb. 1.2 And St. John says positively that without him was not any thing made that was made John 1.3 Which expressions seem too extensive to be restrained to the New-Creation only All things then were made by him And therefore the First-born of every Creature must be so transcendently Excellent as incomparably farther to surpass originally all Men and Angels in Excellency of Nature Wisdom and Power than they surpass the meanest of the Brute Beasts In a word the Arians believe that that Holy Spirit whom the Scripture calls the First-Born and who in process of time was made the Soul of the Messiah is originally as Perfect a Being and as like unto God as Divine and Almighty Power could produce and as can possibly be imagined salving the Unity of God seeing it is said he had a Part in the Creation of the World in which God most efficaciously assisted him and it is represented as the highest Liberality to Mankind that God gave his Son to Redeem Men. The Arians then say that the First-Bern is Omâ—â—â—ousian or as like the Divine Essence beside that he is as much assisted by the Divine Nature as it is possible for a Creature to be And they believe he was produced in the Duration of Eternity and before Time that is to say before the Creation of the World And in that sense like the Semi-Arians they will not scruple to say that the First-born is Eternal so it be remembred that he was made and that he is not an uncreated Being it being impossible there should be two uncreated Beings or two Gods in the proper sense of the word But the First-born is a God next to God and as Eternal as it is possible for the Excellentest Creature to be If it be asked how the First-born could be Instrumental in the making of Angels 〈◊〉 may be answered that a Part might be assigned to him therein that we know not 〈…〉 has been held by many that the Souls of Men are produced by the Parents Iâ— so it cannot be thought impossible but that God might have endued the most excellent created Spirit with Power to Produce other Spirits But perhaps Angels have fine Vehicles which are Part of their Being as a Human Body is Part of a Man And then the First-born might be assisting in the preparing of these Vehicles when God had Created the Substance thereof When the First-born was created then was also another eminent Spirit or other eminent Spirits according to some Modern Arians produced but inferior to him and called in Scripture the Holy Spirit Thus far the Arians hold It may be that by this or these last not only an Archangel or the Archangels 1. Tim. 5.21 but the whole Body of Angels is to be understood for they often seem to be meant when the Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit And if so they also were instrumental in the Creation of the World as well as the First-born tho' not so eminently as he but under him Which doth not import that the Angels or the First-born produced Creatures into being out of Nothing But the Chaos being created or prepared by Almighty God then for reasons not perfectly known to us God thought good to set the First born and the Holy
Colledge of the Apostles with the Concurence and Consent of the 120 Disciples mentioned in Acts 1.15 who assisted them in their Councils And it seems to be referred to in Rom. 6.17 Rom. 12.6 1 Tim. 6.20 2 Tim. 1.13 Jude 3. In truth the Divine Providence might well think it self not concerned to preserve any other Evidence of the Authority and Antiquity of the Christian System but this besides the Holy Scripture Yet we have moreover the Epistle of St. Clemens or Clemens Romanus to the Corinthians That is that Clemens whom St. Paul not only calls his Fellow-laborer but of whom he says that his Name is written in the Book of Life Phil. 4.3 This Clemens being Bishop of Rome wrote that Epistle to the Christians of Corinth in the Name and by the Order of his Church And this Epistle is so avowed a Piece of Antiquity that the Trinitarians dare not disown it Howbeit the most learned Trinitarian Criticks such as Bishop Vsher Petavius and Huetius of late and Photius of old see Sandi Hist Secul 1. acknowledge that Clemens appears therein an undoubted Unitarian speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ just as the Unitarians do and no otherwise as we see for instance even in these words of the 58th Chapter God the Inspector of all things the Father of Spirits the Lord of all Flesh who has chosen our Lord Jesus Christ and us by him grant to you Peace Long Suffering Patience through our High Priest and Protector Jesus Christ by whom be Glory and Honour and Majesty unto God now and for evermore Now let the Trinitarians seriously consider whether they would thus express themselves to teach what is to be believed concerning God the Father of all and concerning our Lord Jesus Christ See Sandius's Hist Eccl. for more express Evidences of St. Clemens his Vnitarianism There are also the Recognitions which tho' perhaps by Mistake attributed to St. Clemens yet are very antient there being a Passage taken out of them in a Fragment of Bardesanes preserved in Eusebius his Praep. Evang. L. 6. C. 10. They are so evidently agreable to the Unitarian Sentiment that they are confessed so to be by the Trinitarian Criticks For a further illustration of all these particulars see the aforequoted Pamphlet The Judgment of the Fathers c. As for the other remaining Ante-nicene Writings tho they appear to begin to platonize and proceed to do so more and more by steps and some of them doing it in a pretty high degree those that asserted the rigid Unitarian Doctrine or even that Sentiment that Arius afterwards was condemned for thus being in time in some measure suppressed yet generally they are far from the Opinion that is now called Orthodox and they incline more to the Unitarian System then to the Trinitarian Sentiment of the latter Ages For first they generally believe not the Holy Ghost to be God or a God in an eminent sense like Him whom they call the God Word or the Word whom God produced before all things whom God was pleased to make a God or Soveraign next unto Him and whom they suppose God employed as his Minister in Creating the Holy Spirit and Angels and as his Chief Officer in the Creation of all other things Secondly then they by no means represent the Divine Word or Son as actually equal to God but as an inferiour God distinct from and subject to the Principal God who has no God above him and they represent him not as a Necessary Being that was generated from all eternity but as being created of the Divine Substance by the mere good Will and arbitrary Pleasure of God immediately before the Creation of the World Indeed they generally seem to make the Duration of Time to commence at the Creation of the World and so suppose that what was done before the Creation of the Material World belongs not to the Duration of Time but to the Duration of Eternity Nevertheless as was said they hold not the Son to have been from all Eternity for they assert that once he was not and they hold that he had a beginning Yet according to them he may be termed eternal in that he existed in God from Eternity and was produced in that Duration which was before the Creation of the World In like manner they reckon him to be equal to God or rather like to God no otherwise than as he is a most excellent Being that most eminently acts for and represents God and was created out of the Substance of God whereas it seems they most generally hold that other Creatures were made out of Nothing They represent the Son to be created out of the Substance of God as the Expression of our thoughts by Speech is created out of our Thoughts But they offer their Philosophical Speculations for the most part as Conjectures and not as Articles of Faith Especially at first they were pretty sparing and moderate therein Howbeit the unfathomable Depths of Platonism as it was taught in those Days and which was then by too many philosophizing Christians imagined to be in a great measure reconcileable with Christianity and near the same thing with it made that these poor Fathers often knew not well themselves or seemed not to know what they said nor whereof they affirmed Yet from the whole it seems it may be collected that generally these Platonists inclined to that Opinion which afterwards was called Semi-Arianism As was said they generally own that the Son was not from all Eternity and that he is not Equal to the Father Yet the Platonick Metaphysicks which the Heathenish World at that time highly admired as the sublimest Philosophy and the most rational Theology and which these Doctors not only followed before they were Christians but also when converted accomodated as much as they could to Christianity it seems at least implying that the Second Person of the Trinity was created out of the Substance of the First or Chief God and the Third out of the Substance of the Second yet so as that tho the Third Person of this Most High Trinity was not so Excellent as the Second nor the Second but of an Inserior Divinity neither howbeit bearing the Name of God and therein particularly surpassing the Third Divine Person these two Persons nevertheless which tho' Inserior to the Chief God were Superior to all the other Gods or Angels remained most intimately United not only with one another but also with the First Person of this transcendent Trinity insomuch that these three being thus United and being of a like Substance might be said to be one Thing or as one Being Platonism I say seeming at least to import somewhat like this these Platonizing Fathers therefore by degrees philosophized among Christians much after that way as much as can be conceived by their expressions Indeed all Creatures may be said in some sense to be united to God and to be in God for in him we live and move and have our
