THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN Real and Nominal TRINITARIANS EXAMINED And the Doctrine of a Real Trinity Vindicated from the Charge of Tritheism In ANSWER To a late Socinian Pamphlet ENTITULED The Judgment of a Disinterested Person concerning the Controversie about the Blessed Trinity depending between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1696. THE CONTENTS SECT I. Concerning Real and Nominal Trinitarians Page 1 The late Arch-Bishop Tillotson and Dr. Bull owned by him to be Real Trinitarians p. 3 Dr. Bull 's Learned Defence of the Nicene Faith asserts and proves a Real Trinity p. 4 SECT II. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Holy Trinity p. 10 The occasion of this Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians and the Use the Socinians make of it ibid. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists p. 13 That there are three Minds Spirits Substances in the Trinity not the Language of all Realists nor own'd by any of them in his Sense p. 14. c. The Difference between an individual and singular Substance p. 16 His Representation of the Doctrine of the Nominalists p. 19 The only Difference between them and the Realists not in Three Substances and One Substance p. 21 SECT III. The Authorities as â—he calls them of the Nominals against a Real Trinity examined p. 22 What the Nicene Council meant by the Homoousion or One Substance of Father and Son p. 24 Socrates's Account of the Dispute concerning the Word Homoousios p. 25 This Author's Mistake in making the Arian Homoiousios signifie the same Substance in Sort or Kind or Properties p. 32 The third Council of Constantinople concerning Two Natural Wills and Two Operations in Christ ibid. In what Sense this Council owned but one Will in the Trinity p. 33 The Doctrine of the Council of Lateran concerning the Trinity p. 34 In what Sense they teach that the Divine Essence neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds p. 37 Spanhemius's Account of some late Disputes about the Trinity and the Judgment of the Belgick Synods p. 38 SECT IV. His three first Arguments against a Real Trinity p. 41 All his Arguments oppose a Trinity of subsisting Persons ibid. One Personal infinite Mind or Spirit not the Definition of the One God p. 43 Concerning three Wills Understandings c. in One God p. 45 His Argument to prove that the Second and Third Persons in the Trinity are not Substance and Spirit but only Properties or Immanent Acts ibid. His Argument from the Council of Lyons answered p. 46 Concerning the Eternal Generation and Procession p. 48 In what Sense the Son is the Wisdom of the Father p. 52 What the Fathers meant by that Argument for the Eternity of the Son that God was never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without his Word p. 53 The Judgment of Cabassutius about this Argument p. 54 Concerning Emanatory Causes and Effects p. 56 SECT V. The Fourth and Fifth Argument against a Real Trinity answered p. 59 The Difference between three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God and three Gods p. 63 The Charge of Tritheism founded on an Equivocal use of those Terms One God and One Person p. 67 Whether the Arguments for the Unity of God prove that there is but one Person who is God p. 69 SECT VI. The Defence this Author makes for the Nominals against the Objections of the Realists p. 78 The End of the CONTENTS ERRATA PAge 15. Marg. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 49. l. 6. for or r. are p. 63. l. 12. dele for p. 75. l. 25. for aclls r. calls THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REAL and NOMINAL TRINITARIANS CONSIDERED SECT I. Concerning Real and Nominal Trinitarians THIS Author calls himself a Presbyter of the Church of England and by what I have heard I fear it is too true I pray God preserve the Church from such Presbyters who Eat her Bread and Betray her Faith His pretence for Writing this Pamphlet is The Controversy between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock about the B. Trinity I will say nothing of that matter let the Animadverter Answer it to God and his own Conscience This Author has said enough about it and I wish he had but used the same Candour throughout and then there would have been no need of this Answer but tho' it seems he was Disinterested as to the contending Doctors he was deeply Interested as to the Cause of Socinianism to which he promised no small Advantage from this Dispute And indeed it is too evident what advantage our Socinian Adversaries have made and hope still to make of this Controversy This has occasioned that scandalous Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians which is such an open abuse upon the Nominalists that were I one of those whom he Reproaches with that Title I could not bear it For the plain English of it is no more but this those who believe a Trinity and those who believe no Trinity for Nominal Trinitarians as opposed to Real Trinitarians can signifie nothing more And could this Author and his Friends persuade the World That the greatest part of our Clergy nay the Church of England it self as he pretends are but Nominal Trinitarians their Work were done for a Socinian is a much more honourable Name and when Men agree in the Faith it is a vain thing to dispute about Words And therefore this Author is equally zealous to oppose the Realists that is to overthrow the Doctrine of a Real Trinity and to persuade the Nominalists that tho' they differ in some peculiar forms of Speech yet there is no reason they should Quarrel for their Faith is the same And this I thought a sufficient Reason to judge over again the Iudgment of this Disinterested Person I shall pass over the Account he gives of the History of this Dispute only observing that Dr. Sherlock did not begin it He wrote against the Socinians without suspecting that he should meet with such furious and bitter Assaults from another Quarter and yet after such great Provocations as might move a very tame man he has made no return which unbecomes a true Christian Spirit in such Cases But there is one thing wherein this Author has done the Dean right by acquainting the world That he has not been the first Broacher of this Heresy as they call it of Three Distinct Infinite Minds and Spirits in the Vnity of the Godhead He reckons up several others of the same mind some who appeared before and some since his Vindication as Dr. Cudworth Dr. Bull the late Archbishop Tillotson the present Bishop of Glocester Mr. How Mr. I. B. Mr. Bingham And I could tell him of many more as many as do sincerely believe That God is a Father and has a True Real Subsisting Son and Holy Spirit But yet he himself is sensible and his Socinian Friends
Intercession of the Eternal Son of God For if Christ Jesus who is the Saviour of Mankind be not the Eternal Son of God in humane Nature all those great Assurances which the Gospel gives us of God's love to Sinners in giving his own Eternal Son for us of the Expiation of our Sins by the Blood of the Son of God a price of inestimable value and of all the Blessings which we expect both in this world and in the next from the powerful intercession of a Beloved Son and a meritorious High-Priest I say all these strong Consolations dwindle into no more than the Word and Promise of a great and extraordinary Prophet the Death of a Martyr and the Intercession of a Beloved Creature and humble Supplicant who has no inherent Power and Authority to save us Our Modern Socinians are very sensible what an invincible prejudice this is for few serious Christians will be willing to part with their hopes of Heaven or to part with greater infinitely greater hopes for less or to think so meanly of their Saviour who is the object of their Faith and Worship as to thrust him down into the rank and number of meer Creatures This the Catholick Church would never endure in the Arians who yet attributed a most excellent Nature and Glory to Christ next to God himself superior to the highest Orders of Angels as being before the World it self and the Maker of it but yet not true and perfect God as not having the same Nature with his Father nor Eternally begotten by him much less would they ever endure the thoughts of the Photinian or Samosatenian Heresy that is of Socinianism which makes Christ but a meer man who had no Being before he was Born of his Virgin Mother This I say being so invincible a prejudice against them they have of late tried new Arts and have taken advantage of some very unhappy Disputes to impose upon unwary men and to appear abroad with new Confidence under a less frightful Disguise The late Controversy about Three infinite Minds and Spirits in the Trinity has given them the advantage of distinguishing between Real and Nominal Trinitarians or such Trinitarians as believe a Trinity of Real subsisting Persons and those who believe only one Real Person who is God with a Trinity of Names or Offices or immanent Acts and Powers The Realists they call Trithiests or such Hereticks as assert Three Gods The Nominals they think very Orthodox and the Church and tho' the Nominals and Socinians differ in some forms of Speech yet they say and I think very truly that there is no considerable difference in their Faith as they state it and seem well enough inclined to exchange that odious name of Socinians for the more plausible and popular name of Nominal Trinitarians And thus they can Dispute as heartily as ever and with more safety and honour against the Faith of the Trinity so they do but call it a Real Trinity and may dispute for Socinianism as earnestly as ever so they do but call it a Nominal Trinity En quo discordia cives Perduxit miseros That this is the whole Artifice of this present Pamphlet any one who reads it may see with half an eye and I hope some men if ever they can grow cool will consider a little better of it I do not so much intend gravely to Dispute with this Author as to wash off his Paint and bring the Controversy back again to its right Owners those truly opposite Parties of Trinitarians Sabellians and Socinians That those whom he calls the Real Trinitarians are