subsist otherwise than in three if we will venture to follow our own reason we must conclude there is a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead or else he is not absolutely perfect but if we find the plain expressions of the Scripture agree to this Conception in all the branches of it as friends and foes confess they do we cannot then without unreasonableness unbelief and immodesty continue our doubtfulness any longer Now this Coincidence of the Light of Nature with the Scripture in all points gives us the compleat evidence of this Doctrine 5. The Mystery of this Doctrine I have satisfied in the Book by dividing the Question of the Trinity into its two parts and shewed what belongs to the Natural Inquiry and what belongs to the Christian Mystery And therefore need say no more here than that no one can more acknowledge the Mystery of the Christian Faith in this point than is here taught which as such is wholly and solely of Scripture revelation But it is manifest that the other part belongs to the condition of the Divine Nature and so is of Natural Divinity and is a branch of the Theory of a Spirit If it may then appear by Nature that the Subsistence of a thing in the World is not more really its very self than it is the very Subsistence which the same thing has in the Divine Conception then it will also appear that the Divine Conception in this particular is of absolutely perfect truth and the Divine Mind thus Conceiving is a Being of absolute perfection This being evident it will follow from the condition of the Spiritual Nature that the Supream Spirit himself Subsists in three equally perfect and really distinct Hypostasies And is one God therefore and three Persons and whether all this be so or not is of Natural disquisition 6. And by this we may see why the Antients argued the Trinity only from Scripture Authority and made use but sparingly of the reason of the thing Because their Controversy was whether it was of Faith or no not whether it was of Natural Light or of Reason They therefore as Ministers of Religion taught this to be a part of the Gospel Doctrine which they could no otherwise prove it to be but only by the Scripture and the Tradition of the Church But for all that since there certainly is a Natural Enquiry about it that may be considered by a Natural Divine For if it be discovered by Natural Theory no one can doubt but it is required in Scripture and yet if it be not of Natural that does not hinder but it may be of Supernatural Revelation as many other things are which are unknown by the Light of Nature 7. Lest the Reader should surmise from any thing that has been said that he shall here meet with some new Doctrine of the Trinity to prevent any such prejudice at his entrance into this Discourse I must advertise him that he will meet with no conclusion touching the Trinity but the very Articles of the Three Creeds And the Propositions from whence those Conclusions are immediately deduced are acknowledged by all Christians and the Antitrinitarians themselves And the more remote principles which yield the evidence to those propositions are notorious dictates of Reason and Natural Sense So that here is nothing that can be new except the order in which the things are said And so new the Doctrine of every Book is which is neither Transcript nor Translation which indeed this pretends not to be And this I hope is enough to obviate the suspicion of Novelty which I much dislike in important Doctrines of the Christian Religion I have briefly pointed out the uses of it likewise that Faith and Charity may go together In doing this I was unwilling to beg my principles and thereby was forced to begin at some distance from the main point by which I presumed I should gain several advantages and the notions I had of several things become familiar to the Reader before he came to the pinch of the Question For being to contemplate the Supream Nature I thought it needful to begin the lower After I have told the Reader that the Nature of this Argument and Method will require some intentness of thoughts in the perusal that he may serve himself of it and assured him I know of no Objection but what I have anticipated or removed and therefore desire it may be read with the same candour wherewith it is offered I shall trouble him no further but commmend him to God and the Word of his Grace which is able to build us up in Truth and Holiness and so give us an Inheritance amongst all them which are sanctified Amen The ERRATA PAge 1. line 3. read remain p. 2. l. 3. r. being r. Substances p. 2. l. 4. r. Originate l. 6. r. Originate l. 19. r. valid l. 33. for Tradition r. Trinity l. ult r. condition p. 3. l. 15. r. restively p. 8. l. 9. r. operate p. 9. l. 34. r. do p. 10 l. 12. r. in infinitum l. 38. r. extension p. 11. l. 9. for pores r. partes p. 13. l. 35. for is the thought r. is in the thought p. 14. l. 6. r. depreciate p. 15. l 16. r. and p. 16. l. ult r. only one r. real p. 18. l. 43. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 19. l. ult r. eternal too p. 21. margin for one r. our p. 22. l. 3. r. Subsistence p. 25. l. 12. r. being so conceiving p. 25. l. 17. r. Subsistences p. 26. r. fecundity for moods r. modes for Souls r. Soul for effected r effectâ— for factors r. fautors p. 32. r. facing p. 33. l. 14. r. it self p. 34. for expediently r. expeditely p. 38. l. 43. for turned r. termed p. 40. l. 8. for cr r. nor l. 39. for Nature is one in as such r. Nature in one is as such l. 42. for same the r. the same p. 57. l. 20. deâ—e as p. 57 l. ult for since this r. since to this p. 59. for intruded r. obtruded p. 59. for Epicurians r. Epicureans literal slips are not here collected AN ACCOUNT OF THE Blessed Trinity Argued from the Nature and Perfection of the Supream Spirit CHAP. I. The Question Stated and Discussed BY the Blessing of God on the endeavours of his Church the Old-Heresies which denied the Unity of the God-head are long agoe extinct and there remains only some few of such as deny the Trinity together with others of a later rise which are yet to be reduced But these all seeming to confess there is but one true God and so far fully to acquiesce in the Catholick Doctrine The Question about which these are to be dealt with is in short Whether the True God in the Unity of whose God-head they consent with us does really subsist in three distinct personal subsistences Hypostases or only in one Or whether there being one God there be also but one Divine Person or else