Being Nay in some sense all Creatures may be said to have been in God from all Eternity at least potentially tho' not brought forth or produc'd from all Eternity but only when Almighty God created this Universe And even some of these Philosophers and among them Tertullian particularly expresly asserted that mere Creatures in particular Human Souls were made out of the Substance of God Howbeit Platonism implying that the Son and the Spirit are above all other Creatures the Platonists generally held that the Son at least or even the Son and the Spirit are most peculiarly of the Substance of God were most peculiarly in him and were most peculiarly united to him so as that whereever the Son went and whatever he did God as it were had always a strict hold of him and wrought with in and by him Nevertheless as was said they represented the Son and Spirit as Distinct and Inferior Beings so that they own'd the Father to be properly the Supreme Being and to be the only Person consequently that is properly God or a God in the eminent Sense of the word Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and in a word all the Primitive Doctors that were converted out of Heathenism had been taught Platonism and when they were become Christians they openly professed in all-their Writings that they were still great admirers of that Philosophy and they maintain'd that the Christian Trinity and Plato's Trinity was much the same Thus they introduced Platonism in the Christian System accommodating the one to the other as near as they could Justin Martyr it seems particularly began openly to Platonize and the rest followed after him And then they for the most part represented the Platonick Trinity very like Arianism any of 'em at most making it Semi-Arianism so that the generality of Christians might it seems mistake it for Arianism the good Fathers either purposely or otherwise expressing themselves very obseurely in a most Obscure Matter tho' some more Platonically than others These in comparison of those that followed were Moderate Platonists and scarce any or but few went further in the 2d Century or at least till towards the end of the 2d Century whereas afterwards it seems there arose among Christians several violent Opinionists and sierce Semi-Arians and then many rigid and thorow-paced or very heathenish Platonists true Polytheists that perhaps went even farther than Platonism it self and maintain'd much the same Notions concerning the Son that are laid down in Dr. Sherlocks Books Not but that in the beginning of the 4th Century at the time of the Council of Nice there were a great many of the most Learned Bishops that were still Semi-Arians and several but Arians most credibly according to the Doctrin that anciently was chiefly in vogue before Semi-Arianism was establish'd by Justin Martyr The Semi-Arians or Mildest Platonists like the Arians defended the Unity of God by saying that the Father only was the Supreme or Principal God and that God the Word was not only Lesser than he but also Subject to him wherefore they concluded it might truly be said that in Heaven and in the whole World there is but One Godhead or but one God tho' there be God the Father and God the Son as in a House where there is a Son Subject to his Father it may be said that there is but one Government one Mastership or one Master the one not being essentially different from the other when both of them perfectly agree This is so well known to have been the sense of the generality of these Ante-nicene Fathers whose Writings have in some measure been preserved as well as of many since that it is needless to take much pains to prove it Howbeit it will not be improper to give here some Instances of it And first for the conveniency of some Readers it may be useful to make these Chronological Remarks Justin Martyr flourished about the 130th Year after Christ's Nativity Hegesipâ—us and Irenaeus about the Year 170. Victo Bishop of Rome about the Year 190. And Zepherin his Successor about the Year 200. Tertullian about the Year 210. Origen about the Year 230. Novatian and Dyonisius Alexandrinus within a few Years of that time Arnobius whose Disciple was Lactantius about the Year 295. The famous Council of Nice was held in the Year 325. These few Observations sufficing for the Purpose in Hand we may now proceed to aver what we have said concerning the Sentiment of the Ante-nicene Platonists to which end we may consider these Passages out of the Writings of those of them who were most learned and esteem'd in their Generations Dalaeus towards the middle of the fifth Chap. of his first Book De Vs Pat. not distinguishing Semi-Arianism from Arianism opines that it is impossible to clear St. Justin from being an Arian that Father asserting that the God who appeared to Moses and the Patriarchs was the Son and not the Father inasmuch as the Father never changes Place neither comes up nor down and no Man therefore ever saw the Father but the Son only has been seen who is the Father's Minister and a God also by the Father 's Will. Now says Dalaeus is not this to attribute to God the Son a Nature and Being different from that of God the Father Nay he might have added is not this also to ascribe to him an inferior and a precarious Being As the same Justin Martyr says to the same purpose in other Places God in the beginning before all the Creatures that is to say before all the other Creatures or mere Creatures and immediately before the Creation of the World for that is the strain of these Platonists generated of himself a certain Rational Power one while called the Son another while Wisdom an Angel God Lord and Word For he may be called by all these Names both because he Ministreth to the Will of the Father and was voluntarily Begotten of the Father Colloq cum Tryph. p. 221. We account the Son in the Second Rank and the Prophetick Spirit in the Third Order Apol. 2. p. 47. At the 43d Page of this Book he puts the Prophetick Spirit in the same Classis with the good Angels and indeed names him after them which shews that he took him to be one of them We Honour the Father and the Son says he and the Host of the other good Angels who accompany and resemble him together with the Prophetick Spirit Which seems to be as if he had said We Honour also the good Angels and in particular the Prophetick Spirit who is one of them and their Chief Irenaeus who even was a Disciple of the Contemporaries of the Apostles his Master Polycarpus having been a Disciple and Companion of St. John and of some others that had seen the Lord and who was himself as well as Polycarpus generally in great esteem among Christians tho' every one knows he was also a follower and great admirer of Plato speaks much to the same
