or what is the same to be distinguished by was is and shall be seeing 't is confessed on all hands that he carrieth all Perfections into every Succession of his Duration But is it not a Scandal that some Unitarians of foreign Parts have denied the Spirituality or Incorporeity of God his Omnipresence and Omniscience saying and contending for it that he is a Body with such Configuration of Parts as Men have consequently that he is in Heaven inspecting indeed and governing all things but by the ministry of the several Orders of Angels and that he doth not foresee contingent Events but only such Events as are necessarily not arbitrarily produced by their Causes Doubtless but no more a scandal to the Unitarians than to their Opposers for they are Errors which some of the Fathers even the most antient learned and pious of 'em have defended as Truths Nay it should seem they were some time the prevaling Opinions in some places namely when the Anthropomorphite Doctrine was so zealously espoused that the Hermits and Cenobites would not indure their Bishops if they but suspected 'em of Origen's Doctrine that God is a Spirit without Parts or Passions And in denying the Spirituality and Omnipresence of God they must needs be understood not to believe his certain and absolute Prescience of contingent Events About the year 400 when almost every body concerned themselves in condemning and departing as far as possible from the opinions of Origen the Anthropomorphite Doctrine and its consequences were the Standard Orthodoxy of many places and were Heresy no where Even St. John Chrysostom at Constantinople hardly defended the Fratres Longi from the Prosecutions of Theophilus Archbishop and Patriarch of Alexandria who was a profest Anthropomorphite and had expelled the Fratres Longi for adhering to Origen's Doctrine of the Spirituality and Omnipresence of God But as I said we not only dislike but utterly reject the dangerous Doctrine That God hath a Body is like to Man toge-with its consequences That he is neither Omnipresent nor Omniscient It may as well be said he is not at all nay this latter tho the Anthropornorphites see it not seems to be implied and included in the former But we condemn not the Schechina or glorious Appearance of God in Heaven which many Learned Men hold nor the spiritual Body of Christ III. I believe farther concerning God That there is no distinction of Persons or Subsistences in God And that the Son and Holy Ghost are not God The former of them being only a Man the latter no other than the Power or Operation of God That there was nothing of Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that therefore he could not make satisfaction for the Sins of the World But Mr. Edwards too much mistakes The question is not at all concerning three Persons or three Subsistences in God but whether there are three infinite Subsistences three eternal Minds and Spirits We deny the latter with the whole Catholick Church against the Tritheists We never questioned the former Persons or Subsistences but only as Persons are used or taken for Spirits Minds and Beings I shall explain this matter however more fully in my Answer to the Bishops of Worcester Sarum and Chichester annexed to this Agreement or any one may see what is our sense in the Judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock By a Divine of the Church of England What that Author makes to be the Doctrine of the Nominals and of the Church concerning the Blessed Trinity the Divinity of our Saviour and the Satisfaction is and ever was the belief of the Unitarians as well as of the Catholick Church But we say the Lord Christ is only a Man and the Holy Spirit only the Power of God No we say our Lord Christ is God and Man He is Man in respect of his reasonable Soul and human Body God in respect of God in him Or more scholastically in respect of the Hypostatical or Personal Union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity By which the Catholick Church means and we mean the Divinity was not only occasionally assisting to but was and is always in Christ illuminating conducting and actuating him More than this is the Heresy of Entyches and less we never held tho we confess that careless and less accurate Expressions may have been used by both Parties of which neither ought to take advantage against the other when it appears there is no heterodox Intention That by the Spirit of God is sometimes meant in Holy Scripture the Power of God cannot be denied but concerning the Three Divine Persons we believe as the Catholick Church believes That they are relative Subsistences internal Relations of the Deity to it self Or as the Schools after St. Austin explain this Original unbegotten Wisdom or Mind reflex or begotten Wisdom called in Holy Scripture the Logos and the eternal spiration of Divine Love But do you not say There was no Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that he could riot make satisfaction for our Sins He may for our parts be Anathema that teaches or believes that Doctrine We believe that the Lord Christ by what he did and what he suffered was by the gracious acceptance of God a true and perfect Propitiation for Sinners that repent and turn to the good ways IV. In the next Article he makes us to believe a great many things as that The first Man was not created in a state of Vprightness As if it were possible that men in their right