not a Person and consequently Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality for as much as it may be in that which is no Person Now indeed had the Dean expresly taught That Self-consciousness is the formal Reason of Personality here had been One supernatural Exception against it which does not alter the Reason of natural Unions and yet is no greater Objection against Self-consoiousness than against the most approved Definition of a Person For if with Boethius you define a Person to be substantia individua naturae rationabilis an individual Substance of a rational Nature the Humane Nature of Christ which is an individual Substance of a rational Nature and yet no Person is an equal Objection against it and let the Animadverter try how according to this Definition he can keep off the Assertion of Nestorius that there are Two distinct Persons in Christ And if Self-consciousness escape as well as any other formal Reason of Personality I believe the Dean desires no more and yet he needs not this for he no where makes Self-consciousness the formal Reason of Personality but only of the Unity and Distinction of a Mind or Spirit and I hope he will grant the Humane Nature of Christ to be One and to be distinct and separated by Self-consciousness from all other particular Humane Natures or Persons The short Answer is this That Self-consciousness makes a Mind or Spirit one with it self and distinguishes or separates it from all other Minds or Spirits and such a distinct and separate Self-conscious Mind is a natural Person unless its own natural Personality be swallowed up in a Personal Union to a Superiour Mind For this is the Account the Dean gives of a personal Union when Two Natures are united into One Person they must be so united that the Superiour Nature have the Government of the whole Person which is necessary to make them One Agent without which there cannot be One Person and that there be One Consciousness in the whole Of which more presently 3. His third Argument is draw out to a great length but may be answered in a few Words becuse it proceeds upon the same Mistake and is nothing to the purpose It is taken from the Soul of Man in a State of Separation from the Body that the Soul in a separate State is conscious to it self of all its own internal Acts or Motions and yet the Soul in such a State is not a Person And therefore Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality But whether the Soul be a Person or no Person in the Body or out of the Body is nothing at all to the present Controversie If the Soul and all other Spirits are naturally One with themselves and separated from all other Souls and Spirits by Self-consciousness this is all the Dean desires and all that his Hypothesis needs And the Animadverter may philosophize as he pleases about Personalities The Truth is to do him right he is a very notable Man if he can draw you into a School-question for he can make a shift to read and transcribe but he hates a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men at his Heart which is none of his Talent for it requires thinking put him out of his way and he is undone which makes him so angry at the Dean for not speaking the School-Language nor confining himself to known Terms of Art which he has a great deal to say of whether he understands them or not and because the Dean would not do this himself he has done it for him and put his Notions into School-Terms and made Self-consciousness the formal Reason of Personality and on my Word has disputed very notably against it and it is pity Three such dead-doing Arguments should be lost for want of the formal Reason of Personality and yet there is no help for it he must begin all again and try how he can prove that the Unity of a Mind and its distinction from all other Minds does not consist in Self-consciousness and if he can prove this then the Dean is a lost Man for ever and must be contented to follow his Triumphant Chariot But yet whether this Question of the Soul 's being a Person or no Person serve the purpose of the present Dispute or not it abundantly serves the Animadverter's charitable purpose which is the only purpose of his writing this Book to expose the Dean and therefore though the Matter is not worth disputing I shall make some short Reflections on it The Dean has upon another occasion asserted That a Soul without a vital Union to a Humane Body is a Person In opposition to this the Animadverter asserts That the Soul of Man is not a Person neither in its Conjunction with the Body nor its Separation from it The Foundation of his Arguments such as they are is a very unphilosophical and senceless Mistake that because Man consists of Soul and Body which he very undeniably proves from the Athanasian Creed therefore the Personality too must be divided between the Soul and Body that the Soul is but part of the Person as it is part of the Man and then the Soul neither in nor out of the Body can be the Person because a part can't be the whole Quod erat demonstrandum Now I readily grant That the Person of a Man as it is used in common Speech to signifie a Man must include both Soul and Body as the constituent Parts of a Humane Person but when we enquire into the strict Notion of Personality that must be a simple uncompounded thing as indivisible as self is which cannot consist of Parts which may be separated from each other that one part of the Person may live and the other die for though there are Two Natures there is but One Person and the same One Person cannot both live and die at the same time This is a very pleasant Notion if well considered of the two parts of Personality as there are two Parts of a Man Soul and Body for unless there be two Personalities as well as two Natures the two Natures cannot be two Parts of the one Humane Personality as they are the Parts of a Man It is impossible to prove from Two Natures that there are Two Parts of Personality unless each Nature has a Personality of its own the Personality of the Body and the Personality of the Soul united into the One Personality of the Man for nothing can be a part of Personality which has nothing of Personality it self Will the Animadverter then venture to attribute any Personality to the Body as he must do if he makes it part of the Personality This will be a little worse than what he so rares the Dean for calling a Beast a Person tho the Dean gave notice of the impropriety of the Expression and used it only by way of allusion and accommodation the better to represent the Union of Two Natures into
One Person which are Two Persons or something as like Two Persons as their Natures will permit when they subsist apart And I should have thought such a severe Censurer should have been more Cautious than to have attributed any part of Personality to the Body in the same Chapter wherein he so civilly Schools the Dean for seeming to attribute Personality to a Beast when Personality belongs only to a reasonable Nature and Beasts have no Reason which is more than he knows for why may not Beasts have some Reason as well as some Men have such brutish Passions and more than as Wise Men as himself think to be true for there are various degrees of Reason and where ever there is a conscious Life there must be some degree of it and that entitles them to as much share in Personality as they have in Reason but no Man will pretend that a Humane Body though united to a reasonable Soul has any Reason or any Sence either though by its Vital Union to the Soul the Soul feels all the Impressions made on the Body And this brings us to a fair State and an easie decision of this Question for if Personality belongs only to a reasonable Nature it is certain that the Soul makes or constitutes the Person or if I may so speak is the Center of Personality whatever else be vitally united to it and by such a vital Union is incorporated into the same Person If there be but one principle of Reason Sensation and a conscious Life that is the Person for a Person is the individual Substance of a Rational Nature But is not a Humane Body part of the Person to whom it belongs Answ. It is part of the Man and in that Sence part of the Person but no part of the Personality that is it does not make the Person but is taken into the Person by a vital Union and so becomes part of the Man and part of the Person as belonging to it I am of opinion notwithstanding the Animadverter's Animus Anima that there is but one Soul or Mind or Spirit in Man which performs all the Offices of a Rational and Animal Life which understands reasons wills and feels all the Impressions of the Body whether Pain or Pleasure though with respect to such different Offices and Powers it may be of some use both in Philosophy and Divinity to