or rather he himself in some former Pamphlets has observed very material differences between the Dean's Hypothesis and some of these Learned Men He neither owns the Platonick Inequality of Dr. Cudworth nor the Sabellian Composition and Union of others but asserts Three Real Distinct Coequal Coeternal Persons not in one singular and solitary but in one numerical Nature and Essence But I believe the Dean will heartily thank him for giving him the late Archbishop and Dr. Bull two such Names as will command Reverence and shelter him from the Imputation either of Novelty or Heresy at least as to this Point And it is worth observing from the example of these two great Men at what rate some Persons judge of Men and Doctrines The good Archbishop by his Trinitarian Adversaries is charged with Socinianism and by his Socinian Adversaries with Tritheism and yet he must have very ill luck if he could stumble upon two such Extremes As for Dr. Bull his Learned and Elaborate Defence of the Nicene Faith was printed at Oxford and received with Universal Applause as it highly deserved None of them to this day have charged him with the least Heresy and I believe will not yet venture to do it And yet as this Writer confesses and as every unprejudiced Reader must own the Doctrine of the Defence as to this Point is the very same with the Dean's Hypothesis which these very Persons have condemned as Impious and Heretical So true is it Duo cùm faciunt idem non est idem All that this Socinian intended by bringing Dr. Bull into the Fray was to follow the Blow which the Animadverter and the Oxford Decree had given to a Trinity of distinct proper subsisting living intelligent Persons which is all that Dr. Bull or the Dean assert by their Charge of Tritheism which he hoped would be a sufficient Answer to that otherwise unanswerable Book and together with Dr. Bull would confute all the Fathers at once on whose Authority he so much relies and to whom he perpetually appeals for no Christian must hearken to those men whatever their Authority be did they really as they are unjustly charged preach Three Gods and thus he thinks he has got rid of all Antiquity and of the Tritheistick Trinity with it But still this makes well for the Dean who will be contended to stand and fall with the Catholick Fathers and will never desire to be thought more Orthodox than they That Dr. Bull asserts a Real Substantial Trinity in as high and express Terms as ever the Dean did is so plain throughout his Book that it is needless to prove it All his Arguments suppose this Hypothesis and are unintelligible without it and therefore I shall take notice but of one or two particular Passages whereon as we shall presently see this whole heavy Charge of Tritheism rests He tells us That Hypostasis both before and in and after the Nicene Council was used by the Catholick Fathers for Subsistence or a particular thing which subsists by it self which in intelligent Beings is the same with Person That in this sense they taught Father and Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be two Hypostases and Father Son and Holy Ghost to be three Hypostases And that upon this account Tertullian to assert the Subsistence of the Son against those who denied him to be a distinct Person from the Father affirms him to be Substantiam rem Substantivam Substance and a substantial Being And having by many irrefragable Instances proved this use of the word to be very Catholick he adds That probably this word Hypostasis would still have been used in this sense had not the Arians abused it to countenance their Heresy expounding it to a more general Notion of Essence Nature and Substance and teaching as the Catholick Fathers did That the Father and Son were two Hypostases but thereby meaning that they were of a different Nature and Substance unlike to each other And that in opposition to them it was that the Sardican Council taught Father and Son to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Hypostasis that is as they themselves expresly affirm in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or one Nature and Essence We may find a great deal more to this purpose in the same place in his Vindication of Origen from the Objections of Huetius who charges him with denying the Father and Son to be of the same Essence and Substance or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he opposes those who denied the Holy Ghost to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Substance of his own distinct from the Father and the Son whereas that learned man shews that Origen by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meant no more than Hypostasis in which sense that word is often used among the Ancients and therefore in opposition to those Noetian Hereticks asserts Father Son and Holy Ghost to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three Hypostases as Hypostasis signifies Rem singularem individuam per se subsistentem quae in iis quae vita intellectu gaudent idem est quod persona A singular and individual thing which subsists by it self which in Beings that have Life and Understanding signifies a Person so that Three Hypostases are Three substantial self-subsisting living intelligent Persons And tho' the Phrase of Three Minds Three Spirits Three Substances ought to be used very cautiously and not without great necessity when applied to the Holy Trinity for fear of the Arian Notion of Three Substances yet it is evident how far this learned man is from thinking such Expressions to be Impious and Heretical He expounds Three Hypostases to the very same Sense and elsewhere quotes that passage of St. Hilary concerning the Synod at Antioch as truly Catholick where in opposition to the Sabellians they assert the Divine Persons in the Trinity to be tria in substantia or tres substantias three in Substance or three Substances Thus when Petavius accuses Methodius for calling Father and Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two Creating and Operative Powers he answers That Father and Son might with less offence and better reason be called Two Powers by Methodius than Two Natures and Substances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called by other Fathers who yet were always accounted Catholick but such expressions as these must be understood only personally and then they are Orthodox So that according to this learned man Two Personal Natures Substances and Powers are Catholick Expressions and this is the very account which Dr. Sherlock in his Defence if he were the Author of it gives of Three Minds and Spirits that he understood it personally for Three Divine intelligent Persons and therefore is as Orthodox in these very Expressions as Dr. Bull and those Catholick Fathers to whom he appeals In another place speaking of some Modern Divines who allow the Son to be of the Father considered as a Son
he can do either of these we will very tamely and humbly follow his Chariot in the mean time for I believe this will take up some time I will shew him the Difference between three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God and three Gods 1. First then one God in the Socinian Notion is one infinite Mind and Spirit one Eternal Divinity in one only Person So one Person and one Divinity that no other Person communicates with it in the same Divinity in the same one eternal Essence and Substance Now according to this Notion of one God three Gods are three such eternal Minds Substances Divinities each of which in his own Person has a whole perfect undivided Essence and Divinity which is not common to any other Person So that three Gods are three absolute Substances Essences Divinities which have no Essential Relation to or Communication with each other There can be no other Notion of three Gods if as this Author and all the Anti-Trinitarians assert One God is One absolute Divinity in One Person for then three Gods must be three absolute Divinities in three Persons Now every one sees what a vast difference there is between three such Gods and the Catholick Faith of a Trinity of Person in the Unity of the Divine Essence Why you 'll say is not every Person in the Trinity by himself in his own Person true and perfect God Yes most certainly but he is not one absolute separate Divinity he has not a Divinity so peculiarly his own that no other Person communicates in it there is but One undivided Divinity in all Three and therefore there is a Trinity in Unity But is not each Person in the Trinity infinite Mind Spirit Substance Nay do not some Realists venture to call them three Minds Spirits Substances and what are such Three but three Gods if One infinite Mind and Spirit be one God I answer An infinite Mind and Spirit is certainly true and perfect God but one Personal infinite Mind and Spirit is not the One God so as to exclude all other Persons unless he have one absolute separate Divinity also so proper and peculiar to himself that no other Person does or can communicate in it for if more Persons than One can perfectly communicate in the same One Divinity there must be more Divine Persons than One and each of them perfect God but neither of them the One God in Exclusion of the other Persons but all of them the One God as the One Divinity This I think the Socinians will grant That One Divinity is but One God and that One God is One absolute Divinity and the Reason why they assert the One God to be but One Person is because they think it impossible that the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly and perfectly in Three but then before they had charged the Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism they should have remembred that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their One Person is whom they call the One God and therefore though three such Persons three such Minds and Substances as their One Person and One Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to One single Person would be Three Gods this does not prove that Three such Persons as the Catholick Church owns in the Ever-blessed Trinity who are all of the same One Substance and but One Divinity must therefore be three Gods also 2. Three such Persons as these who are three Gods our Author and every one else who understands any thing of these Matters must acknowledge to be three self-originated Persons for God in the full and adequate Notion of one God is a self-originated Being and those who assert that the One God is but One Person make him a self-originated Person now it is evident that in this Sense the three Persons in the Christian Trinity are not three God's for they are not three self-originated Persons The Father alone is un-begotten or self-originated but the Son is begotten of his Father's Substance and the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from Father and Son so that here is but one self-originated Person with his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit And let this Author try to make three Gods of three two of which are not self-originated Persons They might more plausibly dispute against the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit from this Topick that they are not self-originated Persons than prove them to be a second and third God by their perfect Communication in a self-originated Nature which is the Person of the Father For though a perfect Communication of the Divine Nature makes a true Divine Person who is true and perfect God yet no Person can be the One God who is not self-originated and a self-originated Person who is a Father cannot be the One God so as to exclude his Son who is of the same Nature and Substance with him nor the Holy Spirit who by an Eternal Procession from Father and Son perfectly communicates in the same Eternal Nature 3. Three such Persons as in a strict and proper Notion are three Gods must be three separate Persons who have not only distinct but separate Natures and Substances and have no internal Union or Communication with each other and therefore are in a proper Notion three Principles three Agents three Wills three Lives three Omnipotents c. who always act a-part and can never concur as one Agent in any one Action cannot make and govern the same World have no Relation to each other no Order no Union as it is impossible three absolute independent Divinities should But the Catholick Faith concerning the three Divine Persons in the Trinity is directly contrary to this that as Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Substance One Divinity so they are so perfectly in each other that they have but one Essential Will Omnipotence Omniscience are but one Agent one Creatour and Governour of the World Let this Author or any other Adversaries talk what they please of the Absurdity Nonsence Contradiction of all this which is not our present dispute I stand to it that they can never make Tritheism of it for the three Divine Persons in the Trinity though each of them be by himself true and perfect God yet as they are owned by the Catholick Church and as we have now explain'd it are not three such Persons as they themselves must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods What I have now discoursed will help us to give a plain and short Answer to those Fallacies whereby such disinterested Persons as this Authour charge the Catholick Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism for they manifestly equivocate both in the Notion of one God and of one Person By One God they understand one who is true and perfect God and every one who is true and perfect God is one and now instead of all other Demonstrations they only desire you to number the Persons of
but not as God that he receives his Person but not his Essence or Divine Nature of the Father he observes that we cannot conceive the Person without the Essence unless by Person in the Divinity we mean no more than the meer mode of subsistence which is plain Sabellianism So that this Writer has done Dr. Sherlock a greater kindness than he was aware of and as it will quickly appear has lost his own Cause by it if Dr. Bull have truly represented the sense of the Fathers as all learned and unprejudiced men must own he has For here are such a Cloud of Witnesses to the Doctrine of a Real Substantial Subsisting Trinity as no later Authorities whatever they are can stand against What I have now quoted is only what first came to hand but there is hardly any thing in the whole Book but what by immediate and necessary consequence proves the real dictinction of proper subsisting Persons in the Trinity that each Person is by himself in his own proper Person as distinguisht from the other Two Infinite Mind Substance Life Wisdom Power and whatever is contained in the Notion and Idea of God Instead of particular Quotations for the proof of this I shall only Appeal to the Titles of the several Sections of that learned Work which I believe no man can make common sense of without acknowledging a Trinity of proper substantial subsisting Persons The First Section concerns the Preexistence of the Son of God That he who afterwards was called Jesus Christ did subsist before his Incarnation or Nativity according to the Flesh of the Blessed Virgin in another and more excellent Nature than that of Man That he appeared to the Holy Men under the Old Testament as a kind of Anticipation of his-Incarnation That he always presided over and took care of his Church which he was to Redeem with his own Blood That he was present with God his Father before the foundation of the World and that by him all things were made This is the Faith of Christians and this he proves to be the constant Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers for the first three hundred years and so it continued to After-ages Now let any man consider what a pretty kind of dispute this is about the Preexistence of the Son if he have no proper permanent Existence of his own but considered as a Divine Person is only another Name for the Father or an immanent Act like the transient Thought or transient Act of Reason in Man For if the Son be not a distinct Person from the Father and as proper a subsisting Person as the Father himself is the Question will amount to no more but this Whether God the Father had a Being before Jesus Christ was Born of the Virgin or before the World was made Or Whether he had any immanent Acts of Wisdom or Reason before he made the World Or Whether he took the Name of Son upon himself before he made the World or made any Creature to know him or his Name The Christian Fathers were Wiser men than to talk at this impertinent rate and therefore they did believe that God had a Son in a true and proper Sense a subsisting living omnipotent Son by whom he made the World who appeared in his own proper Person to several of the Patriarchs under the Old Testament and in the fulness of time was Incarnate of the substance of the Virgin Mary The very Question it self necessarily supposes this to make Sense of it much more impossible is it to understand what the Fathers say upon this Argument upon the Sabellian or Socinian Hypothesis The Second Section concerns the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father That the Son of God is not of a created or mutable Essence but perfectly of the same Divine unchangeable Nature with his Father and therefore is True God of True God Now What Sense can be made of this if the Son be not as truly and properly Substance in his own Person as distinguished from the Person of the Father as the Father is in his own Person For How can the Son be Consubstantial or of the same Substance with the Father if he be no Substance at all Especially since this Learned man has proved That the Catholick Fathers rejected the Homoousion in the Sabellian Sense for one singular Substance of Father and Son and that they assert as common Sense would teach us that nothing is Consubstantial to it self but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing is Consubstantial to another The Third Section concerns the Co-eternal Existence of the Son with the Father Now for Father and Son to Coexist necessarily supposes that they both Exist and actually subsist by themselves for two cannot Exist and Subsist together unless each of them actually subsist For as the Fathers observe nothing can properly be said to Coexist with it self For it can admit of no Question Whether any one has been as long as he has been And therefore since the Co-eternity of the Son has been a very serious Dispute between the Catholicks and the Arians it is certain that both of them owned Father and Son to be two distinct Persons which did distinctly Exist and Subsist The Fourth Section teaches the Subordination of the Son to the Father that tho' the Son be Co-equal with the Father as having the same Divine Nature with the Father without any change or diminution yet he is Subordinate to the Father as receiving the Divine Nature from him That the Father is God of himself the Son God of God Now if the Son receive the Divine Nature by an eternal Communication from the Father he must have it in himself in his own Person and be a living subsisting Son true God of God and if he be a true proper Person and subordinate to the Father he must be a distinct Person for no Person can be subordinate to himself These Questions Dr. Bull has discoursed at large with great variety of Learning and acuracy of Judgment and it is a Mystery to me how those who pretend to admire Dr. Bull should quarrel with Dr. Sherlock or that those who pay any reverence to the Catholick Fathers should quarrel with either of them This Socinian as I observed before was glad to draw Dr. Bull into the number of Tritheists but by that means he has drawn in all the Catholick Fathers too and has now drawn together so many Tritheists as he will never know how to get rid of again or to speak more properly he has unanswerably Confuted the Charge of Tritheism and discovered the Trick and Mystery of it by charging the Catholick Faith it self and all the Catholick Fathers the most zealous Patrons and Advocates of it with Tritheism SECT II. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Holy Trinity THE very Name of Socinianism is justly abhorred by all Christians who place all their hopes of Salvation in the Incarnation Sacrifice and
