THE PRESENT STATE OF THE Socinian Controversy AND THE Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers Concerning A TRINITY in UNITY By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Dean of St. Paul's Master of the Temple and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXC VIII THE PREFACE I Have little to say to the Reader having sufficiently Explained the Design of this Treatise in the First Section Those who remember how this Controversy has been of late managed may possibly expect what they will not find some sharp Resentments of the Ill Usage I have met with and as sharp Returns but I write not to Revenge my self but to Explain and Vindicate the Truly Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith of a Trinity in Unity which requires a Composed and Sedate Mind both in the Writer and Reader For this Reason I have thus long delayed the Publication of this Treatise the greatest part of which was Printed Two Years since that those who will ever grow Cool might have time to recover their Temper And did I not hope that the Publication of it at this time would tend more to quiet Mens Minds to stop the Mouths of Hereticks and to secure the Catholick Faith than a Passive Silence it should never see the Light how much soever my own Reputation might suffer by it But I persuade my self That the Authority of the Catholick Church and of the Catholick Fathers is not at so low an Ebb even in this Age as to be easily despised and therefore their Explications their Arguments their Answers to the Objections of Hereticks will have their due weight and I have not gone one step further I appeal to the Catholick Fathers and am contented to stand or fall by their Sentence I have not wilfully misrepresented their Sense in any thing and have taken all possible care not to mistake it and as far as Human Authority is concerned here I must leave the matter for I know of no further Appeal The CONTENTS CHAP. I. SECT I. THE Present State of the Socinian Controversy and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question Page 1. SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture-Terms 4 The Form of Baptism the Rule and Standard of Faith ibid. That these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost are more easily understood and give us a truer Idea of a Trinity in Vnity than any Artificial Terms 5 c. SECT III. That the Title of God attributed in Scripture distinctly to Father Son and Holy Ghost gives us the best Account of their Nature and must determine the signification of Ecclesiastical Words 12 This particularly Explained with respect to those Terms Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Existence Subsistence Person c. 13 c. SECT IV. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the real distinction of Persons in the Trinity 20 c. SECT V. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the Vnity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead explained at large 24 SECT VI. Concerning the Vnity of God 33 In what sense the Catholick Church believed in One God ibid. Tritheism an old Sabellian and Arian Objection against the Trinity 34 How answered by the Catholick Fathers 37 c. CHAP. II. AN Examination of some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy 51 What Ways the Considerer dislikes 52 c. What way he took viz. consulting Scripture and Natural Sentiments 56 SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity 60 What the Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith ibid. What Evidence we have for this Tradition from the Ancient Heresies condemned by the Catholick Church 64 Of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture 77 SECT III. What is sufficient to be believed concerning the Trinity 80 His Requisites to make it possible for us to believe a thing 81 SECT IV. Concerning his state of the Question That One and the same God is Three different Persons 84 His Examination of these Terms God Unity Identity Distinction Number and Person And 1. Of the Notion of God 86 SECT V. His Notions and Ideas of Unity Distinction Person His Sabellian Notion of a Person that there is but One single Person in the Trinity as Person signifies properly a particular Intelligent Being 88 This he proves from his Notions of Vnity and Distinction the Vnity and Distinction of Ideas of Principle and of Position 91 What he means by an obscure confused Knowledge and a general confused Faith of the Trinity 101 SECT VI. What the Scripture requires us to believe concerning the Trinity 103 His Sabellian Notion of One God to be adored under Three different Titles and Characters Ibid. His Scripture-proof of this Examin'd 104 c. His attempt to reconcile this with God's being One and Three 108 c. And with the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity 113 His Account of the Vnion of God and Man 115 What end the belief of the Trinity and Incarnation serve not as a Matter of Faith and Speculation but as an artificial representation of God's love to man 120 CHAP. III. AN Account of the Sabellian Heresy and by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed it 124 The several kinds of Sabellianism 1. Those who made Father Son and Holy Ghost to be only Three names appearances and offices of the same Person And here the question was not whether the Son was a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person but whether they were distinct Persons from the Father 125 By what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed this Heresy 127 2. That the Son is distinguished from the Father only as a man's word is distinguished from himself 133 And by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed this Heresy 134 3. Some made God a compound Being and Father Son and Holy Ghost the Three Parts of this one God 143 By what Arguments the Fathers opposed it Ibid. CHAP. IV. COncerning the Homoousion or One Substance of Father Son and Holy Ghost 150 SECT I. The true sense of the Homoousion from those misrepresentations which were made of it and the Answers which were given by the Nicene Fathers to such Objections 152 SECT II. Some Rules for Expounding the Homoousion 158 SECT III. What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion 163 SECT IV. A more particular Inquiry into the full signification of the Homoousion with respect to the specifick Vnity of the Divine Nature 170 SECT V. That by the Homoousion the Nicene Fathers did not meerly understand a specifick but a natural Vnity and Sameness of Substance between Father and Son 180 Damascen's distinction between one in Notion and one in reality Ibid. This appears from their Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 181 And the Catholick Fathers lay the
be but One God but yet requires us to believe his Eternal Son to be true and perfect God and his Eternal Spirit to be true and perfect God it is certain that the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is very reconcilable with the Unity of God For as far as Revelation must decide this Dispute we are as much obliged to believe That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God as we are to believe That there is but One God Those who will not acquiesce in this must appeal from Scripture to Natural Reason which is a very absurd and impudent Appeal for the plain sense of it is this That they will believe their own Reason before the Scriptures in matters relating to the Divine Nature and Unity which all wise men acknowledge to be so much above human comprehension That is That they know the Unity of God better than God himself does or which is the same thing That they will never believe any Revelation to come from God or any thing how express soever the words are to be the meaning of the Revelation any farther than their own Reason approves it Of which more elsewhere And yet I dare appeal to any man of a free and unbiass'd Reason in this Cause What is that Natural Notion we have of One God Is it any thing more than that there is and can be but One Eternal Self-originated Being who is the Principle or Cause of all other Beings And does not the Scripture do not all Trinitarians with the whole Catholick Church own this Do not all the Christian Creeds teach us to profess our Faith in One God the Father from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their Godhead Thus far then Scripture and Reason and the Catholick Faith agree Does Reason then deny that God can beget of himself an Eternal Son his own perfect Image and Likeness If it does then indeed Scripture and Reason contradict each other But I believe these men will not pretend to prove from Reason That God could not beget an Eternal Son and if this cannot be proved by Reason as I am certain it never can then Reason does not contradict Scripture which teaches us that God has an only begotten Son And if God have an only begotten Son Reason will teach us that the Son of God must be True and Perfect God and yet not another God because he has one and the same Nature with his Father This is all that any Christian need to believe concerning this matter and all this every Christian may understand and all this every one who sincerely believes the Faith of the Holy Trinity does and must agree in Those who do not I will at any time undertake to prove to be secret Hereticks and Enemies to the Christian Faith and as for those who do I will never dispute with them about some Terms of Art and the Propriety of Words in a matter which is so much above all words and forms of speech And here I leave this matter upon a sure Bottom and here we are ready to join Issue with our Socinian Adversaries Our only Controversy as to the Doctrine of the Trinity with them is Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit each of them be True and Perfect God If we can prove this which has been the Faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages we need dispute no other matters with them nor can any Disputes among our selves give any Support to their Cause A Dispute about Words may look like a difference in Faith when both contending Parties may mean the same thing as those must do who sincerely own and believe That the Son is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost is True and Perfect God and that neither of them are the Father nor each other And therefore those different Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity which the Socinians of late have so much triumphed in and made more and greater than really they are and more sensless too by their false Representations can do them no real service among Wise Men tho it may help to amuse the Ignorant If any men have subtilly distinguished away the Catholick Faith they may take them to themselves and increase their Party by them But if this were the Case as I hope it is not it is no Objection against the Catholick Faith that some men openly oppose it and others at least in some mens opinions do secretly undermine it There is reason to guard the Christian Faith against all inconvenient or dangerous Explications which seem to approach near Heresy if this be done with due Christian Temper and Moderation but I hope the Disputes of the Trinitarians are not so irreconcilable but that they will all unite against a Pestilent and Insolent Heresy which now promises it self glorious Successes only from their private Quarrels CHAP. II. An Examination of Some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy BEfore I put an end to this Discourse it will contribute very much to the better understanding of what I have said and give a clearer Notion of the Use of it to apply these Principles to the Examination of a late Treatise entituled Some Considerations concerning the Trinity The Author I know not he writes with Temper and though he takes the liberty to find fault he does it Civilly and therefore he ought to meet with Civil Usage and so he shall from me as far as the bare Censure of his Principles will admit I was I confess startled at the first entrance to find him own the Vncertainty of our Faith in these Points concerning the Trinity for if after the most perfect Revelation of the Gospel that we must ever expect and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for above Sixteen Hundred years this Faith is still uncertain it is time to leave off all Enquiries about it As for the many absurd and blasphemous Expositions that have been made of this Doctrine if by them he means the Ancient Heresies which infested the Church they are so far from rendring our Faith uncertain that as I shall shew him anon the very Condemnation of those Heresies by the Catholick Church gives us a more certain account what the true Catholick Faith was I agree with him that the warm and indiscreet Management of contrary Parties has been to the Prejudice of Religion among unthinking people who hence conclude the uncertainty of our Faith and it concerns good men to remove this Prejudice by distinguishing the Catholick Faith from the Disputes about Ecclesiastical Words and the Catholick Sense of them and I hope I have made it appear this may be done and then the Faith is secure notwithstanding these Disputes and as for any other Offence or Scandal let those look to it who either give or take it This Considerer dislikes all the Ways and Methods which have hitherto been taken to compose these Disputes 1. He
enquire 1. What that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith 2. What Evidence we have of this Tradition concerning the Trinity in the Catholick Church 3. Of what Authority this ought reasonably to be in expounding Scripture SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity FIrst then Let us consider what that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith Now since Christ gave the Supreme Authority of preaching the Gospel and planting Churches to his Apostles those only must be reckoned the true Apostolick Churches from which we must receive the true Christian Faith which were planted by the Apostles or by Apostolick men and lived in Communion with them It is not sufficient to prove any Doctrine to be the true Primitive Faith That it was preached in the Apostles days but that it was the Faith of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and received their Faith from them for that Only is the Primitive and Apostolick Faith And therefore though Arians and Socinians could prove their Heresies to be as Ancient as the Apostolick Age as we grant something like them was this does not prove theirs to be the true Christian Faith if it were not the Faith of the Apostolick Churches And this was very visible in those days what these Churches were which were planted by the Apostles and lived in Communion with them and is very visible still in the most Authentick Records of the Church For the Hereticks which sprang up in that Age separated themselves from the Apostles and thereby made a visible distinction between the True Apostolick Churches and Heretical Conventicles And in after-Ages they either separated themselves or were cast out of the Communion of the Church This St. Iohn accounted a great advantage to the Christian Church and an Infallible Proof of False Doctrine and Heresy as it certainly was at that time for if the Apostles taught the True Faith those who separated from the Apostles and preached another Gospel which they never learnt from them must be Hereticks 1 Ioh. 2.18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they no doubt would have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us The Separation of Hereticks in that Age was a visible renouncing the Apostolick Faith and Communion and therefore how many Heresies soever started up it was still visible where the Apostolick Faith and Tradition was preserved and this was of admirable use to preserve the Faith of the Church sincere and uncorrupt For had these Hereticks continued in Communion with the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and secretly propagated their Heresies and infected great numbers of Christians without dividing into distinct and opposite Communions it would have been a great dispute in the next Age which had been the true Apostolick Faith when the Members of the same Churches which all their time lived in Communion with the Apostles should preach contrary Doctrines and pretend with equal confidence Apostolick Tradition which the greatest Hereticks might very plausibly have done had they always lived in Communion with the Apostles But they went out from us says St. Iohn that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us that the world might know how to distinguish between Catholick Christians and Hereticks and between the True Catholick Faith and the Corrupt Innovations of Perverse men And this I take to be a good reason to this day why we should keep the Communion of the Church sincere and uncorrupt and not set our doors open for Arians and Socinians and all sorts of Hereticks to mix with us For though since the Câ—mmunion of the Church has bâ—en so broken and divided by Schisms and Factions and Hâ—resies it is no proof of the True Apostolick Faith merely that it is the Faith of such a Church though the Church of Rome still vainly pretends to such Authority yet it would soon ruin the Christian Church and the Christian Faith to have no distinction preserved between true Apostolick Churches and the Apostolick Faith and the Conventicles of Hereticks the impure Off-spring of Cerinthus and Ebion of Photinus or Arius And therefore I cannot but abhor that Accommodating-Design which some men have expressed so warm a Zeal for to Comprehend away the Faith of the Holy Trinity in some loose general Expressions without any particular determined Sense and to purge our Liturgies of every thing that savours of the Worship of the Blessed Trinity that Arians and Socinians may join in Communion with us Which is a plausible Pretence under the Notion of Christian Charity and Communion to betray the Christian Faith Not expresly to renounce it but to bury it in silence as a Useless and Church-dividing Dispute I am satisfied this Holy Faith can never be Confuted but could these men prevail it might soon be Lost. But to return This is a sure Foundation for our Enquiries into the Faith of the Primitive Church To know what the Primitive Church is for otherwise we may mistake Old Heresies for the Primitive Faith But those Churches which were planted by the Apostles or Apostolical men and received their Faith from them and lived in Communion with them are the true Primitive and Apostolick Churches and their Faith is the true Primitive Apostolick Faith and what that was Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus assure us The Faith and Worship of Father Son and Holy Ghost And what their Faith was as to all these Three Divine Persons is evident from the Writings of those Ancient Fathers who preserved the Succession and Communion of these Apostolick Churches But this is not what I intend at present but from hence it appears That those Ancient Heresies which were rejected and condemned by the Apostolick Churches as soon as they appeared could not be the Apostolick Faith These Hereticks separated from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and therefore could not receive their Faith from them nor did they pretend to this while the Apostles lived though they forged new Gospels and Acts and Revelations for them when they were dead And thus all the Heresies of Simon Magus Menander Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus and all those other Divisions and Subdivisions of Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Doctrine of the Divinity of our Saviour or his Incarnation are all rejected from the Apostolical Faith for these Hereticks did not receive their Doctrines from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches as they themselves owned by their Separation from the Apostolick Churches and these Churches gave Testimony against their Corruptions as soon as they were known and there is no need of any other Confutation of them if we allow the Doctrine of