call it by different Names Now if all Life Reason Sensation be only in the Soul there must be the whole Personality though the Soul when united to a Body is not the whole Person for the Person reaches as far as the Self-conscious Life does by a Vital Union but the Personality is whole and entire in the Principle of a Rational Life and is neither more nor less a Person though by vital Unions or a dissolution of them more or less may belong to the Person We may find some resemblance of this in Works of Art Whether you add or take away some Wheels from a Clock it is the same Clock still while there is the same Spring of Motion though it communicates Motion to more or fewer Wheels And thus the Body becomes One Person with the Soul neither by an hypostatical Union which is the swallowing up a natural Personality in its Union with a superior Person which can never be between two Beings one of which by Nature is no Person as the Body it self is not and cannot be Nor by the Body being joyned with the Soul as one part joyntly concurring with another to the composition of the whole Person which is the Animadverter's way and a very absurd one as you have already heard to talk of a compounded Personality but there is another way which he never thought of and that is by a vital Union which makes the Body part of it self without adding to its own Personality by making all bodily Sensations its own And thus though the Soul be an entire Person a Man when united to a Body is not an imperfect accidental Compound which he says Philosophy calls unum per accidens a thing made up of two such Beings as cannot perfectly coalesce and unite into One for his own beloved Philosophy never called things vitally united unum per accidens and I would desire him to inform us how two things can more perfectly coalesce than in One Life However by the power of Metaphysicks he can prove That if the Soul be an entire Person a Man must be an imperfect accidental compound For a compleat Being as every Person essentially is having received the utmost degree of Subsistence which its Nature can give it if it comes afterward to be compounded with another Being whether compleat or incompleat it must necessarily make such a loose unnatural Union and Composition I do not wonder he is so fond of School-Terms for they serve him very often instead of Sence but before I particularly consider them by his good leave I must ask him a Question or two Whether the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word before the Incarnation were a compleat Being as he must be if he be the second Person in the Trinity for every Person he says is essentially a compleat Being and then whether he will have the Humane Nature a compleat or incompleat Being the Question is Whether the Personal Union of the Humane Nature to the Divine Word be necessarily such a loose unnatural Union and Composition To say That this is not a natural Union is to say That the Divine and Humane Nature are not united into One Person in Christ for I take a Union of Natures to be a natural Union by what Power soever it be done at least so far that there is no natural repugnancy to such an Union for then no Power could do it and therefore according to this bold assertion either the Hypostatical Union must be loose and unnatural or if the Divine and Humane Nature be perfectly united into One Person then the Union of two compleat Beings does not necessarily make such a loose unnatural Union and Composition But to quit these School-Terms and to speak what we understand our selves and what others may understand the Soul may be a compleat and perfect Person and not a perfect Man and therefore notwithstanding it is a compleat Being may require a vital Union to a Humane Body to perfect its Nature That is a perfect Humane Person which has entirely in it self all the Powers which are essential to a Humane Person such as Understanding Will and Sensation which are as entire and perfect in the Soul without the Body as with it though some of them either cannot act at all or at least not so perfectly without a vital Union to the Body which conveys external Impressions and by them excites internal Sensations in the Soul To represent this plainly let us consider a Soul vitally united to a Body but to such a Body whose Organs are so indisposed for Sensation that the Man
can neither See nor Hear nor Taste nor Smell but only just lives and breathes you will not say this is a perfect Man but the Animadverter himself will acknowledge him to be a perfect Person compounded of Body and Soul but if a compleat Person may not be a compleat and perfect Man then the formal Reason of Personality and the natural Perfection of a Man are two things and though the vital Union of Soul and Body make a perfect Man yet the whole entire Personality must be in the Soul if a Man be a perfect Person who is united to a Body which is worse than none For where there is a perfect Humane Person there must be the radical Principle of all Humane Actions which can be no where but in the Soul when the Body is unfit for all the Actions of a Rational or Sensitive Life which is a much more imperfect State than to be out of the Body if we believe that the Soul lives and acts when separated from the Body Something in the Shape and Figure of a Man without the natural Powers of Reason and Sensation would very improperly be called a Man or a Humane Person and therefore we must confess that the Soul which under all these natural Impediments of acting has still these natural Powers to be the Person or there can be none The Soul is the Person the Body only the Organ or Instrument which at least in this state of Union is necessary to the exercise of our natural Powers both of Reason and Sensation but whatever change there be in the Body the Person is the same still which could not be were the Body part of the Person for then the change of the Body would be a partial Change of the Person too and yet our Bodies are in a perpetual Flux and change every day some Atoms fly away and others are united to us that we are no more the same for a Month or a Year than a River is whose Waters perpetually flow and change their place and yet we feel our selves to be the same Persons still and therefore certainly these fluid Atoms of which our Bodies are composed are no part of our Personality though they belong to our Persons while they are vitally united to our Souls Suppose it were possible that the Souls of Iohn and Peter could change Bodies that the Soul of Iohn should be vitally united to the Body of Peter and the Soul of Peter vitally united to the Body of Iohn I would ask the Animadverter whether he thinks that such a change of Bodies would make any change in their Persons Whether Iohn would not as much feel himself to be Iohn and Peter to be Peter as ever they did I believe indeed an innocent good-natured Soul would not be willing to venture a Change of Bodies with every Body for fear of some Moral Infection but the natural Person would be the same for nothing makes any Body ours but a vital Union and whose Body soever it was before it becomes our own when our Soul informs it and feels the Impressions of it Now if the Soul be the Person when united to the Body it can't lose its Personality by going out of it nay if the Soul can subsist in separation from the Body and live and perform all the Actions of a Rational Nature it must be a Person if an individual subsisting Rational Nature is a Person and if it be not I would know what to call it But this Animadverter is a very Wagg and Banters the poor Dean most unmercifully and demonstrates beyond all contradiction that The Soul in a State of Separation can't be a Person because it is neither the same Person which the Man himself was while he was living and in the Body nor another Person and therefore it can be no Person The wording of this is very observable and worthy of the Wit and Subtilty of its Author If the Soul in such a State of Separation be a Person it is either the same Person which the Man himself was while he was Living and in the Body Pray what is this Person which he calls the Man himself which lives in the Body I hope it is not the Body that lives in the Body and then I know no Man himself nor Person that lives in the Body but only the Soul and if it be the same Soul that lives out of the Body that lives in it it is the same Person the same Man himself in a state of Separation which lived in the Body And what does he mean by the same Person which the Man himself was while living For does the Man and his Person die Then the Man is not Immortal and if the Man and his Person live when the Body dies then the Soul is the Man and the Person and the very same Person out of the Body that it was in it So St. Paul thought when speaking of himself and his being taken up into the Third Heavens he thus expresses it I knew a Man in Christ fourteen years ago whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth such an one caught up into the third Heavens 2 Cor. 12. 