Valentinus Gentilis – The Tritheist Put to Death In Bern, Chapter 19
CHAP. XIX.
Of the vile Scandals he hath falsly thrown upon the Doctrine of our Church.
GEntilis is very dextrous in Forging of false Accusations, for he unjustly Charges our Church with several Crimes he will never be able to prove against her; as
First, That we do Impudently deny Christ to have been the Son of God.
Secondly, That we have unadvisedly brought a new God into the Christian Religion.
Thirdly, That we affirm that God did not beget his Son of his own Substance.
If Cardinal Cusanus said any such thing, let him look to it, the Reform'd, or Evangelick Churches, are not bound to Answer for his Errors.
Fourthly, That we made a Triple God contrary to the Authority of the Scriptures.
Abundance more of such sort of Stuff is contain'd in his Antidotes; all which I here industriously avoid. For what good Man can hear with patience such a Rascally Fellow thus sawcily abusing and undermining the Christian Religion?
Hence it is, that he gives us the Titles of Opposers of God; Iudaïzing Hereticks; and as bad as Turks; and passes the same Complements upon the Churches of Savoy also, which yet he acknowledges to be the most Uncorrupted, and best Reform'd, of any he knew.
He compares us with the Turks and Iews for denying (as he says) with Mahomet, that God did beget his Son. But who can say that he ever heard amongst us, That we devis'd another God Superior to the Father of Christ? Who amongst us ever taught or affirm'd any such thing? Hence he took that specious pretence of a Quaternity, a thing that was never seen or heard of, much less Worshipp'd in our Church. He accounts our Faith to be meer Sophistry, and our selves Novices and Sophisters; yet gives no reason for it. Thus this Crafty Fellow comically sports with us; but the true reason is, because we deny his Three Eternal Spirits, and do say, with Athanasius, There is One Eternal, One Almighty; but that the Three Persons are three foreign or foreign, i. e. Only three Subsistences. And when we say, Deus est Trinus, or there is a Trinity in the Godhead, he starts up as. if he were Mad, and cries out, That we make the Trinity a Fourth God; as if we asserted any Deus Trinitas besides, or without the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But this is certainly too gross and palpable a Calumny, for we own the Trinity only to relate to these Three Persons; and besides, or without them, there is neither God, nor Trinity. Of the same strain is his Calumny of our defending an unknown God, Superior to the Father of Christ; and making three Christs out of one.
We acknowledge and defend the God, that was known and reveal'd to our Fathers, but do set up no unknown God. We know there is but one Christ, in whom two Natures do conspire to make one Person; and therefore we judge it to be Impious and Heretical, to say there are three Christs [or that Christ is Tergeminus.]
But that Scandal is of a blacker Dye, of our dividing Christ, and transforming him into another, which is not the Son of the Living God. Let this Blasphemer shew us any other Christ besides that Son of God, and let him make it out, where, and how, we do divide Christ. Of the same Nature are those Impostures he charges us with, of Conjuring up a new Christ the Son of a new Relation, and then deceitfully believing him to be the Son of God.
We believe in the Son of God as reveal'd in the Scriptures, but acknowledge none of Gentilis's Impostures. We constantly assert, without any deceit, [or fraud] three Persons in the Godhead; nor do we divide the Substance, but do distinguish between the Persons. He hits us in the teeth with *Dr. Sherlock's constant Charge upon such as deny Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits in the Trinity.Sabellianism, whilst we do more justly charge him with the Blasphemy of Arius. The Doctrine of our Church doth plainly prove, that there is nothing in it agreeing with Sabellius; whereas he blushes not openly to defend Arius, and to prefer him before all the Fathers of the Nicene Council. And however cautious he may seem to be, in his keeping the middle way between Arius and Sabellius, yet I am perswaded his Opinions are as bad as either of theirs.