of the Godhead but not the Incarnation of the Son of God But this is not the Doctrine of Scripture merely to say That God suffers himself to be worshipped in the Man Christ Iesus as if God and the Man Christ Iesus were not One Person but that he commands us to worship that Person who is called Christ Jesus not as a Man in whom the Power of God dwells and is present as in the Heavens or in the Jewish Temple or in the Prophets and Holy Men who were never for this reason thought the Objects of Worship but as his own Eternal Son Incarnate That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father which does not only signify to honour the Father in the Son but to pay Divine Honours to the Person of the Son which makes them distinct Objects of Worship and therefore True and Proper Persons not Personal Characters which may be distinct Reasons of Worship but are not distinct Objects But we shall better understand this by the account he gives of the Union of God and Man In what manner Soul and Body or God and Man are united is not the question for we know nothing how this Physical Union is made but the question is concerning the Nature and Kind of this Union Whether as the Soul and Body are united in One Person so as to be One Man so God and Man are united in One Person That as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is One Man so God and Man is One Christ. Whether the Divine and Human Natures are united in One Person or God be united to Man only as an assisting Principle by a perpetual and constant Influx of Divine Powers and Virtues These two are vastly different The first indeed always includes the second in the most perfect manner but the second does not always infer the first A Personal Union is always a Union of Life Influence and Power as he describes the Vnion of Soul and Body That there is some Intelligent Power that makes use of the Organs of my Body and acts in conjunction with the motions there produced This is all true and necessarily consequent upon a Personal Union but a very lame account of the Vital Union of Soul and Body for thus Angels may use the Bodies they assume without a Personal Union But a conscious Life Sensation and Government which makes One self is a great deal more than to act in conjunction with the Motions of the Body The Union of Influence and Power may be without Personal Union and therefore does not always make One Person It is the first we enquire after it is the first the Scripture teaches That the Word was made Flesh That God sent forth his Son made of a woman This is the Catholick Faith of the Incarnation but this the Considerer takes no notice of but all he says relates only to the Union of Influence and Power And I may says he as well consider God united to Man when he so acts by the Ministry and Operation of Man that the Actions of God seem conveyed to us the same way as the actions of one man are to another But does this make God True and Perfect Man This falls short of the conjunct Operations of Soul and Body which are much more close and intimate than the actions of one man are to another however to be sure the actions of one man upon another do not make Two such Men One Person nor therefore can the like Influence of God on Man make God and Man One Person But he proceeds Had those who upon some occasions spake by the Extraordinary Assistance of a Divine Power been constantly so directed and assisted how could they have distinguished the Motions of their Souls from the Impressions of God Just as they did when they were sometimes thus assisted for External Impressions are always distinguishable from Internal Motions But suppose they could not distinguish them does this prove that God is Incarnate in such men or would it be a reason to worship such men as God He adds And why then should we not think such an extraordinary Power as this as much united to such men as that common ordinary Power we call the Soul is to those Bodies in which it acts and exerts it self The Answer is plain because it would be an External not an Internal Principle of Life and Motion and Sensation how constant soever its Influences were He calls it an Extraordinary Power which shews that it is not a Natural Principle of Action it is an Extraordinary Power united to a Man and therefore the Man is the Person this Extraordinary Power only an external assisting Principle of the same kind with that in Prophets though more constant and regular in its actings But here is nothing of Incarnation in all this Is this Extraordinary Power a Divine Subsisting Person in the true and proper Notion of a Person Is it the Son of God that Eternal Word which was in the beginning was with God and was God Is this Extraordinary Power so united to Human Nature as to become Man Is it the Person of Christ Jesus who was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin lived in the World as a Man suffered and died and rose again from the dead and now sits at the Right Hand of God in the highest Heavens Not one word of all this which is the true Mystery and the only Use of this Doctrine of the Incarnation whereon all our Hopes of Salvation by Christ depend This Extraordinary Power is not a Person but such a constant regular Inspiration as he says some are of opinion the Soul of man is But whether that be so or not as he thinks mâ—st probably it is not which yet argues some kind of Inclination to it yet it seems to him plain from Scripture that such a Power as we ascribe to God he will not say such a Power as is God or a True Divine Person did as constantly and regularly act in and through Christ as the Human Soul is perceived to do in any other man That such a Power did constantly appear and act in Christ is true but whether by Nature or by a constant and regular Inspiration is the Question Our Saviour proves his Divine Nature from his Works our Considerer thinks it proves no more than a constant and regular Inspiration The first is necessary to the Catholick Faith of the Incarnation That the Word was made Flesh the second proves him only to be an extraordinary and perpetual Prophet The first makes him True God-Man the second makes him only a Divine Man And this is all he can mean by this Power regularly and constantly acting in and through Christ For if Christ be God-Man he is this Divine Power in his own Person it is his Divine Nature not an external adventitious Principle how regularly and constantly soever it acts it is not merely an uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity with the Man Christ Jesus
ask for or to conceive what is the Place of God of the Word or of the Holy Spirit And if a man will deny that the Son is or was begotten because he cannot conceive nor find out the place of his Essence or Substance for the same reason he may deny that there is a Father or that there is a God So that Athanasius acknowledges the Son to be as true and substantial a Son as the Father is a substantial Father and that he does as perfectly and compleatly subsist by himself as the Father does but denies that it hence follows as the Sabellians objected That the Son if he be a distinct substantial Person himself must be divided and parted from the Substance of his Father and that if he subsist distinctly by himself he must subsist in a separate place from his Father that this distinction of Persons and Subsistence cannot be conceived without a Local Separation For he tells them All these Mistakes are owing to Corporeal Imaginations that they conceive of God after the manner of Bodies that because Body cannot generate another without parting and dividing of Substance nor subsist without being in some place nor subsist distinctly without being in distinct and separate places therefore if God beget a Son and this Son subsist distinctly by himself this Son must go out of the Divine Substance and be locally separated from God the Father as a human Son is from his Father whereas the Divine Nature and Substance cannot be divided nor does God subsist in a place and therefore the Son may be substantially begotten of the Father and subsist distinctly by himself without any division of the Divine Substance or separation of place Let us now proceed to a Third sort of these Hereticks who did allow a real and substantial difference between Father Son and Holy Ghost but made God a compound Being but one Person as well as one God and that Father Son and Holy Ghost were the Three Parts of this One God This St. Austin calls Triformis Deus and tells us That these Hereticks did not allow the Father to be Perfect in himself nor the Son Perfect in himself nor the Holy Ghost Perfect in himself that neither of these considered by themselves were Perfect God but that all Three together made one Compleat and Perfect God This all the Catholick Fathers unanimously reject and for the same reasons because there can be no composition in the pure and simple Nature of God and it was the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church That each Person is by himself True and Perfect God not an incompleat Part of the Deity Thus Athanasius warns us against this Heresy which conceives the Trinity like Three Bodily Parts inseparably united to each other which he says is an ungodly reasoning contrary to the Nature of Perfect Unbodied Beings and therefore attributes the Perfection of the Godhead to each Person who are a real Trinity inseparably united in the same Form and Nature That the Father is Perfect Essence and Being without any defect the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit That the Son in the Fulness of the Deity is the Living Word and Perfect Offspring of the Father That the Spirit is the Fulness of the Son not Part of another Being but Whole and Entire in himself That we must conceive them inseparably united to each other but yet Three real subsisting Persons in the same Form and Species which is originally in the Father shines in the Son and is manifested by the Holy Spirit And therefore he adds That he did not compound the Trinity nor force it into a Monad or Unit that is One single Person to preserve the Unity of the Godhead nor conceive of God as of a Man who is compounded of Three Parts Spirit Soul and Body for such a composition cannot belong to a simple Nature This is the constant language of the ancient Writers That the Divine Nature is not compounded of Parts nor is God a compound Being that each Person in the Trinity is a complete and perfect Person and Three complete and perfect Persons cannot be One by Composition as Three incomplete Parts are that each Person by himself is perfect God and perfect Essence though when we unite them and number Three we acknowledge but One perfect God for the Deity is not compounded but in Three each of which is complete and perfect there is One perfect Being without Composition and without Parts that is the same One Divine Nature subsisting distinctly not by Parts or Composition but Whole and Entire in Three Let us now then consider the true state of the Question between these Sabellians and the Catholick Fathers These Hereticks owned at last Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three distinct Substances but not Three substantial Wholes but Three substantial Parts which by their Union and Composition made up One whole intire God The Catholick Fathers join with them so far as to own these Divine Persons to be Three substantial subsisting Persons but reject their Notion of a compounded God or Three Parts of the Deity with the utmost abhorrence and affirm that each Person is by himself entire and perfect God perfect and complete Divine Essence or Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen speaks and that they are not One God by Composition or as One Person is One God but as Three complete and perfect Persons each of which is perfect God can be One God Now I think after this we need not dispute what the Metaphysical Notions of Person and Personality are for a Person in this Sacred Mystery signifies One who is true and perfect God and therefore is whatever God is for the true and perfect definition of God must belong to every Person who is true and perfect God If then we acknowledge God to be Infinite Substance Mind Life Knowledge Power every Person who is God must be all this and if each Person be true and perfect God and yet no One Person is the other nor the Motion Affection or personal Power nor part of the other then each Person is distinctly and by himself complete and perfect God and therefore has distinctly in himself all those Attributes and Perfections which belong to the perfect Notion and Idea of God and to make any Person less than what God is is to make him no God But Athanasius has another Argument against the Sabellian compounded Deity which must put all Compositions of the Deity for ever out of countenance The Scripture assures us that God sends his Son and that the Son sends the Holy Ghost whereas were the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three inseparable Parts of one compounded Deity how could this One God Father Son and Holy Ghost send part of himself and one part of the same One God send another To send and to be sent necessarily supposes Persons really and substantially distinct such as can give and receive and execute Commands who
Person signifies an Intelligent Being but he has secured himself against this Imputation by an artificial addition some Intelligent Being acting in such or such a manner He will not allow Person to signify absolutely an Intelligent Being but an Intelligent Being with respect to some peculiar manner of acting and thus One single Person in the proper Notion of Person for an Intelligent Being may sustain Three Persons or Personal Characters with reâ—pect to extrinsecal Relations and the different manner of acting The whole Mystery and Sophistry of this is That God who is One single Person is upon different accounts sometimes called the Father sometimes the Sâ—n and sometimes the Holy Ghost and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost have a Personal signification each of these Names signify Person in a proper sense that is the Person of God but all of them separately and together signify but One and the same single Person for they are all of them attributed to God and God is but One or One Person though this One proper Person may sustain Three figurative Persons or Personal Characters This is plain dealing and this is his Answer to his first Hard Saying That God is One and Three the same God but Three different Hypostases or Persons That God is One and the same single Person under Three Personal Characters which may be called Three Persons because each of them signifies the True and Proper Person of God And here we see in what sense these Gentlemen allow That each Person is Substance is Mind and Spirit and yet that God is but One Substance One Mind and Spirit viz. in the very same sense that this Author affirms that God is but One single Person and yet that the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and for the same reason that they decry and abhor Three Substances Three distinct Minds and Spirits in the Godhead though affirmed to be indivisibly and inseparably One Infinite Substance Mind and Spirit for the same reason they reject Three Intelligent Substantial Persons though our Modern Sabellians have been more cautious generally than this Considerer not to own it in express words Now as for these Terms of Three Substances and Three Minds there may be good reason to let them alone tho when rightly explained no reason to condemn them of Heresy but we must insist on Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Substantial Persons Each of which is Mind and Substance and One is not the Other If they disown this as the Considerer does they are downright Sabellians if they own it we have no farther Dispute about this matter Let us now consider his other Hard Saying That One of these Three Hypâ—stases or Persâ—ns should be both God and Man Now the Hardness of this Saying is not That it is hard to prove from Scripture that so it is or that it is hard to conceive how God and Man can be united which is all that he touches on But it is and always will be a Hard Saying to the Considerer upon another account that is To reconcile it with a Trinity of One proper single Person and Three Personal Characters The Doctrine of the Incarnation is this That the Eternal Son of God became True and Perfect Man by taking the Human Nature into a Personal Union to himself That the Son only became Man not the Father nor the Holy Ghost That two perfect distinct Natures the Divine and Human Nature were without Confusion united in the One Person of Christ and that this One Person is the Eternal Word and Son of God Now if there be but One single Person in the Godhead and Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names or Personal Characters of this One single Person How can the Son be Incarnate and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost It is only a Person that can be Incarnate for a Personal Character can't be Incarnate without the Person and if there be but One single Person and this same One Person is Father Son and Holy Ghost it is impossible that that Person who is the Son should be Incarnate but the Person who is the Father and the Holy Ghost must be Incarnate also because the same Person who is the Son is the Father and the Holy Ghost The short Question is this Whether a True Proper Divine Person was Incarnate in the Incarnation of Christ If not then Christ was not a Divine Person how Divine soever he might be upon other accounts the Divine Nature did not persâ—nally subsist in him he was not personally True and Perfect God and then the Person of Christ was no more than a Man whatever Divine Influences he might receive from God But if the Divine Nature were truly and properly Incarnate in the Person of Christ then if there be but One single Divine Person in the Godhead but One Divine Nature in the sense of One single Person then the whole Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost which are but One True and Proper Person was Incarnate in Christ. This is the true difficulty and he is so wise as to take no notice of it It does not appear to me that he believes one word concerning the Incarnation of God or of a True Divine Person he says He that is in Scripture called the Son of God did appear in the likeness of men He certainly was a True Man but that is not our present dispute Was he in his own Person True and Perfect God Was he a Human Person or the Person of the Son of God appearing in Human Nature He was he says in the Form of God before he took the Nature of Man upon him This sounds well but why does he not speak out and tell us what this Form of God is Whether the True Divine Nature subsisting in him a True Divine Person Well But God did suffer himself to be worshipped and adored in and by the Man Christ Iesus the least that can be inferred from which is That God was more immediately and peculiarly present in Christ than ever he was said to have been any where else as in the Heavens the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims in Prophets and Holy Men who spake as they were moved by the Spirit Now all this might have been spared would he but have said That the Person Iesus Christ was worshipped with Divine Honours as being in his own Person True and Perfect God as well as Man and without saying this he says nothing to prove that Christ is the Son of God Incarnate To say That God did suffer himself to be worshipped in and by the Man Christ Iesus as he was worshipped in the Heavens in the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims for that must be the force of the Comparison does no more prove Christ to be God than it proves the Heavens the Iewish Temple and the Cherubims to be God It may prove a more perfect symbolical Presence of God in Christ which he calls the Fulness
