Chapter VII: Part III: p. 59 (2)

In this elementary world, light being (as we hear,) the first visible,
all things are seen by it, and it by itself. Thus is Christ, among
spiritual things, in the elect world of his Church; all things are
'made manifest by the light', says the Apostle, 'Eph'. v. 13, speaking
of Christ as the following verse doth evidently testify. It is in his
word that he shines, and makes it a directing and convincing light, to
discover all things that concern his Church and himself, to be known
by its own brightness. How impertinent then is that question so much
tossed by the Romish Church, "How know you the Scriptures (say they)
to be the word of God, without the testimony of the Church?" I would
ask one of them again, How they can know that it is daylight, except
some light a candle to let them see it? They are little versed in
Scripture that know not that it is frequently called light; and they
are senseless that know not that light is seen and known by itself.
'If our Gospel be hid', says the Apostle, 'it is hid to them that
perish': the god of this world having blinded their minds against the
light of the glorious Gospel, no wonder if such stand in need of a
testimony. A blind man knows not that it is light at noon-day, but by
report: but to those that have eyes, light is seen by itself.

On the true test of the Scriptures. Oh! were it not for my manifold infirmities, whereby I am so all unlike the white-robed Leighton, I could almost conceit that my soul had been an emanation from his! So many and so remarkable are the coincidences, and these in parts of his works that I could not have seen--and so uniform the congruity of the whole. As I read, I seem to myself to be only thinking my own thoughts over again, now in the same and now in a different order.

Ib. p. 68.

The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls him (Christ) [Greek:
apaúgasma], 'the brightness of his Father's glory, and the character
of his person', (i. 3.) And under these expressions lies that
remarkable mystery of the Son's eternal relation to the Father, which
is rather humbly to be adored, than boldly to be explained, either by
God's perfect understanding of his own essence, or by any other
notion.

Certainly not by a transfer of a notion, and this too a notion of a faculty itself but notional and limitary, to the Supreme Reality. But there are ideas which are of higher origin than the notions of the understanding, and by the irradiation of which the understanding itself becomes a human understanding. Of such 'veritates verificæ' Leighton himself in other words speaks often. Surely, there must have been an intelligible propriety in the terms, 'Logos', Word, 'Begotten before all creation',--an adequate idea or 'icon', or the Evangelists and Apostolic penmen would not have adopted them. They did not invent the terms; but took them and used them as they were taken and applied by Philo and both the Greek and Oriental sages. Nay, the precise and orthodox, yet frequent, use of these terms by Philo, and by the Jewish authors of that traditionalæ wisdom,--degraded in after times, but which in its purest parts existed long before the Christian æra,--is the strongest extrinsic argument against the Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians, in proof that St. John must have meant to deceive his readers, if he did not use them in the known and received sense. To a Materialist indeed, or to those who deny all knowledges not resolvable into notices from the five senses, these terms as applied to spiritual beings must appear inexplicable or senseless. But so must spirit. To me, (why do I say to me?) to Bull, to Waterland, to Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Athanasius, Augustine, the terms, Word and generation, have appeared admirably, yea, most awfully pregnant and appropriate;--but still as the language of those who know that they are placed with their backs to substances--and which therefore they can name only from the correspondent shadows--yet not (God forbid!) as if the substances were the same as the shadows;--which yet Leighton supposed in this his censure,--for if he did not, he then censures himself and a number of his most beautiful passages. These, and two or three other sentences,--slips of human infirmity,--are useful in reminding me that Leighton's works are not inspired Scripture.

'Postscript'.

On a second consideration of this passage, and a revisal of my marginal animadversion--yet how dare I apply such a word to a passage written by a minister of Christ so clearly under the especial light of the divine grace as was Archbishop Leighton?--I am inclined to think that Leighton confined his censure to the attempts to "explain" the Trinity,--and this by "notions,"--and not to the assertion of the adorable acts implied in the terms both of the Evangelists and Apostles, and of the Church before as well as after Christ's ascension; nor to the assent of the pure reason to the truths, and more than assent to, the affirmation of the ideas.

Ib. p. 73.

This fifth Sermon, excellent in parts, is yet on the whole the least excellent of Leighton's works,--and breathes less of either his own character as a man, or the character of his religious philosophy. The style too is in many places below Leighton's ordinary style--in some places even turbid, operose, and catechrestic;--for example,--"to trample on smilings with one foot and on frownings with the other."

Ib. p. 77. Serm. VI.

Leighton, I presume, was acquainted with the Hebrew Language, but he does not appear to have studied it much. His observation on the 'heart', as used in the Old Testament, shews that he did not know that the ancient Hebrews supposed the heart to be the seat of intellect, and therefore used it exactly as we use the head.

Ib. p. 104. Serm. VII.

This seventh Sermon is admirable throughout, Leighton throughout. O what a contrast might be presented by publishing some discourse of some Court divine, (South for instance,) preached under the same state of affairs, and printing the two in columns!

Ib. p. 107. Serm. VIII.

In all love three things are necessary; some goodness in the object,
either true and real, or apparent and seeming to be so; for the soul,
be it ever so evil, can affect nothing but which it takes in some way
to be good.

