this Discovery is owing to the Sagacity and Dexterity of the English Vnitarians who having first distinguished those that pretend to be the Church into Nominal Trinitarians and Real Trinitarians or if you will into Trinitarians and Tritheists they next prove their Agreement with the former of these the Nominals and then that the Nominal Party is what ought to be called the Church That the Nominal Party is the Church is incontestably proved because their Doctrine or Explication of the Trinity has been directly and in Terms espoused by General Councils and the contrary the Explication or Doctrine of the Realists as expresly and directly censured and condemned by the same Authority The Realists believe that the Trinity is three distinct infinite Substances Minds and Spirits all of them co-eternal of like Dignity Power Wisdom and all other Divine Attributes And as to three such Persons being one God they say Because they immeate or are inseparably in one another therefore they are called one God tho each of them distinctly considered is perfect God Yet this Perichoresis Immeation or Inexistence is not such an In-being of these three Spirits or Substances in one another but that they really remain as distinct Substances Minds Spirits and Beings as three Angels or three Men are But the Nominals abhor this as perfect Tritheism they see plainly and proclaim it aloud to every body that three infinite Spirits tho as Spirits they may and as infinite Spirits they must be supposed to immeate or inexist in one another yet they are no more made to be one God by such alternate Penetration than if they were at never so great a Remotion from one another The Reason is because notwithstanding their mutual Inexistence neither their Understandings or Wills or other Powers nor their Substances become continuous or identified but remain truly distinct several and divers They are supposed indeed to be in one another but as distinctly and without Confusion either of their Substances or Powers as three Angels while they occupy the same Space and exclude not one another are Or to use another perhaps a better Comparison as these three Divine Spirits themselves are in all things in the whole Creation and the whole Creation in them Such an Inexistence as this every one sees is so far from making three eternal infinite Spirits to be one God that we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods For what is the Conception that any Man has or can have of three Gods but this viz. so many infinite Spirits which so pervade or inexist in one another that notwithstanding their Substances Faculties and Attributes remain distinct and divers This is such a Reason and so obvious that the Nominals utterly reject and with the greatest Abhorrence the Doctrine of three infinite Spirits and explain the Trinity or three Divine Persons in a metaphysical way They say we are not to conceive of the three Divine Persons as we do of created Persons the Conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of created Beings whether they be Angels or Men as the Perfections of the Divinity are superiour to Human or Angelical Perfections God is but one Being but one Substance Mind or Spirit with one only Will Understanding Energy or Power of Action nor are the Divine Attributes multiplied or repeated in the Deity for there is in God no more than one Omnipotence Omniscience or other Divine Perfection It is only God that physically and properly exists as a vital Being or a compleat Spirit and Mind the Persons are only the Substance of God his infinite spiritual and most perfect Substance or Nature with the three Properties to be of none to be begotten and to proceed Some are yet more particular in declaring or explaining what the Personalities and Persons are These consider in God first original Mind or original Wisdom this is the Person of the Father Then reflex Wisdom even the Logos or Wisdom that resulteth from God's contemplating or knowing his own Perfections or what is the same the perfect Image that is generated or begotten by God's knowing and understanding himself which is called the Son Lastly the immanent Act of LOVE by which God willeth or loveth himself his eternal Spiration or as it were Breathing of Love toward himself this is named the Holy Spirit In short the Trinity believed by the Realists is three distinct infinite and pre-eternal Spirits each of which is a perfect God and all of them but one God by their mutual Inexistence or that they are in one another but without Confusion or identifying their Substances or their Powers The Trinity believed by the Nominals is one living eternal infinite Spirit consider'd under this threefold Distinction Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding or Original Mind which is unbegotten reflex Wisdom which is generated and Divine Love which proceeds Original Mind being unbegotten is therefore named the Father reflex Wisdom being manifestly generated by original eternal Mind is called the Son the last being a Spiration of God has therefore the Appellation of Holy Spirit And tho the Nominals use sometimes other Terms in speaking of the Trinity such as Modes Relations relative Subsistences yet no more or other is meant by them than has been already said This Trinity of the Nominals is most directly as I said and explicitly affirmed by divers General Councils in whom only it is to declare the Faith and to pronounce what is to be deemed