purpose The Church says he dispersed thro' the whole World has both from the Apostles and their Disciples received that Faith which is in one God the Father Almighty and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God incarnated for our Salvation and in one Holy Spirit who by the Prophets published the Dispensations of God Jesus Christ is our Lord and God and Saviour and King according to the good Pleasure of the Invisible Father advers haeres L. 1. C. 2. He who has no other God above him is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Ib. C. 19. And in speaking of that Saying of Christ that he knew not the Day and Hour of Judgment he says The Father is above all things for the Father says Christ is greater than I Wherefore in knowledge also the Father is declared to have the Preeminence Ib. L. 2. C. 49. The Apostles would not call any one of his own Persor Lord but him that exerciseth Lordship over all even God the Father and his Son who has received from the Father the Lordship of all the Creation Ib. L. 3. C. 6. The Apostles confessed the Father and Son to be God and Lord but neither named any other God nor confessed any other to be Lord. Ib. C. 9. I invocate thee O Lord the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who art the only true God above whom there is no other God who rulest over all and dost in domination besides our Lord Jesus Christ rule also over the Holy Spirit Ib. C. 6. By these Passages it appears that Irenaeus held the Father alone to be God in the most eminent sense of that word and the Son to be Lord and God under the Father but the Holy Spirit to be neither Lord nor God Yet he might hold the Holy Spirit to be above the Angels and 't is probable he understood thereby what the Vnitarians do These Matters being left in a great Generality in Scripture the Fathers explained them as they thought best That liberty of inquiry and examination must be allowed of so those explications and interpretations be but offer'd as Opinions and Conjectures but be not Magisterially imposed by any Man on other Men. For to follow the Design and Intention of Scripture Christians must Unite in the Generality of the Terms of Scripture as we see it in the Apostles Creed If these Measures had always been observed Platonism had done but little harm It seems that Platonism made the Platonizing Fathers differ from the strict Vnitarians and Arians I mean the Ancient and Primitive Christians that held the Sentiment that Arius revived or improved For it seems he believed after them that the Word like other Creatures was made out of Nothing But it seems Plato as after him his Christian Disciples of the Number of whom Irenaeus seems to be taught that the Word was created out of the Substance of God Dalaeus observes in the last quoted Place of his aforesaid Book that Tertullian tho' the most thorow-stitcht Platonist of his time had much the same Thoughts and held that God the Father produced the Word out of himself and made him his Son but that the Father is the whole Substance and the Son a Portion and Derivation of that whole In another Place the same Tertullian says expresly that there was a time when the Son was not Adv. Hermogen C. 3. and it seems that by the Holy Spirit-he means only the Vertue and Power of God De Praescript C. 13. Novatian says that the Holy Spirit is less than Christ De Trin. C. 24. moreover that once the Son was not and that before him was nothing besides the Father C. 11. Whereby he positively asserts that the Father alone is from all Eternity and consequently that the Father alone is God in the eminent Sense of that word Which is very different from the Sentiment of the rigid Platonists and the present Trinitarians who hold the Son and Holy Spirit to be from all Eternity as well as the Father and to be equal among themselves and co-equal with him as it is in the Creed of Athanasius Now those that do not assert the Son and Spirit to be eternal and consequently not to have a necessary Existence nor unlimited Perfections nor unborrowed Powers or Powers that they have not received freely from another may very well pass for Vnitarians seeing they make not the Son and Spirit to be God like the Father but the Father's Creatures Dalaeus in the Place we last quoted remarks that those expressions which afterwards were so much found sault with in Arius were used by these Antenicene be mentions Dionysius Arexandrinus who expresly calls the Son the Father's Workmanship which is the same as to say the Father's Creature They expresly say that the Father Made the Son and they even use the very term that the Father Created him Nay Dalaeus in the same Place forgets not to take notice that the 80 Platonick Bishops who at the latter end of the 3d. Century so violently condemned the famous Patriarch of Antioch yet at the same time did expresly declare that the Son is not of the same Essence with the Father Now therefore by the Acknowledgement of the Trinitarians themselves the Post-Nicene Trinitarians cannot with any Modesty pretend that the Ancients were of the same Opinion with them and consequently there can be nothing more vain than for them to plead Antiquity Origen like the foregoing Authors not only called the Son a Second God Contr. Cel. L. 5. p. 258. but a Creature and the oldest of the Creatures Ib. p. 257. And in his First and Second Books concerning Prayer he has so many Arguments against Praying to any but the Father and so blames those that would also direct their Prayers to the Son plainly calling them Fools for so doing that it clearly appears that according to him the Supreme or true Divinity belong'd to the Father only This is so notorious that many have believed that Origen was of the same Opinion that Arius afterwards was of and Epiphanius did well observe that in many Places Origen makes the Son and Holy Spirit to be of another kind of God-head or of another Nature and Essence than that of the Father Epiphan adv Haer. L. 2. T. 1. p. 531. Now since so antient so renowned and learned a Doctor as Origen was of this Sentiment that alone is a sufficient Argument that the Notion of the present Trinitarians was not then known to be the Apostolick Doctrin that at least the Tradition about that Point is uncertain and consequently that the Determination thereof ought not to be sought for by this Means Indeed in reason so Abstruse and Intricate a Matter ought to be Magisterially determined by no Means if they are not attended with greater evidence but every one must be allowed to judge the best he can for himself and Men must Unite in the use of the terms and expressions themselves of Scripture if they appear to be susceptible of a
great Generality and perhaps designedly indeterminable and if there lie invincible Difficulties and unanswerable Arguments not to say Demonstrations against the Platonick Trinitarian System Howbeit as we shall further see the Scripture must be own'd to be the only Rule herein to be sought to besides the clear and incontestable Dictates of Reason and the Trinitarians if they be sincere must acknowledge that their Plea of Antiquity is vain and frivolous None but Quacks can talk at Dr. Sherlock's rate that the whole Catholick Church in all Ages has been of his Sentiment or of the Sentiment of the present Trinitarians and that the Vnitarian Controversy may be decided by the Judgment of the ancient Ante-nicene Authors whose Writings have in part been suffered to come to our Hands It appears evidently that the Ante-nicene were not of the Opinion that is now termed Orthodox To evince which Position of ours it is indeed superfluous to add many more Proofs after what we have alledged out of these most ancient and famous Authors I shall therefore only add two or three Passages out of the following Writers which tho' not altogether so ancient as the foregoing yet come not so much short of it as to deserve to be wholly unregarded They were very eminent and learned Men. It cannot be doubted but that they knew what Doctrin in as well as somtime before their time was held as Orthodox and was requir'd in that rigorous Age to be held as such And it is credible they would not have publickly asserted any thing in these Matters that would then have drawn upon them the Censures of the Church in the Communion of which they flourished and in which they were desirous to be in great esteem Nevertheless it doth appear their Opinion as well as that of the afore-quoted Authors is very different from that of the present Platonick or Scholastick Trinitarians For instance then Arnobius declared in the Treatise he wrote to inform the Gentiles with the Truths of Christianity that Christians did indeed hold Christ to be a God but inferior to the Father and a lesser God than He who alone is the Almighty God Christ says he is a God who in the form of a Man spake to the World by the Command of the Principal God Adv. Gent. L. 2. p. 106. The Almighty God who is the only God at length sent out Christ Ib. p. 120. How could he have taught more plainly or more expresly that the Father alone is the Almighty God and the only God or the only Person that is God in the eminent sense of that word Not but that he might hold both Christ and the Holy Spirit to be also Divine Persons But 't is evident he reckons them to be of an inferior kind seeing he denies them to be the Almighty the Principal and Only God He makes them therefore Creatures tho' created Gods whether or no created out of the very Substance of the Almighty God He comes then very near to Arianism if he be not altogether Arian He looks upon the Almighty Father as the only Fountain of all Being