senses should think the first Man was created a Sinner That By his Fall Adam did not lose Righteousness and Holiness which are part of the Image of God As who should say that by being a Sinner he did not sin or become unlike to God That Adam's Posterity have received no hurt nor stain by his Apostacy As if you should say that neither his bad Example nor the Curse that made the Earth so much less fruitful was any hurt and that the Rebellion of an Ancestor no not against God is not any blot in his Family I shall grow quite out of conceit with these Unitarians if they say many more such weak things But in very deed I imagine Mr. Edwards had a mind to have charged 'em more home when he does we shall consider what to answer I am of opinion that in this part of the Article he was somewhat ashamed of his own Doctrine and that he feared to make himself and Party ridiculous by a clear and distinct Representation of their opinion That Mankind notwithstanding Adam's fall have by nature an ability to desire and embrace all spiritual Good and to avoid all that is sinful or vitious They are bold Britains What embrace all the Gospel-precepts by mere nature when 't is not possible so much as to know divers of them but by Revelation Divine And can they avoid too all that is vitious at all times
all our Misfortunes the book is wrote in a reasonable and pacific manner the only book of a great many so written by this Author I will present the Reader with the Doctrine of this remarkable and useful Book under distinct heads that every one may see he hath entirely chang'd his opinions that were censured by the Oxford Heads and refuted by the Vnitarians First concerning God what is the definition of God and of what sort is the Divine Vnity He answers P. 25. This is the notion that all mankind have of one God one infinite eternal Being or Nature P. 35. God is an eternal infinite Mind So all as well Christians as Philosophers hold P. 49. What is the natural Notion we have of God But one eternal Being the cause of all other Beings P. 309. They the Divine Persons are as perfectly One as a created Mind is P. 319. A Perichoresis Vnion or mutual Inbeing of minds can never make three compleat absolute Minds to be essentially one P. 343. Three absolute whole individual Divine Natures is Tritheism P. 371. The Divine Persons cannot properly be called three infinite Minds or Spirits For Mind as well as God is not the name of their persons but of their nature which is identically the same in all three We see here he propounds the Doctrine of the Church and of the Unitarians both Affirmatively and Negatively and both ways makes it his own In defining or describing God he saith one God is one infinite BEING one eternal and infinite MIND And tho' we say three Divine Persons yet whatever is thereby meant and he will tell us by and by what is meant they are as perfectly one MIND as a created mind is one Then Negatively he says The Divine Persons are not three Minds or Spirits and as to what some say and himself had often said in former Books of the Perichoresis he now owns no mutual Inbeing of three Spirits or Minds can ever make them to be one In accounting for the nature of the Divine Persons he speaks the very language of the Disinterested of the Author of the Remarks and of the Agreement that was wrote in answer to Mr. Edwards to my Lords the Bishops of Sarum Chichester Worcester and to Monsieur de Luzanzy His words are these P. 256. We acknowledg one God distinguished only by these personal Properties Paternity Filiation Procession as each of them has a compleat Hypostasis distinguish'd only by MODES of subsistence P. 258. The Divine Nature subsists distinctly in three according to their distinct characters of Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeâ—ing And these we call Persons because they have some Analogy or likeness to individuals in created Beings which in an Iâ—telligent nature are called Persons P. 197. We must use such words as we have and qualify their sense as we can P. 259. When we distinguish between Person and Essence and say there are three Persons and one Essence By one Essence we mean one Divinity by Persons we mean the Divine Essence as unbegotten and as communicated by Generation and Procession P. 280. Tho each Divine Person is the Divine Nature and Essence yet three Divine Persons are not three Natures or Essences but three Relations in one singular absolute Nature P. 297. That one Nature is but one Person and one Person but one Nature that individual Natures and Persons must always be multiplyed with each other is the fundamental Principle of all Heresies relating either to the Trinity or the Incarnation Sure this last effort was a very hard and grievous strain to him for 't was the very principle that misled him into the Heresy of three spiritual infinite Substances Minds and Beings He took it for his foundation that Persons and intelligent Natures or Substances are convertible or are the same and this error made him obstinate in it even after the Oxford Decree that the Divine Persons ye so many distinct spiritual Substances distinct Spirits and Minds Well but let us put together this whole reformed Doctrine about the Divine Persons They are not distinct Beings Natures Substances Minds or Spirits but only personal Properties or distinct Relations in the same singular nature Would you know the Mystery more particularly what