all the Perfections of infinite Mind and Understanding distinctly as other Persons have but not separately as created Persons have And since there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead thus really distinguished from each other without a separation I know no reason why we may not use this Word Person in this limited Sence to signifie Three who are as really distinct from each other but not separated as other Persons are For when it is known in what sence we use the Word when applied to the Trinity it is trifling to dispute against Three Persons in the Godhead from the signification of the Word Person when applied to Creatures and yet this is the Sum total of all the Socinian Arguments against Three Persons and One God and of all the Contradictions they pretend to find in it Three Divine Persons they say must be Three absolute compleat independent Gods because Three Humane Persons are Three compleat absolute Men who subsist independently on each other and therefore it is as manifest a Contradiction That Three Divine Persons should be but One God as it is that Three Humane Persons should be but One Man which signifies nothing if we do not use the Word Person in the same Sense and all the World knows we do not when applied to the Holy Trinity as when applied to Men For it is meer trifling to dispute against us from such a Sense of the Word as we reject and declare to all Men that we do reject The most that can be made of this is that we use an improper Word and ought not to call Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons because that is to make Three Gods of them as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men But when the importunity of Hereticks forces us to find Names for that which nothing in created Nature can answer if they will not give us leave we must take leave to use the properest Names we can find though not every way proper and such the Name of Person is when applied to the Persons of the Trinity For all that this Word Person signifies except a separate Subsistence belongs to the Persons of the Holy Trinity An intelligent Nature and all personal Acts of Understanding Volition c. do as distinctly belong to each Person as to any Humane Persons and it is this makes a Person not a separate Subsistence which belongs only to finite and created not to infinite and eternal Persons And therefore the Word Person is properly enough applied to the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost because all that is essential to the Notion of a Person belongs to each of them though they do not subsist separately as Humane Persons do But yet Men are very apt to judge of the Divine Persons by what they see in Humane Persons and to fancy these Three Persons in the Deity to be like Three Men who have the same Humane Nature but subsist and act separately and are One only by a moral Consent and Unity And therefore to prevent this Imagination which betrays Men to down right Tritheism others without rejecting the Name Person have thought fit more expresly to signifie what kind of Persons they are by calling them Three Subsistences that is Three who have all the Perfections of the Godhead and do really and distinctly subsist for else they could not be Three Subsistences but yet do not subsist as separate Persons but are essentially One God For Subsistence does not necessarily infer Separation for Three may distinctly subsist though essentially and inseparably united And this is the difference between Person and Subsistence that according to the most usual acceptation of the Word Person which it is hard to correct for that Idea which in common use belongs to a Word is apt to stick close to it Three Persons signifie Three who subsist apart and as separately as Three Men do But Three Subsistences are Three Persons who subsist distinctly without Separation For Subsistence necessarily signifies a distinct and real but not a separate Subsistence for if Three really subsist without a Separation they are Three real Subsistences and therefore it is in vain for the Socinians to dispute against Three Persons that they must be Three separate Persons unless they can prove that they cannot really subsist without a Separation which none of them ever yet undertook and yet all their Talk of Contradictions and Three Gods vanishes without it What I have said of the Word Person is with equal reason applicable to the Word Mind The Animadverter objects against the Dean That a Mind or Spirit is an absolute Being Nature or Substance and I grant it is so in the common use of the Word as apapplied to created Minds and Spirits but so is Person also as much as Mind and if we allow of a Theological use of the Word Person why not of Mind too to signifie an intelligent Subsistence which is a Mind too but not a separate Mind and therefore not such an absolute Being Nature and Substance as a created Mind is And when the Dean speaks of Three distinct infinite Minds which are essentially and inseparably One he could mean nothing more than three distinct intelligent but not separate Subsistences And he needs ask no other Pardon but for the use of a Word which the Schools have not consecrated But there is greater want of Words to express the Unity and Oneness of the Divine Nature and Essence than the distinction of Persons The Nicene Fathers in their Controversie with Arius of which if there be occasion more hereafter who denied the Divinity of Christ and made him no more than a Creature though as perfect and as like to God as a Creature could be used the Word Homoousion which was not first invented by them to serve that turn but was used either in Words or Sence by the Anti-Nicene Fathers as the learned