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EIGHT LETTERS
CONCERNING
THE BLESSED TRINITY
JOHN WALLIS, D.D.,
FORMERLY SAVILIAN PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
a Kcfo lEDition,
THE AUTHOR'S LAST REVISIONS AND CORRECTIONS:
TOGETHER WITH
A PREFACE AND NOTES
THOMAS FLINTOFF.
LONDON:
J. G, & F. UIVINGTON, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL; J. H. PARKER, OXFORD; AND T. SOV»'LER, MANCHESTER. *
MAVCUESTKn: VTKI) KV T. SOtVI.EK, SAtN'
PEIITCETOIT .fttC. NOV 1860
EDITOR'S PREFACE
The Letters written by Dr. John Wallis, in vindication of the blessed Trinity, which form the subject of the present republication, have received high praise from very different and generally discordant authorities. While they have met with the marked approval of Dr. Waterland, the late excellent Bishop Burgess, and the eminent nonconformist, Mr. John Howe, they have been recommended with equal warmth by Archbishop Whateley and Dr. Parr. Nor has the notice accorded to them been confined to this country. A very learned foreigner, in a most elaborate work on the subject of the Trinity, published abroad some years ago, speaks in the following terms of Wallis, in reviewing the various attempts to illustrate the mysterious union of Three in One. " Quam praeclare AVallisius de logica facultate itemque de mathematica ac physica meritus fuerit ; omnibus opinor notum qui vel
IV EDITORS PREFACE.
rapida tantiim lectione illius opera percucur- rerint. Is dynamices leges, quibus non parum falsitatis erat admix turn, experiundo patefecit. Is de centro gravitatis omnium primus pro dignitate dispiitarit, specimenque praebuit arithmetical infinitorum, qu^ posset quadan- temis vicem supplere calculi integralis, admi- randa cujus inventio tanto deinceps honore anctorem suum cumulavit. Atque vir iste cujus tarn egregia extabant erga scientias merita, sibi induxit in animum, si forte valu- isset, quiTerere creatis in rebus, exemplum quo Trinitatis fidem rationis usu redderet pmecla- riorem. Quod porro exemplum, ut mathesim quoque accerceret adjutricem fidei, de geo- metricis rebus, hoc est, de trina dimensione corporum excitavit et quantum eniti potuit, confirmavit/'*
At a period when the Arianism of Milton, at least in his latter days, has been unfortu- tunately placed beyond dispute, and when the orthodoxy of Newton and Locke, on the essential point of the Trinity, has been with some reason doubted, it will not, I trust, be deemed unnecessary or superfluous to bring
* Mutapliysica siihliiuior dc Doo, Triiiu ot Uiio. Auctore Marcu Maslroliiii. Tom. I. Koni;i>, ISUJ. Fulio.
EDITOR S PREFACE. V
forward the testimony, contained in the fol- lowing Letters, of the greatest mathematician of his time on that most important subject.
To whom the first Letter was addressed, does not appear. It was published by Wallis, in 4to, in I69O, when the Trinitarian con- troversy was waxing hot between Sherlock and his various opponents, and contains the famous parallel of the cube, which has always been considered the happiest illustration, bor- rowed from material objects, hitherto made use of to shadow out the mysterious charac- teristics of the Trinity. It appears from a passage at page 111, that the idea of this parallel had occurred to Wallis forty years before, and that he had mentioned it at Oxford about that time to Dr. Seth Ward, then Astronomy-Professor there.
It has been a matter of doubt with some eminent divines, whether any solid benefit to faith or piety is derivable from attempts to illustrate the credenda of religion by what must necessarily be inadequate and deficient, and fail in some part or other of conveying the desired resemblance. But admitting the utter impossibility of fully expressing any of the higher mysteries of our faith, by analogies
VI EDITOR S IMiEFACE.
or parallels borrowed from external objects, surely the use of them, when cautiously and modestly propounded, is not merely warrant- able, but even to be commended. Let it be ever recollected that they are not intended to supply the place of argument, but only to be introduced when argument, from the depths of the mystery and the imperfections of human reason, can do little or nothing to elucidate the subject. To confirm the faith of the doubtful, to silence the sceptic, and to give fuller intuition to the devout, we are called upon to make use of any means which Pro- vidence has placed in our power and scripture does not interdict, and infinitely various as are the minds, and tempers, and dispositions of men, it is gratifying to know that there are subsidia, in the armory of faith, fitted and proportioned to every occasion and every capacity. With some a striking parallel will produce more conviction than the slower pro- cess of logical aroumentation. AVe know that it was from the apparent correspondence of mathematical with divine truths that Pascal first became devout, and Barrow turned his attention to theology.
In the second and subsequent Letters,
EDITOR S PREFACE. Vll
which were pubhshed by Wallis, in 4to, in 169 1-2, he defends his first Letter, and the illustration there contained, from several ani- madversions which had been made upon it by various writers, and explains more fully his parallel of the cube. Perhaps in none of his writings is his acuteness more eminently shewn than in these replies. The observa- tions he makes on the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed and the various texts of scripture which he cites, are exceedingly valuable ; and the perspicuity and logical exactness with which he conducts the defence of his argument through various digressions, and notwithstanding many attempts made by his opponents to change the state of the ques- tion, is truly admirable. Throughout the whole the precision of the veteran geome- trician, trained and practised in ratiocination, is distinctly perceptible.
Wallis subsequently published Three Ser- mons concerning the sacred Trinity, I69I, 4to. These, which it is intended to repub- lish in a separate form, were bound up with the eight Letters, and the following general title prefixed. " Theological Discourses, containing eight Letters and three Sermons
Vlll EDITORS PPvEFACE.
concerning the Blessed Trinity. B}^ John Wallis, D. D., Professor of Geometry in Oxford. London : printed for Tho. Park- hurst, at the Bible and Three Crowns, at the lower end of Cheapside, near Mercer's Chapel, 1692." 4to. In the Latin edition of Wallis's Collected Works, in three vols., foL, 1693-9, a Latin version of the three Sermons was included ; but of the Letters, except the first,* no republication has been made up to the present time, and copies have accordingly become exceedingly scarce.
Under these circumstances the present re- print was projected, and I was confirmed in my intention of offering a new edition of the Letters to the public by fortunately meeting with Wallis's own copy of them, with con- siderable additions and corrections in his handwriting, evidently inserted by him with a view to a second edition. From this revised copy, which with Wallis's MSS. correspon- dence on the subject of the Letters, was formerly in the possession of Joseph Parkes, Esq., and is now in the collection of my
* Inserted in Wallis's Life prefixed to his Sermons, 1792, 8vo., and Bishop Burgess's Tracts on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Durham, 1814. Timo.
EDITOR S PREFACE. IX
friend, James Crossley, Esq., to whose valu- able assistance I am much indebted, the present edition has been printed, and the additional passages have been inserted in their respective places, though it has not been deemed necessary to distinguish them by brackets from the original text.
It remains only to add, that should any pecuniary profit arise by the present repub- lication, it is intended to be appropriated to the relief of Mr. William Wallis, a lineal descendant of the illustrious author of these Letters, who at a very advanced age, unas- sisted by the liberality of the lovers of those sciences which his ancestor so eminently pro- moted and adorned, is now suffering in the metropolis all the privations of penury and distress.
T. FLINTOFF.
Broughton, 21 th July, 1840.
AN EXPLICATION AND VINDICATION
ATHANASIAN CREED,
IN A THIRD LETTER, PURSUANT OF TWO FORMER CONCERNING THE SACRED TRINITV
TOGETHER
WITH A POSTSCRIPT, IN ANSWER TO ANOTHER LETTER.
BY JOHN WALLIS, D.D.
[Pl'BLISHBD IN 1601.]
THE DOCTRINE
THE BLESSED TRINITY
BJllEKLY EXPLAINED,
IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND:
FORMING THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF LETTERS ON THAT SUBJECT.
BY JOHN WALLIS, D.D.
[PriiLISHED IN Kii-'O.]
LElTEll I.
THE DOCTUINE OF THE BLESSED TRINITY BRIEFLY EXPLAINED, IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND.
Sir,
The doctrine of the Arians, Socinians, or Anti- Trinitarians, call them as you please, provided you call them not orthodox Christians, in opposition to those who believe, according to the Word of God, that the sacred Trinity, of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are so distinguished each from other, as that the Father is not the Son, or Holy Ghost ; the Son not the Father, or Holy Ghost ; the Holy Ghost not the Father, or Son ; yet so united, or intimately one, as that they are all one God; which, in the Athanasian Creed, is called Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity; or, in common speaking, three persons and one God ; is what you were lately discoursing with me, and of which I shall give you some of my present thoughts.
The Scripture tells us plainly, " There arc three that bear record in heaven ; the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost : and these three are one, 1 John V. 7. And the form of baptism, Matt, xxviii. 19j is, " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
And the Christian church, from the time of Christ and his apostles downwards hitherto, as well before as since the council of Nice, have ever held the divinity of those three persons, as they are commonly called ; and that these three are but one God. And that they have so held, hath been, by divers, sufficiently proved from the most ancient Christian writers which are now extant. Which, therefore, I take for granted as sufficiently proved by others, without spending time, at present, to prove it anew.
That these are three, distinguished each from other, is manifest: and that this distinction amongst themselves is wont to be called personality. By which word we mean that distinction, whatever it be, whereby they are distinguished each from other, and thence called three persons.
If the word person do not please, we need not be fond of words, so the thing be agreed : yet is it a good word, and warranted by Scripture, Heb. i. 3, where the Son is called " the express image of his Father's person:" for so we render the word lujpos- tasis, which is there used ; and mean by it, what I think to be there meant. And we have no reason to waive the word, since we know no better to put in the place of it.
If it be asked, what these personahties or charac- teristics are, whereby each person is distinguished from other ; I think we have httle more thereof in Scripture, than that the Father is said to beget ; the Son to be begotten ; and the Holy Ghost to proceed.
If it be further asked, what is the full import of these words, which are but metaphorical, and what is the adequate meaning of them, I think we need not trouble ourselves about it : for since it is a matter purely of revelation, not of natural know- ledge, and we know no more of it than what is revealed in Scripture, where the Scripture is silent we may be content to be ignorant. And we who know so little of the essence of any thing, especially of spiritual beings, though finite, need not think it strange that we are not able to comprehend all the particularities of what concerns that of God, and the blessed Trinity.
I know that the fathers, and schoolmen, and some after them, have employed their wits to find out some faint resemblances from natural things, whereby to express their imperfect conceptions of the sacred Trinity : but they do not pretend to give an adequate account of it ; but only some con- jectural hypothesis, rather of what may be than of what certainly is. Nor need we be concerned, to be curiously inquisitive into it, beyond what God hath been pleased to reveal concerning it.
That the three persons are distinguished, is evi-
dont ; thoiigli wo do not perfectly understand what those distinctions are. That to each of these the Scripture ascribes divinity, is abundantly shewed by those who have written on this subject. That there is but one God, is agreed on all hands. That the Father is said to beget, the Son to be begotten, and the Holy Ghost to proceed, is agreed also ; ihougli we do not perfectly understand the full import of these w^ords.
And here we might quietly acquiesce, without troubling ourselves further, did not the clamorous Socinians importunely suggest the impossibility and inconsistence of these things, insomuch as to tell us, that how clear soever the expressions of Scripture be, or can be, to this purpose, they will not believe it, as being inconsistent with natural reason. And, therefore, though they do not yet think fit to give us a barefaced rejection of Scripture ; yet they do (and must, they tell us,) put such a forced sense on the words of it, be they never so plain, as to make them signify somewhat else.
There is, therefore, in this doctrine of the Trinity, as in that of the resurrection from the dead, a dou- ble inquiry : first, wJiether it be possible ; and then, whether it be true. And these to be argued, in both cases, from a very difTerent topic: the one from natural reason ; the other from revelation. Yet so, that this latter doth certainly conclude the former, if rightly understood. And though we should not be able to solve all difficulties ; vet must we believe
the thing, if revealed, unless we will deny the autho- rity of such revelation.
Thus our Saviour, against the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. Matt. xxii. 29, " Ye err," saith he, "not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." The power of God, if rightly understood, was enough, from the light of reaso^Ji, to prove it not impossible : but, whether or no it will be so, which natural reason could not determine, was to be argued from Scripture revelation.
In like manner, St. Paul before Agrippa, Acts xxvi. 8, first argues the possibility of it ; " Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead ?" For if Agrippa did believe the creation of the world, as many even of the heathen did, from the light of nature, he could not think it impossible for that God, who had at first made all things of nothing, to recollect, out of its dust or ashes, a body which once had been. But whether or no he would do so, depended upon another question to be after asked, v. 2/, " Kino- Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?" For this was purely matter of revelation, and could not otherwise be known. For, as to the immortality of the soul, and a future state hereafter, many of the heathens went very far, by the light of nature ; but as to the resurrection of the body, I do not find they had any sentiments about it, or but very faint, if any : and if they had, it may well be supposed to be the remainder of some ancient tradition from
8
the Jews, or tlieir predecessors. Nor do I see any foundation in nature which should make them think of it, before it was revealed, any more than of the redemption of mankind by Christ, which we should never have thought of, had not God himself con- trived and declared it to us. But, when tliat of the resurrection was once suggested, there was no pretence of reason to think it a thing impossible ; and, therefore, no reason to doubt the truth of it when declared, if we believe the Scriptures, wherein it is revealed, especially those of the New Testa- ment.
It is much the same as to the doctrine of the Trinity. It is a thing we should not have thought of, if it had not been suggested by divine w riters ; but, when suggested, there is nothing in natural reason that we know of, or can know of, why it should be thought impossible ; but whether or no it be so, depends only upon revelation.
And in this case the revelation seems so clear to those who believe the Scriptures, that we have no reason to doubt of it, unless the thing be found to be really impossible, and inconsistent with reason. Nor do the Anti-Trinitarians insist on any other ground why they deny it, save only, that it seems to them absolutely impossible; arid, therefore, think themselves bound to put another sense on all places of Scripture, how clear soever they be, or can be, which prove or favour it.
So that the controversv is now roduce<l to this
single point, whether it be possible or not possible : whether it be consistent or inconsistent with natural light or reason. And to that point, therefore, I shall confine my discourse. For it seems agreed on all hands, as to those who believe the Scriptures, that, if it be not impossible, it is sufficiently revealed.
Now for us who understand so little of God's infinite essence, and which it is impossible for us fully to comprehend, who are ourselves but finite, and mostly conversant with material objects ; inso- much that we cannot pretend to understand the essence of our own souls ; and when we attempt to explain it, must do it rather by saying what it is not, than what it is; so hard a matter is it for us to fix in our mind or fancy a notion, idea, or con- ception of a spiritual being, which falls not under our senses : it is hard, I say, for us who under- stand so little of a spirit to determine, of what God is pleased to reveal, that it is impossible, or incon- sistent with his essence, which essence we cannot understand.
But what is it that is thus pretended to be impossible? It is but this, that there be three somewhats, which are but one God ; and these somewhats we commonly call persons. Now what inconsistence is there in all this ? That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three, is manifest; and are in Scripture language distinguished. That there is but one God, is manifest also; and all those three are this God. That the name person
10
is no incongruous word, is evident from Heb. i. 3, where it is used. If it be said, it doth not agree to them exactly in the same sense in which it is com- monly used amongst men; wo say so too, nor doth any word, when applied to God, signify just the same as when applied to men, but only somewhat analogous thereunto.
What kind or degree of distinction, accordinor to our metaphysics, this is, we need not be very solicitous to inquire ; or, whether, in our metaphy- sics, accommodated to our notions of finite beings, there be any name for it : it is enough for us, if these three may truly be so distinguished, as that one be not the other, and yet all but one God.
Now, that there is no inconsistence or impos- sibility, that, what in one regard are three, may in another regard be one, is very manifest from many instances that may be given even in finite beings, such as we converse with ; which, though they do not adequately agree with this of the sacred Trinity, nor is it to be expected that they should; finite with what is infinite; yet there is enough in them to shew that there is no such inconsistence as is pretended.
I shall spare to instance in many resemblances which have been given long since by fathers and schoolmen, or by later writers.* Which, though they are not pretended to be adequately the same with that of the sacred Trinit}', as neither will any
* NoiK A.
11
and height, and
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thino- else be that we can take from finite beings ; yet are they sufficient to shew that there is no inconsistence in it ; which is all that is here incum- bent on us to prove. I shall only name a few.
I will begin with what concerns the most gross of finite beings, that is, material bodies.
Suppose we then a cubical body, which what it is, every one knows, that knows a die. In this are three dimensions, length, breadth yet but one cube. Its length, (suppose between east and west) A. B. Its breadth, (suppose between north and south) CD. Its height, (between bottom and top) E. F. Here are three local dimensions, truly distinguished each from other, not only imaginarily. The dis- tance between east and west, whether we think or think not of it, is not that between north and south ; nor be either of these that between top and bottom. The length is not the breadth, or height ; the breadth is not the length, or height; and the height is not the length, or breadth ; but they are three dimensions, truly distinct each from other : yet are all these but one cube ; and if any one of the three were wanting, it were not a cube. There is no inconsistence, therefore, that what in one regard are three, (three dimensions) may in another regard be so united as to be but one, (one cube.) And if it may be so in corporeals, much more in spirituals.
C B
12
Suppose we further, each of these dimensions infinitely continued ; the length infinitely eastward and westward, the breadth infinitely northward and southward, the height infinitely upward and down- ward. Here are three infinite dimensions, and but one infinite cube ; there being no limits in nature, greater than which a cube cannot be ; and these three dimensions, though distinct, are equal each to other, else it were not a cube : and though we should allow that a cube cannot be infinite, because a body, and, therefore, a finite creature; yet a spirit may; such as is the infinite God; and, therefore, no inconsistence that there be three personalities, each infinite, and all equal, and yet but one infinite God, essentially the same with those three persons.
I add further, that such infinite cube can, there- fore, be but one, and those three dimensions can be but three ; not more nor fewer. For, if infinite as to its length, eastward and westward ; and as to its breadth, northward and southward ; and as to its height, upward and downward ; it will take up all imaginary space possible, and leave no room either for more cubes or more dimensions : and if this infinite cube were, and shall be, eternally so, its dimensions also must be infinite and co-eternal.
