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A59905
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A vindication of the doctrine of the holy and ever blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God occasioned by the Brief notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius and the Brief history of the Unitarians or Socinians and containing an answer to both / by William Sherlock.
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Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing S3377; ESTC R25751
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172,284
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293
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though not separate from the other Divine Persons then at least the Godhead of each Person must be as distinct as their Persons are and we must acknowledge three distinct though not separate Gods I answer by no means We must allow each Person to be a God but each distinct Person is not a distinct God there is but One Godhead which can no more be distinguished then it can be divided from it self There is but One God and each Divine Person is this One numerical God has the whole entire Godhead in himself and the same One numerical Godhead is in them all thus each Divine Person is God and all of them but the same One God as I explained it before This One Supream God is Father Son and Holy Ghost a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God Now Father Son and Holy Ghost with all their Divine Attributes and Perfections excepting their personal Properties which the Schools call the Modi subsistendi that One is the Father the other the Son the other the Holy Ghost which cannot be communicated to each other are whole and entire in each Person by a mutual consciousness each Person feels the other Persons in himself all their essential Wisdom Power Goodness Justice as he feels himself and this makes them essentially One as I have proved at large Now if the whole Trinity be in each Divine Person by such an intimate and essential Union we must confess each Person to be God if the whole Trinity be God and yet there being but One Trinity One Father Son and Holy Ghost who are essentially One by a mutual consciousness it is certain all these Three Divine Persons can be but One God for where-ever you begin to reckon there are but Three and these Three are One If we consider the Father and Holy Ghost in the Son by this mutual consciousness we truly affirm the Son to be God as having all the Divine Perfections of the whole Trinity in himself if we consider the Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost for the same reason we affirm the Holy Ghost to be God but the natural Order of the Trinity is to reckon from the Father as the Fountain of the Deity that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God for the Son and Holy Spirit are in the Father not only by a mutual consciousness as the Father and the Son are in the Holy Ghost but as in their Cause if I may so speak and the Ancient Fathers were not afraid to speak so as in their Root their Origine their Fountain from whence they receive the communications of the Divine Essence and Godhead the Son by Eternal Generation being God of God Light of Light the Holy Ghost by Eternal Procession from the Father and the Son Thus all these Divine Persons are naturally united in the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity and all essentially in each other by a mutual consciousness which makes each Person God and all One and the same God without any shew of Contradiction SECT V. The Doctrine of the Fathers and of the Schools concerning the Distinction of Persons and the Vnity of Essence in the Ever Blessed Trinity considered and reconciled to the foregoing Explication of it THis Notion of the Union of the Divine Persons in One numerical Essence by a mutual consciousness to each other is so very plain and gives so easie and intelligible an account both of the Phrases of Scripture and all other Difficulties in the Doctrine of the Trinity that this alone is sufficient to reconcile any Man to it but I am very sensible how afraid Men are and not without reason of any new Explications of so Venerable a Mystery and such a Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity as this is and therefore I must ward this blow as well as I can and remove the prejudice of Novelty and Innovation Now if it appear that I have advanced no new Proposition but have confined myself to the received Faith and Doctrine of the Catholick Church if that Explication I have given of it contain nothing new but what is universally acknowledged though possibly not in express terms applied to that purpose I use it for if that explication I have given be very consistent with nay be the true interpretation of that account the Ancients give of a Trinity in Unity I hope it will not be thought an unpardonable Novelty if I have expressed the same thing in other words which give us a more clear and distinct apprehension of it and to satisfie all men that it is so I shall compare what I have now said concerning the Distinction of Persons and the Unity of Essence in the Ever Blessed Trinity with the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Schools I. To begin then with the distinction of Persons I have not indeed troubled my Readers with the different signification of Essence and Hypostasis Substance Subsistence Person Existence Nature c. which are terms very differently used by Greek and Latin Fathers in this Dispute and have very much obscured this Doctrine instead of explaining it but I plainly assert That as the Father is an eternal and infinite Mind so the Son is an eternal and infinite Mind distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost is an eternal and infinite Mind distinct both from Father and Son which every body can understand without any skill in Logick or Metaphysicks And this is no new Notion but the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and Schools Three Persons signifie Three who are infinite in Knowledge and Wisdom and all other Perfections which belong to a Mind Now no Man who acknowledges a Trinity of Persons ever denied that the Son and the Holy Spirit were intelligent Beings or Minds When they tell us which is their common Language that the Son is the substantial Word and Wisdom of the Father what is this else but to say that he is an intelligent Being or infinite Mind Greg. Nyssen calls the Son or Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind or Intellect Athanasius observes from our Saviour's words I and my Father are One that are signifies two or the distinction of Persons as One signifies the Unity of Essence for he does not say I and my Father am but are One. And therefore if the Father be an eternal Mind and Wisdom the Son also is an eternal but begotten Mind and Wisdom as the Nicene Creed tells us That he is God of God Light of Light very God of very God St. Austin in his Sixth Book of the Trinity takes notice of a common argument used by the Orthodox Fathers against the Arians to prove the coeternity of the Son with the Father that if the Son be the Wisdom and Power of God as St. Paul teaches 1 Cor. 1. and God was never without his Wisdom and Power the Son must be coeternal with the Father for it is distraction to say that the Father was ever without his Wisdom or Power was