and Perfection and as able not only to produce other Beings but to communicate to whom he will immense or vast Perfections and a Divine Nature tho' inferior to his because there can be but one Infinite and Almighty Being Wherefore all Creatures tho' never so Divine and Excellent can have but limited Perfections and must ever remain subject to the Almighty Now who doth not see that this is to assert but one God properly so called or but one who is the Almighty God the Principal or Supreme God and the Only God And is not that Vnitarianism Besides tho' Justin Martyr said that in the 2d Century the Holy Angels were worshipped particularly it may be by some Platonists Arnobius declares that in his time Christians thought it sufficient to worship God even God the Father the Principal God Howbeit says he to discharge the Worship of Divinity the Chief God is sufficient for us I say the Chief God the Father and Lord of all Things In him we worship whatsoever is to be worshipped For we have in him the very Head of Divinity from whence the Divinity of all Divine Things whatsoever is derived If the Platonick Trinitarians had always kept strictly to this Generality in their Terms of Communion there needed have been no Disagreement nor Division It is evident that in the second and third Centuries after that Justin Martyr and the other converted Philosophers had introduced their Platonism in the Christian Religion the Primitive Vnitarians were indeed commonly vilisied and opposed but yet the Platonists kept not all alike at the same distance from these but somewhat differed among themselves and allowed of that difference not being then agreed how much justly of Platonism was to be admitted or held necessary nor knowing how to determine a Matter that seemed so obscure and abstruse The Nature of the H. Ghost especially was then left undetermined The generality not only of the old Christians but even of the new Platonick Doctors own'd him to be but the Power and Inspiration of God or else took him for an Archangel and a created Spirit like the other Angels but above all the Angels And therefore if there were at those times any rigid Platonists that had much the same Notion that the present Trinitarians have of the H. Spirit they contented themselves covertly or modestly to assert or intimate their Opinion but durst not and could not attempt imperiously to condemn those that were not of their Sentiment We see the generality of the Ante-nicene agree that the H. Ghost is not God tho' some call him a Divine Person but none of them would have made difficulty so to have called any Angel those that called him the Power of God as Irenaeus and others yet expresly affirmed that he was not God and so it seems took him not to be a real Divine Person or a real Divine Being but an Act or an Influence and Inspiration of the the Divin Power or an Archangel or both or they knew not what And those that positively called him a Creature were not censuredeven by the highest Platonists of those times And as touching the Nature of the Son or Word of God it seems that then Semi-Arianism did most prevail among the Doctors even perhaps from the 2d Century but yet till the Council of Nice the suppos'd ancient Doctrin afterwards called Arianism was allowed of in the Church at least in a great measure and generally for a good while approved before For most probably many of those ancient Writings that were supressed after the Council of Nice as containing a Doctrin that was then in a great measure grown out of Date tho' the avowed Works of the most excellent learned Bishops of the Church asserted the Scriptural Sentiment for it seems at least the like to which Arius was condemn'd at Nice And we see that several of those Ante-nicene that
have been permitted to come to our hands so express themselves that they may be taken for Arians Howbeit it suffices us if they generally appear to be but Semi-Arians For then it is evident the present Trinitarians cannot justly plead Antiquity The celebrated Writings of Lactantius are a further Testimony to what I have said concerning the State of the Platonick Trinitarianism in the Church before the Council of Nice He asserts that God before he set upon this ourious Work of the World begat an incorruptible and irreproveable Spirit that he might call him his Son Altho' God produced also for his Service infinite others whom we call Angels yet he has vouchsafed to give the Name of Son but to his First-born Instit L. 4. C. 6. And because the Son was faithful to God and taught Mankind that there is one God and that he alone is to be worshipped neither did ever call himself a God because he had not discharged his Trust therefore he received the Dignity of a Perpetual Priest and the Honor of a Soveraign King and the Power of a Judg and the Name of God Ib. C. 13. Now when any one has a Son whom he entirely loves who notwithstanding dwells in the House and under the Governing Power of his Father altho' the Father grants him the Name and Authority of a Master yet in the terms of Civilians here is but one House and one Master So this World is but one House belonging to God and the Son and the Father who inhabit the World and who are of one Mind or of like Affections and perfectly agree are as One Government or One only God the One being as the Two and the Two as the One. And no marvel since the Son is in the Father because the Father loveth the Son and the Father is in the Son by reason of his faithful Resignation to his Fathers Will and that he does nothing but what the Father Commands him This evidently declares in what sense the Father and Son are to be understood to be One God or One Mind and One Spirit Namely inasmuch as they are of one Mind they are therefore as if they were but one Spirit or but one Person and one God Yet according to this they really are Two distinct Beings and Two very unequal Spirits For the Son has freely received all from the Father and is ever Inferior and Subject to the Father and was produced then when God was going to set himself upon the Creating of the World and consequently is not from all Eternity The Father then is the First and Principal God and the Son is a God of a lower kind If this be not pure Arianism as it may be taken and seems to be all that it can amount to is at most Semi-Arianism which indeed very little differs from Arianism for both Systems hold the Son to be God but in an Inferior sense and assert the Father alone to be the one only true God tho' the Semi-Arians esteem that the Son was Created out of the Fathers Nature or Substance whereas Arius and those that are exactly of his Opinion as was said conceive that the Son tho' immediately produced by the Father was Created out of Nothing and only differs from other Creatures in that he is more Excellent than they all put together was Created by the Father alone and is set by the Father over all created Beings As concerning the Person and Nature of the Holy Spirit Dalaeus in the Fourth Chap. of his Second Book De usu Patrum remarks after St. Jerom that Lactantius expresly asserts the Holy Ghost to be but a Creature and not to partake of the Deity Sandius brings many Instances to prove that both Lactantius and all the other foremention'd Authors were even of Arius his Sentiment and not they only but also generally the remaining Ante-nicene Writers All these Authors which we have quoted were undoubtedly most learned and deservedly esteem'd in their Generations and are now generally esteem'd still by all Christians and indeed they may be accounted the Chief of the Ante-nicene whose Writings have been preserved We may also rank among them Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea as well as Lactantius since he Flourished somtime before as well as since the Council of Nice and appears to follow wholly the Sentiments of Justin Martyr when not aw'd by the Nicene Tyranny so that the then current Ante-nicene Doctrin may be known in these Writings Concerning these Matters therefore we may remark Eusebius expresses himself to this purpose He that is beyond all things the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Governor of all things how many and of what quality soever they be even of the Holy Spirit himself yea further of the Only Begotten Son also is deservedly stiled by the Apostle the God that is over all and he only may be called the one God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ But the Son is the Only Begotten God who is in the Bosom of the Father And the Advocate the Holy Spirit is neither God nor Son for he has not received his Production from the Father like the Son but is one of those things which were made by the Son De Ecclesiast Theol. L. 3. C. 6. If John