will be repugnant to what is overtur'd in that Letter And I the rather desir'd more room might be gained in this matter apprehending the Unitarians as they more lately affect to call themselves might upon the whole think you more theirs than ours and while they agree with you concerning the possibility of such a Trinity as you assert may judge their advantage against the other mentioned Doctrines no less than it was My desiring that letter of mine might not be printed was most agreeable to what I intended in writing it that was only to suggest to you somewhat very loosly that I reckon'd you more capable than any man I knew to cultivate and improve to the great service of the common Christian Cause And that you might seem to say what you might upon your own search find safe and fit to be said as meerly from your self without taking notice that occasion was given you by any such Letter at all Had I design'd it for publick view it should have been writ with more Care and with more expressed Respect to you But if upon the whole you judge there is nothing in it considerable to the purposes it mentions my further request is you will please rather to suppress that part of your Letter which concerns it for which I suppose there is yet opportunity and take no notice any such letter came to your hands I am Reverend SIR Your most Respectful Humble Servant Anonym Decemb. 19. 91. Summary Propositions collected out of the foregoing Discourses more briefly offering to view the substance of what is contained in them 1. Of the Unity of the Godhead there can be no doubt it being in reason demonstrable and most expresly often asserted in Scripture 2. That there is a Trinity in the Godhead of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost is the plain obvious sense of so many Scriptures that it apparently tends to frustrate the design of the whole Scripture-revelation and to make it useless not to admit this Trinity or otherwise to understand such Scriptures 3. That therefore the devising any other sense of such Scriptures ought by no means to be attempted unless this Trinity in the Godhead can be evidently demonstrated to be impossible 4. That the impossibility of it can never be demonstrated from the meer Unity of the Godhead which may be such as to admit these distinctions in it for ought we know 5. Nothing is more appropriate to the Godhead than to be a necessarily existent intelligent Being since all Creatures whether intelligent or unintelligent are contingent depending upon the Will of the necessary intelligent Being 6. If therefore the Father Son and Holy Ghost do coexist in the Godhead necessarily they cannot but be God 7. And if the first be conceived as the Fountain the second as by natural necessary not voluntary promanation from the first the third by natural necessary not voluntary spiration so as that neither of these latter could have been otherwise This aptly agrees with the Notions of Father Son and Spirit distinctly put upon them and infinitely distinguishes the two latter from all Creatures that depend upon will and pleasure 8. Whatever distinction there be of these three among themselves yet the first being the Original the second being by that promanation necessarily and eternally united with the first the third by such spiration united necessarily and eternally with both the other inasmuch as eternity and necessity of existence admit no change this union must be inviolable and everlasting and thereupon the Godhead which they constitute can be but One. 9. We have among the creatures and even in our selves instances of very different Natures continuing distinct but so united as to be one thing and it were more easily supposeable of congenerous Natures 10. If such Union with distinction be impossible in the Godhead it must not be from any repugnancy in the thing it self since very intimate Union with continuing distinction is in it self no impossible thing but from somewhat peculiar to the Divine Being 11. That peculiarity since it cannot be Unity which because it may admit distinctions in one and the same thing we are not sure it cannot be so in the Godhead must be that simplicity commonly wont to be ascribed to the divine Nature 12. Such simplicity as shall exclude that distinction which shall appear necessary in the present case is not by express Scripture any where ascribed to God and therefore must be rationally demonstrated of him if it shall be judg'd to belong at all to him 13. Absolute Simplicity is not a Perfection nor is by any ascribed to God Not by the Socinians themselves who ascribe to him the several intellectual and moral excellencies that are attributed to him in the Scriptures of which they give very different definitions as may be seen in their own Volkelius at large which should signifie them not to be counted in all respects the same thing 14. That is not a just consequence which is the most plausible one that seems capable of being alledg'd for such absolute simplicity that otherwise there would be a composition admitted in the Divine Nature which would import an imperfection inconsistent with Deity For the several excellencies that concur in it howsoever distinguished being never put together nor having ever existed apart but in eternal necessary union tho' they may make some sort of variety import no proper composition and carry with them more apparent Perfection than absolute omnimodous simplicity can be conceived to do 15. Such a supposed possible variety even of individual Natures in the Deity some way differing from each other infers not an