Chapter VIII: Part III: p. 59 (3)

But however he might be mistaken in his philosophy, he was not in his
divinity; for he asserts a numerical unity of the divine nature, not a
mere specific unity, which is nothing but a logical notion, nor a
collective unity, which is nothing but a company who are naturally
many: but a true subsisting numerical unity of nature; and if the
difficulty of explaining this, and his zeal to defend it, forced him
upon some unintelligible niceties, to prove that the same numerical
human nature too is but one in all men, it is hard to charge him with
teaching, that there are three independent and co-ordinate Gods,
because we think he has not proved that Peter, James, and John, are
but one man. This will make very foul work with the Fathers, if we
charge them with all those erroneous conceits about the Trinity, which
we can fancy in their inconvenient ways of explaining that venerable
mystery, especially when they compare that mysterious unity with any
natural unions.

So that after all this obscuration of the obscure, Sherlock ends by fairly throwing up his briefs, and yet calls out, "Not guilty! 'Victoria'!" And what is this but to say: These Fathers did indeed involve Tritheism in their mode of defending the Tri-personality; but they were not Tritheists:--though it would be far more accurate to say, that they were Tritheists, but not so as to make any practical breach of the Unity;--as if, for instance, Peter, James, and John had three silver tickets, by shewing one of which either or all three would have the same thing as if they had shewn all three tickets, and 'vice versa', all three tickets could produce no more than each one; each corresponding to the whole.

Ib.

I am sure St. Gregory was so far from suspecting that he should be
charged with Tritheism upon this account, that he fences against
another charge of mixing and confounding the 'Hypostases' or Persons,
by denying any difference or diversity of nature, [Greek: hôs ek tou
màe déchesthai tàen katà physin diaphoràn, míxin tina tôn hypostáseôn
kaì anakúklaesin kataskeúzonta], which argues that he thought he had
so fully asserted the unity of the divine essence, that some might
suspect he had left but one Person, as well as one nature in God.

This is just what I have said, p. 116. Whether Sabellianism or Tritheism, I observed is hard to determine. Extremes meet.

Ib. p. 121.

Secondly, to this 'homo-ousiotes' the Fathers added a numerical unity
of the divine essence. This Petavius has proved at large by numerous
testimonies, even from those very Fathers, whom he before accused for
making God only collectively one, as three men are one man; such as
Gregory Nyssen, St. Cyril, Maximus, Damascen; which is a
demonstration, that however 'he might mistake' their explication of
it, from the unity of human nature, they were far enough from
Tritheism, or one collective God.

This is most uncandid. Sherlock, even to be consistent with his own confession, § 1. p. 120, ought to have said, "However he might mistake their 'intention', in consequence of their inconvenient and unphilosophical explication;" which mistake, in fact, consisted in taking them at their word.

Ib.

Petavius greatly commends Boethius's explication of this mystery,
which is the very same he had before condemned in Gregory Nyssen, and
those other Fathers.--That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God,
not three Gods: 'hujus conjunctionis ratio est indifferentia': that
is, such a sameness of nature as admits of no difference or variety,
or an exact 'homo-ousiotes', as he explains it. * * Those make a
difference, who augment and diminish, as the Arians do; who
distinguish the Trinity into different natures, as well as Persons, of
different worth and excellency, and thus divide and multiply the
Trinity into a plurality of Gods. 'Principium enim pluralitatis
alteritas est. Præter alteritatem enim nec pluralitas quid sit
intelligi potest'.

Then if so, what becomes of the Persons? Have the Persons attributes distinct from their nature;--or does not their common nature constitute their common attributes? 'Principium enim, &c.'

Ib. p. 124.

That the Fathers universally acknowledged that the operation of the
whole Trinity, 'ad extra', is but one, Petavius has proved beyond all
contradiction; and hence they conclude the unity of the divine nature
and essence; for every nature has a virtue and energy of its own; for
nature is a principle of action, and if the energy and operation be
but one, there can be but one nature; and if there be two distinct and
divided operations, if either of them can act alone without the other,
there must be two divided natures.

Then it was not the Son but the whole Trinity that was crucified: for surely this was an operation 'ad extra'.

Ib. p. 126.

But to do St. Austin right, though he do not name this consciousness,
yet he explains this Trinity in Unity by examples of mutual
consciousness. I named one of his similitudes before, of the unity of
our understanding, memory, and will, 'which' are all conscious to each
other; that we remember what we understand and will; we understand
what we remember and will; and what we will we remember and
understand; and therefore all these three faculties do penetrate and
comprehend each other.

'Which'! The 'man' is self-conscious alike when he remembers, wills, and understands; but in what sense is the generic term "memory" conscious to the generic word "will?" This is mere nonsense. Are memory, understanding, and volition persons,--self-subsistents? If not, what are they to the purpose? Who doubts that Jehovah is consciously powerful, consciously wise, consciously good; and that it is the same Jehovah, who in being omnipotent, is good and wise; in being wise, omnipotent and good; in being good, is wise and omnipotent? But what has all this to do with a distinction of Persons? Instead of one Tri-unity we might have a mille-unity. The fact is, that Sherlock, and (for aught I know) Gregory Nyssen, had not the clear idea of the Trinity, positively; but only a negative Arianism.

Ib. p. 127.

He proceeds to shew that this unity is without all manner of confusion
and mixture, * * for the mind that loves, is in the love. * * * And
the knowledge of the mind which knows and loves itself, is in the
mind, and in its love, because it loves itself, knowing, and knows
itself loving: and thus also two are in each, for the mind which knows
and loves itself, with its knowledge is in love, and with its love is
in knowledge.

Then why do we make tri-personality in unity peculiar to God?