three really distinct II. If the Case really be that God does indeed subsist in Three Persons then he can no more subsist in one only than he can cease to Subsist at all For then the Condition of the Divine Nature is such that it comports not with it to Subsist in fewer than three real Subsistences but if on the contrary it really doth Subsist in one only then the Nature is such as admits no more This therefore is a natural Question and touches the Reason of the Divine Nature III. But which of these two is really the Case cannot be concluded from our absolute certainty of the single Subsistence of every and all other things for they bring all dependent Substences and â—od Self Originte The Trine-subsistence which is repugnant and contradictious to the Nature of such dependent Beings may be the only way of Subsistence competible to a self original Being Now all the Arguments of the Opposers of the Trinity do plainly rest upon a supposed Parity or Identity of reason in this Case for they turning off their Eye from the Reason of the very thing it self which they were reasoning about and looking round the World to pick up reasons as they could spy them lying scatter'd up and down elsewhere imagin'd those reasons which they were certain suited exactly with the Subsistence of all other things could not but be fit measures of their Judgment about the Subsistence of the Deity in this Inquiry Now this way of Arguing being manifestly Fallacious they are plainly unreasonable in charging the Church's Faith with contradictions and absurdities IV. Since the single Subsistence of all dependant Substences is no valu'd Argument of the single Subsistence of the independant Being the onely Question in reason that remains is whether we knowing many things of God are thereby able to discover from the Conditions and Perfections of the Divine Nature it self that it subsists in three Persons or on the other hand in one only For if we can do neither of these we cannot at all use reason in this Question for then all reasonings about it are Sophistical But we must quit all pretence to reason from the Nature of things and follow wholly the reason of speech in the Scripture V. But whatever can be thus discover'd this is certain that the reason of the Divine Nature it self does not shew that one of the three Divine Persons if three there be is become Man in the Person of Jesus Christ tâ—erefore the Christian Tradition as such is a mystery and is wholly of Scripture Revelation which according to the Reason of Speech even by the Confession of the Adversaries does deliver the Doctrine of the Catholick Faith The Proceedings therefore which Christians have ever used in its defence have been exactly conform to the Quality of this Question for they never pretended to build their Belief of this Mystery upon the Reason of the Divine Nature or any other but on the Testimony of the Divine Word VI. As the Christian Faith of this Mystery is not built upon Natural Reason so it also appears that it cannot be impugned from any Reasons unless they be such as are deducible from the peculiar Conditions and Perfections of the Deity it self Now all these I shall endeavour to shew are so far from opposing the Christian Mystery that they Argue that the God-head according to the Reason of that Blessed Nature does Subsist in three Natural Persons so far therefore as Reason hath any Vote it gives it for the Church's Faith VII This would not have been needful to us Christians but that the importunity of the Anti-Trinitarians without Reason's suffrage will not be satisfied with the fulness of Scripture Evidence nor yield our Saviour his due Honour For though by Christ's appointment they are Devoted to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost yet after this Vow they will make Inquiry as if they were still in a state of deliberation and were to consult ex integro whether they should stand to their Vow or not It being certainly much better joyfully to bear than resistively to cast off a Yoak of Christ's Imposing I confess I know no better Service could be done to these Men than to bring them back into the Bond of their Violated Covenant But I shall not undertake such an Office because I fore-see that I cannot on this Subject speak to them for the just Honour of our Blessed Lord and Master but they will take it for an Obloquy cast upon them For if I say and mean as I say that all Men are to honour the Son John 5. even as they honour the Father they presently feel I am rubbing on their sore place and I know the Opinion of a Party is a sore which brooks well enough to be clawed but will not indure to be rubbed VIII To spare them therefore and comply somewhat with my own Genius which little likes to deal with the extream touchiness of a darling Doctrine I shall apply my Self to this Work directly as a Service of Christ and his Church from whom I hope for better acceptance leaving them to their beloved liberty of taking what they like for their own use Being nevertheless perswaded that if whilst they refuse to captivate their understandings to the Obebedience of the Faith they have not at the same time enslaved them to the