if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter But tho' this be inartificial enough if no more yet that which is more grievously suspicious is that he calls the Catholick Faith but a meer Opinion and Perswasion of a Party * P. 31. The third Opinion saith his Lordship is that the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that the Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Term Person became applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word a complete intelligent Being but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two So again †P. 32 33. This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than three Names or three outward Oeconomies * P. 42. or Modes and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of Christ § 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this but there are indeed several and those of great Importance First That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church The truth is as his Lordship has stated it it has many meer Opinions in it but they are such as are not in the Faith and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith either as it is or ought to have been stated by him he ought not to have set it out as a meer Opinion or Perswasion of a third Party For a meer partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholick Faith whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion For the Act is meer Humane Conjecture without certain grounds and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain but only probable appearance which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority But Catholick Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholick Church and thereupon to be relied on and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church not the Opinion of any Party in the beginning and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since of what Cut or Size soever pertain not to this Holy Body in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity and as fundamental in the Christian Professions Now would it not be very Theological to say That all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles the whole Synagogue of the Jews and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion That there is one God only the Creator and Governour of all things That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ That it is our Opinion That he came down and dwelt among us died rose again and ascended into Heaven and shall come to Judgment at the general Resurrection Just so absurd it is to call the Catholick Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Perswasion of a Party 'T is true indeed his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine but this term is equivocal and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers But what I require is that the Catholick Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion or form of Faith †P. 26. See Discour 3. That we believe points of Doctrine because we are perswaded that they are revealed to us in Scripture which is so languid and unsafe a Rule that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions since each Man's Faith is his Perswasion that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Perswasions but by a primitive perpetual universal and unanimous Conviction and Tradition The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Perswasions is the cause of all Heresies and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruine of the true Christian and Catholick Faith I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversie What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgment and Knowledge herein must betake him †P. 63. to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirineâ—â— and take that for fundamental Doctrine which hath been received for such in all Ages Places and Churches A Rule very practicable and easie since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholick Faith which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages 'T is true indeed every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately perswaded but he that is not to be perswaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholick upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood and yet stands or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ though he fansies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures § 4. Secondly His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation for he tells us that this third Opinion is that by the Vnion of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity God and Man truly became one Person Now here first we are not taught whether there were three or any one Person in the
of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation †P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus
especially on this Hypothesis That the Sun is a Globe of fire as to the Eye it seems to be On this notion I think it proper even without a Trope But why will not his Lordship allow me a Trope if the truth needs it in accensum who requires it for himself in Lumen For without a Trope Lumen doth not signifie either Candle or Fire and if all the words must be taken in their Primitive intention then his Lordship loses his pretence that this place speaks of two Candles or two Fires But had it here really signified Fire yet it does not hence follow that it speaks of two separate Fires since St. Hilary has found ignem in igne and lumen de lumine accensum in the same Fire Which answer I shall give also if any Man shall object that * Cit. Bullo Defens Fid. Nicen. p. 368. of Hippolytus tanquam lumen de lumine aquam ex fonte aut radium à Sole where the lumen de lumine and the radius à Sole being both distinctly set with another Simile interposed I take lumen de lumine in general to respect all sorts of luminaries whatsoever which send forth a coaeval Ray or sort of flaming Light from their Original Substance without any diminution So much for his Lordship and Tertullian § 8. But there are two passages offered to my consideration that seem much more