the only men who believe a Christian Trinity and that the Nominal Trinitarians do not believe a Trinity is evident in their very Names for a Trinity which is the object of our Faith and Worship is certainly a Real Trinity if it be at all and one would think that a Trinity which is not a Real Trinity should be no Trinity at all The Zeal which the Socinians express against a Real Trinity is a good Argument That that is the true Christian Trinity which they and their Predecessors have always rejected in contradiction to the Catholick Faith and the great fondness they express for a Nominal Trinity is as good a proof that it is no Trinity at all Such a Trinity as is reconcileable with Socinianism as all these men own a Nominal Trinity to be can never be the Christian Faith unless Socinianism be Christianity Which I hope those men whom this and some other late Writers call Nominal Trinitarians will not yet own and yet if Socinianism be a Contradiction to the Christian Faith that must be the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity which most directly contradicts Socinianism in the parting Points and that none but a Real Trinity does So that it is in vain for them to hope to conceal themselves under some insignificant Names let them deal fairly with the world and Dispute professedly against a Trinity for a Real Trinity is neither better nor worse than a Trinity and then let them produce their Authorities and Reasons to prove that the Catholick Church even the Nicene Council it self never believed a Trinity and that the Faith of a Trinity is Tritheism This becomes men of candour and honesty let their Opinions be what they will but to sneak and sculk like men who have a mind to steal a Cause and are as much ashamed to appear in open light as such kind of Traders use to be is mean and pilfering and unworthy of their Ancestors who own'd themselves at Noon-day and bravely outfaced all the Authority of the Catholick Church and all the Reason of Mankind That this is the truth of the Case and that they themselves look upon this distinction as no more than a jest is evident from that account this Writer gives of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Trinity As to the Explication the Party called Realists say The Holy Trinity or the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct infinite Substances Three Minds Three Spirits they are Three such Persons that is as distinct and as really subsisting and living as three Angels or three Men are Each Person has his own peculiar individual Substance his own personal and proper Understanding Will and Power of Action an Omnipotence Omniscience and all other Divine Attributes divers in number from the personal Omnipotence Omniscience c. of the other two Persons In the Creation as also in the Government of the world they are to be considered as distinct Agents not as one Creator or one Governor but only in this sense that the Father acts by the Son through the Spirit of which the meaning is that the Father in regard of his Paternal Prerogative acteth not immediately but by the Son and Spirit This Account as far as it concerns the real Subsistence of Three distinct infinite Persons in the Unity of the God-head does contain the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity and yet he has both imperfectly and falsly represented the Opinion of the Realists 1. He tells us They say that the Holy Trinity or the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct infinite Substances Three Minds Three
Unity of Will and Power and Operation from the indivisible Unity of Nature that they are but one Agent and produce but one and the same effect But still as for the main of the Charge That every distinct Person in the Trinity has a personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of his own which is not the personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of either of the other Persons is what all who believe a Real Trinity do and must agree in whether they will agree to call these Three Substances Wills Understandings c. or not Nay this is all that those very Persons who assert Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits in the Trinity ever meant by it Own but each Person in his own proper Person to be infinite Substance Mind Spirit and that neither Person is each other and they will consent to any other form of words and not dispute the reason or propriety of them all that they contend for is a real Trinity of true real proper Persons and that they are certain cannot be unless each Person by himself as distinct from the other Persons be Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding Power This is the only Trinity which Socinus Crellius Slichtingius and others of that Party have hitherto disputed against and therefore certainly they did apprehend that the Christians in their days even all the Divinity-Chairs of Europe did assert such a Trinity and those Learned Men who opposed them did believe so too or there must be very wise doings amongst them tho' our Modern Socinians have now made a discovery that these Realists are not the true Catholick Trinitarians but that the Nominalists are the Church and now they are grown Friends with the Church and Orthodox beyond their own hopes and their business is only to defend the Church against this new Sect of Real Trinitarians Let it be so but still they maintain the same Doctrine that Socinus did and dispute against the same Trinity which he disputed against and therefore these Real Trinitarians are no new upstart Sect but their old Adversaries who will never be cheated by new Names into an accommodation or comprehension with Socinians The plain state of the Case is this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Christian Trinity now the question is whether this be a Real Trinity or not that is whether the Father be an Eternal Infinite Living Omniscient Omnipotent subsisting Person and did truly beget of his own Nature and Substance a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Son and in like manner whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Spirit This is the Doctrine of those whom our Modern Socinians call Realists that is of True and Orthodox Trinitarians and without asserting this whatever they teach besides a Trinity is nothing but a name and therefore such men may properly be called Nominalists so that the Realists only are Trinitarians the meer Nominalists whatever they are else are no Trinitarians and this new contrivance of opposing these Real Trinitarians is neither better nor worse than opposing the Doctrine of the Trinity And let but our People understand this and we are where we were and then the Socinians may call themselves Nominalists or what they please To proceed He is as artificial and unsincere in his account of the Nominalists as of the Realists We must not conceive of the Divine Persons say the Nominalists as we do of created Persons Very right there is an unconceivable difference between them as all Realists acknowledge they are perfectly distinct but yet inseparably One they never did never can subsist apart the same One undivided Divinity subsists whole and perfect and yet distinctly in each of them and is as perfectly One in Three as any one thing is one with it self And thus we allow what he adds to be a very great Truth and wish he himself would consider better of it That the conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of any created Beings as the Perfections of the Divinity are paramount to Human or Angelical Perfections This we are sensible of and therefore do not presently cry out of Nonsense and Contradiction when we are forced by Scripture and Reason to attribute such things to the Divine Nature and Persons as we can find no Images or Idea's of in Created Nature for we know that Creatures cannot be perfectly like to God and consequently we ought not to oppose the Idea's of Nature to Revelation But the present question is not Whether Father Son and Holy Ghost are such Persons as created Persons as Angels or men are for it is certain there is an unconceivable difference between them but whether they may be called Persons in the true and proper Notion of the word Person for one who does really and substantially subsist live will understand act according to his Natural Powers And whether there be Three such subsisting living willing understanding Persons in the Godhead or only One Whether as the Father hath life in himself so the Son hath life in himself and as the Father knows the Son so the Son knows the Father and whether the Spirit of life and the Spirit of Holiness and Power and the Spirit that searcheth the deep things of God be not a subsisting living knowing working Spirit and this is the reason why the Church calls them Three Persons which the Scripture does not call them because the Holy Scripture distinctly Attributes life will knowledge power to these Three Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Notion all men have of a Person when applied to Creatures and to talk of Three Divine Persons who are not subsisting living knowing Persons destroys the only Reason for calling them Persons But he adds as the Doctrine of the Nominalists That God is but One Being but One Substance Mind or Spirit with One only will understanding energy or power of action But is not this in a true Catholick Sense the Doctrine of the Realists also as I observed before But this is what this disinterested Person would be at to distinguish the Realists and Nominalists by Three Substances and One Substance of the Divinity And were this the whole Truth the Realists would certainly be Hereticks and the Nominalists might be the Orthodox Church Whereas the Realists as they own Three real subsisting living Persons so they as constantly profess the Homoousion or One undivided Substance and Nature subsisting and acting distinctly but indivisibly and inseparably in Three which is a real perfect subsisting Trinity in perfect Unity But the Nominalists truly so called as they own but One Substance in the Divinity so but One single Person which is their One God and can find a Trinity only in a Trinity of Names or Properties or meer immanent Acts. That there are many such Nominalists among us I fear is too true but I must say again that the
