"order, and expressed an equality or inequality of orderP. "Are not things come to a fine pass, if the prime foun"dation of religion, the first and great commandment, is "to be ludicrously placed on such a quicksand as this?" P. 33. The reader, I suppose, is pretty well acquainted with this gentleman's manner, before this time, that I have the less need to take notice of his affecting big swelling words, and his running out into extravagant exclamations on very slight occasions. It is his unhappiness, that he never knows where to stop, nor how to be moderate in any thing. It is ludicrous indeed for him to pretend a zeal for the first and great commandment, while he is preaching up two Gods, and is a friend to creature-worship: but that I mention by the way only. As to the point in hand; had I made any mistake in a very nice part of the controversy, he might have borne it with temper, as I have many and great ones of his, where there was less excuse for them. To come to the business: he will not find it easy to confute a very plain thing, that coordination and subordination strictly and properly respect order, (to say nothing here what the order respects,) as much as contemporary or coeval respects time or age, collateral place, concomitant company; or as any other word of like nature bears a signification suitable to its etymology, and to the analogy of speech. Against this he objects, that a "coordination or subor"dination of mere order is exactly the same manner of speaking, as a coequality or inequality of equalitŷ :” which happens to be a blunder. For as coequality and equality are the same, in this case, the expression to answer a coequality or inequality of equality would be this; a coordination or subordination of coordination; which is not my expression, nor any thing like my sense. What order, abstractedly considered, may signify, or what in this P Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 94. particular case, are questions which may come in presently. But in the mean while it is evident, that there is no solecism nor impropriety, but truth and accuracy too, in saying that coordination and subordination respect order; not dominion, not dignity, &c. as this author pretends; unless all order implies dominion, as it certainly does not. Order is a general word, and is sometimes determined to a particular meaning by what it is joined with: as order of time, order of situation, order of dignity, order of nature, order of conception, order of existence, order of causality, order of dominion, and the like. But then order is also frequently used simply and absolutely, without any thing farther to determine or specify its signification: and thus it hath been anciently 4, as well as in later times, made use of in our present subject. Thus far then, I hope, it may be very excusable to use the word order in this subject simply and absolutely. If any word is to be put to it, to make the sense more special, I admit order of conception, with Tertullian'; or order of existence, as the Son exists. of and from the Father: which may be likewise called order of causality, in the old sense of causality respecting emanative necessary causes. That I did not use the word 4 Λέγοντας Θεὸν πατέρα, καὶ εἶὸν Θεὸν, καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιον, δεικνύντας αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν ἐν τῇ ἑνώσει δύναμιν, καὶ τὴν ἐν τῇ τάξει διαίρεσιν, Athenag. Legat. cap. 10. Ὁ υἱὸς τάξει μὲν δεύτερος τοῦ πατρὸς, ὅτι ἀπ' ἐκείνου· καὶ ἀξιώματι ὅτι ἀρχὴ καὶ αἰτία, τῷ, εἶναι αὐτοῦ πατέρα, καὶ ὅτι δι' αὐτῇ ἡ πρόσοδος καὶ προσαγωγὴ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν καὶ πατέρα· φύσει δὲ οὐκέτι δεύτερος, διότι ἡ θεότης ἐν ἑκατέρῳ μία. Basil. contr. Eunom. lib. iii. p. 272. ed. Bened. See my Second Defence, in relation to this passage, vol. iii. p. 332, 454, 464, 465. Ἔστι τι τάξεως εἶδος, οὐκ ἐκ παρ' ἡμῶν θέσεως συνιστάμενον, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτῇ τῇ κατὰ φύσιν ἀκολουθία συμβαῖνον, ὡς τῷ πυρὶ πρὸς τὸ φῶς ἐστι τὸ ἐξ αὐτῷ τίνος οὖν ἕνεκεν ἀθετεῖ τὴν τάξιν ἐπὶ θεοῦ λαμβάνεσθαι;- ἡμεῖς δὲ, κατὰ μὲν τὴν τῶν αἰτίων πρὸς τὰ ἐξ αὐτῶν σχέσιν, προτετάχθαι τοῦ υἱοῦ τὸν πατέρα φαμέν &c. Basil. 1. i. p. 232. Principaliter determinatur ut prima Persona, quæ ante Filii nomen erat proponenda, quia Pater ante cognoscitur, et post Patrem Filius nominatur. Tertull. contr. Prax. cap. 18. 'Nihil plane differt in substantia, quia verus Filius est: differt tamen causalitatis gradu; quia omnis potentia a Patre in Filio est: et in substantia minor non est Filius; auctoritate tamen major est Pater. Auct. Quæst. utr. Testam, apud August. Quæst. 122. order without a meaning, may appear from the very passages which this writer quotes from me, p. 34. though he is pleased to call them empty words; as every thing here is empty with him that carries not in it his crude conceptions about natural dominion. His argument to prove them empty, being founded on nothing but his own shufflings and mistakes, is answered above, p. 36. The meaning however of order, in this case, may be thus intelligibly set forth to the meanest capacity. While we consider the scale of persons from God the Father down to man, or ascending from man up to God the Father, he is the first in the scale from whom all things descend; and he is the last, in the way of ascent, in whom all things terminate. The Father by the Son and Holy Ghost conveys all his blessings to his creatures; and his creatures in the Holy Ghost and by the Son ascend up to the Father. Such is the scale of existences, such the order of things: and this, I hope, is intelligible enough, If it be next inquired what the foundation of this order is, and why the Father, if but equal in nature to the Son or Holy Ghost, shall yet be at the top of all, and stand first; we have this to say, that both the parts are true and certain; and that the Son and Holy Ghost, though in nature equal, are yet referred up to the Father as their head and source, because of him and from him, in a mysterious and inscrutable manner, they both are. The Father is from none; they from the Father. This is the Catholic doctrinet, and as old as Christianity itself, so far as we can * Πᾶσα δὲ τοῦ κυρίου ἐνέργεια ἐπὶ τὸν παντοκράτορα τὴν ἀναφορὰν ἔχει, καὶ ἔστιν, ὡς εἰπεῖν, πατρική τις ἐνέργεια ὁ υἱός. Clem. Αlex. Strom. 