Intercession of the Eternal Son of God For if Christ Jesus who is the Saviour of Mankind be not the Eternal Son of God in humane Nature all those great Assurances which the Gospel gives us of God's love to Sinners in giving his own Eternal Son for us of the Expiation of our Sins by the Blood of the Son of God a price of inestimable value and of all the Blessings which we expect both in this world and in the next from the powerful intercession of a Beloved Son and a meritorious High-Priest I say all these strong Consolations dwindle into no more than the Word and Promise of a great and extraordinary Prophet the Death of a Martyr and the Intercession of a Beloved Creature and humble Supplicant who has no inherent Power and Authority to save us Our Modern Socinians are very sensible what an invincible prejudice this is for few serious Christians will be willing to part with their hopes of Heaven or to part with greater infinitely greater hopes for less or to think so meanly of their Saviour who is the object of their Faith and Worship as to thrust him down into the rank and number of meer Creatures This the Catholick Church would never endure in the Arians who yet attributed a most excellent Nature and Glory to Christ next to God himself superior to the highest Orders of Angels as being before the World it self and the Maker of it but yet not true and perfect God as not having the same Nature with his Father nor Eternally begotten by him much less would they ever endure the thoughts of the Photinian or Samosatenian Heresy that is of Socinianism which makes Christ but a meer man who had no Being before he was Born of his Virgin Mother This I say being so invincible a prejudice against them they have of late tried new Arts and have taken advantage of some very unhappy Disputes to impose upon unwary men and to appear abroad with new Confidence under a less frightful Disguise The late Controversy about Three infinite Minds and Spirits in the Trinity has given them the advantage of distinguishing between Real and Nominal Trinitarians or such Trinitarians as believe a Trinity of Real subsisting Persons and those who believe only one Real Person who is God with a Trinity of Names or Offices or immanent Acts and Powers The Realists they call Trithiests or such Hereticks as assert Three Gods The Nominals they think very Orthodox and the Church and tho' the Nominals and Socinians differ in some forms of Speech yet they say and I think very truly that there is no considerable difference in their Faith as they state it and seem well enough inclined to exchange that odious name of Socinians for the more plausible and popular name of Nominal Trinitarians And thus they can Dispute as heartily as ever and with more safety and honour against the Faith of the Trinity so they do but call it a Real Trinity and may dispute for Socinianism as earnestly as ever so they do but call it a Nominal Trinity En quo discordia cives Perduxit miseros That this is the whole Artifice of this present Pamphlet any one who reads it may see with half an eye and I hope some men if ever they can grow cool will consider a little better of it I do not so much intend gravely to Dispute with this Author as to wash off his Paint and bring the Controversy back again to its right Owners those truly opposite Parties of Trinitarians Sabellians and Socinians That those whom he calls the Real Trinitarians are the only men who believe a Christian Trinity and that the Nominal Trinitarians do not believe a Trinity is evident in their very Names for a Trinity which is the object of our Faith and Worship is certainly a Real Trinity if it be at all and one would think that a Trinity which is not a Real Trinity should be no Trinity at all The Zeal which the Socinians express against a Real Trinity is a good Argument That that is the true Christian Trinity which they and their Predecessors have always rejected in contradiction to the Catholick Faith and the great fondness they express for a Nominal Trinity is as good a proof that it is no Trinity at all Such a Trinity as is reconcileable with Socinianism as all these men own a Nominal Trinity to be can never be the Christian Faith unless Socinianism be Christianity Which I hope those men whom this and some other late Writers call Nominal Trinitarians will not yet own and yet if Socinianism be a Contradiction to the Christian Faith that must be the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity which most directly contradicts Socinianism in the parting Points and that none but a Real Trinity does So that it is in vain for them to hope to conceal themselves under some insignificant Names let them deal fairly with the world and Dispute professedly against a Trinity for a Real Trinity is neither better nor worse than a Trinity and then let them produce their Authorities and Reasons to prove that the Catholick Church even the Nicene Council it self never believed a Trinity and that the Faith of a Trinity is Tritheism This becomes men of candour and honesty let their Opinions be what they will but to sneak and sculk like men who have a mind to steal a Cause and are as much ashamed to appear in open light as such kind of Traders use to be is mean and pilfering and unworthy of their Ancestors who own'd themselves at Noon-day and bravely outfaced all the Authority of the Catholick Church and all the Reason of Mankind That this is the truth of the Case and that they themselves look upon this distinction as no more than a jest is evident from that account this Writer gives of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Trinity As to the Explication the Party called Realists say The Holy Trinity or the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct infinite Substances Three Minds Three Spirits they are Three such Persons that is as distinct and as really subsisting and living as three Angels or three Men are Each Person has his own peculiar individual Substance his own personal and proper Understanding Will and Power of Action an Omnipotence Omniscience and all other Divine Attributes divers in number from the personal Omnipotence Omniscience c. of the other two Persons In the Creation as also in the Government of the world they are to be considered as distinct Agents not as one Creator or one Governor but only in this sense that the Father acts by the Son through the Spirit of which the meaning is that the Father in regard of his Paternal Prerogative acteth not immediately but by the Son and Spirit This Account as far as it concerns the real Subsistence of Three distinct infinite Persons in the Unity of the God-head does contain the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity and yet
Unity of Will and Power and Operation from the indivisible Unity of Nature that they are but one Agent and produce but one and the same effect But still as for the main of the Charge That every distinct Person in the Trinity has a personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of his own which is not the personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of either of the other Persons is what all who believe a Real Trinity do and must agree in whether they will agree to call these Three Substances Wills Understandings c. or not Nay this is all that those very Persons who assert Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits in the Trinity ever meant by it Own but each Person in his own proper Person to be infinite Substance Mind Spirit and that neither Person is each other and they will consent to any other form of words and not dispute the reason or propriety of them all that they contend for is a real Trinity of true real proper Persons and that they are certain cannot be unless each Person by himself as distinct from the other Persons be Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding Power This is the only Trinity which Socinus Crellius Slichtingius and others of that Party have hitherto disputed against and therefore certainly they did apprehend that the Christians in their days even all the Divinity-Chairs of Europe did assert such a Trinity and those Learned Men who opposed them did believe so too or there must be very wise doings amongst them tho' our Modern Socinians have now made a discovery that these Realists are not the true Catholick Trinitarians but that the Nominalists are the Church and now they are grown Friends with the Church and Orthodox beyond their own hopes and their business is only to defend the Church against this new Sect of Real Trinitarians Let it be so but still they maintain the same Doctrine that Socinus did and dispute against the same Trinity which he disputed against and therefore these Real Trinitarians are no new upstart Sect but their old Adversaries who will never be cheated by new Names into an accommodation or comprehension with Socinians The plain state of the Case is this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Christian Trinity now the question is whether this be a Real Trinity or not that is whether the Father be an Eternal Infinite Living Omniscient Omnipotent subsisting Person and did truly beget of his own Nature and Substance a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Son and in like manner whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Spirit This is the Doctrine