Dr. Bull has proved But what is this Homoousion or Sameness of Nature This is the difficulty for there is not any one Word to explain it by which adequately answers the full Notion of the Divine Unity and that is no great wonder because there is no perfect Example in Nature of any such Unity They very often explain this by Examples of a Specifick Unity That the Father and Son have the same Nature as Abraham and Isaac have and therefore they call Men who have the same Specifick Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so they do the Sun its Light and Splendor the Tree and its Branches c. And this is in part a true representation of the Homoousiotes or Sameness of Nature in the Persons of the Holy Trinity for if there be not that which perfectly Answers though it much out-does also a specifick Sameness and Unity their Nature cannot be the same and accordingly they prove against the Arians that Christ cannot be the Son of God if he be not Homoousios to his Father because every Father begets a Son in his
own Nature But yet we must not say nor did they intend it so That the Unity of Nature between Father and Son and Holy Spirit is a meer specifick Sameness For we must not make the Divine Nature a Species which is common to more Individuals for then the Unity of the Divine Nature is no more than a Logical Notion which is the only Unity of a Specifick Nature whereas God is essentially and numerically one The Three Divine Persons are not individuals of the same Nature for then they must have Three individual subsisting Divine Natures which would as much make Three Gods as Three individual subsisting Humane Natures make Three Men The Divine Nature would then be communicated by Multiplication as Humane Nature is which must multiply Gods as well as Men. Is this Sameness of Nature then one single or singular Nature which has but one single Subsistence This the Fathers utterly deny as being the Heresie of Sabellius and leaving no other Trinity of Persons in the Godhead but a Trinity of Names The Divine Nature is One Individual Nature as you shall hear presently but not One Single Nature for one Single Nature can be but One Person whether in God or Man I shall not dispute this at large now I may find a properer place for it but I shall only observe at present That if there be but One only single Nature in God the whole Trinity must be Incarnate in the Incarnation of Christ as Sabellius asserted For the Divine Nature was Incarnate in Christ he was perfect God and perfect Man and if there was but one single subsisting Nature in all Three Persons this one single Divine Nature was Incarnate and therefore the Father and the Holy Ghost who are this one single Divine Nature as well as the Son must be as much Incarnate as the Son was for though it were possible to conceive Three Divine Persons in One single Divine Nature yet it is absolutely impossible that this One single Nature should be incarnate and not the Divine Nature of all the Three Persons be incarnate when it is but One single Nature in all And it is absurd to say that the One Divine Nature of Father Son and Holy Ghost is incarnate and yet none but the Son incarnate This is what Victorinus Afer teaches Non oportet dicere nec fas est dicere unam esse Substantiam tres esse Personas si enim ista ipsa Substantia egit omnia passa est patripassiani nos absit Bibl. Patr. Tom. 4. We ought not says he to say nor is it lawful to say that there is but One Substance that is One single subsisting Nature and Three Persons for if this same Substance did and suffered all we also must be Patripassians which God forbid That is we must say That the Father suffered as well as the Son as Sabellius taught It is such Animadversions and such unintelligible Notions which make the Christian Faith ridiculed by Atheists and Hereticks But the great difficulty is how to conceive One Individual Nature which is numerically One but is not One single Nature And yet thus it must be if there be a Trinity in Unity Three real Hypostases and Subsistences in One Divine Nature which the Counterfeit Areopagite but an ancient and learned Writer calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Monad or Unite which thrice subsists or has Three Subsistences whereas it is demonstrable That One single Nature can subsist but once or have but One Subsistence And therefore the ancient Fathers owned that Father and Son is alius alius and that God is solus but non solitarius That I may be the better understood and give you some imperfect Conception of this great and venerable Mystery let us contemplate this individual Identity and Sameness of Nature in a Man and his Image A Man sees his own Image in a Glass the exact Proportion of his Body all the Lines and Features in his Face all his own Motions and Postures whether he smiles or cries sits or stands Now suppose this were a real living Image as exactly himself both in Body and Mind as the Image in the Glass represents his external Shape and Features That this living Image was coeval with himself and did subsist as necessarily as he did and yet as much depend upon him as the Image in the Glass does on his Face and Presence That this Living Image did understand and will in the same Act with himself and repeat all his Motions and Passions and Sensations as his Face in the Glass does That this living Image knew himself to be but an Image distinct from the Original but the same with him and that the Man whose Image it is knew himself to be distinct from his Image but yet the same and that the Man and his living Image felt each other and all that is in each other in themselves Now I desire to know by what Name you would call such a living Image You cannot deny