The doctrine of the Trinity (the foundation of all rational theology, no less than the precondition and ground of the rational possibility of the Christian Faith, that is, the Incarnation and Redemption), rests securely on the position,--that in man 'omni actioni præit sua propria passio; Deus autem est actus purissimus sine ulla potentialitate'. As the tune produced between the breeze and Eolian harp is not a self-subsistent, so neither memory, nor understanding, nor even love in man: for he is a passive as well as active being: he is a patible agent. But in God this is not so. Whatever is necessarily of him, (God of God, Light of Light), is necessarily all act; therefore necessarily self-subsistent, though not necessarily self-originated. This then is the true mystery, because the true unique; that the Son of God has origination without passion, that is, without ceasing to be a pure act: while a created entity is, as far as it is merely creaturely and distinguishable from the Creator, a mere 'passio' or recipient. This unicity we strive, not to 'express', for that is impossible; but to designate, by the nearest, though inadequate, analogy,--'Begotten'.

Ib. p. 133.

As for the Holy Ghost, whose nature is represented to be love, I do
not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said, that the Holy
Ghost is that mutual love, wherewith Father and Son love each other:
but this we know, that there is a mutual love between Father and Son:
'the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his
hands'.--John iii. 35. 'And the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him
all things that himself doeth'.-John v. 20; and our Saviour himself
tells us, 'I love the Father'.--John xiv. 31. And I shewed before,
that love is a distinct act, 'and therefore in God must be a person:
for there are no accidents nor faculties in God.'

This most important, nay, fundamental truth, so familiar to the elder philosophy, and so strongly and distinctly enunciated by Philo Judæus, the senior and contemporary of the Evangelists, is to our modern divines darkness and a sound.

Sect. VI. pp. 147-8.

Yes; you'll say, that there should be three Persons, each of which is
God, and yet but one God, is a contradiction: but what principle of
natural reason does it contradict?

Surely never did argument vertiginate more! I had just acceded to Sherlock's exposition of the Trinity, as the Supreme Being, his reflex act of self-consciousness and his love, all forming one supreme mind; and now he tells me, that each is the whole Supreme Mind, and denies that three, each 'per se' the whole God, are not the same as three Gods! I grant that division and separation are terms inapplicable, yet surely three distinct though undivided Gods, are three Gods. That the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are the one true God, I fully believe; but not Sherlock's exposition of the doctrine. Nay, I think it would have been far better to have worded the mystery thus:--The Father together with his Son and Spirit, is the one true God.

"Each 'per se' God." This is the [Greek: prôton méga pseudos] of Sherlock's scheme. Each of the three is whole God, because neither is, or can be 'per se'; the Father himself being 'a se', but not 'per se'.

Ib. p. 149.

For it is demonstrable that if there be three Persons and one God,
each Person must be God, and yet there cannot be three distinct Gods,
but one. For if each Person be not God, all three cannot be God,
unless the Godhead have Persons in it which are not God.

Three persons having the same nature are three persons;--and if to possess without limitation the divine nature, as opposed to the human, is what we mean by God, why then three such persons are three Gods, and will bethought so, till Gregory Nyssen can persuade us that John, James, and Peter, each possessing the human nature, are not three men. John is a man, James is a man, and Peter is a man: but they are not three men, but one man!

Ib. p. 150.

I affirm, that natural reason is not the rule and measure of
expounding Scripture, no more than it is of expounding any other
writing. The true and only way to interpret any writing, even the
Scriptures themselves, is to examine the use and propriety of words
and phrases, the connexion, scope, and design of the text, its
allusion to ancient customs and usages, or disputes. For there is no
other good reason to be given for any exposition, but that the words
signify so, and the circumstances of the place, and the apparent scope
of the writer require it.

This and the following paragraph are excellent. 'O si sic omnia'!

Ib. p. 153.

Reconcile men to the doctrine (of the Trinity), and the Scripture is
plain without any farther comment. This I have now endeavoured; and I
believe our adversaries will talk more sparingly of absurdities and
contradictions for the future, and they will lose the best argument
they have against the orthodox expositions of Scripture.

Good doctor! you sadly over-rated both your own powers, and the docility of your adversaries. If so clear a head and so zealous a Trinitarian as Dr. Waterland could not digest your exposition, or acquit it of Tritheism, little hope is there of finding the Unitarians more persuadable.

Ib. p. 154.

Though Christ be God himself, yet if there be three Persons in the
Godhead, the equality and sameness of nature does not destroy the
subordination of Persons: a Son is equal to his Father by nature, but
inferior to him as his Son: if the Father, as I have explained it, be
original mind and wisdom, the Son a personal, subsisting, but reflex
image of his Father's wisdom, though their eternal wisdom be equal and
the same, yet the original is superior to the image, the Father to the
Son.

But why? We men deem it so, because the image is but a shadow, and not equal to the original; but if it were the same in all perfections, how could that, which is exactly the same, be less? Again, God is all Being:--consequently there can nothing be added to the idea, except what implies a negation or diminution of it. If one and the same Being is equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead, but inferior as man; then it is + 'm-x', which is not = + 'm'. But of two men I may say, that they are equal to each other. A. = + courage-wisdom. B. = + wisdom-courage. Both wise and courageous; but A. inferior in wisdom, B. in courage. But God is all-perfect.

Ib. p. 156.

So born before all creatures, as [Greek: prôtótokos] also signifies,
'that by him were all things created'.

'All things were created by him, and for him, and he is before all
things', (which is the explication of [Greek: pôrtótokos pásaes
ktíseos], begotten before the whole creation', and therefore no part
of the creation himself.)

This is quite right. Our version should here be corrected. [Greek: Prôto] or [Greek: prótaton] is here an intense comparative,--'infinitely before'.