of those whom our Modern Socinians call Realists that is of True and Orthodox Trinitarians and without asserting this whatever they teach besides a Trinity is nothing but a name and therefore such men may properly be called Nominalists so that the Realists only are Trinitarians the meer Nominalists whatever they are else are no Trinitarians and this new contrivance of opposing these Real Trinitarians is neither better nor worse than opposing the Doctrine of the Trinity And let but our People understand this and we are where we were and then the Socinians may call themselves Nominalists or what they please To proceed He is as artificial and unsincere in his account of the Nominalists as of the Realists We must not conceive of the Divine Persons say the Nominalists as we do of created Persons Very right there is an unconceivable difference between them as all Realists acknowledge they are perfectly distinct but yet inseparably One they never did never can subsist apart the same One undivided Divinity subsists whole and perfect and yet distinctly in each of them and is as perfectly One in Three as any one thing is one with it self And thus we allow what he adds to be a very great Truth and wish he himself would consider better of it That the conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of any created Beings as the Perfections of the Divinity are paramount to Human or Angelical Perfections This we are sensible of and therefore do not presently cry out of Nonsense and Contradiction when we are forced by Scripture and Reason to attribute such things to the Divine Nature and Persons as we can find no Images or Idea's of in Created Nature for we know that Creatures cannot be perfectly like to God and consequently we ought not to oppose the Idea's of Nature to Revelation But the present question is not Whether Father Son and Holy Ghost are such Persons as created Persons as Angels or men are for it is certain there is an unconceivable difference between them but whether they may be called Persons in the true and proper Notion of the word Person for one who does really and substantially subsist live will understand act according to his Natural Powers And whether there be Three such subsisting living willing understanding Persons in the Godhead or only One Whether as the Father hath life in himself so the Son hath life in himself and as the Father knows the Son so the Son knows the Father and whether the Spirit of life and the Spirit of Holiness and Power and the Spirit that searcheth the deep things of God be not a subsisting living knowing working Spirit and this is the reason why the Church calls them Three Persons which the Scripture does not call them because the Holy Scripture distinctly Attributes life will knowledge power to these Three Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Notion all men have of a Person when applied to Creatures and to talk of Three Divine Persons who are not subsisting living knowing Persons destroys the only Reason for calling them Persons But he adds as the Doctrine of the Nominalists That God is but One Being but One Substance Mind or Spirit with One only will understanding energy or power of action But is not this in a true Catholick Sense the Doctrine of the Realists also as I observed before But this is what this disinterested Person would be at to distinguish the Realists and Nominalists by Three Substances and One Substance of the Divinity And were this the whole Truth the Realists would certainly be Hereticks and the Nominalists might be the Orthodox Church Whereas the Realists as they own Three real subsisting living Persons so they as constantly profess the Homoousion or One undivided Substance and Nature subsisting and acting distinctly but indivisibly and inseparably in Three which is a real perfect subsisting Trinity in perfect Unity But the Nominalists truly so called as they own but One Substance in the Divinity so but One single Person which is their One God and can find a Trinity only in a Trinity of Names or Properties or meer immanent Acts. That there are many such Nominalists among us I fear is too true but I must say again that the
bare dispute concerning the use of those words Three eternal infinite Minds and Spirits for Three eternal infinite intelligent Persons no more proves those who reject such expressions while they own each Person by himself to be infinite Mind and Spirit to be meer Nominalists than the use of such expressions in a qualified Catholick Sense as the Catholick Fathers have formerly used them or other Terms equivalent to them proves those who use them to be Tritheists And yet this is all our Author pretends to justifie this distinction between Realists and Nominalists viz. The Controversy depending between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock But I cannot pass on without making one Remark on this That Dr. S th and those who have espoused that side of the Question are as much concerned to vindicate themselves from the imputation which this Author has fixed on them of being meer Nominalists or Sabellians as Dr. Sherlock and his Friends are to vindicate themselves from Tritheism and I confess I think a great deal more because in the heat of Dispute or through Inadvertency if it be not their settled Principle and Judgment they have given more just occasion for such a Charge When One and the same Person with Three substantial Deaneries shall be very gravely alledged as a proper Representation of a Trinity in Unity when a meer mode of subsistence shall be given as a proper and adequate Definition of a Person as applied to the Trinity when a large Book shall be writ on purpose to demonstrate That there is and can be but One Person in the Trinity in the true proper Notion as it signifies an intelligent Person what can the most equal and impartial Judge make of this but downright Sabellianism For whether it be allowable to say Three Minds and Spirits or not I 'm sure without owning Three proper subsisting intelligent Persons each of whom is in his own Person infinite Mind and Spirit there can be no Real Trinity If their Sense be more Orthodox than their Words I do heartily beg of them for God's sake and the sake of our common Faith so to explain their Words as to remove this scandal as Dr. Sherlock has done and not to Charge a Trinity of real subsisting intelligent Persons which is all he professes to own or ever to have intended with Tritheism till they can give us something in the room of it more Orthodox than a Sabellian Trinity which the Catholick Church has always rejected with Abhorrence SECT III. The Authorities of the Nominalists against a Real Trinity briefly Examined THis Socinian having given such an account as it is of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists as disinterested as he pretends to be he professedly Espouses the side of the Nominalists against the Realists that is under a new Name he follows his old Trade of Disputing against the Trinity only with this advantage that he now pleads the Cause of the Church of his beloved Church of Nominalists against these Tritheistick Hereticks the Realists But when men consider who this Advocate is it will do the Nominalists no Credit nor any Service to the Cause For a Socinian tho' he change his Name will be a Socinian still that is a professed Enemy to the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and to the Eternal God head and Incarnation of our Saviour Christ and there is very good Reason to believe that what he opposes is the True Catholick Faith and what he vindicates and defends is Heresy What Agreement there is between the Nominalists and Socinians and what an easie accommodation may be made between them we shall hear towards the Conclusion but this will not satisfie our Author that the present Orthodox Church which to the reproach of the Church and to the advantage of his own Cause he will have to be all Nominalists which is such an abuse as concerned Persons ought to resent I say not satisfied that the present Church is on his side nothing will serve him less than to prove that this was always the Faith of the Catholick Church A brave and bold Undertaking but what his wiser Predecessors Socinus Crellius c. would have laught at and which I doubt not but he Laughs at himself and will have cause to Laugh if he can meet with any Persons soft and easy enough to believe him He well and truly observes that this Question What has been the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this point must be decided by Authorities or Witnesses and therefore he appeals to Authorities and those I grant the most venerable Authorities and Witnesses that can be had even General Councils I wish he would continue in this good humour and then I should not doubt but he would quickly change his side But this is contemptible Hypocrisy in a man who despises all Authorities not only human but sacred when they contradict his own private Reasonings to appeal to Authority I can easily bear with men of weak Understandings but I hate Knavery for Truth needs no Tricks and how much Socinians value Fathers and Councils is sufficiently known He begins with the Nicene Council which brought into the Church the term Homoousios by which is meant that the Divine Persons have the same Substance or are of One Substance