a great and unconceivable Mystery and has always been owned to be so by the Catholick Church we have no Notion or Idea of it but no more have we of the Eternal Existence of the Divine Nature it self without any Cause or Beginning or of the Creation of all things out of nothing or of the Natural Production and Propagation of Created Beings our present Inquiry is not concerning the Mystery of the Eternal Generation but concerning the Unity of the Divine Nature in Father and Son in what sense they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Substance and that the Eternal Generation gives an account of For if the Father communicate his whole Nature and Substance to the Son without division and separation which is the Catholick Faith the Son must of necessity have the same one Substance with the Father for a whole same of a whole same cannot be another and therefore must be the same One Substance whole of whole St. Athanasius reasons very subtilly against the Arians upon this Point They taught that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made of nothing as other Creatures are Then says he he must be the Son of God by participation what is it then he partakes of Other Creatures are the Sons of God by the participation of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit is given by the Son not the Son as the Eternal Son of God sanctified by the Spirit for the Spirit receives all from Father and Son not the Son from the Spirit He must then partake of the Father But what is that and whence is it If that he partakes of be something Extra-essential to the Father which is not the Father's Nature and Essence then he does not partake of the Father but of that Extra-essential Being whatever it is and then he is not second to the Father that whereof he partakes being before him nor is he the Son of the Father but of that Extra-essential Being or Nature by the participation of which he obtains the Title and Character of Son and God But this is very absurd since the Father calls him his Beloved Son and the Son calls God his own Father and therefore is not a Son by Extra-essential Participations but Son is the name of him who participates in the Nature and Substance of the Father But then again If that which is participated of the Father be not the Nature and Essence of the Son the same Absurdity returns there being some middle Term between these two To be of the Father and the Nature of the Son whatever that Nature be which proves that the Nature of the Son is not of the Father and therefore he is not the Son of the Father for Nature makes a Son All this being so absurd it is necessary to own That the true genuine Son of God is all that He is of the Essence and Substance of the Father For when God is thus wholly and perfectly participated it is the same thing as to say that God begets and to beget signifies that he begets a Son And therefore though all things by the Grace of God partake of the Son he will not allow us to say That the Son partakes of any thing which implies that the Son is one thing and that which he partakes of is another But that which is the participation of the Father that is the Son This is the most Natural and Essential Unity that is possible to be conceived That the whole Son is nothing else but the whole entire immediate participation of the Father's Substance and therefore must be as perfectly One with the Father as the Father is One for there is but one and the same Substance which is the Substance of the Father and by an Eternal and Ineffable Generation the Substance also of the Son Though Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Real distinct Persons and each of them have the whole entire Divine Nature in himself yet there is but One Divine Nature One Divinity in them all and therefore they are but One God This is the Account St. Hilary gives why we may say God is One and One and One but not Three Gods Because the Divine Nature is not multiplied with the Persons Thus speaking of the Father and Son he tells us That the Son is One of One and therefore they are both One For between One and One that is One of One there is no Sâ—cond Nature of the Eternal Divinity For as he adds elsewhere The Nature of the Father is born in the Nativity of the Son and for this Reason the Father and Son are One God because the Son is God of the Nature of God But their being thus One does not destroy the subsisting Nature of the Son but in God and God preserves the Nature of One God And therefore the true absolute and perfect Profession of our Faith is To confess God of God and God in God not after the manner of Bodies but by Divine Powers not by transfusion of Nature into Nature but by the Mystery and Power of the Divine Nature For God is of God not by dissection protension or derivation but by the Power of the Divine Nature subsists by his Birth in the same Nature Not so the same Nature that he who is born is he himself who begets for how is that possible since he is begotten but he who is begotten subsists in the same whole entire Nature which is his whole entire Nature who begets And this Perfect Unity Sameness Identity of Nature he resolves into the Mystery of the Divine Generation Virtute Naturoe Mysterio potestate Naturoe for since he is not begotten of any other Substance or Nature but of his Father's Substance and that not after the manner of Bodies by dissection protension or derivation but by the Mysterious Power of the Divinity which communicates it self whole and perfect there must be the same One Divinity in both And he appeals to every man's Understanding what the natural Interpretation of these words are That the Son is of the Father for can of the Father signify that he is of any other than the Father or that he is of nothing or that he is the Father himself He is not of another because he is of the Father for a Son cannot be God if he have any other Father but God and therefore is God of God He cannot be of nothing because he is of the Father and whoever is begotten must be begotten of the Nature of him who begets He is not the Father himself because he is of the Father and the Birth of the Son speaks a necessary relation to the Father Now a Son who is so of the substance of the Father as to be nothing but what he is from the Father and to be all that the Father is whole of whole must have the same One Nature Substance and Divinity with the Father for whole of whole must be the
that the other is and yet not Three Minds but One Mind This shews the diffâ—rence between Absolute and Relative Substances Three Absolute Substances are always distinctly and separately Three and can never be any otherwise than specifically One but Relative Substances may be essentially One in the same One Individual Nature and this is the Account both the Fathers and Schools give of a Trinity in Unity Three Relations or Three Relative Substances or Subsistencies essentially related to each other in the Unity of the same One Individual Essence St. Gregory Nyssen has given the most particular Account of this matter in his Catechetical Oration To convince the Heathens of the Eternal Subsistence of the Divine Word in the Unity of the same Godhead he lays the foundation of all in that universally received Principle That the Divinity is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I translate not irrational without Reason or Understanding but not without its Word which is not the Personal Wisdom of the Father whereby the Father is wise as I have already shewn Chap. 3. but a Personal Living Subsisting Word Which answers to that Word which we feel in our own Minds and which is essential to all Minds that no Mind can be without its Word but is not a vanishing Notion and Idea or a transient sound as Human words but answers to the perfection of the Divine Nature And therefore as our Mortal Nature has a Vanishing Perishing Word so the Incorruptible and Eternally Permanent Immutable Nature has an Eternal Subsisting Word And as he proceeds if this Divine Word subsists it lives for it does not subsist like stupid inanimate Stones but as Mind and Spirit which must live if it subsists and if it lives the absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature which admits of no composition proves that he lives not by a participation of Life but as Life it self And if the Word lives as being Life it self it must have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power to do what it freely wills and chuses For that which cannot will and chuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not live and an Impotent Will is a contradiction to the Nature of God and therefore its Power must be equal to its Will But this Divine Word can will nothing but what is good and wills whatever is good and being able to effect whatever it wills is not unactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without doing any thing but does the good it wills And since we must acknowledge the World and all things in it which are wisely and artificially made to be good all things are the Works of this Living Subsisting Word This is his Proof That God has a Subsisting Living Almighty Creating Word which is another distinct Person from him whose Word he is For the Word is a Relative Term and signifies a Relative Subsistence and necessarily supposes the Father for he is not the Word but with relation to him whose Word he is And by this means he tells us we may escape both the Polytheism of the Gentiles and the Singularity of the Iews by acknowledging the Living Energetical Operative Word which the Iews deny and the Unity and Identity of Nature between the Word and Him whose Word he is For as our Word proceeds out of our Mind and is neither every way the same with the Mind nor yet upon all accounts another For that it is of the Mind proves that is is another and not the Mind it self but as it perfectly expresses and represents the Mind it cannot be another Nature but one and the same Nature though a kind of different subsistence So the Word of God by a distinct subsistence of its own is distinguished from him from whom he receives his Subsistence and Hypostasis but inasmuch as he is all and the same that God is he is perfectly one and the same in Nature This is the Doctrine of all the other Catholick Fathers as well as of Gregory Nyssen who resolve the Unity of the Godhead in a Trinity of Persons into Relative Subsistencies in the same Individual Nature which no more multiplies Natures and Divinities to make Two or Three Gods than the Mind its Word and Love make Three Minds This is the true and compleat notion of the Homoousion which as I have already shewn does not signify a meer Specifick Unity but the Unity of One Individual not Singular Nature in Three that Three Real Distinct Subsisting Persons are as intimately and essentially related to each other in the same Individual Nature as a Human Mind and its Word are which are not and never can be two Minds but one Mind Two compleat and perfect Minds can never in a proper notion be Consubstantial or one Substance though they have the same specifick Nature for their Substance is not one and the same but naturally two and naturally separable how closely soever they may be united but Three Divine Persons who are essentially related to each other in the same Divinity as the Mind and its Word are are in the strictest notion Consubstantial or One Substance being essentially related to each other in the same One Individual Nature and Essence And here I must take notice of a great mistake which some Learned Men run into concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 singular and particular Natures Substances and Essences by which they understand what some others call Personal Substances and conclude That since Philoponus and others who asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three particular Natures and Essences or Substances in the Godhead were charged with Tritheism as they deserved if their Opinions be truly represented those who assert Three Substantial Persons or Three distinct Personal Subsistencies or Substances are liable also to the same Charge This is a material Objection and a fair Answer to it will set this whole matter in a clear light Now the Answer in short is this That those who rejected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and charged it with Tritheism did not thereby understand particular personal relative Subsistencies or Substances but compleat absolute particular Natures and Substances not Three Real Substantial Subsisting Relations in One Individual Nature as a Mind its Internal Essential Word and Spirit as Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three but Three absolute particular Natures as Three Men each of whom has a compleat absolute personal Nature of his own are Three Now if this be the true Account every one sees the difference between Three personal relative Substances or Subsistencies of the same Nature and Three absolute particular Natures the first is a real Substantial Trinity Three Subsisting Infinite Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead Three Persons and One God the other is down-right Tritheism And that this is all they meant by particular Individual Natures I have many Arguments to prove For 1st Had they herein condemned distinct personal relative Substances they had condemned the Faith of the Catholick Church and relapsed into Sabellianism as