had conceived the Father and the Son to be one and the same thing he would have said that the Word was the God with the Addition of the Article which not doing he evidently teaches us that he is the Prime God who is the Father of the Word and that the Word was not that very God but yet that he also was a God Ib. L. 2. C. 17. This is the Current Doctrin of the Old Ante-nicene Platonists concerning the Son and Holy Ghost Eusebius like the other before him expresly asserts that the Holy Ghost is not God and it is visible he says no more of the Son than at most what is agreable to Semi-Arianism That was it seems what the generality of the Primitive or Ancient Aâ—teâ—nicene Platonists meant by the Divinity of the Word and for the not coming up to which they opposed the Ebionite and the Nazarene Vnitarians Eusebius in the 25th and last Chap. of the 5th Book of his History quotes a remarkable Passage of an Author a Platonizing Christian who had written upon that account against the most rigid Vnitarians The Passage is to this effect The Vnitarians pretend that the Apostles and all the Ancients held the very Doctrine concerning the Person of our Saviour that is now maintained by the Vnitarians and that it is but only since the Times of the Popes Victor and Zepherin that the Truth has been adulterated and discountenanced This would be credible if first the Vnitarian Doctrin were not contrary to Holy Scripture and if divers before Victor and Zepherin had not contended for the Divinity of the Lord Christ Namely Justin Martyr Miltiades Tatianus Clemens of Alexandria Irenaeus Melito To whom we may add the ancient Hymns or
is to know them to know the Father will do them for him and to desire them of the Father For tho' it be said that Christ did and is to do most wonderful Works yet the Scripture is very far from saying that he doth them of Himself or by his own Power Himself says the quite contrary John 5.19 The Son can do nothing of himself John 14. â—0 The Father that dwelleth in me He doth the Works Matth. 12.28 I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God And John 11.41 42. Father I thank thee that thou Hearest me always How could Christ have declared more expresly that he doth not the Supernatural Works by his own Power but by the Means which have been said Namely By knowing that the Father will do them for him and By desiring the Father to do them by his Divine Power and by what Means He pleases to use Seeing that the Father has promised our Saviour to hear him always he may truly say that all things which the Father has are his And therefore it is certain that not only there never was such another Prophet as Christ but also that he is the most Excellent and most Dignified Creature that can be But yet we see it doth not follow that because he doth what none but God can do he is therefore hypostatically united with a Divine Person and that distinct from the Father The Scripture shews us How Christ doth all Supernatural Things he himself tells us he desires the Father to do them and the Father always grants his requests and doth what he desires and he desires nothing but what he knows the Father will grant and the Father has promis'd and constantly gives him whatsoever is necessary for the Discharge of his Office Christ then may truly say that as the Father has Life in himself or at his disposal so has he given to the Son to have Life in himself For as the Father doth all things by Willing them so Christ doth all things by Desiring them As God has put Power in the Natural Sun to vivify all Seeds in the Earth so he has in an infinitely more excellent way invested Christ the Sun of Righteousness with Power to quicken the Dead But still the Power of the Lord Jesus is the Divine Power And we see that as we have said God makes Christ to be Partaker thereof So that as the Father has Divine Power in him so has He given to the Son to have Divine Power in him insomuch that when the Father has shewn him a Miraculous Thing the Son can do the same likewise by the Assistance of the Divine Power which dwells in him and which he constantly has the use of by Willing and Asking or affectionately Desiring Thus Christ knows the Hearts by the same Means by the Divine Power that is in him or annexed to him and that reveals them to him See the Brief History of the Vnitarians on John 2.25 and Revel 2.23 So that as Dr. Sherlock himself says at the top of the 196th Page of his last Book the Knowledg of Christ is from the Father's dwelling in him And by that Means Christ Governs the Vniverse and will Judge the World As to Christ's Efficacy in obtaining Forgiveness for all those Sinners whom he persuades and excites to forsake their Sins and to become Obedient and New Creatures it is the strangest thing in the World to imagin that God cannot grant that which is altogether agreable to the Propensions of his own Nature to his most beloved Son even upon that Act and Submission of his which argues the most perfect Obedience and makes the most solemn Reparation to the Divine Justice and Authority As Dr. Whichcot expresses himself upon this Subject Pages 62 d and 63 d of his Select Sermons We are in the hands of him that is Primarily and Originally Good And He will certainly commiserate every Case so far as it is compassionable Now the Case of a Sinner is compassionable if he be Penitent God might then surely accept of Christ's Sacrifice as as sufficient Attonement seeing that it so fully confirms God's Hatred to Sin and his Good Will to those that Obey him and is consequently the powerfullest Motive and the likeliest Means to engage those for whom that Sacrifice is offered and who are not yet incorrigible to forsake their evil Ways to accept the Offers of Grace and to be reconciled to God Christ's Death is the fullest Confirmation of God's Good Will to those that obey him seeing that upon the account of his Son 's perfect Obedience He has exalted him to the highest Glory even of being Partaker of the Divine Nature and Power And it is also the fullest Confirmation of God's absolute Hatred to Sin seeing He would not pardon the Sins of Men without this Consideration Condition that he who was Innocent the most Perfect Excellent Creature pleaded for the Fallen Race of Mankind should as their Advocate suffer in their stead expiate their Sins with his Blood and thus exhibit a most solemn Demonstration of the Demerit of Sin But this no where is represented in Scripture as a perfectly equivalent Satisfaction in the most rigorous sense And neither Scripture nor Reason shew that God can Pardon but upon such Terms See the aforesaid Sermons of Dr. Whichcot Pag. 301 c. on Act. 13.38 As the Bishop of Gloucester observes at the 85th and following Pages of his aforesaid Reflections on the Book of Dr. Sherlock against him Christ's meriting of God the Father cannot be understood in the highest sense of meriting as we may merit of one another that is by doing acts of Kindness and Beneficeace from mere Good Will or no antecedent Obligation to the Person to whom the Kindness is shewn 'T is nothing but the wretched Popish Doctrin of Merit that has made it an offensive word in relation to God But taking Meritum and Mereri in the Fathers sense there is no offence to be taken at it as respecting God For they meant no more than having a right to be rewarded by him from the performance of that Obedience or Service to which he has annexed the reward by a most gracious Promise But as it is impossible to do God Almighty a Kindness or Benefit so I cannot understand how the Son of God himself could in this sense merit of his Father the Redemption of Mankind since he did or suffered by vertue of the Union nothing but what the Will of his Father obliged him unto Lo I come said he to do thy Will O God And his perfectly complying with this Will was his meriting our Redemption of his Father as He willed to make him the Author thereof upon that Condition And therefore Mr. Calvin says well Totum Meritum Christi pendet à Voluntate Divina Now will any Man say that Christ as Man did not thus merit Then by the most wonderful Submission and Self-Resignation of the Man Christ Jesus who was most