I say further, if in this supposed cube, we suppose in order, not in time, its first dimension, that of length, as A. B., and to this length be given an e(|ual breadth, which is the true generation of a s(jiiare, as C. D., which completes the square basis
13
of this cube ; and to this basis, of length and breadth, be given, as by a further procession from both, an equal height, E. F., which completes the cube ; and all this eternally, for such is the cube supposed to be, here is a fair resemblance, if we may parvis componere magna., of the Father, as the fountain or original ; of the Son, as generated of him from all eternity ; and of the Holy Ghost, as eternally proceeding from both : and all this without any inconsistence. This longum., latum, profundum, (long, broad, and tall) is but one cube, of three dimensions, and yet but one body : and this Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three persons, and yet but one God. And as there, the dimensions are not, in the abstract, predicated or affirmed each of other, or the cube of either, the length is not the breadth or height, nor either of these a cube ; but, in the concrete, cube is affirmed of all ; this longum, latum, profundum, is a cube, and the same cube. So here, in the abstract, the personality of the Father is not that of the Son, nor either of these that of the Holy Ghost, nor the Deity or Godhead any of these ; but, in the concrete, though the per- sonalities are not, yet the persons are, each of them God, and the same God.
If it be objected, that those concretes are affirmed or predicated each of other ; that longum is also latum and profundum, this long is broad and tall : but not so here ; the Father is not the Son or Holy Ghost. I answer, that if the words be rightly con-
14
sidered, tlie analogy liolds here also : lor when we say, this long is broad and tall, where cube or body is understood, the full meaning is plainly thus — this body, which, as to one dimension, that of length, is said to be a long body, is the same body ; which, as to another dimension, that of breadth, is said to be a broad body ; and which, as to a third dimen- sion, that of height, is said to be a tall body. So here, that God, which, as to one personality, is God the Father, is the same God ; which, as to another personality, is God the Son ; and which, as to a third personality, is God the Holy Ghost. So the analogy holds every way, nor is there any incon- sistence in either case.
I proceed to the consideration of somewhat more spiritual, and less material than that of a body locally extended.
Suppose we then a created angel, or human soul ; at least if those who deny the blessed Trinity will allow that there are such beings ; but if they be Sadducees, who do not acknowledge either angel or spirit, or that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, which testify both, which I doubt is the case of some of them, let them speak out, that so we may know whom we have to deal with ; and not pretend to nibble only at the Athanasian Creed, or some expressions therein, while the quarrel is indeed at somewhat higher, though, ad auioliendaut litridiow^ they think fit fo dissemble it, and that thev do but faintlv believe, if at all, that the Holv
15
Scriptures are the Word of God, or the doctrmes therein contained to be such. And we have reason to suspect it, when they spare not to let us know, that, were this doctrine of the Trinity therein deh- vered in words as express as could be, they would not believe it.
But suppose we, what they would seem to grant, and what I am so charitable as to think divers of them do beheve, that there are spiritual beings, such as angels and the souls of men ; and that these spiritual beings are endued with knowledge, or wisdom, and force, or an executive power, to act according to that knowledge. That there is some such thing, at least in man, whether body or soul, they cannot but acknowledge ; for themselves be, and know, and do. And though we cannot fully comprehend, much less express in words, how all this is so ; for we are here at a loss, as well as in higher things ; yet, that it is, they cannot deny, though they do not know how.
Now, to be, and to know, and to do, are certainly distinct each from other ; though, perhaps, we are not all agreed of what kind, or in what degree this distinction is. To be is not the same as to know, for that may be where this is not; and to do is, for the same reason, somewhat different from both those : for a man may be and may know what he doth not do ; yet it is one and the same soul, at least one and the same man, which is, and knows, and does. There is, therefore, no impossibility or inconsistence
in it, that what in one regard are three, may in another regard be one. Thus in the sacred Trinity, if we conceive of the Father as the original or first person, who begets the Son ; the Son as the wisdom of the Father, begotten of him; and the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of the Father and the Son, as proceed- ing from both, and yet the same God with both ; or what other distinction there may be of these three persons, who are but one God, that we do not know; there is no inconsistence in it, that these three may be one ; three in one regard, and one in another.
I might shew the same as to the understanding, will, and meaning, which are all the same soul: and the known metaphysical terms of unUm, verwn, honwn, which are all but the same ens. And many other instances of like nature.
But we hold, it will be said, a greater distinction than that of unwn, verum, bonwn, between the three persons in the sacred Trinity. Be it so. But what that greater distinction is, we do not pretend to comprehend. However, it is from all these instances evident, that there is no impossibilitv or inconsistence with reason, that wliat in one regard are three, may in another regard ho one. Wliicli is what we undertook to show.
It is true, that not any, nor all of those instances, nor any of those given by other learned men, do adequately express the distinction and unity of tlu* persons in tlio sacrcMl Trinity; i\v noithcM- hath God
17
distinctly declared it to us, nor are we able fully to comprehend it, nor is it necessary for us to know. But because we do not know " how the bones grow in the womb of her that is with child,"* shall we, therefore, say they do not grow there? Or, because "we cannot by searching find out God, because we cannot find out the Almighty to per- fection," f shall we, therefore, say things cannot be, when God says they are, only because we know not how? If God say, " These three are one,"| shall we say, they are not ? If God say, " The Word was God," and "The Word was made flesh," || shall we say, not so, only because we cannot tell how ? It is safer to say, it is, when God says it is, though we know not, in particular, how it is. Especially when there be so many instances in nature, to shew it not to be impossible or incon- sistent with reason. The thing is sufficiently revealed to those who are willing to be taught, and "receive the truth in the love of it."§ Nor is it denied by those who gainsay it, but that, if the thing be possible, it is sufficiently revealed; there being no other exception made as to the revelation, but the impossibility of the thing. " But if any man list to be contentious,"^ and to "quarrel about words,"** it is no wonder if "hearing, they do hear and not understand ;"ff and that God
Eccl. xi. 5. t Job xi. 7 J 1 Joliu v. 7. || John i. 1, 14.
§ 2 Thess. ii. 10. t 1 Cor. xi. 1«. Rom. ii. 8.
2 Tim. vi. 4. Tit. iii. 9, ft Acts xxviii. 28. Matt. xiii. 13.
18
"give them over to believe a lie," who do not "love the truth."* But "the humble he will teach his way,"f and while we be so we be safe.J
* 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11. Rom. i. 21, 28. f Psalm xxv. 9.
X Note B.
Yours,
JOHN WALLIS.
August 11, 1690.
A SECOND LETTER
CONCERNING
THE HOLY TRINITY,
PURSUANT TO THE FORMER FROM THE SAME HAND, OCCASIONED BY A LETTER, THERE INSERTED, FROM ONE UNKNOWN.
BY JOHN WALLIS, D.D.
[Published in 1691.]
LETTER 11.
CONCERNING THE SACRED TRINITY.
Sir,
I UNDERSTAND by youF letter, of Sept. 20, that you have printed a letter of mine concerning the Trinity; and have sent me some copies of it to Oxford. But I am not there to receive them ; and so have yet seen none of them : but your letter thither was sent me thence by the post.
I have, since yours, received, by the same way, a letter directed to me, subscribed W. J. ; but I know not from whom. I suppose it is somebody in London, to whom you have presented a book, for which he returns me thanks.
That letter to me was thus, (with the post-mark at London, SE. 23. from whence I supply the date, which in the letter was wanting.)
For the Reverend Dr. Wallis, Professor of Geometry, at Oxford.
Sir,
I RECEIVED the honour of your letter, and return you humble and hearty thanks for it. It is writ, in my opinion,
22
in a modest, peaceable, and Christian style ; and 1 wish it may please others as well as it doth me. I am afraid, however, that it will not give satisfaction to the scholastic Athanasian-Trinitarian. For they are so particular, and withal so positive, in the explication of the greatest of mysteries, as if they understood it as well as any article of their Christian faith.
Your explication of personality gives no distaste to me, when you say, (page 4) " They are distinguished by per- sonality:" and, "by personality I mean that distinction whereby they are distinguished." Yet I am afraid the high flown School- Trinitarians will say, this is trifling, and idem per idem. Though to me it hath this good sense, that we know there is a distinction betwixt them, which we call personality ; but we can affix no notion to this personality, which is common to it with other per- sonalities, either human or angelical; and, therefore, we can only say, it is that distinction whereby the three hypostases are distinguished.
But you still use a greater latitude, as to the notion of these persons, or personalities, when you call them " some- whats," (page 9). That, you say, which is pretended to be impossible by the Anti-Trinitarians is only this, " That there be three somewhats, which are but one God ; and these somewhats we commonly call persons." This I take only to signify, that the true notion, and the true name, of that distinction is uidcnown to us, yet the distinction is certain.
But the deep loanied School-Trinitarians, who decide all things to an liair's breadth, will, I imagine, ridicule this expression.
A late learned and ingenious author,* you know, hath
• Dr. Slicil.nk.
23
gone much further in his determinations about this point. He makes your "three somewhats," not only "three persons," but "three substantial beings," (page 47) and "three infinite minds," (page 66). And the contrary, he says, is both heresy and nonsense.
Three infinite minds is the same as three infinite spirits. And by infinite, the author understands here, not infinite in extension, but in perfection. So that the three hypostases are three spirits, whereof each is infinite in perfection.
Then, saith the Anti- Trinitarian, they are three Gods. For what better notion, or what better definition, have we of God, than that he is a Spirit infinitely perfect? And, if there be three such, there are three Gods. In like manner, three substantial beings really distinct, are three substances really distinct. And if each of these substances be endued with infinite perfection, it will be hard to keep them from being three Gods.
We do not well know what particular explication of the Trinity those persons gave, whom the ancients call Tri- theites. But this we know, that the great offence which is taken at the Christian doctrine of the Trinity by the Jews and Mahometans, is from the appearance of polytheism in that doctrine. Which appearance, methinks, is rather increased than lessened by this exphcation; and, conse- quently, the scandal which, to them, follows upon it.
But the learned author hath an expedient to prevent polytheism, notwithstanding the real distinction of his three infinite spirits. Which is, by making them mutually con- scious of one another's thoughts and actions : whereby, he says, they would be so united as to make but one God. That, methinks, doth not follow, that upon this mutual consciousness they would be but one God. That which follows is this, that they Avould be three Gods mutually conscious. For there is no reason why this mutual con-
24
sciousness should make their Godhead cease, if without this they would be three distinct Gods. No union amounts to identity.
It came in my way to mind you of this more punctual and demonstrative explication of the Trinity, as it is said to be, that you might not expect that every one should be of your mind, nor approve of your modesty as I do.
Your similitude and comparisons are as just as the nature of the subject will admit. The great defect of the first seems to be this, that it cannot be said of any one dimen- sion that it is a cube, or a body ; whereas it is said of every person, that he is God.
Your second comparison interferes again Avith the learned author above-mentioned. For he says, (page 72) " It is a mistake to think that knowledge and power, even in men, is not the same thing;" whereas you suppose them distinct, and upon that ground your similitude.
I cannot but be of your mind in this particular also. For power belongs to the will,* and knowledge to the understanding. And it is plain that we know many things that we cannot do : and, on the contrary, we can do many things and know not how they are done. It may be the ingenious author would be hard put to it to tell us how he ])ronounces his own name ; that is, what organs of speech are moved, and how ; by what muscles and nerves ; and what the whole action is that intervenes betwixt the inward thought and the outward sound ; or betwixt the first cause and the last effect. Or', if he be so good an anatomist and philosopher as to understand all this, at least his little son, or little daughter, who can pronounce the same as well as himself, know not in what manner, or by what meaiis, they do it. So fools and children can move their hands, fingers,
* I sliouM latlipr sny. tf) tlip oxorutivo faculty; or, powpv of doing.
OValliVs Note.)
25
and all the members of the body, as well as philosophers ; though they do not know in what method, or by what mechanism, they are moved. These things are the effects of will, independently on knowledge. And it is as plain, on the other hand, that we know how many things are to be done, which yet we cannot do for want of strength or force. I can lift a weight of two or three hundred pounds, but I cannot hft one of five or six hundred; though I understand as w^ell how the one is moved as the other. And a brawny porter shall raise that of five or six hundred, though he understand staticks less than I do. I can bend a stick, but cannot bend a bar of iron ; though I use just the same method, and understand as much how the one is done as the other. And innumerable instances of like nature shew knowledge and force to be different things. But this, sir, I say only in your defence.
Your conclusion also agrees very well to my sense. And I think them exceedingly to blame that presume to measure these infinite natures, and all their properties, by our narrow understandings. The Anti- Trinitarians gene- rally are no great philosophers ; yet they take upon them as if they were the only masters of reason ; and in the most sublime and mysterious points will scarce allow revelation to be of greater authority than their judgment.
But, however, on the other hand, though I never felt any inclination or temptation to Socinian doctrines, yet, I cannot heartily join Mith you in the damnatory sentences; neither would I have us spin creeds, like cobw^ebs, out of our own bowels. In the name of God, let us be content with what is revealed to us in Scripture concerning these mysteries ; and leave the rest to make part of our heaven and future happiness. To strain things to these heights makes still more divisions in the church. We that now have School-Trinitarians, and Scripture- Trinitarians ; and
26
either of them will have their plea, and pursue their interest; till, by zeal for opinions which are disputable, we have destroyed Christian charity and unity, which are indispensable virtues and duties.
I am, Sir,
With sincerity and respect. Your obliged humble servant,
W. J.*
London, Sept. 23, 1690.
If you know from whom it is, pray thank him from me for his civilities therein. And you may please to tell him, that he doth understand me aright, and puts a true sense upon my words. By personality, I mean that distinction, whatever it be, whereby the three are distinguished ; but what that is, I do not pretend to determine. And if I should guess (for it will be but guessing) how it may be, I should not be positive that just so it is. Upon the same account that it is not thought prudent in a siege, to enlarge the line of defence too far. There is a distinction, this we are sure of, between the three : this distinction I call personality ; and by this word I mean that distinction, whatever it be. But what this distinction is, or what degree of dis- tinction, I cannot well tell. If this be trifling, I cannot help it, nor if they please to ridicule it ; but, to me, it seems to be good sense.
* NOTK C.
27
If others will venture to determine it more nicely than I have done, they, perhaps, may understand it more distinctly than I pretend to do ; but will give me leave to be ignorant therein of what the Scrip- ture doth not tell me.
Of the damnatory sentences, as he calls them, I had said nothing; nor do I think that the author of the Athanasian Creed did intend them in that rigour that some would put upon them. And, if it be well considered how there they stand, he will find them annexed, at least so they seem to me, only to some generals which he thought necessary ; as that we ought to hold the Catholic faith ; that the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped ; that the Son of God was incarnate ; not to every punctilio in his explications, which are but as a comment on these generals, how he thought they were to be understood, or might be explained ; which expli- cations I take to be true and good ; but not within the purview of those clauses, and that a man may be saved, even in the judgment of that author, who doth not know, or doth not fully understand, some of them. His true meaning therein seems to me to be but this, that the doctrine therein delivered, concerning the Trinity and the incar- nation of Christ, is the sound orthodox doctrine ; and such as, for the substance of it, ought to be believed by those who expect salvation by Christ. Certainly his meaning never was, that children, and idiots, and all who do not understand the school
28
terms, or, perhaps, have never heard tliem, should be, therefore, denied salvation.
As to what he objects to me, " That it cannot be said of any one dimension that it is a cube, or a body ; whereas it is said of every person, that he is God," he might observe that I had already obviated this objection. For though we cannot say, in the abstract, that length is a cube, and so of the rest ; yet, in the concrete, this long thing (or this which is long) is a cube ; and so this which is broad, or this which is high, is a cube : just so, we do not say, in the abstract, that paternity is God ; but, in the concrete, the Father is God ; and so of the other persons. The personality is not said to be God, but the person is. Which fully answers that exception.
What he cites of a learned author falls not within the compass of what I undertook to defend ; and that learned person will excuse me, if I do not pretend to understand all his notions, and leave it to him to explain himself.* But what I have endeavoured to defend is as much, I think, as we need to maintain in this point.
WHiere that author calls it a mistake to think that knowledge and. })ower, in the same man, are not the same thing, I suppose, not having the book at hand, he means no more but this, that though they differ, indeed, (to use the school language) e.v
Note D.
29
jjarte rei, yet not ut res et res, but rather ut modus et modus; that is, not as two things, but as two modes of the same thing. And if he should say the hke of length, breadth, and thickness, I would not contend about it; for, even so, it will serve my similitude well enough. If that of the three persons be more than so, it is then, I think, such a distinction as to which, in our metaphysics, we have not yet given a name. But of this I determine nothing, because I would not spin the thread too tine ; and content myself to say, it is that of the three personalities in one Deity, without deter- mining how great that is. And I may the rather be allowed thus to forbear, because I find, even in matters of ordinary conversation, such as those but now mentioned, the schoolmen are not well agreed what things shall be said to differ ut res et res, and \vhat only ex parte rei. Much more, therefore, may I be allowed a like latitude of thought in the present case.
I add no more but that
I am, Yours, JOHN WALLIS.
Soundobs, Sopt. 27, l^JiO.
LETTER III.
AN EXPLICATION AND VINDICATION OF THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
Sir,
In pursuance of what I have said in a former letter, concerning what we commonly call the Atha- nasian Creed, it may not be amiss to express it a little more distinctly.
We call it commonly the Athanasian Creed ; not that we are certain it was penned, just in this form, by- Athanasius himself; for, of this, I find that learned men are doubtful ; but it was penned either by himself, or by some other about that time, according to the mind and doctrine of Athanasius.* In like manner as what we call the Apostles' Creed, we take to be penned, very anciently, according to what doctrine the apostles had taught them, though not perhaps in those very words.
But whoever was the compiler, whether Atha- nasius himself, or some other, of the Athanasian
34
Creed, I suppose, the damnatory sentences, as they are called, therein were not by him intended to be understood with that rigour that some would now insinuate ; who, because perhaps they do not like the main doctrines of that creed, are willing to disparage it, by representing it to the greatest dis- advantage they can ; as if it were intended, that whoever doth not explicitly and distinctly know, and understand, and assent to, all and every clause and syllable therein, could not be saved ; which, I suppose, neither the author did intend, nor any other sober person would affirm : but that the doc- trine therein delivered, concernhig God and Christ, is sound and true doctrine in itself, and ought, as to the substance of it, to be believed as such by all persons of age and capacity, and who have oppor- tunity of being well informed in it, who do expect salvation by Christ ; at least so far as not to dis- believe the substance of it, when understood ; there being no other ordinary way to be saved, that we know of, than that by the knowledge and faith of God in Christ.