2. but whether in the Body or out of the Body which he did not know yet he knew himself to be the same Man and the same Person that ever he was But the Animadverter very learnedly proves That the Soul out of the Body cannot be the same Person with the Man because the Soul is not the Soul and Body too as the Man is when the Soul and Body are united which is well observed That the Soul is not the Body nor a part the whole but yet if the Personality be not compounded of Soul and Body the Soul may be the whole and same Person in the Body and out of it There is no need then to say That the Soul in a State of Separation is another Person than the Man himself is while Soul and Body are united though this would serve the Dean's purpose as well if the Soul be but a Person and be a distinct Person by Self-consciousness And should the Dean prove cross and say this the Animadverter could not help himself for as for his absurd Consequence viz. That it is One Person that lives well or ill in this World to wit the Man himself while he was personally in the Body which by the way is down-right Nonsence if the Person of the Man be Soul and Body though we confess the Body belongs to his Person when united to his Soul for the personal Presence of the Man in the Body must distinguish the Person of the Man from the Body in which he is personally present and supposes that the same Man at other times may not be personally present in the Body however he thinks it a great Absurdity That One Person should live well or ill in this World and another Person pass out of the Body into Heaven or
and silenced all his Adversaries then that he heard no more of that till the Animadverter revived the Quarrel who could have given you the Dean's Answers to his own Objections if he had so pleased for they are not new but borrowed from such Wits as Mr. Alsop without any new strength given to them Where the Animadverter charges the Dean with Absurdities and Contradictions turn to the place and read it with it s context and tell me what you can't Answer and I will But if you or any body else can be perswaded by the Animadverter That the Dean understands neither English Latin nor Greek neither Logicks Metaphysicks or Common Sence I need wish you no other Punishment than when ever you Write to fall into the hands of such an Adversary for I believe there are very few Writers but might be exposed in the same manner by a spiteful Critick not the Animadverter himself excepted who begins his Animadversions with a notorious Blunder in deriving a Mystery from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas a Mystery does not signifie in English the word Mystery but the thing signified by that word and therefore though the word Mystery may be derived a Mystery is derived from no Word and to Talk of deriving a Mystery is neither English nor Sence But though it were Justice to return some of his Complements to the Dean upon himself yet his Example is too scandalous to be imitated and there is no need to expose him more than his own Pen has done I am SIR Your very Faithful Friend A POST-SCRIPT Concerning the Calm-Discourse of the Trinity in the Godhead SIR SInce my writing this Letter I have met with a Book Entituled A Calm and Sober Enquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead Written as is said by a Man of great Reputation among the Dissenters I do not intend to examine the Book nor to approve or disapprove it though there seem to be very obnoxious Passages in it should he fall into such hands as our Animadverter He has taken great care That no Man should suspect that he favours the Dean in his Notions and I believe the Dean will thank him for that for if I understand him he would never have said and would be as unwilling that any Man should think he has said what the Enquirer has But all I design by this Post-script is only this to let you see that though the Enquirer does not in every particular say what the Dean says yet he says what will justifie the Dean against the heaviest Charge the Animadverter himself could frame against his Hypothesis and that is Tritheism The pretence of this is what the Dean says concerning Three distinct eternal infinite Minds and the Objections and Answers you have already heard and if I can understand the Enquirer he says this as plainly and in more obnoxious Terms than the Dean has done To prove the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead he argues from the possibility of God's uniting two Spirits by as close an Union as he has united Spirit and Body which make One Man and if it were possible to him God to unite Two would it not be as possible to unite Three So that he represents the Trinity in Unity by the Union of Three Spirits which are distinguished by their own individual Essences and remain distinct by their singular Essences so as to be everlastingly united but not Identified and by Vertue of that Union be some one thing as much and as truly as our Soul and Body united do constitute One Man Now from the possibility of such an Union with such a distinction in created Spirits he concludes the possibility of such an Union unmade or that is original and eternal in an unmade or uncreated Being that is That Three eternal unmade uncreated Spirits may be thus united in One Godhead that is That there are or may be for whatever he thinks which may be easily guessed at he will not positively assert it Three eternal uncreated Minds in the Unity of the Godhead This he proves from the Incarnation That the Union of the Two Natures the Humane made up of an Humane Body and Humane Soul which are Two exceedingly different Natures with the Divine which is a Third and infinitely more different from both the other in One Person viz. of the Son of God cannot certainly appear to any considering Person more conceivable or possible than that which we now suppose but assert not of Three distinct Essences united in the One Godhead And that Father Son and Holy Ghost have their distinct Essences he proves also from the Doctrine of the Incarnation since the Man Christ is confessed to be in Hypostatical Union with the uncreated Spiritual Being of God not as that Being is in the Person of the Father nor as in the Person of the Holy Ghost for then they should have become Man too but as it was in the Person of the Son only why should it be thought less possible That Three uncreated Spiritual Beings which the Animadverter will no more allow of them of Three eternal Minds may be in so near an Union with each other as to be One God as that a created Spirit and Body too should be in so near an Union with One of the Persons in the Godhead only as therewith to be One Person Will it not hereby be much more apprehensible how One of the Persons as the common way of speaking is should be Incarnate and not the other Two Will not the Notion of Person it self be much more unexceptionable when it shall be supposed to have its own individual Nature Will it be Tritheism and inconsistent with the acknowledged invioluble Unity of the Godhead A great deal more to this purpose you may find in his first Letter to Dr. Wallis p. 100 c. and whether this be Tritheism or not he had best ask the Animadverter who charged the Dean's Hypothesis with Tritheism with much less Reason And I confess I am amazed that after all this he should so industriously Vindicate himself from Dr. Sherlock's Notion of Three infinite Minds or Spirits for Three distinct Substances the Dean does not assert and if the Enquirer has not all this while been proving Three Spirits Three distinct Essences Three individual Natures in the Godhead no Man living can guess what he means for my part I cannot tell where the difference is unless it be in the Term of infinite for his Three Spirits and Essences and individual Natures which make up his Unity of the Godhead as he has represented it do not seem to be infinite But he shelters himself from the Animadverter whom he seems to be terribly afraid of in Academick uncertainty and thinks he may safely dispute as he pleases and all on one side so long as he asserts nothing though I cannot see how the Dean was more dogmatical than the Enquirer who proposed his