Heresy And this also is the Explication that has been followed without any Variation by all particular Writers whether Reformed or Roman Catholicks or of the Greek or Oriental Church since the Year 1215. But if this be the Catholick Faith as it certainly is the Unitarians are as sound Catholicks as any other Denomination of Christians whatsoever They believe the Trinity before-said even one infinite spiritual Substance with its three Properties Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding One eternal Spirit under the triple Distinction of Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love They approve of it that the first of these being unbegotten the second generated and the third a Spiration they be therefore called Father Son and Spirit Indeed the Terms Trinity and Person are unscriptural but we accept them according to the Explication by the Church that is as the Catholick Church has in the manner abovesaid explained her self concerning the three Persons of the Trinity We have therefore no Difference with the Church but only with the Realists who are a few English Writers that have departed from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church It was a strange Imputation on his Grace the late Archbishop that he was an Unitarian his Grace was a Realist He understood by Persons in the Deity not Persons in a metaphysical Sense as the Nominals do and as was before explained but Persons in a physical Sense of the Word or such Persons namely as vitally subsisting and as
whose Doctrine perfectly agrees with his own Saving that with the Oxford-Heads we believe it to be Heresy to profess the Faith of more than one infinite Being which is a compleat Being distinct from all other Beings but his Lordship holds it to be indifferent whether we affirm or deny three infinite Beings and Spirits His Lordship proposed to write with that Caution and Guard that no Body should be able to attack him and by Trimming between the Nominals and Realists to set up for a Healer of the Breaches a Mediator of Peace But the Event wholly fails him He utterly disobliges the Realists by denying in Terms what the Archbishop with all other Realists had affirmed in Terms and the whole Realist Party look upon as a Fundamental Article The Nominals are as much displeased with him because he sets no Value on the Catholick Faith but represents it as a very indifferent Truth that may be as orthodoxly denied as affirmed The Unitarians complain of him as having pretended to Principles of Latitude and a true Catholick Charity but using neither but perhaps as the turns of Popularity and Rules of secular Policy ingage him But this was a Digression Let us take up our Point again that the Unitarians hold the Faith of the Catholick Church or Nominal Party that is they believe but one eternal and infinite Spirit and as to three Divine Persons they admit the Church's Doctrine viz. that they are relative Subsistences Properties of the Divine Substance concerning them They agree that there are three Distinctions in God which may be fitly called Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love the first unbegotten and Generating and therefore named the Father the other Generated and therefore in the Language of Men called the Son the third a Spiration and therefore stiled the Holy Spirit Whether you call these Properties Modes Relations Persons relative Subsistences or ought the like we will not contend with the Church for it being agreed that they are not distinct Beings divers Spirits and Minds several Substances but one infinite Substance Mind Spirit and Being with one only Understanding Will and Energy it is plain that the Unity of God is preserved and that the Terms used are only obsolete and odd but imply no Falshood nor any real Innovation in Religion And I say hereupon that unless my Lord of Chichester will profess three Divine Beings Spirits Substances and Minds contrary to the Decisions of divers General Councils the Consent of Writers since the Determination in the Council of Lateran Anno 1215. and the late Decree of the University of Oxford I say if he will not contravene all these neither ought he to have defended the Archbishop's Sermons nor could he oppose the Considerations that were not for all that I see written against the Doctrine of the Church but the Error of the Realists As we accord with the Catholick Church in the Article of the Trinity so also in that of the Incarnation or the Divinity of our Saviour For when the Church says the Lord Christ is God when she worships him invocates him imputes to him the Creation of all things and for all this alledges Authorities and Examples out of Holy Scripture nothing of all this is intended of his Humanity or to his Humanity but to the indwelling Divinity In short she means that as the Cloud of Glory in the Times of the Old Testament was called God and was worshipped because God dwelt in it after an especial manner so and much more may we call the Lord Christ God and Creator and the rest because of the Godhead dwelling in him after an ineffable unexplicable manner and without measure but whatsoever of Divine is said of him is said merely in respect of the inhabiting Divinity and not of the Humanity The Communication of Idioms as Divines speak is merely verbal not real Christ is God and the Creator is worshipped and invocated because of the Deity in him for tho these things are said of the Man Christ Jesus