and by himself as the Athanasian Creed speaks a most perfect God are but one God is so monstrous a Paradox that we might justly wonder such a contradictory and impossible Doctrine being unhappily got abroad was not immediately hissed again into the Hole from whence the Chimera first sallied did we not know that the Propagation and Conservation of this Affront to common Sense and to all the Principles of Knowledg and Silence was the Work and Effect of such penal Laws as would equally have restored the whole Body and System of Paganism While the Question about the Trinity was disputed only by Argument and Authorities of Holy Scripture the Proverb was all the World is against Athanasius and Athanasius is against all the World And in Constantinople it self the then capital City of the whole Roman Empire the Trinitarian Conventicle was so thin that it had more Benches than Men to fit on them and their Preacher was forced to comfort his almost empty Fold with such Reflections as these The Unitaries says he have the Churches but we we Trinitarians are the Temples of God they have the People but the Angels are with us my Flock indeed is little I easily tell all my Sheep but they hear my Voice they follow me and will not follow Strangers Greg. Nazianz. Serm. 35. against the Arians But the Empire falling at length to a Prince who was a bigotted Trinitarian he applied the Imperial Authority and the Awe of his Armies which comfilied for the most part of Souldiers and Officers who had been born bred and continued Pagans to establish Trinitarianism by Terrors and Force He 't was Theodosius and his Successors began with taking the Churches 〈◊〉 in all Unitarians by military Force then they were prohibited to hold their Assemblies Conventicles they were now called within the Preciucts of Cities or Towns Next he called general Councils but admitted none to Session or Vote but Trinitarians to whose Creeds and Canons all that stood for any the very least Church-Preferment must subscribe before they were admitted to their Places Afterwards all Disputes against the Decisions of these Councils were forbid to all without Exception to Churchmen and military Officers on pain of Deposition to Lay-men if they were free under the Penalty of Banishment to Servants under pain of corporal Chastisement and that too saith the Law after the severest manner They proceeded farther they required all Persons to deliver up all Heretical Books that they might be publickly burnt denouncing horrible Punishments to such as should presume to hide or conceal any such Books While the Civil Power acted his Part in this outragious manner the Ecclesiasticks were as industrious another way the Underlings of them sought the Favour of their Superiours by turning Informers against the Hereticks and their Assemblies others that could read and write took upon them the corrupting or as they then spoke the correcting the Bibles adding and leaving out as themselves pleased Nor would they have left to us any Remain of genuine Christianity or suffer'd a single Unitarian to escape their Barbarities but that their Divisions concerning their own Doctrine their own Disputes de Asini umbrâ diverted often their Rage and Treachery from the Scriptures and the Unitaries to the Members of their own Party and Communion Dares Dr. Bull or any other deny any thing of this when they do this and much more shall be proved upon them from the most allowed of their own Historians and from the Codes which contain the Imperial Constitutions We may say then that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion as the Law of the Bizantine or Constantinopolitan Emperors it was first introduced by military Force then confirmed by Edicts of the Arbitrary Emperors of Constantinople Well but when Folly and Impiety are once establish'd by Law and are the only way to Preferment there will never want a great Number who will court the Favour of the Government by endeavouring to represent the current Doctrine of the Times as possible nay as reasonable and agreeable to Scripture and from hence came the Explications of the Trinity by the Parasites of those times whom now in regard of their Antiquity we call the Fathers These Explications were various and contrary to one another Dr. Bull has made choice of the most tolerable and passable Accounts given by the Fathers and tho he has patched up one Hypothesis or Explication out of many and divers I will be content to take it as he gives it He represents it as the ordinary Explication of all the Fathers as well the Ante-nicene as Post-nicene let us see what it is and then make our Reflections upon it They said there are three infinite Persons known by the Names of Father Son and Holy Spirit each of which has all Divine Perfections and in their highest Degree They are so many distinct tho not divided or separated Substances and Essences they are as much three Spirits as they are three Substances and Persons each has his own proper and personal distinct Understanding Will and Almighty Energy It is true that they said also that the three Divine Persons are consubstantial or have the same Substance but they did not mean thereby the self-same Substance or the same Substance in Number but the same for Kind and Properties that is their Substances are alike Divine Immortal and Unchangable They are consubstantial to one another as Stars are consubstantial to Stars that is their Substances tho divers