Existence but in an absolutely perfect and infinite Nature but if there be Three Parts in the Deity Three Spiritual Beings of distinst and different Natures neither of them can be absolutely perfect and infinite though we could suppose their Union to make such a perfect Being because they are not the same and neither of them is the whole and therefore they cannot necessarily Exist and yet a Deity which consists of Parts cannot necessarily Exist unless its Parts necessarily Exist for a Compounded Being can Exist no otherwise than its Parts Exist But there is something in this which seems to have a very ill Aspect upon the Trinity it self as well as on the Unity and Simplicity of the Divine Nature He Professes indeed not to Iudge that we are under the precise Notions of Power Wisdom and Goodness to conceive of the Father Son and Holy Ghost though he has been for several Pages together Vindicating such a representation of the Trinity and teaching us thus to conceive of Father Son and Holy Ghost and thinks That this gives ease to our Minds by their being disentangled from any apprehended necessity of thinking these Power Wisdom and Goodness to be the very same things and if they be not the same thing but Three really distinct Spiritual Beings we must thus conceive of Father Son and Holy Ghost and then the difficulty is in a Compounded Deity by what name to call the Three Parts of the Composition Father Son and Holy Ghost whether as we are taught in the Athanasian Creed we must own each of them by himself to be God and Lord For if all Three by this Composition are but One God neither of them by himself is true and perfect God no more than a Part can be the Whole This might be thought a very invidious consequence had not he himself expresly owned it The Father Son and Spirit being supposed necessarily existent in this united State they cannot but be God and the Godhead by reason of this necessary Union cannot but be One. Yet so As that when you predicate Godhead or the name of God of any one of them you herein express a true but inadaequate conception of God i. e. The Father is God not excluding the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is God not excluding the Father and the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost is God not excluding the Father and the Son As our Body is the Man not excluding the Soul our Soul is the Man not excluding the Body This Comparison of the Soul and Body which are the Parts of a Man and whose Union makes a compleat and perfect Man explains what he means by the inadaequate Conception of God when we apply the Name God distinctly to Father Son and Holy Ghost and in what Sence he says the Father is God but not so as to exclude the Son c. All Orthodox Christians own That the Father is God not excluding the Son and the Holy Ghost and that the Son is God not excluding the Father and the Holy Ghost c. but then by this they mean That the Father is true and perfect God has the whole entire Divinity in himself but yet the same whole entire Divinity distinctly and inseparably subsists in the Person of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that the same whole undivided Divine Nature subsists entirely in Three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore each of them by himself in the most proper and adaequate Conception is true and perfect God tho' all Three are but one and the same God But the Inquirers Notion of God as applied to each Person is a very inadaequate Notion for it signifies only a part of the Deity That the Father is God because he is a part of the Godhead and the Son and the Holy Ghost God as parts also of the same One Godhead as the Soul is the Man because part of the Man and the Body also the Man as part of the Man and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them God but so as not to exclude each other as no One essential Part can exclude the rest This is such a Notion of the Unity of the Godhead as neither the Scriptures nor the ancient Church knew any thing of and I think there is little need to confute it In short as it makes a compounded Deity so it makes but One compounded Person for if the Godhead be but One by Composition as the Man is by the Union of Soul and Body if God be a Person he can be but One For if you call the Three Parts of the Godhead Three Persons yet neither of them is God but in a very improper and figurative Sence as a Part is called by the Name of the whole so that either there is no Person in the Godhead who is true and perfect God or there must be but One compounded Person as there is One compounded Godhead and there is an end of the Christian Trinity Some late Socinian Writers have been willing to compound this Dispute of a Tinity of Divine Persons for the Three Attributes of Power Wisdom and Goodness and if you have a mind to call these Three Spiritual Beings I believe they will not contend much about it for they are not so much afraid of Three Parts of a Deity as of Three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God This also necessarily destroys the Homoousion or Sameness of Nature which the ancient Church asserted in the Persons of the Holy Trinity for Three Spiritual Beings which are the Parts of this compounded Deity cannot be the same no more than Soul and Body are for the Parts of a compound how closely soever they are united cannot be the same for Three Same 's are not Three Parts but Three Wholes As to take his own Representation of it If Power Wisdom and Goodness be Father Son and Holy Ghost it is certain and he owâ—â— that Power is not the same with Wisdom and Goodness nor Wisdom the same with Power and Goodness and therefore the Son is not of the same Nature with his Father Which is another thing to be considered in the Enquirer's Notion that it destroys the Relations of the Ever-blessed Trinity for if Father Son and Holy Ghost be Three Parts of a compounded Deity though we should grant that their Union might make One God yet these Parts could neither beget nor be begotten nor proceed from each other and therefore could not be related to each other as Father and Son and Spirit but only as Three parts of the same Compositum If Power be the Father and Wisdom the Son how comes Wisdom to be the Son of Power and not to be Power as the Father is since a Father begets his own Likeness This destroys the natural Order and Subordination of the Persons in the Trinity if Power Wisdom and Goodness be Three real distinct things and Three Spiritual Beings which compleatly constitute the Godhead let any Man tell me which of these Three in order of Nature is the first second or third why one is the Father the other the Son and the third the Holy Ghost This makes me wonder to hear him talk of Promanations for an Emanative Cause never produces any thing but of its own Nature as Light naturally flows from the Sun But I will not 〈◊〉 this Postscript into another long Letter this is sufficient to my present Design to give you a 〈◊〉 and plain Representation of the 〈…〉 and leave you â—o judge of 〈◊〉 SIR Yours FINIS ADVERTISEMENT A Commentary on the Five Books of Moses With a Dissertation concerning the Author or Writer of the said Books and a general Argument to each of them By the Right Reverend Father in God Richard Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells In Two Volumes Octavo Reason and Religion In some useful Reflections on the most Eminent Hypothesis concerning the first Principles and Nature of things with Advice suitable to the Subject and seasonable for these times Twelves A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for writing against the Socinians in answer to the Antapologist Quarto Printed for William Rogers Greg. Naz. Orat. 36. Hil. l. 11. de Trinit Damasc. l. 1. deimaginibus * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyss. contra Eunom Orat. 12. p. 345. Petav. de Trin. p. 342. alibi Ambr. l. 3. de fide c. 7. Facundus pro defensione trium capit c. 1. p 19. Hil. l. de Synod Vindic. of Trin. p. 49. Vindic. p. 130 131 c. P. 122 123 c. P. 81. P. 83. Animad c. 3. Pag. 70. Vindic. p. 48. Page 71. Vindic. p. 268. Anim. p. 73 Anim. p. 74. Animad p. 75. Animad p. 76. Animad p. 48. Pag. 79. Pag. 80. Anim. Chap. 4. p. 90. Pag. 94. Pag. 101. Pag. 104. Pag. 107. Vindic. p. 8. Pag. 100. Anim. Chap. 5. p. 118. Vindic. p. 66. Pag. 119. * Ideo Ipsa mirabilis simplicitas commendatur quia non ibi in Trinitate aliud est esse aliud intelligere vel siquid aliud de dei natura dicitur Anima verò quia est etiam dum non intelligit aliud est quidem esse aliud est quod intelligit Aug. Evod. Ep. 102. Proinde in unum Deum Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum credamus ita ut nec filius credatur esse qui pater est nec pater qui filius est nec pater nec filius qui utriusque spiritus est Sed haec tria aequalia esse coaeterna omnino esse una natura Ibid. †Deinde quis audeat dicere patrem non intelligere per semetipsum sed per filium Ibid. Pag. 123. Ep. 176 177. Calm Discourse p. 19 20 21. Pag. 23. Pag. 25. Pag. 40. Pag. 45. Pag. 28 c. Pag. 31. Pag. 34. Pag. 37. Pag. 47.