But what measures God will take in cases extra- ordinary, as of infancy, incapacity, invincible igno- rance, or the like, is not the thing there intended to be declared, nor is it necessary for us to know ; but to leave it rather to the wisdom and counsel of God, " whose judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out," Rom. xi. 33.
Much less do T sujjposc that ho infeudcMl (o
35
extend the necessity of such explicit knowledge to the ages before Christ. For many things may be requisite to be explicitly known and believed by us, to whom the gospel is revealed, which were not so to them, before "the veil was taken away from Moses' face," and " immortality brought to light through the gospel," 2 Cor. iii. 13, 14. 2 Tim. i. 10.
Nor are we always to press words according to the utmost rigour that they are possibly capable of; but according to such equitable sense as we use to allow to other homiletical discourses, and which we have reason to believe to have been the true mean- ing of him whose words they are.
And 1 have the more reason to press for such equitable construction, because I observe those hard clauses, as they are thought to be, annexed only to some generals ; and not to be extended, as I con- ceive, to every particular in the explication of those generals.
It begins thus, " Whosoever will be saved, before all things, it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith." Where, before all things, is as much as imprimis ; importing that it is mainly necessary, or a principal requisite, to believe aright, especially concerning God and Christ.
Which, as to persons of years and discretion, and who have the opportunity of being duly instructed, I think is generally allowed by all of us to be necessary, as to the substantials of religion, in the
36
ordinary way of salvation, without disputing what God may do in extraordinary cases, or how far God may be pleased, upon a general repentance, as of sins unknown, to pardon some culpable mis- belief.
It follows, " Which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, (ffwav Kal a^w^ipov) without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." That is, as I conceive, unless a person, so qualified and so capa- citated, as I before expressed, do keep it whole or sound, as to the substantials of it, though possibly he may be ignorant of some particulars of the true faith, and undefiled, or intemerate, without adding thereunto, or putting such a sense upon such sub- stantials as shall be destructive thereof, shall, except he repent, perish everlastingly. Which, I think, is no more than that of Mark xvi. 16, "He that believeth not shall be damned." And what limitations or mitigations are there to be allowed, are, by the same equity, to be allowed in the present clause before us; which, therefore, may, in this true sense, be safely admitted.
And here I think fit to observe, that whereas there may be an ambiguity in the English word whole, which sometimes signifies totus, and some- times sanus or salvus, it is here certainly to be understood in the latter sense, as answering to the Greek ados. It is not dXi^u totum, but atiav sanmn or salvam. And t,ii,Ziv awav Kal u^ucfupov, to keep the faith salvam et intemcrafd})), whicli is translated
37
whole and undefiled, might, to the same sense, be rendered safe and sound. Now a man may well be said to be safe and sound, notwithstanding a wart or a wen, or even a small hurt or maim, (at least when healed,) so long as the substantials and vitals be not endangered. And so of the Catholic faith, or Christian doctrine, so long as there is nothing destructive of the main substantials or fundamentals of it ; though, possibly, there may be an ignorance or mistake as to some particulars of lesser moment.
After this preface (between it and the conclusion, or epilogue) there follows indeed a large exposition of what he declares to be the Catholic faith : that is, to be some part of it; for I take the whole Scripture to be the Catholic faith, whereof this col- lection is but a part, beginning with, " The Catholic faith is this ;" and ending with, " This is the Catholic faith."
But it is not said that except a man know and believe every particular of that explication, he shall perish eternally ; but only, " Except he keep the Catholic faith," as to the substantials of it, safe and sound.
For, doubtless, there may be many particulars of CathoUc faith contained in the Word of God, which a man may be ignorant of, and yet be saved. It is true, that the name of our Saviour's mother was Mary ; and the name of the judge who condemned him was Pontius Pilate ; and both these are put into what we call the Apostles' Creed, and are
38
part of the Catholic faith, and whicii, supposing that we know them to be declared in Scripture, we ought to beheve. But I see not why it should be thought, of itself, more necessary to salvation, if he do not know it to be declared in Scripture, for a man to know that her name was Mary, than that the name of Adam's wife was Eve, or Abraham's wife Sarah, or that one of Job's daughters was called Jemima ; for all these are declared in Scrip- ture ; and, supposing that we know them so to be, ought to be believed as part of the Catholic faith. Nor do I know that it is, of itself, more necessary to know that the name of the judge who condemned our Saviovn- was Pontius Pilate, than that the name of the high-priest was Caiaphas. And though one of these, and not the other, be put into the Apostles' Creed, whereby we are more likely to know that than the other ; yet both of them being true, and declared in Scripture, they are, both of them, parts of the Catholic faith, and to be believed ; but neither of them, I think, with such necessity, as that he who knows them not cannot be saved.
And what I say of this general preface in the becfinninjT, is in like manner to be understood of the general conclusion in the end ; " which" Catho- lic faith " except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." Of which I shall say more anon.
After the general preface, concerning the neces- sity of holding the Catholic faith, he proceeds to two main branches of it, tliat of the Trinitv, and
39
that of the Incarnation, with the consequents there- of, which he declares hkewise as what " ought to be beheved."
That of the Trinity he declares thus in general ; " And the Catholic faith is this," that is, this is one main part of the Catholic faith, namely, " That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity : neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance ;" which is what we commonly say, " There be three persons, yet but one God." And this general, which, after some particular explica- tions, he doth resume, is what he declares, " ought to be believed;" but he doth not lay such stress upon each particular of that explication, though true.
He thus explains himself; "For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost :" which persons, there- fore, are not to be confounded : " but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one." That is, one substance, one God ; which is what he said of not dividing the sub- stance, as if the three persons should be three substances, or three Gods. According as Christ says of himself and the Father, John x. 30, " I and the Father are one :" ev ia/nev (not er^,) that is, one thing, one substance, one God, not one person. And 1 John v. 7j " These three are one," (Jtoi 6t
Tpei9, 61/ elac) III tveS SUllt UTllWl, UOt UflUS. ThcSC
three who's, are one what. Th( substance, one God, though three persons.
40
And as their Godhead, or substance undivided, is all one, so it follows, " the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal." Such as the " Father is," as to the common Godhead, " such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eter- nal." For all these are attributes of the common Deity, which is the same of all. " And yet they are not three Eternals, but one Eternal." Not three eternal Gods, though three persons, but one eternal God. " As also there are not three Incom- prehensibles, nor three Uncreated ; but one Uncre- ated, and one Incomprehensible." One and the sanie substance or Deity, uncreated and incompre- hensible. " So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty ; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord," (kvpio^ the word by which the Greeks do express the Hebrew name Jehovah, the proper incommunicable name of God,) " the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord ; and yet not three Lords, but one Lord." (Not three Jehovahs, but one Jehovah.) "For like as we are compelled by the Christian \on\y to acknowledge every person by
41
himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden, by the Catholic religion, to say, there be three Gods, or three Lords :" which are so many particu- lar explications, or illustrations, of what was before said in general of "not confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance." Which explications, though they be all true, and necessary consequents of what was before said in general ; yet to none of them is annexed such sanction, as that whosoever doth not believe, or not understand, these illustra- tions, cannot be saved. It is enough to salvation, if they hold the true faith, as to the substance of it, though in some other form of words, or though they had never heard the Athanasian Creed.
Nor is any such sanction annexed to the personal properties which next follow : " The Father is made of none ; neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone ; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son ; neither made nor begotten, but pro- ceeding."
Where, by the way, here is no anathematization of the Greek church,* of which those who would, for other reasons, disparage this creed, make so loud an outcry. It is said indeed, " He doth pro- ceed," and so say they ; but not that he doth "pro- ceed from the Father and the Son." And it is said, he is "Of the Father and Of the Son,"
* Note F.
42
(«7ro T«* TTUTpb^ Kul airo ra' vlot}) SOlTie Way 01" OthcT ; aiicl
even this, I suppose, they would not deny ; but whether by procession from both, or, if so, whether in the same manner, it is not said, but warily avoided. Though, indeed, it seems to favour what I think to be the truth, and what in the Nicene Creed is said expressly, that he doth " proceed from both;" and, for ought we know, in the same manner, which, yet, we do not determine. Nor do I see any reason why, on this account, we should be said to anathematize the Greek church, or they to anathematize us; even though we should not exactly agree in what sense he may be said to be " Of the Father," and in what " Of the Son." And those who are better acquainted with the doctrine and the languages of the present Greek churches than most of us are, do assure us, that the differ- ences between them and us are rather in some forms of expressions, than in the thing itself. However, those who would make so great a matter of this, should rather quarrel at the Nicene Creed, than the Athanasian, where it is expressly said of the Holy Ghost, that " he proceeded from the Father and from the Son." It is not, therefore, for the phrase filioque that they are so ready to quarrel at this Creed rather than the Nicene ; but from some other reason, and, most likely, because the doctrine of the Trinity is here more fully expressed than in tliat, at which the Socinian is most offended.
I observe also, that these |)ersonal proj)erties are
43
expressed just by the Scripture words, beget, be- gotten, proceeding, without affixing any sense of our own upon them ; but leaving them to be under- stood in such sense as in the Scripture they are to be understood — agreeable to that modest caution, which is proper in such mysteries.
It follows, " So there is one Father, not three Fathers ; one Son, not three Sons ; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after other :" that is, not in time, though in order. " None is greater or less than another ; but the whole three persons are co-eternal
together, and co-equal." "Ewai 6i Tpei9 vTroaTaaei^, Kul avva'tciai elaiv eavTa?^, Kal 2aai. " 1 he thrCC yoi rpei^J SiVQ
(awai v-!r6aTaaei<s) truly persous, or propcrly persons, and co-eternal each with other, and co-equal."
Having thus finished these particular explications, or illustrations, concerning the Trinity, without any condemning clause of those who think otherwise, other than what is there included, namely, that if this be true, the contrary must be an error ; he then resumes the general, (as after a long parenthesis) " So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped." And to this general annexeth this ratification, " He, therefore, that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity ;" or, thus ought to think of the Trinity ; or, " let him thus think of the 1 rmity, ovtw irepl jpi'ado^ (ppoveiTio. And to this, 1 suppose, we do all agree who believe the doctrine
44
of the Trinity to be true : for, if the thing be (rue, those who would be saved ought to believe it.
He then proceeds to the doctrine of the Incar- nation, which he declares in general as necessary to salvation. " Furthermore, it is necessary to ever- lasting salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ." Which is no more than that of John iii. 36, " He that believ- eth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." And, therefore, we may safely say this also, " There being no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved, neither is there salvation in any other," Acts iv. 12.
After this, as before he had done of the doctrine of the Trinity, he gives, first, a general assertion of his being God and man ; and then a particular illus- tration of his Incarnation. " For the right faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man."
What follows is a further explication of this general. " God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds. And man, of the sub- stance of his mother, born in the world. Perfect God, and perfect man ; of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood. Who, although he be God, and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ. One, not bv conversion of the Godliead into flesh, Imt bv taking of tlie mnuliood into God. One
45
altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ."
And thus far, as to the description of Christ's person and natures. The particulars of which I take to be all true ; and, therefore, such as ought to be believed, when understood. But such, many of them, as persons of ordinary capacities, and not acquainted with school terms, may not, perhaps, understand. Nor was it, I presume, the meaning of the penman of this creed, that it should be thought necessary to salvation that everyone should particularly understand all this ; but, at most, that, when understood, it should not be disbelieved. That in the general being most material, that " Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man ;" the rest being but explicatory of this : which explications, though they be all true, are not attended with any such clause ; as if, without the explicit knowledge of all these a man could not be saved.
He then proceeds to what Christ hath done for our salvation, and what he is to do further at the last judgment, with the consequents thereof: "who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead."
That clause of descending into hell, or hades, (Kuryxeev els: a 68,) which wc meet with here, and in the Apostles' Creed, as it is now read, is not in the Nicene Creed ; nor was it anciently, as learned men seem to be agreed, in what we call the
46
Apostles' Creed. When, or how, it first came in, I cannot well tell ; nor will I undertake here to determine the sense of it.
The Hebrew word sheol, and the Greek hades, which here we translate hell, by which word we now- a-days use to denote the place of the damned, was anciently used to signify, sometimes the grave, sometimes the place, state, or condition of the dead, whether good or bad. And when Job prays, Job xiv. 13, " O that thou wouldst hide me msheol,'' (as in the Hebrew,) or in hades, (as in the Greek sep- tuagint,) certainly he did not desire to be in what we now call hell ; but rather, as we there translate it, in the grave, or the condition of those that are dead.*
But what it should signify here, is not well agreed among learned men. The Papists generally, be- cause that is subservient to some of their beloved tenets, would have it here to signify the place of the damned ; and would have it thought that the soul of Christ, during the time his body lay in the grave, was amongst the devils and damned souls in hell. Others do, with more likelihood, take it for the grave, or condition of the dead ; and take this of Christ's descending into hades, to be the same with his being buried, or lying in the grave.
* The Saxon word hel or helle, (whence comes the English word hell) dotli luit properly or necessarily import the place of the damned ; hut may be iiuliftereutly taken for hell, hole, or hollow place, which are all words of the same original. Helan (to hide, or cover,) hole (cavitas,) liol (cavus,) hollow. And when it is used in a restrained sense, it is metonymical, or svnecdochical ; as when hole or pit is put for the trrave. and the like.
47
The rather, because in the Nicene Creed, where is mention of his being buried, there is no mention of his descent into hell, or hades : and here, in the Athanasian Creed, where mention is made of this, there is no mention of his being buried ; as if the same were meant by both phrases, which, therefore, need not be repeated. And though in the Apostles' Creed there be now mention of both, yet anciently it was not so ; that of his descent into hell being not to be found in ancient copies of the Apostles' Creed. If it signify any thing more than his being buried, it seems most likely to import his continu- ance in the grave, or the state and condition of the dead, for some time. And the words which follow, avtcnr) eV veicpwv, Say uothlug of his comiug out of hell, but only of his rising from the dead.
But the words here stand undetermined to any particular sense ; and so they do in the Apostles' Creed; and are so also in the articles of our church; where it is only said, (because in the creed it stands so) that we are to beheve that he descended into hell, without affixing any particular sense to it.
The words, doubtless, have respect to that of Acts ii. 27, where, " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell," or hades, " nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption," is applied to Christ, cited out of Psalm xvi. 10, where the same had before been spoken of David. And his not being left in hades, seems to suppose his having been, for some time, in hades, whatever by hades is there meant. And
48
verse 31, "his being not so left," is expressly expounded of liis resurrection. And so again in Acts xiii. 35. Now, as we have no reason to think that David's being in hell, or sheoh though not to be left there, can signify his being in hell among the devils and damned spirits, but rather in the grave, or the condition of the dead ; so neither that Christ's being in hell, or hades, which is the Greek word answering to the Hebrew sheol, should signify any other than his being in the grave, or condition of the dead, from whence, by his resurrection, he was delivered. And to this purpose seems that whole discourse of Peter, Acts ii. 24 — 32, and of Paul, Acts xiii. 30—37.
But, without determining it to any j)articular sense, the creed leaves the word hell indefinitely here to be understood in the same sense, whatever it be, in which it is to be understood in Acts ii. 27, 31, and Psalm xvi. 10. And so far we are safe. So that I take the plain sense of the words to be this — he was for some time in that hell, or hades, whatever by that word be meant ; wherein, it is expressly said, he was not left, but was raised from it.
It follows, " He ascended into heaven ; he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God almighty. From whence he shall come to judge the (juick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; and shall give account for their own works. And thev tliat have done ixood,
49
shall go into life everlasting ; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire." Of all which, there is no doubt but that it ought to be believed. Ending with, " This is the Catholic faith;" that is, this is true and sound doctrine, and such as every true Christian ought to believe.
And, as he had begun all with a general preface, so now he closeth all with a general conclusion ; " Which," Catholic faith, " except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved:" that is, the doc- trine here delivered is true, and so I think it is in all the parts of it, and is part of the Catholic faith ; the whole of which faith is the whole Word of God : that is, part of that faith which all true Christians do and ought to believe. Which Catholic faitli, the whole of which is the whole Word of God, except a man, so qualified as I before expressed, do believe faithfully, (that is, except he truly believe it) as to the substantial of it, though possibly he may be ignorant of many particulars therein, he cannot, without such repentance as God shall accept of, be saved. Which, so limited, as it ought to be, I take to be sound doctrine, and agreeable to that of John iii. IG, " He that believeth not is condemned already ; because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God:" and v. 36, " He that believeth not tha Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him:" that is, according to the words of this creed, he that believ- eth not aright (of God and Christ) cannot be saved.
D
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Which words of Christ we may safely interpret both with an aspect on the doctrine of the Trinity, because of those words, " the only begotten Son of God," and to that of the Incarnation of Christ, and the consequents thereof; because of those words in the beginning of the discourse, v. 16, 17j " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," &c., and, " God sent his Son into the world, that the world through him might be saved," which are the two main points insisted on in the Athana- sian Creed. And he who doth not believe on the name of this " only begotten Son of God, and thus sent into the world," the text tells us, " shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." Which fully agrees with what is here said, " Except a man believe the Catholic faith," of which the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Incarnation are there intimated, and are here expressed, to be con- siderable branches, "he cannot be saved." And what limitations or mitigations are to be understood in the one place, are reasonably to be allowed as understood in the other : and, consequently, those damnatory clauses, as they are called, in the Atha- nasian Creed, rightly understood, are not so for- midable (as some would pretend) as if, because of them, the whole creed ought to be laid aside.
For, in brief, it is but thus — the preface and the epilogue tell us, that " whoso would be saved, it is necessary, or (xpv) he ought to hold the Catholic faith. Wliicli faith, (wcept ho keep wliole nnd
51
undefiled, or (<Twnv K-al afiwf.upov) safe and inviolate, he shall perish everlastingly; or, which except he believe faithfully, he cannot be saved;" which is no more severe than that of our Saviour, Mark xvi. 16, " He that believeth not shall be damned."
He then inserts a large declaration of the Catho- lic faith, especially as to two main points of it; that of the Trinity, and that of the Incarnation. And if all he there declares be true, as I think it is, we have then no reason to quarrel with it upon that account. But he doth not say, that a man cannot be saved who doth not know or understand every particular thereof.
Of the first, he says but this, " He that would be saved, ought thus to think, or («"tw (ppovehw) let him thus think of the Trinity ; namely, that the Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, ought to be wor- shipped.