Knowledge which took the Patterns of things for the new World and gave Being to them and therefore God made the World by his Son and begotten Wisdom who doth all things by seeing what the Father doth as the Father doth all things by seeing himself in his reflex and begotten Wisdom for the Father and the Son are one single Energie and Operation This is that eternal Word and Reason that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world which communicates the light of Reason and the eternal Idea's of Truth to Mankind This is that Son who reveals the Father to us and acquaints us with his secret Counsels for the Salvation of Sinners This is that Word which became Flesh and dwelt among us who hath undertaken the Work of our Redemption and is become the Wisdom of God and the Power of God to Salvation to them that believe for all the natural Communications of Wisdom and Reason all the new Discoveries of the Divine Wisdom whatever the Divine Wisdom immediately does must be done by this begotten Wisdom that is by a reflex Wisdom which is the Principle of Action and Execution and therefore as God made the World by his Word so also he redeems the World by his Incarnate Word this being as immediate an effect of the Divine Wisdom and Counsel as his Creation of the World As for the Holy Ghost whose Nature is represented to be Love I do not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said that the Holy Ghost is that mutual love wherewith Father and Son love each other but this we know that there is a mutual love between Father and Son The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hands And the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that himself doth And our Saviour himself tells us I love the Father And I shewed before that love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person for there are no Accidents nor Faculties in God And that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person is sufficiently evident in Scripture for he is the Spirit of God who knows what is in God as the Spirit of Man knows what is in Man and he is the Spirit of Christ who receiveth of the things of Christ and his peculiar Character in Scripture is love which shews us what he is in his own Nature as well as what he is in his Effects and Operations for Nature and Energy is the same in God It is by the Holy Spirit that the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 5 Rom. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us For this Spirit is the essential love of God and therefore both inspires us with the love of God and gives us a feeling sense of God's love to us He is the Spirit of the Son the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father and which cries in our hearts Abba Father The Spirit of the Son that is of the eternal and only begotten Son that very spirit whereby the eternal Son calls God Father whereby the Father owns the Son and the Son the Father that is that essential Love which is between Father and Son and therefore wherever this Spirit of the Son is it will call God Father will cry Abba Father that is is a Spirit of Adoption in us for the eternal Spirit of the Son dwells only in Sons by our Union to Christ who is the eternal Son of God we become his adopted Sons and as such the Spirit of the Son dwells in us And therefore the fruits and operations of the Spirit answer this Character For the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness which are the communications of the Spirit of Love This shews the difference between generation and procession between being a Son and the Spirit of God Generation as I observed before is a reflex Act whereby God begets his own Image and Likeness it is God's knowledge of himself which to be sure is his own perfect Image and the living essential Image of God is his Son for to be a Son is to be begotten of his Father's Substance in his own Likeness and Image But the Divine Spirit or this Eternal Love proceeds from God is not a reflex but a direct Act as all Thoughts and Passions are said to proceed out of the Heart a reflex Act turns upon it self and begets its own likeness but Love is a direct Act and comes out of the Heart and thus does this eternal Love proceed from God besides this eternal Love is not the Image of God but his eternal complacency in himself and his own Image and therefore is not a Son begotten of him but the eternal Spirit which proceeds from him It is true this eternal subsisting Love which is the third Person of the Trinity has all the Perfections of Father and Son in himself for Love must have the perfect Idea of what it loves and therefore this subsisting Love must have all those Perfections in himself which are the Eternal Object and Cause of this Eternal Love but his essential Character is Love and though Love has the whole Divine Perfections in it self yet it has them not as a Son not as the Image of God This gives a plain Account also how he is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son and according to the Profession of the Latin Church proceeds both from Father and Son for this Divine Love eternally proceeds from God's reflex Knowledge of himself or seeing himself in his own Image he loves himself in his Image and therefore the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son that is from the Original and the Image by one undivided Act as every man loves himself in that Idea and Image he has formed of himself in his own Mind And no man will wonder that the Creation of the World is ascribed to the Holy Spirit as well as to the Father and Son for it is Eternal Love which gives Being to all things which is the Author and Giver of Life without which Infinite Wisdom and Power produces no One Effect Original Wisdom contains the Ideas of all Things and begotten Wisdom can frame the Natures of Things according to the Original Ideas of the Divine Mind but it is Love which gives Being to them 6. From hence it is clear That these Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God as these Three Powers of Understanding Self-reflexion and Self-love are one Mind for what are meer Faculties and Powers in created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead really distinct from each other but as inseparably United into One as Three different Powers are essentially united in One Mind There is a vast difference indeed between them as there is between God and Creatures the Mind is but One the