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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59831	A modest examination of the authority and reasons of the late decree of the vice-chancellor of Oxford, and some heads of colleges and halls concerning the heresy of three distinct infinite minds in the Holy and Ever-blessed Trinity / by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1696 (1696)	Wing S3303; ESTC R14301	29,861	49

Convocation is indeed Decretum Oxoniense or a Decree of the University of Oxford This is what the Animadverter called for and this he would persuade the world he has but let the Oxford Convocation look to this which may prove an ill President But I am inform'd for I confess I know not their Statutes my self that this Decree of the Heads of Colleges and Halls is so far from being the Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford that it is no Judicial nor Authoritative Decree at all not so much as for censuring a Preacher much less for declaring and decreeing Heresy Their Statutes refer such Censures to the Vice-Chancellor and Six Heads Doctors of Divinity and to one or both the Professors of Divinity but give no such Authority to the General Meeting of the Heads much less to Heads who are no Divines nor Doctors in Divinity and some such there were in this Meeting So that this pretended Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford is no more than the private Opinions of some Heads and if that be so Venerable an Authority I will undertake any day in the Year to procure a Meeting of twice as many as Wise and Learned Men to censure their Decree But supposing their Authority to be Just and Regular there is another very proper Question How far their Authority extends Whether to the declaring and decreeing Heresy Whatever the Convocation of the University may challenge this was never before pretended to by the Heads of Colleges and Halls All the Authority I can learn their Statutes give them in such Cases is to summon the Preacher who has said any thing in his Sermon contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England and to require a publick recantation from him or to forbid him ever to preach again in the Vniversity Whereas nothing of all this was done the Preacher not summoned to this Meeting nor his Name as far as I can learn once mentioned in it no Recantation enjoined no Prohibition of his Preaching again But instead of this which was their proper Business they declare and decree Heresy which so many Masters of Arts might have done with as good Authority where ever they had met And they ought notwithstanding all their Zeal against Heresy to have advised with men of Skill how far such an Irregular and Unstatutable proceeding might affect them The Authority of declaring and making Heresy may be of such pernicious Consequence to the Peace of any Church that it is not fit to be intrusted with any Body of men less then a National Synod for otherwise we may have as many different and contrary Religions as there are Declarers and Decreers of Heresy In the Statute 1 Eliz. ca. 1. we find the power to order determine or adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresy restrained only to such as heretofore have been determined ordered or adjudged to be Heresy by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Or by the first Four General Councils Or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures Or such as hereafter shall be ordered judged or determined to be Heresy by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Assent of the Clergy in their Convocation And if the King could not grant a greater Authority than this to his High Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Affairs it is not likely that any other Body of men have it and my Lord Cook says That this is a direction to others especially to Bishops in their adjudgng Heresy 3 Instit. pa. 40. and how they have observed this Law in their Decree they had best consider Oxford Reasons have formerly had a very just Veneration paid to them and will have so still whenever they are penned with the same strength and clearness but they have a greater Opinion of their Authority than I can find the rest of the world has if they think by a meer Decree without pretending to give the least reason for it to silence all disputes and to bear down all Reasons and all Authorities on the other side But since these Heads are pleased to take part in the quarrel which one would have thought they need not have done had they not suspected the Success of their Animadverting Champion I accept this exchange with all thankfulness As for the Animadverter he might for me have writ on as long as he pleased and have railed and triumphed as much as he pleased and the world might have judged of him and his performances as they pleased His last Book I have read nothing of and could never persuade my self to read all his first Book there is such an Evil Spirit and such Venom in his Writings as is enough to give an Unchristian Tincture to those who read them He resolved never to answer any one but my self and I resolved never to read what he writ and thus there was some hope to see an end of this matter when he grew weary of writing or his Bookseller of Printing But now I hope to meet with no new Animadverters who shall all fare alike with me but with Men of Ingenuity and Candor good Learning and good Tempers who will reason without Sophistry and Misrepresentations weigh Authorities in an equal Balance and contend for Truth not for Victory and then it is indifferent to me whether I overcome or am overcome for Truth is better than Victory and will make an Honest Man triumph in being conquered Having thus considered the Authority of this Decree which the Animadverter so much glories in let us now examine the Decree it self These words Three distinct Infinite Minds and Three Substances as applied to the Three Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity are singled out in this Decree and parted from the Body of the Sermon without any thing to explain in what sense the Preacher used them and therefore we must conclude that these Words are absolutely condemned as False Impious and Heretical That though a Mind in this place signifies an Intelligent Person and Substance a Substantial Person and Three Infinite Intelligent Persons and Three Infinite Substantial Persons is the Catholick Faith as I doubt not to make appear yet Three Distinct Infinite Minds and Three Substances when they are used in no other sense than for three Intelligent and Substantial Persons must be condemned as Impious and Heretical These are wonderful nice Criticks to make the same Doctrine owned and acknowledged to be the same in one Form of Words to be truly Catholick and Orthodox and in another Form of Words which do and are intended to signify the same thing False Impious and Heretical This is a strange Magical Power of Words Hoc est Corpus in the mouth of a Popish Priest never were pretended to make a more Miraculous Transubstantiation I wish it at last appear that these Gentlemen do really believe Three Infinite Intelligent Persons and Three Substantial Persons in the Trinity for let them