Of the second, what he says is this, " Further- more it is necessary to eternal salvation, that he believe aright the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ;" which is no more severe than that of our Saviour, " He that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him : because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God, whom God hath sent into the world, that the world through him might be saved," John iii. 17, 18, 36.
Beside these, there are no damnatory clauses in
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the whole. All the rest are but declaratory. And, if what he declares be true, we have no reason to find fault with such declaration.
Now as to those two points, that of the Trinity, and that of the Incarnation, which are the only points in question, there is a double inquiry, as I have elsewhere shewed, whether the things be pos- sible ; and whether they be true. The possibility may be argued from principles of reason : the truth of them from revelation only. And it is not much questioned but that the revelation, in both points, is clear enough, if the things be not impossible.
As to that of the Trinity, I have already shewed, in a former letter, that there is therein no impossi- bility, but that what in one consideration are three, which we commonly call three persons, may yet, in another consideration, be one God.
I shall now proceed to shew, that neither is there any impossibility as to the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this consists of two branches — that of his beino" born of a virgin ; and that of the hypostatical union, as it is commonly called, of the human nature with the second person of the sacred Trinity.
As to the former of the two, there can be no pretence of impossibility. For the same God who did at first make Adam of the dust of the earth, without either father or mother, and who made Eve of Adam's rib, without a mother at least, however
53
Adam may be fancied as a father, and who shall, at the last day, recall the dead out of the dust, may doubtless, if he so please, cause a woman, without the help of man, to conceive a child. There is certainly no impossibility in nature why it may not, by an omnipotent agent, be brought to pass. And when the Scripture declares it so to be, there is no reason, if we believe the Scripture, to disbelieve the thing.
It is no more than when Christ cured " the blind man's eyes with clay and spittle;"* or when he said, "Lazarus, come forth," f and he did so; or when " God said, let there be light, and there was light;" J and, of the whole creation, "He spake, and it was done ; he commanded, and it stood fast; "II no more than when he made "Aaron's rod (a dry stick) to bud, and blossom, and yield almonds ;"§ or what is implied in that, "Let not the eunuch say, I am a dry tree;"^ and not much more than when God gave " Abraham a son in his old age,"** and notwithstanding "the deadness of Sarah's womb."ff
I was about to say, and it is not much amiss if I do, it is not much more than what pretty often happens amongst men, when God gives both sexes to the same person; such there are, and have been; and 1 think there is one yet living JJ who was first
* John ix. 6. f Jolin xi. 43, 44. { Genesis i. 3.
II Psalm xxxiii. 9. § Numb. xvii. 8. ^ Isaiah Ivi. 3.
** Genesis xviii. 11, 12. ff Rom. iv. 19.
t$ Note G.
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as a woman married to a man, and is since as a man married to a woman ; and what hinders then, but that God, if he please, may mingle the effects of both these sexes in the same body ? A little alteration in the structure of the vessels w^ould do it. For when there is in the same body, and so near, semen virile et muliehre, (that which in both sexes contributes to the being of a child) what hinders but there might be a passage for them to mix ? And plants, we know, do propagate without a fellow, though it be otherwise in animals. And whereas this is said to be by "the Holy Ghost coming upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowing"* the blessed virgin; it is not much unlike that of the Spirit of God's incubation, or "moving upon the face of the waters." f So that, as to this point, here is nothing impossible, nothing incredible.
The other particular, as to the hypostatical union, how God and man can be united in one person, may seem more difficult for us to apprehend, because we understand so little of the Divine essence, and, con- sequently, are less able to determine what is, and what is not, consistent with it. And, when all is done, if we be never so certain that there is such an union, yet it will be hard to say how it is.
But we have no reason from thence to conclude the thing impossible, because we know not how it is
* l.iikc i. 3o. t (iuiicsis i. 2.
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done ; because there be many other things in nature which we are sure to be, of which we are ahnost at as great a loss as to the manner how they be, as in the present case.
Solomon, as wise as he was, and how well soever skilled in natural philosophy, doth yet acknowledge himself in many things to be at a loss, when he would search out the bottom of natural things, and even when he made it his business so to do. " When," says he, " I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth : then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work of God that is done under the sun : because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it ; yea, farther, though a wise man seek to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it," Eccl. viii. 16, 17- And shall we then say of "the deep things of God,"* the thing is impossible, because we cannot find it out ? And if we consider how many puzzling questions God puts to Job, in the 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 chapters of Job, even in natural things, we may very well, as Job did, " abhor ourselves in dust and ashes," and be ashamed of our ignorant curiosity ; and confess, as he doth, " I have uttered what I understood not ; things too wonderful for me which I know not;" when he found he had " talked like a fool, while he thought to be wise,"f and would measure the
* 1 Coi-. ii. 10, 11. t Roin- i- 22.
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power and wisdom of God by the narrow limits of our understanding ; and might come to Job's reso- lution, w^hen he had well weighed the matter, " I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee," Job xlii. 2, 3, G.
" The wind bloweth where it listeth," not where you please to appoint it, " thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth,"* saith Christ to Nicodemus: but shall we therefore conclude, the wind doth not blow, because we know not how or whence it bloweth ? or, that God cannot command the winds, because we cannot ? We should rather conclude, the wind doth certainly blow, because we hear the sound of it, though we know neither how, nor whence : and, though they do not obey us, yet "the wmd and the seas obey him."f Now, as he there further argues, " If, when he tells us of earthly things, we do not apprehend it, how much more if he tell us of heavenly things?" of "the deep things of God."
But, to come a little nearer to the business, con- sider we a little the union of our own soul and body. It is hardly accountable, nor, perhaps, con- ceivable by us, who are mostly conversant with material things, how a spiritual immaterial being, such as our souls are, and capable of a separate existence of its own, should inform, actuate, and
* John iii. 8, 12. f ^'"^t. viii. 26, 27.
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manage a material substance, such as is that of our body, and be so firmly united as to be one person with it. By what handle can a spirit intangible take hold of a tangible material body, and give motion to it ? especially if we should admit Lucre- tius's notion,
Tangere vel tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res,
which he repeats almost as often as Homer doth his Toi/ o' a7ro/j.eii36/iievos, who doth thcuce repute it impossible for an immaterial being to move a body. But we who believe the soul to be a spirit, know it to be possible. Much more is it possible for God, though a being infinitely more pure, who " giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;" and in whom "we live, and move, and have our being;" and who "is not far from every one of us."* It would be hard for us to give an intelligible account, either how God moves all things, or how our soul moves the body ; yet we are sure it is so. That a body may move a body seems not so strange to apprehend, for we see one engine move another ; but by what mechanism shall a spirit give motion to a body when at rest ? or stop it when in motion ? or direct its motions this way or that w^ay ? It would be thought strange that a thought of ours should move a stone : and it is as hard to conceive, did we not see it daily, how a thought should put
* Acts xvii. 25, 27, 28.
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our body in motion, and another thought stop it again. Yet this we see done every day, though we know not how. And it is ahnost the same thing in other animals. And more yet, when an angel assumes a body. There are none of these things we know how ; and yet we know they are done.
I shall press this a little farther. Our soul, we all believe, doth, after death, continue to exist in a separate condition from the body. And, I think, we have reason to believe also that it will continue to act as an intellectual agent, not to remain in a stupid senseless -fyxoTruvvvxta, (sleep of the soul) else I see not why Paul should " desire to depart, or to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is far better, rather than to abide in flesh."* For while he abides in the flesh he hath some enjoyment of Christ, as well as an opportunity of doing some service, which is more desirable, if, when he is departed, he have none at all : and how can he then say, "That to die is gain?" Whether the soul thus separated shall be said to have a subsist- ence as well as a separate existence ; or, whether it may be properly said then to be an entire })erson, (as the soul and body are before death, and after the resurrection) I will not dispute ; because that were to contend about words, and such words so signify as we please to define them, and bear such a sense as we please to put upon them. But it is,
* Phil. i. 21. 23, 21.
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as the angels are, an intellectual, spiritual agent ; and we use to say, actiones sunt suppositorum; and suppositicm rationale, is either a person, or so near a person, that it would be so if men please to call it so. And the spiritual being which doth now separately exist, shall, at the resurrection, resume a body into the same personality with itself, and shall, with it, become one person, as before death it had been.
Now if a spiritual, immaterial, intellectual being, separately existent by itself, and separately acting as an intellectual agent, may, at the resurrection, assume or reassume a material corporeal being (heterogeneous to itself) into the same personality with itself, or so as to become one person with it, while yet itself remains spiritual as before ; what should hinder, for it is but one step further, but that a divine person may assume humanity into the same personality with itself, without ceasing to be a divine person as before it was ? If it be said, that person and personality in the sacred Trinity are not just the same as what we so call in other cases, it is granted ; and by these words, which are but meta- phorical, we mean no more but somewhat analogous thereunto ; and which, because of such analogy, we so call, as knowing no better words to use instead thereof: according as we use the words. Father, Son, generate, beget, and the like, in a metaphori- cal sense, when applied to God. For no words, borrowed from created beings, can signify just the
GO
same when applied to God, as when they were apphed to men, but somewhat analogous thereunto. And if the soul, though we know not how, may and do, at the resurrection, assume a body so as to become the same person with itself, though neither the body be thereby made a soul, nor the soul a body, but remain as before, that a body, and this a soul, though now united into one person ; why may not a divine person assume humanity, so to be what is analogous to what w^e call a person; the humanity remaining humanity, and the divinity remaining divinity, though both united in one Christ, though we do not particularly know how ?
We should be at a great loss, if, to answer an Atheist, or one who doth not believe the Scriptures, we were put to it to tell him how God made the world? of what matter? with what tools or engines? or, how a pure spirit could produce matter where none was ? He would tell us, perhaps, ex nlhilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti ; where nothing is, nothing can be made ; and what once is, though it may be changed, can never become nothing; and will never believe the world was made, but rather was from all eternity, except we can tell him how it was made. Now, if in this case, we may satisfy ourselves, though, perhaps, it will not satisfy him, by saying, God made it, but we know not how, the same must satisfy us here ; that Christ was incar- nate, (God and man) we are certain, for so (he Scripture^ doth assure us, as well as ihat God made
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the world ; but how God made the world, or how the Son of God assumed humanity, we cannot tell : nor indeed is it fit for us to inquire farther than God is pleased to make known to us. All farther than this are but the subtile cobwebs of our brain ; fine, but not strong, witty conjectures, how it may be, rather than a clear resolution how it is.
Another objection I have met with, to which the objectors must be contented with the same answer : we know it is, but we know not how. It would be endless for us, and too great a curiosity, to think ourselves able fully to explicate all the hidden things of God. The objection is this : since the three persons cannot be divided, how is it possible that one of them can assume humanity, and not the other ? And why the second person, and not the first or third ?
As to the question, why ? I say it is so, because so it pleased God ; and " he giveth not account of his matters;"* he is not accountable to us why he so willeth.
As to the question, how is it possible ? I see no difficulty in that at all. The persons are distin- guished, though not divided. As in the divine attributes, God's justice and mercy are distinguish- able; though in God they cannot be divided. And, accordingly, some things are said to be effects of his justice, others of his mercy. So the power and
* Jol) xxxiii. 13.
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will of God, both which are individual from himself: but when we say God is omnipotent, we do not say he is omnivolent. He wills, indeed, all things that are, else they could not be, but he doth not will all things possible. And the like of other attributes.
If, therefore, we do but allow as great a distinc- tion between the persons as between the attributes, (and certainly it is not less, but somewhat more) there is no incongruity in ascribing the Incarnation to one of the persons, and not to the rest.
It is asked further, how I can accommodate this to my former similitude of a cube and its three dimensions, representing a possibility of three per- sons in one Deity. I say, very easily. For it is very possible for one face of a cube, suppose the base, by which I there represented the second person, as generated of the Father, to admit a foil, or dark colour, while the rest of the cube is trans- parent, without destroying the figure of the cube, or the distinction of its three dimensions, which colour is adventitious to the cube. For the cube was perfect without it, and is not destroyed by it. Which may some way represent Christ's humilia- tion ; who being " equal with God, was made like unto us, and took upon him the form of a servant," Phil. ii. 6, 7.
So that, upon the whole matter, there is no impossibility in the doctrine of the Incarnation, any more than in that of the Trinity. And, supposing them to be not impossible, it is not denied but tlial
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they are, both of them, sufficiently revealed ; and, therefore, to be believed, if we believe the Scrip- .ture. And of the other articles in the Athanasian Creed there is as little reason to doubt.
There is, therefore, no just exception as to the declarative part of the Athanasian Creed; and, as to the damnatory part, we have before shewed that it is no more severe than other passages in Scrip- ture to the same purpose, and to be understood with the like mitigations as those are. And, conse- quently, that whole creed, as hitherto, may justly be received.
It is true, there be some expressions in it which, if I were now to pen a creed, I should perhaps choose to leave out ; but, being in, they are to be understood according to such sense as we may rea- sonably suppose to be intended, and according to the language of those times, when they did use to anathematize great errors, which they apprehended to be destructive of the Christian faith, as things of themselves damnable, if not repented of. And, I suppose, no more is here intended ; nor of any other errors than such as are destructive of funda- mentals.
Yours,
JOHN WALLTS
Oxford, Octob. 28, IG9O.
POSTSCRIPT.
NO\"EMBER 15, 1690.
When this third letter was printed, and ready to come abroad, I stopped it a little for this postscript, occasioned by a small treatise which came to my hands, with this title, " Dr. Wallis's Letter touching the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, answered by his Friend." It seems I have more friends abroad than I am aware of: but who this friend is, or whether he be a friend, I do not know.* It is to let me understand that a neighbour of his, reputed a Socinian, is not convinced by it ; but names some Socinian authors who endeavour to elude Scriptures alleged for the Trinity, by putting some other sense upon them. He might have named as many, if he pleased, who have, to better purpose, written against those authors in vindication of the true sense : and if he should repeat what those have said on the one side, and I say over again what these have said on the other side, we should make a long work of it.
But he knows very well that was not the business of my letter, to discourse the whole controversy at large, either as to the evidence or as to the anti- quity of the doctrine : for this I had set aside at
* Note H.
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first, as done by others to wliom I did refer, and confined my discourse to this single point, that there is no impossibihty, (which is the Socinians' great objection) but that what in one consideration is three, may in another consideration be one. And if I have sufficiently evinced this, as I think I have, and I do not find that he denies it, I have then done what I there undertook ; and, in so doing, have removed the great objection which the Socinians would cast in our way ; and, because of which, they think themselves obliged to shuffle off" other argu- ments on this pretence. Now, whether he please to call this a metaphysic or mathematic lecture, certain it is that there are three distinct dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness, in one cube. And if it be so in corporeals, there is no pretence of reason why, in spirituals, it should be thought impossible that there be three somewhats which are but one God : and these somewhats, till he can furnish us with a better name, we are content to call persons, which is the Scripture word, Heb. i. 3; which word we own to be but meta})horical, not signifying just the same here as when applied to men, as also are the words. Father, Son, generate, begot, &c., when applied to God. And more than this need not be said to justify what tliere I under- took to defend.
Now it is easy for him, if he so please, to bur- lesque this, or turn it to ridicule, as it is any the most sacred things of God ; but not so safe, ludere
67
cmn sacris. The sacred Trinity, be it as it will, should by us be used with more reverence than to make sport of it.
I might here end, without saying more; but because he is pleased to make some excursions, beside the business which I undertook to- prove, and which he doth not deny, I will follow him in some of them.
He finds fault with the similitude I brousfht, though very proper to prove what it was brought for, as too high a speculation for the poor labourers in the country, and the tankard bearers in London;* and, therefore, having a mind to be pleasant, he adviseth rather, as a more familiar parallel, to put it thus, " I Mary, take thee Peter, James, and John for my wedded husband," &c., thinking this, I suppose, to be witty. And truly, supposing Peter, James, and John to be the same man, it is not much amiss. But I could tell him, with a little alteration, if their majesties will give me leave to make as bold with their names, as he doth with the names of Christ's mother and of his three disciples which were with him on the mount at his trans- figuration. Matt. xvii. 1, it were not absurd to say,
* Yet I believe liis tankard bearer is not so dull of apprehension as be would have us think ; for if he have ever seen a die, as most of them have, or shall now be shewed one, he may be able to understand, without a nieta- physic or mathematic lecture, that in a die there is length, breadth, and thickness, and that it is as broad as it is long, and as thick as either, and yet it is not three dies, but one die : and if he have but as often seen a die as he hath been at a wedding, I see not why this of a die may not be thought as familiar as that of a wedding.
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I Mary, take thee Henry William Nassau, without making him to be three men, or tliree husbands, and without putting her upon any difficulty, as is suggested, how to dispose of her conjugal affection. And when the lords and commons declared him to be King of England, France, and Ireland, thev did not intend, by alloting him three distinct kingdoms, to make him three men. And when, for our chan- cellor, we made choice of James, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Ormond, though he had three distinct dignities, he was not, therefore, three men, nor three chancellors. And when Tully says, ^^Sustineo unus tres personas; meam, adversarii, judicisr^ which is in English, (that the tankard bearer may understand it) I being one and the same man, do sustain three persons, that of myself, that of my adversary, and that of the judge ; he did not become three men by sustaining three persons. And, in this answer to my letter, the friend and his neighbour may, for ought I know, be the same man, though he sustain two persons. And, I hope, some of these resem- blances may be so plain, and so familiar, as that he and his tankard bearer may apprehend them, and thence perceive it is not impossible that three may be one. For if, among us, one man may sustain three persons, without being three men, why should it be thought incredible that three Divine persons may be one God, as well as those three other
* 2 .Ic Orat.
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persons be one man ? Nor need he the less beheve it for having, as this answerer suggests, been taught it in his catechism, or, as Timothy did the Scrip- tures, "known them from a child." But I would not have him then to tell me, the Father is a duke, the Son a marquess, the Holy Ghost an earl, accord- ing as he is pleased to prevaricate upon the length, breadth, and thickness of a cube ; but thus rather, that God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sanctifier are the same God. That God the Creator is omnipotent and all-sufficient ; that God the Redeemer is so too ; and God the Sanctifier likewise. That God the Creator is to be loved with all our heart, and so God the Redeemer, and God the Sanctifier : and then there will be no absurdity in all this.
As to what he says, that " all people that have reason enough to understand numbers know the difference between one, and more than one," I might reply, that all people who can tell money know that three groats are but one shilling, and three nobles are one pound ; and what in one con- sideration is three, may in another consideration be but one ; which, if it look like a slight answer, is yet sufficient to such an argument.