apposite to his Lordship's purpose one out of Justin Martyr the other out of Tatian his Scholar which I will exactly consider Justin in his Dialogue with Trypho had asserted that in the beginning before all Creatures God begat out of himself a certain rational Virtue or Power which is also called the Glory of the Lord by the Holy Spirit and sometimes Son and sometimes Wisdom and sometimes Angel and sometimes God and sometimes Lord and Word sometimes he calls himself the Captain of an Host when he appeared in the shape of a Man to Joshua the Son of Nun. For that he is capable of all appellations in that he ministreth to his Father's will and for that he was begotten by * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Interpreter leaves out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the consequents require the Will of the Father after the manner we see a word produced in us For when we utter a word we beget it not by abscission or separation so as to lessen the internal word or reason by this utterance And as we see in Fire that out of one Fire another is kindled without the diminution of the first Fire from whence it was kindled this remaining the same And that which is kindled of it also †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appears to subsist not having lessened that from whence it was lighted Now sometime after the Father shews the reason to those Jews why he so often repeated this truth because saith he I know that there are some willing to prevent me and pretend that the Power that appeared from the Father of all things unto Moses or to Abraham or Jacob is called Angel in its progression unto Men because by it the purposes of the Father are declared unto Men. And that it is called Glory because it presents it self in an incomprehensible appearance and Man because it appears in such humane shapes as the Father will and they call it Word because it brings the speeches of God unto Men. They say also that this Power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father after the same manner as they say the light of the Sun upon the Earth is not to be cut off or separated from the Sun which is in Heaven but when he sets the Light is carried off with it So say they the Father when he pleaseth causeth his Power †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to leap forth to fly abroad and when he listeth retracts it again to himself After this manner also they teach that he makes Angels But now that there are Angels always abiding and not resolved again into that of which they were made hath been already demonstrated and withal * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 videntur vitiosa it hath been abundantly shewn so of this power which the Prophetick Word calls God and Angel and that he is not as the Light of the Sun only †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominally numbred but really is another in number I have shewn by exquisite reason in my former discourses in short when I said this virtue was begotten by his Power and Will not by Resection as if the Essence of the Father were divided asunder as all other things divided and parted are not the same they were before the division And for example's sake I took those instances as we see from one Fire other Fires kindled that Fire not being lessened from whence many may be kindled but remaining the same Thus Justin. By which it appears that these kind of Pro-Sabellians used the Simile of the Sun and its light to prove the Logos non-subsistent no Person Son or Angel of the Father and therefore Justin rejected that Simile by which the Sun and its Light and God and his Logos are only nominally distinguished and took the Simile of Fires kindled from Fires in which there is none of that diminution which those Adversaries object to our Doctrine of the consubstantiality and both Fires subsist really after one is kindled from the other in a true diversity If then Justin threw off the Simile of the Sun as favouring the Heresie after called Sabellian and took that of Fires kindled from other Fires as Tatian also uses the Simile of Torches lighted from Torches is it not probable that our Light of Light came from these Similes used by Justin and Tatian which are neither Sabellian as putting two subsistent subjects nor Arian as illustrating the Homoousion In answer to this I need be but very short that Justin doth not speak of the Eternal Internal and Substantial Emanation of the Logos but of his first progression at the Will of his Father to the Creation of all things that this progression was a kind of generation or nativity was the unanimous conception I think of all the Philosophick Ancients because as here below nativity produceth the Child into light and action that was before wrapp'd up secretly in the Womb quiescent and non-apparent so the Logos by this emission from the Father to the Creation of all things did in a manner come out of the Father's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to use the words of Theophilus Antiochenus to the publick sight apprehension or perception of the intellectual World created by him and acted also providentially in every part of the Creation Nor was this form of Theology ever condemned in the Church though it was not made or esteemed matter of necessary Faith or Doctrine Now the Nature of this Theory was that * Athenag Leg. Edit Oxon. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whom yet he there calls