Tenents of Arius Socinus and such other confident but unwary Reâ—sâ—â—ers they will find whilst I laboured to serve the Interâ—â—s of the Heâ—venly Kingdom I have done and that not unawares what may be useful and even satisfactory to the more moderâ—te amongst them IX That I may make then this Discourse the more Serviceable I shall first shew that the reason of â—â—e Divine Nature it self doth sufficienâ—â—y 〈◊〉 the Being of one Gâ—d and three Persons Secondly That the Holy Scripture does Tâ—ach the very same Doctrine with the Nature of the thing Thirdly Because we Believe from the Gospel Institution that Jesus Christ is one of the Three Persons I shall give an Account how Congruous that Revelation is to what we infer from the Reason of the Divine Nature Lastly since Christ does enter our belief of the Trinity into the Stipulation made in our Covenant of Life and Peace with God I shall explain that its Faederal use and if upon the whole we find that the Reasons of the thing in its self and in its accord with the Scripture and in what befel it by Christ's Incarnation and in its Baptismal use do all concur to assure us of the Truth of the Blessed Trinity I hope it will no longer remain amongst us in the state of a Question but all sober men will agree in the Faith and Worship of one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity X. I am sensible that by my having ventured to blame other mens Reasonings I have imposed a Law upon my self which I shall think in the Rational Inquiry we sufficiently comply with if we transgress not
that in despite of all the Wickedness and Folly that can enter into Mortals God will have this Testimony for himself inviolably Sacred and fixed in their Hearts by the help whereof they may when they like to think soberly come to the knowledge of the Truth 7. When we perceive that things Subsist in the World we do not only perceive that such their subsistence does differ from Non-existence but likewise from that Subsistence which they have by being conceived in our Mind For we are assured that they Subsist in the World when they are not in our Thoughts as well as when they are and we can think of things that Subsist not at all in the World as well as of those that do Since then these two Subsistences do thus differ we may term the Subsistence which things have in the World their real Subsistence and that which they have in our Mind their notional Subsistence which is not therefore really no Subsistence of the thing at all but is not that real Subsistence whereby the thing is what it is in the World Our Conception therefore of things Subsistent in the World gives them another distinct Subsistence such as it is in our Minds But we must observe farther that because in this case it is the very thing and its Subsistence in the World that the Mind conceives therefore that thing and its Subsistence which is real in the World do both notionally subsist in one Conception I say the thing and its real Subsistence in the World do both subsist notionally in our Mind Here then are two distinct Subsistences of the same thing which do differ not only in number but in their condition or kind Hence it follows 8. Because matter and its qualities hath no power to conceive its own Subsistence therefore it can have in it self only one of these Subsistences which is the real When I actually conceive in my Mind the visible World or any part of it I perceive that it hath a Subsistence in Nature which is its real Subsistence and a second in the conception of my Mind which is its notional Subsistence so that the visible World and every piece of it hath only one real Subsistence but then the World and its real subsistence hath as many notitional subsistences as there are Souls actually thinking of it 9. When my Mind does actually form a Conception of its own being then does my Mind actually subsist in its self in two distinct subsistences the one real and the other notional but when my Mind does not actually conceive its own being as we know the Mind does not when it is wholly taken up with the Thoughts of other things it has for that time one one subsistence in it self the really but not the notional 10. Supposing then a Mind that without any diversion does always actually conceive its own real subsistence it is evident that such a Mind hath perpetually two subsistences in it self the first in order is its real subsistence and the second that in the Conception Now since we suppose the Supream Spirit is such a Mind as is not ignorant of its own real subsistence and hath no dorment Powers that it should ever be diverted from the actual conception of it self therefore this Mind subsists perpetually in two different subsistences God therefore the Supream Spirit does in himself subsist in no less than two distinct subsistences whereof the one is a real subsistence But whether the second be a real and substantial subsistence of the God-head or only notional I confess cannot be inferred barely from God's being of a mental Nature but on the contrary if he be a Mind of the very best of that sort of Minds whereof our Souls are or of any other besides the most High or if the Supereminency of the Supream Mind above all others be only its uninterrupted actual conception of its own being and of all others which it knows it might be demonstrated that there is but one real subsistence of the Deity We must therefore inquire wherein is the Supereminence of this most high Being that we may examine whether there be in it discernably such peculiar Characters as yield us a sufficient Evidence that it has naturally more real subsistences than one for if there be not the nature of the Deity will not evince this point of the Churches Faith But the Church is left wholly to its own proper province and to prove it by Scripture and that proof however will