you are to understand by personal Properties and distinct Relations in the same singular Nature or Essence The Doctor will not be difficult or reserved in the matter he answers The Persons personal Properties or distinct Relations are the Divine Essence or Substance unbegotten and communicated by Generation and Procession that is Begotten and Proceeding Do you except against it or make doubt that Relations personal Properties Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding are properly called Persons or may have the names of Father Son and Spirit He will deliver you from your scruples he wisely minds you that we must of necessity use such words as we have and regulate or qualifie their sense as well as we can In two words he saith The Divine Persons are so called because we must use such words as we have and because they have some likeness to Persons of the created Nature but in truth they are only personal Properties or distinct Relations of the same singular nature namely of the Divinity Or if you had rather they are the Divine Essence or Divinity considered as Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding This is a true and an exact Abridgment of his large Book I will not think he has so little conscience as to pretend that the Unitarians have in their late Contests opposed this Trinity 't is the account that themselves give of it and profess to believe in that part of the Agreement which is in answer to my Lords the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester 'T is the account also given by Dr. S th in his Animadversions and his Tritheism charged by the Disinterested by the Bishops of Worcester and of Sarum In eight years time this fierce Opposer of the Unitarians has with much to do learned that the Trinity is not three Minds Spirits or Substances but three internal Relations three personal Properties of the Divinity In eight more it may be he will understand that those are good Catholics and orthodox Christians who reject no other Trinity but of distinct Substances Spirits or Minds We are all agreed in the Faith it self and even as to the ordinary terms the more learned Trinitarians wish as the Vnitarians do that they were abolisht but as to some other less usual terms that occur in the debating these questions there is some disagreement among Divines I take notice that as to these Dr. Sherlock is always on the worse side and for the weaker Reasons For Instances 'T is a question whether we may not say three Divine Substances as well as three Persons They that put the question or that so speak grant that in very deed there is but one Divine Substance in the absolute sense of the word yet may we not say with Sr. Hilary three Substances in a restrained limited
he be God or Man or whether he satisfied Divine Justice for our Sins by his Death but only that a Man of Nazareth was ordained and sent by God to be a Saviour I see all Mr. Edwards his Colts-teeth are not yet out of his head he cannot forbear dealing sometimes in Railery and Wit but I must seriously desire him to name me any Socinian or Unitarian Writer that ever said no more is required to make a Christian but only that he believe Jesus is the Messias The truth of the matter is this Mr. Edwards has been lately very much foiled first by a Learned Gentleman then by a Divine of the Church of England upon this Question Whether it be of the essence of a Christian as a Christian to assent to more than this one Article that Jesus is the Messias sent by God to instruct and save the World They do not doubt that 't is a Christians duty to learn by degrees all the other Articles of the Christian Creed and to believe them but if he hath attained or by occasion of whatsoever Impediments that were not caused by his own Negligence or Perversness he can attain to more either Knowledg or Faith yet this one Article doth make him a Christian It doth not satisfy Mr. Edwards that upon all the points in question they have declared themselves to be Anti-Socinians he resolves for all that they shall be Socinians and this opinion which they maintain against him a new Article of the Socinian Creed It may be one way he thinks to reduce 'em to silence if he calls their opinion Socinianism and if after that they will not pull in their Horns it shall be Irreligion or downright Atheism or at least abnegation of Christianity or Popery his other Compliments to those whom he is pleased to attack I have now answered concerning all the Articles of our Religion with sincerity without any the least disguise or reserved or unusual meaning or meanings And I am not sorry that Mr. Edwards almost constrained us to explain our selves concerning these points For as unsincere and untrue as his Imputations are and as scurrilous as his manner of representing them and discoursing upon them sometimes is the Retortion or Answer here made will be judged by indifferent and discerning Persons to be home and satisfactory As to the man himself Mr. Edwards has been serviceable to the common Christianity by divers learned Books therefore I wish to him whatsoever good himself desires to himself these Concertations between us notwithstanding THIS Scheme as it expresses the real Sentiments of the Socinians so it perfectly agrees with the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England saving that in the fourth Article concerning Original Sin Freewill and Grace the Answer