He tells me somewhat of Dr. Sherlock, (wherein I am not concerned) and somewhat of the brief his- tory of the Unitarians, of which his neighbour gives the friend a copy ; but he doth not tell me, as he might, and, therefore, I tell him, that Dr. Sherlock
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hath confuted that history.* But Dr. Sherlock says nothing contrary to what I defend. For, if there be such distinction between the three persons as he assigns, then, at least, there is a distinction, which is what I affirm, without saying how great it is; nor doth he any where deny them to be one God.
He tells me a story of somebody, who, in a public disputation at Oxford, maintaining a thesis against the Socinians,f was baffled by his opponent. Whom, or when, he means, I do not know, and so say nothing to it: but that I may not be in his debt for a story, I shall tell him another, which will be, at least, as much to the purpose as his. It is of their great friend Christophorus Christophori Sandius, a diligent promoter of the Socinian cause. He printed a Latin thesis or discourse against the divinity of the Holy Ghost, which he calls " Prob- /eina Paradoxum de Spiritii Sancto,'' (a Paradox Problem concerning the Holy Ghost) with a general challenge to this purpose, " Ut siquis in toto orbe eriiditoriim forte sit, qui doctrind magis polleat, (juam quibusciim hactenus sit collocutus, ea legat quce a se publice sint edita argumenta, seque errare moneat, ac rectiiis sentire doceat.'' (That if in the
t Perhaps if he rectllect himself he may find that his memory hath failed liim, and the thesis which he means was not against the Socinians, hut the Arminians; for, it is supposed, ho means Dr. Kendal's thesis, against whom Dr. Wallis disputed in tlic Act. at Oxford, 1654.
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whole world of learned men there be, perchance, some one of greater learning than those with whom he hath discoursed, he is required to read the argu- ments by him published, to shew him his error and teach him to think better.) Hereupon Wittichius accepts the challenge, and writes against Sandius ; to which Sandius answers, taking in another as a partner with him in the disputation : and Wittichius replies ; and that with so good success, that Sandius and his partner acknowledged themselves to be con- vinced by it, and to change their opinion in that point. This happening but a little before Sandius' death, his partner, surviving, published to the world an account hereof, and of Sandius declaring, before his death, that he was so convinced, in a letter of thanks to Wittichius for it. What Sandius would have done further, if he had lived a little longer, we cannot tell. That of Wittichius bears this title, " Causa Spiritus Sancti, Personce Divines, ejusdem cum Patre et Filio essentice, (contra C. C. S. Prohle- ma Paradoxum,) asserta et defensa, d ChristopJioro WitticMo. Lugduni Batavorum, apud Arnoldum Doude, 1678." The letter of thanks, in 1079, bears this title, '' Epistola ad D. Christophorum Gittichium, Professorem Lugdunensem ; qua gra- ticB ei hahentur pro eruditissimis ipsius in Problema de Spiritu Sancto Animadversionihus : Scripta d Socio Auctoris Prohlematis Paradoxi : Per quas errores suos rejicere coactus est. Colonice, apud Joannem Nicolaiy Beside this letter of thanks
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from his partner in the disputation, there was ano- ther from Sandius himself, (not printed, but in manuscript) acknowledging a like conviction ; of which Wittichius recites an extract in his " Causa Spiritus Sancti Victrix demonstrata, a Christo- phoro Wittichio. Lugduni Batavorum, apud Cor- nelium Boiitestein, 1682."
He takes it unkindly that I charge it upon some of the Socinians, that though they do not think fit directly to reject the Scriptures, yet think them- selves obliged to put such a forced sense upon them, as to make them signify somewhat else ; and tells me of some Socinians who have so great a respect for the Scriptures, as to say that "the Scrip- ture contains nothing that is repugnant to manifest reason ; and that what doth not agree with reason, hath no place in divinity," &c. But this is still in order to this inference ; that, therefore, what they think not agreeable to reason, must not be thought to be the sense of Scripture : and, therefore, that they must put such a force upon the words, how great soever, as to make them comply with their sense. If he except. against the words, how great a force soever, as too hard an expression of mine, they are Socinus's own words, in his epistle to Balcerovius, of January 30, 1581, '■'■Certe contruria sententia adeo mihi et ahsurda et perniciosa (pace Augustine Sfc. dixerim) esse videtur, iit quanta- cunque^ vis potivs Pauli verbis sit adhihenda, quam ea adinitfendd ;" that is, the contrary opinion (with
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Augustin's leave, and the rest who are of his mind) seems to me so absurd and pernicious, that we must rather put a force, how great soever, upon Paul's words, that admit it.
And as to the suspicion I had of some of their sentiments, as to spiritual subsistences, that it may not appear to be groundless, he doth, in his epist. 5 ad Volkelium, absolutely deny that the soul, after death, doth subsist ; and adds expressly, " Ostendi me sentire — non ita vivere post hominis ipsius mortem, ut per se prcemiorum posnarumve capax sit:'' that is, that the soul, after death, doth not subsist ; nor doth so live as to be in a capacity of being, by itself, rewarded or punished. And how he can then think it an intelligent being I do not see. St. Paul, it seems, was of another mind, when " he had a desire to be dissolved, (or depart hence) and to be with Christ, as being far better for him, than to abide in the flesh," Phil. i. 23, 24; " and willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 8. Now I do not understand the advantage of his beino^ with Christ, or being present with the Lord, if he were then to be in a senseless condition, not capable of pain or pleasure, punishment or reward.
In epist. 3 ad Dudithium, we have these words, " Unusquisque sacrce Scripturce ex suo ipsius sensu interpres ; eaque quae sihi sic arrident pro veris admittere debet ac tenere, licet universus terrarum orbis in alia omnia iret :'' that is, every one is to
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interpret Scripture according to his own sense ; and what so seems pleasing to him he is to embrace and maintain, though all the world be against it.
Socinus, in his tract, de Ecclesia^ P^g® ^44, says thus, "JVon attendendum quid homines doceant sentiantve, vel antehac docuerint aut senserint^ quicunque illi tandem, aut quotcunque, sint aut fuerint ;" which is pretty plain ; I am not, says he, to regard what other men do teach or think, or have before now taught or thought, whosoever they be or have been, or how many soever. And if we doubt whether his whosoever are here to be extended to the sacred writers, he tells us of them in particular elsewhere, ''Ego quidem, etiamsi non seniel, sed scepe, id in sacris monwnentis scriptum extareti non idcirco tamen ita rem prorsus se ha- bere crederem,''' Soc. de Jesu Christo servatore, par. 3, cap. 6. Operum torn. ii. page 204. As for me, saith he, though it were to be found written in the sacred monuments, not once, but many times, I would not yet for all that believe it so to be. And a little before, in the same chapter, having before told us that he thought the thing impossible, he adds, " Cum ea quce fieri non posse aperfe constat, divinis etiam oracidis ea facta fuisse in speciem diserte attestantibus, nequaquam admittantur ; et idcirco sacra verba, in alium sensum quam ipsa sonant, per inusitatos etiam tropos qiuuidoque e.i- plicantur :"" that is, when it doth plainly appear, or when he thinks so, whatever all the world think
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beside, that the thing cannot be ; then, though the divine oracles do seem expressly to attest it, it must not be admitted; and, therefore, the sacred words are, even by unusual tropes, to be interpreted to another sense than what they speak. Which say- ings are, I think, full as much as I had charged him with.
And if these instances be not enough, I could give him more of like nature ; but I shall conclude this with one of a later date: at a pubhc disputa tion at Franeker, October 8, 1686, where, amongst others, this thesis was maintained ; Scripturce divi- nitatem non aliunde quam ex ratione adstrui posse ; eosque errare, qui asserere sustinent, si ratio aliud quid nobis dictaret quam Scriptural huic potius esse credendum. And when Ulricus Huberus, be- cause it was not publicly censured, as he thought it deserved to be, did oppose it in word and writing, the same was further asserted in public disputations and in print, by two other professors in Franeker, in vindication of that former thesis ; that " the divine authority of Scripture is no otherwise to be proved but by reason ; and if reason do dictate to us ought otherwise than the Scripture doth, it is an error to say that, in such case, we are rather to believe the Scripture." An account of the whole is to be seen at large in a treatise intituled, " Ulrici Huberi, Supremce Frisiorum Curice ex-senatoris, de con- cursu Rafionis et Scripturcp Liber. Franakerce^
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apud Hen. Amama et Zachar. Tcedcuna, l(i87;" and a breviate of it in the Leipsic transactions for the month of August, 1687. And, after this, 1 hope this answerer will not think me too severe in charging such notions on some of the Socinians, while yet I said I was so charitable as to think divers of them were better minded.
But what should make him so angry at what I said of guessino;, I cannot imaojine. That there is a distinction between the three, we are sure ; this I had said before, and the answerer now says it is so : but not such as to make three Gods ; this I had said also, and the answerer says so too. That the Father is said to beget, the Son to be begotten, and the Holy Ghost to proceed, I had said also, and I suppose he will not deny, because thus the Scripture tells us : and whatever else the Scripture tells us concerning it, I readily accept. But if it be further asked, beyond what the Scripture teacheth, as, for instance, what this begetting is, or, how the Father doth be^et his only begotten Son ? this, I say, we do not know, at least I do not, because this, I think, the Scripture doth not tell us ; and of this, therefore, I hope this gentleman, as well as the other, will give me leave to be ignorant. Certainly it is not so as when one man begets another ; but how it is I cannot tell. And if I should set my thoughts awork, as some others have done, and each according to his own imagination, to guess or
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conjecture,* how, perhaps, it may be, I would not be positive that just so it is ; because I can but guess or conjecture, I cannot be sure of it. For, I think, it is much the same as if a man born bhnd, and who had never seen, should employ his fancy to think what kind of thing is light or colour; of which it would be hard for him to have a clear and certain idea. And if this gentleman please to look over it again, I suppose he will see that he had no cause to be so angry that I said, we can but guess herein at what the Scripture doth not teach us.
That the Socinians have set their wits awork to find out other subsidiary arguments and evasions against the Trinity, beside that of its inconsistence with reason, I do not deny ; but that is the founda- tion, and the rest are but props. And if they admit that there is in it no inconsistence with reason, they would easily answer all the other arguments them- selves.
I thought not to meddle with any of the texts on either side, because it is beside the scope which I proposed when I confined my discourse to that single point of its not being impossible or incon-
* It is certainly more than (to use the school term) ratione ratiocinantis, and I think more than ratione rationcinatd, as inadequati conceptus ejusdem rei, for thus I think the Divine attributes are distinguished and the three persons somewhat more than so, but not ut res et res ; and though, perhaps, in our metaphysics we have not a term which doth directly answer it, it seems to be somewhat analagoiis to what we call ex parte rei, or ut modus et modus, and the Godhead from each ut res et modus ; but I will not be herein so positive as to require eveiy one else, upon pain of damnation, to think just as I do.
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sistent with reason ; and did, therefore, set aside other considerations, as having been sufficiently argued by others for more than an hundred years last past. But having already followed him in some of his excursions, I shall briefly consider the two signal places which he singles out as so mainly clear.
In the former of them, John xvii. 3, " This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," he puts a fallacy upon us, which, perhaps, he did not see himself, or at least hoped we would not see it ; and, therefore, 1 desire him to consider that it is not said, thee only to be the true God ; but thee, the only true God. And so in the Greek, it is not fffc jxovov Tov, but CTc Toi/ fiovov aXf^Oivov Qcov. 1 he res- trictive ix6vov, only, is not annexed to thee, but to God. To know thee, not thee only, to be the only true God; that is, to be that God beside which God there is no other true God. And we say the like also, that the Father is that God beside which there is no other true God ; and say, the Son is also not another God, but the same only true
God. And if those words, /Va "(ivwoKwal ak -rhv fiovov uXrjOivov Qcov, Kut ov a7re(nct\a<} 'lijaifv "Kpiarov, SuOUld bC
thus expounded, " to know thee to be the only true God, and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ," (to be the same only true God ;) repeating otto Kotvi,
those words -rhv /novov aXrjOivov Qcov, OY, thuS tO kuOW
thee and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, to be
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the only true God, he would not like that interpre- tation ; but both the words and the sense will very well bear it, without such force as they are fain to put upon many other places. Or if, without such repetition, we take this to be the scope of the place, to set forth the two great points of the Christian religion, or way to eternal life, that there is but one true God, though in that Godhead there be three persons, as elsewhere appears, in opposition to the many gods of the heathen, and the doctrine of redemption by Jesus Christ, whom God hath sent, of which the heathen were not aware, the sense is very plain ; and nothing in it so clear, as he would have us think, against the Trinity, but all very con- sistent with it.
And the same answer serves to his other place, 1 Cor. viii. 6, " But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him ; (or for him,) and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." For here also one God may be referred airh koivh, both to the Father, if here taken as a distinct person, and to the Lord Jesus Christ ; or, without that, it is manifest that one God is here put in opposition, not to the plu- rality of persons, as we call them, in one Deity, or variety of attributes therein ; but to the many gods amongst the heathen ; and our one Saviour against their many saviours. As is manifest, if we take the whole context together, " We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other
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God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him," v. 4, 5, 6. Where it is evident, that the scope of the place is not to shew either how the persons, as we call them, or how the attributes of that one God are distin- guished amongst themselves ; but to set our one God, who is the Father or Maker of all things, in opposition to the many gods of the idolatrous world ; and our one Saviour or Redeemer against their many saviours. Indeed, if we should set up our Jesus Christ to be another God, the text would be against us ; but not when we own him for the same God. So that here is nothing clear in either place, as he pretends, against Christ's being the same God with the Father.
But in that other place of John i, which he labours to elude, the evidence for it doth so stare him in the face, that if he were not, as he speaks, "wilfully blind," or did wink very hard, he must needs see it. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men," v. 1, 2, 3, 4. *' He was in the world, and the world was made
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by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power (or right, or privilege,) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name," v. 10, 11, 12. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth," V. 14. Why he should not think this very clear is very strange, if he were not strangely pre- possessed ; unless he think nothing clear but such as no man can cavil against. But there can hardly be any thing said so clearly, but that some or other, if they list to be contentious, may cavil at it, or put a forced sense upon it. For thus the whole doc- trine of Christ, when himself spake it, and he spake as clearly as he thought fit to speak, was cavilled at ; and himself tells us the reason of it. Matt. xiii. 14, 15, and John xii. 37, 38, 39, 40, and after him St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 26, and Rom. xi. 8. Not for want of clear light, but because they shut their eyes. In John xii. it is thus, " But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him : that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report ? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed ? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart,
F
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and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias when he saw his glory and spake of him." And thus in Matt, xiii, "Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive : for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed ; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." So that it is no argument of a place or doctrine's not being clear, because prejudiced persons are able to pick cavils at it, or put a forced sense upon it.
But let us see what these cavils are. " This I confess," saith he, " were to the purpose, if by the term Word could be meant (he should rather have said, be meant) nothing else but a pre-existing person ; and by the term God, nothing but God almighty the Creator of heaven and earth ; and if taking those terms in those senses did not make St. John write nonsense."
Now in reply to this, I first take exception to that phrase, "if it could be meant of nothing else." For if his meaning be this, if no caviller can start up another sense, right or wrong, this is no fair play ; for hardly can any thing be so plain, but that some- body may find a pretence to cavil at it. It is enough for us, therefore, if it be thus meant, with- out saying it is impossible to put a forced sense upon it. But this would have spoiled his design in
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mustering up a great many forced senses, (not that he thinks them to be true, for surely they be not all true, and I think none of them are) nor telling us which he will stick to ; but only that he may cast a mist, and then tell us, which is all that he concludes upon it, the place is obscure, he knows not what to make of it ; or rather he knows not how to make it serve his turn.
But when the mist is blown off, and we look upon the words themselves, they seem plain enough as to all the points he mentions. The Word which was with God, and was God, and by whom the world was made, and which was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we saw his glory, and of whom John bare witness, must needs be a person ; and can be no other than our Lord Jesus Christ, who was born of the virgin Mary. And this Word which was in the beginning, and by whom the world was made, must needs have been pre-existent before he was so born. And this Word which was with God, (the true God) and was God, and by whom the world was made, and who is one with the Father, John x. 30, and "who is over all, God blessed for ever,"* Rom. ix. 5, is no other
* What we render who is, in Rom. ix. 5, is in the Greek, not 09 ea-ri, but o wj/, (he that is) which in Rev. i. 4, {iiiro tiP o wv, &c.) and else- where, is used as a peculiar name or title proper to God almighty, and answers to I AM, Exod. iii. 14. " I AM hath sent me \mto you," of the same import with Jah and Jehovah. And what is said of God indefinitely, without respect to this or that person in the Godhead, at Rev. i. 4, (for Christ in particular is conti-adistinguished, v. .5) a-n-o Ttf 6 wv, Kal 6 ^v.
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god than God almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. And this plain sense the words bear, with- out any force put upon them, without any incohe- rence, inconsistence, or contradiction ; save that they do not agree with the Socinian doctrine. And there is no other way to avoid it, but what Socinus adviseth in another case, *'■ Quantacunque vis verbis adhihenda ;''' putting a force upon the words, no matter how^ great, to make them not to signify what they plainly do ; or else to say, which is his last refuge, that St. John writes nonsense.
But let him then consider whether this do savour of that respect which he would have us think they have for the Holy Scripture ; and whether we have not reason to suspect the contrary of some of them; and whether we have not reason to complain of their putting a forced sense upon plain words, to make them comply with their doctrine ; and lastly, whether it bo not manifest that the true bottom
Kai o e/j;^o/t6J'09, (from liim that is, and was, and is to come) is at v. 8 applied in particular to Christ, "lam Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, which is, and was, and is to come, the Alniiglity," which closeth the description pf Cluist that begins at v. 5. And tliat, by the Lord, is here meant Christ is evident from the whole context, v. 1), 13, 17, 18, (he that was dead and is alive) and the whole second and third chapters. And so the description of Christ, Rom. ix. 5, o wv oti iravTUDV Geo? evXo^t/TO^ eh t«\ uiu'va?, 'Afiijv, in its full emphasis is thus, "that BEING overall, (or, the Supreme Being) God blessed for ever, (or, the ever blessed God) Amen," which is used as a character of the Supreme God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Mark xiv. 61, when the high- priest asked him, " Art thou the Christ, the Sou of the Blessed?" And there will be need of Socinus's expedient, " quantacnnque vis Pauli verbis adhibenda" to make it signify any other god than God almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth.