unbounded Liberty of conceiving what pluralities therein we please or can imagine The divine revelation which could only justify doth also limit us herein mentioning three distinct I's or He 's and no more 16. The several Attributes which are common to these three do to our apprehension and way of conceiving things require less distinction no more for ought we know than may arise from their being variously modify'd according to the distinction of Objects or other extrinsecal things to which they may be referr'd We that so little know how our own Souls and the Powers and Principles that belong to them do differ from one another and from them must be supposed more ignorant and should be less curious in this FINIS Books printed for and sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel A Body of practical divinity consisting of above 176 Sermons on the Lesser Catechisme compos'd by the Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster With a Supplement of some Sermons on several Texts of Scripture By Thomas Watson formerly Minister of St. Stephens Walbrook London Theological Dicourses in two Volumes The First Containing eight Letters and three Sermons concerning the Blessed Trinity The Second containing 13 Sermons on several Occasions By John Wallis D. D. Professor of Geometry in Oxon. An Account of the Blessed Trinity argued from the nature and perfection of the Supream Spirit coincident with the Scripture Doctrine in all the Articles of the Catholick Creeds together with its Mystical Federal Practical uses in the Christian Religion By William Burrough Rector of Cheynis in Bucks The confirming Work of Religion or its great things made Plain by their primary Evidences and Demonstrations whereby the meanest in the Church may soon be made able to render an account of their Faith By R. Fleming Author of the Fulfilling of the Seriptures Now Published by Daniel Burgess The Rod or the Sword the present Dilemma of the Nations of England Scotland and Ireland considered argued and improved c. A Family Altar erected to the Honour of the Eternal God or a Solemn Essay to promote the Worship of God in private Houses together with the best Entail or dying Parents living Hopes for their surviving Children grounded upon the Covenant of Gods Grace with Believers and their Seed By Oliver Heywood Minister of the Gospel 1 Joh. 5. Joh. 10. 1 Cor. 2. 11. Joh. 17. 3. P. 17. of these Considerations Prov. 8. Gen. 1. Prov. 8. Isa. 9. Mic. 5. Joh. 1. Joh. 3. Joh. 10. Joh. 21. Rom. 9. Phil. 2. Col. 1. 1 Joh. 5. Rev. 1. Chap. 2. Chap. 3. God 1 Cor. 2. Acts 5. 1 Joh. 5.
as one may with certainty pronounce there is nothing more impossible or unconceivable in it than we find is actually done then it is not intrinsecally impossible or objectively it is not impossible in it self No power can effect what is simply and in it self impossible There is therefore no contradiction no repugnancie or inconsistencie as to the thing nor consequently any shadow of absurdity in the conception hereof Whereupon VIII If such an union with such distinction be not impossible in it self so that by a competent power it is sufficiently possible to be effected or made we are to consider whether it will appear more impossible or whether I shall have a conception in my own mind any thing more incongruous if I conceive such an union with such distinction unmade or that is original and eternal in an unmade or uncreated being For we are first to consider the thing in it self abstractly from made or unmade created or uncreated being And if it pass clear of contradiction or absudity in its abstract notion we are so far safe and are not liable to be charged as having the conception in our minds of an impossible absur'd or self-repugnant thing So that clamour and cry of the Adversary must cease or be it self absurd and without pretence This now supposed Union with such distinction must if it be judg'd impossible as it is in our thoughts introduc'd into unmade being can no longer be judg'd impossible as it is an Union of distinct things but only as it is unmade or is supposed to have place in the unmade eternal Being IX This is that then we have further to consider whether supposing it possible that three spiritual beings might as well be made or created in a State of so near Union with continuing distinction as to admit of becoming one spiritual being to be called by some fit name which might easily be found out if the thing were produc'd as that a spiritual being and a corporeal being may be made or created in a state of so near union with continuing distinction as to become one spiritual-corporeal being called by the Name of Man I say whether supposing the former of these to be as possible to be done or created as the latter which we see done already we may not as well suppose somewhat like it but infinitely more perfect to be original and eternal in the uncreated Being If the first be possible the next actual what pretence is there to think the last impossible X. I might add as that which may be expected to be significant with such as do seriously believe the Doctrines both of the Incarnation and the Trinity tho' I know it will signifie nothing with them who with equal contempt reject both that the union of the two Natures the humane made up of an humane Body and an humane Soul which are two exceedingly different Natures with the divine which is a third and infinitely more different from both the other in one Person viz. of the Son of God cannot certainly appear to any considering Person more conceivable or possible than that which we