This assertion in these words has been so often made, from Plato's times to ours, that even wise men repeat it without perhaps much examination whether it be not equivocal--or rather (I suspect) true only in that sense in which it would amount to nothing--nothing to the purpose at least. This is to be regretted--for it is a mischievous equivoque, to make 'good' a synonyme of 'pleasant,' or even the 'genus' of which pleasure is a 'species'. It is a grievous mistake to say, that bad men seek pleasure because it is good. No! like children they call it good because it is pleasant. Even the useful must derive its meaning from the good, not 'vice versa'.

Postscript.

The lines in p. 107, noted by me, are one of a myriad instances to prove how rash it is to quote single sentences or assertions from the correctest writers, without collating them with the known system or express convictions of the author. It would be easy to cite fifty passages from Archbishop Leighton's works in direct contradiction to the sentence in question--which he had learnt in the schools when a lad, and afterwards had heard and met with so often that he was not aware that he had never sifted its real purport. This eighth Sermon is another most admirable discourse.

Ib. Serm. IX. p. 12.

The reasonable creature, it is true, hath more liberty in its actions,
freely choosing one thing and rejecting another; yet it cannot be
denied, that in acting of that liberty, their choice and refusal
[A] follow the sway of their nature and condition.

[A] I would fain substitute for 'follow,' the words, 'are most often determined, and always affected, by.' I do not deny that the will follows the nature; but then the nature itself is a will.

Ib.

As the angels and glorified souls, (their nature being perfectly holy
and unalterably such,) they cannot sin; they can delight in nothing
but obeying and praising that God, in the enjoyment of whom their
happiness consisteth.

If angels be other than spirits made perfect, or, as Leighton writes, "glorified souls,"--the "unalterable by nature" seems to me rashly asserted.

Ib.

The mind, [Greek: phrónaema]. Some render it the prudence or wisdom of
the flesh. Here you have it, the carnal mind; but the word signifies,
indeed, an act of the mind, rather than either the faculty itself, or
the habit of prudence in it, so as it discovers what is the frame of
both those.

I doubt. [Greek: Phrónaema] signifies an act: and so far I agree with Leighton. But [Greek: phrónaema sarkòs] is 'the flesh' (that is, the natural man,) in the act or habitude of minding--but those acts, taken collectively, are the faculty--the understanding.

How often have I found reason to regret, that Leighton had not clearly made out to himself the diversity of reason and the understanding!

Ib. Serm. XV. p. 196.

A narrow enthralled heart, fettered with the love of lower things, and
cleaving to some particular sins, or but some one, and that secret,
may keep foot a while in the way of God's commandments, in some steps
of them; but it must give up quickly, is not able to run on to the end
of the goal.

One of the blessed privileges of the spiritual man (and such Leighton was,) is a piercing insight into the diseases of which he himself is clear. [Greek: Eléaeson Kyrie!]

Ib. Serm. XVI. p. 204.

Know you not that the redeemed of Christ and He are one? They live one
life, Christ lives in them, and if 'any man hath not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of his', as the Apostle declares in this chapter.
So then this we are plainly to tell you, and consider it; you that
will not let go your sins to lay hold on Christ, have as yet no share
in him.

But on the other side: the truth is, that when souls are once set upon
this search, they commonly wind the notion too high, and subtilize too
much in the dispute, and so entangle and perplex themselves, and drive
themselves further off from that comfort that they are seeking after;
such measures and marks they set to themselves for their rule and
standard; and unless they find those without all controversy in
themselves, they will not believe that they have an interest in
Christ, and this blessed and safe estate in him.

To such I would only say, Are you in a willing league with any known
sin? &c.

An admirable antidote for such as, too sober and sincere to pass off feverous sensations for spiritualities, have been perplexed by Wesley's assertions--that a certainty of having been elected is an indispensable mark of election. Whitfield's ultra-Calvinism is Gospel gentleness and Pauline sobriety compared with Wesley's Arminianism in the outset of his career. But the main and most noticeable difference between Leighton and the modern Methodists is to be found in the uniform selfishness of the latter. Not "Do you wish to love God?" "Do you love your neighbour?" "Do you think, 'O how dear and lovely must Christ be!'"--but--"Are you certain that Christ has saved 'you'; that he died for 'you--you--you --yourself'?" on to the end of the chapter. This is Wesley's doctrine.

Lecture IX. vol. IV. p. 96.

For that this was his fixed purpose, Lucretius not only vows, but also
boasts of it, and loads him (Epicurus) with ill-advised praises, for
endeavouring through the whole course of his philosophy to free the
minds of men from all the bonds and ties of religion.

But surely in this passage 'religio' must be rendered superstition, the most effectual means for the removal of which Epicurus supposed himself to have found in the exclusion of the 'gods many and lords many', from their imagined agency in all the 'phænomena' of nature and the events of history, substituting for these the belief in fixed laws, having in themselves their evidence and necessity. On this account, in this passage at least, Lucretius praises his master.

Ib. p. 105.

They always seemed to me to act a very ridiculous part, who contend,
that the effect of the divine decree is absolutely irreconcilable with
human liberty; because the natural and necessary liberty of a rational
creature is to act or choose from a rational motive, or spontaneously,
and of purpose: but who sees not, that, on the supposition of the most
absolute decree, this liberty is not taken away, but rather
established and confirmed? For the decree is, 'that such an one shall
make choice of, or do some particular thing freely. And whoever
pretends to deny, that whatever is done or chosen, whether good or
indifferent, is so done or chosen, or, at least, may be so, espouses
an absurdity.'