necessary that they should be but two Modes of thinking This being premised our cogitations and reasonings are acts of a free Principle but our animal Operations are necessary But what is this to the Theory of the Divine Nature For these contrarieties of Operations proceed from the composition of contrary Substances Soul and Body whereas the Deity is most simple and uncompounded and consequently cannot be represented by any compositum whatsoever especially a compound of contraries Well! but necessary Operations of the animal Life seem to be from some Emanations from our Souls Very well and do these seeming Emanations represent an Idea of the Emanations of the second and third Person I doubt not for those in the Deity are but two but these of our Souls on our Bodies if they were Emanations as they are not are very manifold But if they be representative Emanations why then his Lordship here goes beyond due bounds in being pleased with the Notions and Similes of Emanations or else these Notions are regular and then why are the Fathers taxed for exorbitancy in them But if these Emanations of the animal life are not representative why are they brought in here under the term of Emanations to make us believe them representative of the Divine Emanations So much then for a Dyad representative Now a Kingdom for a third Well then we have in acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse a mixture of both Principles i. e. free and necessary or a third that results out of them As for his mixtures I leave them purely to himself but for his third resulting Principle I am to seek For it must be a Principle that is neither free nor necessary and such a one is hard to be got for love or money but however that a Principle neither free nor necessary should result from two whereof one is free and the other necessary will I doubt bring his Lordship of mere necessity to the terms of a contradiction how uncontradicted soever he affects to be § 19. Advance we now from the old Similes of the Fathers to the Theology it self represented by them Now it is not a novel Observation or Fancy as his Lordship snearingly suggests but the ancient internal Catholick and substantial Wisdom of the Faith that the * Iren. l. 2. c 47. Deus enim cum sit totus Mens totus Ratio totus Spiritus operans c. Octav. ap Minuc Foelic Quid aliud à nobis Deus quam Mens Ratio Spiritus praedicatur Greg. Naz. ad Patr. cum Eccl. Naz. ipsi permisit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil lablorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Graec. Inlid Ser. 2. de Principio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three adorable Persons in the Godhead are an Eternal and Substantial Mind Reason and Holy Spirit Now to avoid all cavil and equivocation it is not unnecessary that I state the exactest Notions of the Fathers in these Terms of their Theology For that the words being of very various and involved significations in common use will be liable to easie mistakes in this profound and critical Theory especially when Readers shall discover sometimes the same terms to be promiscuously used for different Persons § 20. I begin therefore with that of Mind This most properly and primitively signifies the noetick or intellectual Principle in all rational Beings the Spring the Fountain the Original of those intellectual Graces and Perfections that are found in such Spiritual Natures But by an easie Trope it is also very commonly used in all sorts of Writings for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Conceptions Counsels Sentiments Propensions and Resolves of the Mind as were it necessary might be shewn in infinite instances But thirdly there hath been a Philosophick and Artificial Sense of the word of a more late invention setting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Minds for single Spirits Now the exact Notion of Mind as the first Principle in the Deity is the first of these the proper and the Primitive as it is the Original of God's Essential Reason and Holy Spirit Now according to this exact and canonical Notation the term Mind is not only an Essential but a Paternal and Producent Character so that speaking with canonick accuracy we cannot say that there are three Minds for this is directly to assert three Fathers and by consequence three Sons or Logoi and so likewise three Holy Spirits since every such Mind must have its Reason and Spirit of which it is and must be a natural and necessary original To assert three Minds in the sense of Spirits is directly to assert three Gods it being the same thing and as irregular to say there are in the Deity three Spirits as three Gods But if we will take the term equivocally in different Senses then we find some Fathers calling not only * Athenag Leg. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at prius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil quod dixerat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic forte intelligendum illud p. 110. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. ad Autolyc p. 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Protrep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Strom. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de codem Logo the Father the Mind in distinction from the Logos but the Logos also tropically by the name of Mind as being the essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Reason of the Father of the same Essence and therefore in respect of that Essence loosly called by the same name according perhaps to the Pattern and Language of Plato the Philosophick Ancients using this homonymy according to the tast of the Platonick Philosophers which were of so great credit among the Greeks whom our Worthies cited as of Authority with the Gentiles in their Apologeticks in order to their more easie conversion And yet neither in this laxer acception or comprehensiveness have I ever read among our Ancients the assertion of three Minds For using the term mind in an essential Notion only not a paternal the assertion of three Minds would have looked like three Essences § 21. But though we have sufficiently proved our Doctrine not to be a novel whimsie but a Primitive and Catholick Tradition yet will I prove its foundations to be really Divine For the Son of God is so called with relation to a Father from whom he derives his proper Subsistence and Character And this Son of God the Father is he whom St. John calls the Logos according to the old Jewish Theology God of God the internal substantial Reason of God the Father in whom or who is the Image of his Father by whom the Father made and governs all things And from hence this hath ever been the avowed Faith of all the * Iren. l. 1 c. 1. l. 2. c. 55. l. 3. c. 18. l. 4. c. 14. c. 28. c. 37. c. 75. l. 5. c. 6 Just Martyr Apol. 2. Dial.