tho' one would wonder how Original Mind and Wisdom should be Wise by reflex Wisdom which is but a secondary Wisdom which supposes a first and therefore as one would guess could not make the first wise but Cabassutius only says that the Father is not actually wise without the Son that is as he explains it without begetting that Eternal Word and Wisdom which is the Person of the Son I shall make no Remarks on this let the World judge of the skill or the honesty of this Author What he adds about Emanations is just to the same Tune The Eternal Generation of the Substance of the Father was by the Nicene Council represented by Light of Light and the Co-eternity of the Son with the Father by the Co-existence of Emanatory Causes and their Effects as of the Sun and its Rays which are as old as the Sun The Author like other Socinians thinking of nothing but Body and bodily and corporeal Emanations falls presently a demonstrating Let A. B. C. be three infinite Substances if B. and C. infinite Substances emane from A. an infinite Substance also it is self-evident that the two infinite Substances must exhaust and thereby in the end annihilate one infinite Substance This is a notable Demonstration as to corporeal Substances for if the whole flow out of it self it is certain it must cease to be what it was and become another Whole if it be not a Contradiction that the same Whole should flow out of it self and become another Whole which in Bodies could make no other Change in a Whole but a Change of Place for let a Whole emane if that be not Nonsense for a corporeal Whole to emane and go where it will it is it self and the same Whole still And I think it is no better Sense to talk of exhausting an infinite Substance for nothing can be exhausted but what is finite unless what is infinite can have an end and an exhausting Emanation of an infinite Substance is no better Sense than the rest for it necessarily supposes an infinite Substance with divisible Parts which may be separated from it self and from each other which I take to be a Contradiction to the very Notion of Infinity It is certain that such Emanations as exhaust their Subject can be only bodily Emanations for Bodies only have divisible and separable Parts that I defie the most absurd self-contradicting Trinitarian in the World to put so many Absurdities and Contradictions into one Sentence as he has done in this One infinite Substance whether corporeal or incorporeal can never eternally supply two infinite Substances the two infinite Substances by continual Emanations must needs dry up the One that was their Fountain To talk of an infinite corporeal Substance which he here supposes is absurd and unphilosophical for nothing can be infinite which has Parts for what is infinite by Nature can never be finite and yet if such a supposed infinite Body were divided in the middle as all Bodies may be divided this infinite corporeal Substance would prove two finite Substances for each of them would have one End where their Substance was divided to talk of such Emanations from incorporeal Substances which have no divisible Parts as can dry up an infinite Fountain which must be by a Partition and Division of Substances is another Contradiction and to dry up an infinite Fountain as I observed before is another and to supply infinite Substances by such Emanations which cannot be infinite if they want any supply is a fourth very good one But allowing this Author to rejoice in such refined Speculations I would desire to know who those are who attribute the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit to such eternal corporeal Effluxes and Emanations as will endanger the exhausting and drying up the infinite Fountain of the Deity If there be any such Men they are arrant Hereticks I assure him for the Catholick Fathers abhorred the thoughts of all such Emanations They did not indeed scruple the use of such Words as Emanation Probole Exition and the like whereby they signified that the Son was truly and in a proper sense of his Father's Substance and a real distinct Person from the Person of the Father but they expresly rejected all corporeal Effluxes all Division and Separation of the Father's Substance and taught that the Son is begotten whole of whole perfect God of perfect God by a real Communication but not a Transfusion of Substance not ad extra without as Creature-Generations are but within his Father as the Word is inseparable from the Mind whose Word it is So that our Author disputes here without any other Adversary but his own gross Imaginations and he may triumph securely and demonstrate these corporeal exhausting dying Emanations out of Countenance and the Realists no farther concerned than to look on and see the Event of the Combate or to wish him better employed If he would have effectually baffled these Realists he should have proved that God could not communicate his own Nature and Substance to the Son Whole of Whole without such an Emanation of his Substance as divides it from it self and separates one part of it from another as it is in bodily Exhalations This would effectually have confuted a substantial Generation for all Men grant that the Divine Substance can't be divided and this was the Objection of the Arians against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Son 's being begotten of the Substance of the Father but the Catholick Fathers asserted a real substantial Generation without a Division of Substance and taught them to distinguish between the Generation of Body and Spirit And whoever considers how a finite created Mind can communicate its Thoughts to another which when perfectly communicated are perfectly the same whole and entire in both and but one and the same Thought though in two Minds may conceive that an infinite Mind which is a pure and simple Act infinitely more simple and indivisible than Thought it self may be able to communicate its self more perfectly than a finite Mind can communicate its Thoughts and if it can it must communicate it self whole and entire and as indivisibly as a Thought and subsist distinctly perfectly One and the same in Two SECT V. The Fourth and Fifth Arguments against a Real Trinity Answered IV. TO proceed his next Argument against the Realists is this That all Explications by which 't is endeavour'd to shew how three infinite intellectual Substances three Almighty Spirits and Minds may be one God are manifestly Deficient Now suppose this true that no Man can give a perfect Account of the Unity of the Divine Nature in Three Distinct Infinite Divine Persons must we therefore deny either the Trinity or Unity both which we say are expresly taught in Scripture because we cannot fully comprehend so Sublime and Venerable a Mystery They pay greater Deference than this to the Evidence of Sense they will believe
Spirits Now any one would hence conclude That this is the Universal Doctrine of all the Realists and that this Phrase of Three Substances Minds and Spirits is the Parting point between the Realists and Nominals That all who believe a Real Trinity own Three Infinite Minds and Spirits and that no man can believe a Real Trinity who does not own this Now this is manifestly false as our late Experience proves The greatest number of Realists as far as I can guess who believe a Real Trinity a Real subsisting Father a Real subsisting Son and a Real Subsisting Holy Spirit do yet reject those Expressions of Three Infinite Minds and Spirits which are liable to a very Heretical Sense either Arianism or Tritheism and therefore were very sparingly and with great Caution used by the Catholick Fathers tho' they used Three Hypostases in the very same Sense and did not condemn Three Natures and Substances when personally used as we have seen above And therefore the late Dispute about Three Minds does not in it self divide the contending Parties into Realists and Nominals as the Socinians too hastily conclude and think to carry their Cause by it Very good Catholicks may dispute such expressions as we know they did the Homoousion it self for One Substance is as liable to an Heretical Sense as Three Substances for that may be Sabellianism and the other may be Arianism or Tritheism and both of them rightly understood may be very Orthodox but whether they are or no must be judged by the Sense in which they are used and the Catholick Fathers like good Christians have easily yielded to each other in a dispute of words when it has appeared that the difference has been only in words not in the Faith What Athanasius says upon a like occasion is a very good Rule to maintain Christian Peace and Unity To corrupt the Faith is always unlawful tho' we palliate it with the most popular and orthodox forms of speech but a true and holy Faith does not degenerate into Impiety and Heresy by some new improper expressions while he who uses such words has a Pious and Orthodox sense But to proceed Tho' all Realists do not agree about the use of those words Three Minds or Substances yet they all do and all must agree in what follows viz. They are Three such Persons that is as distinct and as really subsisting and living as three Angels or three Men. They are so without doubt if they be real proper Persons for a Person lives and subsists and Three Persons must be really distinct or they can't be Three that is the Father's Person is no more the Person of the Son nor the Person of the Son the Person of the Father than Peter is John or John is Peter but then they do not subsist dividely or separately as Peter and John do He adds Each Person has his own peculiar individual Substance his own personal and proper Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action an Omnipotence Omniscience and all other Divine Attributes divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence Omniscience c. of the other Two Persons Now I except against nothing in this but the Phrases of peculiar and individual substance and divers in number for peculiar and individual I would say a