Ib. p. 159.

That he 'being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal
with God', &c.--Phil. ii. 8, 9.

I should be inclined to adopt an interpretation of the unusual phrase [Greek: hárpagmon] somewhat different both from the Socinian and the Church version:--"who being in the form of God did not 'think equality with God a thing to be seized with violence', but made, &c."

Ib. p. 160.

Is a mere creature a fit lieutenant or representative of God in
personal or prerogative acts of government and power? Must not every
being be represented by one of his own kind, a man by a man, an angel
by an angel, in such acts as are proper to their natures? and must not
God then be represented by one who is God? Is any creature capable of
the government of the world? Does not this require infinite wisdom and
infinite power? And can God communicate infinite wisdom and infinite
power to a creature or a finite nature? That is, can a creature be
made a true and essential God?

This is sound reasoning. It is to be regretted that Sherlock had not confined himself to logical comments on the Scripture, instead of attempting metaphysical solutions.

Ib. pp. 161-3.

I find little or nothing to 'object to' in this exposition, from pp. 161-163 inclusively, of 'Phil'. ii. 8, 9. And yet I seem to feel, as if a something that should have been prefixed, and to which all these considerations would have been excellent seconds, were missing. To explain the Cross by the necessity of sacrificial blood, and the sacrificial blood as a type and 'ante'-delegate or pre-substitute of the Cross, is too like an 'argumentum in circulo'.

Ib. p. 164.

And though Christ be the eternal Son of God, and the natural Lord and
heir of all things, yet 'God hath' in this 'highly exalted him' and
given 'him a name which is above every name, that at' (or in [Greek:
en]) 'the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven',
&c.--Phil. ii. 9, 10, 11.

Never was a sublime passage more debased than by this rendering of [Greek: en] by 'at', instead of 'in';--'at' the 'phenomenon', instead of 'in' the 'noumenon'. For such is the force of 'nomen', name, in this and similar passages, namely, 'in vera et substantiali potestate Jesu': that is, [Greek: en lógô kaì dià lógou], the true 'noumenon' or 'ens intelligibile' of Christ. To bow at hearing the 'cognomen' may become a universal, but it is still only a non-essential, consequence of the former. But the debasement of the idea is not the worst evil of this false rendering;--it has afforded the pretext and authority for un-Christian intolerance.

Ib. p. 168.

'The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the
Son'.--John v. 22. Should the Father judge the world he 'must' judge
as the maker and sovereign of the world, by the strict rules of
righteousness and justice, and then how could any sinner be saved?

(Why? Is mercy incompatible with righteousness? How then can the Son be righteous?)

But he has committed judgment to the Son, as a mediatory king, who
judges by the equity and chancery of the Gospel.

This article required exposition incomparably more than the simple doctrine of the Trinity, plain and evident 'simplici intuitu', and rendered obscure only by diverting the mental vision by terms drawn from matter and multitude. In the Trinity all the 'Hows'? may and should be answered by 'Look'! just as a wise tutor would do in stating the fact of a double or treble motion, as of a ball rolling north ward on the deck of a ship sailing south, while the earth is turning from west to east. And in like manner, that is, 'per intuitum intellectualem', must all the mysteries of faith be contemplated;--they are intelligible 'per se', not discursively and 'per analogiam'. For the truths are unique, and may have shadows and types, but no analogies. At this moment I have no intuition, no intellectual diagram, of this article of the commission of all judgment to the Son, and therefore a multitude of plausible objections present themselves, which I cannot solve--nor do I expect to solve them till by faith I see the thing itself.--Is not mercy an attribute of the Deity, as Deity, and not exclusively of the Person of the Son? And is not the authorizing another to judge by equity and mercy the same as judging so ourselves? If the Father can do the former, why not the latter?

Ib. p. 171.

And therefore now it is given him to have life in himself, as the
Father hath life in himself, as the original fountain of all life, by
whom the Son himself lives: all life is derived from God, either by
eternal generation, or procession, or creation; and thus Christ hath
life in himself also; to the new creation he is the fountain of life:
'he quickeneth whom he will'.

The truths which hitherto had been metaphysical, then began to be historical. The Eternal was to be manifested in time. Hence Christ came with signs and wonders; that is, the absolute, or the anterior to cause and effect, manifested itself as a 'phenomenon' in time, but with the predicates of eternity;--and this is the only possible definition of a miracle 'in re ipsa', and not merely 'ad hominem', or 'ad ignorantiam'.

Ib. p. 177.

His next argument consists in applying such things to the divinity of
our Saviour as belong to his humanity; 'that he increased in wisdom,
&c.:--that he knows not the day of judgment';--which he evidently
speaks of himself as man: as all the ancient Fathers confess. In St.
Mark it is said, 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no,
not the angels that are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father'.
St. Matthew does not mention the Son: 'Of that day and hour knoweth no
man, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only'.

How much more politic, as well as ingenuous, it had been to have acknowledged the difficulty of this text. So far from its being evident, the evidence would be on the Arian side, were it not that so many express texts determine us to the contrary.

Ib.

Which shows that the Son in St. Matthew is included in the [Greek:
oudeìs] none, or no man, and therefore concerns him only as a man: for
the Father 'includes the whole Trinity', and therefore includes the
Son, who seeth whatever his Father doth.

This is an 'argumentum in circulo', and 'petitio rei sub lite'. Why is he called the Son in 'antithesis' to the Father, if it meant, "no not the Christ, except in his character of the co-eternal Son, included in the Father?" If it "concerned him only as a man," why is he placed after the angels? Why called the 'Son' simply, instead of the Son of Man, or the Messiah?

Ib.