intelligent Subsistences without Mutual-consciousness and there can be no Mutual-consciousness but in the same individual Nature but yet if we must distinguish as far as we can apprehend these matters Mutual-consciousness is much more essential to the Unity of Three intelligent Subsistences than any other Notion of Unity For I cannot see but that if it were possible That three created Spirits who are not only Three distinct Subsistences but have Three particular separate Natures should be thus united by Mutual-consciousness it would destroy the individuation of their Natures though the individuation of their Subsistences or Persons would be preserved by Self-consciousness And were it possible the same individual Nature should be repeated in its Image without this Mutual-consciousness it would divide this One Nature and make the Man and his living Image as much Two Men as any Two Men in the World But then the Image would cease to be an Image how exact soever upon other Accounts the Likeness or Sameness were for the Image does not only represent and resemble the Prototype but moves and acts with it And this is that very Mutual-consciousness wherein the Dean places the essential and numerical Unity of the Holy Trinity such a Mutual-consciousness as must be between the Prototype and its living Image I shall not trouble you with transcribing out of the Vindication but referr you to some places to consult at your leisure He always represents the Son as the living Substantial Image of God the Father and the eternal Generation by God's reflex Knowledge of himself and in this places the numerical Identity and Sameness of Nature between Father and Son as there is between the Prototype and its Image and the Holy Spirit whom the Fathers represent as God's eternal Love of himself in his own Image has all the same Divine Perfections repeated in eternal and substanstial Love That yet this numerical Identity and Unity of Nature cannot be understood without this Mutual-consciousness which makes them One Energy and Power and is their mutual In-being in each other That this Mutual-consciousness proves the perfect equality of all Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead as having the very same Perfections without destroying the Prerogative of the Father or the Subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit As a living Image is in Nature equal with the Prototype but Subordinate That this gives an Account of the Modi subsistendi or of the real and actual Subsistence of the same individual numerical Nature in Three but in a different manner had these things been duly considered and compared we should not have heard so much noise and clamour about Mutual-consciousness as if it made Three absolute compleat independent Gods when it is impossible to conceive a more close and intimate Union in Nature But there is one formidable Objection against all this or rather against the Dean for it that he pretends by this means to make the Notion of a Trinity in Unity as intelligible as the Notion of God which is intolerable Vanity and Presumption to pretend to explain Mysteries But does the Dean pretend That his Explication leaves nothing Mysterious in the Doctrine of the Trinity in Unity Nothing which we cannot comprehend That as the Ancients used to speak this is no longer a wonderful distinction and a wonderful Union This I confess had been very vain and presumptuous But are there no Mysteries in the Divine Nature because the Notion of One God is an intelligible Notion If there be there may be Mysteries very incomprehensible Mysteries in the Trinity still how intelligible soever the Notion be The intelligibleness of any Notion whether it be true or false consists in the terms in which it is conceived that they convey a distinct Idea to our Minds of something possible not which we can fully comprehend but which we can understand without confusion or contradiction and this does great Service to Religion to deliver Mysteries from absurdity and contradiction though they are very incomprehensible still The Notion of Eternity for Example is very Intelligible to be without any Cause without Beginning and without End there is no contradiction in this and it is demonstrable that something must be Eternal and yet nothing can be more incomprehensible than Eternity Our Thoughts are presently lost when we endeavour to conceive an eternal Being And thus an eternal Image of an eternal Being begotten without Beginning is as intelligible as an eternal Being is for if it be necessary and essential to an eternal Being to have a living substantial Image thought can't divide their Existence and it is as certain if there be such an eternal living Image that this eternal Being and his eternal Image are Two as the Prototype and the Image and yet as essentially One and as intimately conscious to each other as you have heard they must necessarily be this is intelligible but yet a very incomprehensible Mystery for who can conceive an eternal Generation which has no beginning the Divine Nature repeated in its Image without multiplication a Distinction without Separation and an Unity without Singularity and without Confusion If these be not Mysteries enow for the Animadverter though the Dean's intelligible Notion were admitted he is as much too fond of Mysteries as other Men are too much afraid of them for whether he knows it or no there is a very great difference between a Mystery and Contradiction or Nonsence I believe by this time you are less Fond than you were of an Answer to the Animadverter's Arguments which some Men who have despised his Wit and Railery have yet thought unanswerable but I will be as good as my Word especially since a short Answer will serve In his third Chapter he Attacks the Dean's Notion of Self-consciousness but he stumbles at the Threshold and runs on furiously as a Man does who runs headlong and is never able to recover himself He says It is evident the Dean assigns Self-consciousness as the formal reason of Personality in all Persons universally whether Finite or Infinite Create or uncreate and therefore he undertakes to prove That Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality either in Finite or Infinite Persons The Dean says not one word about the formal Reason of Personality nor is at all concern'd what it is He only says That the Unity of a Spirit with it self and its distinct and separate Subsistence from all oher created Spirits consists in Self-consciousness So that if that be one distinct separate Mind which is conscious only to it self which feels all that is in it self and nothing else and those be two distinct separate Minds each of which is thus conscious to it self but not to each other the Dean has gained his Point and the Animadverter has lost all his Arguments and Wit whatever becomes of the formal Reason of Personality The Dean did not enquire what makes a Mind or Spirit or if you please a Person
this Compound which the Soul is essentially related to not the Body I hope for the Body is no more the Compound than the Soul Is it then the Man and where is this Man that the Soul is essentially related to Does he then mean that it is essential to the Soul to live in an earthly Body Then it cannot live in a State of Separation If it be of the Essence of the Soul to live in the Body it is evident That it can never live out of it and if it be not essential then the Soul may be a whole entire Person when it subsists separate from the Body But the Soul by its original Designation is related to the Body What so that it cannot live without it and never should live without it if not this original Designation does not prove an essential Relation But it has a natural Aptitude to be an Ingredient in the Constitution of a Compound What does he mean by the Soul 's being an Ingredient in a Compound Is the Soul and Body mixed and blended together to make a Man Is it the same thing to be a part of the whole and to be an Ingredient in a Compound Well but the Soul has a natural Aptitude to live in a Body and so it has to live out of the Body and what then then the Soul which is the same Person still is naturally fitted to live in different States and then its Relation to an earthly Body is not essential to it whatever strong Appetite and Inclination as he says it retains to return and be re-united to the Body which whoever says it no Man can know and if it be true of sensual Souls who were wholly immersed in Sense is demonstratively false of all holy and pure Spirits who are in a great measure weaned from this Body while they live in it and rejoyce at their Deliverance when they escape safe out of it who with St. Paul desire to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Holy Souls indeed in a State of Separation do earnestly desire the Completion of their Happiness in the Resurrection of their Bodies but not to be re-united to these vile earthly corruptible Bodies but to glorified immortal incorruptible Bodies when Christ shall at his Appearance change our vile Bodies and make them like to his own most glorious Body which though they had every individual Atome which belonged to them before are yet in their Nature and Constitution no more the same Bodies than Earth and Heaven are the same But the Spirits of just Men made perfect are in a more perfect State of Life and Happiness out of these Bodies than they enjoyed in them and therefore are more perfect Persons too are more perfectly themselves and enjoy themselves more perfectly and therefore are in a State more agreeable to the Perfection of their Natures and that I take to be a natural State than living in these Bodies The Animadverter will not allow this to be a natural but Supernatural Perfection which relates only to the Consummation of their Graces and not to the manner of their Subsistence But is not the Perfection of our Graces the Perfection of Humane Nature And is not the Perfection of Nature a natural Perfection And if the Soul be more perfect in a State of Separation is not this a more perfect manner of Subsistence This might have shamed the Animadverter had he had a little more Consideration