is not so explicit and direct as it would have been if Mr. Edwards had not affectedly declined to declare and express the Doctrine of the Church concerning those matters In their first Rise the Unitarians followed the Doctrine of St. Austin and Mr. Calvin in the Article of Original Sin and the depending Articles Free-will and the Grace of God but F. Socinus coming into Transilvania and then into Poland revived among 'em the Pelagian Doctrine so that for about an Age they were Pelagians in the question of Original Sin and its Dependents In this last Century as they speak or Age being the seventeenth from the birth of our Saviour those Questions have received a new turn in all the Western Churches that is to say among the Roman Catholicks and the Protestants of all denominations A kind of Semipelagianism is grown into repute in most places being a temper or expedient of Peace both Parties yielding somewhat and yet both retaining enough to make their Doctrine consistent with our natural Notions of the Justice and Mercy of God And to this I think the Unitarians now rather encline but not generally that is not universally or not all of them In short the above-recited Scheme is direct and clear except only in the fourth Article concerning Original Sin and the Points thereon depending But those Questions being now variously held in all Churches and among all Parties the Socinians are no more Dissenters on the account of what some or most of them believe concerning that Article than Bishop Jer. Taylor for instance and Dr. Hammond and the Remonstrant Party supposed to be the greater part of the Church of England are So that upon the whole we may say There is now no Sociniun Controversy The misunderstanding that was common to both Parties the Church and the Unitarians is annihilated and Mr. Firmin by approving and publishing the Scheme of Agreement professed himself of the same mind with the Catholick Church and the Church of England Mr. Firmin was sensible of this notwithstanding as Curator of the Unitarian an Religion he resolved to have continued his endeavours that no false Notion oâ— the Trinity should corrupt the sincere Faith of the Vnity He was perswaded that the Faith of the Unity is the first Article of Christianity the Article that distinguishes Christians from Pagans as the belief of the Messiah already come distinguishes us from Jews He judged that tho the unscriptural terms Trinity three Divine Persons and such like in the sense they are intended by the Church contain a Doctrine which is true yet taken in the sense they bear in common familiar Speech in which sense the greater number of men almost all the unlearned must needs understand them they imply a more gross and absurd Polytheism than any of the old Heathens were guilty of He that understands three Divine Persons to be three distinct infinite all-perfect Spirits or Beings or Minds three Creators three several Objects of Worship is more guilty of Polytheism than the Greeks or Romans ever were before their conversion to Christianity for tho they and other Nations were Heathens that is Polytheists Asserters of more Gods yet they never believed more than one Infinite All-perfect Spirit the Father and King of the lesser Deities Mr. Firmin knew well that the Majority of vulgar Christians and not a few Learned Men have a Tritheistick Notion or Conception of the Trinity or three Divine Persons each of which is God namely that they are three distinct Infinite All-perfect Minds or Spirits Meeting this every day in Conversation as well as in Books he was not less zealous for the Doctrine of the Unity after the Publication of the Scheme of Agreement than before And therefore he purposed besides the continuation of all his former Efforts to hold Assemblies for Divine Worship distinct from the Assemblies of any other denomination of Christians But he did not intend these Assemblies or Congregations by way of scism or separation from the Church but only as Fraternities in the Church who would undertake a more especial care of that Article for the sake of which 't is certain both the Testaments were written The great design and scope of both
Testaments and the reason that they were given by God was to regain Mankind to the belief and acknowledgment of but one God to destroy Polytheism of all sorts Mr. Firmin intended to recommend it to the Unitarian Congregations as the very reason of their distinct assembling to be particularly mindful of and zealous for the Article of the Unity to cause it to be so explained in their Assemblies Catechisms and Books without denying or so much as suppressing the Catholick Doctrine of the Trinity that all men might easily and readily know in what sense the Vnity of God is to be believed and the Mystery of a Trinity of Divine Persons each of them God is to be interpreted Mr. Firmin feared that without such Assemblies the continual use of terms which in their ordinary signification are confessed by all to imply three Gods would paganize in some time the whole Christian Church which is Heathen already in the majority of its Members by occasion of those terms and that no sufficient care is taken to interpret them to the people I though to have ended here but the Dean of St. Pauls having published a large Book in Quarto to which he gives the title of the present state of the Socinian Controversy I think my self obliged to take notice of it and make