Sun causing the Seeds of things to grow unto Perfection and into a beautiful Order Indeed the Sun is not properly a Creatour nor are Men properly Creatours but they are Instruments in the Hands of the Creatour God is pleas'd to make use of them in the effecting of those Works but all the while He concurrs with them as well as prepares the Subject for them He not only provides the Matter and Means and endues the Instruments with a fit Capacity but He also upholds and assists them and works with as well as by them In like manner the Vnitarians observe it is not said that the Word is the Creatour or Maker but that by him God made the Universe When the Word was created or that most excellent Person which is the most express Image of the Divine Wisdom and is therefore in that sense call'd the Wisdom of God the first Being which God then produced and which with the Instrumental Concurrence of the Word He fashioned and perfected was according to the most illustrious Vnitarians another very eminent Creature which not only for distinction-sake but also for his excellent Perfection and the designation of his Office was called the Holy Spirit and the Power of God But tho' the Word had a part in the fashioning or modelling of him or in the medial and instrumental pouring vital or spiritual influences upon him yet he had so little share in the Work in comparison of that which God had in it that not the Word himself but God only is to be reckoned as the Producer or Maker of that Holy Spirit And for the same reason God only is called the Author of all the other Creatures tho' both the Word and the Holy Spirit had a hand together with God in the drawing of them out of the Chaos God prepared the Chaos and having created the Word and by the Word the Spirit by the breathing and moving of the Spirit he gave Motion to other Creatures that were set into a sit Order to that end Yet all Creatures and even the Holy Spirit are said to belong to the Word because in the creating of them God designed to Subject them all to the Word and accordingly they were all Subjected to him from the beginning tho' then so only as Servants are Subject to a Son in his Minority in his Father's House whereas after Christ's Passion and Exaltation they were Subjected to him as to the Master of the House himself or as to a Son com to Age to whom the Father commits the Government of the House If by the Word in the beginning of St. John's Gospel be to be understood not only the First created Spirit but also a Divine Virtue and Influence united to and assisting that most excellent Creature it is easy to conceive that the Word might be Instrumental in Creating the Chaos or the World out of the Chaos Howbeit nothing in Scripture or Reason contradicts the System implying that the Chaos is an eternal Emanation of God that it is a confus'd Mixture of unactive Material and Spiritual Natures that Creating is the putting some of them in a certain Motion and Order that all Spiritual Creatures have a Material Vehicle that the Material Vehicle being prepared God with what somtimes is called his Word what is called his Breath forces into it some Portion of the Spiritual Nature scattered in the Chaos that what the Scripture somtimes also calls the Word that is the Soul of the Messiah and the Holy Spirit thereby then meaning a Creature are the largest Portions of the Spiritual Part of the Chaos that God ever put together and that the Word and Holy Spirit being created God made use of them to Create or Breath upon and Put into a fit Motion and Order the rest of the Creatures By the H. Spirit then so far as that title may be applied to other beside God may be understood the Chief of the Elect Angels or of the Seven Archangels 1 Tim. 5.21 which are represented immediately surrounding standing before the Throne of Glory Rev. 1.4 Most probably such a glorious Creature as incomparably surpasses all the other Archangels in Excellency of Nature is then primarily to be understood by the H. Spirit Yet it may be also that the whole Body of Angels under him consequently every Angel may sometime be thereby meant For the term Holy Spirit may be a Collective Word implying then several Holy Spirits or all the Holy Angels every Holy Angel being a Holy and Pure Spirit And what all the Subordinate Angels do at the Command of their Cheif is reck'ned as done by him who when he has receiv'd the Orders of the Word divides to them their Tasks and originally is the Holy Spirit or Holy Angel by excellency and so in that respect these Works are represented as performed by One Holy Spirit and the whole Body of Holy Angels is then reputed as if it were but One Holy Angel as in speaking of what is done by Devils the Scripture mentions but One of those Impure Beings as if there were but one such the Evil One or the Vnholy Spirit what all the Devils do being ascribed to their Chief who Commands and Directs them in all things Howbeit there is no reason why we may not think that One Immense Spirit next to God and the Word may not be suppos'd to do all that is attributed to the Holy Spirit For the Excellency of the Holy Spirit may be so great as to have incomparably greater Powers and Perfections than all the Angels and all other Inferior Creatures put together and even almost to equal the Word except in Dignity One Sun and One Moon pour their Influences effectually upon all the Seeds and Creatures in the World And do we think that God could not frame an excellent Spirit or two excellent Spirits so powerful as to be able to do the like to all Human Spirits on Earth and to shine upon them all and enlighten and guide them and suggest good Motions to them and watch alone over them if not with the Concurrence also of other Angels which yet cannot be doubted of as Spiritual Stars in comparison of those other most excellent Spirits Yet all these Holy Spirits are but the disposing Instruments and Ministers of the Divine Power which at their working together works by and with them The Word has the disposition of the Divine Power of that which is his particular and ordinary Attendant and even of that which God himself immediately exercises and of that also the disposition of which is given to the Holy Spirit and to the Angels For the Word having receiv'd that Priviledge has made the Holy Spirit partaker of a vast Share of the Divine Power above all Angels according to this System And to every Angel according to his Station is alloted likewise by the Word 's Appointment Authorized thereunto by God a certain Portion of the Administration of the Divine Power which always accompanies
Majesty and Authority dwelling in him It has been necessary to make all these Digressions particularly concerning the Holy Spirit further to illustrate the Arian System concerning the Holy Spirit 's Nature and Person as well as that of the Word in order to shew â—â—â—st evidently that tho' the Word the H. Spirit were Instrumental in the Creation of the World yet the Arians need not be understood to make three Creatours properly nor three Gods according to the groundless imputation of the Platonick and Scholastick Trinitarians Not but that the Word might and did from the beginning bear the Title of God in an Inserior Signification even if it were but inasmuch as he represented God and commanded in God's stead or in God's Most Supreme Authority to the Highest Creatures next to Him to settle which Honour upon him extend it in the Highest Degree and so to continue it to him in the Oeconomy of the Gospel God required this Condition of him that he should freely undertake the Redemption of Mankind for otherwise Mankind had perished and consequently the First-Born tho' he had continued as he was remaining Innocent should not have had Men for his Subjects Howbeit the Arians do not say that the created Word is eternal and infinite and self-existent or self-moving nor consequently that he has all Perfection or any Perfection and Power of himself now every one knows this is the Description of him who is literally and properly God and this belongs only to the Father and therefore with the Apostle it may well be said that tho' there be many who are called Gods in Heaven and Earth yet the Vnitarians or true Christians do hold but One who literally is God all which may be 〈…〉 be God belonging to the Father Nevertheless the Word not only most eminently Representing God under the Oeconomy of the Gospel but being most 〈◊〉 United with the God-head as has been shewn an Influence of the Fathers 〈…〉 Virtue constantly dwelling in him so as to become in a manner Part of his 〈◊〉 in that Sense probably he may also bear the Title of God and may very 〈…〉 so tho' there be no other Divine Person but the Father And God Almighty then in the 〈…〉 all by the Ministry and by the Mediation or at the Request and upon 〈…〉 the Word as also the Word doing all in the Name and Power of God 〈…〉 he Word doth herein is truely censed or reputed to be done by God and what God doth also in that respect may be said to be don by the Word For Instance If God directs the Word to send one of his Angels on a certain Errand both God and Christ may be said to have sent that Angel If God says that He will com shortly meaning in the Person of his Word and Divine Schechina it follows that tho' Christ says also that he will