But then he says it is disputed between the Nominalists and Realists in what Sense the Council understood this One Substance Whether the same Substance in number the self-same Substance so that there is indeed but One Divine Substance Or the same Substance for kind sort or nature namely the same in all Essential Properties So that in Truth there are Three distinct or numerically different Substances which are the same only in nature and kind This he makes the Controversy between the Church that is his Nominalists and the Realists but this is far from being the true state of the Controversy All whom he calls Realists own that Father and Son are but One and the self-same Substance communicated whole and undivided from Father to Son so that the Father is Substance the Son Substance in his own Person and both the same Substance And the like of the Holy Spirit that as Marius Victorinus says They are ter una Substantia Thrice One and the same Substance and this is all that those mean who venture to say they are Three Substances for the Dispute between those Realists who say there is but one Substance of the Divine Persons and those who own Three is not whether the Son be true and real Substance in his own Person as distinct from the Person of the Father for all but Sabellians agree in this but whether considering the perfect Unity and Identity of Nature and Substance in Three it be Orthodox to say Three Substances and not rather One Substance and Three who subsist which is a more Orthodox form of speech and less liable to exception And thus we allow That the Nicene Fathers by the Homoousion did mean One and the
but not as God that he receives his Person but not his Essence or Divine Nature of the Father he observes that we cannot conceive the Person without the Essence unless by Person in the Divinity we mean no more than the meer mode of subsistence which is plain Sabellianism So that this Writer has done Dr. Sherlock a greater kindness than he was aware of and as it will quickly appear has lost his own Cause by it if Dr. Bull have truly represented the sense of the Fathers as all learned and unprejudiced men must own he has For here are such a Cloud of Witnesses to the Doctrine of a Real Substantial Subsisting Trinity as no later Authorities whatever they are can stand against What I have now quoted is only what first came to hand but there is hardly any thing in the whole Book but what by immediate and necessary consequence proves the real dictinction of proper subsisting Persons in the Trinity that each Person is by himself in his own proper Person as distinguisht from the other Two Infinite Mind Substance Life Wisdom Power and whatever is contained in the Notion and Idea of God Instead of particular Quotations for the proof of this I shall only Appeal to the Titles of the several Sections of that learned Work which I believe no man can make common sense of without acknowledging a Trinity of proper substantial subsisting Persons The First Section concerns the Preexistence of the Son of God That he who afterwards was called Jesus Christ did subsist before his Incarnation or Nativity according to the Flesh of the Blessed Virgin in another and more excellent Nature than that of Man That he appeared to the Holy Men under the Old Testament as a kind of Anticipation of his-Incarnation That he always presided over and took care of his Church which he was to Redeem with his own Blood That he was present with God his Father before the foundation of the World and that by him all things were made This is the Faith of Christians and this he proves to be the constant Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers for the first three hundred years and so it continued to After-ages Now let any man consider what a pretty kind of dispute this is about the Preexistence of the Son if he have no proper permanent Existence of his own but considered as a Divine Person is only another Name for the Father or an immanent Act like the transient Thought or transient Act of Reason in Man For if the Son be not a distinct Person from the Father and as proper a subsisting Person as the Father himself is the Question will amount to no more but this Whether God the Father had a Being before Jesus Christ was Born of the Virgin or before the World was made Or Whether he had any immanent Acts of Wisdom or Reason before he made the World Or Whether he took the Name of Son upon himself before he made the World or made any Creature to know him or his Name The Christian Fathers were Wiser men than to talk at this impertinent rate and therefore they did believe that God had a Son in a true and proper Sense a subsisting living omnipotent Son by whom he made the World who appeared in his own proper Person to several of the Patriarchs under the Old Testament and in the fulness of time was Incarnate of the substance of the Virgin Mary The very Question it self necessarily supposes this to make Sense of it much more impossible is it to understand what the Fathers say upon this Argument upon the Sabellian or Socinian Hypothesis The Second Section concerns the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father That the Son of God is not of a created or mutable Essence but perfectly of the same Divine unchangeable Nature with his Father and therefore is True God of True God Now What Sense can be made of this if the Son be not as truly and properly Substance in his own Person as distinguished from the Person of the Father as the Father is in his own Person For How can the Son be Consubstantial or of the same Substance with the Father if he be no Substance at all Especially since this Learned man has proved That the Catholick Fathers rejected the Homoousion in the Sabellian Sense for one singular Substance of Father and Son and that they assert as common Sense would teach us that nothing is Consubstantial to it self but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing is Consubstantial to another The Third Section concerns the Co-eternal Existence of the Son with the Father Now for Father and Son to Coexist necessarily supposes that they both Exist and actually subsist by themselves for two cannot Exist and Subsist together unless each of them actually subsist For as the Fathers observe nothing can properly be said to Coexist with it self For it can admit of no Question Whether any one has been as long as he has been And therefore since the Co-eternity of the Son has been a very serious Dispute between the Catholicks and the Arians it is certain that both of them owned Father and Son to be two distinct Persons which did distinctly Exist and Subsist The Fourth Section teaches the Subordination of the Son to the Father that tho' the Son be Co-equal with the Father as having the same Divine Nature with the Father without any change or diminution yet he is Subordinate to the Father as receiving the Divine Nature from him That the Father is God of himself the Son God of God Now if the Son receive the Divine Nature by an eternal Communication from the Father he must have it in himself in his own Person and be a living subsisting Son true God of God and if he be a true proper Person and subordinate to the Father he must be a distinct Person for no Person can be subordinate to himself These Questions Dr. Bull has discoursed at large with great variety of Learning and acuracy of Judgment and it is a Mystery to me how those who pretend to admire Dr. Bull should quarrel with Dr. Sherlock or that those who pay any reverence to the Catholick Fathers should quarrel with either of them This Socinian as I observed before was glad to draw Dr. Bull into the number of Tritheists but by that means he has drawn in all the Catholick Fathers too and has now drawn together so many Tritheists as he will never know how to get rid of again or to speak more properly he has unanswerably Confuted the Charge of Tritheism and discovered the Trick and Mystery of it by charging the Catholick Faith it self and all the Catholick Fathers the most zealous Patrons and Advocates of it with Tritheism SECT II. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Holy Trinity THE very Name of Socinianism is justly abhorred by all Christians who place all their hopes of Salvation in the Incarnation Sacrifice and