Singularity of the Divine Essence for it proves quite the contrary it is the Unity of Three which is a Trinity in Unity not the Unity of One which is Singularity and Solitude In the next place I observe That by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Catholick Fathers understand in this Mystery the inseparable Union of Relatives in the same Individual Nature not the Union of compleat absolute Natures how close and inseparable soever it may be There is by Nature no Inseparable Union but in the same Individual Nature Three compleat Individuals though of the same Kind and Species how closely and intimately soever they be united are not by Nature inseparable nor essentially One for they may be parted by that Power which united them and when they are parted can subsist apart as Three compleat Minds how intimately soever they should be united by God yet can never be essentially and inseparably One for they are not essential to each other they might have subsisted apart and may be parted again and an External Union cannot so make them One as to be naturally inseparable Which I think is a Demonstration that a Natural Inseparability which is an Essential Unity can be only in One Individual Nature between such Relatives as are Essential to each other and can neither be nor be conceived divided or separated And therefore the Catholick Fathers represented the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Examples of Natural Unions between things Essentially related to each other in One Individual Nature which either cannot be conceived or at least cannot subsist apart Of this last Kind are a Fountain and its Streams a Tree and its Branches whereby they not only represent the Homoousion but the Inseparable Union of the Divine Persons as every one knows for there cannot be a Fountain but its Waters must flow out nor Streams without a Fountain from whence they flow and though Branches may be separated from the Tree yet they live no longer than they are united and are Branches of that Tree no longer But these are very imperfect Images and without great caution will corrupt our Ideas of the Divine Unity Of all Corporeal Unions the nearest resemblance we have of this and which the Fathers most insist on is the Sun and its natural Splendor for we cannot conceive the Sun without its Splendor nor the Splendor without the Sun they never were never can be parted and therefore though two are essentially one This Representation the Scripture makes of it which calls the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Brightness of his Father's Glory and in this Sense they teach that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Light of Light as it is in the Nicene Creed whereby they do not mean two distinct independent Lights which either are or may be parted though one be lighted at the other this was the Heresy of Hierachas as St. Hilary tells us who represented this Mystery by two Candles one of which is lighted at the other or by one and the same Lamp which is divided and burns in two Sockets but that Light and Splendor which is essential to the same Sun and can never be divided from it as Athanasius teaches But the truest Images we have of this in Nature is the Inseparable Union which is between a Mind and its own Internal Word which are so essentially related to each other in the same Individual Nature that they can never be parted nor conceived apart the Mind can never be without its Word nor the Word subsist but in the Mind It is evident That two compleat absolute Minds can never be thus united for they are not Essential to each other not naturally one and therefore not naturally inseparable but a Mind and its Word though two are essentially One and therefore can never be parted but must subsist together and these are the Characters the Scripture gives us of God the Father and his Son the Father Infinite Eternal Self-originated Mind the Son his Eternal Infinite Living Subsisting Word And if Father and Son this Eternal Mind and Eternal Word be as essentially One as a mans Mind and his Word are One this is a Demonstration of their Inseparable Union and gives us a sensible Notion and Idea of it This is the account Athanasius every where gives of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Father and Son are inseparably One the Father being in the Son and the Son in the Father as the Word is in the Mind and the Light in the Sun To separate the Divine Persons so as not to be in each other whatever other Union we own between them Dionysius of Alexandria charges with Tritheism for the Divine Word must of necessity be one with God and the Holy Spirit be and subsist in him And this Athanasius resolves into such a Sameness and Unity of Nature as must be between two Relative Subsistencies in the same Individual Nature That the Son is in the Father as the Word is in the Mind and the Splendor in the Sun that he is a genuine proper natural Son in the Father's Essence and Substance not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not subsisting out of his Father's Substance as other Creature Sons do That the true Notion of the Sons being in the Father is that the whole Being of a Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Genuine Natural Birth of the Father's Substance the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Splendor is of the Sun That the very Being of the Son is the Form of Species and Divinity of the Father That as the Sun and its Splendor are two but not two Lights but one Light from the Sun enlightening all things with its Splendor and Brightness so the Divinity of the Son is the Divinity of the Father and therefore inseparable and thus there is but one God and none else besides him All this plainly refers to the Inseparable Union and Inbeing of Relatives of the same Individual Substance which are really distinct but essentially in each other as the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word that Thought it self cannot part them which is such an Union as can never be between compleat absolute Substances which are not naturally Inseparable nor essentially One. Herein Athanasius places the adequate Notion of the Homoousion the Sameness Identity and Unity of Nature He tells us That for this reason the Nicene Fathers taught the Homoousion or that the Son is Consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father to signify that the Son is not only like the Father but to be so of the Father as to be the same in likeness not after the manner of Bodies which are like each other but subsist apart by themselves as Human Sons subsist separately from their Parents but the Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father is of a different Kind and Nature from Human Generations for he is not only like but inseparable from his Father's Substance
the better for it An Union of Substances seems to signify some kind of Contact which is hard to conceive between Body and Spirit but however an Union of Contact and an Union of Life are two very different kinds of Union and do not include or infer each other and therefore the true Answer to that Question How Soul and Body are united is not to say That their Substances are united or fastened together which gives us no notion of a Vital Union but that the Soul lives in the Body and gives life to it receives impressions srom it and governs its motions But to inquire farther is to inquire into the Reasons of Natural and Essential Unions which are as great Mysteries as Nature is We may as well ask How a Soul lives as how it animates a Body and God alone knows both So that to inquire after the Natural Nexus or Cement of this Union is nothing at all to the purpose and is not the Object of Human Knowledge Now though the Vital Union between Soul and Body and the Union of mutual Consciousness be of a very different Kind and Nature yet the Dispute about the Nexus or the Natural Union of Substances is much the same Consciousness is the Unity of a Spirit Self-consciousness is the Unity of a Person and by the same reason mutual Consciousness is a Natural Union of Three distinct Self-conscious Persons in the Unity of the same Nature And to reject this for want of a Nexus or the Natural Union of Substances is as if we should deny the Union of Soul and Body to be an Union of Life or Animation because this don't explain the Natural Nexus between Soul and Body If a Mutual Conscious Union be an Essential Union of Three distinct Persons in the same Nature as a Vital Union is the Essential Union of Soul and Body we have nothing to do in either Case with the Union of Substances which we can know nothing of and if we could should understand these Unions never the better for it For whatever Union of Substance we may suppose between Soul and Body and the Three Divine Persons in the Holy Trinity it is the Kind and Species of Union which gives us the Notion and Idea of it If you inquire what Spirit and what Matter is It would not be thought a good Answer to these Questions to say a Spirit is a Substance and Matter is a Substance without adding their Specifick Differences that a Spirit is an intelligent thinking Substance and Matter is an extended Substance nor is it a better Answer to that Question what Union there is between Soul and Body or between the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity To say That their Substances are united which gives us no distinct Notion of their Union but a Vital Union and a Mutual Conscious Union contain distinct Ideas and if these be Natural and Essential Unions though we know no more of the Union of Substances than we do what Substance is yet we know that the Soul and Body must be one Natural Person and the Three Divine Persons must be naturally and essentially One God for a Natural Union makes One according to the Nature of that Union It is visible enough what has occasioned this Mistake Men consider Mutual Consciousness between Three Compleat Absolute Independent Minds and rightly enough conclude that how conscious soever they were to each other this could not make them essentially One for every compleat Mind is One by it self and not naturally Conscious to any One but it self and by whatever Power they should be so united as to be mutually Conscious this could not make them essentially One they would be Three Mutually Conscious Minds not essentially One Mind for they are not by Nature One nor mutually Conscious and therefore may be parted again and cease to be so But then in this way of stating it the Objection equally lies against the Perichoresis the inseparable Union and In-being of Minds which can never make Three Compleat Absolute Minds essentially One But if we apply this to the Union of Living Subsisting Intelligent Relatives of the same Individual Essence to Father Son and Holy Ghost Eternal Self-originated Mind its Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Eternal Spirit this Mutual Consciousness gives us the most Intelligible Notion of the Essential and Inseparable Union and In-being of Three in One. I dare not say what other Men can do but I have tried my self and can form no Notion of an Unity in Trinity but what either necessarily includes or ultimately resolves it self into One Natural Essential Consciousness in Three The Divine Nature is indivisibly and inseparably One in Three but we must not understand this Inseparability after the manner of Bodies whose Parts may be divided and separated from each other God is not Body and has no Parts but in the Unity of the Godhead there is Eternal Original Mind an Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit which are inseparable from each other that is can never be parted What then can parting and separating signify in a Mind which has no Parts to be torn and divided from each other I can understand nothing by it but that the Mind does no longer see and know and feel its Word in it self nor the Word the Mind for this would make a perfect Separation between the Mind and its Word that Mind has no Word which does not see and feel it in it self and were it possible that a living subsisting Word should lose all Conscious Sensation of the Mind whose Word it is it would cease to be a Word and commence a perfect separate Mind it self So that as far as we can conceive it the Inseparable Union between Father and Son between Original Infinite Mind and its Eternal Word is an inseparable Conscious Life and Sensation which is such a Natural Demonstration of their Inseparable Union as no other Notion can give us for all Men feel that a Mind and its Word can never be parted a Mind can never be without its Word nor the Word subsist but in the Mind Thus what other possible Notion can we form of the Perichoresis or Mutual In-being of Father and Son as our Saviour tells us I am in the Father and the Father in me which is their Natural and Essential Unity I and my Father are one We all feel how the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word the Mind knows and feels and comprehends its own Word and a perfect living subsisting Word knows and feels that whole Mind whose Word it is in it self for the Word is nothing else but the whole Mind living and subsisting in the Word which is another Hypostasis but perfectly One and the same Nature and therefore as they know themselves so they know and feel each other in themselves As the Father knoweth me saith Christ so know I the Father 10 John 15. And thus to see and know God by an Internal Sensation and to be
Now they themselves tell us That by Hypostasis they mean Aristotle's first Substance or that which subsists by it self not as a Part in a Whole nor as Accidents in a Subject but is a perfect whole it self and has a compleat Subsistence of its own What is it then that subsists by it self For that is Aristotle's first Substance and the Fathers Hypostasis And that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature Essence and Substance For nothing else can subsist by it self as is evident in Aristotle's Definition of Essence and Substance and though the Fathers put something more into their Definition of Hypostasis yet it comes all to one For as Damascen tells us Every Hypostasis is perfect Nature and Substance and therefore the Hypostases do not differ from each other in Nature but only in such peculiar and Characteristical Accidents as distinguish Hypostases For the Definition of Hypostasis is Nature with its Accidents That every Hypostasis has the common Nature with its peculiar distinguishing Accidents subsisting by it self So that an Hypostasis is nothing else but Nature with its Accidents and distinguishing Characters subsisting by it self Now we know Accidents do not subsist by themselves but if they be Inherent Accidents they subsist in Nature and Substance and therefore though they may distinguish Hypostases and Persons do not constitute an Hypostasis and therefore are owned to be only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the peculiar distinguishing Marks and Characters of Hypostases or Persons whereby they are known from each other But the Marks and Characters which distinguish Hypostases are not the Hypostases themselves such as the Time when they were born the Place where they lived their Parentage Name Features of Body Endowments of Mind and a hundred other distingushing Marks for these are very different in different Persons and as changeable in the same Persons as Time Age Place Features of Body Endowments of Mind Trades Offices c. and yet all these are Persons and the same Persons under all these Changes Now setting aside all these Characters and Accidents which cannot make a Person but only distinguish one Person from another there is nothing left to be the Hypostasis or Person but only the common Nature subsisting by it self Common as it is the same in every Individual but an Hypostasis or Individuum by a separate Existence or subsisting by it self For an Individuum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one undivided Whole subsisting by it self and therefore a whole perfect undivided Human Nature subsisting by it self is an Hypostasis or Person one single individual Man though there were no other Mark and Character to distinguish him from other Men but only this Separate Subsistence The Humanity of our Saviour is a plain Demonstration of this that it is only a Separate Existence or subsisting by it self which in Created Beings is the same thing that makes Human Nature an Hypostasis or Person All Catholick Christians own that Christ took Human Nature on him but not a Human Hypostasis or Person and therefore in him we may see the difference between Nature and Person What then was Christ's Human Nature I know no more of it but that he had a true Body of Flesh animated by a Reasonable Soul such a Body and such a Soul as other Men have and this is Human Nature But why is not this Human Body and Soul a Human Person too Did he want the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some peculiar Marks and Characters to distinguish him from all other Human Persons By no means He had more of these Marks of Distinction and more Authentick ones than any other Man ever had The Time and Place of his Birth his Parentage his Miracles his Doctrine the minute Circumstances of his Death his Resurrection c. were foretold by Ancient Prophets and he distinguished himself from all the rest of Mankind by those wonderful things he did that if peculiar distinguishing Characters make a Person he was more a Person than ever any Man was before or since What then was wanting to make us Human Nature a Human Person Truly nothing but only subsisting by it self which it never did but in union to the Eternal Word This I think looks very like a Demonstration that an Hypostasis is nothing but Nature subsisting by it self for all that the Humanity of Christ had without being a Human Person cannot make a Person for then the Human Nature of Christ must have been a Human Person too and that which alone was wanting to make the Human Nature of Christ a Person which was subsisting by it self must be the only thing which makes Nature a Person I have the rather chose this Instance because the Humanity of Christ which is no Person is often alledged to prove that there must be some peculiar mode of Subsistence which must coalesce with common Nature to make a Person This I confess is Language which I do not understand if there be any thing more meant by i◠than that Nature subsisting by it self is a Person For Nature which does not subsist is nothing but in Idea and Subsistence is a mere Notion without something that subsists now we may unite these two Notions of Nature and Subsistence and form the Idea of a Subsisting Nature which is all the coalescing I know of but actual Production makes a Subsisting Nature which is not Nature and Subsistence or a mode of Subsistence coalescing but Nature in Act. In a Subsisting Created Nature which does not necessarily exist we may distinguish between the Notions of Nature and Subsistence but a Subsisting Nature is nothing but Nature in being Nature which is that is Nature it self for the meer Idea of Nature is not Nature But Subsistence has a Mode and there must be a peculiar manner of Subsistence to make a Person Must every Person then have a peculiar manner of Subsistence Are there then as many peculiar Manners and Modes of Subsistence as there are or ever have been or ever shall be distinct Persons in the World This is beyond my Philosophy I have heard of a Compleat and Incompleat Subsistence to subsist by it self or to subsist as a Part in the Whole or an Accident in a Subject c. but I never could understand that any other Subsistence strictly belongs to the Notion of an Hypostasis or Person but to subsist by it self The Human Nature of Christ did upon all other Accounts as truly and properly subsist as any other Man in the World but was no Person as not subsisting by it self but in Union to the Eternal Word which made it the Human Nature of the Word which was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us All this Talk about the different Modes and manner of Subsistence seems to be a mistake of the Fathers Doctrine concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which these Men translate Modes of Subsistence of which more anon but at present I only observe That the Fathers do not place the Personality of
