A Brief Account OF THE Socinian Trinity.  
IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND, June, 1694.  
LONDON: Printed for Charles Brome, at the Gun, West-End of St. Paul's, 1695.   

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE Socinian Trinity. In a LETTER to a FRIEND.  
SIR,  
THE Socinians hold a Trinity as well as we: They have lately Published Bidle's Confession of Faith touching the Holy Trinity. But in the Explanation of this is all the difference: He, and one part of the Socinians, make the Second and Third Persons to be Creatures, wherein they are guilty of a very gross sort of Idolatry, beyond what was acknowledged by any of the Heathens, To join Creatures into one Holy Trinity with God, and to Baptise Men into the Faith and Worship of Creatures. The Arians could never answer the Charge of Idolatry in giving Divine Honour to Christ, while they acknowledged him to be but a Creature: Nor can the Worship of Christ, supposing him but a Creature, be excused from Idolatry, by any manner of way, which will not at the same time justify the Excuses not only of the Church of Rome, but of the Heathens themselves for their Idolatry.  
Another sort of Socinians deny the Second and Third of the Trinity to be Persons: And make them no more than the Power and Wisdom of God, one called his Word, the other his Spirit, but yet that they are nothing different from God; as by a Man's Spirit, you mean the Man himself. Thus the Brief History of the Uni-tarians.  
But, by this Rule, they cannot stop at a Trinity in God, but must go through all his Attributes, Justice, Mercy, Providence, Omnipotence, Eternity, and Twenty more; and instead of the Three in Heaven (which they acknowledge) they must go to a Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and without End.  
In the next Place, where it is said, John 1.14. The Word was made Flesh, they say that no Person was made Flesh: This Second of the Trinity they say is not a Person, but only God's Power, or the Manifestation of his Power, which they say Inhabited an Humane Person; i. e. the Person of Jesus Christ.  
So God Inhabited or Inspired the Prophets, Apostles, etc. but this did not make Him to become Flesh.  
But he inspired Christ in a Higher Degree.  
The Degree signifies nothing as to the being made Flesh. No Inspiration or Inhabitation of God, or any thing less than an Impersonation; i. e. taking our Flesh into his own Person, so as to be one Person with him, nothing less than this can make him to be Flesh.  
And it is certain that nothing can be made Flesh but a Person. A Manifestation of God, or of any thing else, is nothing in itself; it is but our manner of Apprehending what is manifested or shown to us: And to talk of this being made Flesh, is the grossest Nonsense and Contradiction: Therefore if there be but One Person in the Trinity (as this Sett of Socinians do hold) than the whole Trinity was made Flesh; and then they must come to Muggleton, who says, as they do, that there is but One Person in the Godhead, which is God the Father; and that He was Incarnate, and really Died, so that there was then no God: But Muggleton says that Elijah governed in his absence, Raised him from the Dead, and Restored him his Throne, and then He was God again.  
But, on the other hand, if there be Three Persons in the Holy Trinity (as the rest of our Socinians do hold) But the Second and Third only Creatures, and that the Word (the Second Person) was Incarnate; then they must answer for their Idolatry, in Worshipping a mere Creature; and answer the Cloud of Texts which require and attest Divine Honour to be due to Christ, and Command the very Angels of God to Worship Him.  
But, to turn again to those Socinians who will have but one Person in the Trinity, they put this Meaning upon Matth. 28.19. that we are Baptised in the Name of the Father, and of the Son (who is the selfsame Person with the Father) and of the Holy Ghost (who is the same Person with them Both.)  
Again, Matth. 12.32. if you sin against one of these you shall be forgiven; but if you sin against another (who is the very same with that one) you shall not be forgiven.  
Now, I pray you, compare their Trinity and ours. They make Three in Heaven who are not only Three, but may be Threescore, and yet all but one and the selfsame Person.  
We acknowledge the Three in Heaven, whom the Scriptures tell us of, to be only Three, and that they are Three Persons.  
One of these was made Flesh, the other not, yet they will not allow them to be different Persons, but that He who took Flesh, and He who did not take Flesh were the same, or that they were not Two.  