mention also that the Devil who long time universally tyrannized is yet never said to be poured out upon all Flesh But now the aforesaid Attributes given to the Prince of Devils manifestly set forth his Supremacy in the Kingdom of Darkness and therefore in the Kingdom of God the like Phrases of the Holy Spirit of God must denote his Supremacy therein and by consequence his Deity since God alone is the one Supreme King of that Kingdom and thus our Faith is established firmly against the Macedonians also § 32. Now of what hath been said thus much I believe would be granted by all the Anti-personists that there is in God the Father an essential Reason and Spirit of Sanctity though not personally subsistent For a Person being with them a complete suppositum rationale and intellectual Subject or Being separate and standing single from all others they hold it a contradiction to hold three Persons in one individual Deity § 33. To this I hope to give so just and candid an answer as may embolden his Lordship to joyn in the Litany heartier and to speak clearer next time in his Theological Essays The name Person or whatsoever answers thereto in the learned Languages first of all signifies a Man's Face natural and artificial and thence the whole single Man hence after were the Gods in profane and intellectual Spirits in sacred Writings represented personally and so now the Term Person agrees to all single intelligent Beings by common and inartificial use But we that have no natural Idea of the Modes of Subsistence peculiar to Father Son and Holy Spirit without Divine Revelation cannot without it conceive the form of their Personality So for this we must rest wholly on Divine Revelation And accordingly I would describe a Person for a Theological Term thus whatsoever hath Personal Titles and Characters properly attributed to it by God's Word the same is a Person though we cannot frame an Idea of the form of its Personality And then I can add but the Divine Mind Reason and Holy Spirit have three properly distinguishing Personal Characteristick Titles Father Son and Paraclete to be owned in our avowed Faith and Baptism therefore these three are three distinct Persons though we cannot form a natural Idea of the Mode of their Personality * Aug. de Tempor Ser 189 Ego Personas in Patre Filio Spiritu Sancto non dico quasi personas hominum Personam Patris dico quod Pater est Filii quod Filius est Spiritus Sancti quod Spiritus Sanctus est dividuntur enim proprietatibus sed naturâ sociantur and though yet we are sure they are not separate and disjoyned like three Humane Persons In this mystery therefore the sense of this term is not vulgar nor of common Notion but peculiarly and necessarily Technical For since God hath revealed that in the Unity of his Nature there is one first Principle with two other co-eternally emanant or descendent from him and subsisting individually in him by which he created and governs all things and this under the Personal and Distinctive Characters of Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete and many other Personal Attributes distinctive of their proper Subsistences in the Essential Unity of the Godhead the Term Person fell unavoidably into Canonical use though under a strict care against the vulgar notion of Humane or such like separate Persons and restrained only to the revealed Theories of the Mystery And under this regular limitation I challenge the Art of the World to sind out any one Characteristick Term so fit proper and congruous to denote their formal Personalities ascribed to them in the Scripture as this of Person in which the whole Catholick Church of old unanimously agreed antecedently to any Conciliar Definitions and is therefore of greater Antiquity and Authority than the Greek Hypostasis which though well founded in * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. yet was a while of ambiguous use and interpretation till it was by the help of Athanasius and others canonically adjusted and fixed according to the sense of our Term Person And yet supposing a sensible defect in these Terms Person and Subsistence what modest Man would upbraid the whole Church of God for such an insuperable impotency in Humane Nature which all wise Men perceive and own in their speaking of God after its utmost endeavours cares and consultations upon cogent necessities to fix the terms of our Faith and Doctrine in the best manner possible while yet the Revilers can produce nothing better or equal 'T is certainly an intollerable indecency against the Gravity Duty Care and Right ' of Men that are in Authority of proscribing Doctrines in any Profession what soever for to such certainly it belongs to fit Terms of Art to their Theories as reason shall require as well as they can without the merit or hazard of malevolence and detraction § 34. But because I would fill the thirsty and candid Soul with a satisfying Theory herein I will dig deeper into the grounds of these Personal Characters in the Scriptures and the Traditional Term of Person thence Canonically used First then Personality is a Character only of what is substantial and intellectual as are the Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete who therefore have a good ground of bearing those Personal Titles But tho' these peculiar Titles have this common Basis yet have they their peculiar and formal reasons of Distinction The first Principle of all being called Father from his Eternal generation of the Logos which is called Son from being so eternally generated of the Father's Substance without division or partition thereof And * Con. Arian Orat. 2. here the Father being ever Father never Son and the Logos ever Son never Father St. Athanasius justly as well as sagaciously appropriates these Titles to these Persons in a primary Right and peculiar Excellency above all others since earthly Persons change their Character being one while Sons other while Fathers and Sons other while Fathers only and other while neither The Personal Distinctives of the Holy Spirit are taken from his connatural Operations and Offices which are Personal and the Titles therefore apposite Now that the essential Reason and Spirit of God the Father should each be as equally Personal as the Socinians themselves confess the Father to be will hence appear rational for that they are consubstantial with him and as substantially Divine as that Eternal Mind from and in which they are and live without any inequality in their Nature Perfection or essential Dignity And therefore if one be distinctly Personal so must the others also And therefore the Pronoun He first belonging to God original i. e. the Father as the first Person is properly also communicable to the other Persons each of them deriving their Deity and Personal subsistence from him with peculiar reasons of their proper Personal Characters and Distinctions And hence it was necessary to a just