the Son to be a distinct Substantial Person this Dispute we hear nothing of but the only Dispute was concerning the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and that proves that they did own the Son to be a Substantial Person for were he not in a true proper sense a Person and a Substantial Person he could not be Consubstantial with the Father Nay St Austin expresly tells us That Arius agreed with the Catholicks against the Sabellians in making the Son a distinct Person from the Father and if so the Catholicks taught That the Son was as distinct a Person as Arius did though not a Separate and Created Person as he did Now when Arius would have reduced Christ into the number of Creatures though he made him the first and most excellent Creature created before the World and God's Minister in making the World as like to God as a Creature can possibly be but not of the same Nature with God the Catholick Church would not bear this but in a most Venerable Synod collected from most parts of the Christian World condemn this as contrary to the Faith always received and owned in their several Churches Thus far at least the Tradition of the Church was Sacred and Venerable and the concurrent Testimony of all these several Churches was a more certain Proof of the Apostolick Faith than all the Wit and Subtilty of Arius For Wit may patronize New Errors but cannot prove That to be the Ancient Apostolick Faith which the Church had never received from the Apostles nor ever heard of before This I take to be a very sensible Proof what the Faith of the Christian Church was from the Times of the Apostles till the Council of Nice and consequently what that Faith was which the Church received from the Apostles And this abundantly satisfies me That whatever loose Expressions we may meet with in some of the Fathers before the Arian Controversy was started and managed with great Art and Subtilty though I know of none but what are capable of a very Orthodox Sense it is certain that they were not Arians nor intended any such thing in what they said For had Arianism been the Traditionary Faith of the Church it must have been known to be so and then how came the Church to be so strangely alarm'd at the first news of it Or what shall we think of those Venerable Fathers and Confessors in that Great Council who either did not know the Faith of the Church or did so horribly prevaricate in the Condemnation of Arius when they had no other apparent Interest or Temptation to do so but a Warm and Hearty Zeal for the Truly Ancient and Apostolick Faith It is certain Arius never pretended Catholick Tradition for his Opinion but undertook to reform the Catholick Faith by the Principles of Philosophy and to reconcile it to Scripture by new-coin'd Interpretations though in this he fail'd and found the Great Athanasius an over-match for him It is not with Faith as it is with Arts and Sciences of Human Invention which may be improved in every Age by greater Wits or new Observations but Faith depends upon Revelation not Invention and we can no more make a New Catholick Faith by the power of Wit and Reason than we can write a True History of what the Apostles did and taught out of our own Invention without the Authority of any Ancient Records Men may do such things if they please but one will be Heresy and the other a Romance And yet this is the bold and brave Attempt of Secinus and his Disciples They are so modest indeed as not to pretend Antiquity to be on their side they can find no other Antiquity for themselves but in Cerinthus and Ebion who separated from the Catholick Church and were rejected by them and it does not seem very modest to set up such men as these against the Universal Consent of the first and purest Ages of the Church The Socinians who know very well what the Charge of Novelty signifies in matters of Religion That a New Faith is but another Name for New Heresies Though they reject the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Catholick Tradition of the Faith from the Apostolick Age yet they appeal to Scripture and Natural Sentiments as the greatest and best Antiquity in opposition to Apostolick Tradition This is our Considerer's way which he prefers before a Traditionary Faith and by the same reason the Socinians may oppose it to a Traditionary Faith And if we must always expound Scripture by our Natural Sentiments this Author had best consider whether he can prove a Trinity by Natural Reason or fairly reconcile the Natural Notion of One God with the Catholick Faith of the Trinity or of Three each of whom is True and Pâ—rfect God from the mere Principles of Natural Reason for if he can't he must not in his way find a Trinity in Scripture But of this more hereafter 3. Let us now in opposition to this pretence consider of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture The Holy Scripture at least in pretence is allowed on all hands to be a Compleat and Authentick Rule of Faith but the question is since men differ so much in expounding Scripture What is the safest Rule to expound Scripture by whether the Traditionary Faith of the Church or our Natural Sentiments or Natural Reason I do not mean that we must learn the Critical Sense of every Text from Catholick Tradition for we have not in all points such a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture though even in this respect we shall find that the Catholick Fathers have unanimously agreed in the Interpretation of the most material Texts relating to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ. They sometimes indeed alledge such Texts especially out of the Old Testament as our Modern Criticks will not allow to be proper and apposite but even this shews what their Faith was and yet these very Expositions which have been so anciently and unanimously received though they may appear at this distance of time too forc'd and mystical have too Sacred and Venerable an Authority to be wantonly rejected We may learn from Christ and his Apostles what mysterious and hidden Senses were contain'd in the Writings of the Old Testament such as it is very probable we should never have found in them had not Christ and his Apostles explained their meaning And the nearer any Writers were to the Apostolick Age the more they were addicted to these Mystical Interpretations which is a good reason to believe that they learnt it from the Apostles themselves But this is not what I now intend my present Argument reaches no farther than this That if we can learn what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ has always been Then 1. It is very reasonable to conclude That they received this Doctrine from the Apostles it being the Faith of those Churches which
those Heresies which the Catholick Church condemned and from the Corrupted Remains of the Ancient Faith which appeared in them For these Hereticks were originally Christians and professed themselves Christians and therefore did not wholly renounce the Christian Faith but grafted their Heresies on it As to confine my self to the Subjâ—ct of the present Dispute What we are to understand by Father Son and Holy Ghost Whether Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons or not each of whom is distinctly by himself True and Perfect God but in the Unity of the same Divine Nature and Godhead Now that this was the received Faith of the Catholick Church we may learn both from the Valentinians Sabellians and Arians Though the Valentinians as I observed before had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity either with the Platonick Philosophy as that it self had been corrupted by the Iunior Platonists or with the Pagan Theology yet the Propagation of their Aeons in different Degrees and Descents from the first Supreme Aeon the Unbegotten One and the Invisible and Incomprehensible Father as they stile him shews what they thought the Catholick Faith was concerning the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit which they took to be a Substantial Generation and Procession and accordingly in imitation of this Faith asserted a Substantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Emanation of one Aeon from another and which is more none of the Ancient Fathers who wrote against this Heresy as far as I have observed ever quarrel with them upon this account Nay Tertullian though he abominates these Heresies owns this Probole or Emanation in a true Catholick Sense and tells us that these Hereticks borrowed this word from the Catholick Faith though they fitted it to their Heresy And challenges any man to say whether the Divine Word be not produced by the Father and if it be Here says he is the Prolation or Emanation which the true Catholick Faith owns And adds That the fault of this Heresy was not their producing one Aeon from another but that besides the number of their fictitious Aeons they did separate these Emanations and Aeons from their Author that the Aeons knew not the Father nay desired to know him but could not know him and was e'en dissolved with Passion and Desire whereas in the Catholick Faith there is the most Inseparable Union of the Son with the Father and the most Intimate and Perfect Knowledge of him So that Tertullian allows of a Real and Substantial Production of the Person of the Son from the Person of the Father as the Valentinians pretended of their Aeons and asserts that these Hereticks learnt this from the Catholick Faith of the Trinity And that the Church must not reject this Probole Prolation or Emanation in an Orthodox Catholick Use of those words because Hereticks abuse them to countenance their own Heresies As for the Noetians and Sabellians for however they explain the Doctrine of the Trinity whether by Three Names or Three Powers or Three Parts while they Teach That the One God is but One Single Person the Heresy is the same it is impossible the Catholick Church should reject this Heresy without asserting Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons in the Unity of the Godhead each of whom is as True and Perfect God as each of Three Men Peter Iames and Iohn is a True Perfect Distinct Man though these Three Men are not uniâ—ed as the Three Divine Persons are The occasion of this Heresy was That they thought that Three Real Distinct Persons in the Godhead were Three Gods and therefore though being profess'd Christians and consequently baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost they durst not deny Father Son and Holy Ghost yet neither would they own Three Divine Persons but turned them into Three Names or Three Parts of One Person which has much more sense in it than Three Modes though Three Modes of the same Person let them call them Three Personalities if they please is the same Heresy if there be but One Suppositum as One Man may be the Subject of Three or Three and twenty Modes and be but One Human Person still Noetus and Sabellius did certainly apprehend that by Father Son and Holy Ghost the Catholick Church understood Three Distinct Substantial Divine Persons or else why should they charge them with Tritheism upon this account and turn Three Persons into Three Names or Three Parts of One and the same God to avoid the Imputation of Three Gods And if this had not been the belief of the Catholick Church what meant their Zeal against this Heresy For all the Wit of Man can't find a Medium between Sabellianism and Three Divine Substantial Persons A Trinity must be Three Somewhats as it has been lately called and then it must either be One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Three Modes or compounded of Three Parts or be Three Distinct Suppositums and Persons Now if this had been the Catholick Faith That the Trinity is but One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Modes c. I cannot imagine why the Catholick Church should have quarrell'd with these Hereticks or they with the Catholick Church unless they both mistook one another But if the Sabellians and Catholicks understood themselves and each other and did intend to contradict each other we certainly know what the Catholick Faith was For there is nothing contradicts a Noetian and Sabellian Trinity but a Trinity of Distinct Substantial Divine Persons And Novatianus well observes That these Hereticks did acknowledge the Divinity of Christ That whoever Christ was it was evident from those Characters given of him in Scripture That he was True and Perfect God And because the Father is True and Perfect God and Christ True and Perfect God for fear of owning Two Gods they make the Father and the Son to be but One and the same Person The Arians denied the Eternal Godhead of Christ and made a Creature of him though the most excellent Creature the Minister and Instrument of God in making the World and the reason of this Heresy was the same viz. for fear of a Plurality of Gods should they allow Christ to be True and Perfect God And this still is a plain evidence what they thought the Catholick Faith to be not only that Christ was True and Real God but that he was Truly and Really a Distinct Person from God the Father so distinct that if they should acknowledge him to be True God he would be a Second God which they thought contradicted the Faith of One God Well Though they would not own him to be True God yet they own him to be a distinct Person from the Father as distinct as God and a Creature are distinct Do the Catholicks now quarrel with the Arians that they have made a Substantial Person of the Son as in reason tâ—ey ought to have done had thâ—y not believed
Contradictions as he cannot require us to believe and consequently That whatever is plainly revealed implies no Contradiction how much soever it may be above our comprehension because God does require us to believe what he plainly reveals this had put an end to this Dispute and left the belief of the Trinity possible whatever difficulties we might apprehend in conceiving it But this great Zeal against believing Contradictions when applied to the belief of the Trinity is a very untoward Insinuation as if the Doctrine of the Trinity as commonly understood were clogg'd with Contradictions and that we must cast all such Contradictions which in the Socinian account is the Doctrine it self out of our Faith and therefore That whatever the Scripture says we must put no such sense on it as implies any Contradiction to our former knowledge This is an admirable Foundation for Considerations concerning the Trinity and what an admirable Superstructure he has rais'd on it we shall soon see I may possibly discourse this Point of Contradictions more at large elsewhere at present I shall only tell this Author That as self-evident as he thinks it this Proposition is false That it is impossible to believe what implies a Contradiction to our former knowledge and that God cannot require us to believe it I grant that all Logical Contradictions which are resolved into is and is not are impossible to be believed because they are impossible to be true and such is his Contradiction about the Whole and its Parts for to say That the Whole is not bigger than any of its Parts is to say That a Whole is a Whole and is not a Whole and that a Part is a Part and is not a Part. But contradictory Ideas may both be true and therefore both be believed and every man believes great numbers of them The Ideas of Heat and Cold White and Black Body and Spirit Extension and No Extension Eternity and Time to have A Beginning and to have No Beginning are contradictory Ideas and yet we believe them all that is we believe and know that there really are such things whose Natures are directly opposite and contrary to each other Now when there are such Contrarieties and Contradictions in Created Nature it may justly be thought very strange to true Considerers that our Natural Ideas should be made the adequate measures of Truth or Falshood of the Possibilities or Impossibilities of things that we must not believe what God reveals concerning himself if it contradicts any Natural Ideas And yet I challenge this Considerer and all the Socinian Sabellian Arian Fraternities to shew me any appearance of Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity but what are of this kind that is not Logical Contradictions but Contradictions to our other Natural Ideas And if our Natural Ideas of Created Nature contradict each other it would be wonderful indeed if the Divine Uncreated Nature should not contradict all our Natural Ideas Every thing we know of God is a direct Contradiction to all the Ideas we have of Creatures an Uncreated and a Created Nature an Infinite and a Finite Nature are direct Contradictions to each other Eternity without Succession Omnipresence without Extension Parts or Place a pure simple Act which is all in one without Composition an Omnipotent Thought which thinks all things into Being and into a Beautiful Order these and such like Ideas of God are direct Contradictions to all the Ideas we have of Creatures and can any Contradiction then to any Ideas of Created Nature be thought a reasonable Objection against believing any thing which God reveals to us concerning himself But of this more hereafter SECT IV. Concerning his State of the Question That One and the Same God is Three Different Persons THese are his Preliminaries Axioms Postulata's all in the strict demonstrative way but now he comes to apply all this more closely to the business in hand but then he very unfortunately stumbles at the Threshold The Proposition he proposes to examine by these Principles is this That One and the same God is Three Different Persons Where he met with this Proposition in these very Terms I know not I 'm sure there is no such Proposition in Scripture nor did I ever meet with it in any Catholick Writer It is very far from giving us a true and adequate Notion of the Catholick Faith concerning the Trinity it is of a doubtful signification and in the most obvious sense of these words which I fear will appear to have been intended by this Considerer is manifest Heresy For if by One and the same God he means That there is but One who is God and That this One and same God is Three different Persons it is the Heresy of Sabellius at least if he would have owned the Term different which inclines more to the signification of diversity than of mere distinction which savours of Arianism and more properly relates to Natures than to Persons We meet with different forms of speech in Catholick Writers concerning the Unity and Trinity in the Godhead all which must be reconciled to form a distinct and compleat Notion of the Trinity That Deus est Vnus Trinus God is One and Three is very Ancient and very Catholick That the Father is the One God in a peculiar and eminent sense is both the Language of Scripture and of the Church That each Person Father Son and Holy Ghost is by himself True and Perfect God is likewise the Doctrine both of the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Fathers That the Trinity is One God That Father and Son are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnum One Divinity Christ himself teaches us That Father Son and Spirit are also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One St. Iohn teaches us And nothing is more familiar both with the Greek and Latin Fathers than to call the Trinity One God and in consequence of this That One God is the Trinity though this they rather chose to express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three Persons And whoever would give an account of the Catholick Faith of the Trinity must have respect to all these Notions and not content himself with any one of them as to make the best of it the Considerer here does when he only proposes to enquire How One and the same God is Three Persons But he ought to have enquired also in what sense each Person is by himself True and Perfect God and the Person of the Father in a peculiar and eminent sense the One God and to have framed his Notions of Unity and Distinction with an equal regard to all these Catholick Expositions which would have secured him from the Sabellian Heresy which now his Words are very guilty of whatever He himself be But let us now proceed to his Examination of these Terms God Vnity Identity Distinction and Number and Person As to the Notion of a Deity he confesses he has not a