a fit Answer to it In order whereunto it will be even necessary to consider also briefly his former Books indeed my Answer will be little more than a comparing the Doctrine of these Books with this last in which as to his Notions tho propos'd commonly in somewhat improper unconvenient and dangerous expressions he has given satisfaction to Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads in other words he is become truly Catholic and perfectly Unitarian Mr. Firmin had caused to be written a brief History of the Vnitarians and brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius in the years 1689 and 1690. Dr. Sherlock was then more at leisure than he desired so he answered in a wrathful Book entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the H. Trinity In this Vindication he lays about him for that sort of Trinity that had been oppos'd in the aforesaid History and Notes a Trinity of Infinite Eternal All-perfect Minds Beings and Spirits The Doctrine of his Book may be summ'd into this following short Abstract The H. Trinity is three such Persons as are substantially distinct or are three distinct Spiritual Substances Being distinct Persons they must needs be distinct Substances Persons and intelligent Substances being reciprocal terms or signifying the same thing The Divine Persons are three Beings three Spirits three Minds as distinct as three human Persons as distinct as Peter James and John Each of these Minds or Spirits has a distinct Vnderstanding Wisdom and Will of his own a distinct absolutely-perfect Wisdom Goodness and Power for these perfections may be and are in more than one And as each of them is an all-perfect Spirit each of them also is a God Yet are they not three Gods because being internally conscious to each others thoughts and actions by means of this mutual consciousness tho they are three all-perfect Spirits and each of them a God they are but one God If we will say truth Dr. Sherlock was no more overseen in this explication of the Trinity than the principal Divines and Preachers at London and both Universities To my knowledg they upbraided Mr. Firmin with this Book of Dr. Sherlock's and some of them told him If Dr. Sherlock's Book did not reclame him from his Heresy it would rise up in Judgment against him It came forth cum licentiâ superiorum and shortly after the Doctor was restored to all his Preferments which he had forfeited by refusing the Oaths to the Government with the addition of the Deanary of St. Pauls But neither the Canonical License nor the new and great Preferment nor the approbations and applauses from so many and so considerable Fautors could prevent a most terrible after-clap For to say nothing of the Answer first by the Socinians and then by Dr. S th the Heads of Colleges at Oxford Nov. 25. 1695 made and ordered the publication of this Censure and Decree These words there are three distinct Minds and Substances in the Trinity and these words the three Persons in the Trinity are three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits and three individual Substances are Erroneous Heretical and Impious And we require all persons who are committed to our institution or care that they affirm no such Doctrine either by preaching or otherwise When this Decree came abroad Dr. Sherlock's former Abettors deserted him in whole troops and now they said Universities speak but seldom and by way of Authority without giving the reasons of their Decrees but as they interpose but rarely and in important Cases 't is always with certainty In short from this time Doctor Sherlock was left almost alone That I know of the same Doctors Dignitaries Deans Bishops who had boasted of his Book not only as orthodox but as unanswerable now tackt about and as much approved the Oxford-Decree The most now said it was even necessary to make and publish the Decree Tritheism being so much worse than Sabellianism or Socinianism as Paganism or Heathenism is worse than mere Judaism there is no body but will prefer the faith of the Jews tho' so unperfect before the many Gods of the Heathens Dr. Sherlock was often told of these murmurs and that they were grown general his answer was that he was sure that he was in the right And accordingly he shortly published his Examination of the Oxford Decree In this Examination he often repeats his former doctrine He says for instance P. 46. These Decreeing and Heresy-making Heads of Colleges have condemned the true Catholic Faith the Nicene Faith and the Faith of the Church of England He adds in the same page Three Divine Persons who are not three distinct Minds and Substances is not greater Heresy than 't is Nonsense P. 31. The present dispute is about three distinct infinite Minds and Substances in the Trinity whether this be Catholic doctrine and Catholic language If it appears that they the Fathers owned three distinct Substances both name and thing there can be no dispute about three Minds P. 23. If God begets no substance he begets nothing that is real And then neither is God a real Father nor the Son a real Son P. 22. If a Divine Person as a Person and as a distinct Person from the other two Persons be not an infinite Mind there is an end of the Christian Trinity P. 18. The three Persons must be as distinct Minds Spirits and Substances as they are distinct Persons Every body disliked this Answer to the Oxford Heads it was owned to be Heresy in excelsis Dr. Sherlock's more warm Opposers call'd out for the sitting of a Convocation to censure such a manifest subversion of the Catholic Faith in the first and chief Article of it The Doctor however
