The Quakers' belief as to the doctrine of the holy Trinity.
HAVING shewn the dreadful errors of the Quakers before spoke to, all proceeding from the monstrous notion of their light within; it cannot seem strange if we find them altogether heterodox in the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, which I come next to consider. And, first, as to the doctrine of the holy Trinity.
The Quakers and Socinians acknowledge a Three, but deny a Trinity; which is to confess the same thing in English, and to deny it in Latin: for Tri nitas is only Latin for the Three. But the mean ing is, they would not have the Three in heaven to be three Persons; though they cannot make sense of what three they are, if they be not three Persons.
And the Quakers, who own the divinity of Christ, are under greater difficulties than the Socinians, who deny the divinity of Christ. For if Christ be God, and that there is but one Person in the Godhead, it must necessarily follow that God the Father was incarnate, and died; and that Christ was his own Father, to whom he prayed upon the cross; and many the like absurdities: which are avoided by those Socinians, who do not acknowledge Christ to be God; though others of them do own the divinity of Christ, but with such distinctions and salvos as I am afraid are at the bottom of the Quaker pretences.
(G.) Fox opposes Christopher Wade for saying, 1that the Holy Ghost was a Person, and that there was a Trinity of three Persons before Christ was born. It seems by this they do not acknowledge that there were three in heaven before Christ was born; and if so, then the Quaker three in heaven must be creatures. The scriptures, says George Fox, ibid. to Chr. Wade, do not tell the people of a Trinity nor three Persons; but the Common Prayer mass-book speaks of three Persons, brought in by the father, the pope; and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was always one. He means one Person, as Muggleton does, who says, that the God head was incarnate, and that there was no God while Christ was upon the earth; but that Elijah was deputed by God, upon his divesting himself of his God head, to govern as God: that Christ knew no more of himself, nor what he was, than Elijah pleased to let him know: that Elijah was the Father, to whom Christ prayed upon the cross: that Elijah raised God from the dead, carried him up to heaven, restored him to his throne; and then he was God again. All this I have had from Muggleton's own mouth, as well as from his writings.
It terrifies my very soul while I repeat such dread ful and senseless blasphemy: and I would not have done it, but to shew to what unimaginable excesses enthusiasm may drive men; and that all should be ware of that desperate shelve, upon which both our church and state have suffered miserable shipwreck; that we may once again (if it be the will of God) learn some sobriety of religion and modesty in our own conceits, to distinguish fancy from revelation, and not to think ourselves wiser than all the world beside.
How far the Quakers differ from Muggleton in what is here told (excepting the deputyship of Elijah) will appear by their allowing no distinction betwixt the Father and the Son2. Christ is not distinct from the Father, says G. Fox; they (the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) are not dis tinct—and you priests are not fit to judge in such things as they are; they are too weighty and too heavy for you. This was because these priests (as he calls them) had said that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were distinct; which Fox thus vio lently opposes. I hope Mr. Penn's former excuse will not serve here too, that this must go off upon the account of G. Fox's ignorance; and that by distinct, he did not mean distinct, but may be (as an ingenious stickler may pretend for him) that he thought distinct meant separated; (for there is nothing that can be said for which something may not be alleged.) But sure G. Fox, if he were alive, would give little thanks to any who should thus vilify his understanding: for George here exalts his own understanding, and reproaches that of the priests, who, he says, were not fit to judge of such great and weighty things: and now for any Quaker to say that it was George himself who was not fit, would be a severe reproof, and look like betraying of their cause.
But, secondly, these priests of G. Fox's did not hold or allege any separation, but only a distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And if you will suppose G. Fox so incapable, as not to know any difference betwixt these two, he was a very sorrowful beginner of a religion, and could neither be separated nor distinguished from a tool that knaves do work with, called a f-l. He licks up or stumbles upon old exploded heresies, and vents them for immediate revelations: he falls in here with the Patripassians, so called, because they held that it was God the Father who was in carnate and suffered: which G. Fox asserts, (ut supra, p. 246,) where he disputes against Chr. Wade, for saying, that God the Father never took upon him human nature; which, says George, is contrary to the scripture: and says, for proof, that Christ was called the everlasting Father: and, in his usual style, accuses Chr. Wade for his ignorance in this mystery, which G. Fox thought none understood but himself and partners; of which you will see yet greater proof in what follows.
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