[Greek: Oudeìs] is not [Greek: oudeìs anthrôpôn], but, 'no one': as in
John i. 18. 'No one hath seen God at any time'; that is, he is by
essence invisible.

This most difficult text I have not seen explained satisfactorily. I have thought that the [Greek: ággeloi] must here be taken in the primary sense of the word, namely, as messengers, or missionary Prophets: Of this day knoweth no one, not the messengers or revealers of God's purposes now in heaven, no, not the Son, the greatest of Prophets,--that is, he in that character promised to declare all that in that character it was given to him to know.

Ib. p. 186.

When St. Paul calls the Father the One God, he expressly opposes it to
the many gods of the heathens. 'For though there be that are called
gods, &c. but to us, there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by
him': where the 'one God' and 'one Lord and Mediator' is opposed to
the many gods and many lords or mediators which were worshipped by the
heathens.

But surely the 'one Lord' is as much distinguished from the 'one God', as both are contradistinguished from the 'gods many and lords many' of the heathens. Besides 'the Father' is not the term used in that age in distinction from the gods that are no gods; but [Greek: Ho epì pántôn theós].

Ib. p. 222.

'The Word was with God'; that is, it was not yet in the world, or not
yet made flesh; but with God.--'John' i. 1. So that to be 'with God',
signifies nothing but not to be in the world.

_'The Word was with God.'_

Grotius does say, that this was opposed to the Word's being made
flesh, and appearing in the world: but he was far enough from thinking
that these words have only a negative sense: * * * for he tells us
what the positive sense is, that with God is [Greek: parà tô patrí],
with the Father, * * and explains it by what Wisdom says, 'Prov'. vii.
30. 'Then I was by him, &c.' which he does not think a 'prosopopoeia',
but spoken of a subsisting person.

But even this is scarcely tenable even as Greek. Had this been St. John's meaning, surely he would have said, [Greek: en theô], not [Greek: pròs tòn theón], in the nearest proximity that is not confusion. But it is strange, that Sherlock should not have seen that Grotius had a hankering toward Socinianism, but, like a 'shy cock', and a man of the world, was always ready to unsay what he had said.

[Footnote 1: A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God, occasioned by the Brief Notes on the Creed of St Athanasius, and the Brief History of the Unitarians, or Socinians. and containing an answer to both. By Wm. Sherlock, London. 8vo. 1690.]

[Footnote 2: The third General Council, that at Ephesus in 431, decreed

"that it should not be lawful for any man to publish or compose
another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene
Council."

Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON WATERLAND'S VINDICATION OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY. [1]

'In initio'.

It would be no easy matter to find a tolerably competent individual who more venerates the writings of Waterland than I do, and long have done. But still in how many pages do I not see reason to regret, that the total idea of the 4=3=1,--of the adorable Tetractys, eternally self-manifested in the Triad, Father, Son, and Spirit,--was never in its cloudless unity present to him. Hence both he and Bishop Bull too often treat it as a peculiarity of positive religion, which is to be cleared of all contradiction to reason, and then, thus negatively qualified, to be actually received by an act of the mere will; 'sit pro ratione voluntas'. Now, on the other hand, I affirm, that the article of the Trinity is religion, is reason, and its universal 'formula'; and that there neither is, nor can be, any religion, any reason, but what is, or is an expansion of the truth of the Trinity; in short, that all other pretended religions, pagan or 'pseudo'-Christian (for example, Sabellian, Arian, Socinian), are in themselves Atheism; though God forbid, that I should call or even think the men so denominated Atheists. I affirm a heresy often, but never dare denounce the holder a heretic.

On this ground only can it be made comprehensible, how any honest and commonly intelligent man can withstand the proofs and sound logic of Bull and Waterland, that they failed in the first place to present the idea itself of the great doctrine which they so ably advocated. Take my self, S.T.C. as a humble instance. I was never so befooled as to think that the author of the fourth Gospel, or that St. Paul, ever taught the Priestleyan Psilanthropism, or that Unitarianisn (presumptuously, nay, absurdly so called), was the doctrine of the New Testament generally. But during the sixteen months of my aberration from the Catholic Faith, I presumed that the tenets of the divinity of Christ, the Redemption, and the like, were irrational, and that what was contradictory to reason could not have been revealed by the Supreme Reason. As soon as I discovered that these doctrines were not only consistent with reason, but themselves very reason, I returned at once to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and to the Faith.

As to Dr. Samuel Clarke, the fact is, every generation has its one or more over-rated men. Clarke was such in the reign of George I.; Dr. Johnson eminently so in that of George III.; Lord Byron being the star now in the ascendant.

In every religious and moral use of the word, God, taken absolutely, that is, not as a God, or the God, but as God, a relativity, a distinction in kind 'ab omni quod non est Deus', is so essentially implied, that it is a matter of perfect indifference, whether we assert a world without God, or make God the world. The one is as truly Atheism as the other. In fact, for all moral and practical purposes they are the same position differently expressed; for whether I say, God is the world, or the world is God, the inevitable conclusion, the sense and import is, that there is no other God than the world, that is, there is no other meaning to the term God. Whatever you may mean by, or choose to believe of, the world, that and that alone you mean by, and believe of, God. Now I very much question whether in any other sense Atheism, that is, speculative Atheism, is possible. For even in the Lucretian, the coarsest and crudest scheme of the Epicurean doctrine, a hylozism, a potential life, is clearly implied, as also in the celebrated 'lene clinamen' becoming actual. Desperadoes articulating breath into a blasphemy of nonsense, to which they themselves attach no connected meaning, and the wickedness of which is alone intelligible, there may be; but a La Place, or a La Grand, would, and with justice, resent and repel the imputation of a belief in chance, or of a denial of law, order, and self-balancing life and power in the world. Their error is, that they make them the proper and underived attributes of the world. It follows then, that Pantheism is equivalent to Atheism, and that there is no other Atheism actually existing, or speculatively conceivable, but Pantheism. Now I hold it demonstrable that a consistent Socinianism, following its own consequences, must come to Pantheism, and in ungodding the Saviour must deify cats and dogs, fleas and frogs. There is, there can be, no 'medium' between the Catholic Faith of Trinal Unity, and Atheism disguised in the self-contradicting term, Pantheism;--for every thing God, and no God, are identical positions.