in Number have the same Properties and Qualities In short the Father Son and Spirit are distinct intellectual Substances and are consubstantial or of the same Substance as their Substances or Essences are alike infinite immutable and immortal they are also and therefore distinct Beings and because they are intellectual and spiritual they are three Minds and three Spirits as much as they are three Persons and Substances Lastly because each has all possible real Perfections therefore each of them is true God I dare to affirm before-hand that Dr. Bull is so well satisfied that this is the Notion that the Fathers had of the Trinity that he will own it for theirs and his and will not disingenuously deny that he intended this Explication or Account of the Trinity in the several Chapters of his Defence of the Nicene Faith where he speaks either designedly or incidentally of this Point And his Book has given him such a Reputation all over Europe even in the Catholick Countries and his Citations out of the Fathers so plainly evince that this was their Sense that I believe no Trinitarian will be so rash or hardy as to call him Heretick or to attack or write against him as such tho others of less Esteem are now loudly challenged of Heresy for this very Explication In very deed it is the Doctrine of the Post-nicene Fathers and of all the real Trinitarians and since the Revival of these Controversies divers learned Writers by Name Dr. Cudworth the late
Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Glocester Dr. Sherlock Mr. How and others imbrace this Notion of the Trinity 'T is not unlikely that by degrees it will exclude the Sabellian Nominal Trinity of the Schools and not only exclude it but be the Occasion that it shall be declared Heretical 'T is true that more commonly in Universities they go the way of the Schools but the scholastick Trinity implies so many Follies and is so certainly nothing else but a disguised Sabellianism that the real Trinitarians may probably enough carry their Point against the Nominals if the Difference between them breaking out into a Contention shall fall into the Hands of able Managers We have seen how the Fathers understood the Trinity but the Difficulty is still behind how did they make out the Unity of God For if there are three spiritual intellectual Substances three infinite Spirits three eternal all-knowing and all-powerful Minds Three each of which is a perfect God do we not lose the Unity of God the principal Article of revealed Religion and the grand Design of both the Testaments while we believe and affirm three such Persons Dr. Bull here offers his Hand at a dead lift he tells us the Fathers easily came off from this Exception or Doubt by saying 1. The Son and Spirit had their Original their Being and Godhead from the Father therefore having proceeded from him as their Principle and Fountain they are not distinct Gods from him but one God with him The Fathers granted that were not the Son and Spirit originated from the Father the three Divine Persons being so many several Principles would also be so many Gods but because the Son and Spirit are not as the Father self-originated or unoriginated but from the Father therefore they are rightly said to be one God with him Every one sees that there lies this Exception against this Account of the Unity of God If to be originated from the Father will make the Persons so originated to be one God with him or one with him and with one another it follows that not only the Son and Holy Spirit but Angels also and Men nay the whole Creation the very vilest Parts of it shall be one God with the Father and with the pretended Trinity and one with one another because they are all originated from the Father Therefore the Fathers said 2. Bare Origination from the Father will not constitute the Persons so originated one God or one with him or with one another unless they have the same Substance with the Father that is as has been said the same for Kind and Properties And this Confideration they said excludes all Creatures from being one God or one with the Father or the blessed Trinity for created Substances are finite subject to Change and Accidents In a word they are wholly unlike to the Divine Substance They foresaw that it would be again objected here If to be originated from another who is of the same kind with the Persons so originated from him will make them all to be one for Instance will make the Son and Spirit to be truly one and one God with the Father from whom they are originated then two Sons or a Son and Grandson because they are originated from the same Father and are of the same kind with him shall also be one with him they shall not be three Men but one Man as Father Son and Holy Spirit are not three Gods but one God To wind themselves from this most certain and solid Reasoning the Fathers devised a third Elusion as wise as either of the two former they said that 3. Origination of two Persons from a first Person tho they are all of the same kind will not make them one or one God except as it most luckily happens between the three Divine Persons the originated Persons are propagated interiori productione that is are generated by an internal Production so that they are always and inseparably in the Person that produced them And this at length is the Fathers whole Explication of a Trinity in Unity They said in short three distinct Divine Persons Substances Spirits