he has both imperfectly and falsly represented the Opinion of the Realists 1. He tells us They say that the Holy Trinity or the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct infinite Substances Three Minds Three Spirits Now any one would hence conclude That this is the Universal Doctrine of all the Realists and that this Phrase of Three Substances Minds and Spirits is the Parting point between the Realists and Nominals That all who believe a Real Trinity own Three Infinite Minds and Spirits and that no man can believe a Real Trinity who does not own this Now this is manifestly false as our late Experience proves The greatest number of Realists as far as I can guess who believe a Real Trinity a Real subsisting Father a Real subsisting Son and a Real Subsisting Holy Spirit do yet reject those Expressions of Three Infinite Minds and Spirits which are liable to a very Heretical Sense either Arianism or Tritheism and therefore were very sparingly and with great Caution used by the Catholick Fathers tho' they used Three Hypostases in the very same Sense and did not condemn Three Natures and Substances when personally used as we have seen above And therefore the late Dispute about Three Minds does not in it self divide the contending Parties into Realists and Nominals as the Socinians too hastily conclude and think to carry their Cause by it Very good Catholicks may dispute such expressions as we know they did the Homoousion it self for One Substance is as liable to an Heretical Sense as Three Substances for that may be Sabellianism and the other may be Arianism or Tritheism and both of them rightly understood may be very Orthodox but whether they are or no must be judged by the Sense in which they are used and the Catholick Fathers like good Christians have easily yielded to each other in a dispute of words when it has appeared that the difference has been only in words not in the Faith What Athanasius says upon a like occasion is a very good Rule to maintain Christian Peace and Unity To corrupt the Faith is always unlawful tho' we palliate it with the most popular and orthodox forms of speech but a true and holy Faith does not degenerate into Impiety and Heresy by some new improper expressions while he who uses such words has a Pious and Orthodox sense But to proceed Tho' all Realists do not agree about the use of those words Three Minds or Substances yet they all do and all must agree in what follows viz. They are Three such Persons that is as distinct and as really subsisting and living as three Angels or three Men. They are so without doubt if they be real proper Persons for a Person lives and subsists and Three Persons must be really distinct or they can't be Three that is the Father's Person is no more the Person of the Son nor the Person of the Son the Person of the Father than Peter is John or John is Peter but then they do not subsist dividely or separately as Peter and John do He adds Each Person has his own peculiar individual Substance his own personal and proper Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action an Omnipotence Omniscience and all other Divine Attributes divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence Omniscience c. of the other Two Persons Now I except against nothing in this but the Phrases of peculiar and individual substance and divers in number for peculiar and individual I would say a singular substance for tho' a singular substance in created Natures is a peculiar and individual substance also it is not so in the Divinity The Catholick Fathers always distinguish'd between One Substance and One singular Substance of the Godhead To deny One Substance or the Homoousion was Arianism To assert One singular Substance was Sabellianism for One singular Substance is but One Person which denies a Trinity of Persons But the Divine Nature and Substance is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and Common and therefore not One singular Substance which can never be common and by the same Reason a Personal Substance though it be singular and appropriate to such a particular Person and therefore as incommunicable as the Person is yet it is not peculiar and individual in the common acceptation of those words but the same One common undivided inseparable Essence of the Divinity subsisting distinctly and singularly in each Person Thus for the same Reason I will not say that the Personal Omnipotence c. of the Father is divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence of the Son because it is the same One Omnipotence as it is the same One Divinity which subsists distinctly in each Person but we may and must say That the Personal Omnipotence of the Father is not the Personal Omnipotence of the Son no more than the Person of the Father is the Person of the Son But this disguised Socinian has taken great care in representing the Doctrine of the Realists to conceal their Faith of the perfect undivided Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature in Three distinct subsisting Persons which yet he knows they as Sacredly profess as they do the real distinction of Persons and is owned in as high terms by Dr. Sherlock himself as by any of his Adversaries and is almost the only Pretence of those many Contradictions he is charged with by such as will not understand a perfect distinction in perfect Unity which yet is essential to the Catholick Faith of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity But as for this Author whether he had thought such a Distinction and Unity reconcileable or not yet when he undertook to represent the Doctrine of the Realists he ought to have represented it whole and entire and to have left it to the judgment of the Reader whereas he is very careful to observe that they say the Three Persons in the Trinity are Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits which yet only some of them say but takes no notice that these Three distinct Persons have One undivided Nature and Essence which they all agree in For this would have spoiled his Objections of Tritheism and what he immediately adds about Three Creators and Governors of the World which they never owned any more than Three Gods for tho' there are Three who are Omnipotent and Three who create yet they are so inseparably united in Nature that they are but One Agent One Omnipotent and produce but One Effect As the Catholick Fathers concluded for this Reason that as the Scripture teaches us That there is but One God and yet that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God so it attributes the making and government of the world both to Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet there is but one and the same world which is made and governed which proves that though they act as distinctly as their Persons are distinct yet there is such an essential
bare dispute concerning the use of those words Three eternal infinite Minds and Spirits for Three eternal infinite intelligent Persons no more proves those who reject such expressions while they own each Person by himself to be infinite Mind and Spirit to be meer Nominalists than the use of such expressions in a qualified Catholick Sense as the Catholick Fathers have formerly used them or other Terms equivalent to them proves those who use them to be Tritheists And yet this is all our Author pretends to justifie this distinction between Realists and Nominalists viz. The Controversy depending between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock But I cannot pass on without making one Remark on this That Dr. S th and those who have espoused that side of the Question are as much concerned to vindicate themselves from the imputation which this Author has fixed on them of being meer Nominalists or Sabellians as Dr. Sherlock and his Friends are to vindicate themselves from Tritheism and I confess I think a great deal more because in the heat of Dispute or through Inadvertency if it be not their settled Principle and Judgment they have given more just occasion for such a Charge When One and the same Person with Three substantial Deaneries shall be very gravely alledged as a proper Representation of a Trinity in Unity when a meer mode of subsistence shall be given as a proper and adequate Definition of a Person as