Query I. p. 1.

'The Word was God'.--John i. 1. 'I am the Lord, and there is none
else; there is no God besides me'.--Is. xiv. 5, &c.

In all these texts the 'was', or 'is', ought to be rendered positively, or objectively, and not as a mere connective: 'The Word Is God', and saith, 'I Am the Lord; there is no God besides me', the Supreme Being, 'Deitas objectiva'. The Father saith, 'I Am in that I am,--Deitas subjectiva'.

Ib. p. 2.

Whether all other beings, besides the one Supreme God, be not excluded
by the texts of Isaiah (to which many more might be added), and
consequently, whether Christ can be God at all, unless He be the same
with the Supreme God?

The sum of your answer to this query is, that the texts cited from
Isaiah, are spoken of one Person only, the Person of the Father, &c.

O most unhappy mistranslation of 'Hypostasis' by Person! The Word is properly the only Person.

Ib. p. 3.

Now, upon your hypothesis, we must add; that even the Son of God
himself, however divine he may be thought, is really no God at all in
any just and proper sense. He is no more than a nominal God, and
stands excluded with the rest. All worship of him, and reliance upon
him, will be idolatry, as much as the worship of angels, or men, or of
the gods of the heathen would be. God the Father he is God, and he
only, and 'him only shall thou serve'. This I take to be a clear
consequence from your principles, and unavoidable.

Waterland's argument is absolutely unanswerable by a worshipper of Christ. The modern 'ultra'-Socinian cuts the knot.

Query II. p. 43.

And therefore he might as justly bear the style and title of 'Lord
God, God of Abraham', &c. while he acted in that capacity, as he did
that of 'Mediator, Messiah, Son of the Father', &c. after that he
condescended to act in another, and to discover his personal relation.

And why, then, did not Dr. Waterland,--why did not his great predecessor in this glorious controversy, Bishop Bull,--contend for a revisal of our established version of the Bible, but especially of the New Testament? Either the unanimous belief and testimony of the first five or six centuries, grounded on the reiterated declarations of John and Paul, and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, were erroneous, or at best doubtful;--and then why not wipe them off; why these references to them?--or else they were, as I believe, and both Bull and Waterland believed, the very truth; and then why continue the translation of the Hebrew into English at second-hand through the 'medium' of the Septuagint? Have we not adopted the Hebrew word, Jehovah,? Is not the [Greek: Kyrios], or Lord, of the LXX. a Greek substitute, in countless instances, for the Hebrew Jehovah? Why not then restore the original word, and in the Old Testament religiously render Jehovah by Jehovah, and every text of the New Testament, referring to the Old, by the Hebrew word in the text referred to? Had this been done, Socinianism would have been scarcely possible in England.

Why was not this done?--I will tell you why. Because that great truth, in which are contained all treasures of all possible knowledge, was still opaque even to Bull and Waterland;--because the Idea itself--that 'Idea Idearum', the one substrative truth which is the form, manner, and involvent of all truths,--was never present to either of them in its entireness, unity, and transparency. They most ably vindicated the doctrine of the Trinity, negatively, against the charge of positive irrationality. With equal ability they shewed the contradictions, nay, the absurdities, involved in the rejection of the same by a professed Christian. They demonstrated the utterly un-Scriptural and contra-Scriptural nature of Arianism, and Sabellianism, and Socinianism. But the self-evidence of the great Truth, as a universal of the reason,--as the reason itself--as a light which revealed itself by its own essence as light--this they had not had vouchsafed to them.

Query XV. p. 225-6.

The pretence is, that we equivocate in talking of eternal generation.

All generation is necessarily [Greek: ánarchón ti], without dividuous beginning, and herein contradistinguished from creation.

Ib. p. 226.

True, it is not the same with human generation.

Not the same 'eodem modo', certainly; but it is so essentially the same that the generation of the Son of God is the transcendent, which gives to human generation its right to be so called. It is in the most proper, that is, the fontal, sense of the term, generation.

Ib.

You have not proved that all generation implies beginning; and what is
more, cannot.

It would be difficult to disprove the contrary. Generation with a beginning is not generation, but creation. Hence we may see how necessary it is that in all important controversies we should predefine the terms negatively, that is, exclude and preclude all that is not meant by them; and then the positive meaning, that is, what is meant by them, will be the easy result,--the post-definition, which is at once the real definition and impletion, the circumference and the area.

Ib. p. 227-8.

It is a usual thing with many, (moralists may account for it), when
they meet with a difficulty which they cannot readily answer,
immediately to conclude that the doctrine is false, and to run
directly into the opposite persuasion;--not considering that they may
meet with much more weighty objections there than before; or that they
may have reason sufficient to maintain and believe many things in
philosophy and divinity, though they cannot answer every question
which may be started, or every difficulty which may be raised against
them.

