The Works of the Rev. Daniel Waterland, D.D. Formerly Master of Magdalen ... - Daniel Waterland, William Van Mildert - Google Books

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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

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?

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

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-

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

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?

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?

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-

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.

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

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?

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

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-

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.

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