retain its own full strength tho' this natural Evidence should not be super-added CHAP. V. Of the Trinity 1. VVE have seen that no one can rationally deny that the Divine Nature being mental does subsist at least in two distinct subsistences the first whereof is real and for the condition of the second we are to consider the peculiar Characters of the Supream Spirit which we know to be such attributes as these An independent self-subsistence being as some call it self Originate self Sufficiency even All-sufficiency Omnipotence Omniscience Ubiquity Immutability Unity Eternity most perfect Truth Goodness Blessedness Holyness c. These may be proved both from the reason of the thing and Revelation to be perfections of the Divine Nature but I need not undertake here what hath been done by many others and is universally acknowledged 2. This being the condition of God the Supream Mind we are fully assured by the Omniscience c. of this Divine Mind 1st That whatever God does not conceive that really is nothing and we are no less assured by the absolute perfection of the Divine Truth c. 2d That whatever God does conceive not to be that hath no Being and is nothing And 3d. On the other hand whatever God does positively conceive to be that really is or doth subsist And 4th The independent All-sufficiency of God c. Assures us that without the concurrence or assistence of any other thing whatever this Divine Mind can positively conceive a thing to be And from hence we can Argue as from certain Principles 3. That since God can positively conceive a thing to be without the Presence or Antecedent Being of any other thing besides himself he can when there was nothing else besides himself conceive a World to be and if he does so then according to the reason of the Mental Divine Nature chap. 4. the World hath a subsistence in the Divine Mind by such a positive conception of it And because God never positively conceives a thing to be but it doth really subsist in it self therefore the World having a positive subsistence in the Divine Conception hath a real subsistence in it self 4. Now since the real subsistence of the World in it self was made and yet not made with hands but by the Agency of an Almighty Mind we must observe that this Almighty Mind causeth all things which it does cause in a way whereby the mental Agency does effect Now the mental Agency being conceptive and every positive Conception
Nature tells us ch 6.14 and the Scripture affirms it Psal 51.12 Establish me with thy free Spirit which Spirit is the Fountain of all liberty Natural and Moral for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty When the Scripture teaches that God swears by his own Life we are sure he therein doth no more than what he had a right to do and therefore he has his life in the disposal of his own will which he gages as he pleases and so all things stand in the infinite holiness of the most absolute free-will of God both by Natural and Supernatural Evidence 10. Lastly Nature teaches these three real distinct Subsistences are really Personal ch 7. and the Scripture owns it for Christ acknowledges the Holy Ghost hath Personal Rights but that he should not speak of himself but should take of that which was the Sons and shew it to the Disciples and presently thereupon informs us of the distinct Personal Rights of the Father and the Son all things that the Father hath are mine says the Son where we see though they all have right to the same things yet each hath his own distinct right here asserted according to that all thine are mine and mine are thine and therefore each of the three is a Person When St. Paul teaches that the Spirit does act dispose of and bestow things by the disposition of his own will this is what nothing but a Person can do nor can any other Person do so justly but the Owner or Lord of the things so disposed or bestowed I have thought for a Heathen Hierocles guess'd ingenuously that God did Create all the material substance of which the World was made or else he could not justly have framed the World because he would have medled with what was none of his own 11. Thus Nature by the reason of things and Scripture by the reason of speech do both teach the same Trinity in all Points the one by natural the other by instituted significancy Gods Works and Gods Word conspiring to assure us there is one God and three Persons For the Coincidence of the Rational and Scriptural account in all particulars I take to be the proper evidence of this truth because had the account been given upon an Hypothesis the coincidence of it with the Scripture had been only a proof of the good contrivance of its Maker but being all deduced from the very first Principles of Sense and Reason the Coincidence proves the truth of the thing it self and demonstrates there is no contrivance in it for where Nature leads there if no room left for invention but things must be taken as they are found in themselves The Arians begged a Days or a Minutes time for the making of their second and third God in this was a blunder in the device it self for a God cannot be made in less time than a Triangular Circle But I am not exposing their pretence in point of ingenuity but observing that when they say there are such made Gods without the evidence of Nature or Scripture this is Hypothesis and Fiction and therefore it will then be time enough to write serious Confutations of such imaginary Beings when it is become fashionable gravely to prove at large that Romances are not Histories 12. To the Divine Revelation of this Doctrine I might subjoyn the Authority of the Catholick Church whose Faith is delivered in our common Creeds and evince that these are perfectly conform to the Doctrine of the preceding Discourse but these being so well known I shall seem in the judgment of the intelligent