Valentinus Gentilis – The Tritheist Put to Death In Bern, Chapter 10
CHAP. X.
Whether or no it be proper to the Father to be call'd the One Only God?
LET us in the next place take into our consideration, that Supremacy or Soveraignty of the Father, whereof Gentilis so mightily boasts himself to have been an Assertor; and sticks not to say, that there have been none yet (that he knows of) who have been put to Death for asserting the Glory and Soveraignty of the Father. That the Prophets, Apostles, and H. Martyrs, ☞underwent Persecutions, Death, and all manner of extremities, for the Glory of the Son, but that he can find no Martyrs for the Supremacy of the Father.
Our next Enquiry then must be, what this Sovereign Prerogative is, which belongs to the Father, and cannot by any means appertain to the Son. His Answer is this, That the Father is the One Only God, which the Scripture hath revealed to us. I appeal to all good Christians whether this be not the highest Indignity and Blasphemy against the Glory of our Blessed Saviour, so to appropriate the Title of God to the Father only, as at the same time Sacrilegiously to rob and despoil Christ of his Divinity. He tells us, that whenever the Scripture speaks of the One God, it is to be understood of the Father only; and therefore (says he) Christ cannot be truly or properly God; for whatever agrees properly to any thing Uni & Soli, cannot be accommodated [or Communicated] to any thing else; which if true, then, according to Gentilis, Christ will not only differ foreign [in Essence or Substance] from the Father, but likewise cannot at all be styl'd God. And therefore thô he had the confidence openly to avow the first Position, namely, That the Father and the Son were two Species essentially distinct; and was grown so hardy in his impudence, as without shame or blushing, stifly to maintain such a distinction; yet perceiving the latter (viz. That Christ ought not to be call'd God) did contain such open Blasphemy, as must necessarily give the greatest Offence and Scandal to all good Christians, he was willing to allow that Christ might be call'd God [thô not strictly, yet] by Communication of the Divinity; which admirable Salvo of his is still clogg'd with an Errour as absurd▪ namely, That Christ is of a later Existence than the Father. The Father (says he) was from all Eternity and without Beginning, the Son was Born in time, and had a Beginning. The Father is God per se, or of himself, the Son only by Communication [from the Father] just as a King may admit his Eldest Son into a part of the Government. The Father is the One Only God, but the Son neither the One, nor the Only, but a different God. Here it ought to be observ'd, that the Scripture doth sometimes speak of God distinctly, i. e. with respect to a certain Person of the Trinity; as when St. Iohn says, The Word was with God, where 'tis plain he means the Father. So again, when Christ upon the Cross cries out, My God, My God, why hast thou for saken me? He directed that Invocation to the Father, Mat. 27. But St. Iohn expresly says of the Son, And the Word was God. After the same manner St. Thomas speaking of the Son, calls him, My God, and my Lord. Ioh. 20. & in Acts 5. St. Peter saith to Ananias, Thou hast not lied unto Men, but unto God, i. e. to the Holy Ghost.
At other times the Scriptures speak of God absolutely, & secundùm essentiam, whereby we are to understand the whole Godhead, from which none of the Persons is excluded, [or as it comprehends all three Persons] as Ioh. 4. God is a Spirit. We are God's Labourers, We are God's Husbandry, We are God's Building. 1. Cor. 3. The wisdom of the World is foolishness with God. With what God? With the Father only exclusive of the Son? No, No. The Word [God] is here, as in many other places, taken essentially, as it belongs to all three Persons.
But all this signifies nothing with Gentilis, who will have the Scripture every where to speak of God distinctly, and therefore must of necessity exclude Christ from the Unity of the Divine Essence, and Propriety of the Godhead; and lastly, make him of later Existence than the Father. But this is not all; his Presumption and Arrogance carries him farther, to make two distinct sorts of Martyrdom. He thinks it a common ordinary piece of Service to dye for the Glory of the Son; and has therefore found out a new and more exalted one; namely, to suffer for the Glory and Soveraignty of the Father. 'Tis certainly a grievous Errour, to think of Worshipping or Honouring the Father, and to neglect the Son; yet a greater to exclude the Son from this Honour: but the most grievous of all, to pretend to Honour the Father by degrading and dishonouring the Son. For God is to be Worshipp'd in the manner, as he has manifested himself; but he has plainly told us, Ioh. 5. That he who honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father: And Ioh. 12. The Father bears witness from heaven, that He is glorified in the Son. Wherefore let us keep to this certain perpetual form of honouring the Father, I mean, by honouring of him in the Son, through whom alone he is well pleas'd with us; for, without the Son, no honour can be acceptable unto God the Father. Such subtile delusions doth the Devil make use of, to overthrow the Glory of Christ, under the specious pretext of vindicating the Soveraignty of the Father; a Service, which God never requir'd, either from the Prophets, Apostles, or any other Holy Men of Old. But 'tis plain, this method of honouring the Father tends to the disgrace and dishonour of Christ; and, that with a very little more trouble, Gentilis may reconcile himself with both Iews and Turks.