they are said only in respect of the Divinity and are intended only of that If any say no Indwelling or as the Church speaks Incarnation in what soever manner or measure can give to such Person the Name of God much less of Creator So indeed Nestorius thought and therefore refused to call our Saviour God or to ascribe to him either the Works or Attributes of God and many learned Men have contended that Nestorius was as rashly condemned as he was afterwards barbarously used Yet upon serious weighing the matter it appears not necessary to litigate about Terms and Words on which the Authority that imposes them puts an honest Sense and Meaning The Church would never have obliged Nestorius to call the Man Christ Jesus God and Creator but declaring at the same time that tho it is the Man that is called God he is so called only in respect of the Indwelling of God in him which Indwelling is after a manner so extraordinary so abundant or rather so ineffable that Christians may with greater Right call him God than the Cloud of Glory is so named because of the Angel in it who represented God or than any other Appearance of God whatsoever or in what manner soever mentioned in the Old Testament The Brightness of the Cloud of Glory was only from the Power of the inhabiting Angel yet because the Angel represented God the bright Appearance between the Cherubims was named Jehovah and God How much more may the Lord Christ be so called in whom the Divinity it self did dwell not as a Man in his House but as the Soul in the Body that is to say constantly illuminating conducting and actuating him nay and exerting in him the most glorious Effects of Omniscience and Omnipotence the principal Attributes of the Divinity 2 Kings 19.15 Hezekiah prayed and said O Lord God of Israel which dwellest between the Cherubims thou art God even thou alone 1 Chron. 13.6 David went up and all Israel to Baalah to fetch thence the Ark of GOD JEHOVAH that dwelleth between the Cherubims whose Name is called on it It cannot I think be denied that here the bright Appearance between the Cherubims because God was in it tho only by his Angel not by the Exertion of any miraculous Acts by no Acts of Omniscience or other Divine Attribute is named Jehovah God and only God or alone God The Church never required of Nestorius to say the Lord Christ is Creator or God without this Explication in respect of God in him which seeing Nestorius owned and having the Precedent of the Jewish Church and Writers of the Old Testament who called the Appearance between the Cherubims by all the Names and Titles of God he needed not to have contended but should have consulted the Churches Peace for no words are to be refused when the Authority that imposes 'em interprets 'em to a sound Sense This is what the Unitarians believe concerning the Trinity and concerning the Divinity
one Divine Person they mean but one intelligent Being But when his Lordship adds the Divine Persons are not distinct Beings nor such Persons as we commonly mean when we use the word Persons it is evident that his writing against the Unitarians was a mere Act of Zeal He is now got considerably into the Interests of the Church and that it may appear to the Men of little Faith that he is a Bishop in Heart as well as in Name therefore he attacks in one Book all the Church's Enemies without staying to be informed whether they are Enemies indeed either to the Church or to himself Let us take another Paragraph out of the before-cited Discourse to the Clergy which will farther evince his Lordship's Syncretism with the Unitarians Pag. 98 99. The Fathers in divers Places so express themselves concerning the same Substance or Essence as if they meant the same Being in a general Sense even as all human Souls are of the same Substance that is are the same Order or sort of Creatures And they the Fathers seem to intitle the Divine Persons to different Operations not only in the Oeconomical way but so that one of them does that which the other does not This indeed was easily apprehended but it seemed directly to assert three Gods which is very contrary to the most express Declarations of the Old and New Testaments in which the Unity of God is so often held forth that others took another way of explaining the Trinity viz. by making their Foundation that the Deity is one numerical Being These latter observed that the Sun besides his own Globe had an Emanation of Heat and another of Light which have different Operations and all from the same Essence Also that the Soul of Man hath Intellection and Love which flow from its Essence So they conceived that the primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an inward WORD it designed all things this they thought might be called the Son as being the Generation of the eternal Mind While from that Fountain-Principle eternal Mind together with this inward WORD or Wisdom there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and was to be the Soul of the Creation but more especially to animate the Church This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark Nicety by the Schools nay it grew to be the universally-received Opinion Is this he that writes against the Unitarians and has no better Compliments for 'em but irreligious profligate Villains The World knows what the Doctrine of the Unitarians is namely that the Deity is one numerical Being one Substance not as some of the Fathers who are therefore