com shortly yet God and Christ the Word of God by excellency need not be confounded together Which Title the Word was originally given him as was intimated in that he was designed to direct or signify and carry the Commands of God to the Creatures immediately under him in order to have the Will of God every where notified and put in execution accordingly So God says by him Let this be don and it is don himself shewing the Example of Obedience and doing what is incumbent upon him God having shewn him what is to be don for the Matter for instance being prepared and God working first thereupon the Word then with the Divine Assistance doth all that he sees the Father do and he sets the Angels a doing all that they are enabled to perform And so in the beginning the Work was effected in disposing the Chaos into the Beauty and Order and Regularity of a World the Word being the General under God And what could be Impossible to such a Creature assisted of God as has been said It is to be noted that not the Word but the Holy Spirit is call'd the Power of God because since the Creation it is by the Holy Spirit that ordinary Miracles are commonly wrought So that properly or chiefly the Office of the Word now especially is to command and that of the Holy Spirit or of the holy Angels is to execute After all there is nothing so express in Scripture concerning this intricate Subject but that many may opine that the Socinian System concerning the Holy Spirit or the Manner of the Creation attributed to Christ may be the truest Nevertheless it is certain several Passages seem very much to favour the Arian Hypothesis and there is nothing in it that is absurd or in it self incredible and apparently impossible As to the other Instances which the Trinitarians give of the pretended unaccountable Assertions held by the Vnitarians they are much easier than the former to be accounted for and have indeed but little difficulty in them The next Instance is That one in whom the Fulness of the Godhead dwells should need the Assistance of Angels The Answer to this is that the Vnitarians do not say the Godhead needs the Assistance of Angels but only for divers reasons some of which have before been intimated is pleas'd to make use of their Service And it cannot becom the Trinitarians to find this strange seeing they hold Christ to be personally-united with the Deity and yet they know the Scripture in many Places teaches that the Angels minister to him and are employed by him an Angel assisted and strengthned and comforted him in his Agony and when he was apprehended he said that if he would have resisted he would have made use of the Protection of Angels of whom he might presently have had more than twelve Legions for the asking It seems indeed unaccountable that a God Almighty or a Person that were God Almighty should employ Angels in his own Defence But the Indwelling of the Godhead in Christ makes him not properly and literally to be the Almighty God but only imports that God in every respect illuminates him and assists him by what Means He pleases and as far as is Necessary for the discharge of that most eminent Office of Redeeming Men of Declaring and Performing the whole Will of God Governing the Universe and at the helm of the World Representing God and Acting in the stead of God This Indwelling of the Fulness of the Godhead therefore hind'red not but that Christ somtimes might not Know som things and when it pleased God in the time of his humiliation particularly when for that while he was for the most part divested of the Glory which he had before the Creation of the World might have occasion for the Ministry and Assistance of Angels tho' probably it was he as was observ'd who at first assigned to every one of the Angels their Share of the concomitant and concurrent Divine Power which especially since his Exaltation as we have said they employ according to his Directions As to what is in
to our Decisions and profess the eternal Generation three Persons in one God-head and the Equality of the Son and Spirit with the Father which is to judge for others in a most abstruse and obscure Subject and to require of them as Terms of Union to act against their Conscience as the generality of them believe and be hypocrites and utter lies and grosly equivocate in the greatest Solemnities of Religion whereby many Souls may be caused to perish for whom Christ died See The Consequences of the Modalists System The Athanasian and Nicene Creeds are too express or particular and magisterial for so subling Speculations left in so great a Generality as we see these are in Scripture We have no right therefore to set up such magisterial imperious Terms of Communion according to the Protestant Principles as it appears from what has been said but We are necessarily oblig'd to keep to the Terms of Church-Vnion that we have here described seeing it appears that We are to receive the Vnitarians and not to drive them away out of our Communion it being incontestable upon impartial consideration that the Vnitarian Controversy is of that nature that Men may be Vnitarians and be very sincere and inquisitive and consequently not to be rejected and it being to be remarked that the Generality of the Scripture-Terms is sufficient and safe from the whole it being necessarily to be inferred in the last place IV. That this Generality in Terms of Church-Vnion is a safe Method in so intricate a Matter and is incontestably sufficient all being certainly worshipped when God in general is directly and ultimately Prayed to that is to be adored with Supreme Worship and the Mediatory Honour due to our Saviour being paid him when our Petitions are put up in the Name of Christ as our Intercessor and Redeemer most beloved of God and exalted at God's Right Hand and so is addressed to as the Mediator of the New Covenant as was said In most intricate Matters that certainly cannot but be most safe which is subject to the least Inconveniencies and which is in some measure sufficient And incontestably it is sufficient to worship God with Supreme Worship for all that is God is Worshipped when God in general is Worshipped Wherefore the generality of the Reformed Churches content themselves to address their Prayers in general to God And some of the most Learned Trinitarians maintain that it is not lawful to do otherwise but that formal Addresses to different Most Supreme Persons in Divine Worship set up different Objects of Supreme Worship For the same reasons in the Publick Terms of Vnion a general Profession of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the general Expressions of Scripture is both the safest and is certainly sufficient And all this doth even necessarily follow from the 1st and 2d Inferences For there it appears that God absolutely requires no more for Terms of Vnion What God therefore is content with to that end is to that end incontestably safest as well as sufficient so that if Men instead of taking upon them to be Magisterial Judges would have stuck to the Latitude and Generality of Scripture for Terms of Agreement and Union all had been well We must needs then own that the Scripture-Expressions to be adhered to in Terms of Church-Vnion at least will suffice to all the indispensibly necessary ends of Salvation and that consequently it is sufficient in general to know and believe that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit and Inspiration and Power of God and that Christ is the Only-Begotten Son of God in whom the Fulness of the God-head that may be communicated and that is an Influence of all the Divine Perfections most intimately dwells and that he is in some sense God It is evident that this System furnishes the same Motives to love God and Christ and to practise the Precepts of the Gospel that the other System doth For if one Divine Person with the Influences and Assistances of his Wisdom and Power be suppos'd to do together with Christ all that belongs to our Salvation have we the less reason to be thankful to God and Christ and to hearken to the Gospel-Injunctions than if we suppos'd three Divine Persons or called God three Persons It is as effectual therefore to the ends of Christianity to hold that the Spirit is the Power of God and that Christ most eminently acts for God and is most intimately united with God by the means of the Divine Influence dwelling in him so that when Christ is obey'd and lov'd thereby God is actually lov'd and obey'd Christ being thus lookt upon both as most excellently and most extraordinarily representing God and as being in some sense God Many Trinitarians do expresly assert that the Second Person is but a continual Acting of the Father Why may not the same be said of the Holy