was still constant to his Doctrine he persevered in his former I am sure that I am in the right Shortly after came forth the judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy between Dr. S TH and Dr. SHERLOCK This Author states the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation or Divinity of our Saviour as they have been for many Ages held in the Catholic Church and proves his explication of them by a great number of incontestable Authorities especially of General Councils He evinces by divers clear both Theological and Philosophical Reasons that three infinite spiritual Substances three eternal all-perfect Beings Minds or Spirits are most certainly three Gods He concludes that Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads are undoubtedly in the right in censuring the Doctrine of three infinite all-perfect spiritual Substances Spirits Minds or Beings as Tritheism yet that Dr. Sherlock had no ill meaning for he only proposed to himself to defend the received Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation tho he unhappily mistook in the explication of those Doctrines One may say this Book is perfectly well written the Catholic Doctrine is truly stated and asserted by the very Authorities and Reasons on which it has been so long and so generally received and tho the Author is constrained by the evidence of the proofs which he alledges to assent to the Oxford-Heads and to Dr. S th yet he always speaks of Dr. Sherlock not only with much tenderness but with a great deal of respect and deference Dr. Sherlock on the contrary answers with so much virulence as if the Author had done to him some personal irreparable or even mortal Injury and with so much self-conceit and confidence as if himself had obtained the monopolies of Learning and good sense He intitles his answer to the disinterested The Doctrine of a real Trinity vindicated in answer to a Socinian Pamphlet As if it were Socinianism to oppose Tritheism He begins his Book with these words This Author calls himself a Presbyter of the Church of England I pray God to preserve the Church from such Presbyters who eat her Bread and betray her Faith His other Sippets are Socinian Heretic bantering Socinian and such like Sweets with which this Doctor 's dishes are always enchaced But to let those matters pass in this Answer he recites the Authorities and Reasons urged by the disinterested and in a Paragraph or two bestowed on each of them he triumphs at last gloriously over all of them But what is very surprizing tho he confutes all the Reasons and baffles all the Authorities in the whole Book yet 't is in this very Answer that he begins to bethink him and retracts all his Heterodoxies nay becomes altogether of the same mind with the Author against whom he writes Let us hear what he says Pag. 12. The Nominals i. e. Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads and the Socinians differ in some forms of Speech but there is no considerable difference in their Faith P. 6. These Phrases three Minds three Spirits three Substances ought to be used very cautiously and not without great necessity P. 14. They are Expressions liable to a very heretical sense to Arianism and Tritheism P. 30. In the common acceptation of the word the Divine Persons are not three Substances but one Substance actually and really subsisting thrice He meant to say three manner of ways subsisting thrice is nonsense P. 35. The Trinity is one supream Being this is the Doctrine of St. Austin the Schools and Fathers Can any one say Dr. Sherlock hath not given satisfaction to the Oxford-Heads and Dr. S th Were F. Socinus Smalcius Crellius and Ruarus to judg of this Doctrine they would be content it should be inserted into their Racovian Catechism they would embrace the Author as an absolute Unitarian P. 36. Father Son and Spirit are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Substance they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unity of Sameness or Identity This is true Catholick Doctrine and the Language of the Nicene Fathers And of all the Socinians from F. Sacinus to Mr. T. F. But we shall hear by and by he will confess that also P. 61. Three infinite Persons each of which is Mind and Spirit are but one and the same infinite and eternal Spirit Catholick again and Unitarian all over For when the Church says each Divine Person is Mind and Spirit the meaning is the Divine Persons are internal relative Properties of the same infinite Mind and Spirit and being so each of them indeed is Mind and Spirit but not a Mind or a Spirit Had Dr. Sherlock but known this in time he had never wrote against the Unitarians nor fallen under the Oxford-Censure P. 65. The Socinians will grant that one Divinity is but one God and the reason why they assert that one God is but one Person is because they think it impossible the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly in three Persons 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 one God and therefore tho three such Persons three such Minds Spirits and Substances as their one Person and one Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to one single Person would indeed be three Gods yet three such