singular substance for tho' a singular substance in created Natures is a peculiar and individual substance also it is not so in the Divinity The Catholick Fathers always distinguish'd between One Substance and One singular Substance of the Godhead To deny One Substance or the Homoousion was Arianism To assert One singular Substance was Sabellianism for One singular Substance is but One Person which denies a Trinity of Persons But the Divine Nature and Substance is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and Common and therefore not One singular Substance which can never be common and by the same Reason a Personal Substance though it be singular and appropriate to such a particular Person and therefore as incommunicable as the Person is yet it is not peculiar and individual in the common acceptation of those words but the same One common undivided inseparable Essence of the Divinity subsisting distinctly and singularly in each Person Thus for the same Reason I will not say that the Personal Omnipotence c. of the Father is divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence of the Son because it is the same One Omnipotence as it is the same One Divinity which subsists distinctly in each Person but we may and must say That the Personal Omnipotence of the Father is not the Personal Omnipotence of the Son no more than the Person of the Father is the Person of the Son But this disguised Socinian has taken great care in representing the Doctrine of the Realists to conceal their Faith of the perfect undivided Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature in Three distinct subsisting Persons which yet he knows they as Sacredly profess as they do the real distinction of Persons and is owned in as high terms by Dr. Sherlock himself as by any of his Adversaries and is almost the only Pretence of those many Contradictions he is charged with by such as will not understand a perfect distinction in perfect Unity which yet is essential to the Catholick Faith of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity But as for this Author whether he had thought such a Distinction and Unity reconcileable or not yet when he undertook to represent the Doctrine of the Realists he ought to have represented it whole and entire and to have left it to the judgment of the Reader whereas he is very careful to observe that they say the Three Persons in the Trinity are Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits which yet only some of them say but takes no notice that these Three distinct Persons have One undivided Nature and Essence which they all agree in For this would have spoiled his Objections of Tritheism and what he immediately adds about Three Creators and Governors of the World which they never owned any more than Three Gods for tho' there are Three who are Omnipotent and Three who create yet they are so inseparably united in Nature that they are but One Agent One Omnipotent and produce but One Effect As the Catholick Fathers concluded for this Reason that as the Scripture teaches us That there is but One God and yet that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God so it attributes the making and government of the world both to Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet there is but one and the same world which is made and governed which proves that though they act as distinctly as their Persons are distinct yet there is such an essential
bare dispute concerning the use of those words Three eternal infinite Minds and Spirits for Three eternal infinite intelligent Persons no more proves those who reject such expressions while they own each Person by himself to be infinite Mind and Spirit to be meer Nominalists than the use of such expressions in a qualified Catholick Sense as the Catholick Fathers have formerly used them or other Terms equivalent to them proves those who use them to be Tritheists And yet this is all our Author pretends to justifie this distinction between Realists and Nominalists viz. The Controversy depending between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock But I cannot pass on without making one Remark on this That Dr. S th and those who have espoused that side of the Question are as much concerned to vindicate themselves from the imputation which this Author has fixed on them of being meer Nominalists or Sabellians as Dr. Sherlock and his Friends are to vindicate themselves from Tritheism and I confess I think a great deal more because in the heat of Dispute or through Inadvertency if it be not their settled Principle and Judgment they have given more just occasion for such a Charge When One and the same Person with Three substantial Deaneries shall be very gravely alledged as a proper Representation of a Trinity in Unity when a meer mode of subsistence shall be given as a proper and adequate Definition of a Person as applied to the Trinity when a large Book shall be writ on purpose to demonstrate That there is and can be but One Person in the Trinity in the true proper Notion as it signifies an intelligent Person what can the most equal and impartial Judge make of this but downright Sabellianism For whether it be allowable to say Three Minds and Spirits or not I 'm sure without owning Three proper subsisting intelligent Persons each of whom is in his own Person infinite Mind and Spirit there can be no Real Trinity If their Sense be more Orthodox than their Words I do heartily beg of them for God's sake and the sake of our common Faith so to explain their Words as to remove this scandal as Dr. Sherlock has done and not to Charge a Trinity of real subsisting intelligent Persons which is all he professes to own or ever to have intended with Tritheism till they can give us something in the room of it more Orthodox than a Sabellian Trinity which the Catholick Church has always rejected with Abhorrence SECT III. The Authorities of the Nominalists against a Real Trinity briefly Examined THis Socinian having given such an account as it is of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists as disinterested as he pretends to be he professedly Espouses the side of the Nominalists against the Realists that is under a new Name he follows his old Trade of Disputing against the Trinity only with this advantage that he now pleads the Cause of the Church of his beloved Church of Nominalists against these Tritheistick Hereticks the Realists But when men consider who this Advocate is it will do the Nominalists no Credit nor any Service to the Cause For a Socinian tho' he change his Name will be a Socinian still that is a professed Enemy to the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and to the Eternal God head and Incarnation of our Saviour Christ and there is very good Reason to believe that what he opposes is the True Catholick Faith and what he vindicates and defends is Heresy What Agreement there is between the Nominalists and Socinians and what an easie accommodation may be made between them we shall hear towards the Conclusion but this will not satisfie our Author that the present Orthodox Church which to the reproach of the Church and to the advantage of his own Cause he will have to be all Nominalists which is such an abuse as concerned Persons ought to resent I say not satisfied that the present Church is on his side nothing will serve him less than to prove that this was always the Faith of the Catholick Church A brave and bold Undertaking but what his wiser Predecessors Socinus Crellius c. would have laught at and which I doubt not but he Laughs at himself and will have cause to Laugh if he can meet with any Persons soft and easy enough to believe him He well and truly observes that this Question What has been the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this point must be decided by Authorities or Witnesses and therefore he appeals to Authorities and those I grant the most venerable Authorities and Witnesses that can be had even General Councils I wish he would continue in this good humour and then I should not doubt but he would quickly change his side But this is contemptible Hypocrisy in a man who despises all Authorities not only human but sacred when they contradict his own private Reasonings to appeal to Authority I can easily bear with men of weak Understandings but I hate Knavery for Truth needs no Tricks and how much Socinians value Fathers and Councils is sufficiently known He begins with the Nicene Council which brought into the Church the term Homoousios by which is meant that the Divine Persons have the same Substance or are of One Substance But then he says it is disputed between the Nominalists and Realists in what Sense the Council understood this One Substance Whether the same Substance in number the self-same Substance so that there is indeed but One Divine Substance Or the same Substance for kind sort or nature namely the same in all Essential Properties So that in Truth there are Three distinct or numerically different Substances which are the same only in nature and kind This he makes the Controversy between the Church that is his Nominalists and the Realists but this is far from being the true state of the Controversy All whom he calls Realists own that Father and Son are but One and the self-same Substance communicated whole and undivided from Father to Son so that the Father is Substance the Son Substance in his own Person and both the same Substance And the like of the Holy Spirit that as Marius Victorinus says They are ter una Substantia Thrice One and the same Substance and this is all that those mean who venture to say they are Three Substances for the Dispute between those Realists who say there is but one Substance of the Divine Persons and those who own Three is not whether the Son be true and real Substance in his own Person as distinct from the Person of the Father for all but Sabellians agree in this but whether considering the perfect Unity and Identity of Nature and Substance in Three it be Orthodox to say Three Substances and not rather One Substance and Three who subsist which is a more Orthodox form of speech and less liable to exception And thus we allow That the Nicene Fathers by the Homoousion did mean One and the