and less Confidence to deny the Personality of the Soul which can subsist and act and be more perfect and happy out of the Body which shews that to be in the Body or out of it does not concern the Personality but the different States wherein the same Person lives To proceed The Dean had upon another occasion said That all the Sufferings and Actions of the Body are attributed to the Man though the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour and Governing Power and constitutes the Person This I should have thought very true and safe but the Animadverter has made very tragical Work with it He says That this proves the quite contrary That the Man himself to whom these personal Acts are ascribed must indeed be the Person and that for the same Reason also the Soul cannot be so But does the Dean any where deny That the Man as consisting of Soul and Body is a Humane Person or when united to a Body affirm that the Soul is the whole Person He says indeed That the Soul is the seat of Personality the only Principle of Reason Sensation and a Conscious life which consequently in a State of Separation is the Person and when united to the Body constitutes the Person and therefore may both be the Person and constitute the Person When a Body is vitally united to a Soul Soul and Body are but One Person because they are but One voluntary Agent and have but One Conscious Life but it is the Soul constitutes the Person as being the Principle of all personal Acts Sensations and Passions which the Body is only the Instrument of but being a vital Instrument is united to the Person and becomes One Person with the Soul for the Person reaches as far as the same Conscious Life does but it is only this vital Union to the Soul which receives the Body into the Unity of the same Person not as part of the Person but as an animated Instrument of Life and Action which as it were cements Soul and Body into One Person A Soul vitally united to a Body is an embodied Person in a State of Separation it is the same Person still but without a Body which makes a great change in its Sensations and manner of acting but no more changes the Person than the Man would be changed cloathed or uncloathed were his Cloths as vitally united to his Body as his Body is to his Soul This is plain Sence and if the Animadverter knows not how to reduce it to Terms of Art I cannot help it The Soul I grant as he wisely observes Cannot constitute the Person efficiently by Creation or Generation nor formally as a constituent part for the Soul is not properly part of the Person but the Soul constitutes an embodied Person by living and acting in the Body which unites Soul and Body into one Life and that makes one embodied Person or Soul and Body one Man And now as for those Questions which with so much Triumph and Scorn he asks the Dean I leave to himself to Answer them and to you to laugh at them The rest of this Chapter is nothing but Ignorance and Raving and has been answered already If you will Pardon this long excursion about the Personality of the Soul which is nothing at all to the present Controversie having given you this one sufficient taste of the Wit and Philosophy of the Animadverter and his great exactness in speaking and reasoning I promise you to let pass an hundred other
antecedent causal influxes on the Divine Nature to constitute the Being or the Unity of it He pretends to no such Knowledge of Created Nature much less of an eternal self-originated simple uncompounded Nature It contents him to know what is essential not absolutely to the Unity of the Divine Nature but to the Unity in Trinity and if Mutual-consciousness be essential to this Unity that the Three Divine Persons are thus united and cannot be One without it he will contend no farther with any Man about it And it is certain This is essential to his Notion of an identical and numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons when the same individual Nature is repeated in its living Image for it is essential to the Notion of a living Image not only perfectly to represent the Nature but to feel all the Motions of the Prototype to live and move and act with it as the Face in the Glass answers all the Features and Motions of the Face it represents But the Animadverter mistakes the whole Matter as is evident from what follows The Divine Nature or Essence being one and the same in all the Three Persons there is upon this account one and the same Knowledge in them also and they are not One in Nature by Vertue of their Mutual-Consciousness but are therefore mutually-conscious because the perfect Unity and Identity of their Nature makes them so If by one and the same Knowledge he means knowing the same things this I grant is owing to the Sameness of Nature but is not Mutual-consciousness for Three Persons who have the same Nature may know the same things without feeling each others Thoughts and Knowledge in themselves If by one and the same Knowledge he means That the Knowledge of the Divine Nature in Three Persons is but One individual Act as the Knowledge of One single Person is this destroys the distinction of Persons which cannot be distinct without distinct personal Acts as Knowledge is and destroys Mutual-consciousness for there is no place for Mutual-consciousness or Mutual-Knowledge where there is but One single Act of Knowledge If by one and the same Knowledge he means what Gregory Nyssen calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One motion and disposition of the good will which passes through the whole Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any distance of time or propagating the Motion from one to t'other but is distinctly in them all by one Sensation like One Thought in One numerical Mind this is that very Mutual-consciousness the Dean means and is essential not to the Unity of the Divine Nature absolutely considered but as repeated in its Image Three such distinct Subsistences of the same individual Nature are by Mutual-consciousness essentially One and thus he may take his Risibility again for he is undone if he parts with it 3. Arg. To affirm Mutual-consciousness to be the cause of the Union of the Three Divine Persons in the same Nature is to confound the Union and Communion of the said Persons together To affirm That the Three Divine Persons are essentially One by Mutual-consciousness is not to affirm that Mutual-consciousness is the Cause of the Union but that Persons thus united whatever makes this Union are essentially One The Union of the Father and Son in the same Nature is by eternal Generation or the Father's begetting a Son in his own Likeness not without but within himself and the Union of the Holy Ghost with Father and Son is by his eternal Procession from Father and Son without Separation or going out of either but this In-being of these Divine Persons in each other is their Mutual-consciousness for they are in one another as Minds not as Bodies and we know no other natural Union or In being of Minds but this natural intimate Consciousness to each other But his Argument consists in confounding the Union and Communion of these Divine Persons for it seems their Communion consists in this Mutual-consciousness and if their Union consists in it too then their Union and Communion is the same And what if it be Can he tell of any Communion between Persons essentially One excepting such personal Acts as are peculiarly ascribed to each in the Oeconomy of our Salvation which are not the Communion of Mutual-consciousness distinct from their essential Unity In separate Persons who have no natural Union Unity and Communion are Two things for where there is no natural Union Communion can only signifie a Moral or Political Union but all Communion is Union and where the Union is natural Union and Communion must be the same For Persons which are essentially One which is the most perfect Union can admit of no lower Degrees of Union which are only Imitations of Nature to supply the want of natural Unity So that the Animadverter has unawares proved the essential Union of the Divine Persons to consist in Mutual-consciousness for if their Communion consists in it as he grants then their Union must But he has made a very false Representation both of Mutual-consciousness and of the Communion of the Divine Persons with each other For to prove Mutual-consciousness to be Communion he says That all Acts of several Persons upon one another as all that are Mutual must be are properly Acts of Communion by which the said Persons have an Intercourse amongst themselves as acting interchangeably one upon the other which may be true of separate Persons and of all other Mutual Acts excepting Mutual-consciousness But Persons though distinct yet not separate but essentially One by Mutual-consciousness do not act upon each other which must signifie an external Impression which one Person makes upon the other and that supposes them to be separate Persons but see and know and feel each other in themselves as every single individual Mind feels its own Thoughts and Passions Had the Dean made such a Separation between the Divine Persons as this loose Description of Communion infers what tragical Exclamations should we have heard But this severe Censurer of other Men ought to have been more cautious than to have said That all Acts of several Persons upon one another are Acts of Communion which makes Boys in a State of Communion with each other at Boxing and a match at Scolding another State of Communion that had the Dean but been pleased to have returned Mutual Acts he and the Animadverter might long before this have been in very strict Communion with each other After all this huffing and swaggering this notable Dispute issues in a meer Metaphysical Subtlety about the natural Order of our Conceptions of things The Animadverter grants all that the Dean says and all that he has need to say in order to form a Notion of a Trinity in Unity In the Dispute about Self-consciousness he no where denies but in all his Arguments supposes that every individual Person has a Self-consciousness of its own and that every such Self-conscious Person is thereby one with it self and distinguish'd