I fear, I fear, that this is a sophism not worthy of Archbishop Leighton. It seems to me tantamount to saying--"I force that man to do so or so without my forcing him." But however that may be, the following sentences are more precious than diamonds. They are divine.

Ib. Lect. XI. p. 113.

For that this world, compounded of so many and such heterogeneous
parts, should proceed, by way of natural and necessary emanation, from
that one first, present, and most simple nature, nobody, I imagine,
could believe, or in the least suspect * * *. But if he produced all
these things freely, * * how much more consistent is it to believe,
that this was done in time, than to imagine it was from eternity!

It is inconceivable how any thing can be created in time; and production is incompatible with interspace.

Ib. Lect. XV. p. 152.

The Platonists divide the world into two, the sensible and
intellectual world * * *. According to this hypothesis, those parables
and metaphors, which are often taken from natural things to illustrate
such as are divine, will not be similitudes taken entirely at
pleasure; but are often, in a great measure, founded in nature, and
the things themselves.

I have asserted the same thing, and more fully shown wherein the difference consists of symbolic and metaphorical, in my first Lay Sermon; and the substantial correspondence of the genuine Platonic doctrine and logic with those of Lord Bacon, in my Essays on Method, in the Friend. [2]

Ib. Lect. XIX. p. 201.

Even the philosophers give their testimony to this truth, and their
sentiments on the subject are not altogether to be rejected; for they
almost unanimously are agreed, that felicity, so far as it can be
enjoyed in this life, consists solely, or at least principally, in
virtue: but as to their assertion, that this virtue is perfect in a
perfect life, it is rather expressing what were to be wished, than
describing things as they are.

And why are the philosophers to be judged according to a different rule? On what ground can it be asserted that the Stoics believed in the actual existence of their God-like perfection in any individual? or that they meant more than this--"To no man can the name of the Wise be given in its absolute sense, who is not perfect even as his Father in heaven is perfect!"

Ib. Lect. XXI. p. 225.

In like manner, if we suppose God to be the first of all beings, we
must, unavoidably, therefrom conclude his unity. As to the ineffable
Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery discovered only by the
Sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, where it is more
clearly revealed than in the Old, let others boldly pry into it, if
they please, while we receive it with our humble faith, and think it
sufficient for us to admire and adore.

But surely it having been revealed to us, we may venture to say,--that a positive unity, so far from excluding, implies plurality, and that the Godhead is a fulness, [Greek: plaeroma].

Ib. Lect. XXIV. p. 245.

Ask yourselves, therefore, 'what you would be at', and with what
dispositions you come to this most sacred table?

In an age of colloquial idioms, when to write in a loose slang had become a mark of loyalty, this is the only L'Estrange vulgarism I have met with in Leighton.

Ib. Exhortation to the Students, p. 252.

Study to acquire such a philosophy as is not barren and babbling, but
solid and true; not such a one as floats upon the surface of endless
verbal controversies, but one that enters into the nature of things;
for he spoke good sense that said, "The philosophy of the Greeks was a
mere jargon, and noise of words."

If so, then so is all philosophy: for what system is there, the elements and outlines of which are not to be found in the Greek schools? Here Leighton followed too incautiously the Fathers.

[Footnote 1: Works of Leighton, 4 vols. 8vo. London 1819. Ed.]

[Footnote 2: 'Statesman's Manual', p. 230. 2nd edit. Friend, III. 3d edit. Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON SHERLOCK'S VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. [1]

Sect. I. p. 3.

Some new philosophers will tell you that the notion of a spirit or an
immaterial substance is a contradiction; for by substance they
understand nothing but matter, and then an immaterial substance is
immaterial matter, that is, matter and no matter, which is a
contradiction; but yet this does not prove an immaterial substance to
be a contradiction, unless they could first prove that there is no
substance but matter; and that they cannot conceive any other
substance but matter, does not prove that there is no other.

Certainly not: but if not only they, but Dr. Sherlock himself and all mankind, are incapable of attaching any sense to the term substance, but that of matter,--then for us it would be a contradiction, or a groundless assertion. Thus: By 'substance' I do not mean the only notion we can attach to the word; but a somewhat, I know not what, may, for aught I know, not be contradictory to spirit! Why should we use the equivocal word, 'substance' (after all but an 'ens logicum'), instead of the definite term 'self-subsistent?' We are equally conscious of mind, and of that which we call 'body;' and the only possible philosophical questions are these three:

1. Are they co-ordinate as agent and re-agent;

2. Or is the one subordinate to the other, as effect to cause, and which is the cause or ground, which the effect or product;

3. Or are they co-ordinate, but not inter-dependent, that is, 'per harmonium præstabilitam'.

Ib. p. 4.

Now so far as we understand the nature of any being, we can certainly
tell what is contrary and contradictious to its nature; as that
accidents should subsist without 'their subject', &c.

That accidents should subsist (rather, exist) without a subject, may be a contradiction, but not that they exist without this or that subject. The words 'their subject' are 'a petitio principii'.

Ib.