applied to the Trinity when a large Book shall be writ on purpose to demonstrate That there is and can be but One Person in the Trinity in the true proper Notion as it signifies an intelligent Person what can the most equal and impartial Judge make of this but downright Sabellianism For whether it be allowable to say Three Minds and Spirits or not I 'm sure without owning Three proper subsisting intelligent Persons each of whom is in his own Person infinite Mind and Spirit there can be no Real Trinity If their Sense be more Orthodox than their Words I do heartily beg of them for God's sake and the sake of our common Faith so to explain their Words as to remove this scandal as Dr. Sherlock has done and not to Charge a Trinity of real subsisting intelligent Persons which is all he professes to own or ever to have intended with Tritheism till they can give us something in the room of it more Orthodox than a Sabellian Trinity which the Catholick Church has always rejected with Abhorrence SECT III. The Authorities of the Nominalists against a Real Trinity briefly Examined THis Socinian having given such an account as it is of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists as disinterested as he pretends to be he professedly Espouses the side of the Nominalists against the Realists that is under a new Name he follows his old Trade of Disputing against the Trinity only with this advantage that he now pleads the Cause of the Church of his beloved Church of Nominalists against these Tritheistick Hereticks the Realists But when men consider who this Advocate is it will do the Nominalists no Credit nor any Service to the Cause For a Socinian tho' he change his Name will be a Socinian still that is a professed Enemy to the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and to the Eternal God head and Incarnation of our Saviour Christ and there is very good Reason to believe that what he opposes is the True Catholick Faith and what he vindicates and defends is Heresy What Agreement there is between the Nominalists and Socinians and what an easie accommodation may be made between them we shall hear towards the Conclusion but this will not satisfie our Author that the present Orthodox Church which to the reproach of the Church and to the advantage of his own Cause he will have to be all Nominalists which is such an abuse as concerned Persons ought to resent I say not satisfied that the present Church is on his side nothing will serve him less than to prove that this was always the Faith of the Catholick Church A brave and bold Undertaking but what his wiser Predecessors Socinus Crellius c. would have laught at and which I doubt not but he Laughs at himself and will have cause to Laugh if he can meet with any Persons soft and easy enough to believe him He well and truly observes that this Question What has been the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this point must be decided by Authorities or Witnesses and therefore he appeals to Authorities and those I grant the most venerable Authorities and Witnesses that can be had even General Councils I wish he would continue in this good humour and then I should not doubt but he would quickly change his side But this is contemptible Hypocrisy in a man who despises all Authorities not only human but sacred when they contradict his own private Reasonings to appeal to Authority I can easily bear with men of weak Understandings but I hate Knavery for Truth needs no Tricks and how much Socinians value Fathers and Councils is sufficiently known He begins with the Nicene Council which brought into the Church the term Homoousios by which is meant that the Divine Persons have the same Substance or are of One Substance But then he says it is disputed between the Nominalists and Realists in what Sense the Council understood this One Substance Whether the same Substance in number the self-same Substance so that there is indeed but One Divine Substance Or the same Substance for kind sort or nature namely the same in all Essential Properties So that in Truth there are Three distinct or numerically different Substances which are the same only in nature and kind This he makes the Controversy between the Church that is his Nominalists and the Realists but this is far from being the true state of the Controversy All whom he calls Realists own that Father and Son are but One and the self-same Substance communicated whole and undivided from Father to Son so that the Father is Substance the Son Substance in his own Person and both the same Substance And the like of the Holy Spirit that as Marius Victorinus says They are ter una Substantia Thrice One and the same Substance and this is all that those mean who venture to say they are Three Substances for the Dispute between those Realists who say there is but one Substance of the Divine Persons and those who own Three is not whether the Son be true and real Substance in his own Person as distinct from the Person of the Father for all but Sabellians agree in this but whether considering the perfect Unity and Identity of Nature and Substance in Three it be Orthodox to say Three Substances and not rather One Substance and Three who subsist which is a more Orthodox form of speech and less liable to exception And thus we allow That the Nicene Fathers by the Homoousion did mean One and the
Sabellianism and it is not probable that these Fathers should not understand the sense of the Council or that while they contended earnestly for the Nicene Faith they should condemn the true Nicene Faith for Heresy as he owns they do This would have put a modest man out of countenance but he takes courage and huffs at these Fathers and private Doctors Particular Fathers are but particular Doctors 't is from general Councils only we can take the Churches Doctrine It is very provoking to see a man banter the world at this rate with the utmost contempt and scorn of his Readers It is plain how great an Admirer he is of General Councils and what he thinks of his Readers whom he hopes to persuade that the Catholick Fathers who made up the Council even Athanassius himself who had so great a part in it did either ignorantly mistake the sense of the Council or wilfully pervert it especially when all the Ante-Nicene Fathers owned the same Faith as he may learn from Dr. Bull and those Catholicks who after the Nicene Council disputed the use of that term Homoousios yet agreed in the same Faith as I have already shewn What follows is all of a piece He expounds the Arian Homoiousios or of a like Substance to signify the same Substance in sort or kind or properties that is specifically the same but only differing in number as Father and Son have the same specifick Nature but are Two Persons And thence concludes that the Nicene Homoousios which the Arians at first refused but afterwards fraudulently subscribed in the sense of Homoiousios must signify but One singular solitary Substance but one Person in the Sabellian Sense But who ever before heard that the Arian Homoiousion signified a specifick Sameness and Unity of Nature Or that the Arians owned Father and Son to have the same specifick Nature as Adam and Abel had The Catholick Fathers themselves as Athanasius Hilary Basil the two Gregory's c. owned such a likeness of Nature as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be equivalent to the Homoousion and to be True Catholick Doctrine and this they asserted against the Arians But it is in vain to dispute with a man who has either Ignorance or Confidence enough thus to impose upon his Readers His next Appeal is to the Sixth General Council which was the Third of Constantinople and when I met with this I was not a little surprized to think what he would make of it This Council as he himself tells the Story determined That there were two Natural Wills and two Operations in the Lord Christ and the Reason of this was because they asserted Two Natures in Christ the Divine and Human Nature and that each Nature has a Natural Will of its own and therefore as there are Two Natures there must be Two distinct and natural Wills in Christ. This is a plain proof of the Mystery of the Incarnation that the Divine Nature in the Person of the Son was Incarnate for there could not be two Wills unless there were two Natures which was the foundation of this Decree in Christ And this Macarius himself in his Confession of Faith profest to own both in opposition to Nestorius and Eutyches Now this Catholick Faith of the Incarnation which is so often and so expresly own'd by this Council is utterly irreconcileable with this Sabellian Unity of the Divine Nature and Substance without running into the Patripassian Heresy that the whole Trinity is Incarnate For if Christ in One Person hath Two Natures be truly and really both God and Man and consequently has Two distinct Wills a Divine and Humane Will either as God he must be distinct in Nature and Person from the Father and the Holy Ghost or if all Three Persons of the Trinity are but one single solitary Nature and consequently but One true and proper Person all Three Father Son and Holy Ghost must be Incarnate and suffer in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ which the Catholick Church condemned as Heresy Well! But he tells us That this Council owned that there is but One Will in the Three Persons of the Trinity and therefore consequently they can be but one true and proper Person This we own with the Council That there is but one essential Will in the Trinity tho' each