O, if Bull and Waterland had been first philosophers, and then divines, instead of being first, manacled, or say articled clerks of a guild;--if the clear free intuition of the truth had led them to the Article, and not the Article to the defence of it as not having been proved to be false,--how different would have been the result! Now we feel only the inconsistency of Arianism, not the truth of the doctrine attacked. Arianism is confuted, and in such a manner, that I will not reject the Catholic Faith upon the Arian's grounds. It may, I allow, be still true. But that it is true, because the Arians have hitherto failed to prove its falsehood, is no logical conclusion. The Unitarian may have better luck; or if he fail, the Deist.

Query XVI. p. 234.

But God's 'thoughts are not our thoughts'.

That is, as I would interpret the text;--the ideas in and by which God reveals himself to man are not the same with, and are not to be judged by, the conceptions which the human understanding generalizes from the notices of the senses, common to man and to irrational animals, dogs, elephants, beavers, and the like, endowed with the same senses. Therefore I regard this paragraph, p. 223-4, as a specimen of admirable special pleading 'ad hominem' in the Court of eristic Logic; but I condemn it as a wilful resignation or temporary self-deposition of the reason. I will not suppose what my reason declares to be no position at all, and therefore an impossible sub-position.

Ib. p. 235.

Let us keep to the terms we began with; lest by the changing of words
we make a change of ideas, and alter the very state of the question.

This misuse, or rather this 'omnium-gatherum' expansion and consequent extenuation of the word, Idea and Ideas, may be regarded as a calamity inflicted by Mr. Locke on the reigns of William III. Queen Anne, and the first two Georges.

Ib. p. 237.

Sacrifice was one instance of worship required under the Law; and it
is said;--'He that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord only,
he shall be utterly destroyed' (Exod. xxii. 20.) Now suppose any
person, considering with himself that only absolute and sovereign
sacrifice was appropriated to God by this law, should have gone and
sacrificed to other Gods, and have been convicted of it before the
judges. The apology he must have made for it, I suppose, must have run
thus: "Gentlemen, though I have sacrificed to other Gods, yet I hope
you'll observe, that I did it not absolutely: I meant not any absolute
or supreme sacrifice (which is all that the Law forbids), but relative
and inferior only. I regulated my intentions with all imaginable care,
and my esteem with the most critical exactness. I considered the other
Gods, whom I sacrificed to, as inferior only and infinitely so;
reserving all sovereign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel." This,
or the like apology must, I presume, have brought off the criminal
with some applause for his acuteness, if your principles be true.
Either you must allow this, or you must be content to say, that not
only absolute supreme sacrifice (if there be any sense in that
phrase), but all sacrifice was by the Law appropriate to God only, &c.
&c.

How was it possible for an Arian to answer this? But it was impossible; and Arianism was extinguished by Waterland, but in order to the increase of Socinianism; and this, I doubt not, Waterland foresaw. He was too wise a man to suppose that the exposure of the folly and falsehood of one form of Infidelism would cure or prevent Infidelity. Enough, that he made it more bare-faced--I might say, bare-breeched; for modern Unitarianism is verily the 'sans-culotterie' of religion.

Ib. p. 239.

You imagine that acts of religious worship are to derive their
signification and quality from the intention and meaning of the
worshippers: whereas the very reverse of it is the truth.

Truly excellent. Let the Church of England praise God for her Saints--a more glorious Kalendar than Rome can show!

Ib. p. 251.

The sum then of the case is this: If the Son could be included as
being uncreated, and very God; as Creator, Sustainer, Preserver of all
things, and one with the Father; then he might be worshipped upon
their (the Ante-Nicene Fathers') principles, but otherwise could not.

Every where in this invaluable writer I have to regret the absence of all distinct idea of the I Am as the proper attribute of the Father; and hence, the ignorance of the proper Jehovaism of the Son; and hence, that while we worship the Son together with the Father, we nevertheless pray to the Father only through the Son.

Query XVII.

And we may never be able perfectly to comprehend the relations of the
three persons, 'ad intra', amongst themselves; the ineffable order and
economy of the ever-blessed co-eternal Trinity.

"Comprehend!" No. For how can any spiritual truth be comprehended? Who can comprehend his own will; or his own personeity, that is, his I-ship (Ichheit'); or his own mind, that is, his person; or his own life? But we can distinctly apprehend them. In strictness, the Idea, God, like all other ideas rightly so called, and as contradistinguished from conception, is not so properly above, as alien from, comprehension. It is like smelling a sound.

Query XVIII. p. 269.

From what hath been observed, it may appear sufficiently that the
divine [Greek: Lógos] was our King and our God long before; that he
had the same claim and title to religious worship that the Father
himself had--'only not so distinctly revealed'.

Here I differ 'toto orbe' from Waterland, and say with Luther and Zinzendorf, that before the Baptism of John the 'Logos' alone had been distinctly revealed, and that first in Christ he declared himself a Son, namely, the co-eternal only-begotten Son, and thus revealed the Father. Indeed the want of the Idea of the 1=3 could alone have prevented Waterland from inferring this from his own query II. and the texts cited by him pp. 28-38. The Father cannot be revealed except in and through the Son, his eternal 'exegesis'. The contrary position is an absurdity. The Supreme Will, indeed, the Absolute Good, knoweth himself as the Father: but the act of self-affirmation, the I Am in that I Am, is not a manifestation 'ad extra', not an 'exegesis'.

Ib. p. 274.

This point being settled, I might allow you that, in some sense,
distinct worship commenced with the distinct title of Son or Redeemer:
that is, our blessed Lord was then first worshipped, or commanded to
be worshipped by us, under that distinct title or character; having
before had no other title or character peculiar and proper to himself,
but only what was common to the Father and him too.

Rather shall I say that the Son and the Spirit, the Word and the Wisdom, were alone worshipped, because alone revealed under the Law. See Proverbs, i. ii.

The passage quoted from Bishop Bull is very plausible and very eloquent; but only 'cum multis granis salis sumend'.