Divinity which is absolutely and originally in the Father Well then Here is One Divine Person viz. the Eternal Father who is absolutely and originally God and Two more the Son and Holy Ghost who are each of them in his own Person true and perfect God by having all the Divine Perfections But are not these Three then Three Gods the Unbegotten God who is originally and absolutely God the Begotten God and the Proceeding God No it is the constant Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers that the Trinity is but One Divinity and One God una Summa res One Supreme Being as St. Austin taught and from him Peter Lombard and was confirmed by the Council of Lateran in the Condemnation of Abbot Ioachim For Father Son and Holy Ghost though they are Three true and proper Persons are but One Individual Nature for it is Essential to the Eternal Mind to have its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit and the Eternal Word and Spirit live and subsist in the Mind and though living subsisting Persons yet are as individually One with the Mind as a Created Mind its Word and Spirit are One. Whatever is Essential to Nature is in the Individual Unity of it and that is but One Individual Nature which has nothing but what is Essential to it and therefore if as I have already observed and as the Catholick Faith teaches the Son and Spirit the Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit are Essential Processions of Eternal Original Mind and essentially indivisibly and inseparably in it Father Son and Holy Ghost are as essentially and inseparably One Individual Divinity as any One Nature is One with it self But is not this a kind of Sabellian Composition of a God A whole Divinity made up of Three partial and incomplete Divinities Which St. Austin calls a Triformis Deus By no means What is compounded is made up of Parts which make a compound Nature but perfect Hypostases however united can make no Composition However you unite Iames and Iohn you can never make a compound Man of them because each of them have a perfect Human Nature and as Damascen observes we do not say That the Nature or Species is made up of the Hypostases but is in the Hypostases So that each Divine Person being a complete and perfect Hypostasis having the whole Divine Nature in himself as being True and Perfect God their Union in the same Individual Nature though it makes them One Essential Divinity yet it cannot make a Compound God for however their Persons are united the Divinity or Divine Nature is not compounded each of them being True and Perfect God and not One God by Composition but by an Individual Unity of Nature in Three For every Divine Person is not God in the same sense that every Human Person is a Man as having an Absolute Individual Nature of his own for in this sense the Father only is God as being Absolute Original Divinity an Eternal Self-originated Mind and Three such Persons must be acknowledged to be Three Gods but as I have been forced often to repeat it the Son and Holy Spirit are Divine Persons as they are Eternal Living Subsisting Processions in the Divine Nature which proves them to have the very same Divinity and to be but One Individual Divinity but not One Compound God For One Individual Nature in Three though distinguisht into Distinct Subsisting Persons makes such a natural inseparable Unity of Will Energy and Power that they are as perfectly One Almighty Agent as every single Person is One Agent as I have shewn above It is thought by some a manifest Contradiction to say as the Athanasian Creed teaches us The Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet there are not Three Gods but One God But whoever carefully considers what I have now said must own that this is the only true and proper way of speaking in this Mystery If there be but One Absolute Divinity there can be but One God for the Divine Processions in the Unity and Identity of the same Individual Nature cannot multiply the Divinity nor multiply the Name and Title of God for the Name God does not originally absolutely and immediately belong to them but only relatively The proper immediate Character of the Second Person in the Trinity is not God but the Son of God and the Word of God and so the Third is the Spirit of God And though we must necessarily own that the Son of God and the Spirit of God are each of them True and Perfect God equal in all Divine Perfections to the Father as being all the same that the Father is excepting his being a Father yet they are not Three Gods for this is not their immediate Original Character but there is One God the Father his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit This is what I have above observed from Tertullian That there is One God with his Oeconomy that is his Son and Spirit and that Christ is called God when he is spoken of by himself but when he is named together with the Father he must have his own proper Title which is the Son of God and the Reason is the same as to the Holy Spirit by which Rule we can never say That Father Son and Holy Ghost though each of them be God are Three Gods but there are Three God the Father his Son and Holy Spirit The Father God of himself the Son and Spirit Eternal Processions and Divine Subsisting Relations in the Unity and Identity of the Father's Godhead They have all the same Divinity their Glory equal their Majesty coeternal but their different manner of having it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishes their Names and Characters The Father is God absolutely God an Unbegotten Self-originated Being so God that there is no other God besides him The Son is not absolutely God but the Son of God and when he is called God in Scripture it is in no other sense but as the Son of God for the Son of God must be God the Son Nor is the Holy Spirit absolutely God but the Spirit of God which is all we mean when we call him God for the Spirit of God must be God the Holy Ghost This is the Catholick Faith and let any Man try if he can find Three Gods in it For when we number Father Son and Holy Ghost we must not number them by the common Name of Nature which is One Undivided Divinity in them all but by their Relative Names and Characters which do not only distinguish their Persons but signify their Unity Order and Relations in the same Nature We must not call them Three Gods because God is not the original Name of the Son or Spirit and therefore they are not Three Gods but there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead The One God the Father the Son of God and the Spirit of God so that there is but One God in the Christian Faith if the Son of God be
23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 165. l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 188. l. 16. marg r. ex iâ—demutabilis p. 208. l. 24. Identity p. 216. l. 5. â— Man's r. Man p. 225. l. 34. marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 230. l. 2. r. Identity p. 236. l. 14. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 245. l. 10. r. an Angel p. 304. l. 2. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 12. de Trin. l. 2. marg l. 15. de Trin. l. 7. l. 32 videri p. 347. l. 14. r. his p. 349. l. 12 13. r. where-ever p 350 marg l. 8. r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Curious Reader may observe â—ome other Mistakes which I hope will not disturb the Sense THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SOCINIAN Controversy CHAP. I. SECT I. The Present State of the Socinian Controversy the unreasonableness of it and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question THE Faith of the Holy Trinity is so fundamental to the Christian Religion that if Christianity be worth contending for That is For if God have not an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ and of our Sanctification by the Spirit which in its Consequences is the whole of the Gospel and distinguishes it from all other Religions is utterly lost Those various Heresies relating to the Divinity Person and Offices of Christ and the Holy Spirit which began to appear even in the Apostolick Age and have ever since under several forms and disguises disturbed the Peace of the Church is proof enough how much the great Enemy of Mankind thinks himself concerned by all possible means to corrupt this Faith and that great unwearied unconquerable Zeal wherewith the Catholick Fathers have always defended this Faith shews of what importance they thought it and therefore it is no wonder and ought to give no scandal to Christians that these Disputes are again revived among us with as much fury and insolence as ever for there never was a more unhappy Season for the Enemy to sow his Tares But that which is most to be lamented is That the lukewarmness of some and the intemperate Zeal of others have given greater scandal to the World and more shaken the Faith of Christians than all the Opposition of our Adversaries could have done I need say no more the Case is too well known and the Evil Effects too visible among us I will make no new Quarrels if I can help it but sincerely endeavour to prevent the Mischiefs of what has already happened as far as is necâ—ssary to secure the Faith of Christians and to wrest those Weapons out of our Enemies hands which some professed Friends have unwarily furnished them with To do this I shall endeavour in the first place to restore this Controversie to its original state and take off those Vizards which make it appear very frightful to ordinary Christians This Dispute about the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity has of late been dressed up anew with some old School-Terms which how proper soever they may be to give Learned Men a more distinct Idea and Conception of that Adorable Mystery only amuse common Christians and confound them instead of teaching them better This as it was at first occasioned by Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Christian Faith which forced the Catholick Fathers to use some unscriptural Termâ— which by degrees improved into great Subtilties and disturbed the Church with very nice and wrangling Disputes so our Modern Socinians at this day place the main strength of their Cause in these Disputes and think it a sufficient Confutation of the Faith of the Ever Blessed Trinity that the Trinitarians themselves cannot agree about the Sense of Person Hypostasis Substance Nature Essence nor in what Sense God is One and Three but advance very different and as they think contrary Hypotheses to reconcile the Unity of God with the distinction of Three Persons in the Godhead As if there were no difference between what is fundamental in this Faith and such Metaphysical Speculations As if no man could believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost without determining all the Disputes of the Schools Learned men may dispute these matters and things may so happen as to make such Disputes necessary but the Faith of Christians may be secured and Heresies may be confuted without them The Faith is plain and certain even all that is necessary to the purposes of Religion but men may leap out of their depths where they can find no footing and when such Questions are asked as no man can certainly answer it is very likely that they will be answered very different ways and upon very different Hypotheses and there is no great hurt in this neither while these different Hypotheses are neither made new Articles of Faith nor new Heresies but serve only for Hypotheses to give a probable Answer to such Questions as ought never to have been asked and to stop the mouths of Hereticks when they charge the Catholick Faith with Nonsense and Contradiction To distinguish rightly between these two will set this Controversy upon its true ancient bottom which will spoil the Triumph of our Adversaries and possibly may rectify the Mistakes and allay and qualify the intemperate Heats and Animosities of those whom a common Faith ought to make Friends SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture Terms THE Catholick Fathers have always appealed to the Form of Baptism as the Rule and Standard of Faith that as we are baptized so we must believe In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is a plain simple Faith which every Christian may understand and which every Christian must profess That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature and inseparably united to himself and that this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the joint Object of the Christian Faith and Worship This is the true Christian Faith and this is all that we are concerned to defend against our Adversaries and would men stick to this without engaging in Philosophical Disputes which we know little or nothing of and which the Scripture takes no notice of we should soon find how weak and impotent all the Attempts of Hereticks would prove Whatever Disputes there are about the signification of those words Nature Essence Substance Person Hypostasis Subsistences Relations c. there is no Dispute about the signification of Father Son and Holy Spirit we have natural Idea's belong to these words when applied to Creatures and when God is pleased in Scripture to represent himself to us under thâ—se Characters if we must understand any thing by them we can understand nothing else but what the words signify all the World over only allowing for that infinite distance there is between God and Creatures which requires us to abstract from all material and creature imperfections We
must not think that God begets a Son as men do by corporeal passions or division of his substance or that he begets a Son without himself or separate from himself or that because a Creature-father is always older than his Son therefore God can't beget a Son coâ—ternal with himself for all these Circumstances do not belong to the essential Notion of a Father but of a Creature-father But then it is essential to the Notion both of Father and Son that the Father communicates his own Nature to the Son and that the Son receives his Nature and Being from his Father that Father and Son do truly and really subsist by themselves though they may be and when we speak of God the Father and his Son are inseparably united to each other that the Son with respect to his Nature is perfectly the same that his Father is the son of a man as true and perfect Man as his Father is and therefore the Son of God as true and perfect God By these Arguments the Catholick Fathers confuted both the Sabellians who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three Names and the Arians who denied the Consubstantiality of the Son or that he had the same Nature with his Father For both these Heresies destroy'd the essential Notion and Idea of Father and Son which includes in it both a real distinction and sameness of Nature that they are as really Two but infinitely more one and the same than any other Father and Son in Nature are Now I cannot see but that as these Names and Characters are better understood and liable to less dispute so they convey to our Minds a more distinct conception of God the Father and his Eternal Son than any other artificial Terms Were there no Controversy about Nature Essence Person Substance Hypostasis yet they immediately convey no Idea of God the Father and his Eternal Son to my mind much less give me a more distinct Conception than these Terms Father and Son do For they neither acquaint me what God is nor what Father and Son is and as the Schools themselves assert cannot be Univocally or in the same sense spoken of Creatures and of God who is Super-Essential above all Praedicaments and Terms of Art that is Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Person do not and cannot signify the same thing when spoken of God as when applied to Creatures And this has occasioned all those Disputes concerning the Use and Signification of these words when applied to God which indeed is no reason for wholly discarding these Terms which the Perverseness and Importunity of Hereticks has forced the Church to use and which have now been so long used that the Ecclesiastical Sense of these Words is very well known to Learned men if they would be contented to use them in that Received Ecclesiastical Sense in which the Catholick Fathers have always used them but yet it is a reason not to clog the Faith of ordinary Christians with them who are not skilled in Metaphysical and Abstracted Notions and it is a reason to reduce the Controversy as much as possibly we can to Scripture Terms when these Artificial and Metaphysical Terms divide even the Professors of the Catholick Faith and give too just occasion to the vain Boasts and Triumphs of Hereticks To represent this matter plainly I observe That all all those Unscriptural Terms which the Catholick Fathers made use of for the Explication of this Adorable