he has both imperfectly and falsly represented the Opinion of the Realists 1. He tells us They say that the Holy Trinity or the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct infinite Substances Three Minds Three Spirits Now any one would hence conclude That this is the Universal Doctrine of all the Realists and that this Phrase of Three Substances Minds and Spirits is the Parting point between the Realists and Nominals That all who believe a Real Trinity own Three Infinite Minds and Spirits and that no man can believe a Real Trinity who does not own this Now this is manifestly false as our late Experience proves The greatest number of Realists as far as I can guess who believe a Real Trinity a Real subsisting Father a Real subsisting Son and a Real Subsisting Holy Spirit do yet reject those Expressions of Three Infinite Minds and Spirits which are liable to a very Heretical Sense either Arianism or Tritheism and therefore were very sparingly and with great Caution used by the Catholick Fathers tho' they used Three Hypostases in the very same Sense and did not condemn Three Natures and Substances when personally used as we have seen above And therefore the late Dispute about Three Minds does not in it self divide the contending Parties into Realists and Nominals as the Socinians too hastily conclude and think to carry their Cause by it Very good Catholicks may dispute such expressions as we know they did the Homoousion it self for One Substance is as liable to an Heretical Sense as Three Substances for that may be Sabellianism and the other may be Arianism or Tritheism and both of them rightly understood may be very Orthodox but whether they are or no must be judged by the Sense in which they are used and the Catholick Fathers like good Christians have easily yielded to each other in a dispute of words when it has appeared that the difference has been only in words not in the Faith What Athanasius says upon a like occasion is a very good Rule to maintain Christian Peace and Unity To corrupt the Faith is always unlawful tho' we palliate it with the most popular and orthodox forms of speech but a true and holy Faith does not degenerate into Impiety and Heresy by some new improper expressions while he who uses such words has a Pious and Orthodox sense But to proceed Tho' all Realists do not agree about the use of those words Three Minds or Substances yet they all do and all must agree in what follows viz. They are Three such Persons that is as distinct and as really subsisting and living as three Angels or three Men. They are so without doubt if they be real proper Persons for a Person lives and subsists and Three Persons must be really distinct or they can't be Three that is the Father's Person is no more the Person of the Son nor the Person of the Son the Person of the Father than Peter is John or John is Peter but then they do not subsist dividely or separately as Peter and John do He adds Each Person has his own peculiar individual Substance his own personal and proper Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action an Omnipotence Omniscience and all other Divine Attributes divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence Omniscience c. of the other Two Persons Now I except against nothing in this but the Phrases of peculiar and individual substance and divers in number for peculiar and individual I would say a singular substance for tho' a singular substance in created Natures is a peculiar and individual substance also it is not so in the Divinity The Catholick Fathers always distinguish'd between One Substance and One singular Substance of the Godhead To deny One Substance or the Homoousion was Arianism To assert One singular Substance was Sabellianism for One singular Substance is but One Person which denies a Trinity of Persons But the Divine Nature and Substance is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and Common and therefore not One singular Substance which can never be common and by the same Reason a Personal Substance though it be singular and appropriate to such a particular Person and therefore as incommunicable as the Person is yet it is not peculiar and individual in the common acceptation of those words but the same One common undivided inseparable Essence of the Divinity subsisting distinctly and singularly in each Person Thus for the same Reason I will not say that the Personal Omnipotence c. of the Father is divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence of the Son because it is the same One Omnipotence as it is the same One Divinity which subsists distinctly in each Person but we may and must say That the Personal Omnipotence of the Father is not the Personal Omnipotence of the Son no more than the Person of the Father is the Person of the Son But this disguised Socinian has taken great care in representing the Doctrine of the Realists to conceal their Faith of the perfect undivided Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature in Three distinct subsisting Persons which yet he knows they as Sacredly profess as they do the real distinction of Persons and is owned in as high terms by Dr. Sherlock himself as by any of his Adversaries and is almost the only Pretence of those many Contradictions he is charged with by such as will not understand a perfect distinction in perfect Unity which yet is essential to the Catholick Faith of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity But as for this Author whether he had thought such a Distinction and Unity reconcileable or not yet when he undertook to represent the Doctrine of the Realists he ought to have represented it whole and entire and to have left it to the judgment of the Reader whereas he is very careful to observe that they say the Three Persons in the Trinity are Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits which yet only some of them say but takes no notice that these Three distinct Persons have One undivided Nature and Essence which they all agree in For this would have spoiled his Objections of Tritheism and what he immediately adds about Three Creators and Governors of the World which they never owned any more than Three Gods for tho' there are Three who are Omnipotent and Three who create yet they are so inseparably united in Nature that they are but One Agent One Omnipotent and produce but One Effect As the Catholick Fathers concluded for this Reason that as the Scripture teaches us That there is but One God and yet that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God so it attributes the making and government of the world both to Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet there is but one and the same world which is made and governed which proves that though they act as distinctly as their Persons are distinct yet there is such an essential
self-same Substance of Father and Son but so that the Son is a true and proper Son a real subsisting Person Substance of his Fathers Substance God of God Light of Light very God of very God Begotten not Made of one Substance with the Father by whom all things were made which so expresly declares the Sense of the Council that this Author durst not so much as mention God of God Light of Light c. which can never be reconciled with his Notion of One Substance which leaves no Substance nor any real subsistence to the Son distinct from the Father It is a bold stroke and worthy of our Author to make the Nicene Council determine for Sabellianism in the term Homoousios but yet he has a little Story which he thinks proves it beyond exception for which he quotes Socrates That Historian tells us That there happened a great quarrel in Aegypt about the word Homoousios which he says was like fighting in the dark without distinguishing Friends from Enemies for neither of them seemed to understand each other as to those matters for which they reproached one another This our Author takes no notice of for it would not serve his purpose it appearing from hence that the Accusations on both sides were causeless and like dealing blows in the dark But now our Author begins Those Fathers of the Council that were against the term Homoousios but those Fathers of the Council are not in Socrates but only those who declined the term Homoousios but the Fathers of the Council served his purpose better and therefore he makes bold with the Historian or of One Substance which the Historian has not added neither accused such as were for it as Sabellians and Montanists but the Historian says did suppose that those who received that Term did introduce the Doctrine of Sabellius and Montanus that is that this was their design in using that Term which as he observed before was their mistake calling them also blasphemous because they seemed to take away by that word the real Existence of the Son of God While on the other hand they that stood for Homoousios believed that such as were against it did introduce more Gods and therefore detested them as reviving Paganism Here our Author leaves off but I shall go on with the History Eustathius Bishop of Antioch accuses Eusebius Pamphili as Adulterating the Nicene Faith Eusebius denies That he in the least departed from the Nicene Faith and accuses Eustathius of Sabellianism And thus they wrote against each other as Adversaries and yet both of them Taught That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons that one would wonder whence it came to pass that they could not agree From this Story our Author thus Reasons This is a deciding-testimony in the Case For the Realists will never be able to shew that if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances Three Beings Minds or Spirits How the Fathers of the Council could be accused of Montanism and Sabellianism for Three intellectual infinite Substances Three Divine Beings Spirits or Minds was the Doctrine chiefly opposed by Sabellius and Montanus as all confess Then by his own Confession his Nominalists are Sabellians and all those Fathers and Councils which Condemned Sabellius were Realists and then we have got the Nicene Council again And on the other hand the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios could as little Censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism if it had not been supposed that in opposing Homoousios they professed to believe Three infinite Substances in number Three