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wide of the purpose, to prove what nobody denies,
namely, a subordination, in some sense, of the Son to
the Father; could he have found but one plain text
against his eternity or consubstantiality, the points in
question?
QUERY XXI.
211
Whether he be not forced to supply his want of Scripture-
proof by very strained and remote inferences, and very
uncertain reasonings from the nature of a thing con-
fessedly obscure and above comprehension; and yet not
more so than God's eternity, ubiquity, prescience, or
other attributes, which we are obliged to acknowledge for
certain truths?
QUERY XXII.
214
Whether his (the Doctor's) whole performance, whenever
he differs from us, be any thing more than a repetition of
this assertion, that being and person are the same, or
that there is no medium between Tritheism and Sabel-
lianism? Which is removing the cause from Scripture to
natural reason, not very consistently with the title of his
book.
QUERY XXIII.
230
Whether the Doctor's notion of the Trinity be more clear
and intelligible than the other?
The difficulty in the conception of the Trinity is, how three
Persons can be one God.
Does the Doctor deny that every one of the Persons, singly,
is God? No: Does he deny that God is one? No: How
then are three one?
Does one and the same authority, exercised by all, make
them one, numerically or individually one and the same
God? That is hard to conceive how three distinct Beings,
according to the Doctor's scheme, can be individually one
God, that is, three Persons one Person.
If therefore one God necessarily signifies but one Person, the
consequence is irresistible; either that the Father is that
one Person, and none else, which is downright Sabel-
lianism; or that the three Persons are three Gods.
Thus the Doctor's scheme is liable to the same difficulties
with the other.
There is indeed one easy way of coming off, and that is, by
saying that the Son and Holy Spirit are neither of them
God, in the Scripture-sense of the word. But this is
cutting the knot, instead of untying it; and is in effect
to say, they are not set forth as divine Persons in Scrip-
ture.
Does the communication of divine powers and attributes
from Father to Son and Holy Spirit, make them one
God, the divinity of the two latter being the Father's
divinity? Yet the same difficulty recurs; for either the
Son and Holy Ghost have distinct attributes, and a dis-
tinct divinity of their own, or they have not: if they
have, they are (upon the Doctor's principle) distinct God's
from the Father, and as much as finite from infinite,
creature from Creator; and then how are they one? If
they have not, then, since they have no other divinity, but
that individual divinity, and those attributes which are
inseparable from the Father's essence, they can have no
distinct essence from the Father's; and so (according to
the Doctor) will be one and the same Person, that is, will
be names only.
Q. Whether this be not as unintelligible as the orthodox
notion of the Trinity, and liable to the like difficulties: a
communication of divine powers and attributes, without
the substance, being as hard to conceive, nay, much harder,
than a communication of both together?
QUERY XXIV.
243
Whether Gal. iv. 8. may not be enough to determine the dis-
pute betwixt us; since it obliged the Doctor to confess,
that Christ is by nature truly God, as truly as man is
by nature truly man?
He equivocates, indeed, there, as usual. For, he will have
it to signify that Christ is God by nature, only as having,
by that nature which he derives from the Father, true
divine power and dominion: that is, he is truly God by
nature, as having a nature distinct from, and inferior to
God's, wanting & the most essential character of God,
self-existence. What is this but trifling with words, and
playing fast and loose?
QUERY XXV.
262
Whether it be not clear from all the genuine remains of
antiquity, that the Catholic Church before the Council of
Nice, and even from the beginning, did believe the eter-
nity and consubstantiality of the Son; if either the oldest
creeds, as interpreted by those that recite them; or the
testimonies of the earliest writers, or the public censures
passed upon heretics, or particular passages of the ancient-
est Fathers, can amount to a proof of a thing of this na-
ture?
QUERY XXVI.
268
Whether the Doctor did not equivocate or prevaricate
strangely, in saying, h" The generality of writers before
"the Council of Nice were, in the whole, clearly on his
"side:" when it is manifest, they were, in the general,
no farther on his side, than the allowing a subordination
amounts to; no farther than our own Church is on his
side, while in the main points of difference, the ETERNITY
and CONSUBSTANTIALITY, they are clearly against
him? that is, they were on his side, so far as we acknow-
ledge him to be right, but no farther.
QUERY XXVII.
276
Whether the learned Doctor may not reasonably be sup-
f Reply, p. 81.
* Ibid. p. 92.
h Answer to Dr. Wells, p. 28.
posed to say, the Fathers are on his side, with the same
meaning and reserve as he pretends our Church forms
to favour him; that is, provided he may interpret as he
pleases, and make them speak his sense, however contra-
dictory to their own: and whether the true reason, why
he does not care to admit the testimonies of the Fathers as
proofs, may not be, because they are against him? 299
QUERY XXVIII.
Whether it be at all probable, that the primitive Church
should mistake in so material a point as this is; or that
the whole stream of Christian writers should mistake in
telling us what the sense of the Church was; and whe-
ther such a cloud of witnesses can be set aside without
weakening the only proof we have of the canon of Scrip-
ture, and the integrity of the sacred text?
QUERY XXIX.
323
Whether private reasoning, in a matter above our compre-
hension, be a safer rule to go by, than the general sense
and judgment of the primitive Church, in the first three
hundred years; or, supposing it doubtful what the sense
of the Church was within that time, whether what was
determined by a council of three hundred bishops soon
after, with the greatest care and deliberation, and has
satisfied men of the greatest sense, piety, and learning,
all over the Christian world, for one thousand four hun-
dred years since, may not satisfy wise and good men
now?
326
QUERY XXX.
Whether, supposing the case doubtful, it be not a wise
man's part to take the safer side; rather to think too
highly, than too meanly of our blessed Saviour; rather
to pay a modest deference to the judgment of the ancient
and modern Church, than to lean to one's own under-
standing? 336
QUERY XXXI.
Whether any thing less than clear and evident demonstra-
tion, on the side of Arianism, ought to move a wise and
good man, against so great appearances of truth on the
side of orthodoxy, from Scripture, reason, and anti-
quity; and whether we may not wait long before we
find such demonstration?
Postscript to the first edition.
340
347