now suppose but assert not of three distinct Essences united in the One Godhead upon any account but this only that this is supposed to be an unmade eternal union the other made and temporal which renders not the one less conceivable than the other as it is union but only as in the several terms of this union it is supposed eternally to have place in the Being of God whereas that other union in respect of one of its terms is acknowledg'd de novo to have place there In short here is a spiritual created being an humane Soul setting aside for the present the consideration of the humane body which united therewith made up the Man Christ confessed to be in hypostatical union with the uncreated spiritual being of God not as that being is in the Person of the Father nor as in the Person of the Holy Ghost for then they should have become Man too but as it was in the Person of the Son only why shall it be thought less possible that three uncreated spiritual beings may be in so near an union with each other as to be one God as that a created Spirit and Body too should be in so near union with one of the Persons in the Godhead only as therewith to be one Person will it not hereby be much more easily apprehensible how one of the Persons as the common way of speaking is should be incarnate and not the other two Will not the Notion of Person it self be much more unexceptionable when it shall be supposed to have its own individual Nature And why is a natural eternal union of uncreated Natures with continuing distinction or without confusion sufficient unto the Unity of the Godhead less supposable than a temporal contracted union with created Natures without confusion too that shall be sufficient to the Unity of a Person will it be any thing more contrary to such simplicity of the Divine Nature as is necessarily to be ascribed thereto or will it be Tritheism and inconsistent with the acknowledged inviolable Unity of the Godhead XI That we may proceed to speak to both let these things be consider'd with seriousness and sobriety of mind as to our selves with all possible reverence towards the blessed God and with just candour and equanimity towards other Men. And first we must leave it to any ones future representation not being hitherto able to discern any thing what there is in all this that is here supposed any way repugnant to such simplicity as God any where claims to his own being or that plain reason will constrain us to ascribe to him or that is really in it self any Perfection We are sure God hath not by his Word taught us to ascribe to him universal absolute simplicity or suggested to us any such Notices as directly and evidently infer it to belong to him Nor hath seem'd at all intent upon cautioning of us lest we should not ascribe it The word we find not among his Attributes mentioned in the Holy Scriptures The thing so far as it signifiies any general perfection we are sure belongs to him but the Scriptures are not Written with visible design to obviate any danger of our misconceiving his Nature by not apprehending it to be in every respect most absolutely simple It doth teach us to conceive of him as most powerful most wise most gracious and doth not teach us to conceive all these in the abstract viz. Power Wisdom and Goodness to be the same thing Yet we easily apprehend by reflecting upon our selves that without multiplying the subject these may all reside together in the same man But our difficulty is greater to conceive what is commonly taught that these without real distinction or with formal only as contradistinguished to the difference of thing from thing are in the abstract affirmable of God that he is Power Wisdom Goodness That
delicious if he had some one to whom to express his sense of the whole We are not I say strictly to measure God by our selves in this further than as he himself prompts and leads us But if we so form our Conception of Divine Bliss as not to exclude from it somewhat whereof that Delight in Society which we find in our selves may be an imperfect faint resemblance it seems not altogether disagreeable to what the Scriptures also teach us to conceive concerning him when it brings in the eternal Wisdom saying as one distinct from the prime Author and Parent of all things then was I by him as one brought up with him and daily his delight XXIII However let the whole of what hath been hitherto proposed be taken together and to me it appears our conception of the sacred Trinunity will be so remote from any shadow of inconsistency or repugnancy that no necessity can remain upon us of torturing Wit and racking Invention to the uttermost to do a laboured and artificial violence by I know not what skrews and engines to so numerous plain Texts of Scripture only to undeify our glorious Redeemer and do the utmost despite to the Spirit of grace We may be content to let the word of God or what we pretend to own for a divine revelation stand as it is and undistorted speak its own sense And when we find the Former of all things speaking as WE or US When we find another I possessed by the Lord in the beginning of his way before his works of old so as that he says of himself as distinct from the other I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was And when he prepared the Heavens I was there c. When we find the Child born for us the Son given to us called also the mighty God and as in reference to us he fitly might the Everlasting Father When we are told of the Ruler that was to come out of Bethlehem-Ephrata that his goings forth were from everlasting That the Word was