These and such like are the manifest absurdities and contradictions of
Transubstantiation; and we know that they are so, because we know the
nature of a body, &c.

Indeed! Were I either Romanist or Unitarian, I should desire no better than the admission of body having an 'esse' not in the 'percipi', and really subsisting, ([Greek: autò tò chraema]) as the supporter of its accidents. At all events, the Romanist, declaring the accidents to be those ordinarily impressed on the senses ([Greek: tà phaínomena kaì aísthaeta]) by bread and wine, does at the same time declare the flesh and blood not to be the [Greek: phaínomena kaì aísthaeta] so called, but the [Greek: noúmena kaì autà tà chráemata]. There is therefore no contradiction in the terms, however reasonless the doctrine may be, and however unnecessary the interpretation on which it is pretended. I confess, had I been in Luther's place, I would not have rested so much of my quarrel with the Papists on this point; nor can I agree with our Arminian divines in their ridicule of Transubstantiation. The most rational doctrine is perhaps, for some purposes, at least, the 'rem credimus, modum nescimus'; next to that, the doctrine of the Sacramentaries, that it is 'signum sub rei nomine', as when we call a portrait of Caius, Caius. But of all the remainder, Impanation, Consubstantiation, and the like, I confess that I should prefer the Transubstantiation of the Pontifical doctors.

Ib. p. 6.

The proof of this comes to this one point, that we may have sufficient
evidence of the being of a thing whose nature we cannot conceive and
comprehend: he who will not own this, contradicts the sense and
experience of mankind; and he who confesses this, and yet rejects the
belief of that which he has good evidence for, merely because he
cannot conceive it, is a very absurd and senseless infidel.

Here again, though a zealous believer of the truth asserted, I must object to the Bishop's logic. None but the weakest men have objected to the Tri-unity merely because the 'modus' is above their comprehension: for so is the influence of thought on muscular motion; so is life itself; so in short is every first truth of necessity; for to comprehend a thing, is to know its antecedent and consequent. But they affirm that it is against their reason. Besides, there seems an equivocation in the use of 'comprehend' and 'conceive' in the same meaning. When a man tells me, that his will can lift his arm, I conceive his meaning; though I do not comprehend the fact, I understand 'him'. But the Socinians say;--We do not understand 'you'. We cannot attach to the word 'God,' more than three possible meanings; either,

1. A person, or self-conscious being;

2. Or a thing;

3. Or a quality, property, or attribute.

If you take the first, then you admit the contradiction; if either of the latter two, you have not three Persons and one God, but three Persons having equal shares in one thing, or three with the same attributes, that is, three Gods. Sherlock does not meet this.

Let me repeat the difficulty, if possible, more clearly. The argument of the philosophic Unitarians, as Wissowatius, who, mistaken as they were, are not to be confounded with their degenerate successors, the Priestleyans and Belshamites, may be thus expressed. By the term, God, we can only conceive you to suppose one or other of three meanings.

1. Either you understand by it a person, in the common sense of an intelligent or self-conscious being;--or,

2. a thing with its qualities and properties;--or,

3. certain powers and attributes, comprised under the word nature.

If we suppose the first, the contradiction is manifest, and you yourselves admit it, and therefore forbid us so to interpret your words. For if by God you mean Person, then three Persons and one God, would be the same as three Persons and one Person. If we take the second as your meaning, as an infinite thing is an absurdity, we have three finite Gods, like Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, who shared the universe between them. If the latter, we have three Persons with the same attributes; --and if a Person with infinite attributes be what we mean by God, then we have either three Gods, or involve the contradiction above mentioned. It is unphilosophic, by admission of all philosophers, they add, to multiply causes beyond the necessity. Now if there are three Persons of infinite and the same attributes, dismiss two, and you lose nothing but a numerical phantom."

The answer to this must commence by a denial of the premisses 'in toto': and this both Bull and Waterland have done most successfully. But I very much doubt, whether Sherlock on his principles could have evaded the Unitarian logic. In fact it is scarcely possible to acquit him altogether of a 'quasi-Tritheism'.

Sect. II. p. 13.

'For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge
every Person by himself to be God and Lord';--

(That is, by especial revelation.)

'So are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There are three
Gods, or three Lords.'

That is, by the religion contained in, and given in accompaniment with, the universal reason, 'the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world'.

Ib. p. 14.

This Creed (Athanasian) does not pretend to explain how there are
three Persons, each of which is God, and yet but One God, (of which
more hereafter,) but only asserts the thing, that thus it is, and thus
it must be if we believe a Trinity in Unity; which should make all
men, who would be thought neither Arians nor Socinians, more cautious
how they express the least dislike of the Athanasian Creed, which must
either argue, that they condemn it, before they understand it, or that
they have some secret dislike to the doctrine of the Trinity.