Divine Minds and Spirits which is the very Doctrine of the Modern Realists 1. Now in answer to this I observe first That the Historian says all this was an angry mistake as angry men are very apt to mistake and to reproach each other with their own mistakes but neither of these Parties were guilty of the Heresies they were charged with neither the one were Sabellians nor the other Tritheists Now this I think proves the direct contrary to what he concludes from it For if those who were charged with Sabellianism for owning the Homoousion were not Sabellians then it is certain that they did not think that the Nicene Council by the Homoousion or One Substance meant One singular Substance for that is Sabellianism And when those who professed the Homoousion and were no Sabellians charged those who rejected the Homoousion with Tritheism they must believe That the Nicene Homoousion is neither Sabellianism nor Tritheism but the middle between both such a Unity and sameness of Substance as is neither a Sabellian singularity nor a Tritheistick diversity and multiplicity of Substances that is where Father and Son are in their own Persons as distinct from each other infinite Substance and yet but one Substance One of One God of God Light of Light This is the Medium which Socrates tells us they both agreed in and therefore wondered how they should come to differ That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons 2. But if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances that is according to our Sense Three each of which is true and perfect Substance and yet but One Substance How could the Fathers of the Council be accused of Montanism or Sabellianism Had he consulted Dr. Bull he would have learnt the difference between these two but let that pass He Phrases this as if he would insinuate That the Council it self was accused of Sabellianism for this Term which is false But this word Homoousios had sometimes been abused to a Sabellian Sense tho' the Council did not use it in that Sense and some men might still conceal their Heresy under the Covert of an Orthodox Word For this Reason some who professed the Nicene Faith yet disliked the Homoousion and when this Dispute had heated them it was too natural to charge those who from the Authority of the Nicene Council defended the use of that word with such secret Heretical Senses as they thought that word chargeable with And this is the whole Truth of the Case as Socrates tells us and this is a very strange way to prove the Sense of the Council from the groundless accusations of angry and jealous men 3. But how could the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism which the Historian witnesses that it did with great earnestness But Socrates his Historian says not one word of the Council but only of these angry Disputants censuring and accusing each other and both unjustly but he would sain ascribe all this to the Council because it is not Fathers but Councils he relies on of which more presently But there
may be a very good Reason given why those who rejected the Sabellian Unity and Singularity of the Divine Essence might yet charge those with Polytheism who rejected the Homoousion or Consubstantial and there may be two accounts given of it 1. That they suspected them of Arianism in opposition to which the Council taught the Homoousion one Sense of which was Such a sameness of Nature as is between Father and Son which in Creatures we call a specifick sameness in contradiction to the Arians who taught That the Son was of a different Nature and Substance from the Father as different from God the Father as a created and uncreated Nature differ and this is downright Polytheism and Paganism for this makes the Son and Holy Spirit how excellent soever their Natures are but meer Creatures And for this Reason we know the Catholick Fathers charged the Arians with Pagan Polytheism and Idolatry And the Arians at that time were such zealous opposers of the Homoousion even while they concealed themselves under some other Catholick forms of Speech that it was too great a reason to suspect those of Arianism who denied the Homoousion whatever they would seem to own besides and when men are angry less reasonable suspicions than these are thought sufficient to form an Accusation and this is one fair account of it Such men were thought secret Arians and therefore charged with Polytheism 2. But there was another Notion of the Homoousion which the Catholick Fathers thought absolutely necessary to the Unity of God and consequently that the denial of it would introduce three Gods instead of three Divine subsisting Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead And that is That when the Son is said to be Homoousios or Consubstantial with the Father the meaning is that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the very Substance of the Father and not of any other created or uncreated Substance This St. Basil is positive in That Two who are of the same Substance for Kind are not therefore Consubstantial as Father and Son but are rather Brethren unless one be of the other But now many true Catholicks very much suspected this Term because it seemed to imply a Division and Separation of the Father's Substance for How can the Son be of the same Substance with the Father without a division of the Father's Substance The Nicene Fathers answered That the very Name of Son and the natural Notion of Generation did necessarily prove that the Son must be of the Father's Substance but then the absolute purity and simplicity of the Divine Essence which is a perfect indivisible Monad proves That this eternal Generation of the Son can't be by a division of Substance as it is in human Generations but is whole of whole in an ineffable and incomprehensible manner so as no Creature can understand which is no great wonder when we can understand so little of Creature Generations especially when Creation it self is as perfectly unaccountable as the Eternal Generation for we can no more understand how the World was Created of nothing than how the Son was Begotten of his Father's Substance whole and perfect without any division or separation That the whole Divine Essence is originally in the Father and communicated whole to the Son subsists whole and distinctly in Both and is One in Both. This is that sense of the Homoousion which occasioned so many warm Disputes between the Catholicks themselves for this reason that Party which rejected the Homoousion accused those who received it of Sabellianism because they asserted That there was but One and the same substance in Father Son and Holy Ghost which was the Heresy of Sabellius and the heat of Dispute would not suffer them to see how vastly the Catholick Homoousians and Sabellians differ'd tho' they both asserted but One Substance for the Sabellians asserted but One single Substance which is but One real subsisting Person and therefore made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three Names of the same Person But the Catholicks asserted Three real subsisting Persons who were Substance Substance and Substance and yet but One of One the perfect same of the perfect same Vna substantia non unus subsistens One substance not one that subsists and therefore generally rather called them Three Subsistences than Three Substances not but that they owned each Subsistence to be a Substance but they were in the common acceptation of the word not Three Substances but One Substance really and actually subsisting Thrice which they allowed to be One and One and One but not Three On the other hand those who received the Homoousion accused those who rejected it of Polytheism and Tritheism for in truth to deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are so of one substance that the Son receives his whole substance of the Father and that the Holy Ghost receives his whole substance of Father and Son is to make them Three absolute independent self-originated substances which have no relation to each other Three such as the Father is who is of no other but himself and the Catholick Fathers always accused this of Tritheism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Fathers was the same to them as to say Three Gods and they vindicated the Doctrine of a real subsisting Trinity against the Sabellian and Arian Charge of Tritheism by saying That they did not own Three Fathers but only One Father One Self-originated Divinity which communicates his own substance to the Son and therefore they are not Two Gods but God of God But now these good Fathers tho' they were right in the Notion of Tritheism and in the Nicene Notion of the Homoousion yet they wrongfully accused those who rejected that term of Tritheism for they owned that the Son was of the Father that all that the Son was he was of the Father that he was God of God Light of Light and therefore not an absolute Self-originated God but One God with the Father but they did not like those terms of Consubstantial and One Substance and of the Father's Substance as having something too material in their conception and sounding harsh as if the Son were part of the Father's substance which was objected against the Homoousion in the Nicene Council it self which yet disclaimed all such absurd senses and received the term as the most infallible Test against Arianism But tho' the Authority of the Council over-ruled the generality of Christians yet some who were truly Catholick and Orthodox in the Faith could not digest it and this was the true occasion of this dispute and these mutual fierce accusations and let our Author now make the best he can of it but instead of doing him service he will never be able to defend himself against it After all our Author was aware of a very terrible Objection against his sense of the Nicene Homoousion for one single Sabellian substance and person viz. that the Catholick Fathers rejected and condemned this sense of it as Heresy even