the Censure which these Oxford Heads have made of these Propositions There are Three Infinite distinct Minds and Substances in the Trinity Item That the Three Persons in the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and Three Individual Substances That is I suppose as much Individual Substances as they are Individual Persons It is evident that all this relates only to the Notion of the Trinity and to the Notion of a Divine Person and of Three Divine Persons in the Trinity and therefore the Unity of the Godhead is not concerned in this which belongs to another Question How these Three are One of which more when I examine the Heresy charged on these words 1. But the first charge is that they are false I wish they had told us what in them is false but since they have made no distinction we must suppose they mean that all these words are false Is it false then that each Person in the Ever-Blessed Trinity is by himself in his own Person a Distinct Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Is not God the Father an Infinite Mind or Spirit Is not God the Son the substantial Word and Wisdom of the Father an Infinite Mind or Spirit Is not God the Holy Ghost that Eternal Spirit which knoweth the things of God as the Spirit of a Man knoweth the things of a man an Eternal Mind or Spirit Or is not an Infinite Mind and Spirit a Substance the most real perfect Substance that is in the world which gives Substance and Subsistence to all other things Is not the Father considered as an Infinite Mind and Spirit distinct from the Son and the Holy Ghost the Son distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost distinct from the Father and the Son To deny any thing of all this is downright Sabellianism and destroys a real substantial Trinity which is as Essential to the Christian Faith as the Unity of the Godhead is The only Quarrel then that I can imagine against these words is this That tho the Father be a distinct Infinite Mind and the Son a distinct Infinite Mind and the Holy Ghost a distinct Infinite Mind yet according to the Catholick Form of Speech we must not say that there are Three distinct Infinite Minds but one Infinite Mind or Spirit or Substance Now I grant that in the sense of the Homoousion or Consubstantiality this is very True and Orthodox in which sense St. Jerom condemned Tres Substantias or Three Substances and St. Austin who allowed that the Father is a Spirit the Son a Spirit and the Holy Ghost a Spirit yet denied that there are Three Spirits but One Spirit but when we apply this to Persons it is gross Sabellianism to say that there are not Three Personal Minds or Spirits or Substances but only One Mind Spirit or Substance for then there can be but one Person too for one Personal Mind is but One Person Let us consider what a Mind is and how we can know whether there be but One or more distinct Minds The Substance of a Mind I know nothing of no more than I do what the naked Substance of Body or Matter is but the true Notion of a Mind is a thinking Being and therefore where ever we find the Acts of Knowledge Understanding and Will there is a Mind and where there are distinct Personal Acts of Knowledge and Will there are distinct Personal Minds Now if we believe the Scripture the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father the Father wills and the Son by a distinct Personal act wills with the Father and what the Father wills the Father works and the Son works and sees all that the Father doth and doth the same things Thus the Fathers proved against the Sabellians the real and substantial distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead from those distinct personal acts which are attributed in Scripture to Father Son and Holy Ghost which having a mutual relation to each other require distinct Persons for their Subjects and since all the instances they give as may be seen in Tertullian against Praxeas Novatian in his Book of the Trinity Athanasius against the Sabellians St. Hilary St Austin and all that have writ on this Argument are acts of a Mind as well as of a Person they must prove if they prove any thing distinct Minds as well as Persons for if one singular Solitary Mind may be the Subject of such distinct acts as necessarily suppose more than one One Person may be so too and then there is no possible way left to confute Sabellianism or to prove a real Trinity of distinct substantial Persons It is very evident that both the Sabellians and the Catholick Fathers in this Controversy understood the same thing by Person which we do by Mind or Spirit By Person the Sabellians meant such a Person as is true and perfect God and therefore the most real Substance an Infinite Mind and Spirit and for this reason they rejected Three Persons for fear of Three Gods which always was and is still the Objection against a real substantial Trinity for there is no danger that Three Names or Notions or Modes should be a Trinity of Gods Notwithstanding this the Catholick Fathers allow their Notion of a Person and prove against them such a Trinity of Persons as they rejected each of which is true and perfect God Now since Person is the Catholick word which long Ecclesiastical use has made familiar I should by no means allow of any other word in this Mystery could we retain the old Catholick Faith together with the word But when men make no more of a Person than a meer Mode and a Trinity of Modes in one singular Nature and Substance must pass for a Trinity of Divine Persons which was the Heresy of Sabellius who contended for One Singular Solitary Nature or Subsistence in God and was not much concerned by what name you called the Three so they were not Three Substantial Subsisting Persons for he never dreamt that there could be Three Real Substantial Persons in One Singular Nature I say when this Heresy is reviv'd under a new Name we are under a necessity of saying in more express words what the Fathers meant by Person if we will retain the Catholick Faith as well as the Word Would Men but give themselves a little Liberty of thinking they would see how impossible it is to find a Medium between a real Trinity and Sabellianism however disguis'd The Three Persons in the blessed Trinity are either Three Substantial Persons or they are not to deny them to be Substantial is Sabellianism whatever else we call them There must be either One singular solitary Substance in the Deity or Three distinct Personal Substances The first is the fundamental Article of the Sabellian Creed and a direct Contradiction to the Doctrine of the Trinity for One singular solitary Nature or Substance is but One Person for which reason the