Mystery were intended for no other purpose but to give us some distinct Ideas and Conceptions of what the Scripture teaches concerning the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost by using such Terms as signify something in Creatures which bears some though a very imperfect anology and resemblance to what we are to conceive of God And therefore the Fathers justifie the use of such words by shewing That all they mean by them is contained in Scripture and reject any Words and any such Sense of Artificial Words as cannot be justified by Scripture Which by the way is a more infallible Rule than all Metaphysical Subtleties to find out in what sense the Fathers used such Words by observing to what Scripture-Notions they apply them and how they justifie their use from Scripture when they are Disputed If this be the truth of the Case as it certainly is then the Catholick Faith does not depend upon the use of these Terms for it was before them for they were intended only to explain and illustrate the Catholick Faith and to comprise Scripture-Notions in Terms of Art which must be acknowledged to be of great use and was by experience found to be so in the Disputes with ancient Hereticks while the Fathers agreed in the sense of these Terms But when these Terms themselves are become the great matter of Dispute and men who as is to be hoped agree in the Catholick Faith cannot agree about the Propriety and Signification of such Terms nor how they are to be applied and used whether in the singular or plural Number whether substantively or adjectively in recto or obliquo and our Adversaries abuse such Disputes to the Reproach of the Catholick Faith as a perplex'd uncertain contradictious Riddle and Mystery which men can know nothing of or can never agree in it becomes absolutely necessary at present to take this Controversy out of Terms of Art and to let our Adversaries see That our Controversy with them is not concerned in these Disputes That it is not about the Signification and Use of such words as Essence Nature Substance Person c. but Whether the Supreme Eternal Self-originated Father have not an Eternal Son eternally begotten of himself and an Eternal Spirit the Spirit of the Father and of the Son eternally proceeding from them And whether this Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit are not True and Perfect God In this all sincere Trinitarians do heartily agree with each other and are ready to join issue upon this State of the Controversy with all their Adversaries of what denomination soever And if we can prove from Scripture That God has an Eternal Son begotten of himself and that this Eternal Son is True and Perfect God as the Father is and that the Father and Son have an Eternal Spirit who is True and Perfect God as Father and Son is I hope this is a sufficient Confutation of Socinianism and yet all this may be proved without concerning our selves in any Metaphysical Disputes And therefore such Disputes as these though they give opportunity to our Adversaries to make some Flourishes and to cast Mists before peoples eyes are not of that moment as they would represent them they neither prove Socinianism to be true nor the Catholick Faith of the Trinity to be false or uncertain I do not intend at present to dispute this Point with the Socinians Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit for there is no dispute about the Father be not each of them True and Perfect God This has been proved
Contradictions as he cannot require us to believe and consequently That whatever is plainly revealed implies no Contradiction how much soever it may be above our comprehension because God does require us to believe what he plainly reveals this had put an end to this Dispute and left the belief of the Trinity possible whatever difficulties we might apprehend in conceiving it But this great Zeal against believing Contradictions when applied to the belief of the Trinity is a very untoward Insinuation as if the Doctrine of the Trinity as commonly understood were clogg'd with Contradictions and that we must cast all such Contradictions which in the Socinian account is the Doctrine it self out of our Faith and therefore That whatever the Scripture says we must put no such sense on it as implies any Contradiction to our former knowledge This is an admirable Foundation for Considerations concerning the Trinity and what an admirable Superstructure he has rais'd on it we shall soon see I may possibly discourse this Point of Contradictions more at large elsewhere at present I shall only tell this Author That as self-evident as he thinks it this Proposition is false That it is impossible to believe what implies a Contradiction to our former knowledge and that God cannot require us to believe it I grant that all Logical Contradictions which are resolved into is and is not are impossible to be believed because they are impossible to be true and such is his Contradiction about the Whole and its Parts for to say That the Whole is not bigger than any of its Parts is to say That a Whole is a Whole and is not a Whole and that a Part is a Part and is not a Part. But contradictory Ideas may both be true and therefore both be believed and every man believes great numbers of them The Ideas of Heat and Cold White and Black Body and Spirit Extension and No Extension Eternity and Time to have A Beginning and to have No Beginning are contradictory Ideas and yet we believe them all that is we believe and know that there really are such things whose Natures are directly opposite and contrary to each other Now when there are such Contrarieties and Contradictions in Created Nature it may justly be thought very strange to true Considerers that our Natural Ideas should be made the adequate measures of Truth or Falshood of the Possibilities or Impossibilities of things that we must not believe what God reveals concerning himself if it contradicts any Natural Ideas And yet I challenge this Considerer and all the Socinian Sabellian Arian Fraternities to shew me any appearance of Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity but what are of this kind that is not Logical Contradictions but Contradictions to our other Natural Ideas And if our Natural Ideas of Created Nature contradict each other it would be wonderful indeed if the Divine Uncreated Nature should not contradict all our Natural Ideas Every thing we know of God is a direct Contradiction to all the Ideas we have of Creatures an Uncreated and a Created Nature an Infinite and a Finite Nature are direct Contradictions to each other Eternity without Succession Omnipresence without Extension Parts or Place a pure simple Act which is all in one without Composition an Omnipotent Thought which thinks all things into Being and into a Beautiful Order these and such like Ideas of God are direct Contradictions to all the Ideas we have of Creatures and can any Contradiction then to any Ideas of Created Nature be thought a reasonable Objection against believing any thing which God reveals to us concerning himself But of this more hereafter SECT IV. Concerning his State of the Question That One and the Same God is Three Different Persons THese are his Preliminaries Axioms Postulata's all in the strict demonstrative way but now he comes to apply all this more closely to the business in hand but then he very unfortunately stumbles at the Threshold The Proposition he proposes to examine by these Principles is this That One and the same God is Three Different Persons Where he met with this Proposition in these very Terms I know not I 'm sure there is no such Proposition in Scripture nor did I ever meet with it in any Catholick Writer It is very far from giving us a true and adequate Notion of the Catholick Faith concerning the Trinity it is of a doubtful signification and in the most obvious sense of these words which I fear will appear to have been intended by this Considerer is manifest Heresy For if by One and the same God he means That there is but One who is God and That this One and same God is Three different Persons it is the Heresy of Sabellius at least if he would have owned the Term different which inclines more to the signification of diversity than of mere distinction which savours of Arianism and more properly relates to Natures than to Persons We meet with different forms of speech in Catholick Writers concerning the Unity and Trinity in the Godhead all which must be reconciled to form a distinct and compleat Notion of the Trinity That Deus est Vnus Trinus God is One and Three is very Ancient and very Catholick That the Father is the One God in a peculiar and eminent sense is both the Language of Scripture and of the Church That each Person Father Son and Holy Ghost is by himself True and Perfect God is likewise the Doctrine both of the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Fathers That the Trinity is One God That Father and Son are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnum One Divinity Christ himself teaches us That Father Son and Spirit are also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One St. Iohn teaches us And nothing is more familiar both with the Greek and Latin Fathers than to call the Trinity One God and in consequence of this That One God is the Trinity though this they rather chose to express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three Persons And whoever would give an account of the Catholick Faith of the Trinity must have respect to all these Notions and not content himself with any one of them as to make the best of it the Considerer here does when he only proposes to enquire How One and the same God is Three Persons But he ought to have enquired also in what sense each Person is by himself True and Perfect God and the Person of the Father in a peculiar and eminent sense the One God and to have framed his Notions of Unity and Distinction with an equal regard to all these Catholick Expositions which would have secured him from the Sabellian Heresy which now his Words are very guilty of whatever He himself be But let us now proceed to his Examination of these Terms God Vnity Identity Distinction and Number and Person As to the Notion of a Deity he confesses he has not a
Homoousion which he afterwards readily received when the Council had declared in what sense they understood it and rejected all corporeal passions all division and partition change and diminution of the Divine Essence which pure simple unbodied eternal unchangeable Mind is not capable of Now all that I shall observe at present is That this very Objection which was thought so formidable necessarily supposes that both they who made it and they who were so much concerned to answer it did acknowledge a substantial generation of the Son for this whole Dispute is downright Nonsense without it If God the Father in begetting his Son does not so communicate his own Nature and Substance to him as to make him a true substantial Son of the same Substance indeed but yet as distinct in Substance from the Father as he is in Person How ridiculous is all this Dispute how the Father communicates his own Nature to his Son for according to these men he does not communicate or propagate his own Nature and Substance at all there being but one singular solitary Divine Nature and Substance with a Trinity of Names Modes or Offices and therefore no danger of any division or partition of the Divine Substance The Dispute between the Catholicks and the Arians about the generation of the Son was this They both owned against the Sabellians that the Son is a real substantial subsisting Person but the Question was whence he had his Nature whether he was created out of Nothing and consequently had a beginning of Being as the Arians affirmed or was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of his Father and so coeternal with his Father as the Nicene Council affirmed That the Substance of the Son was of the Substance of the Father God of God Light of Light Against this the Arians objected That the Son could not be of the Substance of the Father without the division of the Father's Substance which is impossible in an infinite uncreated Spirit as God is which Argument is only against a substantial generation The Nicene Fathers allow this Objection to be good as to corporeal generations but deny that it is thus as to the Eternal Generation of the Son of God for an Eternal Uncreated Immutable Mind if it can communicate its own Nature at all and we learn from Scripture that God has a Son must do it without division of parts for the Divine Nature and Substance has no parts and is capable of no division And it is very absurd to reason from corporeal Passions to the Affections and Operations of Spirits much more of an infinite eternal Spirit Had not the Arians understood the Catholick Fathers of the substantial Generation of the Son they had more wit than to urge an Argument to no purpose for where there is no communication of Substance it is certain there can be no division of it And had not the Catholick Fathers owned this substantial Generation they would have rejected the Argument with scorn as nothing to the purpose and not have distinguished between corporeal generations and the Generation of Eternal and Infinite Mind That though Bodies cannot communicate their own Nature and Substance without division yet an Eternal Mind can so that from these perverse Interpretations of the Homoousion which the Catholick Fathers rejected we may learn what they meant by it for if Father and Son are not Consubstantial in the sense of the Sabellians and Modalists that is that Father and Son are not One Person with Two Names nor One singular solitary Substance common to them both then the Father must be a substantial Father and the Son a substantial Son and these Two substantial Persons are Consubstantial as having the same One Divine Nature and Substance intirely perfectly and distinctly in themselves without any division diminution or separation of Substance by a complete and perfect Generation whereby the Father communicates his whole intire Nature to the Son without any change or alteration in himself SECT II. Some Rules for expounding the Homoousion and in what Sense the Fathers understood it SEcondly Let us now examine what account the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers give of the Homoousion and in what sense they understood it But before I tell you what they expresly say of this matter I shall observe by the way two or three Rules they give us for expounding the Homoousion which are of great use in this Enquiry 1. The first is To give the Homoousion the right place in our Creed as the Nicene Fathers have done They do not tell us abruptly in the first place That the Son is consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father They first tell us That Jesus Christ our Lord is the only-begotten Son of God begotten of his Father that is of the Substance of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God Begotten not made and then they add Of One Substance with the Father This St. Hilary lays great stress on and his Reason is very considerable because if in the first place we say Father and Son are consubstantial or of One Substance this is capable of an Heretical as well as Orthodox Sense as we have already heard for they may be One Substance in the Sabellian Notion as that signifies One Person or One by the Division or Partition of the same Substance of which each has a part for all these perverse Senses may be affix'd to it when this word Consubstantial or One Substance stands singly by it self or is put in the first place without any thing to limit or determine its signification And therefore a true Catholick Christian must not begin his Creed with saying That Father and Son are of One Substance but then he may safely say One Substance when he has first said The Father is unbegotten the Son is born and subsists of his Father like to his Father in all Perfections Honour and Nature not of nothing but born not unborn but coaeval not the Father but the Son of the Father not a Part of the Father but All that the Father is not the Author but the Image the Image of God begotten of God and born God not a Creature but God not Another God of a different Kind and Substance but One God as having the same Essence and Nature which differs in nothing from the Substance of the Father that God is One not in Person but Nature Father and Son having nothing unlike or of a different kind in them And after this we may safely add That Father and Son are One Substance and cannot deny it without Sin This is as plain as words can make it and needs no Comment but fixes and determines the Catholick Sense of the Homoousion For if we must acknowledge the Son to be consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father in no other sense than as a True and Real Son is consubstantial a Son not created out of Nothing but