self-same Substance of Father and Son but so that the Son is a true and proper Son a real subsisting Person Substance of his Fathers Substance God of God Light of Light very God of very God Begotten not Made of one Substance with the Father by whom all things were made which so expresly declares the Sense of the Council that this Author durst not so much as mention God of God Light of Light c. which can never be reconciled with his Notion of One Substance which leaves no Substance nor any real subsistence to the Son distinct from the Father It is a bold stroke and worthy of our Author to make the Nicene Council determine for Sabellianism in the term Homoousios but yet he has a little Story which he thinks proves it beyond exception for which he quotes Socrates That Historian tells us That there happened a great quarrel in Aegypt about the word Homoousios which he says was like fighting in the dark without distinguishing Friends from Enemies for neither of them seemed to understand each other as to those matters for which they reproached one another This our Author takes no notice of for it would not serve his purpose it appearing from hence that the Accusations on both sides were causeless and like dealing blows in the dark But now our Author begins Those Fathers of the Council that were against the term Homoousios but those Fathers of the Council are not in Socrates but only those who declined the term Homoousios but the Fathers of the Council served his purpose better and therefore he makes bold with the Historian or of One Substance which the Historian has not added neither accused such as were for it as Sabellians and Montanists but the Historian says did suppose that those who received that Term did introduce the Doctrine of Sabellius and Montanus that is that this was their design in using that Term which as he observed before was their mistake calling them also blasphemous because they seemed to take away by that word the real Existence of the Son of God While on the other hand they that stood for Homoousios believed that such as were against it did introduce more Gods and therefore detested them as reviving Paganism Here our Author leaves off but I shall go on with the History Eustathius Bishop of Antioch accuses Eusebius Pamphili as Adulterating the Nicene Faith Eusebius denies That he in the least departed from the Nicene Faith and accuses Eustathius of Sabellianism And thus they wrote against each other as Adversaries and yet both of them Taught That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons that one would wonder whence it came to pass that they could not agree From this Story our Author thus Reasons This is a deciding-testimony in the Case For the Realists will never be able to shew that if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances Three Beings Minds or Spirits How the Fathers of the Council could be accused of Montanism and Sabellianism for Three intellectual infinite Substances Three Divine Beings Spirits or Minds was the Doctrine chiefly opposed by Sabellius and Montanus as all confess Then by his own Confession his Nominalists are Sabellians and all those Fathers and Councils which Condemned Sabellius were Realists and then we have got the Nicene Council again And on the other hand the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios could as little Censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism if it had not been supposed that in opposing Homoousios they professed to believe Three infinite Substances in number Three Divine Minds and Spirits which is the very Doctrine of the Modern Realists 1. Now in answer to this I observe first That the Historian says all this was an angry mistake as angry men are very apt to mistake and to reproach each other with their own mistakes but neither of these Parties were guilty of the Heresies they were charged with neither the one were Sabellians nor the other Tritheists Now this I think proves the direct contrary to what he concludes from it For if those who were charged with Sabellianism for owning the Homoousion were not Sabellians then it is certain that they did not think that the Nicene Council by the Homoousion or One Substance meant One singular Substance for that is Sabellianism And when those who professed the Homoousion and were no Sabellians charged those who rejected the Homoousion with Tritheism they must believe That the Nicene Homoousion is neither Sabellianism nor Tritheism but the middle between both such a Unity and sameness of Substance as is neither a Sabellian singularity nor a Tritheistick diversity and multiplicity of Substances that is where Father and Son are in their own Persons as distinct from each other infinite Substance and yet but one Substance One of One God of God Light of Light This is the Medium which Socrates tells us they both agreed in and therefore wondered how they should come to differ That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons 2. But if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances that is according to our Sense Three each of which is true and perfect Substance and yet but One Substance How could the Fathers of the Council be accused of Montanism or Sabellianism Had he consulted Dr. Bull he would have learnt the difference between these two but let that pass He Phrases this as if he would insinuate That the Council it self was accused of Sabellianism for this Term which is false But this word Homoousios had sometimes been abused to a Sabellian Sense tho' the Council did not use it in that Sense and some men might still conceal their Heresy under the Covert of an Orthodox Word For this Reason some who professed the Nicene Faith yet disliked the Homoousion and when this Dispute had heated them it was too natural to charge those who from the Authority of the Nicene Council defended the use of that word with such secret Heretical Senses as they thought that word chargeable with And this is the whole Truth of the Case as Socrates tells us and this is a very strange way to prove the Sense of the Council from the groundless accusations of angry and jealous men 3. But how could the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism which the Historian witnesses that it did with great earnestness But Socrates his Historian says not one word of the Council but only of these angry Disputants censuring and accusing each other and both unjustly but he would sain ascribe all this to the Council because it is not Fathers but Councils he relies on of which more presently But there
That all these Names of Father and Son begetting and being begotten c. respect the Oeconomy of the Covenant of Grace the manifestation of the Second Person in the Flesh as in the visible Image of God to execute the Mediatory Office for which purpose he was given by God the Father In which sense to beget is the same with to manifest and to be begotten to be manifested This he says is coincident with the Socinians and resolved into that Fundamental Error That the true and proper generation of the Son though acknowledged ineffable contradicts those natural Ideas which are imprinted in our minds by God and are the foundation of all Assent and all true and certain Knowledge And that we must not think that God has revealed any thing in his Word which cannot and ought not to be examined by men according to these Ideas or that God proposes nothing in his Word to be believed with a certain and firm assent which a man of a sound Reason cannot clearly and distinctly perceive according to these Ideas And now let our Author judge whose Character this is and on which side these Belgic Synods and Chairs have given Judgment SECT IV. The Arguments of the Nominals against a Real Trinity of proper subsisting Persons Examined And the Three First Arguments Answered SEcondly Let us now briefly examine his Reasons which he thinks so demonstrative that the so much talk'd of Mathematical certainty is not superior to them But I have heard some men brag much of Demonstration who have had nothing to say that would amount to a good Probability Now to make my Answer plain and easy I observe first That all his Arguments to prove the Realists to be guilty of Tritheism and to assert Three Gods are levelled against a Trinity of distinct real subsisting intelligent Persons as he himself owns for those invidious terms of Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits and Wills and Understandings signify no more than Three each of which in his own proper Person is Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding So that all these Arguments are against the Catholick Faith of a Real Trinity that is to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity to be Tritheism for that which is not a Real Trinity is no Trinity And therefore these Arguments do no more concern Dr. Sherlock and some few others whom this Author would fain single out from the Body of Catholick Believers by the Name of Realists than all other Christians who heartily Believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost and own Christ Jesus to be the Eternal Son of God and true and perfect God himself Secondly I observe That all these Arguments are no farther considerable than as they directly oppose the Catholick Faith in its full Latitude that is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity The Scripture assures us That there is but one God but teaches withall That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God We believe God concerning himself and his own Nature and Unity because he best knows himself and therefore we believe that there is but one God but not that there is but One Person who is God for there are Three in the Unity of the same Godhead and each of them true and perfect God so that it is not enough for these Demonstrators to prove That there is and can be but One Eternal Divinity or one God for we readily own it and as heartily Believe it as they do but we say withall that this one Divinity subsists distinctly and indivisibly whole and perfect in Three and that therefore