them though Separate Vbi's may prove them Separate But still what is all this to the Unity of God Why he tells us It is plain at first sight that we cannot possibly conceive God under any difference of Position I add further That we cannot conceive God under any Position and therefore the Unity of Position can never belong to the Vnity of God But the reason he gives why we can't conceive God under any difference of Position is because we cannot exclude Omnipotence from any imaginable point of Space nor can we include it in it which proves that God has no Position but is present without Position as he is without Extension and without Parts God needs no place to subsist in but is Place to himself and Place to every thing else as the Hebrews called God Makâ—m or Place according to S. Paul's Notion of it That in him we live move and have our being that as all things receive Being by his Almighty Word so all things subsist in Infinite Mind as the Ideas and Notions of things do in Finite Minds God could not create any thing without himself because there is nothing extra without him and this is the Omnipresence of God not his Commensuration to Infinite Space which is a gross Corporeal Representation of Omnipresence by Infinite Extension or Commensuration to Infinite Extension and makes something else as Infinite as God viz. Infinite Space which must be commensurate to God if God be commensurate to Space but the Omnipresence of God is his Comprehension of all things in himself And yet his way of proving the Omnipresence of God from his Omnipotence That we cannot exclude Omnipotence from any imaginable Point of Space if by Omnipresence he means an Essential Omnipresence as he must do here is not so self-evident as he seems to think it The only foundation of it is this That nothing can act where it is not which holds true only where Contact is necessary to Action that is only in Bodies whose Power consists in Contact or touching each other but any Being which acts without Contact as God certainly does may be Omnipotent without being Omnipresent that is may act at an Infinite distance without any Local Presence with the thing on which it acts It is the first time to the best of my remembrance that ever I met with this Notion That 't is the limited Powers and Faculties of Created Beings which are the foundation of all local distinction Finite Creatures indeed have finite and limited Powers but it is not the limitation of their Powers and Faculties but of their Presence which makes a local or Vbi distinction If this were so Power must be proportioned to Presence which we know is false for the greatest things which fill the largest space are not the most powerful Spirits which fill no space at all have the greatest Power and most enlarged Faculties But it is time to see the Pinch of this Argument from the Vnity of Position and the Sum of it is this Whatever is One must be in some One Place or Vbi which distinguishes and separates it from other things That he cannot conceive the distinction of two or three Beings from each other without considering them in so many different Places or Localities That God is Omnipresent and he can no more conceive Three Omnipresent than he can conceive Three straight Lines drawn between the same Points That is in plain English There are not Three Distinct Infinite Spaces for Three Distinct Omnipresent Persons to be in and therefore there cannot be a Trinity of True and Proper Persons but as there is but One Omnipresent Divine Nature so there can be but One single Omnipresent Person and there is an end of the Trinity till we can find room in the world for Three Persons each of whom is Omnipresent I perceive our Considerer has not been so fair and equal as he pretended to be He would not consult the Fathers for fear of Prejudices and Prepossessions but either good Wits jump or he has taken care to consult the Ancient Hereticks for this was the old Sabellian Argument which was long since answered and scorned by Athanasius as he will find in the Chapter of Sabellianism to which I refer him and the Reader But in good earnest does any sober Christian want an Answer to this Argument Does God then fill a Space as Bodies do that Three Divine Omnipresent Persons must have Three separate Localities and be commensurate to Three Infinite Spaces Has God any Place does he subsist in any thing but himself If the Considerer can't conceive any Beings to be distinct without distinct Localities How does he distinguish God from Creatures when he owns that God is in every imaginable Point of Space that is in the very same Vbi's and Localities whereever any Creatures are But do not all Catholick Christians own That there is but One Infinite Inseparable Undivided Nature in Three Persons And must this One Undivided Monad be in Three separate Localities because it subsists in three distinct Persons especially when these distinct Persons are whole and entire in each other as our Saviour assures us I am in the Father and the Father in me And is not this a wonderful demonstration against Three Real and Proper Persons in the Trinity That there cannot be Three such Infinite Omnipresent Persons unless they subsist in Three Infinite and Separate Localities But enough of this in all reason These are the Premises from whence with so much open Assurance and Confidence he draws that Sabellian Conclusion That the Idea of God being really but One simple Idea can be applied but to One single Person in the first sense of the word Person as it signifies a particular Intelligent Being Nature or Principle From whence he says it follows that according to the Notions we are capable of framing of Vnity and Distinction all the Personal distinction we can conceive in the Deity must be founded on some accessory Ideas extrinsecal to the Divine Nature So that there is not a Trinity in the Divine Nature as the Catholick Church has always believed but the Divine Nature which really is but One single Person is a Trinity with respect to something which does not belong to the Divine Nature but is extrinsecal to it Whether these be not New Terms and New Doctrine too unknown to the Catholick Church or known only as condemned Heresies I appeal to all men who will consult any Catholick Historian or any Catholick Father without prejudice And here I might reasonably enough break off for I have followed the Considerer till we have heard him demonstrate against a Trinity of Real Proper Persons in the Unity of the Godhead which puts an end to the whole Dispute about a Trinity in Vnity because there is no such thing He has found out indeed a Unity for God but it is not a Unity in Trinity but the Unity of One single Person and he has
as he represents it but the Personal Union of the Divine Nature of Christ to Human Nature He was not only as conscious of all the Divine Perfections in himself as a man is conscious of his own thoughts which yet by the way is absolutely impossible without being True and Perfect God in his own Person but he knew himself to be God the Eternal Son of God not the same Person with his Father but One with him Were a man thus regularly and constantly Inspired he would know that he was thus Inspired and he would also know that these Divine Perfections are not in himself not seated in his own Human Person nor under the Conduct of his own Will as his own Natural Powers are and therefore must know himself to be a mere Man still not God-Man So that this constant and regular Inspiration this uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity which is all he allows in this matter cannot make any Person God-Man This Inspiration is not a subsisting Person is not the Person of the Son of God is not Incarnate by its Union to Man no more than it is Incarnate in other Prophets The Man is the Person and therefore a mere Creature still tho never so Divinely Inspired This is such an Incarnation as Socinians themselves own in as high expressions as the Considerer can invent Cerinthus owned something more That Christ who descended on Iesus at his Baptism was a Divine Person not a mere Inspiration and rested on him and was most intimately united to him till his Crucifixion That Sect of the Noetians and Sabellians who were called Patripassians for they do not seem by the accounts we have of them to have been all of that mind did acknowledge the Incarnation of God in a true and proper sense as the Catholick Church did the Incarnation of Christ But then their Trinity being but One proper single Divine Person distinguished by Three Names or Personal Characters which is the express Doctrine of the Considerer their whole Trinity was Incarnate suffered and died in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ the Father as well as the Son as it must of necessity be if there be but One Divine Person who is Father Son and Holy Ghost and if this One Person is in a true and proper sense Incarnate But this the Catholick Church abhorred and condemned under the name of the Patripassian Heresy Others of them were Sabellians in the Doctrine of the Trinity but Photinians or Samosatenians that is Socinians as to the Doctrine of the Incarnation as Athanasius often intimates And if I understand him this is the Considerer's way who believes a Trinity in One single Person and an Inspired Man for a God Incarnate And thus we have lost the Trinity and Incarnation and must part with every thing which is peculiar and essential to Christianity with them And now one would wonder after all this what he has to say more about the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation and yet this is his next Enquiry What the Scriptures necessarily oblige us to believe in this Point that is concerning the Trinity and Incarnation Though he has been careful all along never to use this term Incarnation as being sensible that all he said about God-Man would not reach the Catholick Notion of Incarnation When I met with this Enquiry I was in hope that there was something behind to unsay all that he had hitherto said for if what he has already said be true it is certain the Scripture requires us to believe nothing about them But upon Examination I found that the Question was fallaciously stated and the true meaning of it was What the Scriptures oblige us to believe instead of what has hitherto passed for the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation I shall not dispute this Point with him now to shew what he means will be Confutation enough We must not he says look upon the Doctrine of the Trinity as a nice abstracted Speculation designed for the exercise of our Vnderstandings but as a plainer Revelation of God's Love and Good Will towards men and a greater Motive and Incitement to Piety than ever we had before this Doctrine was delivered This we grant That the Christian Faith is not designed merely for Speculation but for Practice but yet all the Doctrines of Faith are matters of Speculation and the Doctrine it self must be believed in order to Practice or else the Revelation of it is of no use at all The Question then is Whether we must not believe the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation Or how much we must believe of them Must we not believe That God has in a true and proper sense an Eternal and Only-begotten Son begotten from Eternity of his own Substance his True Perfect Living Subsisting Image Must we not believe That this Eternal Son of God did in a true proper Notion become Man by uniting Human Nature to his own Person and that in Human Nature he suffered and died for the Redemption of Mankind Truly No if I understand him All this is a nice abstracted Speculation and a very perplexing exercise of our Vnderstandings and we are bound to understand no more by God's giving his own Son to dye for us but his Love and Gâ—od Will to Mankind as it is a great Motive and Excitement to Piety But how can we learn God's Love and Good Will to Mankind from this Doctrine if it be not true if God have no Eternal Son and therefore did not give his Eternal Son to become Man and to suffer and dye for us The Gospel proves the great Love of God to Sinners by the Incarnation Death and Sufferings of his Son that if we do not believe this Doctrine strictly and literally true we lose the Gospel Proof of God's Love to Sinners and of the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's Death and Sacrifice to expiate our sins and of the Power of his Intercession as the Eternal Only-begotten and Well-beloved Son of God But our Considerer will not allow this These Titles and Relations must be chiefly câ—nsidered with reference to the great Work of Man's Salvation But must they not be considered as Three distinct proper Persons in the Unity of the Godhead who have their distinct Parts and Offices in the Redemption of Mankind No but distinct Relations and Offices of One and the same single Divine Person who is the One Supreme God and is All in One Father Son and Holy Ghâ—st Saviour Mediator Comforter But how then can these Titles and Relations signify an Eternal Distinction in the Godhead an Eternal Fâ—tâ—â—r an Eternal Son and an Eâ—ernal Spirit when thâ—se Offices relating only to Man's Salvation were not Eternal This he resolves into the Eternal Purpose and Decree of God to redeem Mankind by the Death and constant Mediation of a Man chosen and enabled for this work by the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him And in consideration of
foundation of this Sameness and Consubstantiality of Nature in the Eternal Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father 184 To which they added That the Son receives his whole Substance from the whole Substance of the Father totus ex toto 186 Concerning this mysterious and ineffable Generation Whole of Whole 187 St. Austin teaches That the Divine Nature and Essence must not be considered either as a Genus or Species nor the Divine Persons as Individuals 194 What Medium there is between the Vnity of Singularity and a specifick Vnity of Nature 195 The difference between Three Divine Persons and Three Individual Human Persons 199 SECT VI. A more particular Inquiry what the Catholick Fathers meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness and Identity of Substance in the Holy Trinity 207 Petavius's attempt to prove that both the Greek and Latin Fathers taught the Singularity of the Divine Nature Ibid. His Notion of Singularity Considered 208 His Apology for the Fathers who as he says taught a specifick Vnity rejected 211 His Authorities for the Singularity of the Divine Nature Examined 213 By the Sameness and Identity of Nature the Fathers did not mean Singularity but such a Sameness as is between Three real subsisting Persons without the least Change and Variation 217 That the Fathers resolved the Vnity of God into this Sameness and Identity of Nature 221 Some Examples in Nature of the distinction betweeen alius and aliud 227 How the Fathers proved the Vnity of God in opposition to Polytheism from the Sameness and Identity of Nature 230 That these Arguments do not conclude against a Trinity of Divine Persons 232 Gregory Nyssen vindicated from Tritheism and his Answer to Ablabius Explained 236 The Philosophy of the Ancients about Numbers 243 The distinction between the Vnity of Number and the Vnity of Nature opposed to the Charge of Tritheism and a Confutation of a Sabellian Singularity 246 In what sense the Schools asserted the Singularity of the Divine Substanâ—e 248 SECT VII Concerning the Distinction of Persons in the Vnity and Identity of the Divâ—ne Essence The general Account of this 254 That both the Fathers and Schools by a Divine Person understood the Divine Essence and Substance and nothing else 260 This proved from that Ambiguity with which the Fathers are charged in the use of these Terms Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis c. 261 That these Terms Essence c. are distinctly applied to each Person of the Holy Trinity 264 And all those Terms which are more peculiarly appropriated to signify the Divine Persons were always used by Catholick Writers in the Notion of Substance and never thought Catholick in any other sense as Person Hypostasis Suppositum c. 265 That a Divine Person is nothing else but the Divine Nature proved from the Absolute Simplicity of the Divine Nature which admits of no Composition as both Fathers and Schoolmen own 272 According to the Doctrine both of Fathers and Schools the Divine Essence and Substance as subsisting distinctly in Three is proper and peculiar to each and incommunicable to one another 273 Whether the Divine Essence either begets or is begotten and how the Fathers and Schools may be reconciled 274 SECT VIII Concerning the Divine Relations 281 The true Notion of Relative Substances or Subsisting Relations explained from the Doctrine of the Schools Ibid. These Divine Relations secure the perfect Vnity of the Divine Essence 287 What is meant by an Absolute Substance and what by Relative Substance Ibid. This applied to the Doctrine of the Trinity 288 Three Absolute Substances are always distinctly and separately Three Three Relative Substances may be essentially One in the same One Individual Nature 289 This account the Fathers give of the Vnity of the Divine Essence 290 Concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they do not signify Personal Relative Substances but singular Absolute Substances 293 The Divine Relations prove the Sameness and Identity of Nature in Three 298 These Divine Relations give us an intelligible Notion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inseparable Vnion of the Divine Persons and their mutual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inexistence in each other 300 This mutual inbeing can be understood only between the Relatives of the same Individual Essence and Substance 305 And this gives an Account of the Vnity of Operation 308 Concerning the Mutual Consciousness of the Divine Persons 313 The Doctrine of Relations necessary to give us a sensible Notion of a Trinity in Vnity 326 SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity 334 The Faith and the Philosophy of the Ancients of a different Consideration Ibid. All the Heresies relating to the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation attributed to this one mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same 336 This by some charg'd upon Aristotle's Notion of a first Substance Ibid. The Distinction of Nature and Person in Creatures considered 338 Aristotle's first Substance and what the Fathers call Hypostasis is in Creatures the same thing 339 What the Fathers mean by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in every Hypostasis 340 No real difference between Aristotle and the Fathers in this Matter Ibid. The Fathers by a Common Nature did not mean One Numerical Subsisting Nature common to all the Individuals 341 For what reason they reject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a particular singular Nature 343 Hypostasis is Nature with its peculiar Accidents subsisting by it self that these Accidents and Personal Properties do not make but only distinguish Persons 345 The Hypostasis or Person is the common Nature subsisting by it self This proved from the Humanity of our Saviour 346 How improper all these Terms are to explain the Trinity in Vnity 350 How the Catholick Fathers accommodated these Names of Essence and Person to the Explication of this Mystery 352 The Common Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity is the Divinity of the Father common to the Son and Spirit by a perfect Communication whole of whole 354 The true Notion of One Individual Nature Ibid. Essential Internal Productions are in the Individual Vnity of Nature 356 The Distinction between Nature and Persons for that is the true State of the Question not how Nature and Person is distinguished in each Single Divine Person but how One Individual Nature is distinguished from Three Persons in the Individual Vnity of Nature 360 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 explained 362 This applied at large for the Explication and Vindication of several Catholick Forms of Speech concerning the Trinity in Vnity 365 c. The Conclusion with a short Application to the Socinians 385 ERRATA PAge 6. l. 31. d. all p. 9. marg r. quae p. 15. l. 3. r. enow p 86. l. 8 9. r expressions p. 180. l.