that he was of the Father not as a part of the Father or of his Substance and when the Son is said to be consubstantial with the Father they did not understand this after the manner of Bodies by division abscission or any change of the Father's Substance but the only meaning is That the Son has nothing like a created Nature but is in every respect perfectly like his Father as not being of any other Substance or Nature but of the Father Athanasius gives us a very particular account what it was that forced the Nicene Fathers to add those two words to their Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Son is of the Substance of the Father and Consubstantial or of One Substance with the Father which was to cut off all Evasions and Subterfuges from the Arian Hereticks and to force them to confess the Truth or to confess their Heresy which they endeavoured to palliate and conceal under ambiguous words When the Nicene Fathers taught That the Son is of the Father the Arians were contented to allow this but meant no more by it but that the Son is of the Father as all other Creatures are of God and therefore they added That the Son is of the Substance of God to distinguish him from all Creatures and this is the true interpretation of that Phrase That the Son is of the Substance of the Father that he is no Creature Thus when the Fathers taught That the Word was the true Power and Image of the Father in all things and invariably like the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Arians owned this also in a qualified sense because Creatures are said to be the Power the Image the Likeness of God and therefore they were forced to express the sense of Scripture and what sense they understood the Scripture in concerning the Son's being the Likeness and Image of God by adding that the Son is Consubstantial or of One Substance with the Father to declare that the Son is not so of the Father as meerly to be like him but to be the very same in likeness and similitude to the Father and to be inseparably united to his Father's Substance and that he and the Father are One as he himself hath said The Word is always in the Father and the Father in the Word like the light and its splendor and this the word Homocusios signifies and was used by the Council to this very end to distinguish and separate the Word from all created Nature as appears from the Anathema they immediately denounce against those who said That the Son of God was produced out of nothing was a Creature of a mutable Nature the Workmanship of God or of any other Substance but the Substance of the Father And therefore he adds That those that dislike these words ought to consider the sense in which the Synod uses them and to anathematize what the Synod anathematizes and then if they can let them quarrel with the words though he is very confident that no man who owns the sense of the Council and understands the words in their sense can dislike the words From whence it appears that Athanasius would have allowed those for Orthodox Christians as I observed before St. Hilary did who should confess the Eternal Generation of the Son that there was no time before he was and that he had no beginning of Being that he is no Creature nor of any other Substance but only of the Father and that he always was inseparably united to him and one with him though they should have boggled at those words That the Son is of the Substance of the Father and consubstantial with him But the true reason why the Nicene Fathers did so earnestly contend for these words of the Substance of the Father and Consubstantial was because they found by experience that no other words would hold the Arian Hereticks who concealed their Poyson under any other form of words though in appearance very Orthodox as the Catholick Bishops found to their cost in the Council of Ariminum and upon several other occasions which is the account the Synod of Paris gives the Eastern Bishops of this matter But though they desired that all would agree in the use of this word as most expressive of the true Catholick Faith yet they never rejected the Communion of any Bishops merely upon this account while they prosessed the true Catholick Faith which the Nicene Council intended to signify by this word and condemned those Arian Blasphemies which they intended to condemn by it Before this Council had taken the Homoousion into their Creed and made it the Test of the Catholick Faith Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria in his Book against the Sabellians had let drop some Expressions for which he was charged with denying the Homoousion and accused for it to his Name-sake Dionysius then Bâ—shop of Rome which occasioned his Apology to the Roman Bishop which Athanasius gives us an account of He owns That he did say that the word Homoousion was not to be found in Scripture yet what he taught of Christ did plainly signify what is meant by the Homoousion that he is no Creature but homogeneous or of the same Nature with his Father which he explained by Human Births which are manifestly of the same kind there being no difference of Nature between Parents and Children who differ only in this That Parents are not their own Children whereby he signified that God the Father and God the Son had but one and the same Nature though the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father The same he says he represented by other similitudes of Homogeneous Productions as a Root and its Branches the Fountain and Rivers which are not the same with each other but have the same Nature These are true Catholick Representations of the Homoousion and this Dionysius thought a sufficient Justification of his Faith and Athanasius thought so too without using that term especially if we add what he discourses more at large de Sent. Dionysii contra Arianos I shall only observe farther That the Learned Dr. Bull takes this very way to prove that the Ante Nicene Fathers did own the Faith of the Homoousion or that the Son is consubstantial to the Father though we seldom meet with the word it self in their Writings because they teach the same things which the Nicene Fathers intended by that word As 1. When they affirm the Son of God is not only of the Father but that he proceeds from and is begotten of the Father 2. That the Son is the True Genuine Proper Natural Son of God 3. When they explain the Generation of the Son by the Root and its Branches the Sun and its Rays the Fountain and River which are of the same Nature and therefore represent the Father and Son to be of the same Substance 4. When they except the Son of God out of
the number of Creatures and deny him to be a Creature 5. When they ascribe such things to the Son as are proper and peculiar only to the True God 6. When they affirm the Son of God not only to be God but expresly own him to be true God God by Nature and One God with the Father This is the true Notion of the Homoousion and now let any man judge Whether a Consubstantial Trinity be a Trinity of Personal Characters Relations or Names or of Real Substantial Subsisting Persons If we will allow either the Nicene Fathers or the Arian Bishops to be well in their wits can we think that there would have been any such Disputes between them as whether the Son be Coeternal with the Father or had a Beginning whether there were any time the least conceivable moment before the Son was whether he was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 created out of nothing as all other Creatures are or begotten of the Substance of the Father and is the true genuine natural Son of God or a Son only by Adoption whether he be true perfect God in opposition to the most perfect created Nature or be only a made and Creature-God whether he be Consubstantial with the Father or have only a Nature like the Fathers but not the same and whether he be like his Father in all things in Substance and Essence or only in Will and Affection I say Could any men in their wits dispute such matters as these unless both sides were agreed that the Son is a Real Substantial Son as human Sons are who are begotten of the Substance of their Parents that he has a Subsistence of his own distinct from his Father's Subsistence that he has a Substance of his own eternally begotten of his Father's Substance and therefore the same but proper and peculiar to his own Person which makes him the Son and not the Father For till these things are agreed there is no foundation for the other Disputes for if the Son have no real Subsistence of his own who would dispute whether he began to subsist in time or did subsist from all Eternity If he have no Substance of his own is it not ludicrous to dispute whether he be of the Father that is have his Substance of his Father's Substance or be a new created Substance as like his Father's Substance as a created Substance can be but not the same For if he have no distinct Substance of his own neither of these can be true To what purpose is it to dispute whether he be a begotten or created God if he be not as true and perfect a Person and as true and perfect God upon the Catholick Hypothesis in his own Person as the Father himself is In short to conclude this Argument If the Homoousion signifies that the Son of God who is Consubstantial to his Father is no Creature was not made out of Nothing had no Beginning of Being is of his Father's Substance begotten of his Substance from all Eternity a true and perfect Son of a true and perfect Father and upon all accounts the very same that the Father is excepting that he is the Son and not the Father it is impossible the Nicene Fathers should have been either Sabellians or Modalists SECT IV. A more particular Inquiry into the full Signification of the Homoousion with respect to the Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature THAT the Nicene Fathers did by the Homoousion or One Substance of the Godhead understand something like what we call a Specifick Sameness and Vnity of Nature might be proved by numerous Quotations had it not been sufficiently done already by Petavius Curcelloeus Dr. Cudworth and others whoever will be pleased to read the Testimonies they produce in this Cause will never be able to make any other tolerable Sense of them They apply this word Homoousion to things which are specifically One or which have the same Specifick Nature as a Tree and its Branches a Fountain and River as they call God the Father the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Root and Fountain of the Son and Holy Spirit the Sun and its Rays and Splendor as Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brightness and refulgency of his Father's Glory They prove that Christ has the same Nature with his Father because all true natural genuine Sons have so and therefore if he be as truly and properly the Son of God as Isaac was the son of Abraham he must be Consubstantial to God the Father as Isaac was to Abraham which we know is a Specifick Vnity of Nature And the Council of Chalcedon expresly affirms That Christ is Consubstantial to his Father as to his Godhead or Divine Nature and Consubstantial to us as to his Manhood or Human Nature and if the Homoousion signifies the same or something analogous in both we know what this sameness of Nature means for it is impossible to reconcile this to one singular Nature and Unity Christ is not Consubstantial to us upon account of the same singular human Nature in him and in all Mankind for every Man has a particular human Nature of his own and so had Christ but the Nature is specifically the same in Christ and in us that is it is a true human Nature and this makes Christ and us Consubstantial And if there be any thing like this though in a more perfect degree in the Consubstantiality of Father and Son it must signify not one singular Nature which cannot be said to be Consubstantial to it self but the Consubstantiality of Two Persons really and substantially distinct but united in the same common Nature or the same Divinity And therefore nothing is more common than to render the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unius generis and by such like words as every one knows signify a Specifick Vnity That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One Divinity and One Divine Essence is a common Nature the same in all Three Persons communicated by the Father to the Son and by Father and Son to the Holy Spirit is so universally acknowledged that it needs no proof the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently occur in the writings of the Nicene Fathers which signify the One Divinity to be a common Nature to the Three Divine Persons This is the very account St. Basil gives of the difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence and Person that Essence signifies a common Nature which is in more than One and may be spoken of more than One as a species is predicated of its Individuals Man is a common Name for all Men because Humanity is a common Nature which is alike in Peter and Iohn and Iames and all the Men in the World But Hypostasis or Person though it signifies the Nature also yet not in that general Notion as common to all of the same
kind but as actually subsisting in Particulars which are distinguished from each other by their distinct Subsistence or by such other Properties and characteristical Marks as are peculiar to each of them and not common to the whole kind as the persons of Peter and Iames and Iohn though they have the same common Nature are yet distinguished from each other Now if the One Divine Nature be in this sense a common Nature that it is really and actually communicated by the Father to the Son and Holy Spirit and does distinctly subsist whole and entire and perfect in all Three Divine Persons it cannot be One singular solitary Nature which cannot subsist distinctly in Three for in perfect singularity there can be no distinction nor can One singular Nature be Three Subsistences when there is but One which subsists Athanasius or whoever was the Author of that Treatise of the common Essence of Father Son and Holy Ghost proves that all Three Persons have the same common Nature from the same Names and Attributes and Works Dominion and Power ascribed distinctly to them all and gives this account why though the Father be God and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God yet we must not say that there are Three Gods but One God in Three Persons because a common Nature has a common Name as he shews that all Mankind in Scripture are called one Man upon account of their common Nature and if this be allowable among men to unite all Mankind in one Name and to speak of them as one Man notwithstanding all that diversity which is between them in external form strength will affections opinions c. how much more reasonable is it to call the Three Divine Persons One God who are distinguished and separated from the whole Creation by One undivided Dignity One Kingdom One Power One Will and Energy And that we may not suspect that by One common Nature they meant One singular Substance and Nature common to Father and Son which it is impossible to form any Notion of St. Basil tells us what he meant by a common Nature such a Nature as has the same Notion and Definition that is which is common as a Genus or Species is common As for example If the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to his Suppositum or Substance be Light we must acknowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Essence and Substance of the Son to be Light also and whatever other Notion we form of the Being and Essence of the Father the same we must apply to the Son And herein he places the Unity of the Godhead or the One Divinity that though the Divine Persons differ in Number and in their peculiar Characters yet that Divine Nature which subsists distinctly in each of them has but one and the same Notion and Definition and therefore is but one and the same in all If this be not a specifick Sameness and Unity all our Logicks deceive us I 'm sure the Unity of an Individuum or singular Nature was never thought to consist in a common Notion or Definition of its Nature and yet this is the account which the Fathers unanimously give of the One common Divinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost No man who understands any thing of this Controversy can be ignorant of that famous Dispute de Ingenito Genito concerning the Vnbegotten and the begotten Nature By this Sophism the Arians endeavoured to prove That the Son could not be Homoousios consubstantial or of the same Nature with the Father because an Unbegotten Nature cannot be the same with a Begotten Nature Now had the Catholick Fathers believed the singularity of the Divine Nature in the modern Notion of it this Objection had been unanswerable for it is absolutely impossible that the same singular Nature should be both begotten and unbegotten as much as it is that the same single Person should be both begotten and unbegotten I desire to know how any Sabellianist who acknowledges but One singular solitary Substance of the Deity would answer this Objection I know no possible way they have but to deny that the Divine Nature of the Son is begotten that though the Son be begotten his Divine Nature is not begotten but only his Personality or Mode of Subsistence without a begotten subsisting Nature And this indeed would effectually answer the Objection for if there be not a begotten and unbegotten Nature the foundation of the Objection is lost And this is so obvious an Answer upon the Hypothesis of Singularity that it is sufficient to satisfy any thinking man that the Câ—tholick Fathers did not believe this Singularity of the Divine Essence since none of them ever gave this Answer to the Objection But we need not guess at their meaning for they themselves expresly reject this Answer which is the only proper and pertinent Answer upon this Hypothesis and give such other Answers as contradict the Notion of the Singularity of the Divine Essence As strange as some think it the Catholick Fathers from the very beginning of Christianity owned the Divine Nature and Substance of the Son to be begotten nothing is more familiar in all their Writings than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Natura genita Deus genitus unigenitus Deus St. Gregory Nyssen agrees this matter with Eunomius that the Divine Nature of the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Begotten Substance so does St. Basil so do the other Fathers When Eunomius objected That God being unbegotten cannot admit of Generation St. Basil allows this to be true in one sense viz. That he who is unbegotten cannot in his own proper Nature be begotten because it is impossible that an unbegotten Nature should it self be begotten But the other sense of the words That he who is unbegotten himself can't beget so as to communicate by a substantial Generation his own Nature to the Son he rejects as Blasphemy both against Father and Son which is a plain demonstration what St. Basil's Judgment was about an unbegotten and begotten Nature Eunomius urged That unbegotten and begotten are both Names of Nature and therefore must signify two Natures as different from each other as unbegotten and begotten are Now to prove that begotten is not the Name of Nature and Substance St. Basil uses this Argument That if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same if begotten and substance signify the same thing then as he who is begotten is the begotten of him who begets so we may in like manner say that he who is begotten is the Substance of him who begets and then the Name begotten will not signify the Substance of the only begotten Son but the Substance of the God of all that as the Son is the begotten of God so he is the Substance of God and thus the begotten is the Substance of the unbegotten which he says is ridiculous And yet as ridiculous as St. Basil thought this those must of necessity