there is a Trinity in Unity Nor is it sufficient to prove That in the Trinity of the Realists there are Three each of which is by himself true and perfect God and therefore that there are Three Gods for we own such Three but say that these Three are not Three Gods but subsist inseparably in one Undivided Divinity and therefore that there is a Vnity in Trinity But if they would consute either the Trinity or the Unity they must prove That there are not and cannot be Three real subsisting Persons in One insinite undivided Essence and then they will effectually Confute the Scripture and a Trinity with it or they must prove That though Three such Persons should subsist distinctly in one undivided Essence yet they are not one and the same Divinity or one God and then they will Confute not only Scripture but common Sense That Three which are One are not One or that One Divinity is not One God Having premised this let us now consider his Arguments 1. In the first place he says Three infinite Intellectual Substances or Three Eternal Omnipotent Minds or Spirits or which we have heard is the same thing Three infinite intelligent Persons can never be but One God because 't is evident nay confessed That One such Spirit Mind or Substance is One absolute and most perfect God If the Definition is multiplied the thing defined is also therewith multiplied Seeing then 't is the definition of One God that he is One infinite intellectual spiritual Substance One Eternal Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit or Mind Therefore if we multiply our definition by saying Three Infinite intellectual spiritual Substances c. we thereby multiply the thing we pretended to Define namely GOD which is to say we affirm more Geds as many Gods as such Substances and Spirits Here our Demonstrator stumbles at the very Threshold I grant That an infinite intellectual spiritual Substance an Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent Mind or Spirit is the Definition of One who is God or of a Divine Person but I absolutely deny That this is the Definition of One God that he is One Eternal Omniscient c. Personal Mind or Spirit as he fallaciously and absurdly represents it and in so doing instead of proving what he undertakes he very modestly and humbly begs the Question He is to prove That Three infinite Substances Minds or Spirits are Three Gods His Argument is Because One infinite Substance Mind or Spirit is the Definition of One God and if you multiply the Definition you multiply the thing defined and therefore Three infinite Substances and Minds must be Three Gods but how does he prove that One infinite Substance and Mind personally understood as we understand it is the Definition of One God for this is the thing in dispute which certainly no Trinitarian will grant him and therefore ought to be proved Those who Assert as all Trinitarians do That Three infinite intelligent Persons each of which is infinite Substance Mind or Spirit are but One God will not be so good-natur'd as to grant That One infinite Substance and Mind or One Divine Person is the definition of the One God this would not be to Dispute but to beg the Cause on one side and to give it away on the other But this may be thought perverseness to put men upon proving what is self-evident For Is not an infinite intelligent
Three in Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is an all-perfect and all-sufficient Spirit and yet but one whole undivided Divinity one all-perfect all-sufficient Being these Three are not more than enough not redundant and superfluous in the Divinity and therefore he should have proved that by the same Reason that three absolute independent self-originated Divinities are superfluous and needless three Divine Persons of the same one undivided Divinity are superfluous too Three Divinities three separate self-originated Divine Essences and Natures are superfluous but I hope one Divinity one Divine Nature and Essence is not and if three Divine Persons are Essential to one undivided and inseparable Divinity I hope they are not superfluous neither and this is the Catholick Faith not three Gods or three Divinities but three Persons in one infinite undivided Nature and Essence Three which never did subsist never did never can act a-part and therefore though three are but one all-wise omnipotent Agent and one omnipotent is not more than enough But none of these Imperfections which are the Reasons why Beings of the same Kind are multiplied are found in any one of these all-perfect all-sufficient Spirits Very true but the same one whole perfect Divinity is found in them all and therefore though they are three the Divinity is not multiplied but they are One God and this is all we are to account for those who believe but one God I hope need not give a Reason whether final or declaratory why there are more but if he expects a Reason why there are three living subsisting omniscient omnipotent Persons in this one undivided God-head a final Reason I can give none for I have learnt to give no such Reasons of a necessary and eternal Nature a declaratory Reason as he aclls it I can give because our Saviour has assured us that so it is and has given Command to his Ministers to baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Thirdly And this answers his third Argument that the Works of Creation though they prove the Being of a God yet give us not the least Intimation of more Gods than One We own the Argument against a Plurality of Gods but now for the Application He says this is as direct a Proof against our professing more Infinite and Almighty mighty Spirits Of one such Mind or Spirit the Works of Creation are a clear Demonstration but they shew us not the least Foot-steps or Track of more such Spirits and Minds Or of three such Divine Almighty Person and I know not how they should when as the Realists themselves profess these three are but one essential Wisdom Power and Goodness and therefore but one Maker and Governour of the World But he thinks that if there were more than One such Mind or Spirit or as we say infinite Person who is an infinite and all-mighty Mind that also would have been made known to us either by the Works of Creation or Providence that are visible to all because all are concerned to know it But though there were as we profess to believe three such Divine Persons in the Unity of the God-head yet he knows according to our Principles the Works of Creation could give no such Notice of any distinction of Persons in the God-head because the Father makes all Things by his Word and Spirit by an undivided and undistinguished Wisdom and Power and when these Divine Persons have not distinct and separate Parts in the Creation it is impossible that this visible Frame of Nature should distinguish them and therefore this Distinction cannot be learnt but by Revelation Nor consequently were all Men concerned to know this till God thought fit to reveal it It was sufficient in a meer State of Nature to worship the Maker of the World with an undistinguisht Devotion but the Redemption of Mankind by the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God and by the Sanctification of the Spirit made the Revelation of this Mystery necessary and though the Works of Creation did not visibly distinguish the Divine Persons yet the Work of Redemption does Father Son and Holy Ghost have their distinct Parts and Offices in this Glorious Work and such as prove each of them to be a distinct Person and each Person to be true and perfect God but this Author will not stand the Trial of Revelation for he tells us plainly that the Doctrine of the Trinity for that is all he means by three Minds and Spirits is a Point of so much Importance and so general Concernment that were it true it must have been found where all other necessary Parts of Religion are registered in the Works of Creation or the Methods of Providence or the congenit Notions which are inseparable from our rational Natures Here he speakes out and we thank him for it he hath done with all Revelation excepting where there is the least need of it viz. such Matters as may be known without a Revelation and now he has pulled off his Disguise it is time for all Christians to have done with him He has hitherto concealed himself under the Character of a Nominalist and according to his own Rule he ought to shew us this nominal Trinity registered in the Works of Creation or the Methods of Providence or those congenite Notions which are inseparable from our rational Natures and when he has done this we will shew him a Trinity of real proper subsisting Persons As for what he adds that our Saviour tells us God is not three Spirits but a Spirit it is like all the rest Spirit there as in many other Places signifies the Nature not the Person and therefore these are not contradictory Propositions God is a Spirit and there are Three in the Unity of the God-head each of which is infinite Mind and Spirit SECT VI. The Defence this Author makes for the Nominalists against the Objections of the Realists THis Author having as he thinks sufficiently exposed the Tritheistick Trinity of the Realists proceeds to vindicate the Nominalists from those Exceptions which are made against them I need say little more to this than to explain that Defence he makes for them and leave the Persons concerned to vindicate themselves from his Vindication which seems to me a very scandalous one 1. The first Objection is That the Explication of the Nominalists is a bare-fac'd yielding the long-controverted Question of the Trinity to the Sabellians and Samosatenians and consequently to the Socinians who differ in nothing from Noetus Sabellius and Paul of Samosata they are near of Kin indeed but there is some difference between them The God of the Sabellians and Socinians and the God or pretended Verbal Trinity of the Nominals is perfectly the same the latter have explained away the Trinity to the former The three Divine Persons of the Nominals do all make but one Divine Person of the Socinians and Sabellians This is certainly true as he explains the