each of which is singly and by himself a perfect God are notwithstanding but one God because the second and third Persons are originated from the first and are of the same Kind and Properties with him and are generated or propagated by an internal Production so that they inseparably and always remain in the Father and he in them This in effect is to say that naturally properly and truly speaking there are three Gods or there are three Gods in Number but in regard that God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are of the same kind with God the Father are originated from him and are eternally and inseparably in him they may in a Catachrestical improper and respective Sense all be called one God I will examine very particularly the whole Hypothesis of these Fathers their Trinity of Substances Minds and Spirits and their Explication now laid down how three such Persons and Divine Minds can be but one God Only for preventing if it may be future Cavils I would first take notice that this Explication of the Unity of God or how three Persons can be but one God by the Fathers and Dr. Bull evidently supposes that they held the three Divine Persons are so many distinct Substances Minds and Spirits as well as distinct Persons I think 't is sufficient to prove that the Fathers held the three Persons are so many distinct Spirits and Minds in that they so certainly affirmed them to be distinct spiritual Substances if the three Divine Persons are three distinct Substances all Men the very nominal Trinitarians themselves will grant that they are distinct Minds and Spirits Dr. Bull hath incontestably proved by a great Number of Quotations and might have proved by a great many more that by consubstantial or of the same Substance the Fathers meant not the same Substance in Number but the same in Properties As Stars are consubstantial to Stars and the Bodies of Men to the Bodies of Beasts because they are Substances of the same kind that is corporeal and of the same Properties for all Stars are lucid and the Bodies of Men and Beasts are organized and subject to Alteration So are the three Divine Persons consubstantial being of the same kind that is to say spiritual and having the same Properties namely Eternity Immutability Omnipresence and the other Divine Attributes I will undertake for it that none of the Nominal Trinitarians as angry as some of them are will ever attempt to confute Dr. Bull 's first Chapter of his second Section where he gives this Account of the word Consubstantial out of the Fathers But if the Divine Persons are therefore Consubstantial because they are of like kind and have the same Properties their Substance is not the same in Number but only as Dr. Bull speaks the same in Nature And if this be true as
incontestably it is that the Fathers believed the three Divine Persons to be so many distinct spiritual Substances in Number it will be controverted by no Body that they are also in the Judgment of the Fathers distinct Minds and Spirits Secondly But as I said the before-mentioned Explications of the Unity of God or how the three Divine Persons are yet but one God are another and an invincible Declaration that they held the said Persons are three Minds Spirits and Substances If the Fathers had held that the three Persons are but one only numerical Substance one infinite Spirit one omniscient Mind and Energy and that they are called Persons only because the one numerical Substance subsists in three Modes that is after three several manners I say if this had been the Opinion of the Fathers the Question would not have been how the three Persons can be but one God but how they can be called Hypostases or Persons As at this day no Man is so foolish as to charge the Nominal Trinitarians with Tritheism or holding three Gods but only with Gotham Philosophy and Divinity in calling Modes or a Substance subsisting after three manners Persons when it is so obvious that Modes are not Persons but certain Affections and accidental Denominations belonging to Persons The Fathers would never have troubled themselves nor would any ever have objected it to them or demanded it of them how they could say there is but one God if the three Persons by them so called were but one numerical Substance subsisting three manner of ways or in three relative Modes all the Question as I said would have been what they meant by this Gibberish subsisting in three Modes or three manner of ways What Occasion was there for the Fathers to tell us the three Divine Persons may be called one God because the Son and Spirit are originated from the Father are like to him in all Divine Properties and subsist in him what need I say was there of these Excuses or how are they possibly applicable to the three Divine Persons if the Persons were not taken to be so many Spirits Minds and Substances but only a threefold manner of Subsistence of the same numerical Substance Mind and Spirit I omit for the present a great deal that might be farther said on this Subject because when the Nominal Trinitarians have called till they are hoarse weary and asham'd to Universities and Bishops to espouse their Cause and to censure the real Trinitarians after all the very Names by which the three Divine Persons are called a Father his Son an Holy Spirit distinct from both do so manifestly imply those Persons to be distinct Beings Substances Minds and Spirits and not Modes or Relations only of the self