but that the name of Nature may be multiplied when there are more who are united in the same Nature how comes it to pass that we contradict this in the Mystery of the Trinity that we acknowledge Three Hypostases who have the very same Nature without the least difference or diversity and yet teach that the Divinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost is but One and forbid saying that there are Three Gods Now the better to understand the Father's Answer we muâ—t observe that this was an Arian Objection against the Homoousion or the perfect Sameness Indifference and Equality of Nature between Father and Son For the design of it was as St. Gregory himself observes to reduce them to this dangerous Dilemma either to assert Three Gods which is unlawful or to deny the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost which is impious and absurd If they denied the Sameness and Equality of Nature then the Son and Holy Ghost are not True and Perfect God consubstantial with the Father or if Father Son and Holy Ghost have the same One Common Nature and are perfectly consubstantial then they are Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn who have the same One Common Humanity are Three Men and there is the very same reason for calling Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Gods that there is for calling Peter Iames and Iohn Three Men that is the same Nature common to them all This was the Objection St. Gregory was to answer and therefore his business was to prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are not and ought not to be called Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are and may be called Three Men and therefore he must prove That they are neither Three nor One in the same sense that Three Men are Three and One for if they were they would be as truly and properly Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men and no more One God than they are One Man which had been to give up the Cause to the Arians instead of answering their Objection This may satisfy any man that those Learned Persons are very much mistaken who charge such a sense upon this Father as is directly contrary to his design for he understood the Laws of Reasoning better Neither he nor any other Father I ever yet met with asserted that Peter Iames and Iohn were but One Man or that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God no otherwise than Peter Iames and Iohn are One Man which yet is what has been charged upon them But does not Greg. Nyssen say That it is a catachrestical way of speaking tho become common and familiar to multiply the name of Nature with the Individuals of the same Nature As to say That there are many Men because there are many who have the same Human Nature But if we would speak accurately and properly we should say that there is but one Man how many soever have the same Nature And does not he apply this to the Unity of God And can this have any other sense than that the same Divine Nature makes Father Son and Holy Ghost but One God as the same Human Nature makes all the Men in the World but one Man The Interpretation of which seems to be That Father Son and Holy Ghost are as much Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men but that it is very improper to call either the one or the other Three for they are but One by One Common Nature Now this Father does indeed say and so many others of them say That the name of Nature ought not to be multiplied with the Individuals but he was far enough either from saying or thinking what he is charged with That Peter Iames and Iohn are not Three Men but One Man or that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God in no other sense but as Three Men are One And a due attendance to the Series of the Argument would have discovered the Falseness and Absurdity of this Imputation which therefore I shall briefly explain The Arian Objection which St. Gregory undertook to answer as I observed before was this That since the Catholick Church owned the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be consubstantial and to have the same undiversified Nature they must for that reason be Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn upon account of the same common Humanity are acknowledged to be Three Men That is that whether in God or Man the same Nature in Three must make Three Individuals of the same Kind and Species and therefore as the same Human Nature in Three makes Three Men so the same Divine Nature Three Gods In answer to this St. Gregory first observes That it is not the same common Nature which distinguishes and multiplies Individuals no not in Men Peter Iames and Iohn are not Three Individuals in the Species of Humanity merely by having the same Nature which is the force of the Arian Objection for what is perfectly the same in all can't distinguish or multiply them And this is plainly all that he means when he says That the name of Nature ought not to be used plurally and therefore Man being the name of Nature and signifying the same with Humanity we ought no more if we speak properly and Philosophically to say Three Men than Three Humanities or Three Human Natures for he proves that the name Man does not distinguish one Man from another nor can we single any particular Man out of a Crowd by that Compellation for there is but One Man or One Humamanity in them all that name not belonging primarily and immediately to the Individuals as such but to the common Nature Well but are there not Individual Men then as well as a Common Nature Yes without doubt but they are distinguished and multiplied not by the Common Nature which is the same in all but by such peculiar Properties as diversify and distinguish Common Nature as it subsists separately in particular Persons and that makes the Number though Nature be one and the same a perfect indivisible Monad This is not merely to criticize upon Words or to dispute against the common Forms of Speech but to give a true Philosophical Reason of their different Use when applied to God and Creatures We commonly call Peter Iames and Iohn Three Men and right enough but then they are not Three Men merely upon account of the same Common Humanity in them all which was the Arian Objection for Humanity is but One in all and what is perfectly One can't be numbred To say there are Three Humanities all Men grant to be absurd and yet it is to the full as absurd to say that Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men merely upon account of the same Humanity strictly and precisely taken as to say that there are Three Humanities So that though Peter Iames and Iohn could not be nor be called Three Men without the same Common Nature yet some peculiar distinguishing
make Three Gods because there is but one and the same Divinity in Three And this is what they mean by the Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature not that Unity or Unit which is the beginning of Number but the Unity of Sameness and Identity which Tho. Aquinas calls unum non numero sed re numerata One not in the numbring Number but in the thing mumbred or as the Fathers speak not in Number but Nature The better to understand this matter we must consider what St. Basil discourses about the Unity of God in answer to those who charged the Doctrine of the Trinity with Tritheism viz. That they acknowledged One God but not in Number the numbring Number but in Nature For that which is One in Number is not truly One nor perfectly Simple in Nature but all men acknowledge God to be the most Simple Uncompounded Being and therefore he is not One in the Notion of this numbring Number This he proves by an induction of particulars we say the World is one in number but not one in nature for it is compounded of great variety of Creatures and we say one Man but Man is compounded of Body and Soul and even any Angel is not perfectly pure and simple but is compounded of Essence and Qualities such as Holiness which is not pure and simple Nature for it may be separated He adds that Number is a Species of quantity and answers to the Question How many which properly belongs to a Corporeal Nature And indeed all Number denotes such things as have a material or at least a circumscribed and limited Nature but Monad and Vnity denote the Simple Uncompounded Uncircumscribed Infinite Essence And when he says That Number must belong to things of a Circumscribed Nature thereby he tells us he means not merely such things as are circumscribed by Place which properly belongs to Bodies but all such Natures as have a limited and confined Idea as all Created Natures whether Body or Spirit have whose Natures are limited circumscribed fixt and determined by that Infinite Mind which gives being to them The meaning of all which is this That to make a Number there must be Alterity and Diversity in Nature or a separate Existence But a Perfect Simple Uncompounded Nature can admit of no possible alteration and diversity for the same Nature can never differ from it self without some kind of composition and where there is no difference and diversity there can be no number and an Infinite Uncircumscribed Nature can never be divided and separated or subsist a-part and therefore can't be numbred So that Number can belong only to Created Natures which are compounded and finite and therefore by some diversifying Qualities or Affections and a separate Exâ—istence may be distinguished into Individuals which may be numbred but the Unity of the Divine Nature which is a Perfect Indivisible Uncompounded Infinite Monad is not the Unity of Number but a Perfect Invariable Sameness and Identity and an Indivisible inseparable Union Now some Men who do not duly attend to the nature and design of these Reasonings apply all this to prove the Perfect Singularity of the Divine Essence in the most strict and proper notion of Singularity as that signifies One in Number which contradicts the whole Intention of this Hypothesis which is to prove that the Unity of God does not consist in the Unity of Number but of Nature and that the Unity of the Divine Nature is not a Unity of Number but a Unity of Sameness Identity and Inseparability This is a Matter of great consequence and therefore let us consider it over again This distinction between the Unity of Number and the Unity of Nature was alledged by the Catholick Fathers to avoid the Charge of Tritheism The Sabellians and Arians asserted the Unity of God to be a Unity of Number that One Divinity is not One unless it be One in Number One Single Solitary Divine Nature And this say they is inconsistent with the Trinity of Divine Persons each of which is in his own Person True and Perfect God For Three such Divine Persons must be Three Gods Three Divinities if each Divine Person have the True Perfect Divine Nature in himself and it is impossible to understand what a Divine Person is without the Divine Nature So that if the Father be God the Son God the Holy Ghost God if Father Son and Holy Ghost be Three they must be Three Gods This was the great Difficulty and it is the only material Difficulty to this day To have asserted but One Singular Divine Nature which is but One in Number had given up the Cause to the Sabellians or Arians For then either Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names or Offices of the same One Divine Person who is the One God as the Sabellians taught Or Father Son and Holy Ghost are not a Consubstantial Trinity but the Father alone is God and the Son and Holy Ghost but mere Creatures how Excellent Creatures soever they are On the other hand should they have denied that Three Ones make Three this had been false counting as the Socinians tell us now and therefore to avoid both these Extremes they distinguish between the Number by which we reckon and the thing which is numbred and thus they find a Real Trinity in Perfect Unity As Greg. Nyssen tells us That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very same thing the same Divinity is both numbred and not subject to Number It may so far be numbred with the Persons as each Divine Person has the whole and perfect Divinity in himself but yet the Divinity can't be numbred not because it is One Single Solitary Divinity for it really subsists in Three but by reason of that perfect Sameness and Identity which admits of no Number for that which is perfectly one and the same in Three can't be numbred Had they thought of such a Singularity of the Divine Nature as is but One in Number they must have disputed at another rate against Sabellians and Arians Would they have taught That the Divinity may be numbred and yet is without Number Which is impossible to be true of the same singular Divinity which is but One in Number and therefore can never be more than One in Number that is in that Father's sense cannot be numbred much less can the same Singular Nature be numbred and incapable of Number that is be One and More than One. Would they have taken so much pains to prove That Sameness and Identity of Nature excludes all Number if by this they had meant the Sameness and Identity of Singularity as the same thing is one and the same thing with it self which is no great Mystery And is it not evident that this whole Dispute is concerning the Unity of the Divine Nature in Three distinct Persons and consequently concerning that Sameness and Identity of Nature which is between Three who have the same Nature and therefore not One