in the beginning with God and was God That all things were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made That this Word was made flesh That His glory was beheld as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth Even that same he that above was said to have been in the beginning with God and to be God That when he who was said to have come down from Heaven was even while he was on Earth at that time said to be in Heaven That we are told by himself he and his Father are one thing That he is not only said to know the heart but to know all things That even he who according to the flesh came of the Israelites is yet expresly said to be over all God blessed for ever That when he was in the form of God he humbled himself to the taking on him the form of a servant and to be found in fashion as a man That 't is said all things were created by him that are in heaven and on earth visible and invisible thrones dominions principalities powers and that all things were created by him and for him than which nothing could have been said more peculiar or appropriate to Deity That even of the Son of God it is said he is the true God and eternal Life That we are so plainly told he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last he that was and is and is to come The Lord Almighty the beginning of the creation of The searcher of hearts That the Spirit of God is said to search all things even the deep things of God That lying to him is said to be lying to God That the great Christian Solemnity Baptism is directed to be in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That it is so distinctly said there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and that these three are one thing I cannot imagine what should oblige us so studiously to wiredraw all this to quite other meanings XXIV And for the leaving out of this last mentioned text in some copies what hath been said not to mention divers others by the famously learned Dr. Hammond upon that place is so reasonable so moderate so charitable to the opposite party and so apt to satisfie impartial and unprejudic'd minds that one would scarce think after the reading of it any real doubt can remain concerning the authentickness of that 7 th verse in 1 Joh. 5. Wherefore now taking all these texts together with many more that might have been mentioned I must indeed profess to wonder that with men of so good sense as our Socinian Adversaries are accounted this consideration should not have more place and weight viz. That it being so obvious to any Reader of the Scriptures to apprehend from so numerous Texts that Deity must belong to the Son of God and that there wants not Sufficient inducement to conceive so of the Holy Ghost also there should be no more caution given in the Scriptures themselves to prevent mistake if there were any in apprehending the matter accordingly And to obviate the unspeakable consequent danger of erring in a case of so vast importance How unagreeable it is to all our notions of God and to his usual procedure in cases of less consequence How little doth it consist with his being so wise and so compassionate a Lover of the souls of men to let them be so fatally expos'd unto so inevitable and so destructive a delusion That the whole Christian Church should thorough so many Centuries of years be even trained into so horrid and continued Idolatry by himself who so severely forbids it I cannot allow my self to think men of that perswasion insincere in their professing to believe the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures when the Leader and Head of their Party writ a book that is not without nerves in defence of it But I confess I cannot devise with what design they can think those Scriptures were written Or why they should count it a thing worthy of infinite wisdom to vouchsafe such a revelation to men allowing them to treat and use it as they do And that till some great Socinian wits should arise 1500 years after to rectify their notions in these things men should generally be in so great hazzard of being deceived into damnation by those very Scriptures which were professedly writ to make them wise to Salvation XXV Nor is it of so weighty importance in this controversie to cast the ballance the other way that a noted Critick upon what introducement needs not be determined chang'd his judgment or that his Posthumous interpretations of some texts if they were his interpretations carry an appearance of his having changed it because he thought such texts might
seen thorough an over-magnifying Opinion of our selves as if our Eye could penetrate that vast and sacred darkness or the glorious light equally impervious to us wherein God dwells too great rudeness to the rest of Men more than implicitly representing all Mankind besides as stark blind who can discern nothing of what we pretend clearly to see And it is manifest this cannot be said to be impossible upon any other Pretence but that it consists not with the Unity of the Godhead in opposition to the multiplication thereof or with that simplicity which stands in opposition to the concurrence of all Perfections therein with distinction greater than hath been commonly thought to belong to the Divine Nature For the former we are at a certainty But for the latter how do we know what the Original Natural State of the Divine Being is in this respect or what simplicity belongs to it or what it may contain or comprehend in it consistently with the Unity thereof or so but that it may still be but one Divine Being What distinction and unity