Reader to write the same things over again out of meer formality Yet because the Adversaries do boast of their late attempts against the Athanasian Creed with such an insolence of glorying it is not amiss to remark particularly that there is no expression in all that Creed about the matter of the Trinity but what hath been above distinctly accounted for from Reason and Scripture what there concerns Christs Incarnation I shall consider afterwards I might also observe that the common Institusion of the Christian Schools giving an account of the Second Person from the Divine Wisdom and of the third from the Divine Love or Benevolence cannot be understood to differ from the main reason of what has here been taught So that besides the Divine Evidence Natural and Supernatural we have all that can be accounted Ecclesiastical Authority to confirm us in this Belief And as the Creeds and their Expositors so the form of Baptism in the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which is the very Text that all the Creeds themselves were purely designed to expound and is of Divine Appointment and irrefragable Authority does as a foederal Rite give further confirmation of the Truth of this Doctrine But being to give an account of the Mystery of the Trinity what concerns the nature of the Trinity in that Stipulation shall be there considered with its Covenant-use in the Christian State CHAP. IX The Adversaries Interpretations of the Scriptures IN the mean time having before shewed how the Unitarians have dealt with the Evidence of Reason I must here observe how they use that of Authority For having resolved all the General Councils and the Christian Doctors and Schools into the number of Adversaries they disclaim all Ecclesiastical Authority and assume to themselves the right of being their own Judges which Office so assumed in consequence they are to execute without a deference to the Judgment of the main body of Christians and if they be haughty with defiance to it Their demur to the Authority of the Christian Church being somewhat extraneous to the Merits of this Cause I need not examine Though Protestants indeed allow it not to be a proper jurisdiction yet all sober Christians must confess that it hath an argumentative force next to that which is Divine But since these Men had rather want so great a confirmation of their Faith then not to please themselves even to themselves be it the Rights of God and of his Church cannot be vacated by such Judges as Create their own Office 2. Though these men do not formally disown the Divine Authority of the Bible yet they treat all the Scripture proofs of the Trinity with great contempt and that they might seen to do so with less absurdity they take no notice of the great accession which that sacred Evidence acquires by the concurrence of so many circumstances in such a great number of Testimonies and variety of Expressions which adds a mighty force to what they would have if they were only to be considered asunder as we experience in all sorts of Evidence which is given us of the Existence of things And yet even against the single Texts they have nothing to alledge but some Evasions which are manifestly so far fetched that if charity did not bid us hope better they would tempt us to suspect instead of a serious Paraphrase
all the most absolute perfections of being in Substantial Subsistence but likewise out of pity to the pressing necessity of Mankind because it was necessary and seasonable wholesome and profitable to Men to save their Souls from the Deceits of this present World 2. Atheism and Polytheism being provided against by the two former forms of Covenant it appears if men be not Psychical or Epicurean Divines in consequence of their own opinions they are to acknowledge the truth of the Natural Trinity So that Deists Jews Mahometans and all Genuine Philosophers will joyn with the Trinitarians when they please to reason warily upon their own Principles which when they do it may somewhat dispose them to a better opinion of Christianity if they please to remember that this sublime Doctrine was the institution of the Holy Fishers and withal take notice that they had been with Jesus CHAP. XIV Of the Christian form of Baptism 1. HAD Christianity been nothing else but Natural Religion yet this account might have been given why we should have made a formal recognition of the Blessed Trinity at our foederal initiation into it but because our Religion is a Mystery of Godliness and Baptism a Mystical Rite of that Religion we are further to observe that God having given us as far as is possible an ocular demonstration of the Trinity by sending the Son and the Spirit visibly into the World Cap. 10.8 our Saviour Jesus Christ being the second Person in the Mystical Trinity and in that state commanding all Mankind to be Baptized in the Name of his Father Himself and the Holy Ghost Math. 28. his and his Fathers Spirit it is plain by this Command he obliges all formally and primarily into the confession of the Christian Mystical Trinity but noâ— of the Natural Trinity saving as in consequence thereof 1 Pet. 3.21 and because Baptism does now save us upon this Recognition heartily made the acknowledgment of this Mystical Trinity by this institution of Christ is become necessary that we may be instated with the peace of God in the Rights of the Divine Kingdom 2. This is evident from the very foundation of the Christian Religion which is that Jesus is the Christ for he that believes that Jesus is not the Christ is lost beyond all Redemption 1 Cor. 3.11 but he that believes that Jesus is the Christ believes that Jesus Christ is one and the same Person And he that believes that Jesus the Son of Man is Christ the Son of God does believe that the Son of Man and the Son of God is one and the same Person and