7. Ἡνῶσθαι γὰρ ἀνάγκη τῷ Θεῷ τῶν ὅλων τὸν θεῖον Λόγον· ἐμφιλοχωρεῖν δὲ τῷ Θεῷ καὶ ἐνδιαιτᾶσθαι δεῖ τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα. ἤδη καὶ τὴν θείαν τριάδα εἰς ἕνα, ὥσπερ εἰς κορυφήν τινα, τὸν Θεὸν τῶν ὅλων τὸν παντοκράτορα λέγω, συγκεφαλαιοῦσθαί τε καὶ ovváyrodai xãoa áváyzn. Dionys. Roman. ap. Athan. vol. i. p. 231. Φύσις δὲ τοῖς τρισὶ μία Θεός. ἕνωσις δὲ ὁ πατὴρ, ἐξ οὗ, καὶ πρὸς ὃν ἀνάγεται τὰ Gregor. Nazianz. Orat. xxxii. p. 520. Θεὸς δὲ ἐξαιρέτως λέγεται, ἐπειδὴ ἡ ἕνωσις, ἤτοι ἀνάπτυξις, καὶ ἀνακεφαλαίωσις τῆς rgiádos ó xarńg šoti ås ilæev ó Diokóyos. Theod. Abucar. ap. Petavium. Trin. lib. iv. cap. 15. p. 262. This find in the primitive records: all acknowledging (conformable to Scripture) this order, and reference of the Son and Holy Ghost up to the Father, and at the same time asserting their consubstantiality, coeternity, necessary existence, equality of nature, and unity of Godhead. If our ideas of this eternal reference of one Person up to another be no more than general and confuse, not full and adequate; what wonder is it, that we should find it so in a subject so sublime? Is it not the tremendous substance or essence of the divine Being that we are here considering? And who is sufficient for these things? Let any man try the utmost stretch of his capacity, in any thing else immediately pertaining to the divine substance; and he will soon perceive how short and defective all his ideas are. He cannot tell us what it is, nor whereunto we may liken or compare it cannot say how it is present every where, or how it acts any where. Every thing belonging thereto, as simplicity, infinity, eternity, necessary existence", is all dark and mysterious: we see but "through a glass darkly," and cannot "see God as he is." It may therefore become these gentlemen to be a little more modest, and less positive in these high matters; and not to insult us, in their manner, as teaching a collocation of words, or an order of empty words; only because we cannot give them, what we cannot have, full and adequate ideas of the mysterious order and relation of the blessed Three, one among another. We might as reasonably object to them an eternity of words, or an omnipresence of words, a verbal ubiquity, simplicity, infinity, and the like, as often as we perceive that they are not able to give us more than general, confuse, and inadequate conceptions of those things. "This origination in the divine Paternity hath anciently been looked upon "as the assertion of the unity: and therefore the Son and Holy Ghost have "been believed to be but one God with the Father, because both from the "Father, who is one, and so the union of them." Pearson on the Creed, p. 40. See also my Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 45, 169, 486. See my First Defence, vol. i. p. 222, &c. Such is our answer, such our just defence, after attending to every consequence the adversary can object, and after suffering it, in the way of fair debate, to be run up to the utmost height. We acknowledge God's essence tỏ be inscrutable, as did the ancient Catholics in the same cause, against the Eunomians; who finding themselves thereby pinched, had no way left but to put on a bold face, and flatly to deny the incomprehensibility of God's essencex. If their successors at this day are of the same mind, let them speak out. It should be observed how differently our adversaries here behave, from what we do when pursued with consequences. They deny the necessary existence of God the Son. Run them down but to the next immediate consequence, precarious existence, and they are amazed and confounded: and instead of frankly admitting the consequence, they fall to doubling, shifting, equivocating, in a most childish manner, to disguise a difficulty which they cannot answery. Push them a little farther, as making a creature of God the Son; and they fall to blessing themselves upon it. They make the Son a creature? No, not they; God forbid. And they will run you on whole pages, to show how many quirks they can invent to avoid giving him the name of creature, and at the same time to assert the thing. Carry the consequence a little lower, till their whole scheme begins to show itself more and more repugnant to the tenor of Scripture and all Catholic antiquity; and then what do these gentlemen do, but shut their eyes and stop their ears: they do not understand a word you say; they will not be answerable for consequences; they never taught such things, nor think them fit to be mentioned. This is their way of management, as often as we go about to pursue the consequences of their scheme down as far as they can go; at the same time that we suffer them to exhaust all their metaphysics, in drawing any imaginable consequences against the Ca * See my First Defence, vol. i. p. 217. y Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 206. |