conserved together we can have otherwise an Idéa of without any apprehended inconsistency absurdity or contradiction we shall rashly pronounce to be impossible or somewhat imperfectly resembled thereby in the Divine Being unless we understood it better than we do Some prints and characters of that most perfect Being may be apprehended in the creatures especially that are intelligent such being expresly said to have been made in the Image of God And if here we find Oneness with distinction meeting together in the same created intelligent being this may assist our Understandings in conceiving what is possible to be in much higher Perfection tho not to the concluding what certainly is in the uncreated V. Waving the many artificial Unions of distinct things that united and continuing distinct make one thing under one Name I shall only consider what is natural and give instance in what is nearest us our very selves tho the truth is we know so little of our own Nature that it is a strange assuming when we confidently determine what is impossible to be in the divine Nature besides what he hath told us or made our own Faculties plainly tell us is so and what he hath made any mans Faculties to tell him he hath made all mens that can use them But so much we manifestly find in our selves that we have three Natures in us very sufficiently distinguishable and that are intimately united the vegetative sensitive and the intellective So that notwithstanding their manifest distinction no one scruples when they are united to call the whole the humane nature Or if any make a difficulty or would raise a Dispute about the distinction of these three Natures I for the present content my self with what is more obvious not doubting to reach my mark by degrees viz. that we are made up of a mind and a body somewhat that can think and somewhat that cannot sufficiently distinct yet so united that not only every one without hesitation calls that thing made up of them one man but also every one that considers deeply will be transported with wonder by what more-than-magical knot or tye two things so little a-kin should be so held together that the one that hath the power of will and choice cannot sever it self and return into the same union with the other at pleasure But VI. Since we find this is a thing actually done the making up of two things of so different Natures into one thing that puts the matter out of doubt that this was a thing possible to be done 't was what God could do for he hath done it And if that were possible to him to unite two things of so very different natures into one thing let any colourable reason be assigned me why it should not be as possible to him to unite two things of a like nature i. e. If it were possible to him to unite a spirit and a body why is it less possible to him to have united two spirits And then I further enquire If it were possible to him to unite two would it not be as possible to unite three Let Reason here be put upon its utmost stretch and tell me what in all this is less possible than what we see is actually done Will any man say two or three spirits united being of the same nature will mingle be confounded run into one another and lose their distinction I ask supposing them to pre-exist apart antecedently to their Union are they not now distinguished by their own individual essences let them be as much united as our Souls and Bodies are why should they not as much remain distinct by their singular essences There is no more hazard of their losing their distinction by the similitude of their natures than of our Soul and Body's transmuting one another by their dissimilitude I know not but the dictates of so vogued an Author with many in this Age as Spinosa may signifie somewhat with some into whose hands this may fall who with design bad enough says that from whence one might collect the remaining distinction of two things of the same nature in such a supposed union were the more easily conceivable of the two i. e. than of two things of different natures For in his Posthumous Ethicks de Deo He lays this down in Explication of his second Definition Cogitatio aliâ cogitatione terminatur At corpus non terminatur cogitatione nec cogitatio corpore Some may regard him in this and it would do our business For my patt I care not to be so much beholden to him for it would at the long run overdo it and I know his meaning But I see not but two congenerous natures are equally capable of being united retaining their distinction as two of a different kind and that sufficiently serves the present purpose However let any man tell me why it should be impossible to God so to unite three spirits as by his own power to fix their limits also and by a perpetual Law inwrought into their distinct beings to keep them distinct so that they shall remain everlastingly united but not identifyed and by vertue of that union be some one thing which must yet want a name as much and as truly as our Soul and Body united do constitute one man Nor is it now the question whether such an union would be convenient or inconvenient apt or inept but all the question is whether it be possible or impossible which is as much as we are concerned in at this time But you will say suppose it be possible to what purpose is all this How remote is it from the supposed Trinity in the Godhead You will see to what purpose it is by and by I therefore adde VII That if such an Union of three things whether of like or of different Natures so as that they shall be truly one thing and yet remain distinct tho united can be effected