their Heresie against the Trinity of real Persons 'T is true a Man may innocently say That the term Person was used against Patripassians while he contends for the proper truth of their Personality as the Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity †P. 25. Ubi citatur Facund pro defensione triâ—â— capit c. 1. p. 19. cites Facundus's Saying that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie but to throw out such Expressions with a Design to deny the Primitive Antiquity of this Faith of Three proper Persons or Personalities is extremely perfidious of which this is a certain Sign when Men avoid the use of these Terms as a stock of Offence as his Lordship appears industriously to do in his State of the Doctrine I have not Facundus by me and so cannot so well judge of the convenience of his Words But as to the Term Hypostasis or Subsistence tho' it was in use long before Sabellianism and used of the Person of the Father * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1.2 yet was that use promiscuous for Essence and Subsistence long after Sabellianism and the determinate use thereof for the distinct Persons was later than the Sardican Council and was indeed at last so fixed to denote their substantial Personality or personal Subsistence against the Sabellians who asserted the Word and Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-subsistent that is not distinctly subsistent from the Person of the Father in the Unity of Essence but the Term Person both in the Eastern and Western Churches was ever received from the beginning without any variety or ambiguity § 7. Now that my Surmises against his Lordship's Integrity herein are well grounded will appear from his Lordship's explanation of this Term which tho' it be received in the third Party yet he dares not make his own nor allow for proper By Person saith he is only meant that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other Two Here it is plain that by using the Term Three so often without adding Person he shuns the Word as much as he dares at present to do and assigns a distinction which is not any way personal For it being only such a diversity that one is not the other it will as well agree to two or three Tobaco pipes for these are truly different from each other I would therefore ask his Lordship Does the Name of Father as distinct from the Son import no more than that one is not the other or does it import a Personality really Paternal If he will grant only the former part of the disjunction as he grants no more in his Discourse then there really was no God the Father from Eternity till the Creation of Christ which was the first Article of Arianism nor was he who is by all called God the Father even a true Person which yet however all have ever acknowledged But if he ever was a true Person and Father then first as to him the Term is elder than Patripassianism and I demand a good reason why the Eternal Word is not as much and as true a Person also especially if he be the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father For otherwise the Father and the Son will be of Dignities specifically different if one be of a personal and the other of impersonal Character tho' how a real Son can be a thing really impersonal I cannot conceive and then be that allows no more distinction but only this that one is not the other tacitly denying the relative distinction between Father and the Son doth really deny both the Father and the Son When these Words were orally delivered at Warmister I observed them to my self but looked on it as a slip only of an extemporary speaking but when I see it also after the last concoction delivered from the Press I suspect somewhat more than should be I am sure the Dictate is rotten and tacitly imports a renunciation of our Christianity § 8. And yet after all so great is the force of Truth that it will maintain its Evidence even in the Tongues and Pens of its Adversaries For though some part of his Lordship's Doctrines denies the Personality yet others unwittingly concede it For first of all when he calls the Trinity the Blessed Three not daring to say Persons the Character of Blessed doth import a Peal Personality For whether it be taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of God's essential Happiness or in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the objects of our religious Praises yet if the Three are either or both ways Blessed they must be Persons For among created Beings none are internally or effectually blessed but what are Personal but if any Man will cavil and say that God in the Creation blessed things Impersonal and promised such Blessings also in the Mosaical Covenants it is enough to reply That these Blessed Three are uncapable of those lower forms of Benediction and must have a Divine Blessedness if they are of a Divine Nature Now his Lordship will not say that these are Three Distinct Blessed Essences and he says they are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes so that he cannot with consistence call them three Blessed Names Oeconomies or Modes and then what can he or any one else conceive by Three Blessed but Three Blessed Persons For though it may be truly said that the highest Blessedness is that of Essence yet none but a Person or Persons can be essentially Blessed So that his Lordship asserting a Blessed Three must against his will yield them to be three Persons really distinct though not divide And so when he says that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself this Pronoun himself is expresly Personal and so either the Personality is Real or his Lordship very unaccurate in attributing a Personal Pronoun to every one of the Three and so is at his choice either unaccurate or self-contradictory or heretical or for the sake of a blessed Comprehension all together § 9. Let us now consider his Lordship's proper Tradition of this third Opinion or perhaps his own under the Colour of that for 't is not easie to find him This saith he is in general the Sum of the Received Doctrine that in God's undivided Essence there are Three really different from each other that are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes But here is not one word of Persons though asserted by the whole Catholick Church by our own Articles and Liturgies which his Lordship has sworn his unfeigned Assent and Consent to and is by his Station bound to defend and for which he has the great example of his late Metropolitan What latent Ulcer is the Cause of this tergiversation I cannot exactly tell but something there must be at the bottom But since this being matter