The dislike commonly felt is not of the doctrine of the Trinity, but of the positive anathematic assertion of the everlasting perdition of all and of each who doubt the same;--an assertion deduced from Scripture only by a train of captious consequences, and equivocations. Thus, A.: "I honour and admire Caius for his great learning." B.: "The knowledge of the Sanscrit is an important article in Caius's learning." A.: "I have been often in his company, and have found no reason for believing this." B.: "O! then you deny his learning, are envious, and Caius's enemy." A.: "God forbid! I love and admire him. I know him for a transcendant linguist in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and modern European languages;--and with or without the Sanscrit, I look up to him, and rely on his erudition in all cases, in which I am concerned. And it is this perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that is the appointed criterion of Caius's friends and disciples, and not their full acquaintance with each and all particulars of his superiority." Thus without Christ, or in any other power but that of Christ, and (subjectively) of faith in Christ, no man can be saved; but does it follow, that no man can have Christian faith who is ignorant or erroneous as to any one point of Christian theology? Will a soul be condemned to everlasting perdition for want of logical 'acumen' in the perception of consequences?--If he verily embrace Christ as his Redeemer, and unfeignedly feel in himself the necessity of Redemption, he implicitly holds the Divinity of Christ, whatever from want or defect of logic may be his notion 'explicite'.

Ib. p. 18.

'But the whole three Persons are co-eternal, and co-equal'. And yet
this we must acknowledge to be true, if we acknowledge all three
Persons to be eternal, for in eternity there can be no 'afore, or
after other'.

It must, however, be considered as a serious defect in a Creed, if excluding subordination, without mentioning any particular form, it gives no hint of any other form in which it admits it. The only 'minus' admitted by the Athanasian Creed is the inferiority of Christ's Humanity to the Divinity generally; but both Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach a subordination of the Son to the Father, independent of the Incarnation of the Son. Now this is not inserted, and therefore the denial in the assertion 'none is greater or less than another', is universal, and a plain contradiction of Christ speaking of Himself as the co-eternal Son; 'My Father is greater than I'. Speaking of himself as the co-eternal Son, I say;--for how superfluous would it have been, a truism how unworthy of our Lord, to have said in effect, that "a creature is less than God!" And after all, Creeds assuredly are not to be imposed 'ad libitum'--a new Creed, or at least a new form and choice of articles and expressions, at the pleasure of individuals. Now where is the authority of the Athanasian Creed? In what consists its necessity? If it be the same as the Nicene, why not be content with the Nicene? If it differs, how dare we retain both? [2] If the Athanasian does not say more or different, but only differs by omission of a necessary article, then to impose it, is as absurd as to force a mutilated copy on one who has already the perfect original. Lastly, it is not enough that an abstract contains nothing which may not by a chain of consequences be deduced from the books of the Evangelists and Apostles, in order for it to be a Creed for the whole Christian Church. For a Creed is or ought to be a 'syllepsis' of those primary fundamental truths that are, as it were, the starting-post, from which the Christian must commence his progression. The full-grown Christian needs no other Creed than the Scriptures themselves. Highly valuable is the Nicene Creed; but it has its chief value as an historical document, proving that the same texts in Scripture received the same interpretation, while the Greek was a living language, as now.

Sect. III. p. 23.

If what he says is true: 'He that errs in a question of faith, after
having used reasonable diligence to be rightly informed, is in no
fault at all'; how comes an atheist, or an infidel, a Turk, or a Jew,
to be in any fault? Does our author think that no atheist or infidel,
no unbelieving Jew or heathen, ever used reasonable diligence to be
rightly informed? * * * If you say, he confines this to such points as
have always been controverted in the churches of God, I desire to know
a reason why he thus confines it? For does not his reason equally
extend to the Christian Faith itself, as to those points which have
been controverted in Christian Churches?

And the Notary might ask in his turn: "Do you believe that the Christians either of the Greek or of the Western Church will be damned, according as the truth may be respecting the procession of the Holy Ghost? or that either the Sacramentary or the Lutheran? or again, the Consubstantiationist, or the Transubstantiationist? If not, why do you stop here? Whence this sudden palsy in the limbs of your charity? Again, does this eternal damnation of the individual depend on the supposed importance of the article denied? Or on the moral state of the individual, on the inward source of this denial? And lastly, who authorized either you, or the pseudo-Athanasius, to interpret Catholic faith by belief, arising out of the apparent predominance of the grounds for, over those against, the truth of the positions asserted; much more, by belief as a mere passive acquiescence of the understanding? Were all damned who died during the period when 'totus fere mundus factus est Arianus', as one of the Fathers admits? Alas! alas! how long will it be ere Christians take the plain middle road between intolerance and indifference, by adopting the literal sense and Scriptural import of heresy, that is, wilful error, or belief originating in some perversion of the will; and of heretics, (for such there are, nay, even orthodox heretics), that is, men wilfully unconscious of their own wilfulness, in their limpet-like adhesion to a favourite tenet?"

Ib. p. 26.

All Christians must confess, that there is no other name given under
heaven whereby men can be saved, but only the name of Christ.

Now this is a most awful question, on which depends whether Christ was more than Socrates; for to bring God from heaven to reproclaim the Ten Commandments, is 'too too' ridiculous. Need I say I incline to Sherlock? But yet I cannot give to faith the meaning he does, though I give it all, and more than all, the power. But if that Name, as power, saved the Jewish Church before they knew the Name, as name, how much more now, if only the will be not guiltily averse? Any miracle does in kind as truly bring God from heaven as the Incarnation, which the Socinians wholly forget, as in other points. They receive without scruple what they have learned without examination, and then transfer to the first article which they do look into, all the difficulties that belong equally to the former: as the Simonidean doubts concerning God to the Trinity, and the like.