Person has a Personal Will But this he says cannot be the meaning of the Council because the question was concerning Natural Wills or Powers of willing This is all fallacy A Natural Will is such a Will as belongs to that Nature whose Will it is As a Divine Nature has a Divine Will and a Humane Nature a Humane Will the power of willing is Personal and signifies a Personal Will And it is evident the Council speaks of the first not of the second And not to multiply Quotations I shall give but one plain proof of it Theophanes askt Macarius and Stephen Whether Adam had a reasonable Soul They answer Yes Then he askt them Whether he had a natural Will Stephen the Monk answers That before the Fall he had a Divine Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he Willed together with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demetrius calls this Blasphemy for if he was a Co-Willer he was a Co-Creator also with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others said that this made Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantial with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he who is a Co-Willer with God is Consubstantial also And for this they alledge the Authority of St. Cyril who tells us of Christ That as he is Consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he Wills together with his Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gives this reason for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that one Nature has but one Will Now if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies one who Wills with another then there must be two who Will and if these two are One Will it cannot signify personally but essentially One And if they be Consubstantial have one Substance and one Will in the same Sense we know what this Council meant by One Substance no more one personal Substance than one personal Will His next Authority is the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III. and though the Christian World is not much beholden to that Council yet I cannot think as I find a great many Wise men do that they have made any alteration in the Substance of our Faith whatever they have done in the form of Expression That the Trinity is una summa res One Supream Being was the Doctrine of St. Austin from whom Peter Lombard had it and all the Catholick Fathers owned the Trinity to be a most simple Monad which is the same thing when at the same time they asserted against the Sabellians Three real subsisting distinct Persons each of which is the same whole undivided Divinity communicated whole and perfect from Father to Son and from Father and Son to
the Holy Ghost without any division or partition of Substance And this is the Doctrine of the Lateran Council That this One supream Thing is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 veraciter truly and really Father Son and Holy Ghost Three United Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tres simul Personae and each of them distinct from the others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ac singulatim quaelibet earum And therefore there is only a Trinity not a Quaternity in God as Abbot Joachim had objected And that each of these Divine Persons is this Divine Substance Essence and Nature All this Athanasius himself would have subscribed who yet with the other Catholick Fathers rejected the Notion of a singular and solitary Divinity They add That this one supreme Nature Substance Essence which is Father Son and Holy Ghost neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds Nor did ever any Man in his Wits assert That the Divine Nature and Essence as common to Father Son and Holy Ghost that is That the whole Trinity did either Beget or was Begotten or did Proceed This belongs to Persons not to Nature formally considered as they expresly teach That the Father Begets the Son is Begotten and the Holy Ghost Proceeds so that there is a distinction of Persons and Unity of Nature That the Father is alius another the Son another the Holy Ghost another but not aliud another thing but what the Father is and what the Son is and what the Holy Ghost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are all perfectly the same that according to the Catholick Faith we may acknowledge them to be Consubstantial for the Father from Eternity Begetting the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave his own Substance to him as he himself witnesses The Father who gave them me is greater than all Nor can it be said that the Father gave part of his Substance to his Son and retained another part himself for the Hypostasis or Substance of the Father is indivisible as being perfectly simple Nor can we say That when the Father Begat the Son he so communicated his own Substance to him as not to have it himself for then he must cease to be an Hypostasis Substance and a substantial Person himself So that it is evident That the Son when Begotten received the Father's Substance without any diminution of the Father and thus Father and Son have the same Substance and Father and Son and Holy Ghost are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same supreme Nature and Substance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Unity of Sameness and Identity This is true Catholick Doctrine and the very Language of the Nicene Fathers And if Joachim rejected this Essential Unity of the Trinity and asserted a meer collective Unity as many Christians are one Church as the Council affirms he did he was very justly Condemned and the Nicene Fathers themselves would have Condemned him The only thing which looks like an Innovation in this Decree is That whereas the Catholick Fathers allowed of those Expressions A Begotten Nature Begotten Substance Begotten Wisdom Begotten God and that Substance begets Substance and Wisdom begets Wisdom c. This Council denies That this One supream Divine Essence Nature or Substance which is the Blessed Trinity does either Beget or is Begotten or Proceeds which some Schoolmen think absolutely condemns those Expressions That Substance begets Substance and Wisdom Wisdom That the Son is Deus Genitus and Natura Genita Begotten God and Begotten Nature and Begotten Wisdom which is to condemn all the Catholick Fathers who used these Expressions without any scruple nay who thought that the Mystery of the Divine Generation could not be secured without them But I confes I am of Petavius his mind though I find the Learned Doctor Bull dissent from him that this Council never intended absolutely to condemn all such Expressions when Personally used For though the Divine Nature in a general Notion as common to all Three Persons neither begets nor is begotten yet the Father begets the Son by a true and proper Generation and a true and proper Son and therefore that Learned Jesuit tells us That the Lateran Council considered the Divine Nature absolutely and in it self and as abstracted from the Three Persons not as subsisting distinctly in each Person for so it is very Catholick to say That the Divine Nature in the Person of the Father begets the Divine Nature in the Person of the Son For we cannot understand what a Person is without its Essence and Nature and it is absurd to say That the Son receives his Person from the Father without receiving that without which he cannot be a Person And the reason he gives why they rather chose to say that the Father begets the Son than that Essence begets Essence was to avoid the ambiguity of that Expression which might signify the production of another Essence as well as the generation of another Person whereas this Divine Generation is the communication of the same Eternal Essence which is in the Father to the Son which gives existence to a second Person not to a second Nature This is indeed very subtil but there is some sense in it and while they acknowledge that the Son by an Eternal Generation receives a true Divine Nature from the Father and is in his own Person true God but yet not the Father this is the Old Catholick Faith how new soever the Expressions may be Thus I have done with his General Councils and I hope every one sees how well he understands Councils or how honestly he deals with them What concerns the Church of England needs no answer after what I have already said and the Story of Valentinus Gentilis is much to the same purpose for he was so far from being a Realist that he was a down-right Arian But that he may not think himself and his Nominalists so secure of all the Divinity-Chairs in Europe I will refer him to the Learned Spanhemius to learn how it lately fared with some of them in the United Provinces who were censured and condemned by various Synods and by the publick Judgment and Authority of several Universities The first Proposition condemned was concerning the name of Son and his Eternal Generation of the Father that this is not to be understood properly of a true and proper Generation as if the Father who begets were a true and proper Father and the Son who is begotten a true and proper Son but that these Terms in Scripture only signify 1. That the Second Person has the same Nature and Essence with the First Person and did coexist with him from Eternity Denying the manner of his having the same Nature by an ineffable Generation and the Personal Subsistence of the Father who begets and the Son who is begotten and consequently that true relation between Father and Son which the Scripture constantly teaches which gave just suspicion either of Sabellianism or Tritheism 2.