Query XIX. p. 279.

That the Father, whose honour had been sufficiently secured under the
Jewish dispensation, and could not but be so under the Christian also,
&c.

Here again! This contradiction of Waterland to his own principles is continually recurring;--yea, and in one place he involves the very Tritheism, of which he was so victorious an antagonist, namely, that the Father is Jehovah, the Son Jehovah, and the Spirit Jehovah;--thus making Jehovah either a mere synonyme of God--whereas he himself rightly renders it [Greek: Ho Ôn], which St. John every where, and St. Paul no less, makes the peculiar name of the Son, [Greek: monogenàes uhiòs, ho ôn eis tòn kólpon tou patrós]--; or he affirms the same absurdity, as if had said: The Father is the Son, and the Son is the Son, and the Holy Ghost is the Son, and yet there are not three Sons but one Son. N. B. [Greek: Ho òn] is the verbal noun of [Greek: hos esti], not of [Greek: egô eimí]. It is strange how little use has been made of that profound and most pregnant text, 'John' i. 18!

Query XX. p. 302.

The [Greek: homooúsion] itself might have been spared, at least out of
the Creeds, had not a fraudulent abuse of good words brought matters
to that pass, that the Catholic Faith was in danger of being lost even
under Catholic language.

Most assuredly the very 'disputable' rendering of [Greek: homoousion] by consubstantial, or of one substance with, not only might have been spared, but should have been superseded. Why not--as is felt to be for the interest of science in all the physical sciences--retain the same term in all languages? Why not 'usia' and homoüsial, as well as 'hypostasis', hypostatic, homogeneous, heterogeneous, and the like;--or as Baptism, Eucharist, Liturgy, Epiphany and the rest?

Query XXI. p. 303.

The Doctor's insinuating from the 300 texts, which style the Father
God absolutely, or the one God, that the Son is not strictly and
essentially God, not one God with the Father, is a strained and remote
inference of his own.

Waterland has weakened his argument by seeming to admit that in all these 300 texts the Father, 'distinctive', is meant.

Ib. p. 316-17.

The simplicity of God is another mystery. * * When we come to inquire
whether all extension, or all plurality, diversity, composition of
substance and accident, and the like, be consistent with it, then it
is we discover how confused and inadequate our ideas are. * * To this
head belongs that perplexing question (beset with difficulties on all
sides), whether the divine substance be extended or no.

Surely, the far larger part of these assumed difficulties rests on a misapplication either of the senses to the sense, or of the sense to the understanding, or of the understanding to the reason;--in short, on an asking for images where only theorems can be, or requiring theorems for thoughts, that is, conceptions or notions, or lastly, conceptions for ideas.

Query XXIII. p. 351.

But taking advantage of the ambiguity of the word 'hypostasis',
sometimes used to signify substance, and sometimes person, you
contrive a fallacy.

And why did not Waterland lift up his voice against this mischievous abuse of the term 'hypostasis', and the perversion of its Latin rendering, 'substantia' as being equivalent to [Greek: ousía]? Why [Greek: ousía] should not have been rendered by 'essentia', I cannot conceive. 'Est' seems a contraction of 'esset', and 'ens' of 'essens': [Greek: ôn, ousa, ousía] = 'essens, essentis, essentia'.

Ib. p. 354.

Let me desire you not to give so great a loose to your fancy in divine
things: you seem to consider every thing under the notion of extension
and sensible images.

Very true. The whole delusion of the Anti-Trinitarians arises out of this, that they apply the property of imaginable matter--in which A. is, that is, can only be imagined, by exclusion of B. as the universal predicate of all substantial being.

Ib. p. 357.

And our English Unitarians * * have been still refining upon the
Socinian scheme, * * and have brought it still nearer to Sabellianism.

The Sabellian and the Unitarian seem to differ only in this;--that what the Sabellian calls union with, the Unitarian calls full inspiration by, the Divinity.

Ib. p. 359.

It is obvious, at first sight, that the true Arian or Semi-Arian
scheme (which you would be thought to come up to at least) can never
tolerably support itself without taking in the Catholic principle of a
human soul to join with the Word.

Here comes one of the consequences of the Cartesian Dualism: as if [Greek: sàrx], the living body, could be or exist without a soul, or a human living body without a human soul! [Greek: Sàrx] is not Greek for carrion, nor [Greek: sôma] for carcase.

Query XXIV. p. 371.

Necessary existence is an essential character, and belongs equally to
Father and Son.

Subsistent in themselves are Father, Son and Spirit: the Father only has origin in himself.

Query XXVI. p. 412.

The words [Greek: ouch hôs genómenon] he construes thus: "not as
eternally generated," as if he had read [Greek: gennômenon], supplying
[Greek: aïdíôs] by imagination. The sense and meaning of the word
[Greek: genómenon], signifying made, or created, is so fixed and
certain in this author, &c.

This is but one of fifty instances in which the true Englishing of [Greek: genómenos, egéneto], &c. would have prevented all mistake. It is not 'made', but 'became'. Thus here:--begotten eternally, and not as one that became; that is, as not having been before. The only-begotten Son never 'became'; but all things 'became' through him.

Ib. 412.

'Et nos etiam Sermoni atque Rationi, itemque Virtuti, per quæ omnia
molitum Deum ediximus, propriam substantiam Spiritum inscribimus; cui
et Sermo insit prænuntianti, et Ratio adsit disponenti, et Virtus
perficienti. Hunc ex Deo prolatum didicimus, et prolatione generatum,
et idcirco Filium Dei et Deum dictum ex unitate substantiæ'.--Tertull.
Apol. c. 21.

How strange and crude the realism of the Christian Faith appears in Tertullian's rugged Latin!