Sabellianism and it is not probable that these Fathers should not understand the sense of the Council or that while they contended earnestly for the Nicene Faith they should condemn the true Nicene Faith for Heresy as he owns they do This would have put a modest man out of countenance but he takes courage and huffs at these Fathers and private Doctors Particular Fathers are but particular Doctors 't is from general Councils only we can take the Churches Doctrine It is very provoking to see a man banter the world at this rate with the utmost contempt and scorn of his Readers It is plain how great an Admirer he is of General Councils and what he thinks of his Readers whom he hopes to persuade that the Catholick Fathers who made up the Council even Athanassius himself who had so great a part in it did either ignorantly mistake the sense of the Council or wilfully pervert it especially when all the Ante-Nicene Fathers owned the same Faith as he may learn from Dr. Bull and those Catholicks who after the Nicene Council disputed the use of that term Homoousios yet agreed in the same Faith as I have already shewn What follows is all of a piece He expounds the Arian Homoiousios or of a like Substance to signify the same Substance in sort or kind or properties that is specifically the same but only differing in number as Father and Son have the same specifick Nature but are Two Persons And thence concludes that the Nicene Homoousios which the Arians at first refused but afterwards fraudulently subscribed in the sense of Homoiousios must signify but One singular solitary Substance but one Person in the Sabellian Sense But who ever before heard that the Arian Homoiousion signified a specifick Sameness and Unity of Nature Or that the Arians owned Father and Son to have the same specifick Nature as Adam and Abel had The Catholick Fathers themselves as Athanasius Hilary Basil the two Gregory's c. owned such a likeness of Nature as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be equivalent to the Homoousion and to be True Catholick Doctrine and this they asserted against the Arians But it is in vain to dispute with a man who has either Ignorance or Confidence enough thus to impose upon his Readers His next Appeal is to the Sixth General Council which was the Third of Constantinople and when I met with this I was not a little surprized to think what he would make of it This Council as he himself tells the Story determined That there were two Natural Wills and two Operations in the Lord Christ and the Reason of this was because they asserted Two Natures in Christ the Divine and Human Nature and that each Nature has a Natural Will of its own and therefore as there are Two Natures there must be Two distinct and natural Wills in Christ. This is a plain proof of the Mystery of the Incarnation that the Divine Nature in the Person of the Son was Incarnate for there could not be two Wills unless there were two Natures which was the foundation of this Decree in Christ And this Macarius himself in his Confession of Faith profest to own both in opposition to Nestorius and Eutyches Now this Catholick Faith of the Incarnation which is so often and so expresly own'd by this Council is utterly irreconcileable with this Sabellian Unity of the Divine Nature and Substance without running into the Patripassian Heresy that the whole Trinity is Incarnate For if Christ in One Person hath Two Natures be truly and really both God and Man and consequently has Two distinct Wills a Divine and Humane Will either as God he must be distinct in Nature and Person from the Father and the Holy Ghost or if all Three Persons of the Trinity are but one single solitary Nature and consequently but One true and proper Person all Three Father Son and Holy Ghost must be Incarnate and suffer in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ which the Catholick Church condemned as Heresy Well! But he tells us That this Council owned that there is but One Will in the Three Persons of the Trinity and therefore consequently they can be but one true and proper Person This we own with the Council That there is but one essential Will in the Trinity tho' each Person has a Personal Will But this he says cannot be the meaning of the Council because the question was concerning Natural Wills or Powers of willing This is all fallacy A Natural Will is such a Will as belongs to that Nature whose Will it is As a Divine Nature has a Divine Will and a Humane Nature a Humane Will the power of willing is Personal and signifies a Personal Will And it is evident the Council speaks of the first not of the second And not to multiply Quotations I shall give but one plain proof of it Theophanes askt Macarius and Stephen Whether Adam had a reasonable Soul They answer Yes Then he askt them Whether he had a natural Will Stephen the Monk answers That before the Fall he had a Divine Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he Willed together with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demetrius calls this Blasphemy for if he was a Co-Willer he was a Co-Creator also with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others said that this made Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantial with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he who is a Co-Willer with God is Consubstantial also And for this they alledge the Authority of St. Cyril who tells us of Christ That as he is Consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he Wills together with his Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gives this reason for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that one Nature has but one Will Now if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies one who Wills with another then there must be two who Will and if these two are One Will it cannot signify personally but essentially One And if they be Consubstantial have one Substance and one Will in the same Sense we know what this Council meant by One Substance no more one personal Substance than one personal Will His next Authority is the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III. and though the Christian World is not much beholden to that Council yet I cannot think as I find a great many Wise men do that they have made any alteration in the Substance of our Faith whatever they have done in the form of Expression That the Trinity is una summa res One Supream Being was the Doctrine of St. Austin from whom Peter Lombard had it and all the Catholick Fathers owned the Trinity to be a most simple Monad which is the same thing when at the same time they asserted against the Sabellians Three real subsisting distinct Persons each of which is the same whole undivided Divinity communicated whole and perfect from Father to Son and from Father and Son to
the Holy Ghost without any division or partition of Substance And this is the Doctrine of the Lateran Council That this One supream Thing is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 veraciter truly and really Father Son and Holy Ghost Three United Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tres simul Personae and each of them distinct from the others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ac singulatim quaelibet earum And therefore there is only a Trinity not a Quaternity in God as Abbot Joachim had objected And that each of these Divine Persons is this Divine Substance Essence and Nature All this Athanasius himself would have subscribed who yet with the other Catholick Fathers rejected the Notion of a singular and solitary Divinity They add That this one supreme Nature Substance Essence which is Father Son and Holy Ghost neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds Nor did ever any Man in his Wits assert That the Divine Nature and Essence as common to Father Son and Holy Ghost that is That the whole Trinity did either Beget or was Begotten or did Proceed This belongs to Persons not to Nature formally considered as they expresly teach That the Father Begets the Son is Begotten and the Holy Ghost Proceeds so that there is a distinction of Persons and Unity of Nature That the Father is alius another the Son another the Holy Ghost another but not aliud another thing but what the Father is and what the Son is and what the Holy Ghost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are all perfectly the same that according to the Catholick Faith we may acknowledge them to be Consubstantial for the Father from Eternity Begetting the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave his own Substance to him as he himself witnesses The Father who gave them me is greater than all Nor can it be said that the Father