the Trinity upon your Fingers and if you can but tell to three you will infallibly find three Gods The Father is true and perfect God there say they is One God the Son is true and perfect God there are Two Gods the Holy Ghost is true and perfect God there are Three Gods quod erat demonstrandum But do they think that all the Catholick Fathers knew not how to find Three in the Trinity till they taught them to tell three upon their Fingers and if they found three but yet could not find three Gods in the Trinity they might in Modesty have thought that something more than Arithmetick or telling their Fingers was necessary to make good this Charge and because they either are or would seem to be ignorant of this I will tell them what it is In that Dispute whether there be only One God or more Gods than One By One God in the first place all Men understand One Divinity one Infinite Omnipotent Essence and Nature for all the Arguments relating to the Unity of God directly prove no more than the Unity of the Divine Essence that God is but One Person as well as One Divinity as most Men did and as all Men might reasonably conclude before the Revelation of a Trinity of Divine Persons in the Essential Unity of the God-head is not owing to any direct and positive Proof but to a common Presumption For since we have no Example in created Nature of more than one proper Person in one individual inseparable Nature most Men hence concluded naturally enough that one Divinity was but one Divine Person also But God who understands his own Nature best has revealed to us in Scripture that there are Three Father Son and Holy Ghost who equally and perfectly communicate in this One infinite and undivided Essence and therefore that there are Three Divine Persons and One God And this has occasioned a Confusion of Terms on which our Socinian Adversaries have grounded all their noisie Triumphs for now One God and One Person signifie very differently in the Mystery of the Trinity from what they do in common Acceptation and must of necessity do so One God in natural Religion before the Revelation of this Sacred Mystery signified One Divinity One infinite Nature and Essence without any Notion of more than One Subsistence and One Personality and then consequently One Person who is this One God must signifie One who has this whole Divinity perfectly in himself and exclusively to all other Persons But in the Christian Mystery One God signifies also One perfect undivided Divinity but communicable whole and perfect and indivisibly to more than One and actually subsisting in three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore consequently Person also in this Mystery signifies One who has the whole Divine Nature perfectly in himself and therefore is true and perfect God but has not the whole Divinity incommunicably in himself exclusively to all other Persons and therefore is not the one God in the Sense of one perfect incommunicable Divinity peculiar to himself and communicated to no other Person nor subsisting in any other And now let any Man judge of the mean Sophistry of our Adversaries who from their Notion of One Person and One God which the Catholick Church with great Reason rejects charge the Catholick Faith of a real subsisting Trinity with Tritheism for they do not dispute ad idem but impose upon Men with an equivocal Use of Words Three such Divine Persons indeed as they own that is each of which has a whole perfect Divinity in himself which no other Person communicates or can communicate in must be in a proper Notion three Gods or three perfect self-originated separate Divinities but this does not prove and yet in the last Result this is all the Proof they offer at that three Persons who have but one comon Divinity though distinctly and perfectly subsisting in each of them are therefore three Gods for neither of these Persons is so God as to exclude the others from the same Divinity and therefore are not three Divinities not three self-originated divine Essences and therefore not three Gods according to the natural Notion of Tritheism God and God and God who have the same One Divinity subsisting in them all are not Three Gods but One God because One Divinity Here it is they should attack us and if they have any thing to say to this Point we are ready to join Issue with them Fifthly His last Argument which he places great Confidence in is very easily answered It is this That all the Reasons used by Philosophers or Divines to prove that there is but one God do as certainly and as clearly prove that there can be but one infinite and all-perfect Spirit All this still is nothing but the same Equivocation and Fallacy which I have already sufficiently answered One infinite and all-perfect Spirit may either signifie one Person who is infinite Mind or Spirit in his own Person and here we are ready to joyn Issue with him that all the Arguments which prove that there is but one God do not prove that there is but one Divine Person but One who is this One God or it may signifie one Divinity which is Essentially one infinite all-perfect Spirit but personally three and in this Sense we agree with him for we assert one undivided Essence Essentially one in three that is we believe there is but one God who is One in Nature and Three in Persons And this seems a pretty surprizing Undertaking to prove that the Arguments for one God confute a Trinity of real subsisting Persons in the Unity of the same God-head It is certain before he can do this he must make three Gods of these three Divine Persons for if they be but one God the Arguments for the Unity of God can never confute a Trinity of Persons and here I might reasonably leave this Argument till he has answered what I have already said in this Cause But let us hear his Arguments against Polytheism and see how he applies them First That created Nature has nothing needless or in vain much less can we suppose that the uncreated Divine Nature hath ought that is superfluous or redundant But now is it not a Superfluity say they to suppose more Gods when because one is sufficient more Gods are needless and wholly in vain I do not remember that I have met with this Argument in these Terms in any of the antient Apologists for Christianity I think it is a very bad Argument against the being of any thing but much more so when applied to the Divine Nature That Nature does nothing in vain has been allowed for a Maxim among all Philosophers who have acknowledged a God or that all things are made by a wise Cause the necessary Consequence of which is that nothing is made in vain and this is the only Proof and the only Reason of that Maxim but that created
Three in Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is an all-perfect and all-sufficient Spirit and yet but one whole undivided Divinity one all-perfect all-sufficient Being these Three are not more than enough not redundant and superfluous in the Divinity and therefore he should have proved that by the same Reason that three absolute independent self-originated Divinities are superfluous and needless three Divine Persons of the same one undivided Divinity are superfluous too Three Divinities three separate self-originated Divine Essences and Natures are superfluous but I hope one Divinity one Divine Nature and Essence is not and if three Divine Persons are Essential to one undivided and inseparable Divinity I hope they are not superfluous neither and this is the Catholick Faith not three Gods or three Divinities but three Persons in one infinite undivided Nature and Essence Three which never did subsist never did never can act a-part and therefore though three are but one all-wise omnipotent Agent and one omnipotent is not more than enough But none of these Imperfections which are the Reasons why Beings of the same Kind are multiplied are found in any one of these all-perfect all-sufficient Spirits Very true but the same one whole perfect Divinity is found in them all and therefore though they are three the Divinity is not multiplied but they are One God and this is all we are to account for those who believe but one God I hope need not give a Reason whether final or declaratory why there are more but if he expects a Reason why there are three living subsisting omniscient omnipotent Persons in this one undivided God-head a final Reason I can give none for I have learnt to give no such Reasons of a necessary and eternal Nature a declaratory Reason as he aclls it I can give because our Saviour has assured us that so it is and has given Command to his Ministers to baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Thirdly And this answers his third Argument that the Works of Creation though they prove the Being of a God yet give us not the least Intimation of more Gods than One We own the Argument against a Plurality of Gods but now for the Application He says this is as direct a Proof against our professing more