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of their aversion from the Trinity, whatever other subsidiary reasons they may allege, is, because they think it nonsense, or not agreeable with their reason. For, set this aside, and all the rest is plain enough ; but, because of this, they scruple not to put the greatest force upon Scripture. Nor is there any other pretence of nonsense in the whole discourse, save that he thinks the doctrine of the Trinity to be nonsense : so that the whole contro- versy with him turns upon this single point, whether there be such impossibility or inconsistence as is pretended.
That of 1 John v. 7, " There be three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost : and these three are one," is wanting, he says, in some copies. And it is so ; and so are some whole epistles wanting in some copies ; a good part of a chapter, as that of the woman taken in adultery, in the Gothic gospels, John viii, and the latter part of St. Mark, last chapter, is wanting in some copies, and the doxology at the end of the Lord's prayer ; but we will not for that quit the place ; for we have great reason to think it genuine.* If this difference of copies happened at first by chance, upon an oversight in the transcriber, in some one copy, and thereupon in all that were transcribed from thence, it is much more likely for
* Note K.
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a transcriber to leave out a line or two which is in his copy, than to put in a line or two which is not. And if it were upon design, it is much more likely that the Arians should purposely leave it out, in some of their copies, than the Orthodox foist it in. Nor was there need of such falsification ; since eV iai.iev concludes as strongly, as to a plurality of persons, and of the Son in particular, which was the chief controversy with the Arians, as cV elai doth as to all the three. And, I think, it is cited by Cyprian, in his book de imitate Ecdesico, before the Arian controversy was on foot. And, therefore, if it were done designedly, and not by chance, it seems rather to be razed out by the Arians, than thrust in by the Orthodox. And the language of this in the epistle suits so well with that of the same author in his gospel, that it is a strong presump- tion that they are both from the same pen. The Word, in 1 John v. 7? agrees so well with the Word in John i, and is peculiar to St. John ; and eV alai, in 1 John v. 7j with ev tVei/ in John x. 30, " These three are one," with " I and the Father are one," that I do not at all doubt its being genuine. And that evasion of his, these three are one, that is, one in testimony, will have no pretence in the other place, where there is no discourse of testimony at all : but " I and the Father are one," unum sumus^ must be one thing, one in being, one in essence ; for so adjectives in the neuter gender, put without
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a substantive, do usually signify both in Greek and Latin : and there must be some manifest reason to the contrary that should induce us to put another sense upon them.
The other place. Matt, xxvhi. 19, " Baptizing them in (or, into) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," is not so shght an evidence as he would make it. For whether €19 TO ovo/iia (not et9 tu 6u6/:iaTa) be Tendered in the name, and taken to denote the joint authority of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost admitting the person baptized into the Christian church ; or, into the name, which this answerer seems to like better, and taken to denote the dedication of the person bap- tized to the joint service or worship of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (baptism itself being also a part of divine worship,) they are all conjoined, either as in joint authority, or as joint objects of the same religious worship, and, for aught that appears, in the same degree. And Socinus himself doth allow the Son to be worshipped with religious worship, as adoration, and invocation, as lawful at least, if not necessary. Now when this answerer tells us of the first commandment, " Thou shalt have no other god but me," (the God of Israel) he might as well have remembered that of Christ, Matt. iv. 10, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve;" and, therefore, since Socinus, and other of his followers, do allow Christ
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to be worshipped, they must allow him to be God, even the God of Israel, and I am mistaken, if he be not expressly called " the Lord God of Israel." Luke i. 16, " Many of the children of Israel shall he (John the Baptist) turn to the Lord their God ; for he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias," &c. Now he before whom John the Baptist was to go in the spirit and power of Elias, is agreed to be our Lord Jesus Christ ; it is, there- fore, he that is here called the Lord God of Israel. And we who own him so to be, worship no other God in worshipping him. It is those who do not own him so to be, and do yet worship him, that are to be charged with worshipping another God. Now when here we find Father, Son, and Holy Ghost all joined in the same worship, we have reason to take them all for the same God, and that " these three are one;" and do say, as willingly as he, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God." Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but one God : as God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sanc- tifier, are one God ; and what in the Old Testa- ment are said of God, indefinitely, without taking notice of this or that of the three persons, are, in the New Testament, attributed some to one, some to another, of the three persons.
That which makes these expressions seem harsh to some of those men is, because they have used themselves to fancy that notion only of the word
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person, according to which three men are accounted to be three persons, and these three persons to be three men. But he may consider that there is another notion of the word person, and in common use too, wherein the same man may be said to sustain divers persons, and those persons to be the same man ; that is, the same man as sustaining divers capacities, as was said but now of Tully, tres personas unus sustineo.^ And then it will seem no more harsh to say, the three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, than to say, God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sanctifier are one God ; which, I suppose, even to this answerer would not seem harsh, or be thought nonsense. It is much the same thing, whether of the two forms we use. And all the cavils he useth may be equally apphed to either. What answer, therefore, he would give to one who should thus object against the latter form, will serve us as well to what he objects against the former.
If, therefore, the gentleman please to consider it calmly, he will find that, even amongst men, though another person do many times denote another man, and thereupon the words are sometimes used pro- miscuously, yet not always, nor doth the word person necessarily imply it. A king and a husband, though they imply very different notions, different
* Note L.
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capacities, different relations, or different personali- ties, yet may both concur in the same man ; or, in that sense wherein person is put for man, in the same person. So a king and a father, a king and a brother, and the like. And this gentleman, though in the dialogue he sustain two persons, that of an opponent and that of an answerer, or that of a friend and that of an adversary, that so while one gives ill language, the other may give up the cause, and while one reads it with great satisfaction and is convinced by it, the other is not convinced ; yet they do not act each their own part so covertlv, but that sometime the vizard falls off and discovers the man to be the same. For though my letter be answered by a friend; (page 1) yet it is the neigh- bour that is weary of writing, (page 13).
Now, if person, in a proper sense, when applied to men, do not imply that different persons must needs be so many different men, much less should it be thought nonsense, when, in a metaphorical sense, it is applied to God, that different persons in the Deity should not imply so many Gods ; or, that three somewhats, which we call persons, may be one God ; which is what I undertook to prove.
And, having made this good, I need not trouble myself to name more texts, though many more there be which give concurrent evidence to this truth, or discourse the whole controversy at large, which was not the design of my letter ; for himself
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hath reduced it to this single point — when St. John says, " The Word was with God, and the Word was God ;" if by the W^ord be meant Christ, and by God, the true God, whether, in so saying, St. John do not speak nonsense ? And if I evince this not to be nonsense, as I think I have done, he grants the place is to the purpose, which quite destroys the foundation of the Socinian doctrine, without being obliged to prove that these persons are just such persons, and so distinct, as what we sometimes call persons amongst men, but with such distinction only as is agreeable to the Divine nature, and not such as to make them three Gods. Like as when God the Father is said to beget the Son ; not so as one man begets another, nor is the Son so a son as what we call son amongst men ; but so as suits with the Divine nature, which, how it is, we do not perfectly comprehend.
I have now done with him. But I have one thing to note upon what I have before said of the Athanasian Creed. I there read it, awai 6i Tpeli
VTToaraaets, Kal avva'tcial elai, kuI laai, bCCaUSe 1 SO tincl it
in the copy I used, which is that at the end of the Greek Testament in octavo, printed at London by John Bill, 1622, with Robert Stephan's, Joseph Scaliger's, and Isaac Casaubon's Annotations. But in Whitaker's Greek Testament, reprinted by this copy, 1633, I since find it is ai jpeh, which edition.
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I suppose, is followed by some others.* I take the former to be the better readhig, as giving a clearer sense ; and that the corrector of the press had put ai for Of, intending thereby to mend the Greek syntax, because if7r6araaei9 follows; but doth, I think, impair the sense. But as to the doctrine, it is much one whether we read «< or 6i. And what I have said of that w^hole creed is chiefly intended for those who do believe the doctrine of the Trinity, and of Christ's Incarnation, that there is no reason, in my opinion, why they should not allow of that creed. But such as do not believe those points, cannot, I grant, approve the creed ; and it is these, I suppose, who would fain have others to dislike it also.
* Note M.
A FOURTH LETTER
CONCERNING
THE SACRED TRINITY,
IN REPLY TO WHAT IS INTITULED
AN ANSWER TO DR. WALLIS'S THREE LETTERS,
BY JOHN WALLIS, D.D.
[Published in 1691.]
LETTER IV.
CONCERNING THE SACRED TRINITY.
Sir,
In a former answer, from I know not whom, to my first and second letter, we had two persons (a friend and his neighbour) in one man ; of which I have given account in my third letter. We have now an answer to that also ; but whether from the friend, or the neighbour, or from a third person, he doth not tell me : yet all the three persons may, for aught I know, be the same man.
However, whether it be or be not the same man, it is not amiss for him to act a third person, as of an adversary, as being thereby not obliged to insist upon and maintain what was before said ; but may fairly decline it, if he please. The one may grant what the other denies, and deny what the other grants; and still, as the scene changes, the man may act another person. And so I find it is. As for instance :
The former answerer takes it unkindly, and would
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have it thought a calumny, that I charged it on some of the Socinians, " That how clear soever the expressions of Scripture be for our purpose, they will not believe it, as being inconsistent with natural reason : and though they do not think fit to give us a barefaced rejection of Scripture, yet they do, and must, they tell us, put such a forced sense on the words, as to make them signify somewhat else," (page 72). Therefore, to shew that this is not a calumny, but a clear truth, I cited their own words, and quoted the places where they are to be found, wherein themselves say the same things in as full expressions as any that I had charged them with : " That every one is to interpret the Scripture ac- cording to his own sense; and what so seems grate- ful to him he is to embrace and maintain, thouofh the whole world be against it ; that he is not to heed what men teach or think, or have at any time taught or thought, whoever they be, or have been, or how many soever : that though, eVen in the sacred monuments, it be found written, not once only, but many times, he should not yet for all that believe it so to be : that what plainly appears cannot be, (or, as was before explained, what he thinks so, though all the world beside think other- wise,) is not to be admitted, even though in the sacred oracles it appear to be expressly atiirmed ; but those sacred words are to be interpreted, though it be by unusual ways or tropes, to some other sense than what they speak : that, because it seems
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to him absurd, he must, with Augustin's good leave, and of the rest who think as he doth, put a force, how great soever, upon Paul's words, rather than to admit such sense : that, if our reason dictate to us aught otherwise than the Scripture doth, it is an error to say, that in such case we are rather to believe the Scripture," (pages 73, 74, 75). Now our new answerer, though he would still have it to be a calumny, shuffles it off with this, " He is not concerned that Socinus, or any other author, has dropt imprudent words, and leaves it to the Socinian to answer;" (page 10) for he is now to act the Arian, (pages 11, 12, 14, 16, 17). This point, therefore, 1 look upon as yielded, concerning the slight opinion which some of the Socinians have of Scripture, in competition with human reason.
Again, when 1 had spoken of our immortal soul, in its separate existence after death, as of an intel- lectual being, (but with an if at least those who deny the blessed Trinity will allow that there are such beings) to shew the suspicion intimated was not groundless, I cited Socinus's own words, (page 73) where he expressly tells us " that the soul, after death, doth not subsist, nor doth so live as to be then in a capacity of being rewarded or punished;" that is, in effect, it is no more alive than is the dead body, not sensible of pain or pleasure ; which, I think, is ground enough for such a suspicion, without being uncharitable. Nor doth this new answerer clear Socinus, or himself, from this sus-
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picion ; he only tells us, (page 10) it is an insinua- tion, as if they believe not angels, which is nothing to the purpose of the soul's separate existence, which is that I insisted on ; nor doth he so much as tell us that he doth believe angels, much less that he doth believe the soul's separate existence ; so that the ground of suspicion still remains. I had shewed him how different Socinus's opinion is from that of St. Paul, when he " desired to be dis- solved, (or to depart hence) and to be with Christ, as much better for him than to abide in the flesh," Phil. i. 23, 24 ; and " to be absent from the body, (which must be after death, and before the resur- rection) and to be present with the Lord," 2 Cor. V. 8. And this new answerer, though he takes notice of the charge, doth not so much as tell us that he is not of Socinus's opinion herein ; which, if it be so, he might reasonably have told us u})on this occasion. I might have added that of Christ, Matt. X. 28, " Fear not those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:" whereas, if the soul, after death, be as insensible as the body, that is as much killed as this : and that of Christ to the converted thief on the cross, Luke xxiii. 43, " This day shalt thou be with me in paradise:" for, surely, by paradise he did not mean purgatory ; nor yet that he should be witli him in hell amongst the devils and the damned ; nor that his soul should be in a condition as senseless as his body; for j)aradise doth not sound like anv of these. I mio-ht have
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added also that of Lazarus and the rich glutton, Luke xvi. 23, 24, 25, 28. For though parables are not strongly argumentative, as to all the punctilios of them ; yet, as to the main scope of them, they are ; else to what purpose are they used ? Now here we have that glutton represented as tormented in hell, and Lazarus at rest in Abraham's bosom, and there comforted, while the other is tormented ; and all this while yet he had brethren upon earth to whom he desires Lazarus might be sent. All which is not agreeable to a condition not capable of reward or punishment. And, upon the whole, we have reason to suspect that Socinians may have some other odd tenets which they think fit rather to conceal than to deny : so that I look upon this point as gained also, that Socinus, uncontrolled by this answerer, doth deny the subsistence of the soul after death, as then capable of reward or punishment.*
Another point which I look upon as granted, is concerning that place, John i, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us." Concerning this place we were come to this issue with our former answerer, (at his page 9) if by Word be meant a person, pre-existent to Christ's Incarnation by the virgin Mary; and by God be meant the true God, or
* Note N.
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God almighty, then this place is to our purpose; for else, he tells us, St. John writes nonsense. Now that St. John writes nonsense, I suppose he will not say, whatever he thinks, because he pretends a great reverence for the Scriptures, and doth not take it kindly that I should suspect the contrary. Whether of the other two points he would stick to he did not think fit to tell us; for, indeed, his business was not to tell us what he would have, but what he would not have, and concludes nothing thereupon, but that the place is obscure ; (he knows not how to make it serve his turn) and that it may so seem, he endeavours to cast what dust he can into the spring, and then to say the water is not clear. I have given him my reasons, and I think they be cogent, why I judge the place clear enough, as to both points ; and should I admit, as I think I may, that by Word is meant somewhat else, as he tells us, in forty other places, this is nothing to the purpose. For we are not here inquiring what by the word X070S is meant in Aristotle, or what in Plato, or what in forty other places, but what is meant by the Word in this })lace ; nor what by gods is meant in Psalm Ixxxii. 6, 7» " I have said ye are gods, but ye shall die like men :" but what by God is here meant, where it is said, " the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Nor is here any need of a rhetoric lecture to inquire by what trope or figure, or with what allusion, Christ is here called the Word ; it is (MiouLdi tliat it is Christ
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who is here so called. And after all his talk, I do not find that himself hath the confidence to deny, though he doth not think fit to grant it, but that here by the Word is meant Christ, and that God here mentioned is God almighty ; and, consequently, if St. John do not write nonsense, as he is pleased to phrase it, the place is to our purpose. Now our new answerer seems to me to quit the first of these points, and chooseth rather to act the Arian than the Socinian, as taking that to be more defensible ; (pages 11, 14, 17) and doth admit that by the Word here is meant the person of Christ, and pre- existent to his Incarnation, as by whom the world was made, at least as by an instrument ; and doth allow him to be God, though not the same God ; but that the Father and the Word are two Gods ; (page 17) and can allow him the character of being over all, God blessed for ever; and can so be as liberal of the title of God to Christ as any Trinita- rian whatever; (page 16) so that now the dispute is reduced to this — when it is said, "the Word (meaning Christ) was with God, and the Word was God," whether by God be meant the true God, God almighty. Of which we are to say more anon.
Another grant we have, (page 3) where he doth admit that a thing may be unum and tres^ (one and three) in several respects : and that it is true, indeed, he cannot say, that there is a contradiction in holding that there may be three persons in God.
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And, in granting this, he grants what I undertook to prove. For he knows very well, that the business which I undertook was not to discourse the whole controversy at large ; but so stated the question as to confine it to this single point, whether it be an impossibility, or inconsistence with reason, that there may be three somewhats, which we call persons, which are but one God ? And when he grants me that there is in it no contradiction, or inconsistence with reason, all the rest is beside the question. I know very well, that both this and the former answerer have made it their business to change the state of the question ; and if what I bring to prove what I undertake do not prove the task they set me, they glory as if they had the better. But the lawyers tell us, that when issue is once joined, if we prove the thing in issue we carry the cause ; and what is more than so is over and above, or to spare. And a mathematician, if he prove what he proposeth, concludes with quod erat demonstran- dum; (he hath proved what he undertook to prove) if he prove more than so, it is more than he was obliged to do. And if a logician prove (proposi- tionem negatam) the proposition which is incum- bent on him to prove, he hath done his work ; and if he prove more than so, it is more than he need to do. And accordingly, when this answerer doth acknowledge that I have proved what I undertake to prove, that there is no impossibility, there is no contradiction, nor inconsistence with reason, that
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three somewhats may be one God, he ought to acquiesce therein, and acknowledge that I have done my work. For when the controversy was divided into two branches, whether the thing be true, and whether it be possible, (and it was the latter of the two that I undertook) if I have shewed it is not impossible, which this answerer doth grant that I have done, I have done the work that I undertook ; and if this be once agreed, it goes a great way as to the other branch, that the thing is true. For I find the last result of our adversaries, when they are close pressed, is commonly this, it is impossible, it is absurd, it is nonsense, it is incon- sistent with reason, and, therefore, it cannot be true ; and that, therefore, a force, no matter how great, must be put upon the words which do, how expressly soever, affirm it, to make them signify somewhat else than what they plainly do signify, than to admit it. And if I have, as is now con- fessed, destroyed this last reserve, let them press this point no more. Or, if they will retract this grant, let the next answerer keep to this point, to prove it impossible, or inconsistent with reason, and not ramble out into other discourses which are nothing to the purpose of what I proposed to prove.
Amongst his other concessions, I shall reckon that in page 14, where he argues from John xvi. 13, that there is between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost a distinction so great, as that they
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may not unfitly be called three persons, where I observe also, that he owns the personality of the Holy Ghost, as well as of the Father, and of the Son. It is true, indeed, he seems to make the distinction between them greater than I do. But I thus far agree with him, that there is, in truth, a distinction, and that more than imaginary, or w'hat depends only upon our imagination, and greater than that of what we call the Divine attributes; and, therefore, we reckon the persons to be but three, but the attributes to be more ; and we do admit, amongst the persons, a certain order or economy, such as in the Scripture we find assigned to them, but do not own the distinction so great as to make them three Gods.