gave part of his Substance to his Son and retained another part himself for the Hypostasis or Substance of the Father is indivisible as being perfectly simple Nor can we say That when the Father Begat the Son he so communicated his own Substance to him as not to have it himself for then he must cease to be an Hypostasis Substance and a substantial Person himself So that it is evident That the Son when Begotten received the Father's Substance without any diminution of the Father and thus Father and Son have the same Substance and Father and Son and Holy Ghost are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same supreme Nature and Substance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Unity of Sameness and Identity This is true Catholick Doctrine and the very Language of the Nicene Fathers And if Joachim rejected this Essential Unity of the Trinity and asserted a meer collective Unity as many Christians are one Church as the Council affirms he did he was very justly Condemned and the Nicene Fathers themselves would have Condemned him The only thing which looks like an Innovation in this Decree is That whereas the Catholick Fathers allowed of those Expressions A Begotten Nature Begotten Substance Begotten Wisdom Begotten God and that Substance begets Substance and Wisdom begets Wisdom c. This Council denies That this One supream Divine Essence Nature or Substance which is the Blessed Trinity does either Beget or is Begotten or Proceeds which some Schoolmen think absolutely condemns those Expressions That Substance begets Substance and Wisdom Wisdom That the Son is Deus Genitus and Natura Genita Begotten God and Begotten Nature and Begotten Wisdom which is to condemn all the Catholick Fathers who used these Expressions without any scruple nay who thought that the Mystery of the Divine Generation could not be secured without them But I confes I am of Petavius his mind though I find the Learned Doctor Bull dissent from him that this Council never intended absolutely to condemn all such Expressions when Personally used For though the Divine Nature in a general Notion as common to all Three Persons neither begets nor is begotten yet the Father begets the Son by a true and proper Generation and a true and proper Son and therefore that Learned Jesuit tells us That the Lateran Council considered the Divine Nature absolutely and in it self and as abstracted from the Three Persons not as subsisting distinctly in each Person for so it is very Catholick to say That the Divine Nature in the Person of the Father begets the Divine Nature in the Person of the Son For we cannot understand what a Person is without its Essence and Nature and it is absurd to say That the Son receives his Person from the Father without receiving that without which he cannot be a Person And the reason he gives why they rather chose to say that the Father begets the Son than that Essence begets Essence was to avoid the ambiguity of that Expression which might signify the production of another Essence as well as the generation of another Person whereas this Divine Generation is the communication of the same Eternal Essence which is in the Father to the Son which gives existence to a second Person not to a second Nature This is indeed very subtil but there is some sense in it and while they acknowledge that the Son by an Eternal Generation receives a true Divine Nature from the Father and is in his own Person true God but yet not the Father this is the Old Catholick Faith how new soever the Expressions may be Thus I have done with his General Councils and I hope every one sees how well he understands Councils or how honestly he deals with them What concerns the Church of England needs no answer after what I have already said and the Story of Valentinus Gentilis is much to the same purpose for he was so far from being a Realist that he was a down-right Arian But that he may not think himself and his Nominalists so secure of all the Divinity-Chairs in Europe I will refer him to the Learned Spanhemius to learn how it lately fared with some of them in the United Provinces who were censured and condemned by various Synods and by the publick Judgment and Authority of several Universities The first Proposition condemned was concerning the name of Son and his Eternal Generation of the Father that this is not to be understood properly of a true and proper Generation as if the Father who begets were a true and proper Father and the Son who is begotten a true and proper Son but that these Terms in Scripture only signify 1. That the Second Person has the same Nature and Essence with the First Person and did coexist with him from Eternity Denying the manner of his having the same Nature by an ineffable Generation and the Personal Subsistence of the Father who begets and the Son who is begotten and consequently that true relation between Father and Son which the Scripture constantly teaches which gave just suspicion either of Sabellianism or Tritheism 2.
That all these Names of Father and Son begetting and being begotten c. respect the Oeconomy of the Covenant of Grace the manifestation of the Second Person in the Flesh as in the visible Image of God to execute the Mediatory Office for which purpose he was given by God the Father In which sense to beget is the same with to manifest and to be begotten to be manifested This he says is coincident with the Socinians and resolved into that Fundamental Error That the true and proper generation of the Son though acknowledged ineffable contradicts those natural Ideas which are imprinted in our minds by God and are the foundation of all Assent and all true and certain Knowledge And that we must not think that God has revealed any thing in his Word which cannot and ought not to be examined by men according to these Ideas or that God proposes nothing in his Word to be believed with a certain and firm assent which a man of a sound Reason cannot clearly and distinctly perceive according to these Ideas And now let our Author judge whose Character this is and on which side these Belgic Synods and Chairs have given Judgment SECT IV. The Arguments of the Nominals against a Real Trinity of proper subsisting Persons Examined And the Three First Arguments Answered SEcondly Let us now briefly examine his Reasons which he thinks so demonstrative that the so much talk'd of Mathematical certainty is not superior to them But I have heard some men brag much of Demonstration who have had nothing to say that would amount to a good Probability Now to make my Answer plain and easy I observe first That all his Arguments to prove the Realists to be guilty of Tritheism and to assert Three Gods are levelled against a Trinity of distinct real subsisting intelligent Persons as he himself owns for those invidious terms of Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits and Wills and Understandings signify no more than Three each of which in his own proper Person is Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding So that all these Arguments are against the Catholick Faith of a Real Trinity that is to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity to be Tritheism for that which is not a Real Trinity is no Trinity And therefore these Arguments do no more concern Dr. Sherlock and some few others whom this Author would fain single out from the Body of Catholick Believers by the Name of Realists than all other Christians who heartily Believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost and own Christ Jesus to be the Eternal Son of God and true and perfect God himself Secondly I observe That all these Arguments are no farther considerable than as they directly oppose the Catholick Faith in its full Latitude that is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity The Scripture assures us That there is but one God but teaches withall That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God We believe God concerning himself and his own Nature and Unity because he best knows himself and therefore we believe that there is but one God but not that there is but One Person who is God for there are Three in the Unity of the same Godhead and each of them true and perfect God so that it is not enough for these Demonstrators to prove That there is and can be but One Eternal Divinity or one God for we readily own it and as heartily Believe it as they do but we say withall that this one Divinity subsists distinctly and indivisibly whole and perfect in Three and that therefore there is a Trinity in Unity Nor is it sufficient to prove That in the Trinity of the Realists there are Three each of which is by himself true and perfect God and therefore that there are Three Gods for we own such Three but say that these Three are not Three Gods but subsist inseparably in one Undivided Divinity and therefore that there is a Vnity in Trinity But if they would consute either the Trinity or the Unity they must prove That there are not and cannot be Three real subsisting Persons in One insinite undivided Essence and then they will effectually Confute the Scripture and a Trinity with it or they must prove That though Three such Persons should subsist distinctly in one undivided Essence yet they are not one and the same Divinity or one God and then they will Confute not only Scripture but