same numerical Being and Spirit that it will always be carried against them by the Majority of considering Divines All their Appeals notwithstanding it will not be long e're they are told by their Superiors in the Church that 't is expedient for them to be quiet left themselves be censured as Sabellians or as we now speak Unitarians To sum up all I say the Fathers beld that the three Divine Persons are three distinct spiritual intellectual Substances three Minds three Spirits this appears say I farther by their Explications of the word Consubstantial by their Answers to this Question how three such Persons can be but one God and by the Terms which they use concerning the three Persons a Father his Son a Spirit distinct from both These things being I suppose sufficiently establish'd we may rely on it that Dr. Bull will not deny that I have truly reported what the Fathers the Post-nicene Fathers say I but Dr. Bull says all the Fathers held both concerning the three Divine Persons and how we must understand them to be but one God Therefore now I will examine his whole Hypothesis it hath these Parts 1. There are three Divine Hypostases or intellectual Substances three ommscient almighty Minds and Spirits each of these has all Divine Perfections and is singly and by himself a most compleat and perfect God 2. Yet doth not this contradict that most great and indisputable Truth visible in the Works of Creation and ascertained by Revelation of holy Scripture that there is but one God because of the three Divine Hypostases and Spirits before described the second and third are originated from the first have the same Nature and Properties that he has and are propagated from him by an internal Production so that they are always inseparably in him and he in them by a mutual Pervasion Immeation or Penetration There is no necessity that I should concern my self against the first of these Propositions for if I disprove the second the first will fall of it self if three Hypostases or Spirits cannot be one God this sort of Trinitarians must either give up their three distinct Substances their three Minds and Spirits or openly profess that they believe three Gods Notwithstanding it will not be amiss or besides our Purpose if we show these Gentlemen that whatever Arguments militate against a Plurality of Gods prove also no less effectually and directly that there can be but one Divine intellectual Substance but one infinite Spirit and Mind How do Philosophers and Divines establish the Unity of God or that there neither is nor can be more than one God They say all Plurality of Beings of the same kind and sort is from the Imbecillity Weakness and Unsufficiency in some respect or other of those Beings for if a Being be absolutely perfect infinite in all Perfections all-sufficient for it self and for the Beings to which it relates there is no need that it should be multiplied or be more than one We see say they that all Nature has nothing that is superfluous nothing in vain where-ever one of the sort is sufficient as one Sun and such like the Individuals of that kind never proceed beyond Unity But the Divine Nature as the most excellent of all will much more exclude all Multiplicity more Infinites more All sufficients would be such an impertinent Repetition so altogether vain and to no purpose that we cannot think of it without immediately rejecting it This is the first Argument used by Philosophers to prove the Unity of God no Body will contest it that it equally proves but one infinite Spirit one all-sufficient Mind one absolutely perfect Being They say again it implies a Contradiction that there should be more than one all-sufficient God Mind or Spirit because such a Supposition pretends to make an infinite Addition of the same kind to what is already infinite and to increase All-sufficiency And if there are more Gods or more Minds and Spirits infinite in their Perfections either they are all of them unoriginated or one only is unoriginated and the rest are derived from him by Generation or Creation The Trinitarians with whom we have now to do answer that only one the Father is unoriginated the other Persons
them to be one God because mere Contact is only a juxta-Position not a real Vnion All Philosophers but only the Platonists who understand not Physicks or the Nature of things will assent to this Reasoning and I doubt not it was one of the Causes why the Schoolmen who were learned Philosophers unanimously agreed that three distinct Divine Substances are most certainly three Gods and they the Divines of the Schools have been followed by all the Divinity-Chairs in Christendom from about the Year 1200 to this present time I do not believe there is a Chair in Christendom that will own more than one Divine Substance or will admit that three Divine Substances can be one God Dr. Bull will not approve his Hypothesis to the Chairs or to Universities or Schools of Learning I am of opinion however that so arrogant a Man as Dr. Bull will not let go his Hypothesis it being too the Doctrine of the Fathers and of a great many learned Men who treat of these Questions as Divines not as Philosophers and Dr. Bull having acquired so great a Reputation all over Europe by his Book the Chairs and Nominal Trinitarians will not it may be adventure to attack him But if after all Dr. Bull fearing the Numbers and Reputation of the Nominal Trinitarians will deny his Hypothesis and in hopes to