These are the Men who cry out upon Mysteries; and pretend to Explain their Faith wholly by Reason and Demonstration, and to make it easy and intelligible to the meanest Understanding!  
Besides, they differ more (if more can be) betwixt one another, than they do from us. What greater difference can there be concerning the Object of our Worship than one to make it GOD, the other but a Creature? As it is among the Socinians, in their Opinion of the Second, and Third in the Holy Trinity. What greater difference, than for one to say they are Persons, another no Persons? One to say they are Adorable, the other not? Must not one of these think the other Idolaters? And the other think them Profane, and Erroneous in Faith, who deny Divine Honour to whom it is Due?  
These call themselves Unitarians; yet there is not, nor can be in the World, greater Division, and at farther distance, than betwixt the several sorts of these, who own themselves by one Name, and would have the World believe that they have the same Faith: Which, when so contradictory to itself, it can be Ill expected to agree with the Holy Scriptures, and with the Holy Catholic Church.  
We acknowledge a Great and Sublime Mystery in the Holy Trinity of GOD: That is a Mystery to us, which exceeds our Understanding. And many such Mysteries there are, to us, in the Nature of God which we all acknowledge; A First Cause without a Beginning! A Being which neither made itself, nor was made by any other! Infinite without Extension! In every place, yet circumscribed in no place! Eternal and Perpetually Existing, without any Succession! a Present, without Past, or Future! and many other such un-Explainable, un-Intelligible, Incomprehensible Mysteries; which yet hinder not our Belief of a God. And therefore not being able fully and clearly to explain the Trinity, which is the most hidden and secret Attribute of the Nature of God, can be no Reason for us to reject such Revelation which God has given us of Himself. Yet do we not want several Shadows and Resemblances of one Nature communicating itself to many Individuals, without either a Multiplication or Division of the Nature. We say that the Soul is all in all, and all in every part of the Body; yet that the Soul is neither Multiplied nor Divided among the several Members of the Body. It is impossible for us either to Explain this, or to Deny it; for we feel it to be so, though it is wholly unconceivable to us how it can be. Now if the Soul, which is but an Image of God, at an Infinite distance, can communicate itself to several Members, without breach of its Unity; why should it be Impossible for the Eternal and Infinite Mind to communicate itself to several Persons, without breach of its Unity; I will be bold to say, you will not find so near a Parallel in Nature whereby to conceive of God's Eternity, or his Infinity, as this, and a great many more, whereby we may conceive of His Trinity and Unity, by what we feel in ourselves, and see in a thousand things that are before us. We see Extension not Divided but Distinguished into its three Dimensions; and Communicating its whole Nature to each of the Three, for Each is Extension; and yet there is but one Extension in all the Three.  
The Soul is not Divided betwixt its several Faculties; they remain perfectly distinguished, though not divided from one another: To understand what is present, is a quite different thing from Remembering what is Past; and to Love or Hate, is different from both of these; yet these Three Faculties, the Understanding, the Memory, and the Will, partake all equally of the same Soul.  
Light and Heat are so different, that some are capable of the One, who are not of the Other; and yet they are not Divided in the Sun; but flow equally and naturally from it without any Division of its Nature.  
I say not that any of these Parallels do come up to the full explanation of the Communication of the Divine Nature to several Persons, without any Division or Multiplication of the Nature: But I am sure they take away the Contradiction alleged to be in it, while we see the same Difficulty in our own and other Natures, which we can as little Explain.  
But, instead of solving this difficulty, the Socinians have made it a downright and Irreconcilable Contradiction. They would have Three to be One and the selfsame Person. This cannot be saved from a Contradiction. They acknowledge the Three in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit. If these are one and the selfsame Person, they cannot be Three. If they are one Nature, and several Persons; this is a Difficulty, it is a Mystery; but it is no Contradiction, because they are not One and Three in the same respect; for that is necessary to make it a Contradiction. In one Respect, that is of their Nature, they are One; in an other Respect, that is, of their Persons, they are Three. But if they are One in Person, as well as in Nature; and yet are Three (as these Socinians do confess) than they are Three and One, in the selfsame Respect, which is a full Contradiction.  
FINIS.