but yet that Jesus Christ was a Divine and Human Person though Christ was one Person and Jesus another And therefore as the Nicene Creed which we find also in the Ancient Oriental Creeds teaches us to believe in One God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible not to exclude Christ from being the Maker of the World but in opposition to those Hereticks who would not allow the Supreme God who is the Father of Christ to be the Maker of the World but attributed the Creation of this World to one or more Inferior Angels So they add And in One Lord Iesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in opposition to those who made Christ and Jesus Two Persons And yet in this very Heresy we may see what the Ancient Catholick Faith was That Jesus Christ was God and Man as Cerinthus himself owned though he would not unite Christ and Jesus into One Person nor make the Union inseparable The Valentinian Heresy though dressed up after the mode of the Pagan Theology was a manifest Corruption of the Christian Faith under a Pretence of a more perfect knowledge of Divine Mysteries and we may still see the broken Remains of the Catholick Tradition of the Trinity among them Their Pleroma by which they seem to understand the Fulness of the Deity as St. Paul uses that Phrase 2 Col. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily I say this Pleroma consisted of several Aeons or Divine Persons which were propagated from the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father in gradual Descents and all together made up the Compleat and Perfect Deity which were more or fewer according to the various Fancies of Hereticks Now from these wild Conceits we may in some measure learn what the Catholick Faith was That the Godhead was not confined to one Single and Solitary Person but that there is such a Foecundity in the Divine Nature as communicates it self to more Persons than one For had it been the known and received Faith of the Christian Church That there is but One Person in the Godhead as well as but One God there had been no pretence for these Hereticks who called themselves Christians and boasted of a more perfect knowledge of the Christian Faith to have invented such a number of Aeons which they included within their Pleroma as the several Emanations of their Deity And we may observe that most of the Names which they gave to their several Aeons are Scripture-Names and Titles which the Pagan Theology knew nothing of and which they could learn no where but from the Christian Church Basilides I think was one of the first who gave us any distinct account of these Aeons which was new modell'd by Valentinus and other succeeding Hereticks and his first and Supreme Aeon as Epiphanius tells us was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Unbegotten One who only is the Father of all and by others is called the Propater and the Unknown Invisible Incomprehensible Father Now though the Heathens very familiarly call their Supreme God the Father of Gods and Men with respect to his Creating Power yet as the Notion of Father is founded in a substantial Generation as these Hereticks plainly understood it so it is the peculiar Character of God under the Gospel who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son It is certain the first Person in the Godhead was never called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One that is unbegotten but to distinguish him from One who is begotten the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten who is God also but God oâ— God And it is observable what Tertullian tells us of Heracleon That he made his first Aeâ—n to be illud quod pronunciat which some Criticks not understanding think to be a defect in the Copy but the sense is plain that his first Aeon is he that pronounceth or speaketh by which he represented the Eternal Generation of the Word So that his first Aeon is the Pronouncer or Speaker that is the Father of the Eternal Word which St. Iohn tells us was in the beginning was with God and was God Which shews that this is nothing else but a disguized Corruption of the Catholick Faith concerning the Eternal Generation of the Word from the Eternal Unbegotten Father To confirm this I observe farther That most of the Names which they give to their other Aeons are such Names Titles or Characters as the Scripture gives to Christ or the Holy Spirit which they have multiplied into so many distinct Persons or Aeons such as the Mind Word Prudence Power and Wisdom Truth Life Light the Only begotten the Paraclete and the like Valentinus indeed as Epiphanius observes did model his Thirty Aeons according to Hesiod's Genealogy and Number of Gods and with some manifest allusions to them but yet he retained as many Scripture-Names as he could the better to reconcile unwary people to his fabulous Genealogiâ—s as the hidden and mysterious sense of Scripture And it is impossible such Fables should ever have obtained any Credit had they not been grafted on the Catholick Faith and pretended to improve it with new degrees of Light and Knowledge When these Heresies were pretty well silenced up start Noetus and Sabellius who ran into the other Extreme The Valentinians had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity by multiplying Three Divine Persons into Thirty Aeons besides all their other Pagan and Fabulous Conceits about them This offended these men as downright Polytheism as indeed it was no better and to avoid this they reject a Trinity of Real and Substantial Persons for a Trinity of Names that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names of the same Person who is sometimes called the Father at other times the Son or the Holy Ghost with respect to his different Appearances or Operations Or they made the Son and Holy Ghost not Two Persons but Two Personal Attributes in God his Wisdom or Power Or they made the Trinity but Three Parts of One Compounded God as a Man consists of Body Soul and Spirit which of late have been revived among us under different Names After these men arose Arius and his Followers who out of great Zeal also for the Unity of God framed a New and more Subtile Heresy They were sensible that Father and Son were not Two Names but Two Real Distinct Persons and therefore they attributed the whole entire Divinity to the Father and made the Son not to be God by Nature but the most Perfect and Excellent Creature as Perfect an Image of God as any Creature can be but not Consubstantial with God nor Coequal and Coeternal with him All these Heresies were rejected and condemned by the Catholick Church in their several Ages as soon as they appeared and were taken notice of And this is one very good way to learn what the Catholick Faith was from its Opposition to
ask for or to conceive what is the Place of God of the Word or of the Holy Spirit And if a man will deny that the Son is or was begotten because he cannot conceive nor find out the place of his Essence or Substance for the same reason he may deny that there is a Father or that there is a God So that Athanasius acknowledges the Son to be as true and substantial a Son as the Father is a substantial Father and that he does as perfectly and compleatly subsist by himself as the Father does but denies that it hence follows as the Sabellians objected That the Son if he be a distinct substantial Person himself must be divided and parted from the Substance of his Father and that if he subsist distinctly by himself he must subsist in a separate place from his Father that this distinction of Persons and Subsistence cannot be conceived without a Local Separation For he tells them All these Mistakes are owing to Corporeal Imaginations that they conceive of God after the manner of Bodies that because Body cannot generate another without parting and dividing of Substance nor subsist without being in some place nor subsist distinctly without being in distinct and separate places therefore if God beget a Son and this Son subsist distinctly by himself this Son must go out of the Divine Substance and be locally separated from God the Father as a human Son is from his Father whereas the Divine Nature and Substance cannot be divided nor does God subsist in a place and therefore the Son may be substantially begotten of the Father and subsist distinctly by himself without any division of the Divine Substance or separation of place Let us now proceed to a Third sort of these Hereticks who did allow a real and substantial difference between Father Son and Holy Ghost but made God a compound Being but one Person as well as one God and that Father Son and Holy Ghost were the Three Parts of this One God This St. Austin calls Triformis Deus and tells us That these Hereticks did not allow the Father to be Perfect in himself nor the Son Perfect in himself nor the Holy Ghost Perfect in himself that neither of these considered by themselves were Perfect God but that all Three together made one Compleat and Perfect God This all the Catholick Fathers unanimously reject and for the same reasons because there can be no composition in the pure and simple Nature of God and it was the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church That each Person is by himself True and Perfect God not an incompleat Part of the Deity Thus Athanasius warns us against this Heresy which conceives the Trinity like Three Bodily Parts inseparably united to each other which he says is an ungodly reasoning contrary to the Nature of Perfect Unbodied Beings and therefore attributes the Perfection of the Godhead to each Person who are a real Trinity inseparably united in the same Form and Nature That the Father is Perfect Essence and Being without any defect the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit That the Son in the Fulness of the Deity is the Living Word and Perfect Offspring of the Father That the Spirit is the Fulness of the Son not Part of another Being but Whole and Entire in himself That we must conceive them inseparably united to each other but yet Three real subsisting Persons in the same Form and Species which is originally in the Father shines in the Son and is manifested by the Holy Spirit And therefore he adds That he did not compound the Trinity nor force it into a Monad or Unit that is One single Person to preserve the Unity of the Godhead nor conceive of God as of a Man who is compounded of Three Parts Spirit Soul and Body for such a composition cannot belong to a simple Nature This is the constant language of the ancient Writers That the Divine Nature is not compounded of Parts nor is God a compound Being that each Person in the Trinity is a complete and perfect Person and Three complete and perfect Persons cannot be One by Composition as Three incomplete Parts are that each Person by himself is perfect God and perfect Essence though when we unite them and number Three we acknowledge but One perfect God for the Deity is not compounded but in Three each of which is complete and perfect there is One perfect Being without Composition and without Parts that is the same One Divine Nature subsisting distinctly not by Parts or Composition but Whole and Entire in Three Let us now then consider the true state of the Question between these Sabellians and the Catholick Fathers These Hereticks owned at last Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three distinct Substances but not Three substantial Wholes but Three substantial Parts which by their Union and Composition made up One whole intire God The Catholick Fathers join with them so far as to own these Divine Persons to be Three substantial subsisting Persons but reject their Notion of a compounded God or Three Parts of the Deity with the utmost abhorrence and affirm that each Person is by himself entire and perfect God perfect and complete Divine Essence or Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen speaks and that they are not One God by Composition or as One Person is One God but as Three complete and perfect Persons each of which is perfect God can be One God Now I think after this we need not dispute what the Metaphysical Notions of Person and Personality are for a Person in this Sacred Mystery signifies One who is true and perfect God and therefore is whatever God is for the true and perfect definition of God must belong to every Person who is true and perfect God If then we acknowledge God to be Infinite Substance Mind Life Knowledge Power every Person who is God must be all this and if each Person be true and perfect God and yet no One Person is the other nor the Motion Affection or personal Power nor part of the other then each Person is distinctly and by himself complete and perfect God and therefore has distinctly in himself all those Attributes and Perfections which belong to the perfect Notion and Idea of God and to make any Person less than what God is is to make him no God But Athanasius has another Argument against the Sabellian compounded Deity which must put all Compositions of the Deity for ever out of countenance The Scripture assures us that God sends his Son and that the Son sends the Holy Ghost whereas were the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three inseparable Parts of one compounded Deity how could this One God Father Son and Holy Ghost send part of himself and one part of the same One God send another To send and to be sent necessarily supposes Persons really and substantially distinct such as can give and receive and execute Commands who
begotten of his Fathers Substance the Son of God who in his own proper Person is true and perfect God not a part of God but all that God is not One God as One Person with the Father but as having the true Divine Nature distinctly in his own Person This is a Demonstration that the Nicene Consubstantiality is the Consubstantiality of Two real substantial Persons who have the same Nature distinctly subsisting in each of them 2 Another Rule for expounding the Homoousion is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are equipollent terms that to be of one Substance and to be in all things alike to each other signify the same thing I know the Fathers condemned the Arian Homoiousion for they asserted That the Son was like the Father in opposition to his being of the same Nature with the Father and therefore this was an imperfect likeness and resemblance or indeed no likeness at all for a created and uncreated Nature are at such an infinite distance as to have no true and real likeness to each other to be sure not such a likeness as there must be between a Son and a Father Nay sometimes they would not allow that likeness can be properly applied to two individual Natures of the same species as to two individual human Natures which are not like to each other but are the same But yet whether it was proper or improper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be upon all accounts and every way perfectly alike was allowed to be very Orthodox and therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis approves several Oriental Creeds as very Orthodox though they left out the Homoousion because they in the most express terms confessed the perfect likeness and similitude of Nature between Father and Son which they guarded with the utmost Caution against the perverse Interpretations both of the Sabellian and Arian Hereticks And he disputes at large That perfect similitude is a sameness and equality of Nature and calls God to witness that before he ever heard of those words Homoousion and Homoiousion he always thought that what is signified by both these words is the same that perfect likeness of Nature is the sameness of Nature for nothing can be perfectly alike which has not the same Nature And this he says he learnt from the Evangelists and Apostles before ever he heard of the Nicene Faith which he had not heard of till a little before he was banished for that Faith This observation is of great use as St. Hilary notes to confute Sabellianism and to fix the true sense of the Homoousion for if to be Consubstantial or of one Nature signifies a perfect likeness similitude and equality of Nature Consubstantiality must at least signify Two who are thus consubstantial as likeness similitude and equality does and these Two must have One and the same Nature not in the sense of Singularity and Sabellian Unity but of likeness and similitude that Father and Son are One Substance not as One Person is One with himself but as Two Persons are One by a perfect likeness and similitude of Nature which must be the true meaning of Consubstantial if Consubstantiality and likeness of Nature be the same 3. I observe farther That the Catholick Fathers did not make the Homoousion the Rule of Faith that whatever sense some critical Wits can put on it must therefore be owned for the Catholick Faith but they chose it as the most comprehensive word to comprize the true Catholick Faith and to detect the Frauds of Hereticks They taught no new Faith by this word but what the Catholick Church had always taught but secured the Faith by it against the shifts and evasions of Hâ—reticks This is the defence they made to the Arian Objection That it was an unscriptural word they confessed the word Homoousios was not to be found in Scripture but the Faith expressed by that word was Thus St. Austin answers Pascentius and tells us That Christ himself has taught us the Homoousion where he says I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and my Father are One and expounds this of the Unity Dignity and Equality of Nature And adds That it is not the word but the thing signified by that word which is so terrible to Hereticks and if they would dispute to purpose they must not reject the word but the doctrine it contains And thus Laurentius who presided in that Dispute gives judgment in this Controversy That the Homoousion was not the Name of the Christian Faith but signified the Equality of the Trinity and that though this word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by it is true and we must believe honourably of the Unity lest we injure the Trinity We may find enough to this purpose in Athanasius De Decret Syn. Nic. and elsewhere of which more presently And therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis which he wrote to some Catholick Bishops who were very Orthodox in the Faith and yet doubted of this word Homoousion tells them That they are to consider what the Synod intended by that word and not reject the word unless they rejected the Faith taught by it and would profess those Arian Doctrines which the Council condemned in it This is the constant language of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers when the Dispute is concerning the use of this word which gives us this certain Rule for expounding the Homoousion that we must understand it in no other sense than what the Nicene Fathers intended by it for if we do we may acknowledge the Homoousion and yet deny the Nicene Faith What they taught by this word that we must own and what they rejected by it we must reject And though we may fancy that this word signifies more than what the Nicene Fathers understood by it as we have heard what perverse Senses the Hereticks fixt on it yet it being not a Scriptural but an Ecclesiastical word it must be expounded to that Sense and no other which placed it in the Creed SECT III What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion AND this brings me to a more particular Account of the Homoousion and what the Nicene Fathers understood by it Eusebius Pamphili who at first doubted about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ was of the substance of the Father and consubstantial or of One Substance with him gives an account to his Coesareans of the Reasons which moved him afterwards to subscribe to that Form of Faith as appears by his Letter to them recorded in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History He tells them That he did not admit these words without due examination but when he found there was nothing meant by them but what was truly Catholick and Orthodox he complied for Peace sake For by the Son 's being of his Father's Substance they meant no more than