Infinite and Almighty mighty Spirits Of one such Mind or Spirit the Works of Creation are a clear Demonstration but they shew us not the least Foot-steps or Track of more such Spirits and Minds Or of three such Divine Almighty Person and I know not how they should when as the Realists themselves profess these three are but one essential Wisdom Power and Goodness and therefore but one Maker and Governour of the World But he thinks that if there were more than One such Mind or Spirit or as we say infinite Person who is an infinite and all-mighty Mind that also would have been made known to us either by the Works of Creation or Providence that are visible to all because all are concerned to know it But though there were as we profess to believe three such Divine Persons in the Unity of the God-head yet he knows according to our Principles the Works of Creation could give no such Notice of any distinction of Persons in the God-head because the Father makes all Things by his Word and Spirit by an undivided and undistinguished Wisdom and Power and when these Divine Persons have not distinct and separate Parts in the Creation it is impossible that this visible Frame of Nature should distinguish them and therefore this Distinction cannot be learnt but by Revelation Nor consequently were all Men concerned to know this till God thought fit to reveal it It was sufficient in a meer State of Nature to worship the Maker of the World with an undistinguisht Devotion but the Redemption of Mankind by the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God and by the Sanctification of the Spirit made the Revelation of this Mystery necessary and though the Works of Creation did not visibly distinguish the Divine Persons yet the Work of Redemption does Father Son and Holy Ghost have their distinct Parts and Offices in this Glorious Work and such as prove each of them to be a distinct Person and each Person to be true and perfect God but this Author will not stand the Trial of Revelation for he tells us plainly that the Doctrine of the Trinity for that is all he means by three Minds and Spirits is a Point of so much Importance and so general Concernment that were it true it must have been found where all other necessary Parts of Religion are registered in the Works of Creation or the Methods of Providence or the congenit Notions which are inseparable from our rational Natures Here he speakes out and we thank him for it he hath done with all Revelation excepting where there is the least need of it viz. such Matters as may be known without a Revelation and now he has pulled off his Disguise it is time for all Christians to have done with him He has hitherto concealed himself under the Character of a Nominalist and according to his own Rule he ought to shew us this nominal Trinity registered in the Works of Creation or the Methods of Providence or those congenite Notions which are inseparable from our rational Natures and when he has done this we will shew him a Trinity of real proper subsisting Persons As for what he adds that our Saviour tells us God is not three Spirits but a Spirit it is like all the rest Spirit there as in many other Places signifies the Nature not the Person and therefore these are not contradictory Propositions God is a Spirit and there are Three in the Unity of the God-head each of which is infinite Mind and Spirit SECT VI. The Defence this Author makes for the Nominalists against the Objections of the Realists THis Author having as he thinks sufficiently exposed the Tritheistick Trinity of the Realists proceeds to vindicate the Nominalists from those Exceptions which are made against them I need say little more to this than to explain that Defence he makes for them and leave the Persons concerned to vindicate themselves from his Vindication which seems to me a very scandalous one 1. The first Objection is That the Explication of the Nominalists is a bare-fac'd yielding the long-controverted Question of the Trinity to the Sabellians and Samosatenians and consequently to the Socinians who differ in nothing from Noetus Sabellius and Paul of Samosata they are near of Kin indeed but there is some difference between them The God of the Sabellians and Socinians and the God or pretended Verbal Trinity of the Nominals is perfectly the same the latter have explained away the Trinity to the former The three Divine Persons of the Nominals do all make but one Divine Person of the Socinians and Sabellians This is certainly true as he explains the
Unity of Will and Power and Operation from the indivisible Unity of Nature that they are but one Agent and produce but one and the same effect But still as for the main of the Charge That every distinct Person in the Trinity has a personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of his own which is not the personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of either of the other Persons is what all who believe a Real Trinity do and must agree in whether they will agree to call these Three Substances Wills Understandings c. or not Nay this is all that those very Persons who assert Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits in the Trinity ever meant by it Own but each Person in his own proper Person to be infinite Substance Mind Spirit and that neither Person is each other and they will consent to any other form of words and not dispute the reason or propriety of them all that they contend for is a real Trinity of true real proper Persons and that they are certain cannot be unless each Person by himself as distinct from the other Persons be Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding Power This is the only Trinity which Socinus Crellius Slichtingius and others of that Party have hitherto disputed against and therefore certainly they did apprehend that the Christians in their days even all the Divinity-Chairs of Europe did assert such a Trinity and those Learned Men who opposed them did believe so too or there must be very wise doings amongst them tho' our Modern Socinians have now made a discovery that these Realists are not the true Catholick Trinitarians but that the Nominalists are the Church and now they are grown Friends with the Church and Orthodox beyond their own hopes and their business is only to defend the Church against this new Sect of Real Trinitarians Let it be so but still they maintain the same Doctrine that Socinus did and dispute against the same Trinity which he disputed against and therefore these Real Trinitarians are no new upstart Sect but their old Adversaries who will never be cheated by new Names into an accommodation or comprehension with Socinians The plain state of the Case is this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Christian Trinity now the question is whether this be a Real Trinity or not that is whether the Father be an Eternal Infinite Living Omniscient Omnipotent subsisting Person and did truly beget of his own Nature and Substance a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Son and in like manner whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Spirit This is the Doctrine of those whom our Modern Socinians call Realists that is of True and Orthodox Trinitarians and without asserting this whatever they teach besides a Trinity is nothing but a name and therefore such men may properly be called Nominalists so that the Realists only are Trinitarians the meer Nominalists whatever they are else are no Trinitarians and this new contrivance of opposing these Real Trinitarians is neither better nor worse than opposing the Doctrine of the Trinity And let but our People understand this and we are where we were and then the Socinians may call themselves Nominalists or what they please To proceed He is as artificial and unsincere in his account of the Nominalists as of the Realists We must not conceive of the Divine Persons say the Nominalists as we do of created Persons Very right there is an unconceivable difference between them as all Realists acknowledge they are perfectly distinct but yet inseparably One they never did never can subsist apart the same One undivided Divinity subsists whole and perfect and yet distinctly in each of them and is as perfectly One in Three as any one thing is one with it self And thus we allow what he adds to be a very great Truth and wish he himself would consider better of it That the conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of any created Beings as the Perfections of the Divinity are paramount to Human or Angelical Perfections This we are sensible of and therefore do not presently cry out of Nonsense and Contradiction when we are forced by Scripture and Reason to attribute such things to the Divine Nature and Persons as we can find no Images or Idea's of in Created Nature for we know that Creatures cannot be perfectly like to God and consequently we ought not to oppose the Idea's of Nature to