of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation †P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Theognostus who still maintains the Old Jewish and Primitive Simile against all Sadducean and Sabellian perversions of it such as we above saw practised by the Adversaries of this truth in the days of Justin Martyr See above § 8. § 17. Secondly the Antiquity of the Simile taken from our Minds admits so large a Vindication that to quote †Arm. Alex. Protrep Tertull. adv Prax. Theoph. ad Autolyo Orig. con Cels l. 7. de Princip l. 1. c. 2. Euseb con Marcell l 2. c. 17. Athan. Syn. Nic. con Hoer Arian Decret con Arian Orat. 2. Orat. 3. Orat. 4. con Gent. Greg. Nyss de hom Opific c. 5. Greg. Naz. Irenic 2. Ambros de dignit human condit Aug. in Evan. Joh. Tract c. 1. sayings at large would make a little compendious Library of the Fathers and therefore to avoid a bulk I must referr to a few Authors and Authorities in the Margin that are confessedly of a much greater antiquity than his Lordship assigns to the invention or use of this Simile who yet resemble the Theology of the Trinity by the image thereof in our Minds which the Scriptures affirming to be created after the Image and in the Likeness of God recommended to those Fathers and us to learn Theories of God by those glances of his Divinity with which he has both adorned and enlightened our intellectual Powers from those inspired strains of Theology that so expresly suit with that Idea we have of our own internal Principles § 18. But now let us further try whether his Lordship * P. 32. that flouts the Fathers for their many impertinent Similes does not pretend to supply us with others in our own Nature which really are much more impertinent to â—e conception of the Trinity We do plâ—â—â—ly perceive †P. 41 42. saith he iâ—â—â—ur selves two if not three Principles of Operation that do not only differ 〈◊〉 Vnderstanding and Will which are only different Modes of thinking but differ in their Character and way of Operation All our cogitations and reasonings are a sort of Acts in which we can reflect on the way how we operate We perceive that we act freely in them and that we turn our Minds to such objects and thoughts as we please But by another Principle of which we perceive nothing and can reflect upon no part of it we live in our Bodies we animate and actuate them we receive sensations from them and give motions to them we live and dye and do not know how all this is done It seems to be from some Emanation from our Souls in which we do not feel that we have any liberty and so we must conclude that this Principle in us is natural and necessary In acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse there seems to be a mixture of both Principles or a third that results out of them For we feel a freedom in one respect but as for those marks that are in our brain that set things in our memory or furnish us with words we are necessary Agents they come in our way but we do not know how We cannot call up a figure of things or words at pleasure some disorder in our Mechanism hides or flattens them which when it goes off they start up and serve us but not by any act of our Vnderstanding and Will Thus we see that in this single undivided Essence of ours there are different Principles of Operation so different as liberty and necessity are from one another I am far from thinking that this is a proper explanation or resemblance of this mystery and here I indeed jump in judgment with his Lordship yet it may be called in some sort an illustration of it since it shews us from our own Composition that in one Essence there may be such different Principles which in their proper Character may be brought to the terms of a contradiction of being free and not free So in the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Vnity there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations c. Tenderden Steeple and Goodwyn Sands This is a worthy Simile indeed to supplant that scouted one of the Ancients in which is no representation of the Logos and its Parent Principle nor of the Spirit of Holiness that is in the Father and the Son none of their co-essentiality co-eternity or order all which are resembled in that Simile which this undermines But however let us try the stuff first generally and then particularly In the general view here are two Principles of necessity and freedom The necessity consists in our being and its Physical Operations of Life and Death the liberty in the Elective faculty of our Minds Now what can this resemble in God but the natural necessity of the Divine Life and the Operations if we may so speak by which the Son is generated from the Father and the Holy Spirit derived from both and the liberty of all God's other acts But this cannot amount to a Trinity nor resemble contrary or different Principles since God's liberty of acting differs not really from his necessary existence And both that necessity and liberty equally agree to every Person in the Trinity and so cannot resemble their distinction But now we will be more particular and trace these Philosophick dictates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so we may see the depths of them First then his Lordship cannot tell whether there be in us two or three Principles of Operation only if there be not three be sure there are two so then we are sure of a Figure for two but not for three Principles or rather Persons in the Deity This at first setting out is like to be a sweet illustration of the Trinity I doubt 't is crack'd through some disorder in its Mechanism But whether two or three they differ not like Vnderstanding and Will that are but different Modes of thinking Now if we take Understanding and Will for the Principles of actual intellection and volition as his Lordship's comparison of Principles to them seems to do then I deny them to be Modes of thinking since Principles are not the Modes of their Principiates but give them to their Principiates If his Lordship means not the Principles but only the acts of intellection and volition then I deny volition to be a Mode of thinking And whether you conceive the acts of intellection and will mixt or pure yet according to the true abstract distinctions of them they are not divers Modes of the same specifick Act but Acts whose formal reason is specifically different Now as trifling as all this is and seems to be yet his Lordship seems to have had a great feteh in it against the Canonical Similitude of our Minds lest Understanding and Will being near the same with Understanding and Love and flowing from our Mind as its Parent should be thought a fair Simile for the Trinity for this cause it was