or rather he himself in some former Pamphlets has observed very material differences between the Dean's Hypothesis and some of these Learned Men He neither owns the Platonick Inequality of Dr. Cudworth nor the Sabellian Composition and Union of others but asserts Three Real Distinct Coequal Coeternal Persons not in one singular and solitary but in one numerical Nature and Essence But I believe the Dean will heartily thank him for giving him the late Archbishop and Dr. Bull two such Names as will command Reverence and shelter him from the Imputation either of Novelty or Heresy at least as to this Point And it is worth observing from the example of these two great Men at what rate some Persons judge of Men and Doctrines The good Archbishop by his Trinitarian Adversaries is charged with Socinianism and by his Socinian Adversaries with Tritheism and yet he must have very ill luck if he could stumble upon two such Extremes As for Dr. Bull his Learned and Elaborate Defence of the Nicene Faith was printed at Oxford and received with Universal Applause as it highly deserved None of them to this day have charged him with the least Heresy and I believe will not yet venture to do it And yet as this Writer confesses and as every unprejudiced Reader must own the Doctrine of the Defence as to this Point is the very same with the Dean's Hypothesis which these very Persons have condemned as Impious and Heretical So true is it Duo cùm faciunt idem non est idem All that this Socinian intended by bringing Dr. Bull into the Fray was to follow the Blow which the Animadverter and the Oxford Decree had given to a Trinity of distinct proper subsisting living intelligent Persons which is all that Dr. Bull or the Dean assert by their Charge of Tritheism which he hoped would be a sufficient Answer to that otherwise unanswerable Book and together with Dr. Bull would confute all the Fathers at once on whose Authority he so much relies and to whom he perpetually appeals for no Christian must hearken to those men whatever their Authority be did they really as they are unjustly charged preach Three Gods and thus he thinks he has got rid of all Antiquity and of the Tritheistick Trinity with it But still this makes well for the Dean who will be contended to stand and fall with the Catholick Fathers and will never desire to be thought more Orthodox than they That Dr. Bull asserts a Real Substantial Trinity in as high and express Terms as ever the Dean did is so plain throughout his Book that it is needless to prove it All his Arguments suppose this Hypothesis and are unintelligible without it and therefore I shall take notice but of one or two particular Passages whereon as we shall presently see this whole heavy Charge of Tritheism rests He tells us That Hypostasis both before and in and after the Nicene Council was used by the Catholick Fathers for Subsistence or a particular thing which subsists by it self which in intelligent Beings is the same with Person That in this sense they taught Father and Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be two Hypostases and Father Son and Holy Ghost to be three Hypostases And that upon this account Tertullian to assert the Subsistence of the Son against those who denied him to be a distinct Person from the Father affirms him to be Substantiam rem Substantivam Substance and a substantial Being And having by many irrefragable Instances proved this use of the word to be very Catholick he adds That probably this word Hypostasis would still have been used in this sense had not the Arians abused it to countenance their Heresy expounding it to a more general Notion of Essence Nature and Substance and teaching as the Catholick Fathers did That the Father and Son were two Hypostases but thereby meaning that they were of a different Nature and Substance unlike to each other And that in opposition to them it was that the Sardican Council taught Father and Son to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Hypostasis that is as they themselves expresly affirm in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or one Nature and Essence We may find a great deal more to this purpose in the same place in his Vindication of Origen from the Objections of Huetius who charges him with denying the Father and Son to be of the same Essence and Substance or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he opposes those who denied the Holy Ghost to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Substance of his own distinct from the Father and the Son whereas that learned man shews that Origen by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meant no more than Hypostasis in which sense that word is often used among the Ancients and therefore in opposition to those Noetian Hereticks asserts Father Son and Holy Ghost to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three Hypostases as Hypostasis signifies Rem singularem individuam per se subsistentem quae in iis quae vita intellectu gaudent idem est quod persona A singular and individual thing which subsists by it self which in Beings that have Life and Understanding signifies a Person so that Three Hypostases are Three substantial self-subsisting living intelligent Persons And tho' the Phrase of Three Minds Three Spirits Three Substances ought to be used very cautiously and not without great necessity when applied to the Holy Trinity for fear of the Arian Notion of Three Substances yet it is evident how far this learned man is from thinking such Expressions to be Impious and Heretical He expounds Three Hypostases to the very same Sense and elsewhere quotes that passage of St. Hilary concerning the Synod at Antioch as truly Catholick where in opposition to the Sabellians they assert the Divine Persons in the Trinity to be tria in substantia or tres substantias three in Substance or three Substances Thus when Petavius accuses Methodius for calling Father and Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two Creating and Operative Powers he answers That Father and Son might with less offence and better reason be called Two Powers by Methodius than Two Natures and Substances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called by other Fathers who yet were always accounted Catholick but such expressions as these must be understood only personally and then they are Orthodox So that according to this learned man Two Personal Natures Substances and Powers are Catholick Expressions and this is the very account which Dr. Sherlock in his Defence if he were the Author of it gives of Three Minds and Spirits that he understood it personally for Three Divine intelligent Persons and therefore is as Orthodox in these very Expressions as Dr. Bull and those Catholick Fathers to whom he appeals In another place speaking of some Modern Divines who allow the Son to be of the Father considered as a Son
true and proper Personality of the Son and Holy Spirit were very absurd and guilty of Heinous Nonsense in saying That the Son is Eternally generated and the Spirit Eternally proceeds These are Nice Speculations which the Arian Controversy engaged them in but the Nicene Fathers contented themselves to affirm no more concerning the Eternal Generation than that the Son was begotten of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God And this Notion of an Eternal Generation our Author has no Objection against and we do not think our selves bound to answer for all the Subtilties either of the Fathers or Schools nor to determine every Curious Question which Perverse and Heretical Wits can start concerning the Divine Generation and Procession which is above the Comprehension of Angelical Minds and which we know no more of but that the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds And yet this Reasoning is very absurd when applied to an Eternal and immutable Nature Things which have a beginning which are made which are successively and gradually perfected by Art are incompleat and unfinish'd while they are a-making and if they are always a-making or always incompleat but a Generation or Procession without a Beginning and without Succession must always be perfect and always the same if it be at all here is no new Production no making any thing no transient Action in which sence the Catholick Fathers denied the Divine Generation to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Action but only an Essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitude relation between Father and Son who both perfectly and eternally subsist and co-exist with each other but so that the Son is of the Father and the Holy Spirit of Father and Son Thus they were without any Beginning and thus they always are and this is all they meant by an Eternal Generation and Procession and this the Immutability of the Divine Nature forc'd them to own for though external Acts and Relations make no Change in the Divine Nature yet what is ad intrà does and therefore could we conceive any distinguishable moments in Eternal Duration when God was no Father when he begot a Son and when he ceased to beget this would make an internal Change in the Divine Nature it self which is inconsistent with perfect Immutability But the Son always was and is of the Father and this is his Eternal Generation and the Holy Spirit always was and is of Father and Son and this is his Eternal Procession and thus the Divine Essence always was and is the same a Trinity in Unity and this is the perfect Immutability of God And yet his Philosophy is very absurd when he argues from an Eternal Generation and Procession that therefore the Son and Holy Spirit must be incompleat and unfinish'd for this will not be granted him even in created Nature much less in the Divinity They are no mean Philosophers who tell us that the World may very properly be said to be perpetually created that what we call Preservation or upholding all things in being is the very same Act and Power which at first gave Being to them and such a permanent Act is Creation still though no new Production of any thing But these Men would scorn any one who should hence conclude that there is no compleat or finish'd Substance no really subsisting substantial World Much