Persons as the Catholic Church owns who are all the same One Substance are not three Gods The short of this is the Church doth not mean by three Persons what the Socinians mean if she did they would rightly accuse her of Tritheism three such Persons as the Socinians oppose are indeed three Gods He repeats the same thing p. 67 in these words The three Divine Persons as we have now explained them are not three such Persons as the Socinians must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods Right for you have now acknowledged that what you call three Persons is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one self-same spiritual Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Vnity of Indentity one supream Being one and the same infinite and eternal Spirit which in all your former Books was Nonsense and Heresy and not greater Nonsense than Heresy as they who please may see in the places I have quoted and in above forty other places of your Writings I shall tell you not only the Oxford-Heads or Dr. S th but F. Socinus or T. F. would never have required you to say more than you now say it was not the Trinity held by the Catholic Church that Socinus or T. F. rejected but only a Trinity of such Divine Persons as are distinct Substances Spirits and Minds which at length you also expresly disown but which too many in the Church misled by the dangerous unscriptural terms now so much contended for did and do hold There can never be a sincere Peace till those terms are discarded For tho after eight
and relative sense That is meaning thereby the one real Divine Substance considered in its distinct Relations or Properties for hereby the Substance tho 't is not multiply'd yet 't is thrice numbred and in that respect it should seem may be called three relative Substances This is a very slight Reasoning and never misled any body but St. Hilary For men never say THREE on the account that a thing is considered three manner of ways with three Modes three Properties or three Relations Why therefore should we introduce such an improper as well as dangerous form of speaking concerning God a form of speaking that in its natural and immediate sense destroys the divine Unity and introduces by their own confession three Gods Notwithstanding Dr. Sherlock is pleased to approve of that form he saith P. 379. We must not say three Substances in the Trinity for fear of saying three Gods Yet we must own that each Divine Person is true and perfect substance and three in substance are three Substances not indeed three absolute but three relative Substances In the Trinity there is one absolute and three relative Substances P. 287. An absolute Substance is one entire perfect individual Whole Relative Substances are internal subsisting Relations in the same one whole individual substance The meaning is Orthodox the words Heterodox and Phantastical He grants that to affirm three Divine Substances is to affirm three Gods but then meaning by Substances what no body means the same one absolute individual Substance numbred three times or numbred with its three Properties or Relations we may affirm three Divine relative Substances Again Those that grant it must not be said in any sense whatsoever that there are three Divine Substances yet they make it a question Whether the one only Divine Substance is one numerical Substance and one singular Substance They own the Divine Substance is really but one identically one 't is one self-same Substance not two or three in whatsoever sense For all that they are not willing to say the substance of God is numerically one is one numerical or one solitary or singular Substance their wise Reason is this Tho' the Divine Substance is one in Nature and in the thing numbred as the School-Doctors speak yet being thrice numbred for it is numbred distinctly to or with its three Properties or Relations therefore we deny it to be numerically one tho 't is really naturally and identically one Now we grant to these Anti-Grammarians that the thing they intend is true but they should not deny propositions that are true in their Grammatical and immediate Sense because they are not true in a sense that no man ever was so wild as to impose it upon them 'T is something worse than trifling to deny orthodox and necessary Propositions on a pretence that mad men may take them in a sense contrary to their direct immediate and constant meaning When we say the divine or any other Substance is numerically one or is one numerical one singular one solitary Substance every body knows that the words solitary singular and numerical are used only in opposition to plural more or many so that one solitary singular or numerically one Substance is intended only as a denial of this heretical Proposition three Substances If the reason given by Dr. Sherlock and some few others why they will not say one singular or solitary or numerically one Substance were good they must never say one numerical one solitary or singular Earth or Sun or other body or thing whatsoever Nay they must not dare to say numerically one GOD one singular or solitary GOD which yet are forms that I presume they will own as orthodox nay as necessary There is no thing or being whatsoever but must be at least thrice numbred namely to the three Properties of every Being Verum bonum unum therefore if we must not say one numerical or one singular or solitary Divine Substance because this Substance is thrice numbred viz. with or to its three Relations or Properties neither may we say one numerical or one solitary or singular Earth or Sun because they are thrice numbred are distinctly numbred to the three Properties of Verum bonum unum But this impertinent niceness Dr. Sherlock every where takes up and contends for it as an important truth unless we exclude the terms solitary singular and numerical he is positive that we shall lose the three Divine Persons P. 195. The singularity of the Divine Substance is a Sabellian Notion and destroys the faith of a real Trinity P. 213. An individual Substance but not one solitary or singular Substance P. 246. The Unity of the Divine Substance or Nature is not an unity of number but of sameness and identity P. 249. 