And that also of pages 13, 14, where he argues, that Christ is indeed God, not only a dignified man : " That God in Christ was tempted, suffered, and died ; not man only. That the merits thereof are founded on the Godhead. In plain terms," saith he, " if Christ were only a man, extraordinarily assisted by God, and thereupon merited by his sufferings and death, it was the man redeemed us by his blood, and not God." And page 16, the like from Rom. ix. 5, "Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever ;" and asks, " If I ever knew an Unitarian, especially an Arian, deny him that character?" And from Heb. i. 8, " To the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, endureth for ever; a sceptre of
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righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom," &c. he argues, " That it is not the humanity of Christ that is here spoken of. For what ! Is the humanity of Christ called God ? Is the humanity preferred before angels ? Or, did the humanity frame the world ? Indeed," he says, " they are apt to clog it with a limitation, as not acknowledging him co- equal with the Father; but under that restriction they can be as liberal of the title of God to Christ as any Trinitarian whatever." Where I take what he grants ; and as to the co-equality, shall discourse it afterwards.
More of this kind I shall have occasion to men- tion afterward ; yet do not blame him for taking this advantage, of shifting the person where he sees cause to grant what was before denied.
But our new answerer hath yet another art. When he seems to cite what I say, he takes the liberty very often to vary therein, according as he thinks fit, both from my words and from my sense, and, therefore, I desire the reader not to take all as mine which seems to be cited as such; but so much only as he finds to be truly cited. It would be too long to mention all the places where I am so used. I shall only give instance in some of them.
He tells us, (page 4) that I endeavour to illus- trate the Trinity by an example in a cube, or die ; and so far he says true ; but not so in what follows, where three sides, he says, make one cube ; and which cube, he says, is not to be made without all
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the three sides. But certainly he can no where find these to be my words. I confess I am no great gamester at that sport; but I ahvays thought, till now, that a die had six sides, and not only three. I have said, indeed, tliat in a cube, or die, there be three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness ; but I never called these the three sides of a cube, nor have I any where said that a cube hath but three sides.
I am represented (pages 5, 6, 7» 8) as maintain- ing three personal Gods : but he knows very well this is not my language, but that the three persons are one God, not three Gods, nor a council of Gods, as he calls it.
So, where he would ask the doctor, (page 17) whether these two Gods, to wit, the Father and the Word, be one ? he knows my answer must be, that these two, not these two Gods, are one God ; and that I do no where call them two Gods, but one and the same God, according to lliat of Christ himself, " I and the Father are one."
So, where he talks of adding several persons to our one God ; (pages 3, 8) for he knows that is not my language, but these three are God; not that they are added to God ; much less that Bacchus and Venus, &c. may be thrust into the number; and (page 8) one of your Gods : we have but one God. It is he and his Arian that own two Gods, (page 17) not we.
Another there is which runs through most part
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of his whole discourse, wherein he wilfully mistakes the state of the question : and then, what is brought to prove one thing he misapplies as brought to prove another, and then makes a great outcry that it doth not prove what it was never brought to prove; and this he calls cross purposes. He knows very well that the question w^as by me clearly stated, not as to the whole doctrine of the Trinity at large, but as to the possibility. That, whatever the Socinians pretend, there is no impossibility, non- sense, or inconsistence with reason, that three some- whats, which we call persons, may be one God ; and this he owns to be the state of the question, (page 1) to prove the same agreeable to the com- mon notions of human reason ; and it is done by shewing that, according to the common notions of human reason, nothing is more common than that what in one consideration are three, or many, is yet in another consideration but one. Thus in one cube there be three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness. So the understanding, will, and memory, in one soul. So the voephv, eTnev/nrjriKhu and KivTjTiKhv a power to know, to will, and to do, in the same intelligent agent, and the like. It is, there- fore, not inconsistent with reason, and this answerer doth allow it, for one to be three ; nor is it non- sense to say, these three are one ; or I and the Father are one; or that three somewhats may be one God. The former answerer complains of these resemblances as impossible to be apprehended by
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the common people; and desires some more familiar parallel than that of a cube, or die, that the tankard bearer may apprehend, (in his pages 8, 9). Yet I believe his tankard bearer is not so dull of appre- hension as he would have us think. For if he have ever seen a die, as most of them have, or shall now be shewed one, he may be able to apprehend, with- out a metaphysic or mathematic lecture, that in a die there is length, breadth, and thickness, and that it is as broad as it is long, and as thick as either ; and yet it is not three dies, but one die. However, to gratify his request, I have given him some other; as that the same man may have three dignities, or three kingdoms, and sustain three persons, or three relations, without thereby becoming three men, with other like. With this, our new answerer is not pleased. He is ashamed, he doth blush for me, &c. How much am I obliged for this his great compassion ! But all this is but banter, it is not argument, and no sober man will be more of his opinion for this language ; and much less for that of St. John's writing nonsense, of a lying revelation, of a three-headed monster, (pages 3, 5) and other such indecent language of God and the Scripture. But, why so displeased with these similes ? These are too mean, too familiar ; he expected somewhat higher, somewhat more distinct, (page 5). I see it is as hard a matter to please my two answerers, as to serve two masters : the one complains my similes are not familiar enough ; the other that they are
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too familiar ; he expected somewhat more subhme. These do not prove that a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead, (page 6). True: these alone do not prove that there is a Trinity in Unity in the Godhead ; much less do they prove that a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead ; nor were they brought to prove it. They were brought to prove there is no inconsistence, but that there may be a Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead ; and if they prove thus much, he, perhaps, may have cause to be ashamed, but I see no reason why I should be ashamed, or any one for me. Now, that they prove thus much, he hath already granted that a thing may be one and three in divers respects ; and that it is no contradiction to hold that there may be three persons in God. They have proved, there- fore, what they were brought to prove. But, says he, (page 5) " Our debate is not whether there may be three persons in God." Yes : our debate is whether there may be; not whether there be. And he knows the question was so stated by me, and so acknowledged by himself, upon this single point, whether there be any impossibility in it ; and so owned by himself, (page 1) not whether it be so, for this I had before said was not to be argued upon the topic of reason alone ; but whether it be agreeable to the common notions of human reason that it may be so : and if this were the question, as he owns, and this be proved, as he owns also, then
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I have proved what I undertook to prove, and have no reason to be ashamed, either of the undertaking or of the proof. It is our new answerer who doth wittingly and wilhngly misstate the question, that is at cross purposes, while he applies those arguments to one point which he knows were brought to prove another, which point himself grants to be proved; he cannot say there is a contradiction in it, (page 6) and then complains, that they alone do not prove what they were never brought to prove.
Of like nature is that other point, where he tells us that we do now venture to prove it to be agree- able to the common notions of human reason ; that is, not inconsistent with it. And we do so. But he would have it thought that it is but now of late that any have presumed to this confidence ; (pages 1, 2) and would have us content modestly to ac- knowledge it a mere mystery, and to rely upon the authority of the church and tradition, without pre- tending that it is agreeable to reason. Now, that there is in it a mystery we readily grant, and so there is in the whole doctrine of our redemption ; " God manifested in the flesh," &c., 1 Tim. iii. IG, as that which, without revelation, we could not have found out by mere reason ; and that it is above reason, that is, more than what reason alone could have taught us, but not that it is against reason, or inconsistent with it. This is not the doctrine of the Trinitarians, nor ever was, that I know of. Nor is it tradition onlv, or the church's authorilv, but the
Ill
authority of Scripture that we rely upon, which is a true, not a lying revelation. Nor is it, as he pre- tends, a new doctrine, not raised till several hundred years after Christ, as if the doctrine were to be dated from the time of penning the Athanasian Creed, but as old, at least, as the New Testament, and never contested, that I know of, till several hundred years after Christ, when the Arians arose. But here again my answerers are not agreed, so hard it is to please them both; while one complains, it is but of late, the other tells me, it is old fashioned, (in his page 9) " Thus Dr. Wallis may see that his notions concerning the Trinity are old fashioned, not of a new mode." And truly I take him to be more in the right, that it is not a new quirk, but old fashioned doctrine ; and I like it never the worse for being so. As to what I have said of John xvii. 3, it is more than forty years, and and well towards fifty, since I first preached it in London, on that text, as I have since done there and elsewhere, more than once, and I did not then take it to be new, but what I had been always taught ; and as to that of the three dimensions in a cube, it is forty years or more since I first discoursed it at Oxford with Dr. Ward, then Astronomy-Pro- fessor there, and since Bishop of Salisbury ; and as to the doctrine in general, of three persons in one God, it is no newer than the New Testament. But here again our answerer forsakes the question : for the question is not whether it be a new or old
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adventure; but whether it be inconsistent with reason that three may be one ; or, as he words it, (page 3) that a Trinity in Unity is absurd.
Another piece of the same art it is where my word of personality is by him changed for persona- tion ; (pages 5, 6) for which I would not have quarrelled with him, if by changing the word, he had not meant to change the sense also. For to personate a man, he tells us, (page 6) is but to compose one's actions in likeness of him ; and that one cannot personate three together, but one after another. But my personality, he knows, is more than this personation ; it is not only acting a person, but being a person. A man may successively per- sonate, or act the person of a king and a fatlier, without being cither this or that : but when the same man is both a king and a father, which he may be at the same time, as well as successively, this is more than only to act them. And if by personation he mean no more than acting a person, I wonder how he can tell us, (page 5) that personation is the greatest perfection of being ; and that he never could apprehend any other real unity but persona- tion. What? No real unity but acting a person by imitation ? Sure there is. The bottom, and top, and middle of a mountain are one mountain ; yet I do not take mount Atlas to be a person, or to act a person, much less to become one mountain by personation, or acting a person.
Of hke nature is it where, to do me a kindness.
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he will state my cube more to my purpose ; (page 5) meaning the contrary. But how ? In a marble cube may be two accidents, hardness and coldness. There may be so. But what then ? Then, he says, here are three cubes more for me. He would have it thought, I suppose, that I had before dis- coursed of three cubes, whereas I spoke but of one cube, under three dimensions; and he will now help me to another three. But he is out again. For the cold cube, the hard cube, and the marble cube are but one cube, not three cubes. It is the same cube that is cold, and hard, and marble. It would have been much the same, if, instead of a cube, he had taken a marble bowl or ball, and then told me it is cold, and hard, and round. True. And yet it is but one bowl, not three bowls; one ball, not three balls. And what is there in all this of inconsistent absurdity ? It seems to me very consistent, not absurd, and it suits my notion very well.
But, says he, (page 5) not to suppose the simile tltogether impertinent, (very well ! ) yet it is in our case. Why in our case? For our debate, he says, is not whether there may not be three persons in God. Yes : that is our debate, and the true state of the question. All his other excursions are beside the question.
But the simile, though not impertinent, is yet, he says, most absurd, because not adequate ; and it is a general rule with him, (page 6) where he brings a simile to have it adequate, that it may really prove
H
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the matter designed. Now that my similes are not adequate, so as to prove all that is to be said of God, or the blessed Trinity, I had told him at first, and more than once, and that they were not intended so to be ; and I tell him now, that I did purposely make choice of such as were a great way off, that it might not seem as if I would have them thought to be adequate as to all that is to be said of the Trinity. And as to the rule he goes by, perhaps it may be his method, where much is to be proved, to prove it all at once, and take all argu- ments to be absurd which do not at once prove all. But we who are conversant in cubes and demon- strations, as he phraseth it, think fit sometimes to use another method ; and, where much is to be proved, to proceed by steps. We first propose one thing, and prove that ; then another, and prove that, and so on : and if what be brought to prove the first step do prove what it is brought to prove, we do not say the argument is absurd, because it doth not prove all at once, but that it is a good argument so far ; and, I think, if he will here give mc leave to use a simile which is not adequate, it is a method used by other men as well as mathema- ticians ; for, if a man be to mount a pair of stairs, we do not say the first step is absurd, because that alone doth not bring him to the top ; or, if to go a journey, that the first step is absurd, because it doth not bring him to his journey's end; but the first step brings him so far, and (he second somewhat Inrther;
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and so on, till, step by step, he comes to the top, or to his journey's end. Now, there being divers points concerned in the doctrine of the Trinity, I stated my question not so as to prove all at once, but singled out this one point, that it is not incon- sistent with reason ; or, to use his own words, it is agreeable to the common notions of human reason- ing, that what in one consideration are three, may in another consideration be one ; and that there may be three somewhats which are one God. But, whether indeed there be so, is another step ; and whether these somewhats may fitly be called per- sons, is yet another. Now, if I have made good my first step, my argument or simile is not only not altogether impertinent, but neither is it most absurd, yea not absurd at all, because it proves what it was brought to prove ; and that so it doth himself allows, and tells us plainly, (page 3) he cannot say, there is a contradiction in holding that there may be three persons in God. "Ojrep
But, I find, he would fain be upon another point, (page 4) and draw me to it. A point not to be argued upon the topic of reason only ; for reason alone can go no further than to prove it possible, or not inconsistent ; but to be argued from Scripture, and divine revelations, whether indeed there are three somewhats, which we call persons, that are but one God.
But this, I have told him already, is beside the
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question which I undertook ; and in this it is he that is the aggressor, not I ; and I only upon the defence. Yet, because he is so desirous of it, I am content to go somewhat out of my way to wait on him, and to hear what he hath to say, why we should think that is not, which he confesseth may be without any contradiction to natural reason. And I shall take notice as I go along, what it is wherein we agree, as well as wherein we differ, that so we may not quarrel about what is agreed between us.
He begins with the first commandment, (pages 1 2, 3, 4) and seems mightily to dread the guilt of idolatry in admitting more Gods than one : our case is, Ave are afraid of idolatry, (page 9) contrary to this commandment, of having no otlier God. And so I would have him be ; but we shall find this fear will be over with him by and by. What, says he, was that commandment made for? What! to prevent polytlieism. Why, how is that to be done ? By denying many gods. If it be not made to deny personal gods, it is made to no purpose. And soon after, with some indignation. What ! is the divinity of Christ implied in the New Testament? It is denied in the first commandment. And (page 9) pray what Scripture shall we regard in competition with this commandment, written by the finger of God, and one of the only precepts he himself immediately delivered ?
Now I am so far from disliking his zeal for tlie
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first commandment, that I do perfectly agree with what I find in that commandment; " I am the Lord thy God, (the Lord God of Israel) thou shalt have no other God but me;" and this I shall desire him to remember by and by. He may add that of Deut. vi. 7? (for in this I agree also) " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God (the Lord God of Israel) is one Lord;" and that of Matt. iv. 10, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, (the Lord God of Israel) and him only shalt thou serve;" and that of I Cor. viii. 6, " To us there is but one God," and as many more places, as he pleases, to that pur- pose ; and from all these I do agree that we are to have but one God and no more, not two Gods ; no other God than the Lord God of Israel : that we are to worship him alone, and none else; not Satan, not the god of Ekron, not any god, or man, or angel who is not the Lord God of Israel : for all this I grant to be there fully taught ; and I am willing to put as great weight upon this solemn set precept of the first commandment as he doth, and perhaps more. He would have us shew, if we can, (page 9) where this commandment is abrogated. I say, no where. It was never abrogated, never repealed ; it remains, I grant, still in its full force, and, therefore, we own no other God, but the Lord God of Israel; and this Lord God of Israel we say is one Lord, one God, and no more Gods than one. We say indeed, there is a wise God, a power- ful God, an almighty God, an eternal God, a just
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God, a merciful God, God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sanctifier; a God who in (lie beginning created the heaven and the earth, a God who in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of his hands ; a God of Abraham, a God of Isaac, a God of Jacob ; a God who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, a God who brought them out of the north country; a God who is our mighty Redeemer; a God who is a Saviour of all that trust in him ; a God who doth create in us a clean heart, and doth renew a right spirit within us ; a God who gives us a heart of flesh, a God who gives us a new heart, who putteth his fear in our hearts, who writes his law in our inward parts, a God who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins ; a God who hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up a mighty salvation for us. But we say, the Lord God of Israel is all this ; and, in being all this, he is but one God ; and that there is no other God but one : and we grant, that whoever owns any other God as a true God, or worships a false God, breaks this commandment. I do not know what he would have us grant more upon this command- ment. I wish he do not think we have granted too much.
He says, (page 3) we vitiate this commandment by bringing in new persons, by adding several persons to our one God. No : we add no persons to our God. We sav that God the Creator, God
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the Redeemer, God the Sanctifier, or, in other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are this one God, not added to him : nor are they new persons added to God ; but are God, and ever were so.
He would have us think, (page 17) that the Father only, and not the Son, or Holy Ghost, is the only true God, because of John xvii. 3 : the words are these, " This is life eternal, to know thee (not only thee) the only true God, (to be that God, beside which there is no other true God) and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." And we say the same that is here said. The Father is the only true God, the Lord God of Israel, beside whom there is no other true God ; the Son is also not another God, as the Arians say, and this answerer, (page 17) but the same only true God, the Lord God of Israel, and he is expressly so called, Luke i. 16, 17; and the Holy Ghost likewise, for these three are one, 1 John v. 7 ; and the words, without any force put upon them, may be thus read, to know thee, and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, to be the only true God. For the word only is not a restrictive to thee, but to the true God ; and this is not only a new quirk or criticism, which is the only answer he gives to this defence, but is the true sense of the place. For the same writer doth, in another place, say the very same thing of God the Son, 1 John v. 20, " We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the
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true God, and eternal life." Now if Scripture must interpret Scripture, as he tells us, (page 16) certainly St. John in his epistle, 1 John v. 20, understood what himself said in his gospel, John xvii. 3; and that what he said of the Father's being the only true God was not exclusive of the Son, to whom himself gives the same title, " This is the true God, and this is eternal life." And this, I think, is a full answer to what he would urge from this place, or from what he joins with it, I Cor. viii. 4, 5, 6, " To us there is but one God," which is no more express to his purpose than tliis is ; nor doth he pretend that it is, but puts them both together, (page 17).