distinguished nor separated but is perfectly One Same Undivided Essence and therefore Vna Substantia though not Vnus Subsistens One Substance though not One but Three that subsist What I have thus briefly represented I hope I have proved in the First Chapter from the Authority of Scripture and Reason founded on Scripture And from what I have already discoursed of the Doctrine of the Fathers it may appear to careful and intelligent Readers who use such Application as this Argument deserves and requires that this is their Unanimous Sense also But yet as far as it is possible to clear this Matter more fully and vindicate the Fathers and Schools from those Obscurities Inconsistences and Contradictions which are generally charged on them in so concerning an Article I shall reassume this Matter and particularly shew 1. That what they call a Divine Person is the Divine Essence and Substance and nothing else 2. That this Divine Essence and Substance as constituting these Divine Persons is proper and peculiar to each and incommunicable to one another and therefore that this Divine Essence and Substance as subsisting distinctly in Three is no more numerically One than their Persons are One. 3. What difference they made between Nature and Essence and Hypostasis and Person 4. Whether the Catholick Faith of a Real and Substantial Trinity can be as reasonably and intelligibly explained by the Notion of One Singular Substance in the Divinity as by asserting Three Personal Substances or Suppositums And whether the Singularity of the Divine Essence in this Notion deliver the Asserters of it from any Inconveniences and Objections which the contrary Opinion is thought liable to 1. As for the first That a Divine Person is the Divine Essence it is and must be in some sense acknowledged by all who profess the Faith of a Real Trinity for there cannot be a Real Trinity of Divine Persons if each Person be not True and Perfect God that is the whole Divinity or Divine Nature and Essence And therefore those who assert in the strictest sense the Singularity of the Divine Essence yet assert That this One Singular Essence subsists distinctly in each Divine Person which whether it be to be understood or not yet is an acknowledgment that there is no conceiving a Divine Person without the Divine Essence But we need not be beholden to any man for this Concession for the thing is plain and evident in all Catholick Writers Petavius has very critically observed the different use of Words in Catholick Writers relating to this Venerable Mystery such as Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis Subsistence Person c. which sometimes occasioned great Misunderstandings between them and is to this day made a pretence of charging the Fathers with great Uncertainty and Obscurity and with contradicting each other and themselves This of late has been much insisted on in order to disparage the Authority of â— as Zealous Contentious Bigots who neither understood one another nor themselves nor the Catholick Faith but so confounded Terms that we can never certainly know what they meant or used such dangerous Terms that if we rely too much upon them we mâ—y easily mâ—stake Hâ—resy for the Catholick Faith Were this true our Case would be very bad but two or three Observations will set this matter in a clear light 1. That very Ambiguity which the Fathers are charged with in the use of Words does certainly prove that by a Divine Person they meant the Divine Essence Nature and Substance The plain Case is this The Catholick Fathers did universally own and profess a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God So that there was no difference in their Faith how different soever their words were The most common Terms whereby they exprest the Unity of the Godhead were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vna Esseâ—â—â—â— Vna Natura Vna Substantia One Essâ—nce One Nâ—ture One Substance and a Trinity they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Hypostates and the Latins Three Persons but sometimes we meet in undoubted Catholick Writers wiâ—â— the direct contrary Expressions such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tres Substantiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances and One Hypostasis The usual way of reconciling this seeming Contradiction is by saying That when these Fathers use such Expressions as Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances they do not understand this of Three divers or specifically different Essences Natures Substances which is Arianism but of Three Persons and when they affirm that there is but One Hypostasis they do not by One Hypostasis mean One Person which is Sabellianism but One Nature Essence or Substance As we know this very Controversy about One or Three Hypostases was thus composed in the Alexandrian Synod where Athanasius presided And no doubt but this is the true Solution since those who were neither Arians nor Sabellians could not understand such Expressions in any other sense But then the Question still remains How this Ambiguity should happen or how it comes to pass that such contradictory Terms as One Essence and Three Essences One Substance and Three Substances One Hypostasis and Three Hypostases should both be Orthodox and Catholick Now the only Account I can give of this matter is this That these Terms Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis which originally signifies Substance of which more presently may signify as the Philosopher speaks either the First or Second Substance either the common Nature which has the same notion and definition common to the whole Kind as Humanity which is the same in all Men or a Singular Subsisting Nature and Substance which in Creatures we call Individuals and in reasonable Creatures Persons Now in analogy to this common Specifick Nature which is one and the same in all its Individuals the Catholick Fathers taught but One Essence Nature Substance and in this sense but One Hypostasis in the Godhead that is a Consubstantial Trinity in analogy to the several Individuals of the same Species in whom only this common Nature did really and actually subsist they ordinarily asserted Three Hypostases sometimes as we see Three Natures and Essences and Substances in the Trinity that is Three Real Substantial subsisting Persons and in this sense Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances was accounted Catholick Doctrine St. Hilary allows Tria in Substantia or Tres Subsâ—antias Three in Substance or Three Substances for Tres Subsistentium Personas Three Subsisting Persons And St. Greg. Nyssen in answer to Eunomius who asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Essences or Substances says That if he understood this distinction of Substances only in opposition to Sabellius who gave three Names to one Suppositum or Substance that not only he but all Catholick Christians assented to it His only fault being in this Case that he uses improper words Three Essences for Three Hypostases Now that which I observe from hence is this That had they not believed each Divine Person to
be distinctly by himself the Divine Nature Essence and Substance there could never have been any occasion for this Dispute about One Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis and Three Essences Natures Substances Hypostases nor for that known Distinction by which they reconciled this difference between Essence and Hypostasis that the first signifies something analogous to a Common Specifick Nature the second to Individuals If the Divine Nature subsisted in Singularity or were but One Singular Subsisting Nature Essence and Hypostasis must signify the same thing for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence is Substance and so is Hypostasis and in this sense they must both signify a first Substance and then one singular Subsisting Nature or Substance and three singular Subsisting Natures and Substances is an irreconcilable Contradiction Had the Singularity of the Divine Nature been the Catholick Faith we should never have heard of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Common Nature and Essence of the Divinity for Singular and Common are express Contradictions and a Singular Subsisting Nature can have nothing thing analogous in it to a Common Specifick Nature If each Divine Person be not the Divine Nature Essence Substance there can be no Pretence that Essence and Substance should ever signify a Person nor can any Interpretation make Three Essences and Substances Catholick Doctrine if there be no sense wherein Three Persons may Orthodoxly be called Three Essences and Substances as there can't be if a Person as a Person be not Essence and Substance And on the other hand if Hypostasis which is the peculiar and appropriate Name whereby the Greek Fathers denote a Person do not signify Essence and Substance it could never be Orthodox to say that there is but One Hypostasis no more than it is to say that there is but One Person in the Trinity 2. But to set aside this Dispute concerning Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances and One Hypostasis in the Trinity which though allowed to be Catholick yet were sparingly and cautiously used because they were liable to Heretical Senses I observe farther That these words Essence Nature Substance are distinctly applied to each Person of the Holy Trinity which could not be Orthodox were not each Person distinctly in himself Essence Nature Substance What I have already discoursed with relation to Sabellianism and upon several other occasions sufficiently proves this and I shall not trouble my Readers with a needless Repetition Petavius owns it and has given several Instances of it That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentia Natura Substantia do not always signify the common Essence of the Divinity but the Divine Persons that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Person of the Father and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Person of the Son which is undoubtedly true but still Essence signifies Essence and Nature Nature and Substance Substance and the only reason he has to say That in this construction the Words signify a Person is because they are used singularly and construed with the name of a Person as the Essence and Substance of the Father or of the Son But this is no reason if the Essence be not the Person if the Essence of the Fâ—ther do not signify that Essence which is the Person of the Father and the Essence of the Son that Essence which is the Person of the Son For if a Divine Person be not the Divine Essence Essence can never signify Person And yet if they do believe that each Divine Person is by himself in his own Person Essence and Substance the whole undivided Divinity I cannot imagine the reason of this Criticism why they should be more afraid to say the Essence and Substance of the Father than the Person of the Father unless it be that this does not so well agree with their Notion of the singularity of the Divine Essence as I doubt indeed it will not especially if we add the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Unbegotten and begotten Substance the one the Person of the Father the other of the Son of which more hereafter but this is not to learn our Faith from the Fathers but to expound them by our preconceived Opinions 3 dly I observe farther That all those words which are more peculiarly appropriated to signify the Divine Persons were always used by Catholick Writers in the notion of Substance and were never thought Catholick in any other sense Hypostasis is the most received word among the Greek Fathers to signify a Person and One Essence and Three Hypostases was the Catholick Language Now it is agreed on all hands That Hypostasis literally signifies Substance and as I have already observed the only dispute about it was that some by Hypostasis understood the Common Nature and Substance in the notion of Essence and for that reason asserted That there is but One Hypostasis as there is but One Essence in the Trinity others understood a singular Subsisting Nature and Substance and in this sense asserted Three Hypostases but none of them ever understood Hypostasis in any other notion but that of Substance either a Common or Individual Substance And to prevent this Ambiguity as far as they could which might conceal very different Heresies Sabellianism on one hand and Arianism on the other and many times occasioned the Orthodox to suspect each other of these opposite Heresies though Essence and Hypostasis signified much the same thing yet they appropriated the name Essence to signify a Common Nature and Substance and Hypostasis to signify Individuals As we learn from St. Basil Greg. Nyssen Damascen and many other Catholick Writers who assign this difference between Essence and Hypostasis But yet this did not wholly silence this Dispute among the Greeks much less did it satisfy the Latin Fathers who knew no difference between Essentia Substantia but translated the Homoousion by Vnius Substantiae and therefore it was as great Heresy to them to say Three Substances as they translated the Greek Hypostases as to say Three Essences in the Trinity St. Austin professes That he knew not what the Greeks meant by One Essence and Three Substances and for the same reason it is well known St. Ierom rejected Three Substances for both by Essence and Substance they understood a Common Nature which made it Heresy indeed to assert Three Substances which in this acceptation of the word must signify Three divers Substances which specifically differ And therefore tho they did not reject the Greek Faith but did believe as heartily as they that each Person by himself was perfect Hypostasis and Substance and rejected the Sabellian One Hypostasis and One Substance yet they did not like the Phrase of Three Hypostases and Three Substances for they knew no difference between Three Substances and Three Essences and by both understood Three different Kinds and Species of Beings And for this Reason both to secure the Catholick Faith from such