him to be a Man because he has Humane Nature in himself and distinctly in himself as compleatly and perfectly as the Man has whose Image he is or else he were not a compleat and perfect Image And yet you cannot say that he is a distinct Man or another Man a Second Man for he is but an Image and the very same with the Original and therefore they are both but One Man naturally One not as Two other Men are who may be morally One by a Consent and Agreement of Understanding and Will but by an individual Unity and Sameness of Nature and Will And yet you must confess them to be Two though not Two Men not Two Humane Natures for the Man is not his Image nor the Image the Man whose Image he is But if you will call the Man a Person as certainly every Man is a Person then his Image which is the same with himself must be a Person too and not the same Person So that here are Two distinct Persons subsisting in One Individual Nature not multiplied but repeated in its Image There is indeed no such living Image as this in created Nature but yet this is the true Nature of any Image and gives us an intelligible Conception of the Unity of Nature in a plurality of Persons And this is the plain account of the essential Unity between God the Father and God the Son Christ is expresly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God 2 Cor. 4. 4. and Col. 1. 15. and said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Form of God Phil. 2. 6. and to be the brightness of his Glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the express Character and Image of his Person And because there are several sorts of Images the ancient Fathers declare what kind of Image Christ is of God the Father That he is not a dead Picture nor a meer Reflection in a Glass but is a living Image of the living God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 as Gregory Nazianzen speaks Deum viventis Dei vivam imaginem as St. Hilary tells us that Christ is God the living Image of the living God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen speaks That the Son is the living natural invariable Image of the invisible God having the whole Father in himself and being upon all accounts identically the same with him excepting the Principle and Cause of Being that is that He is begotten eternally of the Father but the Father is unbegotten But then though he be the Son and the begotten Image of the Father he is not his Image meerly as other Sons are the Images of their Fathers who though they partake of the same specifick Nature may be very unlike them and are not the same but as Gregory Nazianzen tells us in the place above-cited Christ is the living Image of the living Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But a more invariable Image than Seth is of Adam or any Child of his Father for the Nature of such simple and unmixt things as an Image is is not to be partly like and partly unlike as Children are to their Parents but that the whole represents the whole as the impression does the Seal and rather to be the same than to be like But St. Gregory Nyssen gives us the most exact Description of Christ's being the living Image of his Father of his Will and of his Goodness which he says is just as if a Man saw himself in a Glass for the Image in the Glass does in every thing conform it self to its Prototype the Face which looks in the Glass being the Cause of the Face which is seen there and therefore the Image in the Glass neither moves nor inclines it self of its own accord but as its Prototype moves or inclines but always moves with it Thus we say the Lord Christ the Image of the invisible God is immediately and instantly affected together with his Father Does the Father will any thing the Son also who is in the Father knows the Father's Will or rather is the Father's Will Whether this be not the Dean's mutual Consciousness which must of necessity be between a living Image and its Prototype or that whereof it is the Image and is the most natural and inseparable Union of all let any Man judge It were easie to fill the Margin with such Quotations as these as you who are conversant in the Fathers very well know but I shall only farther observe at present that the Fathers made use of this Notion of the Son 's being the living Image of God his Father both in their Disputes against the Arians and Sabellians They proved from hence against the Arians that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Nature with his Father which is a plain and necessary Consequence and needs no proof for if the Father and the Son be the same as a Prototype and his Image there can be no Diversity of Nature between them Thus St. Hilary St. Basil St. Cyril St. Ambrose St. Athanasius Greg. Nyssen St. Austin and all the Fathers who were concerned in the Arian Controversie reason at large And thus they proved against the Sabellians That God was not One single Person distinguished only by Three Names because the Son is the living subsisting Image of the Father and the Image and the Prototype cannot be the same but must be Two no Man is his own Image nor is an Image the Image of it self This is so self-evident and so frequently occurs in the ancient Writers that I shall not detain you with particular Quotations at present This real distinction of Three in the same individual numerical Nature the Ancients expressed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the same One individual Nature subsists thrice in Three real Subsistences not by multiplying but only by repeating it self As a Man and his living Image would be Two real Subsistences but not Two Men nor Two Humane Natures but the same Man and the same Nature subsisting twice in Two different