There is one place more which comes under con- sideration, w4iich, because he finds it pinch, he would fain shake off, (page 17). It is that of John i. 1, 2, 10, 14, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The world was made by him; all things were made by him ; and without him was not any thing made which was made ; and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us." The former answerer would fain shuffle off this place (in his page 9) upon one of these three points, for other- wise he grants it is for our purpose ; either that by the Word is not meant Christ ; or by God not the true God ; or else that St. John wTites nonsense. Now the last of the three, I suppose, our new answerer will not say, because he pretends a great
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reverence for Scriptures. The first he quits, and doth admit, according to the Arian sense, which he looks upon as more defensible than that of the Socinians, that by the Word is here meant the person of Christ, who was afterward incarnate of the virgin Mary, and that he was pre-existent to his Incarnation ; as by whom the world was made, at least as by an instrument ; and that he was with God (the true God) at least in the beginning of the world, if not sooner, and that he was God.
All the doubt is, whether these two Gods, for so he calls them, to wit, the Father and the Word, be one, (page 17).
Now, if he be God, he must be either a true God or a false God. That he is a false God, methinks, they should not say ; and, if he be a true God, he must be the same God with the Father, who is the only true God, John xvii. 3.
That he is to be worshipped with religious wor- ship, both the Arians and the Socinians do allow. And if he be God, as the Arians and this answerer do affirm, this worship must be divine worship, and he must be then the Lord God of Israel; or else they break that precept, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, (the Lord God of Israel) and him only shalt thou serve," Matt. iv. 10.
If he be the Lord God of Israel, but not the same Lord God of Israel, how doth this agree with that, Deut. vi. 4, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord?" And if he be another God,
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whether true or false, then do they break the great and first commandment, " Thou shalt have no other God but me;" no other God, true or false, great or little, equal or unequal, but the Lord God of Israel. On which commandment this answerer doth, deservedly, lay so great a stress, as we heard before. " What was it made for, if not to prevent polytheism? How shall it be done, but by denying many gods ? If not to deny personal gods, it is made to no purpose. How is it consistent with that first commandment, that solemn and set pre- cept of the first commandment, that was delivered by God himself, written by the finger of God, and never abrogated, to bring in new persons, to add persons (one or more) to this only God, though particularly prohibited, and not break it ? What ! is the divinity of Christ implied in the New Testa- ment? It is denied in the first commandment, if he be not the same God who is there meant. And pray what Scripture shall we regard in competition with this commandment?" With more to the same purpose.
Whether he will make use of the popish distinc- tion of latria and doulia,* for his two Gods, not co-equal, I cannot tell ; but the commandment says expressly, " Thou shalt have no other God but me," equal or unequal.
Nor doth this error end here, (as he proceeds)
* Note O.
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for our adversaries are not always so lucky as to see consequences. For should some revelation, such as, he says, is not impossible, deify more men than ever the heathen did, here is no fence left ; (here is room enough to thrust in his Jupiter, Bacchus, Venus, &c. of which he tells us, page 8) and it is in vain, he tells us, in such a case, to pretend that the number would be of offence to us : for if we consider aright, there is no more reason for one number than another ; and he thinks that if there be more than one, it is more honourable they should be infinites ; because all between one and infinite is imperfect ; with much more of like nature. Of all which I know not what better to think than that he had forgot all this, when after- wards (at page 17) he will have these two Gods, as he calls them, to wit, the Father and the Word, not to be one, but two and separate.
Nor will it excuse the matter to say, that this other God is not co-equal with the Father ; for, at this rate, the polytheism, or many gods of the heathen, would be excused, as out of the reach of this commandment ; for they did not make all their gods co-equal to their great Jupiter, nor perhaps any of them equal to our God : but Jupiter was their god paramount, and the rest were either middling gods or lesser gods ; but yet this did not excuse them from polytheism and idolatry within the reach of the first commandment. For that commandment, that unrepealed law, forbids all
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other Gods, whether equal or unequal, the leeks and onions in Egypt, which are said to have been there worshipped, as well as the calves at Dan and Bethel. Nor is it less idolatry, nor less within the reach of this commandment, to worship the god of Ekron, because not co-equal to the God of Israel.
We, therefore, choose to say? that Christ is indeed God, as he is expressly called, John i. 1, " The Word was with God, and the Word was God;" and Heb. i. 8, "Thy throne, O God, endureth for ever;" and in many other places; and not only a man, extraordinarily assisted by God, as this answerer grants also, (at page 14). That " he w as in the beginning, and in the begin- ning was with God," John i. 1, 2, and, therefore, was pre-existent before his Incarnation, and did not then begin to be ; that " he was in the beginning, and all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made; that the world was made by him," John i. 3, 10, and is, therefore, the same God who " in the beginning created the heaven and the earth," Gen. i. 1 ; that of him it is said, " Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth : and the heavens are the works of thy hands," Ileb. i. 8, 10, cited out of Psalm cii. 25, and is, therefore, the same God to whom that long prayer, Psalm cii, was made, and of whom so many great things are there said, and which cannot belong to any but the
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Supreme God ; and no doubt but, when this was there said by the psahnist, he meant it of that God who " in the beginning created the heaven and the earth," Gen. i. 1. That he is o wv iirl iravTwv, the Being above all things, (or, the Supreme Being) God blessed for ever, (or, the ever blessed God) Rom. ix. 5, which are titles too high for any lower than the Supreme God; that what is said of God indefinitely, as contradistinguished from Christ in
particular, iteV. l. 4, utto th o wi/, kuI o i]v, kuI 6 ip^o/nevos-,
" From him which is, and which was, and which is to come, (or, which shall be) and from Jesus Christ," &c., is particularly applied to Jesus Christ as his character, v. 8, " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, he that liveth, and was dead, and liveth for evermore, v. 16, which is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty." That he is the true God, 1 John v. 20, and, therefore, the same God with the Father, who is the only true God, John xvii. 3, and no other true God but what he is. That "he and the Father are one," John x. 30. That " the Father, and the Word, and the Spirit, these three are one," 1 John V. 7 ; and Christ, not another God, but the same God, "manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory," 1 Tim. iii. 16.
Now I know not well what could be said more,
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at least, what more need be said, to make the point clear ; or what character he can reasonably desire more by which to describe the almighty Supreme God, and the same God with the Father. He is God, the true God, the only true God ; for there can be but one God that is the only true God ; one with the Father; one with the Father and Holy Ghost ; the eternal God, who is, and was, and shall be, who, when the heavens and the earth shall wax old as a garment, he is the same and his years shall not fail ; the Almighty, tlie mighty God, the eternal Father ; the God who in the beginning made the world, who made all things, and without whom not any thing was made that was made ; who in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of his hands ; who is the Son of God, the begotten of the Father, the only begotten of the Father, and, therefore, of the same nature with the Father, however not the same person, or not under that consideration. Nor can he say, this is impossible, a contradiction, or incon- sistent with reason, and that, therefore, though the words be clear and . plain, yet we must seek out some other sense to be forced upon them ; for this point is already gained, and he doth confess it, (page 3) that there is no contradiction in holding that there may be three persons in God ; and, if there be no contradiction in it, why should we be afraid to say what in Scripture is said so plainly ?
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or, why should we set up two Gods where one will serve, and when the Scripture says there is but one ?
He will say, perhaps, God made the world by Christ. And we say so too. But not as by a tool or instrument, as he would have it, (page 17) but rather as by his power and wisdom. But the power and wisdom of God are not things diverse from God himself, but are himself; much less are they different gods from God himself. And, even amongst us, the power and wisdom of a man are not things distinct from the man, in that sense wherein the words thing and mode are contradis- tinguished ; much less are they distinct men from the man whose power and wisdom they are. The man and his wisdom, the man and his power, are not distinguished ut res et res^ as the schools speak, but ut res et modus. And power and wisdom, in the same man, ut modus et 7nodus. For though a man may subsist without wisdom, (but God cannot) yet wisdom cannot subsist without somewhat that is wise, nor this man's wisdom without the man ; and, therefore, this wisdom, according to the school dis- tinction, must be modus, and not res. And the like of power. So that if we say, that Christ is the power of God, or the wisdom of God, as he is called, 1 Cor. i. 24, and that God j his power and wisdom, made the world, it doth not follow that this power, or wisdom of God is another god
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from God himself; but God and his wisdom, or God and his power, are God himself. Consonant to this it is, where it is said. Col. ii. 3, " In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." And, perhaps, it is this Divine wisdom who tells us, Prov. viii. 22, 23, 27, " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways : I was from everlasting, from the beginning : when he prepared the heavens I was there;" and much more to the same pur- pose. So the Holy Ghost is called the power of God, Luke i. 35, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." Now shall we say, because God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. Job ix. 4, or because by his wisdom and power he made the world, therefore his wisdom and his power are distinct gods from himself? Or if we should say, that God, as the fountain of being, may be called the Father ; and the same God, as the fountain of wisdom, be called the Son ; and, as the fountain of power, be called the Holy Ghost ; there is nothing of this that is inconsistent with reason, but very agreeable with the common notions of human rea- soning; and yet all these, however under divers considerations, are but one God. But here I must caution again, for I find people are willing to mis- take, or misapply what I say, that I do not set down this as the adequate distinction between the three })ersons, for this I do not pretend thoroughly
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to understand;* but only that it is not inconsistent with reason that it may be so, and that there is no necessity, upon this account, to set up another God.
Or we may say, much to the same purpose, that God, by his Word and Spirit, made the world; and yet that his Word and his Spirit are not, therefore, distinct Gods from himself. And we have them all mentioned in the story of the creation. " God created the heaven and the earth," Gen. i. 1 ; " The spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," v. 2 ; and " God said, (or spake the word) let there be light," &c., v. 3, 6, 9, H, 14, 20, 24 and V. 26, " Let us make man ;" and Psalm xxxiii. 6, 9j " By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and all the host of them by the spirit, or ^ reath of his mouth : he spake and it was done ; he commanded and it stood fast;" and, to the like purpose. Psalm cxlviii. 5, Job xxvi. 13 : yet are they not three Gods, but rather three somewhats, which are but one God.
I have insisted the longer on this, because I do not know but that, through the grace of God, such a discourse as this may have a like effect on him, or some of his party, as that of Wittichius had on his friend Sandius. And I have argued it calmly. I have used no scurrilous language, nor given any reproachful terms. I do not oppress
* Note P.
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him with the authority of fathers, or councils, but with Scripture only, and plain reason ; and it seems to me so clear, that if they cannot see it, it is from some other reason than from want of clearness.
As to what I have said for explication of the Athanasian Creed, though I cannot expect he should approve of that creed while he retains his opinion, I do not find that he takes any great exceptions to what I say of it.
He doth not lik6 the words Trinity in Unity, as foreign and unscriptural, (page 19). He may, if that will please him better, put it into plainer English, and call it three in one, and then the words are scriptural, " These three are one."
The possibility of God's being incarnate he doth not deny; only he likes the Arian incarnation better than ours.
He seems well pleased, (pages 19, 20) that I do not positively affirm this creed to be written by Athanasius ; (it is the same thing to me whether it were written by him or some other, so long as I find it agreeable to Scripture) that I do not anathe- matize the Greek church; (wherein yet I would not be thought to encourage dangerous errors, for the errors are equally dangerous and equally funda- mental, whether I do or do not anathematize them) tliat I do not damn all cliildren, fools, madmen, and all before Christ, as, he tells us, some rigid Trinitarians, 1 know not who, have done too often ;
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that I own the word person to be but metaphorical, which (at page 7) he did not like, which I will not disoblige him by unsaying.
Where it is that I have blamed the fathers I do not remember ; for I think the fathers do concur in this, that there is a distinction between the three which we call persons, greater than that between the Divine attributes ; but not such as to make them three Gods, and that, by calling them persons, they mean no more ; and I say the same.
I shall conclude with this observation upon the whole. He was at the beginning of his discourse a direct Socinian, dreading the guilt of idolatry in having more Gods than one, as contrary to the first commandment, and therein I agree with him ; but denied the divinity of Christ, as the Socinians do : and thus he continues till toward the end of page 10 ; but then begins, silently, to tack about, and after a while, doth with as much earnestness affirm the divinity of Christ, as he had before denied it — that Christ was God from the beginnino;, before the world was ; that he was afterward incarnate and became man ; and, as God and man, redeemed us, &c. And here he is orthodox again, but then tells us that this God is not the same God, or co-equal with the Father, but another God ; and at length tells us plainly that there are, at least, two Gods, to wit, the Father and the Word ; for now the fear of having more Gods than one is over with him, and is by this time a perfect Arian.
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And he, who from a Socinian is thus turned Arian, may at the next turn, for aught I know, turn Orthodox.
In order to which, I would advise him to keep to the sound part of his first opinion while he was a Socinian, namely, that we ought to acknowledge and worship but one God ; and the sound part of his second opinion when he was turned Arian, namely, that Christ (the Word) was God from the beginning, before the world was ; that he was after- ward incarnate, and so became God and man ; that, as such, he suffered, died, and wrought out our redemption ; that the merits of his sufferings are founded on his Godhead, which, otherwise, would not have been meritorious if he were only a man, however extraordinarily assisted by God : and when he hath so joined these two together, as to make them consistent, he will be therein orthodox ; and if to these two he add a third, which he owns also, namely, that there is no contradiction in holding there may be three persons in God, he will then be able to answer all the cavils which either the Arian or the Socinian shall bring against it.
Yours,
JOHN WALLIS.
Jan. 1.3, l69^
A FIFTH LETTER
CONCERNING
THE SACRED TRINITY,
IN ANSWER TO WHAT IS INTITULED
THE ARIAN'S VINDICATION OF HIMSELF AGAINST DR. WALLIS'S FOURTH LETTER ON THE TRINITY.
BY JOHN WALLIS, D.D.
[Published in 1691.]
LETTER V.
CONCERNING THE SACRED TRINITY.
Sir,
I HAVE met with an answer to my fourth letter. It is not long, and my reply shall be but short. There is very little in it concerning the merits of the cause, save that he resolves to hold the con- clusion; and as to personal reflections, or disdainful expressions, I do not think fit to trouble the reader with a long reply ; for those, I think, do not hurt me so much as him that useth them.
He is not pleased (page 1) that I said I had argued calmly, without scurrilous language or reproachful terms ; and I appeal to the reader whether it be not so. Nor doth he deny it. And if his language were so too, he needed not to have made the reader an apology to excuse his expres- sions, that he might avoid the character of a common railer, (page 1).
But, he says, abating the little subtilties and artifices, incomparably witty, there is not the least
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grain of weight in my letter. Of this the reader is to be judge, both as to the weight and as to the wit.
He says, it seems a Socinian wrote against me. True : and it seems he knew it, for he cites him. And tliat himself wrote as an Arian. I think he should rather have said, he wrote first as a Socinian, in his first ten pages, and then as an Arian, in the other ten. For I do not find any thing till toward the end of his tenth page whereby I could judge him other than a direct Socinian ; and I think it will so appear to any other reader.
He takes to himself the name of Unitarian, by which I do not find the Arians were wont to be called. But it is a new name which the Socinians have taken up to distinguish themselves both from us and from the Arians ; for the Arians are rather Pluritarians, as holding more Gods than one. And the book to which himself refers us, (page 4) is intituled, " The History of the Unitarians, other- wise called Socinians," and (in page 11) where he first mentions the Arians, he doth introduce it with a preface, minding me that I write against Arians as well as Socinians ; as having, till then, spoke for the Socinians only, not for the Arians, and then first beginning to speak for the Arians ; and even in his tenth page, toward the beginning of it, what had been said of the Socinians by name, and of Socinus in particular, he takes to himself as if one of that party. He seems (saith he of me^ to
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insinuate an aspersion on us that we believe not angels.
He tells us now, (page 3) he doth believe them ; and I will suppose also that he doth believe the soul's immortality. But when he there says that I bring a world of arguments to prove the immortality of the soul, he mistakes again ; for those arguments were brought against Socinus, not to prove the soul's immortality, but that the soul, in its separate condition, was capable of pain or pleasure, which Socinus denied.
For requital to this, he tells me he had a good mind to prove the existence of a Deity, for that he had heard of some men of the profession of the Church of England that have almost been Atheists at the heart. And truly if he should do so, I should not think it much amiss; for I have heard the same suspected of some Socinians.
He now tells me, (page 2) he never was a Socinian in his life. Of what he had been in the former part of his life I had said nothing, for I knew no more what it was, than who he is, but (page 131) of what he was in the beginning of his discourse, and it is plain he there writes like a direct Socinian, as was shewed but now, though as an Arian some time after.
He tells me, (page 2) that he is neither the Socinian, nor his friend, who assisted in his first book. Neither did I say that he is; but that he might be for aught I knew. But whether he be or
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not, it is the same thing to me ; for I am yet to fight in the dark with I know not whom.
He says, he is not concerned to defend Socinus, or any man who hath dropt imprudent words. Nor did I require it of him. And whether he were or were not the same man who wrote before ; yet, since here he acts another person, I left it free for him (pages 95, 96) to dechne, if he pleased, what was said before; to grant what was there denied, or deny what was there granted.
But then, he thinks, (page 1) I should not charge him with writing contradictions, because such things may possibly be found in the other's answer. Nor do I. This is only a piece of his wonted artifice of misreciting me. I tell him, indeed, it is hard to please them both, when they do not agree amongst themselves, and I did ob- serve, and argue from it, what he grants, though the other had denied it. But I never charge him with what the other had said. And, if he look it over again, he will find that I did not confront him, to shew thence a contradiction, with what the other had said ; but did confront what himself had said in his ten first pages with what he says in the other ten ; and it is manifest that, in the first ten, he acts the Socinian, and in tiie latter ten, the Arian ; but in whether of the twain he acts his own part it was not easy to determine, till he now tells us he is an Arian.
He had argued, (pages H, 14) that the Trinity
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are persons, as really, and as properly, and fully personally distinct as three angels, and each person, both Son and Holy Ghost by name, complete and entire in himself, with as complete personal distinc- tion as that in men and angels. From whence, when I inferred his owning the personahty of the Holy Ghost, he fearing, it seems, he had overshot himself, now tells us (page 4) just as much as becomes an Arian. But if he own him to be as much a person as a man, or angel is a person, it is as much, or perhaps more, than we need contend for in this point.
I had charged him also with misreciting me in many other things : as when I am introduced, very often, as talking of two Gods, three Gods, personal Gods, of adding several persons to our one God, and the like ; according as here also he says (page 7) that I say, you yourself own two Gods, and why may not I then three, when he knows very well this is not my language; nor is any thing of all this said by me. To this he now says, (page 5) it is true enough he doth so ; but that he doth it by inference. But he should then speak it as his inference, not cite it as my words.
I might have taken notice, amongst a great many gross mistakes, that where I had mentioned the lords