a diversity and dissimilitude of Nature as Three Essences and Substances may signify and from a Sabellian Unity and Singularity they chose such words as signified a Real Perfect Subsisting Being but did not immediatly and formally signify Essence and Substance tho they did necessarily suppose and connote it Such among the Greeks are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Latins subsistentia suppositum res ens Existence Subsistence Subject Suppositum Thing Being which every one sees must signify something as real as Essence and Substance and must necessarily include Essence and Substance in their very notion and that thus they were used by the Catholick Fathers Petavius proves by numerous Quotations which the Reader may consult at his leisure And though some of these words are sometimes used singularly of all Three Divine Persons in the notion of a Common Essence and Substance as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 res in which sense St. Austin called the Trinity unam summam rem yet both Fathers and Schoolmen did without any scruple use them in the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tres subsistentiae tres res tria supposita tria entia realia that the Divine Persons were Three Existences Three Subsistencies Three Suppositums Three Things Three Real Beings and why not then Three Essences and Three Substances since every suppositum every Thing every Real Being is Essence and Substance the reason of which is plainly this That Essence and Substance unless qualified with some limiting Adjuncts signify the formal Reasons of things and can't be multiplied without diversity whereas the other Terms signify nothing but Real and Actual Existence which does not diversify and therefore not multiply the Essence for Three Suppositums Three Subjects Three Things Three Real Beings may have One Essence Nature and Substance formally identically and invariably the same But there is some dispute about the use of those words Existence and Subsistence Petavius observes a great difference between the Ancient and Modern use of them That the Ancients used them in a Concrete Sense for Person and Substance that which does really exist and subsist as he proves by several Quotations but that the Schoolmen use them in an abstract Sense for the modifications of Substance which they call Modes which together with the Substance constitute what we call Persons of which more hereafter and this may be true as to some later Schoolmen but the more Ancient and many Modern Schoolmen retained the Old Catholick use of the words and Suarez could trace the Doctrine of Modes no higher than Durandus Peter Lombard is express in it That Three Persons are tres subsistentioe tres entes Three Subsistencies Three Beings and tres subsistentioe vel entes subsistentioe vel subsistentes Subsistencies or Beings Subsistencies or those that subsist Thus Tho. Aquinas tells us That Persons are res subsistentes subsisting things And in answer to that Objection against a plurality of Persons in the Godhead that a Person according to Boetius being rationalis naturoe individua substantia the Individual Substance of a Rational Nature if there be a plurality of Persons in the Godhead there must consequently be a plurality of Substances he tells us That Substance either signifies the Essence or the Suppositum that in this last sense it is used in the definition of a Person as appears by the addition of Individual which is what the Greeks call Hypostasis and therefore assert Three Hypostases Individual Substances as we do Three Persons but we don't use to say Three Substances by reason of the equivocal use of the word lest we should be thought to assert Three Essences in the Godhead From whence it is plain that by Three Subsistencies Tho. Aquinas understood Three that subsist Three Individual Substances in the Notion of Three distinct Suppâ—situms though not of Three different Essences for this is the true distinction he makes between Suppositum and Essence that they both signify Substance but the one signifies as Matter and the other as Form and therefore the Plurality of Suppositums of Subsistencies does not multiplâ—â—â—e Essence or Form for Three may be perfectly One in Nature and Essence but to multiply Essences to say there are Three Nâ—tures or Three Essences is to diversify them and to make Three Gods specifically and essentially different After this I need not add much concerning the Notion of Person The Ciceronian sense of this word too much in use of late wherein the same Man may be said to sustain several Persons according to his different Relations Offices and Quality has as I have observed before been rejected by all Catholick Writers as Sabellianism St. Austin generally speaking is the Text to the Master of the Sentences and He to the Schoolmen and that Father is express in it that Person is Essence and Substance that the Person of the Father is the Essence and Substance of the Father From whose Authority P. Lombard concludes That Person is used in the Notion of Substance That when we say the Father is a Person the sense is the Father is the Divine Essence He observes from the same Father that the Latins used Person in the same sense that the Greeks used Hypostasis which in Latin literally signifies Substance but yet they were very cautious of saying Three Substances as the Greeks did Three Hypostases because though the Greeks distinguished between Essence and Substance that Essence expressed the formal Nature of things Substance what in Creatures we call the Matter or Suppositum yet the Latins knew no such distinction and therefore Three Substances to them was the same with Three Essences which would assert a diversity in the Divine Nature And this he shews was the only Objection St. Hierom had against Three Substances or Three Hypostases which he allowed in the Notion of Tres Personas subsistentes Three subsisting Persons but not of Three Natures or Essences and this Solution he acquiesces in That Tres Personoe sunt Tres Substantioe scilicet Tres Entes pro quo Groeci dicunt Tres Hypostases That Three Persons are Three Substances that is Three Real Beings which the Greeks call Three Hypostases And though he observes that Person may sometimes signify that Personal Property whereby one Divine Person is distinguished from another yet he will not allow us to call Three Persons Three Properties but Three Subsistencies or Three Hypostases for the Property is not the Person but only distinguishes Persons of which more hereafter And he reduces the several acceptations of Person as used in the Doctrine of the Trinity to these three 1. That it sometimes signifies the Divine Essence as it does when we speak singularly of any One Person for the Person of the Father is the Divine Essence and so of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 2. Subsistencies and Hypostases as when we speak in the Plural Number Three Persons are Three Subsistencies Three Hypostases but unius Essentioe of one
in God yet when he begets a Son he neither begets his own Person nor Nature which would be to beget himself which St. Austin and the Schools after him reject as absurd for an Image of God is neither the Person nor the Personal Nature of God but of the same Nature with him and perfectly the same there being no other difference between them but that one is the Prototype the other the Image one the Father the other the Son So that when God of his own whole perfect Substance begets a whole perfect living substantial Image he does not beget himself but another he does not beget his own Nature nor another Nature like his own but his own Image of the same Nature with himself He begets another Person who is as truly and perfectly God as the true perfect living Image of God must be perfect God but he does not in an absolute sense beget God neither se Deum nor alium Deum as the Schools rightly determine neither himself God nor another God for he neither begets his own Essence and Divinity nor another Divinity but another who is the perfect Image of his own Divine Essence And what is here said of the Generation of the Son as the living subsisting Image of God must be applied to the Procession of the Holy Spirit who is the Eternal Spirit of God as the Son is his Image This is what the Catholick Fathers call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that One Divinity in which they place the Unity of God That there is but One Absolute Divinity or Divine Nature which is the Person of the Father who is therefore eminently acknowledged to be the One God as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Divinity that is of the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit which are not two other Absolute Divinities for then they would be two more Gods besides the Father but the Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit is the same One Divinity of the Father as an Eternal Perfect Begotten Living Image and an Eternal Proceeding Spirit each of which is in himself true and perfect God and all Three but One God or One Divinity not merely because they receive their Divinity from God by an Eternal Generation and Procession nor as they have a Divinity or Divine Nature specifically the same with the Father which alone can no more render them One God than Father and Son are One Man but as the singular individual Divinity of the Father is in the Son and Holy Spirit as it is manifest the singular individual Nature of the Prototype is and must be in its living substantial Image without which it is not a Natural Image though it may have a perfect likeness of Nature if it have an absolute Nature of its own This is what Tertullian tells us That there is unus Deus cum oeconomia One God with his Economy and what St. Hilary and others so often tell us That the Father does not cease to be the One God by having a Son since the Son is God by Nativity and Birth and Authoritate Paternoe Naturoe by having his Father's Nature who is the One God And this is all that the Schools mean by the Singularity of the Divine Nature and Essence and it is impossible they should mean any thing else when they teach that this singular Nature is communicable They allow as I have already shewn that Nature and Person is the same that each Person is Suppositum and Substance a singular incommunicable Substance and therefore that there were Three Suppositums and in that sense Three Substances in the Trinity but not Three Natures and Essences though each Person be distinctly by himself the Divine Nature and Essence Now since what is strictly singular is Numerically One and what is Numerically One and never can be more can't be multiplied as that seems to be which is communicated what sense can there possibly be in a singular communicable which seem to be contradictory Terms But this is very good sense and very Catholick Doctrine if we understand this Singular Communicable as the Schools did of One absolute Divinity or Divine Nature which is so singular that it can be but One as is demonstrable by Reason But yet may beget its own essential Image which is not another Divinity or another Nature but it s own singular Nature in its Image which is another Suppositum and Person but not another Nature That this is the Sense of the Schools and all that they meant by the Singularity of the Divine Essence is evident from the whole Doctrine of Relations A Trinity of Proper Real Persons each of which is Nature Essence and Substance was made an Argument against the perfect Unity as well as against the perfect Simplicity of the Divine Nature for Plurality and Unity are opposed to each other To this the Schools answer That a Plurality and Unity of the same kind are indeed opposite to each other and cannot be reconciled as a Plurality of Natures cannot be reconciled with the Unity of Nature nor a Plurality of Persons with the Unity of a Person but a Plurality of Persons and Unity of Nature may be reconciled and thus it is with the Trinity in Unity for though each Divine Person be the Divine Nature and Essence yet Three Divine Persons are not Three Absolute Natures and Essences but Three Relations in One Singular Absolute Nature SECT VIII Concerning the Divine Relations BUT it will be of great use more particularly to consider this Doctrine of Relations without which it is impossible rightly to understand what the Schools teach about a Trinity in Unity And to reduce it into as narrow a compass as I can I shall 1. shew What the Schools mean by Relations in the Divine Nature 2. Why they insist so much upon Relations 1. What they mean by Divine Relations Now they tells us That they are real Relations not made by the Mind from some external Respects and Habitudes which it observes between things but antecedent to all the Acts of Reason in the things themselves That they are not inherent Accidents but Substance and subsisting Relations not relative Names and Appellations but the Relatives themselves the Persons related being the Relations and the Relation the Person which are therefore by some called Substantiae Relativae and Entia Realia Relativa Relative Substances and Real Beings but Relative that is not Absolute Substances and Absolute Beings with a Relation as it is in Creatures where the Son is as Absolute a Man and as Absolute a Person as the Father is though they are related to each other as Father and Son but the very Substance and Person is the Relation Before I shew That this is the Doctrine of the Schools the better to understand what they say and the Reasons of it it will be necessary to give as plain and intelligible an Idea of this as I can especially
since I find some Learned Men boggle very much at the Notion of Relative Substances which are not merely the Subjects of Relations but the Relations themselves What their Objection is against this I can't tell unless they think that a Relative Substance is not True and Perfect Substance which is very far from the Notion of the Schools who attribute compleat and perfect Subsistence to these Divine Relations or Persons not as Accidents in their Subjects nor as Parts in a Whole which is their Notion of Substance and compleat Subsistence but a Relative Substance only signifies such a Substance as is not the Original but is all that it is from another which they call the Relatio Originis not merely such a Relation as is between the Cause and the Effect which is seldom a substantial subsisting Relation but the Relation between Substance and Substance when one Substance in the notion of Suppositum is wholly and perfectly derived and expressed from the other The easiest Representation of this is the relation between the Prototype or Original and its Image which is not a mere Relation of Likeness and Similitude but of Origination that the Image is taken from the Original which is the foundation of the Relation Though Two Eggs were never so perfectly alike yet One is not the Image of the Other because it is not of the Other nor its natural Representation though perfectly like it but the Image is that which results from the Object like a Face in the Glass or the Impression of a Seal and the whole Essence of such an Image as an Image is relative And it is the same case as to a living substantial Image of that Life and Substance from whence it proceeds it is as perfect Life and Substance it self as its Original or else it could not be a natural Image of Life and Substance but yet it is Relative Life and Substance Life of Life the Prototype begetting its own Image in a perfect Identity and Sameness of Nature Whole of Whole And this is the Notion of the Schools concerning Relative Substances which is intelligible enough And that this is what they mean by Relations in the Godhead or Divine Nature is as plain The Master of the Sentences tells us That these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost signify the Properties of Paternity Filiation and Procession for they are Relatives which speak a mutual respect and denote Relations which are not Accidents in God but immutably in the Persons themselves so that they are not mere relative Appellations but are Relations or Notions in the things themselves that is in the Persons And by this Argument Tho. Aquinas proves That these are real Relations and are really in God because the Father is so called from the Relation of Paternity and the Son from Filiation that were not Paternity and Filiation realiter in Deo real subsisting Relations in the Divinity it would follow That God is not really Father or Son but only according to different Conceptions which is the Sabellian Heresy And proves That these Relations in God are real because they are Divine Processions in the Identity of Nature that is the Son who proceeds from the Father in the Identity of the same Nature and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Father and Son in the Identity of the same Nature For they called both the Generation of the Son and the Spiration of the Holy Ghost Processions as the Greeks did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one processio intellectus the other amoris Now these real Processions are Respects in the nature of things and such Respects are real Relations for when any thing proceeds from a Principle of the same Nature both that which proceeds and that from which it proceeds must necessarily be of the same Order and therefore have a real respect to each other Divine Processions in the Identity of Nature must be related to each other in the Unity of the same Nature and must be substantial subsisting Relations for they are no other than the Persons themselves who thus proceed It is a received Conclusion in the Schools That a Relation in God is the same with the Divine Essence That Personal Relations are not reipsa distinguished either from the Persons or the Essence And Gilbertus Porretanus who taught the contrary was forced to recant in the Council of Rhemes The real Distinction of these Relations in the Unity of the Divine Nature is another avowed Doctrine of the Schools and by a real Distinction they mean a Distinction in re in the Subject and Suppositum And this they prove from the real Distinction of Persons which are distinguished only by Relations From a real Trinity which is One in Substance but multiplied by Relations relatio multiplicat Trinitatem and therefore unless these Relations be really distinguished from each other there can't be a Real but only a Notional Trinity which is Sabellianism That these Relations which constitute the Trinity are opposite Relations which require distinct Subjects as Paternity and Filiation for no man can be Father and Son to himself That these Divine Relations are real Relations and therefore must be really distinct or else they are not all real unless they be really opposed to each other which makes a real distinction and therefore there must be a real distinction in God not as to any thing absolute secundum rem absolutam which is the Divine Essence which has the most perfect and simple Unity but secundum rem relativam with respect to a Relative Being and Subsistence So that these Relations are Relative Beings Relative Subsistences and as they are sometimes called Relative Substances which are really distinct though not in Nature yet in their Suppositums not as Tâ—ree Absolute Beings which makes a distinction in Nature but as Three Real Subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Nature But not â—o multiply words in so plain a Case I shall observe buâ— one thing more to this purpose and that concerns the Dispute concâ—â—ning the Number of the Divine Persons The Catholick Faith owns a Trinity or only Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead Father Son and Holy 〈◊〉 and it is the known Doctrine of the Schools That the Relation is the Person How comes it to pass then that when there are Four Relations in the Godhead Paternity Filiation Active Spiration and Procession there should be but Three Persons Now the Answer which Aquinas and others give to this Difficulty is this That it is not every Relation but only opposite Relations which constitute and distinguish Persons for more Persâ—ns are more subsisting Relations really distinct from each other but there can be no real distinction between the Divine Relations but upon account of their relative opposition And therefore two opposite Relations must belong to two Persons but such Relations as are not opposite to each other must belong to the same Person and therefore Paternity and