Ib. p. 27.

The Eclectic Neo-Platonists (Sallustius and others,) justified their Polytheism on much the same pretext as is in fact involved in the language of this page; [Greek: polloì mèn en dè mia theótaeti]. This indeed seems to me decisive in favour of Waterland's scheme against this of Sherlock's;--namely, that in the latter we find no sufficient reason why in the nature of things this intermutual consciousness might not be possessed by thirty instead of three. It seems a strange confounding [Greek: hetéron genéôn] to answer, "True; but the latter only happens to be the fact!"--just as if we were speaking of the number of persons in the Privy Council.

Ib. p. 28.

'Notes'. By keeping this faith 'whole and undefiled', must be meant
that a man should believe and profess it without adding to it or
taking from it. * * * First, for adding. What if an honest plain man,
because he is a Christian and a Protestant, should think it necessary
to add this article to the Athanasian Creed;--'I believe the Holy
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a divine, infallible and
complete rule both for faith and manners'. I hope no Protestant would
think a man damned for such addition; and if so, then this Creed of
Athanasius is at least an unnecessary rule of faith.

'Answer'. That is to say, it is an addition to the Catholic Faith to
own the Scriptures to be the rule of faith; as if it were an addition
to the laws of England to own the original records of them in the
Tower.

This Notary manages his cause most weakly, and Sherlock 'fibs' him like a scientific pugilist. But he himself exposes weak parts, as in p. 27. The objection to the Athanasian Creed urged by better men than the Notary, yea, by divines not less orthodox than Sherlock himself, is this: not that this Creed adds to the Scriptures, but that it adds to the original 'Symbolum Fidei', the 'Regula', the 'Canon', by which, according to the greater number of the 'ante'-Nicene Fathers, the books of the New Testament were themselves tried and determined to be Scripture. Now this 'Symbolum' was to bring together all that must be believed, even by the babes in faith, or to what purpose was it made? Now, say they, the Nicene Creed is really nothing more than a verbal explication of the common Creed, but the clause in the Athanasian ('which faith', &c.), however fairly deduced from Scripture, is not contained in the Creed, or selection of certain articles of Faith from the Scriptures, or not at least from those preachings and narrations, of which the New Testament Scriptures are the repository. Might not a Papist plead equally in support of the Creed of Pope Pius: "The new articles are deduced from Scripture; that is, in our opinion, and that most expressly in our Lord's several and solemn addresses to St. Peter." So again Sherlock's answer to this paragraph from the Notes is evasive,--for it is very possible, nay, it is, and has been the case, that a man may believe in the facts and doctrines contained in the New Testament, and yet not believe the Holy Scripture to be either divine, infallible, or complete.

Sect. IV. p. 50.

We know not what the substance of an infinite mind is, nor how such
substances as have no parts or extension can touch each other, or be
thus externally united; but we know the unity of a mind or spirit
reaches as far as its self-consciousness does, for that is one spirit,
which knows and feels itself, and its own thoughts and motions, and if
we mean this by 'circum-incession', three persons thus intimate to
each other are numerically one.

The question still returns; have these three infinite minds, at once self-conscious and conscious of each other's consciousness, always the very same thoughts? If so, this mutual consciousness is unmeaning, or derivative; and the three do not cease to be three because they are three sames. If not, then there is Tritheism evidently.

Ib. p. 64.

St. Paul tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 10. 'That the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea the deep things of God'. So that the Holy Spirit knows all
that is in God, even his most deep and secret counsels, which is an
argument that he is very intimate with him; but this is not all: it is
the manner of knowing, which must prove this consciousness of which I
speak: and that the Apostle adds in the next verse, that the Spirit of
God knows all that is in God, just as the spirit of a man knows all
that is in man: that is, not by external revelation or communication
of this knowledge, but by self-consciousness, by an internal
sensation, which is owing to an essential unity. 'For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him; even so
the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.'

It would be interesting, if it were feasible, to point out the epoch at which the text mode of arguing in polemic controversy became predominant; I mean by single texts without any modification by the context. I suspect that it commenced, or rather that it first became the fashion, under the Dort or systematic theologians, and during the so called Quinquarticular Controversy. This quotation from St. Paul is a striking instance:--for St. Paul is speaking of the holy spirit of which true spiritual Christians are partakers, and by which or in which those Christians are enabled to search all things, even the deep things of God. No person is here spoken of, but reference is made to the philosophic principle, that can only act immediately, that is, interpenetratively, as two globules of quicksilver, and co-adunatively. Now, perceiving and knowing were considered as immediate acts relatively to the objects perceived and known:--'ergo', the 'principium sciendi' must be one (that is, homogeneous or consubstantial) with the 'principium essendi quoad objectum cognitum'. In order therefore for a man to understand, or even to know of, God, he must have a god-like spirit communicated to him, wherewith, as with an inward eye, which is both eye and light, he sees the spiritual truths. Now I have no objection to his calling this spirit a 'person,' if only the term 'person' be so understood as to permit of its being partaken of by all spiritual creatures, as light and the power of vision are partaken of by all seeing ones. But it is too evident that Sherlock supposes the Father, as Father, to possess a spirit, that is, an intellective faculty, by which he knows the Spirit, that is, the third co-equal Person; and that this Spirit, the Person, has a spirit, that is, an intellective faculty, by which he knows the Father; and the 'Logos' in like manner relatively to both. So too, the Father has a 'logos' with which he distinguishes the 'Logos';--and the 'Logos' has a 'logos', and so on: that is to say, there are three several though not severed triune Gods, each being the same position three times 'realiter positum', as three guineas from the same mint, supposing them to differ no more than they appear to us to differ;--but whether a difference wholly and exclusively numerical is a conceivable notion, except under the predicament of space and time; whether it be not absurd to affirm it, where interspace and interval cannot be affirmed without absurdity--this is the question; or rather it is no question.