abundantly appears from what I have already proved at large 2 Those very Persons who charge Philoponus with Tritheism for asserting Three Individual Natures and Essences do themselves own a Personal Substance Leontius as Nicâ—ph rus tells us wrote a large Book against Philoponus and yet he tells us That the Fathers by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence or Substance and Nature understood the same thing and so they did by Hypostasis and Person That by Essence and Substance they meant what the Philosophers call a Species by Hypostasis and Person what they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Individual Substance And in this sense he tells us They acknowledged One Divinity in Three Hypostases or Three Personal Subsistencies That there is One Hypostasis that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father One Hypostasis of the Son and One Hypostasis of the Holy Ghost that these Three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in nothing differ from each other but only in their Personal Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that one is the Father the other the Son the other the Holy Ghost So that Leontius owns Three true proper Persons each of which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Individual Substance which he asserts to be the true Catholick Ecclesiastical Notion of a Person and each Person as distinct from each other as he that begets is from him who is begotten and therefore when he condemned Philoponus for his Individual Natures and Essences he could not by that mean relative Personal Subsistencies or Substances Theodorus Abucara if he be the Author of that Tract against the Severians Explanatio vocum quibus Philosophi utuntur which I have sometimes suspected to belong to Theodorus Presbyter Raithensis who promises such an Explication of Philosophical Terms at the end of his Treatise de Incarnatione I say this Theodorus whoever he is expresly charges these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Individual Natures and Essences with Tritheism and yet throughout that Treatise teaches That Hypostasis is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a singular Individual Nature and so does Anastasius Sinaita in his Hodegos and indeed all the Writers of that Age who asserted against the Severians the Union of Two Natures in One Person in Christ. 3 dly But we shall soon be satisfied in this matter if we consider the occasion of this Dispute The Severians as they had learnt from their Master Severus and he from Eutyches taught that there was but One Nature as well as One Person in Christ and that for this reason That to assert Two Natures is consequently to assert Two Persons in Christ which is Nestorianism for every Nature is a Person that it is impossible there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Nature without a Personality of its own for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature and Person or Hypostasis are the same In opposition to this the Catholicks urged That if Nature and Hypostasis were so the same that One Hypostasis is One Nature and One Nature but One Hypostasiâ— then as we assert Three Hypostasis in the Trinity we must also allow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Individual Natures and Essences in the Trinity Philoponus saw that this was an unavoidable Consequence and therefore rather than own Two Natures in One Person in Christ he chose to assert Three Individual Natures in the Trinity And for this he and his Followers were very justly charged with Tritheism And this shews us what these Individual Natures were not Three Relative Personal Subsistencies and Substances in the same One Individual Nature which is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity but Three Compleat Absolute Divinities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three such Divine Natures as there are Three Individual Human Natures in Three Men Each of which is by himself and alone without communication with any other in the same Individual Nature One compleat intire Humane Nature and One Human Person For this was the rise of the Dispute concerning the Humanity of Christ. The Catholicks owned the Personality of the Word but taught that Christ's Humane Nature was so united to his Divinity as not to be a distinct Human Person but to subsist in the Person of the Word which is the true Faith of the Word 's being Incarnate or made Flesh which could not be true if the Person of the Word were not Incarnate and that could not be true if the Human Nature in Christ were a distinct Human Person as other Men are On the other hand the Severians denied the Union of Two Natures in the One Person of Christ because an Individual Human Nature must be a Person and then Christ must be two Persons as well as two Natures So that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a compleat absolute Individual Nature such as an Individual Human Nature is and three such Individual Natures make three Men or Three Gods and to assert Three such Absolute Divinities is Tritheism but this concerns not Personal Relative Subsistencies or Substances in the same Individual Nature and Essence and therefore the Condemnation of Philoponus or Valentinus Gentilis and such kind of Hereticks if they did really teach what they are charged with cannot affâ—ct those who assert Three real distinct substantial Persons each of whom is by himself in his own Person the whole Divine Nature Essence Substance but are essentially and inseparably related to each other in the Unity of the same Individual Essence The very asserting three relative personal Subsistencies or Substances in One Individual Nature is a direct opposition to the Doctrine of Philoponus and the Severians that Nature and Person is the same so the same that One Nature can be but One Person and One Person but One Nature which necessarily overthrows a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence and the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in the One Person of Christ but Three Relative Persons and Subsistencies in One Nature and One Nature and One Person are direct Contradictions as One Individual Substance and Three Individual Substances are Indeed those who deny Three Relative Personal Subsistencies that is Three Real Proper Substantial Persons in the Unity of the Divine Nature go upon the same Principle with Philoponus and the Severians that One Nature is but One True and Proper Person or Hypostasis and therefore there cannot be Three Proper Subsisting Persons in the Unity of One Individual Substance which as Anastatius Sinaita and the other Catholick Writers of that Age frequently observe is that fundamental Error which gave birth to Sabellianism Arianism Nestorianism and Eutychanism for as different as these Heresies are the fundamental Principle is the same that One Individual Nature is and can be but One Person and One Person but One Nature For this reason Sabellius who acknowledged the Unity of the Divine Nature rejected a Trinity of proper Subsisting Persons Arius who owned a Trinity of Persons denied their Consubstantiality or Sameness and
He and the Father are One as he himself says The Word is always in the Father and the Father in the Word as it is with Light and its Splendor and this is what the Homoousion signifies and in like manner he resolves the Sameness Identity and Unity of Nature into this Internal Inseparable Union and Inbeing of Three essentially related to each other in One Individual Divinity 4 thly That Mutual Inbeing of the Divine Persons which is their Inseparable and Essential Union that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latins Circumincessio can be understood only between the Relatives of the same Individual Essence and Substance The true compleat Notion of this Inbeing or Perichoresis is not merely a Mutual Presence or the same Vbi that where-ever one is there the other is or a kind of Immeation and Penetration of each other which is a Corporeal Notion and rejected as such by the Catholick Fathers when they speak of this Divine Inbeing as St. Hilary expressly does inesse autem non aliud in alio ut corpus in corpore that they are not in each other as one Body is in another Body And when the Arians objected against our Saviour's saying I am in the Father and the Father in me How can this be in that and that in this Or how can the Father who is greater be at all in the Son who is less Or what wonder is it that the Son should be in the Father when it is written of us all That in him we live and move and have our being Athanasius answers That this is all owing to Corporeal Conceits as if they apprehended God to be a Body not considering the Nature of the True Father and true Son the Invisible and Eternal Light and its Invisible Splendor an Invisible Substance and its unbodied Character and Image But the true Notion of this Inbeing and Pericharesis is the Perfect Unity of the same Individual Nature in Three That the Nature and Essence of the Father is in the Son that the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Character Image Mind Divinity of the Father Here as Athanasius observes our Saviour himself lays the Reason and Foundation of this Mutual Inbeing He first tells us I and my Father are One and then adds I am in the Father and the Father in me that he might shew the Sameness and Identity of the Godhead and the Unity of Essence For they are One not One divided into two Parts and nothing more than One for they are Two the Father is the Father and not the Son and the Son is the Son and not the Father but there is but One Nature for he that is begotten is not unlike in Nature to him that begets but is his Image and all that the Father hath is the Sons There is no need to multiply Quotations to this purpose which may be met with every where The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father as the Nature of the Father is lives and subsists in the Son not a Nature like the Fathers but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father 's own proper Nature and Essence they are in each other as being essentially One not One merely as being in each other as it is possible Three may be and yet not be essentially One but Three as Three compleat absolute Minds would be Three still though they should perfectly penetrate each other Or as Three Candles in the same Room are Three Lights though they are perfectly united in One But Original Mind its Word and Spirit are and must be in each other as being Three in One Individual Essence for the same undivided Essence can't be whole and entire in Three but those Three must be in each other If the Divinity of the Father is in the Son the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father the Mind is in its Word and the Word in the Mind The Son is in the Father as eternally begotten in the Substance of the Father whole of whole and essentially one and the same as the Word is in the Mind not by such an Union and Penetration as we may suppose between two Minds but as conceived in the Mind and essentially one and the same with it Now according to this Representation which all the Catholick Fathers make of this Mystery we must of necessity acknowledge Number without Multiplication Distinction without Division or Separation a perfect Trinity in perfect Unity Three Persons each of which is by himself True and Perfect God but not Three Gods but One God A Mind and its Word are two and a living subsisting Word is true and perfect Mind Mind of Mind and yet not two Minds but one Mind for the Mind and its Word are essentially One as all Men must confess the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word and therefore identically one and the same for which reason the Fathers acknowledge that the Father is Spirit the Son Spirit and the Holy Ghost Spirit and these are Three but not Three Spirits as essentially related to each other in the same individual Essence essentially the same and essentially in each other And thus Will of Will Wisdom of Wisdom Life of Life Power of Power though they multiply and distinguish Persons do not multiply Wills Wisdoms Lives Powers which are essentially One as the Mind its Word and Spirit are One They are not One Life One Will One Understanding One Power in the Sense of but One who Lives who Wills who Understands and has Power but as the same identically the same Life and Will c. is in each of them and indivisibly and inseparably in them all And this gives an account of the Unity of Operation wherein the Catholick Fathers unanimously place the Unity of God for One Almighty Agent is but One God and One Essential Will Wisdom and Power can be but One Agent and Infinite Original Mind and its Eternal subsisting Word can have but One Will and Wisdom and Power for the Will and Wisdom of the Mind is in its Word the same not merely specifically the same or the same by consent as it may be between Two Minds which Will perfectly the same thing but the same One Individual Will the Father Wills and the Son Wills and they both Will distinctly but with one Individual Will as it is impossible that the Word should Will with any other Will but the Will of that Mind whose Word it is And therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost though Three Eternal Infinite Living Intelligent Willing Persons which Subsist and Act distinctly yet being that to each other in a more perfect and excellent manner that Mind its Word and Spirit are in Men they must be as perfectly One Almighty Agent as a created Mind is which Wills and Acts in its Word and Spirit The Distinction and Unity of
can be One Energy and Power and therefore that One Energy does not cause their Unity because they must be One before they are One Agent And indeed such Men Gregory Nyssen intimates he had to deal with who would not allow the Deity to be Energy and Power but he thought it not worth the while to dispute that Point with them for the Divine Nature being Infinite and Incomprehensible the pure and simple Nature of God is not the immediate Object of our Knowledge can have no name and definition given it and therefore we can know nothing of it immediately and directly but by such Essential Attributes and Properties as we câ—n form some notion of The not considering this how perfectly unknown and incomprehensible the Divine Nature it self is occasioned a late Author to tell us That An Hypothesis in this Affair which leaves out the very Nexus the Natural and Eternal Vnion and insists upon mutual consciousness which at most is but the consequence thereof wants the principal thing requisite to the salving the Vnity of the Godhead But this is to philosophize about the abstracted Natures and Essences of Things even the Divine Substance and Essence which I dare not presume to do No doubt but God is the most real substantial Being in the World even Father Son and Holy Ghost and there is as little doubt but there is as real and substantial an Union between them But I know nothing of the Substance of God as distinguished from his Essential Attributes and Perfections nor of such a Distinction and Unity of Substance in the Deity as can help us to form any notion of a Trinity in Unity and defend it from the Charge of Contradiction and Impossibility when we have done For we must have a care of conceiving any Extension or Parts or Composition in God without which we can have no notion of a Distinction and Union of Substances considered purely under the notion of Substance And therefore we must be contented to be ignorant of the Substance and Substantial Unions of the Deity as we are of all other Substantial Unions We know not what the Substance of a Spirit is nor what the Substance of Matter is nor what their substantial Unity is And therefore when we inquire into their Distinction and Unity we never meddle with the Essential Reasons and Causes of Unity which are concealed from us but consider as far as Sense or Reason or Observation will reach wherein the Unity of any thing consists and when a thing may be said to be One As to instance at present only in the Unity of a Mind and in the Union of Soul and Body Is there any thing else in the World which can make a Mind one with it self and distinguish it from all other Minds but a self-conscious Sensation that it feels it self and its whole self and only it self I suppose these Men will grant that such a Mind is One and but One and distinct from all other Minds but Self-consciousness is not the formal reason of the Unity of a Mind or of a Person because in order of Nature the Unity of a Mind or Person must go before Self-consciousness that is Self-consciousness is owing to the Unity of Essence not the Unity of Essence to Self-consciousness Well but what is this Essence of a Mind and this Unity of Essence which makes a Mind One Truly that no body can tell and therefore to say a Mind is one by the Unity of its Essence is to say it is One because it is so for we know no more of the matter But Self-consciousness is a sensible Unity which we all feel in our selves and know our selves from other Men by it This Unity of Essence we know nothing of but by Self-consciousness and I desire to know whatever the Unity of Essence be whether any but a Self-conscious Unity would make a Mind One and distinguish it from all other Minds which shews that we have nothing to do with the naked Essences and Substances of Things but with their immediate and essential Properties and when we know them we know all that is to be known of Nature and therefore we can know no more of the Unity of a Mind than Self-consciousness The Substances of things are distinguished from each other by their Essential Properties and therefore from them we must learn their Unity or Distinction A Mind is a Substance and Matter is Substance and the essential difference between them as far as we can understand is that a Mind is a thinking Substance and Matter extended Substance and therefore we must judge of a Mind by the properties of Thinking and of Matter by extension The Unity of a Thinking Substance must consist in the Unity of Thoughts and Sensations that is in one Consciousness and the Unity of an Extended Substance in the continuity of its extension and to ask farther what is the cause or principle of Consciousness in a Mind or of One Consciousness in One Mind is to ask a reason of the natures of things why a Mind is a Thinking Being and why One Thinking Being has one Center of Thoughts Why do they not ask also how Extension comes to be essential to Matter and how Matter is extended I know no reason to be given of such matters but the Will of God who formed all things according to the Ideas of his own Infinite Wisdom This I hope is sufficient to be said concerning the order of Nature and the priority and posteriority of our Conceptions for if we do not stop in our Inquiries at immediate and essential Properties but demand an antecedent Reason for them this is to demand a Reason of Nature Why things are what God has made them Those who are not contented to contemplate Nature in its immediate and Essential Properties may philosophize by themselves for me for there is nothing more to be known without an intuitive knowledge of Nature it self which none can have but the Author of Nature Thus should you inquire of me concerning the Union of Soul and Body all that I know of it is That they are united in one Conscious Life That the Soul feels all the Impressions of the Body and directs and governs it No will such Philosophers say here wants the Nexus the natural Union between Soul and Body for they must be One by a Natural Union before there can be this Conscious Life and Sympathy between them which is not the Union but the effect and consequent of this Union Very true They must be vitally united to have One Life and to receive impressions from each other But can they give any other notion of this Vital Union than that the Body is animated by the Soul and lives with it Could these Philosophers tell you how a Soul which is an Immaterial Being could be fastened to a Body what Union of Substances there is between them which is the thing they want to know would they understand a Vital Union ever