more absurd is it to conclude this of an Eternal Generation which produces nothing new nothing that ever began to be and is the same that ever it was without any Succession And he defends the Nominalists just as wisely and philosophically as he opposes the Realists as if his only design were to expose both He says this Eternal Generation proves the Son and Holy Spirit to be only immanent Acts in God reflex Wisdom or the Wisdom that resulteth from Original Minds Eternal Contemplation and Knowledge of the Divine Nature and Perfections and the everlasting Spiration of Love that must proceed from the Original and reflex Wisdom of the Deity And here we have just such a Trinity in the God-head as there is in every particular Man his Mind and the immanent Acts of Wisdom or Reason and Love which all Learned Men know to be one kind of Sabellianism That the Son is the Wisdom and Power of God and that the peculiar Character of the Holy Spirit is Love is the language both of Scripture and Fathers but not as immanent Acts but the living subsisting Wisdom of the Father and living subsisting Love eternal and infinite Persons co-eternal and co-equal with the Father But it is a new Language unknown to Scriptures and Fathers to call an immanent Act of Wisdom a Son and the Minds producing such an Act its generating or begetting a Son and to call such an immanent Act in God the Son of God and God by which Rule every Thought or Act of Reason in any Man is Man and the Son of that Man whose Thought and Act it is And it as new Philosophy to talk of immanent Acts in God for there can be no immanent Acts but where there are Powers and Faculties which is the Imperfection of the Creature-State not incident to the perfect Simplicity of the Divine Nature But besides this what does he mean by the Eternal Generation and Spiration of an immanent Act an immanent Act according to all the Accounts I ever met with of it and as every Man may feel in himself is not an abiding as he calls it but a transient Act it has no permanent stable Nature no Subsistence of its own but vanishes and dies assoon as generated to speak in his language which is a necessary Reason to remove all such immanent Acts from God in whom there is nothing vanishing nothing successive but if Men will attribute immanent Acts to God reflex Wisdom as opposed to a living subsisting personal Wisdom they must speak of them according to the known Nature of such Acts and then an Eternal Generation of such an immanent Act which vanishes assoon as generated can signifie no more than an eternal successive Repetition which is a Contradiction of the Acts of reflex Wisdom that as one vanishes another succeeds that though God has always this reflex Wisdom yet he has not always the same Act of reflex Wisdom but produces it a-new every moment which he calls an Eternal Generation just as it is with Men who may have the same Thought for kind some time together but yet every moment it is new produced To talk of such an Eternal Son as this and such an Eternal Generation is Heresie in Philosophy and in common sense as well as in Christianity and it would be loss of time to expose it I must no more omit than he another surprizing Argument whereby he proves that the Catholick Church did believe that the second Person is the reflex Wisdom of God and the Third Divine Love because for this reason as he tells us this
he can do either of these we will very tamely and humbly follow his Chariot in the mean time for I believe this will take up some time I will shew him the Difference between three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God and three Gods 1. First then one God in the Socinian Notion is one infinite Mind and Spirit one Eternal Divinity in one only Person So one Person and one Divinity that no other Person communicates with it in the same Divinity in the same one eternal Essence and Substance Now according to this Notion of one God three Gods are three such eternal Minds Substances Divinities each of which in his own Person has a whole perfect undivided Essence and Divinity which is not common to any other Person So that three Gods are three absolute Substances Essences Divinities which have no Essential Relation to or Communication with each other There can be no other Notion of three Gods if as this Author and all the Anti-Trinitarians assert One God is One absolute Divinity in One Person for then three Gods must be three absolute Divinities in three Persons Now every one sees what a vast difference there is between three such Gods and the Catholick Faith of a Trinity of Person in the Unity of the Divine Essence Why you 'll say is not every Person in the Trinity by himself in his own Person true and perfect God Yes most certainly but he is not one absolute separate Divinity he has not a Divinity so peculiarly his own that no other Person communicates in it there is but One undivided Divinity in all Three and therefore there is a Trinity in Unity But is not each Person in the Trinity infinite Mind Spirit Substance Nay do not some Realists venture to call them three Minds Spirits Substances and what are such Three but three Gods if One infinite Mind and Spirit be one God I answer An infinite Mind and Spirit is certainly true and perfect God but one Personal infinite Mind and Spirit is not the One God so as to exclude all other Persons unless he have one absolute separate Divinity also so proper and peculiar to himself that no other Person does or can communicate in it for if more Persons than One can perfectly communicate in the same One Divinity there must be more Divine Persons than One and each of them perfect God but neither of them the One God in Exclusion of the other Persons but all of them the One God as the One Divinity This I think the Socinians will grant That One Divinity is but One God and that One God is One absolute Divinity and the Reason why they assert the One God to be but One Person is because they think it impossible that the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly and perfectly in Three but then before they had charged the Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism they should have remembred that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their One Person is whom they call the One God and therefore though three such Persons three such Minds and Substances as their One Person and One Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to One single Person would be Three Gods this does not prove that Three such Persons as the Catholick Church owns in the Ever-blessed Trinity who are all of the same One Substance and but One Divinity must therefore be three Gods also 2. Three such Persons as these who are three Gods our Author and every one else who understands any thing of these Matters must acknowledge to be three self-originated Persons for God in the full and adequate Notion of one God is a self-originated Being and those who assert that the One God is but One Person make him a self-originated Person now it is evident that in this Sense the three Persons in the Christian Trinity are not three God's for they are not three self-originated Persons The Father alone is un-begotten or self-originated but the Son is begotten of his Father's Substance and the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from Father and Son so that here is but one self-originated Person with his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit And let this Author try to make three Gods of three two of which are not self-originated Persons They might more plausibly dispute against the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit from this Topick that they are not self-originated Persons than prove them to be a second and third God by their perfect Communication in a self-originated Nature which is the Person of the Father For though a perfect Communication of the Divine Nature makes a true Divine Person who is true and perfect God yet no Person can be the One God who is not self-originated and a self-originated Person who is a Father cannot be the One God so as to exclude his Son who is of the same Nature and Substance with him nor the Holy Spirit who by an Eternal Procession from Father and Son perfectly communicates in the same Eternal Nature 3. Three such Persons as in a strict and proper Notion are three Gods must be three separate Persons who have not only distinct but separate Natures and Substances and have no internal Union or Communication with each other and therefore are in a proper Notion three Principles three Agents three Wills three Lives three Omnipotents c. who always act a-part and can never concur as one Agent in any one Action cannot make and govern the same World have no Relation to each other no Order no Union as it is impossible three absolute independent Divinities should But the Catholick Faith concerning the three Divine Persons in the Trinity is directly contrary to this that as Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Substance One Divinity so they are so perfectly in each other that they have but one Essential Will Omnipotence Omniscience are but one Agent one Creatour and Governour of the World Let this Author or any other Adversaries talk what they please of the Absurdity Nonsence Contradiction of all this which is not our present dispute I stand to it that they can never make Tritheism of it for the three Divine Persons in the Trinity though each of them be by himself true and perfect God yet as they are owned by the Catholick Church and as we have now explain'd it are not three such Persons as they themselves must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods What I have now discoursed will help us to give a plain and short Answer to those Fallacies whereby such disinterested Persons as this Authour charge the Catholick Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism for they manifestly equivocate both in the Notion of one God and of one Person By One God they understand one who is true and perfect God and every one who is true and perfect God is one and now instead of all other Demonstrations they only desire you to number the Persons of