Ib. p. 68.

Nor do we divide the substance, but unite these three Persons in one
numerical essence: for we know nothing of the unity of the mind, but
self-consciousness, as I showed before; and therefore as the
self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct
Persons, so the mutual consciousness of all three divine Persons to
each other makes them all but one infinite God: as far as
consciousness reaches, so far the unity of a spirit extends, for we
know no other unity of a mind or spirit, but consciousness.

But this contradicts the preceding paragraph, in which the Father is self-conscious that he is the Father and not the Son, and the Son that he is not the Father, and that the Father is not he. Now how can the Son's being conscious that the Father is conscious that he is not the Son, constitute a numerical unity? And wherein can such a consciousness as that attributed to the Son differ from absolute certainty? Is not God conscious of every thought of man;--and would Sherlock allow me to deduce the unity of the divine consciousness with the human? Sherlock's is doubtless a very plain and intelligible account of three Gods in the most absolute intimacy with each other, so that they are all as one; but by no means of three persons that are one God. I do not wonder that Waterland and the other followers of Bull were alarmed.

Ib. p. 72.

Even among men it is only knowledge that is power. Human power, and
human knowledge, as that signifies a knowledge how to do anything, are
commensurate; whatever human skill extends to, human power can effect:
nay, every man can do what he knows how to do, if he has proper
instruments and materials to do it with.

This proves that perfect knowledge supposes perfect power: and that they are one and the same. "If he have proper instruments:"--does not this show that the means are supposed co-present with the knowledge, not the same with it?

Ib.

For it is nothing but thought which moves our bodies, and all the
members of them, which are the immediate instruments of all human
force and power: excepting mechanical motions which do not depend upon
our wills, such as the motion of the heart, the circulation of the
blood, the concoction of our meat and the like. All voluntary motions
are not only directed but caused by thought: and so indeed it must be,
or there could be no motion in the world; for matter cannot move
itself, and therefore some mind must be the first mover, which makes
it very plain, that infinite truth and wisdom is infinite and almighty
power.

Even this, though not ill-conceived, is inaccurately expressed.

Ib. p. 81.

There is no contradiction that three infinite minds should be
absolutely perfect in wisdom, goodness, justice and power; for these
are perfections which may be in more than one, as three men may all
know the same things, and be equally just and good: but three such
minds cannot be absolutely perfect without being mutually conscious to
each other, as they are to themselves.

Will any man in his senses affirm, that my knowledge is increased by saying "all" three times following? Is it not mere repetition in time? If the Son has thoughts which the Father, as the Father, could not have but for his interpenetration of the Son's consciousness, then I can understand it; but then these are not three Absolutes, but three modes of perfection constituting one Absolute; and by what right Sherlock could call the one Father, more than the other, I cannot see.

Ib. p. 88.

And yet if we consider these three divine Persons as containing each
other in themselves, and essentially one by a mutual consciousness,
this pretended contradiction vanishes: for then the Father is the one
true God, because the Father has the Son and the Holy Spirit in
himself: and the Son may he called the one true God, because the Son
has the Father and the Holy Ghost in himself, &c.

Nay, this is to my understanding three Gods, and Sherlock seems to have brought in the material phantom of a thing or substance.

Ib. p. 97.

But if these three distinct Persons are not separated, but essentially
united unto one, each of them may be God, and all three but one God:
for if these three Persons,--each of whom [Greek: monadikôs], as it is
in the Creed, singly by himself, not separately from the other divine
Persons, is God and Lord, are essentially united into one, there can
be but one God and one Lord; and how each of these persons is God, and
all of them but one God, by their mutual consciousness, I have already
explained.

--"That is,--if the three Persons are not three;"--so might the Arian answer, unless Sherlock had shown the difference of separate and distinct relatively to mind. "For what other separation can be conceived in mind but distinction? Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:--and if this be called separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons? Can it be conceived other than as the result of imperfection, that is, finiteness?

Ib. p. 98.

Thus each Divine Person is God, and all of them but the same one God;
as I explained it before.

O no! asserted it.

Ib. p. 98-9.

This one supreme God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a Trinity in
Unity, three Persons and one God. Now Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
with all their divine attributes and perfections (excepting their
personal properties, which the Schools call the 'modi subsistendi',
that one is the Father, the other the Son, and the other the Holy
Ghost, which cannot be communicated to each other) are whole and
entire in each Person by a mutual consciousness; each feels the other
Persons in himself, all their essential wisdom, power, goodness,
justice, as he feels himself, and this makes them essentially one, as
I have proved at large.