Consubstantial Son is a true and real Son for which reason as he observes the Arians would not allow the Son to be Consubstantial because they would not allow him to be a true genuine Son and for this very reason the Nicene Fathers inserted the Homoousion in their Creed But yet if we would rightly conceive of God of Father Son and Holy Ghost of the Unity and Distinction of the Ever Blessed Trinity we must not form our Notions by the Ideas of Substance and Consubstantiality which we have no distinct conceptions of but we must learn their Unity Distinction and Consubstantiality from those Characters the Scripture gives of Father Son and Holy Ghost This Rule St. Ambrose expressly gives us with reference to the Son and the Reason is the same as to the other Divine Persons If we would avoid Error says that Father let us attend to those Characters the Scripture gives us to help us to understand what and who the Son is He is called the Word the Son the Power of God the Wisdom of God all this we can understand and not only St. Ambrose but all the other Catholick Fathers as I have already shewn prove the Consubstantiality Coeternity Coequality Unity and Distinction of Father and Son from these Names and Characters which they understood in a true and proper sense for a Living Subsisting Son and Word and Power and Wisdom and there is no difficulty in conceiving all this if we contemplate it in these Characters nay it is impossible to conceive otherwise of it As impossible as it is to form any notion at all of those Philosophical Terms whereby this Mystery is commonly represented when we abstract them from those sensible Characters and Ideas which the Scripture has given us and begin our Inquiries with them It will be of great use to represent this matter plainly that every man may see what it is that obscures and perplexes the Doctrine of the Trinity and confounds mens notions about it to the great scandal of the Christian Religion and the disturbance of the Christian Church The great difficulty concerns the Unity and Distinction of the Ever Blessed Trinity that they are really and distinctly Three and essentially One And this is represented by One Nature Essence and Substance and Three Hypostases and yet Hypostasis signifies Substance and every Divine Hypostasis is the whole Divine Essence and Substance Now if we immediately contemplate this Mystery under the notion of Substance it is impossible for us to conceive One Substance and Three Hypostases that is in some sense Three Substances or which is all One as to the difficulty of conceiving it though the form of Expression is more Catholick Three each of which is the whole Essence and Substance and neither of them is each other we may turn over our Minds as long as we please and change Words and Phrases but we can find no Idea to answer these or any other words of this nature But now if instead of Essence and Hypostasis we put Mind and its Word we can form a very intelligible notion of this Unity and Distinction and prove that Unity of Substance and Distinction of Hypostases which we cannot immediately and directly form any notion of For Eternal Original Mind and its Living Subsisting Word are certainly Two and neither are nor can be each other the Mind cannot be its own Living Word nor the Word the Mind whose Word it is and yet we must all grant that Eternal Mind is the most Real Being Essence Substance and that a Living Subsisting Word is Life Being Substance and the very same Life and Substance that the Mind is and all that the Mind is for a perfect Living Word can have no other Life and Substance but that of the Mind and must be all the same that the Mind is The Eternal Generation of the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of the Father Life of Life Substance of Substance Whole of Whole is impossible to be conceived as immediately applied to the notion of Substance but the Generation of the Word Whole of Whole is very conceivable for the Mind must beget its own Word as we feel in our selves and a Mind which is perfect Life and Substance if it begets its Word must beget a Living Subsisting Substantial Word the perfect Image of its own Life and Substance And as impossible as it is to conceive much more to express in words this Mystery of the Eternal Generation yet the necessary relation between a Mind and its Word proves that thus it is we feel it in our selves though we are as perfectly ignorant how our Mind begets its dying vanishing Word as how the Eternal Mind begets an Eternal Living Subsisting Word And the Generation of the Word includes in it all the Properties of the Divine Generation that it is Eternal for an Eternal Mind can never be without its Word that it is without any Corporeal Passions or Esslux or Division begotten in the Mind and inseparable from it Now if we conceive after the same manner of the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit can any man deny this to be an Intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Unity though we can form no distinct Idea of One Essence and Substance and Three Hypostases For if we can conceive Father Son and Holy Ghost Eternal Original Mind its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit to be Essentially One and Three the Catholick Faith is secured though we do not so well understand the distinction between those Abstract Metaphysical Terms of Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis especially when applied to the Unity and Distinction of the Eternal Godhead which is above all Terms of Art The Catholick Faith is That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God but yet there are not Three Gods but One God and this the Doctrine of the Divine Relations gives us a very intelligible notion of for we cannot conceive otherwise of the Eternal Mind its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit but that each of them are True and Perfect God and yet a Mind its Word and Spirit can be but One and therefore but One God But One Substance and Three Hypostases is but a secondary notion of a Trinity in Unity to secure the Catholick Faith against the Sabellian and Arian Heresies Against the Sabellians the Catholick Fathers asserted Three Hypostases against the Arians One Substance and the Essential Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove both the One Substance and Three Hypostases but though One Substance and Three Hypostases be the Catholick Language yet those Men begin at the wrong end who think to form an intelligible notion of a Trinity in Unity from these abstract Metaphysical Terms This is not the Language of the Scripture nor have we any Idea to answer these Terms of One Substance in Three distinct Hypostases when we consider them by themselves without relation to the Divine Nature to which alone these
Terms can belong for there is no such thing in created Nature and therefore we can have no Idea of it It is abundantly sufficient in this Case that we have a clear and distinct Notion of One Substance and Three Hypostases in the Essential Unity and Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost Three subsisting Relations in One Individual Essence and Substance though when we abstractedly consider these Terms of One Substance and Three Hypostases we can form no consistent Notion or Idea of it And now let our Socinian Adversaries who talk so loud of Absurdities Contradictions Nonsense false Counting and Tritheism try their skill to make good these Charges against the Divine subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Individual Essence SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity BUT since one Nature and Essence and Three Hypostases or Persons is the Catholick Language and necessary to guard the Faith from those Two Extremes of Sabellianism and Arianism it will be necessary to consider how to apply these Ecclesiastical Terms to the Three and One in the ever Blessed Trinity And here were I so disposed I might enter into a very large and perplext Dispute but my design as far as possibly I can attain it is only to explain what the Catholick Fathers meant by these Terms and to give a plain and sensible Notion of them And after what I have already so largely discoursed concerning Nature and Hypostasis I have little more to do than to compare them together and to shew in what the Catholick Fathers placed this Distinction And as nothing is of greater consequence than rightly to understand this matter so nothing requires greater Caution nor greater Application of Mind Whosoever is conversant in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers must acknowledge it not only reasonable but necessary to distinguish between their Faith and their Philosophy Their Faith which they received srom the Scriptures and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church is plain and simple and the same in all That there is but One God who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself True and Perfect God and all but One God which is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that they are in a true and proper Sense Three and One This is the Catholick Faith wherein they all agree but then those Philosophical Terms which the importunities of Hereticks who corrupted either the Faith of the Unity or Trinity forced them to use in the Explication of this Mystery are of a different Consideration These have not always been the same nor have all agreed in them and the wisest Men have owned great Improprieties in them all when applied to this Sacred Mystery and indeed it is impossible to be otherwise for that infinite Difference and Diversity there is between the Divine and Humane Nature nay all created Nature can never admit of any Common Terms proper to express both The most perfect Creatures bear only some imperfect Analogy and Resemblance to what we conceive of God and therefore when we apply such Words and Terms to the Divine Naturâ— as are borrowed from Creatures and we have no other we must understand them only by way of Analogy and Accommodation and when we expound such Terms as are used by the Catholick Fathers in such an accommodated Sense we must apply them no further than that particular Matter they intended to represent by them I have already shâ—wn this in several particular Passages relating to the Homoousion but now I am more particularly to consider the difference between Essence and Hypostasis and I shall only shew how the matter of fact stands what has occasioned this difficulty what the true state of the Controversy is and how we may form some sensible notion of this Distinction and if I should mistake in so nice a Point as this I hope it will be a pardonable Mistake while I make no change in the Catholick Faith and intend it only as an Essay if it be possible to silence or qualify the Dispute about words The Greek Fathers attribute all the Heresies relating to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to this one Mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same for then if there be but One Essence in the Blessed Trinity there must consequently be but One Hypostasis which is Sabellianism or if there be Three Hypostases there must be Three Natures and Essences either in the Arian or Tritheistick Notion Thus with reference to the Incarnation two Natures must be two Persons or Hypostases as Nestorius taught or One Person must be but One mixt and compounded Nature too which was the Heresy of Eutyches This some Fathers thought a fundamental Error in Philosophy introduced by Aristotle who makes the first Substance which is the only true and proper Substance to be that which is predicated of no Subject nor is in any Subject that is what we call a Subsisting Individual as this Man or this Horse And therefore Theorianus observes That the Catholick Fathers understood Essence and Hypostasis in a very different sense from the Greek Philosophers that is by Essence and Substance they did not mean one singular Individuum or singular Nature and Substance as Aristotle did but a common Nature not a common Notion as Genus or Species which are Aristotle's second Substances but a common Subsisting Nature which is one and the same whole and perfect in every Individual of the same kind And what Aristotle call'd his first Substance a singular Subsisting Nature that they called Hypostasis a common Subsisting Nature with its individuating Characters and Properties It is evident some Ages past before these words Essence and Hypostasis were thus nicely distinguished or at least before this Distinction was so unanimously received for as I have already observed these Words were used very promiscuously which occasioned the Alexandrian Schism and it does not appear to me that this Distinction was setled by Athanasius and the Bishops with him in that Synod as some seem to think though soon after it generally prevailed as we may learn from St. Basil Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril of Alexandria Damascen Leontius Theorianus Theodorus Abucara Ignatius Sinaita and generally all the Catholick Writers of the Eutychian and Severian Age who universally agree in this That Essence and Hypostasis differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that which is Universal differs from what is Proper and Singular Now so far these Fathers were certainly in the right That if they must apply Philosophical Terms to Divine Mysteries which the Cavilling Objections of Hereticks made necessary there was an absolute necessity for them to change their signification for as there is nothing common to