common Sense That Three which are One are not One or that One Divinity is not One God Having premised this let us now consider his Arguments 1. In the first place he says Three infinite Intellectual Substances or Three Eternal Omnipotent Minds or Spirits or which we have heard is the same thing Three infinite intelligent Persons can never be but One God because 't is evident nay confessed That One such Spirit Mind or Substance is One absolute and most perfect God If the Definition is multiplied the thing defined is also therewith multiplied Seeing then 't is the definition of One God that he is One infinite intellectual spiritual Substance One Eternal Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit or Mind Therefore if we multiply our definition by saying Three Infinite intellectual spiritual Substances c. we thereby multiply the thing we pretended to Define namely GOD which is to say we affirm more Geds as many Gods as such Substances and Spirits Here our Demonstrator stumbles at the very Threshold I grant That an infinite intellectual spiritual Substance an Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent Mind or Spirit is the Definition of One who is God or of a Divine Person but I absolutely deny That this is the Definition of One God that he is One Eternal Omniscient c. Personal Mind or Spirit as he fallaciously and absurdly represents it and in so doing instead of proving what he undertakes he very modestly and humbly begs the Question He is to prove That Three infinite Substances Minds or Spirits are Three Gods His Argument is Because One infinite Substance Mind or Spirit is the Definition of One God and if you multiply the Definition you multiply the thing defined and therefore Three infinite Substances and Minds must be Three Gods but how does he prove that One infinite Substance and Mind personally understood as we understand it is the Definition of One God for this is the thing in dispute which certainly no Trinitarian will grant him and therefore ought to be proved Those who Assert as all Trinitarians do That Three infinite intelligent Persons each of which is infinite Substance Mind or Spirit are but One God will not be so good-natur'd as to grant That One infinite Substance and Mind or One Divine Person is the definition of the One God this would not be to Dispute but to beg the Cause on one side and to give it away on the other But this may be thought perverseness to put men upon proving what is self-evident For Is not an infinite intelligent
Doctrine of the Nominals which I hope they can give a better account of but for fear some Men should not believe it he takes great pains to prove that it is so Now this is a very formidable Objection for if the Nominals have revived Sabellianism and Socinianism they have been condemned many hundred Years since by all those Catholick Fathers and Councils who condemned Noetus Sabellius Photinus Paulus Samosatenus and such like Anti-Trinitarian Hereticks And this justifies the Realists and undoes all that he has hitherto been doing for there is no Medium between a Real and a Nominal Trinity a Trinity of three real living subsisting Persons and One living subsisting Person with a Trinity of Names Offices Modes or immanent Acts and therefore as far as the Authority of the Catholick Church reaches the Condemnation of a Sabellian and Nominal Trinity must justifie a Trinity of real subsisting Persons And what now does he answer to this Why he owns it and says the Socinians at length see it and hope to make their Advantage of it That it is indeed an invidious Objection and that is the whole strength of it Invidious I confess it is because all sincere Christians abhor these Names and it would in a great measure put an end to this Controversie were our People satisfied that a Nominal Trinitarian and Socinian perfectly agree in renouncing the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity though the Nominalist still retains the Name of Trinity and Persons which the Socinians have hitherto rejected but are now willing to use them for Peace sake since they learn from these Men that they signifie nothing and that the Church never intended to signifie any thing real by them This is what he tells us with great Triumph Our English Socinians claim in their Writings that they are the Discoverers that the Feud between the Church and them was ill-grounded For that in very deed both the Nominals whom he calls the Church and the Socinians say the same thing As they pretend to this Honour so they are sufficiently paid in that themselves have the whole Benefit of it They may enjoy thereby that Peace and Tranquillity that Ease and Security from the Laws themselves which they before owed to the Indulgence or Connivence of Princes and Magistrates This now is very plain dealing and I hope will be a fair warning to all serious Christians how they suffer themselves to be cheated out of their Faith by the loud groundless Out-cries of Tritheism or imposed on by the old Catholick Names of Trinity and Persons without that Catholick Sense in which the Church always used those Words And I think those Persons to whom this Author affixes the Name of Nominals if they be not Sabellians and Socinians which God forbid ought to vindicate themselves from this heavy Imputation and not only deny the Charge but so explain themselves as to let us see wherein their Doctrine concerning the Trinity differs from the old condemned Heresies of Sabellius Photinus and Socinus And I doubt not but this will produce a much happier Agreement and put an end to this scandalous Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians 2. But our Author is much more troubled with the second Objection That the Predications or as others speak Attributions given in Holy Scripture and by the Catholick Church to the Divine Persons seem not well to consist or to be intelligible on the Hypothesis or Explication of the Nominals His Instance concerns the Son or second Person in the Trinity who is called God and we say he was Incarnate and all things were made by him In some places an Omnipresence in others Omnipotence and Omniscience are ascribed to him But how can we with any tolerable Propriety say that a meer reflex Wisdom is God created all things was incarnate is omnipotent omniscient omnipresent Or how can any of these things be affirmed of or applied to our Saviour in regard of the Incarnate or inhabiting Logos or reflex Wisdom the which also how it should be incarnate will be another unaccountable unintelligible Paradox This is a very notable Objection he has brought the Nominals on let him see how he can bring them off again Now in the first place he is not willing to own that any such things as these are said of Christ and therefore tells us We should do well to consider the Interpretations of the Texts wherein these things are said or seem to be said And here he is at his old Trade of admiring his Critical Interpreters whom he prefers much before Divines and of disparaging those Copies we have of the Scriptures the Mystery of which is That some Criticks give up some Texts of Scripture out of Wantonness and Vanity which the Catholick Church always thought good Proofs of the Divinity and Incarnation of our Saviour and he thinks it a better way to judge of the sense of Scripture by some new Critical Pointings or the Mistakes of some old Copies which may furnish them with various Readings than by the whole Series of the Discourse and the Traditional Interpretations of the Catholick Church but I shall not dispute this Matter now He is certainly so far in the right that the safest way of answering all this is to deny it all and this is what he means when he says It were easie to make such an Application of this Reflection as would perhaps offend many but would for all that be most true Now I would only ask the Nominalists how they like this way of answering these difficulties by criticizing away all the Proofs of the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ This their pretended but treacherous Friend says is the best and truest way and he is a Man of Skill in these Matters and seems to be ashamed of any other Answer but this which will unavoidably entangle him in unaccountable and unintelligible Paradoxes I verily persuade my self that many of those whom this Author calls Nominals abhor the Thoughts of this and therefore ought freely and openly to declare themselves in this Matter and not to suffer this bantering Socinian to impose upon the World in their Names But if this Answer don't please our Author has another for them as good to the full Let us says he distinguish the two Natures in Christ his Divinity and Humanity and rightly understand the Doctrine of the Incarnation This looks very promisingly for to acknowledge two Natures in Christ and rightly to understand the Doctrine of the Incarnation will rectifie all other Mistakes Let us then hear what he has to say of this As to the Incarnation every body knows that the most Learned Interpreters do not limit the Incarnation to the Person of the Logos or Son But they say the whole Divinity or as St. Paul speaks the fulness of the God-head was incarnate or dwelt in Christ. Who these most learned Interpreters are I can't tell unless he means the Patripassion Hereticks for all Catholick Christians believe