Ib. p. 414.

He represents Tertullian as making the Son, in his highest capacity,
ignorant of the day of judgment.

Of the true sense of the text, Mark xiii. 32., I still remain in doubt; but, though as zealous and stedfast a Homoüsian as Bull and Waterland themselves, I am inclined to understand it of the Son in his highest capacity; but I would avoid the inferiorizing consequences by a stricter rendering of the [Greek: ei màe ho Patáer]. The [Greek: monon] of St. Matthew xxiv. 36. is here omitted. I think Waterland's a very unsatisfying solution of this text.

Ib. p. 415.

'Exclamans quod se Deus reliquisset, &c. Habes ipsum exclamantem in
passione, Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti? Sed hæc vox
carnis et animæ, id est, hominis; nec Sermonis, nec Spiritus',
&c.--Tertull. Adv. Prax. c. 26. c. 30.

The ignorance of the Fathers, and, Origen excepted, of the Ante-Nicene Fathers in particular, in all that respects Hebrew learning and the New Testament references to the Old Testament, is shown in this so early fantastic misinterpretation grounded on the fact of our Lord's reminding, and as it were giving out aloud to John and Mary the twenty-second Psalm, the prediction of his present sufferings and after glory. But the entire passage in Tertullian, though no proof of his Arianism, is full of proofs of his want of insight into the true sense of the Scripture texts. Indeed without detracting from the inestimable services of the Fathers from Tertullian to Augustine respecting the fundamental article of the Christian Faith, yet commencing from the fifth century, I dare claim for the Reformed Church of England the honorable name of [Greek: archaspistàes] of Trinitarianism, and the foremost rank among the Churches, Roman or Protestant: the learned Romanist divines themselves admit this, and make a merit of the reluctance with which they nevertheless admit it, in respect of Bishop Bull. [2]

Ib. p. 421.

It seems to me that if there be not reasons of conscience obliging a
good man to speak out, there are always reasons of prudence which
should make a wise man hold his tongue.

True, and as happily expressed. To this, however, the honest Anti-Trinitarian must come at last: "Well, well, I admit that John and Paul thought differently; but this remains my opinion."

Query XXVII. p. 427.

[Greek: Ton alaethinòn kaì óntôs ónta Theòn, tòn tou Christou patéra].
--Athanas. Cont. Gent.

The just and literal rendering of the passage is this: 'The true God
who in reality is such, namely, the Father of Christ.'

The passage admits of a somewhat different interpretation from this of Waterland's, and of equal, if not greater, force against the Arian notion: namely, taking [Greek: tòn óntôs ónta] distinctively from [Greek: ho ôn]--the 'Ens omnis entitatis, etiam suæ', that is, the I Am the Father, in distinction from the 'Ens Supremum', the Son. It cannot, however, be denied that in changing the 'formula' of the 'Tetractys' into the 'Trias', by merging the 'Prothesis' in the 'Thesis', the Identity in the Ipseity, the Christian Fathers subjected their exposition to many inconveniences.

Ib. p. 432.

[Greek: Ouch ho poiaetàes tôn hólôn éstai Theòs ho tô Môsei eipôn
autòn einai Theòn Abraàm, kaì Theòn Isaàk, kaì Theòn Iakôb].--Justin
Mart. Dial. p. 180.

The meaning is, that that divine Person, who called himself God, and
was God, was not the Person of the Father, whose ordinary character is
that of maker of all things, but another divine Person, namely, God
the Son. * * It was Justin's business to shew that there was a divine
Person, one who was God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and was not the
Father; and therefore there were two divine Persons.

At all events, it was a very incautious expression on the part of Justin, though his meaning was, doubtless, that which Waterland gives. The same most improper, or at best, most inconvenient because equivocal phrase, has been, as I think, interpolated into our Apostles' Creed.

Ib. p. 436.

[Greek: Taeroito d' àn, hôs ho emòs lógos, ehis mèn Theòs, eis hèn
aítion kaì Ghiou kaì Pneúmatos anapheroménôn. k.t.l.]--Greg. Naz.
Orat. 29.

We may, as I conceive, preserve (the doctrine of) one God, by
referring both the Son and Holy Ghost to one cause, &c.

Another instance of the inconvenience of the Trias compared with the Tetractys.

[Footnote 1: A Vindication of Christ's Divinity: being a defence of some queries relating to Dr. Clarke's scheme of the Holy Trinity, &c. By Daniel Waterland. 2nd edit. Cambridge, 1719. Ed.]

[Footnote 2:

'Y sino ahí está el Doctor Jorge Bull Profesor de Teología, y
Presbitero de la Iglesia Anglicana, que murió Obispo de San David el
año de 1716, cuyas obras teologico--escolasticas, en folio, nada deben
á las mas alambicadas que se han estampado en Salamanca y en Coimbra;
y como los puntos que por la mayor parte trató en ellas son sobre los
misterios capitales de nuestra Santa Fé, conviene á saber, sobre el
misterio de la Trinidad, y sobre el de la Divinidad de Cristo, en los
cuales su Pseudaiglesia Anglicana no se desvia de la Catolica, en
verdad, que los manejó con tanto nervio y con tanta delicadeza, que
los teologos ortodojos mas escolastizados, como si dijéramos
electrizados, hacen grande estimacion de dichas obras. Y aun en los
dos Tratados que escribió acerca de la Justification, que es punto mas
resvaladizo, en los principios que abrazó, no se separó de los
teologos Catolicos; pero en algunas consecuencias que infirio, ya dió
bastantemente á entender la mala leche que habia mamado.'

Fray. Gerundio. ii. 7. Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON WATERLAND'S IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY.[1]

Chap. I. p. 18.