'T is not a singular Nature or Substance with the singularity of solitude but of identity or sameness I imagine Dr. Sherlock's best Friends will not deny 't is an odd melancholy humour of his to espouse and affect Terms and Phrases that have been rejected by all Learned Men as improper dangerous and tending to Tritheism merely that he may amuse Novices in these Questions and may afterward explain his Riddles to the admiration of the weak or unlearned and the sleight of the learned and discerning He concludes his Book with an Address to the Unitarians to this effect They were not best to concern themselves with him or against his Book for if they do they shall certainly be called to account for it in this World as well as in the World to come I take this to be another melancholy Fit for the Orthodox will but laugh at the threatnings of a Man under publick Censure for the very worst Heterodoxy What! three relative substances call to account honest orthodox one absolute Substance Believe me Doctor they despise the menace They send you word Physitian heal thy self Mr. Informer purge your own Books even this last of the many Heterodoxies in it As Page 191. The Son is nothing else but the whole entire immediate participation of the Father's Substance and therefore is as perfectly one with the Father as the Father is one 'T is Sabellian The Son is not so one with the Father as the Father is one for the Father is numerically one as all confess but Father and Son are numerically two with all but Sabellians P. 198. Each of them Father Son and Spirit is perfect God and therefore an infinite Mind and an infinite Spirit 'T is Tritheism For if each of the Divine Persons is an infinite Mind or an infinite Spirit then there are three infinite Minds and Spirits which is the Heresy you have been retracting throughout this whole Book I supoose however he meant to say each Divine Person is infinite Mind and Spirit which is Catholic and Unitarian P. 247. To have asserted one singular Divine Substance which is but one in number had given up the cause to the Sabellians One singular Divine Substance and one in number is the Language of the Catholic Church and is refused by none but Arians and Tritheists P 369. The name God doth not originally absolutely and immediately belong to the Son or Spirit but only relatively P. 373. Only the Father is absolutely and simply God 'T is absolute Heresy Taking Father Son and Spirit in the personal senfe the Son and Spirit are no less absolutely and simply GOD than the Father is When the Unitarians say only the Father is God in the absolute sense they do not take the word Father personally but by Father they mean the Deity Father Son and Spirit as Persons of the Deity taking Persons in the Ecclesiastical sense or sense of the Church are equally God neither is afore or after other neither greater or less than the other as Athanasius rightly teaches In short this perpetual Litigant understands not well either the Doctrine of the Church or the Party he opposes these are not Questions in which he might concern himself they require an attention and subtilty of thought which either he seems not to have had or to have lost He has concerned himself in the supposed Controversy between the Church and the Socinians with like prudence dexterity and success as the present Archbishop of Paris has intermedled between the Jansenists and Molinists The Archbishop published an Ordinance against a Book entituled An Exposition of the Catholic Faith touching Grace and Predestination Father Quesnel a Priest of the Oratory and Mr du Guè a Learned Person but who has laid aside the habit have severally written upon this Ordinance They agree that what is proposed as Catholic Doctrine in the second Part of the Archbishop's Ordinance is really the same with what is censured in the first Part as the Heresy of the Jansenists but in another point these two Criticks differ For Mr. du Guè thinks the Archbishop may be pardoned the Errors in the first Part in consideration of his second Part but Father Quesnel doth not approve this Indulgence of Mr. du Guè he maintains that the Archbishop cannot make satisfaction but only by a Recantation 'T is well for Dr. Sherlock that he dos not write among or to the Wits of France for his Books concerning these Questions in truth are nothing but heaps of Contradictions A Person well versed in the Controversy may spell out his meaning and find what is the Writer's aim but he must pardon a thousand Improprieties and Blunders and as many Contradictions some of them in the very stress turn or as they speak nicety of the Controversy FINIS