manners not like Two Men but as the Prototype and the Image which are really and distinctly Two and yet but One Man Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost are really Three but have the same individual Nature and are the same One God and differ only in their manner of subsisting That the same Divine Nature subsists originally in the Father and subsists again in the Son as in a living Image of the Father and subsists a third time in the Holy Ghost by an eternal Procession from Father and Son in eternal living substantial Love In this Sence the Ancients understood the Word Subsistence not in the Abstract as some modern School-men do and as the Animadverter seems to do if I understand him or he understands himself but in the Concrete for that which does really and actually subsist which does éxstare and is called by them Extantia and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is very intelligible that there are Three real Subsistences or Three that really subsist in the numerical and individual Unity of the Divine Nature But to talk of Three Subsistences in the abstract without Three that subsist or of One single Nature which has Three Subsistences when it is impossible that in Singularity there can be more than One Subsistence is too fine and metaphysical for me and I envy no Man that can understand it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks is res subsistens substantiva as Petavius proves a subsisting and substantial thing And St. Ambrose abhors the thoughts that the Son should not be a Substantial Son who gives Substance to other things Non esse filium insubstantivum qui aliis dedit habere substantiam And Facundus tells us that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie and therefore must signifie Three that did really and substantially subsist as St. Hilary teaches Non unum esse subsistentem sed unam substantiam non differentem That there is not One who subsists but One Substance without any diversity that is in three different Subsistencies There could not have been more proper Words thought on to represent a Trinity in Unity than Three Subsistencies in One individual Nature which differ in nothing from each other but in their different manner of Subsistence For it is certain here are Three different kinds of Subsistence which are not to be found in any One thing in the World besides Nothing else has any more than one real Subsistence for every Being in Nature besides is singular or has but One single Subsistence Every Man and Angel is a single particular Creature subsists singly and separately by it self and is singly One but if there be a Trinity in Unity the same Divine Nature must subsist wholly entirely and substantially in Three but in a different manner to make them Three And it is as certain that the Father and the Son though they have the very same Nature yet
subsist in a very different manner the Father as Original Mind the Son as the perfect living substantial Image of the Father which is as different as the Subsistence of the Prototype and the Image and every one will grant that a Man and his Image though it were a living substantial Image have a very different Subsistence for the Image has its whole Subsistence in dependance on its Prototype the Man subsists by himself and gives Subsistence to his Image and the same we must conceive of the Subsistence of the Holy Spirit though we have not so apt a Similitude to represent it by And if we must call the Three in the Holy Trinity by any other Name than Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Subsistences is liable to the least Cavil and does most properly express their general Character for they are but One Divinity or One Divine Nature subsisting wholly and entirely Three times without multiplication as a Man is not multiplied but repeated in his Image All other Names in their proper and usual Sence signifie an absolute compleat independent Being such as Nature Essence Substance God And therefore though each Divine Person have a natural essential substantial Subsistence and be true and real God yet we must not say that there are Three Divine Natures Essences Substances or Three Gods because though the whole Divine Nature Essence subsists in Three yet it is but one and the same in all and tho' God be the most absolute compleat independant Being and the Son be God and the Holy Ghost God yet neither the Son nor the Holy Ghost can be said to be an absolute compleat independant God because Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One God neither of which subsist absolutely compleatly independently that is without each other which is all that is meant by an absolute compleat independent Subsistence that they can subsist apart without each other but the Father can no more subsist without the Son than the Son without the Father nor the Holy Spirit without Father and Son nor Father and Son without the Holy Spirit as a natural and necessary Image cannot subsist without its Prototype nor the Prototype without its Image which is essential to it so that they are but One absolute compleat independent Deity though the Three Divine Subsistences in the Godhead subsist in a mutual respect and a relative dependance on each other And this I suppose is what the Schools mean when they call the Three Divine Persons Three Relations or Three Relatives for there must be Three real subsisting Relatives if there be Three Relations for One Subsistence cannot be the Subject of Three Relations no more than one and the same Man can be related to himself as Father and Son But then the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are such Relations as there is no Example of in created Nature for their