of distinction from the rest This is a wonderful Argument if it be well considered For 1. Infinite Mind or Spirit is no Attribute but the Divine Nature and Essence it self and our Metaphysical Animadverter uses to distinguish between Essence and Attributes in God and disputes earnestly without an opponent that infinite Mind is God and therefore That there is but One infinite Mind as there is but One God Is God himself then an Attribute What will he make of God at last when the Divine Essence is an Attribute and a Divine Person a meer Mode 2. But let infinite Mind or Spirit be an Attribute or the Divine Essence since it may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons it must so belong to them all in common that it can belong to none of them under any Term of distinction from the rest If by this Term of distinction from the rest he means it cannot belong to each of them considered distinctly as such distinct Persons then it cannot be predicated distinctly of them neither for nothing can without manifest absurdity be distinctly predicated of Three distinct Persons if it do not distinctly belong to each of them If the Father considered as the Father and as a distinct Person from the Son and from the Holy Ghost be not an infinite Mind it cannot be truly said That the Father is an infinite Mind and if the Son as a distinct Person from the Father and the Holy Ghost is not an infinite Mind it cannot be truly affirmed distinctly of the Son that he is an infinite Mind Predication if it be true must follow Nature and therefore nothing can be particularly and distinctly predicated of any Person which does not distinctly belong to him What is common to Three cannot be so peculiarly appropriated to any One as to exclude either of the other Two for it is not common if it be not common to all and no more is it common if each of them have it not as distinctly as they subsist For distinct Persons that subsist distinctly must distinctly have what they have or they cannot have it at all though Humane Nature is common to all Mankind yet every distinct Man distinctly enjoys Humane Nature for there is no other way of distinction of Persons in a common Nature There is indeed a great difference between the distinction of Humane Persons and of the Divine Persons in the Sacred Trinity and between the Divine Nature being common to all Three Divine Persons and Humane Nature being common to all Mankind as I have often observed but there is so much likeness and Analogy between them as to make it very absurd to say That what is common to Three distinct Persons does not belong distinctly to each 3. Nor does the form of the Athanasian Creed forbid us distinctly to attribute to each distinct Person of the Trinity what is common to all Three for the Creed it self does this expresly in every point The Father uncreate the Son uncreate the Holy Ghost uncreate The Father Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty God and Lord and the Son Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty God and Lord and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty God and Lord. And that the Christian Verity compels us to acknowledge every Person by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I think is distinctly God and Lord. Well! but the Creed expresly denies That therefore there are Three Uncreate or Three Incomprehensibles or Three Eternals or Three Almighties or Three Gods or Three Lords I grant it but not for the Animadverter's Reason because what is common to all Three does not distinctly belong to each or to all of them for the Creed expresly affirms that it does but because these Three Divine Persons each of which have distinctly all these Perfections of the Divine Nature and the whole Divine Nature in them are so inseparably united as to be essentially One And therefore though there are Three Eternal Incomprehensible Almighty Persons each of which is God and Lord yet there is but One Eternal Incomprehensible Almighty God and Lord and thus it must be if we will maintain with the Athanasian Creed the real distinction of Persons and the Unity of the Godhead If there be Three Persons each of which is by himself Uncreate Eternal Incomprehensible Almighty I will venture any Man who can understand plain Sence and dares own it to deny if he can That there are Three Uncreate Eternal Incomprehensible Almighty Persons And in this Sence the Dean has not transgressed the Form of the Athanasian Creed by Three infinite Minds if we understand them of Three infinite intelligent Persons and it is certain he could understand nothing else by them when he unites these Three infinite Minds into One infinite Mind which can signifie nothing else but Three Persons and One God This is enough in Answer to the Animadverter's Arguments and I belive you are sensible by this time what a profound Reasoner he is in the next place we should consider his Authorities but I am very weary of this work and I guess you think it a pretty long Letter already but if you desire it and will have a little Patience neither you nor the Animadverter shall long complain for want of an Answer though I can't but think it a needless undertaking for no Man who ever lookt into the Fathers can want an Answer and those who cannot consult the Fathers themselves will believe as their Inclinations and Affections lead them I will undertake the Fathers shall absolve the Dean from the Imputation of Tritheism let the Animadverter fence as well as he can against Sabellianism His Socinian Friends and Admirers declare they will not dispute with him about a Trinity of meer Modes and Postures in the Singularity of the Divine Essence for though they have too much Sence to own and profess such a Trinity yet they think it not worth disputing It is a real substantial subsisting Trinity they are afraid of and dispute against such a Trinity the Dean asserts and has vindicated from Absurdity and Contradiction and this is the Trinity which both the Scripture Teaches and the ancient Catholick Church always taught and this I undertake to prove There is indeed a third part of the Animadversions if that may be called a part which runs through and inspires the whole in which the Animadverter is by much an Over-match for any Man who is a Christian I mean his scolding part for it would Prophane the Name of Wit to give it that Title This I don't pretend to Answer and you your self confess it should be despised not Answered Let him then here securely Triumph and receive the Reward of such Heroical Actions Ut pueris placeas declamatio sias And therefore I shall only add That if you want an Answer to the Preface you should read the Dean's Defence of the Knowledge of Iesus Christ and our Union and Communion with him which was published many Years since
Hypothesis only as a possible and intelligible Notion every Body indeed might guess what the Dean's private Opinion was and so they may what the Enquirer conceives about it but he was far enough from imposing upon other Men by asserting That thus it must be and it cannot be otherwise He was only concerned to represent a possible and intelligible Notion and that the Enquirer pretends to as much as he and therefore falls under the same Condemnation Nay the Enquirer is much more exposed to the Charge of Tritheism by asserting Three distinct Essences Three individual Natures and Three spiritual Beings than the Dean was who never said any such thing and the Animadverter charges him with it only by consequence That Three Minds are Three distinct Substances and Essences which he may deny and I deny for him but the Enquirer says it in express words The Dean allows but One Divine Essence and One individual Nature in the Godhead repeated in Three Persons but without multiplication as I have already explained it and how to own Three Essences and Three individual Divine Natures in the Godhead without making Three Gods seems to have some difficulty in it For Three individual Natures in the Deity seem to sound very like Three individual Natures in Humanity which make Three Men. But though the Enquirer has distinguished Father Son and Holy Ghost by their singular Essences much more than the Dean has yet he thinks he has also made a more close Union between them and therefore is not so liable to the Charge of Tritheism For as he says reflecting upon the Dean's Notion An Hypothesis in this Affair which leaves out the very Nexus the natural and eternal Union or leaves it out of its proper place and insists upon Mutual-consciousness which at the most is but a consequence thereof wants the principal thing requisite to the salving the Unity of the Godhead If Two or Three created Spirits had never so perfect a mutual Perspection of one another that would not constitute them One thing tho' it probably argue them to be so and but probably This is all a mistake of the Dean's Notion of Mutual-consciousness as I have sufficiently shown which is not a Mutual-perspection or Mutual-insight into one another but a feeling each other in themselves and if such an internal vital Sensation be not an essential Union I believe no Man can tell me what it is It is certain the Dean took it to be so and therefore he did not leave out a natural eternal Union Whatever the Nexus as he calls it be if they are united into a Mutual-conscious Life they are essentially One and I am sure he can never form any Notion of the Union of Spiritual Essences without it But I have said enough of this already and therefore shall now briefly consider how the Enquirer unites these Three distinct Essences Three spiritual Beings Three individual Natures in the Unity of the Godhead And I believe the Dean will like his Unity of the Godhead as little as his distinction He represents this by the Union of Soul and Body which makes One Man and by the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature which makes One Christ as you see by what I have already cited But these are Personal Unions and therefore cannot be the Unity of the Godhead in which is a Trinity of distinct Persons And yet as far as I can possibly understand