Revelation But the present question is not Whether Father Son and Holy Ghost are such Persons as created Persons as Angels or men are for it is certain there is an unconceivable difference between them but whether they may be called Persons in the true and proper Notion of the word Person for one who does really and substantially subsist live will understand act according to his Natural Powers And whether there be Three such subsisting living willing understanding Persons in the Godhead or only One Whether as the Father hath life in himself so the Son hath life in himself and as the Father knows the Son so the Son knows the Father and whether the Spirit of life and the Spirit of Holiness and Power and the Spirit that searcheth the deep things of God be not a subsisting living knowing working Spirit and this is the reason why the Church calls them Three Persons which the Scripture does not call them because the Holy Scripture distinctly Attributes life will knowledge power to these Three Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Notion all men have of a Person when applied to Creatures and to talk of Three Divine Persons who are not subsisting living knowing Persons destroys the only Reason for calling them Persons But he adds as the Doctrine of the Nominalists That God is but One Being but One Substance Mind or Spirit with One only will understanding energy or power of action But is not this in a true Catholick Sense the Doctrine of the Realists also as I observed before But this is what this disinterested Person would be at to distinguish the Realists and Nominalists by Three Substances and One Substance of the Divinity And were this the whole Truth the Realists would certainly be Hereticks and the Nominalists might be the Orthodox Church Whereas the Realists as they own Three real subsisting living Persons so they as constantly profess the Homoousion or One undivided Substance and Nature subsisting and acting distinctly but indivisibly and inseparably in Three which is a real perfect subsisting Trinity in perfect Unity But the Nominalists truly so called as they own but One Substance in the Divinity so but One single Person which is their One God and can find a Trinity only in a Trinity of Names or Properties or meer immanent Acts. That there are many such Nominalists among us I fear is too true but I must say again that the
self-same Substance of Father and Son but so that the Son is a true and proper Son a real subsisting Person Substance of his Fathers Substance God of God Light of Light very God of very God Begotten not Made of one Substance with the Father by whom all things were made which so expresly declares the Sense of the Council that this Author durst not so much as mention God of God Light of Light c. which can never be reconciled with his Notion of One Substance which leaves no Substance nor any real subsistence to the Son distinct from the Father It is a bold stroke and worthy of our Author to make the Nicene Council determine for Sabellianism in the term Homoousios but yet he has a little Story which he thinks proves it beyond exception for which he quotes Socrates That Historian tells us That there happened a great quarrel in Aegypt about the word Homoousios which he says was like fighting in the dark without distinguishing Friends from Enemies for neither of them seemed to understand each other as to those matters for which they reproached one another This our Author takes no notice of for it would not serve his purpose it appearing from hence that the Accusations on both sides were causeless and like dealing blows in the dark But now our Author begins Those Fathers of the Council that were against the term Homoousios but those Fathers of the Council are not in Socrates but only those who declined the term Homoousios but the Fathers of the Council served his purpose better and therefore he makes bold with the Historian or of One Substance which the Historian has not added neither accused such as were for it as Sabellians and Montanists but the Historian says did suppose that those who received that Term did introduce the Doctrine of Sabellius and Montanus that is that this was their design in using that Term which as he observed before was their mistake calling them also blasphemous because they seemed to take away by that word the real Existence of the Son of God While on the other hand they that stood for Homoousios believed that such as were against it did introduce more Gods and therefore detested them as reviving Paganism Here our Author leaves off but I shall go on with the History Eustathius Bishop of Antioch accuses Eusebius Pamphili as Adulterating the Nicene Faith Eusebius denies That he in the least departed from the Nicene Faith and accuses Eustathius of Sabellianism And thus they wrote against each other as Adversaries and yet both of them Taught That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons that one would wonder whence it came to pass that they could not agree From this Story our Author thus Reasons This is a deciding-testimony in the Case For the Realists will never be able to shew that if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances Three Beings Minds or Spirits How the Fathers of the Council could be accused of Montanism and Sabellianism for Three intellectual infinite Substances Three Divine Beings Spirits or Minds was the Doctrine chiefly opposed by Sabellius and Montanus as all confess Then by his own Confession his Nominalists are Sabellians and all those Fathers and Councils which Condemned Sabellius were Realists and then we have got the Nicene Council again And on the other hand the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios could as little Censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism if it had not been supposed that in opposing Homoousios they professed to believe Three infinite Substances in number Three Divine Minds and Spirits which is the very Doctrine of the Modern Realists 1. Now in answer to this I observe first That the Historian says all this was an angry mistake as angry men are very apt to mistake and to reproach each other with their own mistakes but neither of these Parties were guilty of the Heresies they were charged with neither the one were Sabellians nor the other Tritheists Now this I think proves the direct contrary to what he concludes from it For if those who were charged with Sabellianism for owning the Homoousion were not Sabellians then it is certain that they did not think that the Nicene Council by the Homoousion or One Substance meant One singular Substance for that is Sabellianism And when those who professed the Homoousion and were no Sabellians charged those who rejected the Homoousion with Tritheism they must believe That the Nicene Homoousion is neither Sabellianism nor Tritheism but the middle between both such a Unity and sameness of Substance as is neither a Sabellian singularity nor a Tritheistick diversity and multiplicity of Substances that is where Father and Son are in their own Persons as distinct from each other infinite Substance and yet but one Substance One of One God of God Light of Light This is the Medium which Socrates tells us they both agreed in and therefore wondered how they should come to differ That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons 2. But if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances that is according to our Sense Three each of which is true and perfect Substance and yet but One Substance How could the Fathers of the Council be accused of Montanism or Sabellianism Had he consulted Dr. Bull he would have learnt the difference between these two but let that pass He Phrases this as if he would insinuate That the Council it self was accused of Sabellianism for this Term which is false But this word Homoousios had sometimes been abused to a Sabellian Sense tho' the Council did not use it in that Sense and some men might still conceal their Heresy under the Covert of an Orthodox Word For this Reason some who professed the Nicene Faith yet disliked the Homoousion and when this Dispute had heated them it was too natural to charge those who from the Authority of the Nicene Council defended the use of that word with such secret Heretical Senses as they thought that word chargeable with And this is the whole Truth of the Case as Socrates tells us and this is a very strange way to prove the Sense of the Council from the groundless accusations of angry and jealous men 3. But how could the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism which the Historian witnesses that it did with great earnestness But Socrates his Historian says not one word of the Council but only of these angry Disputants censuring and accusing each other and both unjustly but he would sain ascribe all this to the Council because it is not Fathers but Councils he relies on of which more presently But there