Relation to each other is not a meer external Respect and Denomination such as absolute independant Beings have to each other but their very Nature and Subsistence as Father Son and Holy Ghost is relative Though the Father be eternal original Mind yet it is essential to this eternal Mind to beget his own living substantial Image and therefore this eternal Mind is naturally and essentially related to his Image And I need not tell you that the very Nature and Subsistence of an Image is wholly relative a natural and essential Image subsists as necessarily as the Prototype but its Nature is wholly relative Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost have the same common Nature not common as a generical or specifick Nature which is only a logical Notion but as One individual Nature really and actually subsisting in each without any other difference than their different manner of Subsistence and their different Relations as a Man and his living Image have the same individual Nature common to both and differ only in their manner of Subsistence and Relations that is as the Prototype and its living Image differ And this I think gives us an intelligible account of a Trinity in Unity in the most Orthodox Language of Fathers and Schools This shews us that the Son and Holy Spirit are not Divine Emanations from the Father as is represented in the Platonick Triad For though the eternal Generation and Procession be such Mysteries as we cannot comprehend nor frame any Idea or Conception of yet we know that an Image is not an Emanation but a Reflextion and therefore is wholly and entirely the same with the Prototype which no Emanation can be for the whole cannot be an Emanation An Emanation indeed is of the same Substance and is specifically the same and in this Sence Homoousios but it multiplies Natures and Substances and is not individually and identically the same as the Prototype and its Image and therefore the Fathers declare That the eternal Generation of the Son is not by Abscission and Passion but think the aptest Representation of it in Nature though that is very different is by Splendor and Brightness or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the out-shining of the Deity and when they call the Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not in the Sence of Emanation but of the mysterious Procession This also shews us That this Holy Trinity is not Three Divine Attributes such as Wisdom Power and Goodness for they are all Three the very same with each other the same Wisdom Goodness and Power and therefore not Three Parts or Attributes of the same Deity but each is the whole as a Prototype and its living Image is And this shews That though the Son be true and perfect God as the Father is yet the Son can never be a Father because his Nature and Subsistence as a Son is wholly relative and a Son whose Nature and Subsistence is relative is necessarily and essentially a Son but can never be a Father no more than the Image can beget its Prototype And this gives a plain Account why our Saviour calls God not only his Father but his God and the only true God and acknowledges That he receives all from his Father and That his Father is greater than he is though he have the very same Nature and with respect to his Nature is equal in Power and Glory for this is the true difference between the Prototype and the Image though their Nature be the same Had a Man a living substantial Image perfectly the same with himself as God has the Image must thus speak of his Prototype as the Son of God speaks of his Father He must acknowledge that the Prototype is his Man for he is only the Image of the Man and were there only One Man in the World as there is but One God he must acknowledge the Prototype to be the only true Man for though the living Image would be a true Man also yet he is not originally Man but Man of Man a Man only by
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
Absurdities and Fooleries and to make shorter Work with him without letting slip any Argument when I can find it The Title of his Fourth Chapter is an Answer to it self and proves That it is nothing to the purpose For he undertakes to prove That Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in the Three Persons of the blessed Trinity nor does the Dean say it is The Question is only this whether Three Self-consciousnesses do not prove Three Persons each of which is thus Self-conscious to himself to be really distinct from each other Whether Three Persons who feel themselves to be themselves and not to be each other are not Three really distinct Persons This mistake has been so fully exposed already that I need say no more of it for the Mistake is the same and the Answer is the same when applied to finite or infinite Persons To keep my Word with you I shall take no notice at present of his Nine Considerations which are ushered in with a kind of Mathematical Pomp as if we were to expect nothing less than demonstration when I see what end they serve they shall be examined But now for his Arguments which will be answered in almost as few Lines as they take up Pages in the Animadversions for when the Question is mistaken all Arguments are lost Arg. 1. No Personal Act can be the formal Reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is nor I suppose in the Person whose Act it is not But Self-consciousness is a Personal Act and therefore cannot be the formal Reason c. This Argument we have met with and answered before The Dean neither considered Self-consciousness as a personal Act nor assigned it as the formal Reason of Personality and yet if we consider Self-consciousness as a Personal Act though it cannot make the Person