because this Jesus is so the Son of Man as to be himself Man and this Christ so the Son of God as to be himself God therefore God and Man is one and the same Person even Jesus Christ And because this same Person that is God and Man is so God as to be the Son of God therefore there is another Person beside even his Father that is God In the confession of Jesus to be the Christ Cap 1â— 8 9. there is included then the acknowledgement of two Personal Subsistences of the Godhead and because the one of these is in Personal Union with Man therefore both he himself and his Father are Persons of the Mystical Trinity 3. But because God and Man was not always united in one Person it is to be considered by what Power this Union was effected If he that is to be Baptized knows not he is first to be instructed before he may be Baptized yea though he hath had some initiative engagement to believe in Jesus he is to be taught and baptized again as the case of those Ephesians shews Asts 19. But should the person demanding Baptism be so profligate an admirer of the power of darkness as to aver that the Infernal Powers did unite the Godhead into this personal Union with Man and then Inaugurate this Person into his Office by a visible descent upon him and authorize him to teach the Doctrine which he taught and impower him to work Miracles for its confirmation and afterwards in ostentation of his power over God and Man first ignominiously put him to death and then raise him from the dead c. this heighth of flagitious obloquy and horrid blasphemy being never to be forgiven he is never to be baptized but utterly rejected as an eternally unpardonable Reprobate But if the Union of God and Man in one Person be acknowledged to be effected by the Divine Power Cap. 11 6. Câ—p. 1â— 10 then the Holy Ghost which is the Divine Power thus operating is the Spirit of the Father of Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus and consequently is a Mystical Person of the Blessed Trinity Therefore our Confession of Jesus to be the Christ does contain in it the acknowledgment of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity And this is the Faith which the Church in all Ages is to contend for into which it is to baptize all its visible Members and to explicate in its Symbols or Creeds For the shortest abridgment or foundation of the Christian Faith is Jesus is the Christ The next is the Mystery of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Baptismal Stipulation and the next the Creeds 4. The practice of this Faith is briefly deduced thus Since the natural Trinity is become Mystical by the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God Cap. 10. Cap. 12. and thereupon the Universal Kingdom of God is put under the government of God in that Mystical state of the Divine Nature wherein as such God the Son made Man is the first in the Address the same honour therefore belongs to the Son as to the Father And in the retrospect since Christ says that the Father hath totally committed the government of the Divine Kingdom to the Son John 5. John 5.22 23. and that because he is the Son of Man that is the word made flesh and thereupon all are to honour the Son even as they honour the Father and that he that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father this duty supposes the belief of the Mystical Trinity as that belief inferred this duty For we cannot understand how to go about the discharging this duty unless we believe the Father and the Son either to be two several equal Gods or being they are two different Persons to be each equally one and the same God For to honour one Person in my heart as I honour another whose personal perfections at the same time I believe to be inferiour to the others is such a thought as no Mans Mind can think though â—e would never so fain But every one honours the Son as he honours the Father who believes that the Father is God and that the Son is the same God conceived and with infinite truth and reality living and subsisting himself in that conception and that
save one that is God 12. Because this free Volition is a complacential Volition and is the Divine Moral goodness which is substantial Câ—p. 5.19 therefore the Divine Blessedness which is his being most highly pleased is also a substantial Blessedness and this also as such is an incommunicable Attribute 13. A Complacential Volition is Joy and Delight Now Mental Glory is the fulness oâ— Joy in the Mind exulting in the stability and compleatness of the Blessedness of its own Being Therefore the Divine Glory which is the same with the Divine Joy as the Divine Joy is the same with the Complacential Volition hath also a substantial Subsistence in God We confess that Goodness Blessedness Glory in God are substantial But unless there be three substantial Subsistences of the Godhead and the willed real Subsistence be the third I think we meerly say so but have no meaning 14. From hence we learn also that the Deity is a Being of the most absolute Liberty and that there is no necessity superiour to the Divine Will The Heathen Poetry and Mythology fastened their Deity as it were to a Stulp by the Chain of an uneluctable Fate Their Philosophers in pity let him loose from the Sculp but then the greater part of them taught him such a device of folding his hands and feet together himself semel dixit semper seqâ—itur that he had as little Liberty ever after as when he was bâ—und with the Chain But the Christians ever confessed their God to be most absolutely free believing that he is most freely what he is and does most freely what he does For he that worships one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity in consequence he must not deny this absolute Freedom to be in God as may thus in short be seen There is no will but in a conscious life Cap. 2.11 Every