blamed by his Lordship said one Substance only in a general Sense but in Number with one only Understanding Will and Power of Action and this is what they call one Person they deny the Deity to be three Persons in no other Sense but of three numerical intelligent Substances What now does his Lordship say Why that some of the Fathers indeed thought otherwise they took the Deity to be three such Persons that they are three spiritual intelligent Substances not indeed for sort or kind but in Number three distinct Beings that have different Operations but saith his Lordship 't is contrary to the most express Declarations of the Old and New Testaments Again he saith the universally received Explanation of the Trinity and which is the Explication of the Divines of the Schools is that from eternal Mind as a Fountain-Principle have proceeded Wisdom and Love Wisdom is the first Act of Mind and being as it were generated by Mind is therefore called the Son So that eternal original Mind the immanent Act of Wisdom generated thereby and the issuing forth or Spiration of Divine Love are by his Lordship's express Confession what the Divines of the Schools after St. Austin and other Fathers have called the Trinity of Divine Persons or Father Son and Holy Spirit Nay this is the universally-received Explication of the Trinity But did the irreligious Villains ever oppose this Trinity universally as his Lordship says received Do they deny eternal original Mind the everlasting immanent Act of Wisdom generated by it or the perpetual Spiration of Divine Love proceeding from original Mind and the inward Logos or Wisdom He knows the contrary he knows we are Brethren for I hope that himself believes the universally-received Explication But then why are we out of his Favour why irreligious Villains against whom and their Doctrine 't is so necessary to caution and instruct the poor ignorant Clergy of the Diocess of Salisbury The Question I doubt cannot be answered but by saying here his fresh Episcopal Zeal for Holy Mother Church in the Interests of which he is got to be a considerable Part was by much too forward As Dr. Wallis who is a Socinian and an half could publish I know not how many Letters and Sermons against the Socinians aspersing also in the most bitter and false manner the very Person of his Patriarch Socinus So his Lordship not expecting to be rightly informed of their Doctrine and Opinions calls those irreligious Villains who hold and maintain the universally-received Explication and professes to take it as the very heaviest of all Imputations when the Considerer said in Terms of Respect the Vnitarians submit to his Lordship's Doctrine Methinks no Man ever had less Occasion given him to answer so unhandsomly I had almost said inhumanly as his Lordship has done It is easy to see in the Air and Spirit of his Writing that the Considerer had he not affected the contrary could have chose such Expressions and Terms concerning his Lordship's Doctrine as should have wakened and drawn down upon him all the Enemies he has in the World The least of those many things that a Person so well versed in these Questions as the Considerer appears to be could have said the least and softest of his Imputations might have been this that his Lordship is not so Catholick or Orthodox in any of these depending Questions as the Unitarians are But let us go on On the Account given in the Letter of the Incarnation and Divinity of our Saviour COncerning the Trinity of Divine Persons his Lordship we have seen believes they are not compleat nor distinct Beings nor such Persons as are commonly meant when we use the term Persons we were best he saith to call them in general terms the three or the blessed three and thereby silence all Opposition and Dispute And for the term Son he intimates at p. 99. it doth not belong at all to any of the three but only to our Saviour as he was the Messias That is as he was the Man Jesus And hereby he says again all the Speculations concerning an eternal Generation are cut off This he says at p. 100. Agreeably to this as I said more than Vnitarian Doctrine for the Unitarians
each other All Men who know the Fathers know that this is their constant Language Vindic. of the Trin. p. 130. To make this Testimony the more considerable the Author intimates in the last Paragraph but one of his Preface that in writing this Book he must thankfully own he was divinely assisted If you will not take the Word of Dr. Sherlock and the constant Language of the Fathers then hear the Bishop of Sarum with all the School-Divines and the universal Church They conceived that the primary Act of the Divine Essence is its Wisdom this they thought might be called the Son as being the Generation of eternal Mind From this Fountain-Principle eternal Mind and the inward WORD or Logos or Wisdom a Love did issue forth which was to be the Soul of the Creation and more particularly of the Church This was rested on and became the universally-received Explication of the Trinity and was dressed up by the Schools with a great deal of dark Nicety Discourse to Clergy p. 99. Now Sir lay your hand on your Heart and answer like a true Unitarian Do you your self or know you any of the Denomination that question this Trinity the Trinity our very Opposers say of the Schools the Fathers and the universal Church Namely 1. One Divine Nature Essence or Substance with one only Omniscience and Omnipotence and consequently