Will not the Arian object, "You admit the 'modus subsistendi' to be a divine perfection, and you affirm that it is incommunicable. Does it not follow therefore, that there are perfections which the All-perfect does not possess?" This would not apply to Bishop Bull or Waterland.

Sect. V. p. 102.

St. Austin in his sixth book of the Trinity takes notice of a common
argument used by the orthodox fathers against the Arians, to prove the
co-eternity of the Son with the Father, that if the Son be the Wisdom
and Power of God, as St. Paul teaches (1 'Cor'. i.) and God was never
without his Wisdom and Power, the Son must he co-eternal with the
Father. * * * But this acute Father discovers a great inconvenience in
this argument, for it forces us to say that the Father is not wise,
but by that Wisdom which he begot, not being himself Wisdom as the
Father: and then we must consider whether the Son himself, as he is
God of God, and Light of Light, may be said to be Wisdom of Wisdom, if
God the Father be not Wisdom, but only begets Wisdom.

The proper answer to Augustine is, that the Son and Holy Ghost are necessary and essential, not contingent: and that 'his' argument has a still greater inconvenience, as shewn in note p. 98.

Ib. pp. 110-113.

But what makes St. Gregory dispute thus nicely, and oppose the common
and ordinary forms of speech? Did he in good earnest believe that
there is but one man in the world? No, no! he acknowledged as many men
as we do; a great multitude who had the same human nature, and that
every one who had a human nature was an individual man, distinguished
and divided from all other individuals of the same nature. What makes
him so zealous then against saying, that Peter, James and John are
three men? Only this; that he says man is the name of nature, and
therefore to say there are three men is the same as to say, there are
three human natures of a different kind; for if there are three human
natures, they must differ from each other, or they cannot be three;
and so you deny Peter, James, and John to be [Greek: homooúsioi], or
of the same nature; and for the same reason we must say that though
the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet there are
not three Gods, but [Greek: mía theótaes], one Godhead and Divinity.

Sherlock struggles in vain, in my opinion at least, to clear these Fathers of egregious logomachy, whatever may have been the soundness of their faith, spite of the quibbles by which they endeavoured to evince its rationality. The very change of the terms is suspicious. "Yes! we might say three Gods" (it would be answered,) "as we say and ought to say three men: for man and humanity, [Greek: ánthropôs] and [Greek: ánthrôpótaes] are not the same terms;--so if the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, there would be three Gods, though not [Greek: treis theótaetes],--that is, three Godheads."

Ib. p. 115-16.

Gregory Nyssen tells us that [Greek: theòs] is [Greek: theatàes] and
[Greek: éphoros], the inspector and governor of the world, that is, it
is a name of energy, operation and power; and if this virtue, energy,
and operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then they are but one God, but one power
and energy. * * * The Father does nothing by himself, nor the Son by
himself, nor the Holy Ghost by himself; but the whole energy and
operation of the Deity relating to creatures begins with the Father,
passes to the Son, and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit; the
Holy Spirit does not act anything separately; there are not three
distinct operations, as there are three Persons, [Greek: allà mìa tìs
gínetai agathou Bouláematos kínaesis kaì diakósmaesis];--but one
motion and disposition of the good will, which passes through the
whole Trinity from Father to Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and this is
done [Greek: achrónos kaì adiarétôs], without any distance of time, or
propagating the motion from one to the other, but by one thought, as
it is in one numerical mind and spirit, and therefore, though they are
three Persons, they are but one numerical power and energy.

But this is either Tritheism or Sabellianism; it is hard to say which. Either the [Greek: Boúlaema] subsists in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and not merely passes through them, and then there would be three numerical [Greek: Bouláemata], as well as three numerical Persons: 'ergo', [Greek: treis theoì àe theataí] (according to Gregory Nyssen's shallow and disprovable etymology), which would be Tritheism: or [Greek: hén ti gínetai Boúlaema], and then the Son and Holy Ghost are but terms of relation, which is Sabellianism. But in fact this Gregory and the others were Tritheists in the mode of their conception, though they did not wish to be so, and refused even to believe themselves such.

Gregory Nyssen, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus and Damascen were charged with "a kind of Tritheism" by Petavius and Dr. Cudworth, who, according to Sherlock, have "mistaken their meaning." See pp. 106-9, of this "Vindication."

Ib. p. 117.

For I leave any man to judge, whether this [Greek: mía kínaesis
Bouláematos], this one single motion of will, which is in the same
instant in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, can signify anything else but
a mutual consciousness, which makes them numerically one, and as
intimate to each other, as every man is to himself, as I have already
explained it.

Is not God conscious to all my thoughts, though I am not conscious of God's? Would Sherlock endure that I should infer: 'ergo', God is numerically one with me, though I am not numerically one with God? I have never seen, but greatly wish to see, Waterland's controversial tracts against Sherlock. Again: according to Sherlock's conception, it would seem to follow that we ought to make a triad of triads, or an ennead.

1. Father--Son--Holy Ghost. 2. Son--Father--Holy Ghost. 3. Holy Ghost--Son--Father.

Else there is an 'x' in the Father which is not in the Son, a 'y' in the Son which is not in the Father, and a 'z' in the Holy Ghost which is in neither: that is, each by himself is not total God.

Ib. p. 120.