Spirit is indued with a will Every will is naturally free Now no Subsistence of the Deity is it self unless in co-existence with the other two Cap. 2.9 Therefore since the third Subsistences of the Deity doth subsist by being freely willed all the Three Subsistences do freely subsist Cap. 6 5. Cap. 5.20 and so the Deity does wholly and eternally subsist and act by its own free choice 15. And yet there is no fear lest the Divine Nature should therefore become uncertain and contingent because it subsists wholly by its own free choice For seeing that Holiness in a Spirit is a plenary resolved unreserved complacential good will to the Supream Being and that God is most absolutely holy Cap. 5 1. he doth therefore with a Volition eternally unchanged and yet most absolutely free will the Subsistence of the Divine Being 16. From all which we must therefore conclude that the Universe of all being created and uncreated hath its sanction establishment sanctification preservation and persistence in the eternally inviolate Holiness of God To this sense do the Blessed Society sing continually Holy Holy Holy Lord God Omnipotent which was and is and is to come Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and foâ— thy will they are and they were created Such is the Worship such is the God of Christians CHAP. VII Of the Personalities in the Deity THE Adversaries Opposition rather than any thing else makes it needful to shew these Three distinct real Subsistences of the Deity are Three Personalities For they imagine if there be Three several Persons and every one God then there are Three several Gods Even as amongst us if there be Three several Persons and every one a Man then there are Three several Men. Both parts of this Argument are mistakes This matter therefore I shall expedite in three Considerations before we proceed to the Scripture Evidence 1. Whatsoever is to be said about Personages amongst Men no Solocism can be charged on the Language of the Church for styling the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons For it matters not what the word Person signifies when spoken of any other Subject since it is certain that constant use for above a thousand years in the Church hath fixed it to signifie nothing else than one of these three when we speak of the Divine Being For what all Men mean by a Voice when they speak of any particular matter that is the true and genuine signification of the word when applied to that matter whatever they mean by it when they are speaking of another subject and were it not so all the Languages of the World must be modell'd almost quite anew Should a Sea-man having a Country Nail maker and a Taylor aboard with him tell them after he had turned his Ship that he had just then made a Tack either of them might tell him it was no such matter the one because it had neither head nor point as all Tacks have and the other because it had never a stitch in it But I think such refined Wit would qualifie neither of them for a Doctor whatever the Lord Mayor may think of it upon the next vacancy for a Clown For in good earnest to me they seem not to observe what is the reason of the proper significancy of words who cavil at this Whether then there be three such distinct Subsistences of the Deity may indeed be inquired but whether they are to be styled Personalities needs no further search than to know whether the Christian Church hath so used to call them and this is a matter of fact evident beyond all dispute 2. What they assume about the reason of Personalities amongst Men is likewise a mistake For Cicero who best knew the sense of persona Englished person after a long discourse to that purpose tells us the quite contrary Tâ—â— â—â—t â—â—â— 1. For says he Nature gives or as it were imposes upon every Man two persons and he himself assumes a third Here then is a Trinity of persons in every one Man from the condition of things in Nature wherefore whatever the Nature of a Personality is we are assured by the Soveraign Authority which this Man hath ever had in these matters that a single substance one rational Nature is not only capable of having but actually hath three Personalities and that every individual Man is no less than three persons and those three persons no more than one Man There is therefore no absurdity contradiction or the least incongruity in speech from the Nature of a Personage to affirm that one single Divine Nature or Substance is no more than One only God and that One God no less than Three Persons So that all the reproach that hath been cast upon the Church on this account has been owing not to its Doctrine but to the Scoptical Humour of the Adversaries ignorance or dissimulation For all Classical Latinists according with Cicero as is well known in this use of the word persona The Church for what concerns the expressions wherein she
delivers her Faith is justified by these the sole Authentick Judges of such Controversies and for the truth of the thing refers her self to the Authority of God in Nature and Scripture 3. Now though this be abundantly sufficient for this verbal Controversie yet we may observe that in accord with this sense of the word Person the Scripture it self teaches us in many cases to distinguish betwixt a Man and his Person as when it says both that God accepts no Man's Person yet that in every Nation he accepts the Man that feareth God and worketh Righteousness Whereby we learn that God accepts the righteous man yet accepts not the righteous man's person I observe then every Spiritual Nature is voluntary and no Nature whatsoever is capable of any Personal Subsistence at all that is not voluntary which being premised it is easie to observe that according to the Classical and Scriptural use a Person does not precisely signifie the Being of a voluntary Nature but a