and thus a Man begets a Man in his own Nature and Likeness and the Son which is begotten is upon all accounts as much a Man as he who begets and Father and Son are two Men And to beget and to be begotten tho they prove their Persons to be distinct yet are but External Relations not different manners of subsistence in the same Nature And thus God does not beget a Son which would be to beget a Second God For to beget and to be begotten when he who begets begets in an absolute sense all the same that he is himself makes two of the same kind And therefore we must observe That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Personal Character and Property of the Father does not only signify that he has no cause of his Being and Nature but that what he is he is absolutely in himself has an Absolute not a Relative Nature and Subsistence and so consequently the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Personal Property of the Son signifies that his Being and Nature is Relative not only that he receives his Being and Nature from his Father but that he so receives it as to be a Relative Subsistence in his Father's Nature and the like may be said of the Procession of the Holy Ghost As to shew this more particularly God begets a Son his own perfect Image and Likeness but he does not beget his own Absolute Nature in his Son as Man does though he begets his Son of his own Nature and Substance as for instance God is Perfect Absolute Original Mind not only as Original is opposed to what has a Cause and a Beginning but as opposed to an Image but God does not beget an Absolute Original Mind in his Son but only his own Eternal Essential Word which is the Perfect Living Image of Eternal Self-originated Mind and is it self Eternal Infinite Mind in the Eternal Word but is in its own proper Character the Eternal Word of the Eternal Mind not originally an Eternal Mind it self It has all the Perfections of an Eternal Mind as a Perfect Word must of necessity have which is the perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature but it has all these Perfections not as Original Mind but as a Begotten Word which is a different Mode of Subsistence and a sensible distinction between the Eternal Mind and its Word in the perfect Identity of Nature This I take to be a True and Intelligible Account of these different manners of Subsistence which distinguish the Divine Persons in the perfect Unity of Nature that they have all the same Nature and same Perfections but after a different manner which can never be understood in Absolute Natures and Persons for three Men though Father Son and Grandson have all of them Human Nature after the very same manner but in an Absolute Nature and Relative Essential Processions this is to be understood and proves a real distinction and perfect Unity It is evident to all Men that the Mind and its Word are Two and it is as evident that Life Wisdom Knowledge are in Absolute Original Mind after another manner than they are in its Word and yet the very Notion of a Mind and its Word and that Essential Relation that is between them makes it a contradiction to say that any other Life Wisdom Knowledge can be in the Word than what is in the Mind which would be to say That the Word is not the Word of the Mind if it have any thing that is not in the Mind For a Natural Word can have nothing but what is in the Mind and is no farther a Word than it is the Natural Image of the Mind And the like may be said concerning the Holy Spirit which hath all the same Divine Perfections but in a different manner from Original Mind and its Word as eternally proceeding from both This is the Account which the Catholick Fathers give of the Unity of Nature and Distinction of Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity which answers the Objections of our Sabellian Arian and Socinian Adversaries and vindicates those Catholick Forms of Speech which they charge with Tritheism Contradiction and Nonsense As to shew this briefly in one view for each part of it has been sufficiently confirmed already The Catholick Faith teaches us That there is but One God and this is demonstrable from the Doctrine of these Fathers For in this Account I have now given there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Absolute Divinity One Divine Nature and therefore but One God But say our Adversaries One God in Natural Religion and according to the general Sense of Mankind signifies One Person who is God And this also in some sense has always been owned by the Catholick Church That as there is but One Absolute Divinity so the Person of the Father who is this One Absolute Divinity is this One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is but One Person who is God in this Absolute Sense because there is but One Father who as they often speak is the Fountain of the Deity that is of the Divine Processions of the Son and Holy Spirit He is the Whole Absolute Divinity himself and whatever is Divine Eternally and Essentially proceeds from him in the Unity of his own Nature But at this rate what Divinity do we leave for the Son and the Holy Spirit Truly the very same by Eternal Generation and Procession which is originally and absolutely in the Father For it is the Nature of the Father and the Divinity of the Father which is in the Son and Holy Spirit as the Fathers constantly own and as of necessity it must be because there is no other This Eternal Generation and Procession has always been owned as an ineffable Mystery which we must believe upon the Authority of the Scriptures without pretending to know how God begets an Eternal Son or how the Eternal Spirit proceeds from Father and Son which we confess we have no Notion of but we know likewise That this is no reason to reject this Faith no more than it is a reason to reject the belief of an Eternal Self-originated Being because though it be demonstrable That there must be an Eternal First Cause of all things which has no Cause of its own Being but an Eternal necessary Nature yet we can no more conceive this than we can an Eternal Generation and Procession Supposing therefore without disputing that matter at present that God has an Eternal Son that Eternal Self-originated Mind has an Eternal Subsisting Word and an Eternal Spirit it is evident that this Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit must have all the same Perfections of the Eternal Mind must be all that the Eternal Mind is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excepting its being an Absolute Self-originated Mind Now if he be God who has the whole Divine Nature and Perfections then the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God who by Eternal Generation and Procession have that same
Trinity and Three Relative Subsistencies and Existences which is managed with so much perplexing Subtilty as far as I can understand any thing by it may easily be composed after the same manner For there is but One Absolute Being and Nature in the Divinity and therefore there can be but One Absolute Subsistence and Existence as Absolute signifies not Compleat and Perfect but to subsist and exist as an Original which in the Godhead signifies a self-originated Subsistence and Existence But then to deny all relative Subsistencies and Existencies is to deny the compleat Subsistence and Existence of the Son and Spirit who are essential Relations in the Unity of the Father's Godhead and therefore subsist not as Originals but as Relatives which is the meaning of a Relative Subsistence There is but One Absolute Divinity and Two Relative Processions and therefore in this sense but One Absolute and Two not Three Relative Subsistencies which seems fairly to divide the Question between them Thus once more It is a known Rule of speaking in this Mystery That Substantives must be predicated in the Singular Number Adjectives will admit a Plural Predication and the same difference is made between Abstract and Concrete Terms There are not Three Gods but Tres Deit atem habentes there are Three who have the Divinity not Three Omnipotencies or Three Omnisciencies but Three who are Omnipotent and Omniscient And the approved reason for this is That Substantives and Abstract Terms signify the Nature Essence and Form and to multiply them is to multiply Natures but Adjectives immediately signify the Subjects Suppositums and Persons and only connote the Nature and Form which multiplies the Persons but not the Nature Now though I understand what is meant by this when applied to the Divinity yet I never could understand this Reason for it for there is no such difference between Substantive and Adjective Predications in any other Case Three men and Three who have Human Nature signify the very same thing and multiply the Form as well as the Persons Three who have Human Nature are truly and properly Three men and then the meer difference between Substantives and Adjectives cannot be a good Reason why Three who have the Divine Nature are not Three Gods But the difference between an Absolute and Relative Predication does give an account of this Substantives and Abstract Terms always signify the Form as the Schools speak that is an Absolute and Original Nature and in this Sense Number multiplies Nature as well as Persons and Three Gods are Three Absolute Original Divinities as wellas Three Divine Persons and thus it is as to Adjective Predications in all Creatures as I observed before because there is no such distinction in Creatures between an Absolute Nature and Internal Subsisting Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature and when Nature always signifies the Original Form a Substantive or Adjective Predication can make no difference but where there is such a distinction as there is in the Divinity Substantives and Adjectives do most aptly represent it because Adjectives admit of a Relative Predication and may signify a Person who has the Divine Nature as an Internal Subsisting Procession in the Divinity but is not the Absolute Divinity nor in an Absolute Sense God but the Son of God and the Spirit of God Indeed in such Forms of Speech we must have more regard to the Absolute or Relative Signification than to the Substantive or Adjective Form of the Words Adjectives in an Absolute Sense must no more be multiplied than Substantives which I take to be an easier Account of the tres aeterni and unus aeternus in the Athanasian Creed than to turn it with Aquinas into tria aeterna and unum aeternum For Three Eternals whether Substantives or Adjectives in an Absolute Sense are Three Gods Three Eternal Three Intelligent Three Omniscient Persons in an Absolute Sense are Three Eternities Three Omnisciences and in this Sense there is but unus aeternus One Eternal Self Originated Person as there is but One God and on the other hand Deus or God though a Substantive may signify Relatively as it does in the Nicene Creed God of God and in this Sense some of the Schoolmen thought it very Orthodox to say Three Gods if we explained in what Sense we meant it as I observed above Tertullian did Ecce duos deos though at the same time he rejects the use of such Forms for their ambiguous Signification which might betray men into Polytheism And if God may have a Relative Signification so may Mind and Spirit too and then Three Minds and Spirits is as Orthodox as Three that have an Intelligent and Spiritual Nature In short as far as I can hitherto observe all the Catholick Rules of Speaking relating to this Mystery must be resolved into this distinction of Absolute and Relative This is the only distinction we know of in the Godhead and this we as certainly know there is as we know that there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit One Absolute Self-Originated Divinity with its Internal Essential Processions in the Individual Unity and Identity of Nature and if this be the Unity and Distinction of the Divinity this must be our Rule of Speaking also to have a due regard to the One Absolute Nature and the Relative Processions of the Godhead which will secure us both from a Sabellian Singularity and a Tritheistick Trinity of Absolute Divinities The CONCLUSION With a short Application to the Socinians I Proposed one thing more to be considered in relation to this Subject viz. Whether the Catholick Faith of a Real aâ—d Substantial Trinity can be as reasonably and intelligibly explained by the Notion of One Singular Substance in the Divinity as by asserting Three Personal Substances or Suppositums And whether the Singularity of the Divine Essence in this Notion delivers the Asserters of it from any Inconveniences and Objections which the contrary Opinion is thought liable to But I hope after what I have already said there is no occasion for this and I will not needlesly revive old Quarrels Let but Men sincerely and heartily believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Eternal Infinite Substantial Living Intelligent Omnipotent All-wise Persons each of which is in his own Person True and Perfect God and all Three but One Divinity and One God and I will dispute with no such Orthodox Christians concerning the Philosophy of the Divine Nature which is so infinitely above our comprehension There may be a necessity for such Disputes when we have to do with Hereticks who ridicule the Catholick Faith as contradictions and absurd but when Men agree in the Faith such Disputes are of no use to them and may prove of dangerous consequence for there are too many who will be sooner disputed out of their Faith than out of their Philosophy which should teach all Catholick Christians as much as it is possible to silence all
Disputes amongst themselves which their common Adversaries are so apt to improve into Scepticism Infidelity or Heresy And therefore for a Conclusion I shall only take a brief Review of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article of a Trinity in Unity and apply it in a few words to our Socinian Adversaries The Faith of the Catholick Church taught by Christ and his Apostles is that there is but One God but this One God is a Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Essential Unity of the same Undivided and Undiversified Godhead And this is the Faith which all the Catholick Fathers have owned and taught in their several Ages The whole Christian Church Baptizes as our Saviour commanded in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and this is the Rule of their Faith to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost A plain simple Faith could Men have been contented to believe God concerning himself Let our Socinian Adversaries tell us what there is absurd impossible or contradictious in this Faith Will they venture to say That it is absurd or contradictious that God should have a Son No! in some sense they will allow this true they themselves believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost they acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God as he is frequently called in Scripture and that in a higher sense than any other Man is the Son of God but that he is but a Man after all though advanced by God to Divine Honours above all Principalities and Powers and made the Judge both of the Quick and of the Dead and this they affirm to be all that the Scripture means in calling Christ the Son of God But this is not the present Dispute They know that the Catholick Church believed otherwise that Christ is the Eternal Son of God begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God very God of very God and they know also that thus the Catholick Fathers expounded those Texts which concern the Sonship and Divinity of our Saviour and they cannot but confess That they are very capable of such an Exposition nay that it is very difficult to put any other sense upon many Texts and the only reason why they reject these Catholick Expositions is the pretended Absurdity and Contradiction of the Catholick Faith Here then we join issue with them and desire them to shew us what is impossible or contradictious in this Faith That there is something incomprehensible in this Mystery that is something which we have no Natural adequate Ideas of we readily acknowledge with the whole Catholick Church and some of our Adversaries grant That it is possible for a thing to be whereof we have no Idea and then it seems to me very unreasonable to add but we are no ways concerned nor can we Reason or Discourse about those things whereof we have no Ideas For the direct contrary seems to be the more natural consequence that if God thinks fit to reveal such things to us of which we have no Ideas we are concerned and obliged to believe them for if they may be true they are the proper Objects of Faith though they want the Evidence of Natural Ideas But I do not intend to dispute this now but refer them to the Bishop of Worcester ' s Answer to Mr. Lock ' s Second Letter and to a late Sermon and its Vindication Concerning the Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy What I have now to say is of another Nature viz. That we have an Idea of a Trinity in Unity and such an Idea as contains nothing absurd impossible or contradictious in it That very Idea which I have so largely explained One Absolute Divinity with Two Eternal Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature The Eternal Father Eternal Self-originated Mind with his Eternal Word his Eternal Son and the Eternal Spirit of Father and Son This is that Idea which the Scripture gives us of it and which the Catholick Church hath always taught Every Man may understand what is meant by it and therefore it is not Jargon and Nonsense and I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from Tritheism and Contradiction and have no more to say of that nature till I hear what they have to object against what is already said and when they come to consider this Matter again as Men that shall certainly be called to an Account for it in this World as well as in the next I hope they will see reason to grow out of conceit with their own Philosophy about Emanations and Processions a Priority of Time and Priority of Nature Self-Existence and Necessary Existence and such like Arian Objections which were made and answered many Ages since and which they may find sufficiently answered in this Treatise This brings back the Dispute to Scripture where the last Appeal must lie in all such Matters without appealing for the Sense of Scripture to Natural Ideas and Philosophy And if the Interpretations of the Catholick Fathers were of any Authority with these Men I have already shewn how they expounded Scripture which will always be a venerable Authority to modest Men and sober Christians how much soever it be despised by Hereticks But it is time to put an end to this Treatise we may consider their Expositions of Scripture some other time THE END DR Sherloc◠Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Third Edition Quarto Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A Sermon Quarto A Vindication of the Sermon in Answer to some Socinian Remarks An Answer to the Animad versions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Trinity By I. B. A. M. Quarto A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet Quarto All Printed for William Rogers Quâ nec dicuntur ut cogitantur nec cogitantur ut sunt Aug. de Trinit l. 5. c. 3. Cùm ergo quaeritur quid tria vel quid tres conferimus nos ad inventendum aliquod speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 3. Ad se quippe Pater dicitur Persona non ad Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 6. Cur ergo non haec tria simul unam Personam dicimus sicut unam Essentiam Deum sed tres dicimus Personas cùm tres Deos aut tres essentias non dicamus nisi quia volumus vel unum aliquod vocabulum servire huic significationi quâ intelligitur Trinitas ne emnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cùm tres esse fateremur Ibid.