compound with them pretend that it differs not or not materially from the Doctrine of the Schools besides that all discerning and ingenuous Men will laugh at his Pusilanimity I shall not desire an easier Task than to prove from his own Book and from innumerable Quotations of the Fathers that both they and he hold three distinct Divine Substances and consequently so many Minds and Spirits both which are rejected as Heretical nay as Tritheistical by the Schools and their Followers I will conclude this first Part of my Answer with observing that tho Dr. Bull says here that the Fathers believed the three Divine Persons are one God because the second and third are derived from the first have like Substances and Properties with him and all of them do mutually immeate one another yet this is not the Explication of any particular Father much less of all of them but an Hypothesis that Dr. Bull has pieced up from the Writings of divers Fathers The Fathers explained the Unity in Trinity each of them his own way One said the three Persons are one God because they are in one another by mutual Love and Agreement Another said they are one God because of the Subordination and perfect Subjection of the second and third Persons to him who is the first God Another they are one God because the Son and Spirit are propagated from the Father Another because they unanimously govern the World that is they are one God because they are one Monarchy and thereby as it were one Ruler Some of them said three Divine Persons and three infinite Spirits are God and the Godhead in such Sense as all Men are called Man or Mankind As three golden Coins of the same Emperor are called Aurum Gold not Aura Golds in the Plural So in proper speaking three Divine Persons because like three Men or three golden Coins they are consubstantial that is have the same specifick Substances and Properties they are in proper speaking to be called God not Gods This was a very ridiculous Reasoning contrary both to Grammar and Philosophy and yet it was the Explication of some of the most learned of the Post-Nicene Fathers Briefly these two things I affirm That Dr. Bull 's Explication of the Unity of God is indeed taken out of some of the Fathers but it was not as 't is laid down by him the particular Explication given by any one of them much less the agreed and common Explication of all of them but part of it is from some other Parts of it from other Fathers Secondly the Fathers advanced several other Explications on which some of them insisted more and rather than on any part of Mr. Bull 's The Ante-Nicens chiefly urged the Unity of Love or else of Monarchy the most learned but least judicious of the Post-Nicens served themselves of the pretended Consubstantiality or that the three Persons having like Substances and Properties are therefore one God as all Men or Mankind are called Homo and as three or more golden Coins are called Aurum Gold never Aura Golds. But of these things I shall speak fully in the Conclusion of the third Part of this Answer to Dr. Bull. The CONCLVSION I Have said what I intended in this first Part. In the Second I will report the Doctrine of the following Fathers concerning the Trinity and the Person of our blessed Saviour in their own Words By the following Fathers I mean those Fathers who flourished from about the Year 150 to the Nicene Council or the Year 325. In the last Part I shall discover Dr. Bull 's Frauds and Mistakes detect his Sophistries and Elusions and confront his Misrepresentation of the Fathers with the Confessions and Judgment of the Criticks who have either published or commented on the Writings of the Fathers Here and now it remains only that I inform the Reader who hath not seen Dr. Bull 's Books why I have answer'd so indifferently and without any particular Deference to the Merit of his Learning and Abilities for it cannot be denied that this Gentleman is a dextrous Sophister or that he has read the principal Fathers with a more than ordinary Application Diligence and Observation Dr. Bull has written two Books his Defence of the Nicene Faith and Judgment of the Catholick Church designedly and directly against the Unitarians whether they be Arians or Socinians In the first of these he attacks more particularly Chr. Sandius a very learned Arian and the Author of Irenicum Irenicorum who was Dr. Zwicker M. D. a Socinian Dr. Zwicker is complemented by Dr. Bull with such Flowers as these Bipedum ineptissimus the greatest Fop in Nature Omnium odio qui veritatem candorem amant dignus deserving the Hatred of all Lovers of Truth and Sincerity Of Sandius he saith He hath ship-wrack'd his Conscience as well as his Faith a Trifler a mere empty Pretender He adds at p. 331. He hath only transcribed the Author of Iren. Irenicorum and in one Place he prays for Sandius as one that is mad This and such as this is Dr. Bull 's constant Language concerning these two very learned Men nor doth he ever reply to them without pretending an absolute and incontestable Victory and casting some most unworthy Scorn or other upon them by occasion of his supposed Advantage He never calls the Arians by any other Name but Ariomanitae the mad Arians and Socinianism is always with him the Atheistical Heresy I do not remember that he ever calls our Doctrine by a better Name In short he hath expressed such a Malevolence and hath so notoriously and infamously broke the Cartel of Honour and Civility