him and if I mistake him I shall be glad for many Reasons to be better informed no other Unity will satisfie him but such an Union of Three Spiritual Beings and individual Natures as by their composition constitute the Godhead as the composition of Soul and Body make the Man For this reason he disputes earnestly against the universal absolute omnimodous simplicity of the Divine Nature and will not allow that Wisdom Power and Goodness are the same thing in God and distinguished into different Conceptions by us only through the Weakness of our Understandings which cannot comprehend an infinite Being in one Thought and therefore must as well as we can contemplate him by Parts This prepared his way to make Three spiritual necessary Beings of these Three Divine Attributes Goodness Wisdom and Power the natural Union of which make One God and a natural Trinity in Unity If you object That this gives us the Notion of a compounded Deity or of a composition in it he answers this difficulty by giving us a new Notion of a Compositum which he says seems to imply a praeexisting component that brings such things together and supposes such and such more simple things to have praeexisted apart or separate and to be brought afterwards together into an united State that is to say That how many Parts soever any thing consists of you must not say it is a compound Being unless its Parts were once asunder and put together by some other Being That if a Man suppose who consists of Body and Soul had been from Eternity without a Maker and his Soul and Body had never subsisted apart he could not have been said to have been a compound Creature though he would have had the same Parts then that he has now that is Soul and Body and therefore though God does consist of Parts of those Three spiritual Beings and individual Natures the Union of which makes the Godhead yet he is not a Compounded Deity because he eternally and necessarily is what he is without a Maker and these Three spiritual Beings never did praeexist apart but were eternally united to each other The Summ of which is no more but this That God is not a made Compound but an eternal unmade Compound but a Compound he is as a Compound signifies a Being which consists of distinct Parts united to each other But I always thought That the whole Christian World who have always denied any Parts or Composition in God did not by this mean that he was not made but that he had no Parts and one principal Argument against all Parts and Composition in God is That he is eternal and unmade and whatever has Parts must have a Maker There can be but One eternal Nature and yet if there be Three eternal Parts of the Deity there must be Three eternal Natures not only distinct but different Natures or else they could not be Parts in the Composition for they would be the same Three Spiritual Beings One of which is Goodness another Wisdom and a third Power are Three different eternal Natures how closely soever they are united for as he argues Goodness is not Wisdom nor Wisdom Power nor Power Wisdom or Goodness and Three different eternal Natures is a new Notion among Christians And though we have a natural Notion of an eternal Being we have no Notion of an eternal Union of eternal Parts or of Three eternal Parts in the Deity which necessarily coexist in an eternal Union Once more We have no Notion of an eternal and necessary
Relation and Participation with its Prototype and therefore the Prototype is greater than its Image and the Image receives all from the Prototype depends on it and subsists and lives in and by it as the Son acknowledges That he lives by the Father Iohn 6. 57. This is manifestly the Language of Scripture and Fathers concerning the Son of God his living and substantial Image and I hope you see That this is proper and peculiar only to a living subsisting Image and can be applied to nothing else but is the only proper way that we can speak of such an Image or that such an Image can speak of it self this is intelligible though the Mystery of this eternal living Image is inconceivable This I suppose is what the Dean meant when he said That Some tolerable Account might be given of the Terms and Distinctions of the Schools and I believe you begin to see That this representation I have now made of this Venerable Mystery will contribute very much to the better Understanding both of the Fathers and of the Schools as may appear more hereafter but at present I shall only shew you That this is the true representation of the Dean's Notion of a Trinity in Unity The Dean does professedly Teach That the Three Persons or Subsistences in the ever blessed Trinity are Three real Substantial Subsistences each of which has entirely all the Perfections of the Divine Nature Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness and therefore each of them is eternal infinite Mind as distinct from each other as any other Three Persons and this I believe he will no more Recant than he will renounce a Trinity for all the Wit of Man can't find a Medium between a Substantial Trinity and a Trinity of Names or a Trinity of meer Modes Respects and Relations in the same single Essence which is no Trinity at all And if the Son as you heard be the living Image of his Father's Nature Essence and Perfections the Divine Nature though it be not multiplied yet is repeated in the Son and does as really and distinctly subsist in the Son as it does in the Father as had a Man a living Image his Image would be as substantially and really Man as the Prototype is or as the Man himself whose Image it is though the Man and his Image which are really and substantially Two are not Two Men but One Man And thus the Dean might very safely say That there are Three in the Godhead each of which is a distinct infinite eternal Mind and though Custom has not made the form of Expression Orthodox yet there is no Heretical Sence in it to call them Three infinite and eternal Minds with respect to their Nature and real Subsistence to distinguish them from meer Names and Logical Notions if at the same time it be declared That they are individually and numerically One As it would be no Mortal Crime against Logick and common Sence to say That a Man and his Living Image are Two distinct Men with respect to the real and actual Subsistence of Humane Nature distinctly in each of them though the Image is not another Man but the same with its Prototype This is the distinction which the Dean makes between the Three Divine Persons which yet could not be Three were they not Three Self-conscious Subsistencies for there cannot be Three in a knowing and intelligent Nature without knowing themselves and their distinction from each other That the Father knows himself to be the Father and not the Son and the Son knows himself to be the Son and not the Father This every Man feels in himself to be a real and natural distinction of one Person from another and the Scripture is express in it that Father Son and Holy Ghost are thus distinguished and this the Dean thought and as far as I can yet see with great Reason to be the most easie and sensible representation of a real and natural Trinity As for the Unity of these three Divine Persons the Dean expresly Teaches That they are essentially and numerically One. And as the most sensible Representation of this he places their Unity in Mutual consciousness that they have as Conscious a Sensation of each other in themselves as they have of themselves And he is certainly so far in the right that this is essential to their Unity That Three intelligent Subsistences cannot be One without this Mutual consciousness and that this Mutual consciousness cannot be in Three which are not essentially and numerically One. The Scripture plainly enough Teaches this very Unity between Father Son and Holy Ghost as he has proved at large and if this either be or prove or necessarily supposes an essential Unity as inseparable from it and essential to it here is an intelligible Notion of a natural Trinity in Unity without any Contradiction Absurdity or Confusion of Subsistences which is all the Dean intended But the Animadverter and his Socinian Seconds or rather Leaders represent the Dean's Notion as if he made the Three Divine Persons as absolute compleat independent Persons as Three Men are and that they are united only by Mutual consciousness and then they can fansie nothing but an Unity of Knowledge or a Moral Unity and consent of Wills But this is either a mistake or a wilful misrepresentation as every one may see with half an Eye who considers the whole Notion together The Dean indeed the better to convey this Notion of the natural Unity of Mutual consciousness to our Minds supposes a Case which he knew very well never was nor ever could be which is very allowable in all Writers within the compass of decency when we want some sensible Images to frame our Conceptions by And therefore says That if there were Three created Spirits so united as to be conscious to each others Thoughts and Passions as they are to their own he can see no Reason why we might not say That Three such Persons are numerically One. Though he knew That Three such particular separate Natures never could be thus united but in them we might the better conceive what kind of Union it was he meant But from hence to conclude That the Dean owns no other Unity in the Divine Nature than what Mutual-consciousness would make between Three particular absolute compleat separate Natures is I 'm sure false-reasoning and looks like very foul Play The Dean asserts That these Three Divine Persons are thus Mutually Conscious to each other and that this Mutual-consciousness is an essential Unity and that those who are thus Mutually Conscious are numerically One but then he Teaches that there are no other Three in the World that are thus Mutually Conscious and that these Three are not and cannot be for this very reason Three particular separate subsisting Natures but Three Subsistences in one individual numerical Nature An Unity of Nature and mutual consciousness may be distinguished but are inseparable There can be no Unity of Nature between Three