Spirit and Inspiration Or why may not the Word and the Spirit be stiled Influences as well as Acts of the Father Howbeit We may certainly very fitly conclude this Subject with the Words of the late Dr. Sherlock at the 7th Page of that Book of his intituled The Present State of the Socinian Controversy where concerning the human and unscriptural Expressions three Persons Of the same Substance Essence and the like he has this judicious remark The Catholick Faith does not depend upon the use of these terms for it was before them Now this is all that I plead for that these and the like unscriptural terms be not lookt upon as necessary for Christian-Communion but that Christians may be so reasonable and just as to Vnite in the Generality of the Expressions of Scripture which it is evident God has judg'd sufficient since He thought fit to use them as He has done that is in the Generality of which they appear susceptible Incontestably then 't is neither Necessary nor indeed consequently Safe nor Just in such most Intricate Matters to go beyond the very express Words of Scripture in Terms and Acts of Church-Communion Besides Are not the Tares as well as Wheat to be suffered in the Church by Christ's Order Math. 13.30 The Scripture-Latitude must needs therefore be THE TERMS OF UNION We need not and ought not to be more express or determining and imposing than the Scripture Tho' the Person of Christ were not fully known yet notwithstanding that there is no other Name by which Penitent Men are Saved He may be the Saviour of all them in every Nation who do righteousness and for his Sake God may accept of their sincere Repentance and Obedience As Amyraldus judiciously observed if a Prince has been graciously pleased to ransom a Captive or pay the Debts of a Poor Prisoner that Redeemed one is not the less ransomed and made free tho' he do not perfectly or exactly know all that belongs to the Person by whom he is redeemed all that is reasonably and indispensably requisite being that he should do what he can to
others that disagree from our opinions I am sure this will secure us but I know not any thing else that will Ib. P. 33. If Men must be permitted in their Opinions and Christians must not persecute Christians there is as much reason to reprove all those oblique Arts ungentle and unchristian and destructive of Learning and Ingenuity as Burning or Suppressing the Books and Writings of those of different Sentiments forcing them to recant c. It is a strange Industry us'd by our Fore-Fathers Of all those Heresies which gave them battle we have absolutely no Record or Monument but what themselves who were their Adversaries have transmitted to us c. Ib. P. 34. Of the same consideration is Mending of Authors not to their own mind but to ours Ib. P. 35. I am not sure that such an Opinion is Heresy neither would other Men be so sure as they think for if they did consider it aright and observe the infinite deceptions and causes of deceptions in wise Men and in all doubtful Questions and did nor mistake Confidence for Certainty Ib. P. 39. It is of geatest consequence to believe right in the Question of the Validity or Invalidity of a Death-Bed Repentance and the consequences of the Doctrin of Predetermination are of deepest and most material consideration and yet these greatest Concernments where a Laberty of Prophesying in these Questions has been permitted have made no distinct Communion no Sects of Christians The Liberty of Prophesying P. 3. Salvation is in special and by name annexed to the belief of those Articles only which have in them the indearments of our services or the support of our confidence or the satisfaction of our hopes Ib. P. 8. The Apostles or their Contemporaries and Disciples compos'd a Creed to be a Rule of Faith to all Christians which Creed unless it contain'd all the intire object of Faith and the foundation of Religion it cannot be imagin'd to what purpose it should serve and it was so esteemed by the whole Church of God c. Ib. P. 9. But if this was sufficient to bring Men to Heaven then why not now If the Apostles admitted all to their Communion that believed this Creed why shall we exclude any that preserve the same intire Ib. P. 11. Neither are we oblig'd to make these Articles more particular and minute than the Creed For altho' whatsoever is certainly deduced from any of these Articles made already so explicite is as certainly true and as much to be believed as the Article it self yet because it is not certain that our deductions from them are certain what one calls evident is so obscure to another that he believes it false it is the best and only safe course to rest in that explication the Apostles have made Ib. P. 12. But if we go farther besides the easiness of being deceived we relying upon our own discourses which tho' they may be true and then bind us to follow them but yet no more than when they only seem truest yet they cannot make the thing certain to another much less necessary in it self And since God would not bind us upon pain of Sin and Punishment to make deductions our selves much less would he bind us to follow another Man's Logick as an Article of our Faith Ib. P. 13. For it is a demonstration that nothing can be necessary to be believed under pain of Damnation but such Propositions of which it is certain that God has spoken and taught them to us and of which it is certain that this is their sense and purpose For if the sense be uncertain we can no more be obliged to believe it in a certain sense than we are to believe it at all if it were not certain that God delivered it c. Ibid. Here to these words I would only add that this Generality may suffice at least for Terms of Church-Vnion and that Men are answerable to God Whether or no they do what lies in their power to understand every Article as well as they can Howbeit certainly fallible Men are not Magisterially to prescribe in most intricate Matters or make then their Deductions a Rule to other Christians Perhaps the Apostles themselves knew not all Mysteries or understood not perfectly all the obscure Expressions which they had written when they were inspired as the Prophets did not always fully conceive the whole Meaning of all their Prophesies and Writings How should this Consideration then humble Us and keep Us from a decisive magisterial and imposing Spirit And this also I affirm altho' the Church of any one denomination or represented in a Council shall make the Deduction or Declaration Ib. P. 14. Particular Churches are bound to allow Communion to all those that profess the same Faith upon which the Apostles did give Communion P. 262. To refuse our Charity to those who have the same Faith because they have not all our Opinions which we over-value is Impious and Schismatical c. Ib. The Arians and Meletiant joined against the Catholicks The Catholicks and Novatians joyned against the Arians Now if Men would do that for Charity which they do for Interest it were handsomer and more ingenuous P. 263. Men would do well to consider whether or no such proceedings do not derive the guilt of Schism upon them who least think it and whether of the two is the Schismatick he that makes unnecessary and inconvenient Impositions or he that disobeys them because he cannot without doing violence to his Conscience submit to them P. 265. He that is most displeased at another Man's Error may be as much deceived in his Understanding P. 266. The word Heresy is used in Scripture indifferently c. P. 18. The further the Succession went from the Apostles the more forward Men were in numbring Heresies and that upon slighter and more uncertain grounds P. 32. I am willing to believe their sense of the word Heresy was more gentle than it is now P. 39. They whose Age and Spirits were far distant from the Apostles had also other judgments concerning Faith and Heresy than the Apostles had Ibid. In all the Animadversions against Errors by the Apostles no pious Person was condemn'd no Man that did invincibly err or bona mente but somthing that was amiss in genere morum was that which the Apostles did redargue P. 22. If a Man mingles not a Vice with his Opinion tho' he be deceiv'd in his Doctrin his Error is his Misery not his Crime it makes him an Argument of weakness and an object of pity but not a Person sealed up to ruin and reprobation P. 24. The Epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius tells the truth and chides them both The Emperor calls their Different a vain piece of a Question and a fruitless Contention For tho' says he the Matter be grave yet because neither necessary nor explicable the Contention is trifling Christians should not fall at variance upon such Disputes considering our Understandings