voluntary Nature subsisting with a Reciprocal Aspect upon somewhat as it were mutually fancying one another in which Reciprocal Aspect the voluntary Being is considered directly in no other than its voluntary Capacity Thus it is in all persons made by Prosopopaeia in all Mimical Histrionical Hypocritical and all other persons whose Personality is fictitious so it is in all real persons both necessary and arbitrary in Civil Political persons in Bodies Politick that is one person consisting of many Men in Moral and Natural persons Now the Three Persons of the Trinity are plainly of this last sort being persons from the nature of the thing in it self For the Divine Nature being spiritual that is a voluntary Being and subsisting as has been shewed in three real distinct subsistences it has in every one of these three subsistences a distinct reciprocal aspect upon it self in its other two real subsistences and therefore the Deity subsisting in any one of these real subsistences is a real Person and consequently the Deity is in himself three several distinct Persons in the propriety of the word Person Nor would it be otherwise were the account to be given not in the antient Native but in the present English use of the word Person wherein the reciprocal aspect always implyed in Personality is that of a thing upon it self as when we say every Mans Person is himself For according to this acception of the word if we should say the Father is himself the Son is himself and the Holy Ghost is himself then every ones self here is the Person of him whose self it is Therefore the same difference that is betwixt the Father himself and the Son himself and the Holy Ghost himself the same there is betwixt the three Persons but the Father is not the Son but as has been shewed is really distinct therefore the Person of the Father which is himself is not the Person of the Son C. 5.9 10. consequently here are two really distinct Persons and the Holy Ghost by the like reason is the third 4. And the Course which the Latine Church took to establish the Ecclesiastical use of the word when it began to be questioned does very little if at all differ from this account Hypostasis englished Person Heb. 1. is of Divine Authority and Persona did intend the very same thing in the Latine Church For Hypostasis signifies the subsistence of a Nature or Being in its Station or State and since it is plainly apply'd Heb. 1. to a Voluntary Nature whose State is Personal the Divine Authority of the Greek warrants the use of the Latine as an Original does a Translation done with due allowance of Idioms This appears by the method used afterward on this occasion For to express the real subsistence of the Being in its state the Latine Schools used the term suppositum which hath in its make a manifest reference to the Family of the Greek Hypostasis And because this was the Hypostasis of a Spiritual Nature which is always Personal to answer that voluntariness of the suppositum they added rationale and so defined a Person suppositum rationale which as they understood rational was very allowable For the Schools intended their Definition of Person should reach not only Minds Incorporate but likewise Mind Coelestial And they likewise generally Taught that Angels had their knowledge not by ratiocination collecting from what they know already the perception of what they know not but by intuition therefore they here took rationale not in the imperfect sense for the faculty of reasoning but for the conscious perception of the formal reasons which are the very Nature or Essence of things And in this sense not only Angels are rational but likewise God himself is most eminently rational accordingly Cicero attributes to the Divine Nature Summa Ratio According to this intention the Schools definition of a Person agrees to every Being that is a Person and to none else Howbeit I have thought the Personal Capacity of any Being consists in its voluntariness more immediately than its rationality because the chief if not only consideration of a Person respects decent undecent praise dispraise right wrong merit demerit misery happiness now all these have their proximate aspect on the Will and not the Reason I confess when any of these are concerned in a Persons actions consideration uses to be had whether the actions were done wittingly or not but this is not enquired after for it self or directly but only as a sign of their being done willingly For should a Man contrary to all reason give away his Estate from his own most intirely Beloved Son to his greatest Enemy in the World the Right in Nature will pass by his meer Will though he declares that wittingly and without any reason and contrary to all reason but his own Will he so disposed of it I have therefore given the account of personality not from the rationality but voluntariness of the Suppositum though I know no inconvenience in the School Definition but that we cannot so expediently argue upon it and for my dissent in such a formality I presume that is enough In short the first Consideration does vindicate the Churches Right to the use of the Word the second proves that she used her Right well and the third that it is not now in the Power of the Church honestly to disuse it as being agreeable in its proper significancy to the reason of the thing and from all we learn that in the three distinct real Subsistences there are three distinct real Personalities I shall therefore conclude here the Natural Evidence whereby I suppose it is sufficiently manifest that the Churches acknowledgment of three Persons and one God is so far from being Contradictious to reason that the denial of it is repugnant to the condition and reason of the Divine Nature 5. And though by this means the Adversaries Artillery is turned upon themselves yet it is done with no hostile