with one only Intellect and Power of Action 2. Three Properties called by the Bp. of Worcester RELATIVE PERSONS viz. Vnbegotten eternal Mind Reflex or begotten Knowledg or Wisdom and Divine Love proceeding from both This from themselves is what they mean by Persons in the Trinity and Communication of the Divine Nature without Division or Separation by immanent and Eternal Acts. I confess I fear much that were Dr. Cudworth alive that great Divine and Philosopher would either reason or laugh us out of this Gibberish he would constrain us to return to the Language of Scripture about these Matters And it is most true that these Terms are not to be found either in Holy Scripture or in the Creeds or received General Councils of the Catholick Church They were first advanced by some particular Fathers especially St. Austin in his 15 Books de Trinitate were taken up from them by the Divines of the Schools that is of the middle Ages and have been confirmed by the constant Use of the Moderns or Divines of the two last Ages We declare openly and therein consists our whole Heresy that we like 'em not not only as they are unscriptural which in matter of Faith is a most just Exception for divers very weighty Reasons but because by their dangerous Ambiguity they give occasion to Heresy not only among the People but even among Learned Men. These are the Terms that have occasioned the Heresy of the Realists or Tritheists maintained at this time by divers Learned Men among us Yet for Peace sake we admit the Terms interpreted in the known Sense of the Church which Sense we acknowledg the Bps. of Worcester and Sarum Dr. S th and the Oxford-Heads have as we have seen already rightly understood and especially Dr. S th in his Latin Letters under the Name of a Transmarine Divine dextrously declared I may pass I think to the last thing to be considered The Conciliation of Dr. S th and Dean Sherlock DR Sherlock in his Books against the Unitarians had taken this for his Ground and Foundation that the three Divine Persons are three eternal infinite Spirits each of them a God but the three Gods are made up again into one God by being internally conscious to one anothers Thoughts and Operations Dr. S th in two English Books by him written and in three Latin Letters excepts against this Explication of the Trinity as false heretical and directly introducing three Gods He saith as we do that the Deity is one numerical individual Nature Substance Mind Spirit with one only Understanding Will and Energy As to the Divine Persons they are the one individual Nature or Essence of God with three Relative Properties each Property consider'd with the Divine Essence is called a Person What these Properties and Persons are hath been said already The Bp. of Worcester seeing in what danger an old Friend is undertakes first to excuse Dr. Sherlock from the Imputation of Heresy and then to reconcile him to Dr. S th and the Nominals He inlarges himself on these three Points 1. That Dr. Sherlock's Explication not only will do no manner of Service towards clearing the Difficulties in the Doctrine of the Trinity but that it introduces a specifick Divine Nature which is inconsistent with the Divine Perfections Pref. p. 29. He adds at p. 30. 'T is impossible to conceive that the same individual Substance should be in three Persons as the Catholick Church teaches if those Persons have peculiar Substances of their own as Dr. Sherlock affirms and contends Immediately he cites an excellent Reasoning of Maimonides by which to know when Men affirm three Gods and concludes that Dr. Sherlock's Explication differs not from what Maimonides proves to be an introducing more Gods p. 30. He forbears not to own at p. 31. that he thinks it impossible to reconcile Dr. Sherlock's three individual Essences or Substances with the Catholick Churches one individual Divine Essence and that the former looks too like asserting three Gods and yet but one 2. But now how to save his Friend from the secular Arm He says in short Dr. Sherlock holds the Article of the Trinity and only mistakes in the Explication of it but it is not Heresy he saith when a Man assents to a Fundamental Article and only mistakes in the Explication Interpretation or Sense of it Pref. p. 22 23. But I fear our Brother S th is too quick-sighted to let this pass he will assuredly say that an Article whether fundamental or not fundamental and the Explication or Sense of such Article are the very same thing and that an Article falsly interpreted or explained is by no means the Article but a Contradiction to the Article He will certainly laugh out that his Antagonists can be no way excused from Heresy but by giving up at once the whole Doctrine of the Catholick Church For the Doctrine of the Church is most certainly yielded up if once it be granted that a Man believes her Articles while he expounds or takes them in a wrong Sense of them At this rate will he say Philoponus Joachim and Gentilis were good Catholicks for what makes a Catholick is not holding the Article in the true Meaning of it but in any Meaning in a false Meaning or a contrary Meaning I shall leave Dr. S th to argue it out with the Bp. and pass to the next 3. He alledges last of all that tho Dr. Sherlock affirms three individual Essences three eternal Minds three infinite Spirits which is Heresy yet he also says the Father communicated his Divine Nature or Essence wholly and intirely to the Son