yet it distinguishes one Person from another by this actual Self-consciousness every Person feels himself to be himself and not to be another Arg. 2. Proceeds upon the same mistake as to the formal reason of Personality but has some peculiar Absurdities of its own for he proves That Self-consciousness can't make a Person because it can't make the Relations which distinct Persons stand in to each other That Self consciousness can't make a Father because it can't beget a Son For this is the Summ of his Argument That the Three Persons in the Trinity are related to each other as Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore Self-consciousness which is an absolute and irrelative thing cannot be the formal Reason of Personality because it is not the formal Reason of these Relations As if let the formal Reason of Personality be what it will the fundamentum relationis or the foundation of the Relation between Persons and the formal Reason of Personality were the same thing Does that which makes Iohn a Person make him a Father or that which makes Peter a Person make him a Son This I suppose will be acknowledged very absurd in Humane Persons where every Person has a distinct absolute Nature to be the subject of these Relations for then the Personality and the Relation must differ but it is otherwise with the Persons of the Trinity whose Personalities are meer Relations But with the Animadverter's good leave this makes no difference In what Sence the Divine Persons are Relatives or Relations I have already explained That they subsist relatively to each other as the whole Subsistence of the Image is relative to its Prototype but the same Divine Nature which subsists distinctly in each of them is a compleat absolute Nature and Self-consciousness may distinguish the same Nature into different Persons though they subsist in relation to each other For has the Person and his Relation the same Notion and formal Reason Is the Father his Paternity the Son his Filiation and the Holy Ghost his Procession if not then the formal Reason of Personality in the Father and Son differs from the Foundation of the Relation between Father and Son and Self-consciousness might be the formal Reason of the Personality though not of the Relation But have each of these Three Persons who as he says are purely Relative a Self-consciousness of their own 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 c. This distinguishes the Persons and proves them to be really distinct which is all the Dean desires Arg. 3. His next Argument is just as much to the purpose as the former If Self-consciousness be the formal Reason of Personality in the Three Divine Persons then there is no repugnancy in the Nature and Reason of the thing it self but that there might be Three Thousand Persons in the Deity as well as Three Now had the Dean said That Self-consciousness made the Trinity this had been a notable Argument but I hope Self-consciousness may distinguish the Three Persons in the Trinity and prove them to be Three really distinct Persons though there be but Three and not Three Thousand Persons in the Godhead Though it be not repugnant to the Nature of Self-consciousness it may be repugnant to the Nature of the Deity that there should be more than Three Persons in the Godhead Self-consciousness proves the distinction though it does not limit the number of Persons which no Man ever dreamt of and none but an ingenious Blunderer whose subtilty is too great for his Understanding could ever have thought of And yet this Argument is as very a Non-sequitur as ever I met with for suppose Self-consciousness were the formal Reason of Personality how does it follow that there may be Three Thousand Persons in the Deity for does the formal Reason of Personality make or limit the number of Persons The Nature of the thing and the Will of the Maker may but whatever be the formal Reason of Personality there can be no more Persons than Nature will admit and if the eternal uncreated Nature will admit but of Three Persons it is impossible that Self-consciousness tho' it were the formal Reason of Personality could make more for there can be no more when the Divine Nature will admit but of Three Self-Conscious Persons though a created Nature will admit of as many as God pleases to make In short that which naturally distinguishes Three Persons from each other would distinguish Three Thousand if there were so many but does not prove That there may be Three Thousand Persons in the Godhead for though it is no contradiction to the distinction of Persons by Self-consciousness that there should be Three Thousand yet it may be a contradiction to the Perfection of the Divine Nature because every Divine Person is eternal and whatever is eternal doth necessarily exist and therefore if there be but Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost there never can be nor ever could have been more Arg. 4. His fourth and last Argument is a great
Master-piece of profound Reason and Judgment If Three distinct Self-consciousnesses formally constitute Three distinct Personalities then Three distinct Self-complacencies will constitute Three distinct Personalities too He might as well have added Self-Love and Self-Displeasure and Self-Condemnation and as many Selfs as he could think of only the Danger then was That the Personality should alter with the Judgment or Passion that the Person should not be the same when he is pleased and displeased when he applauds and acquits or condemns himself Had he added Self-conscious to all this as a Self-conscious complacency for then it is the same thing whether Self or any other Being be the object of the complacency a Self-conscious Love or Fear or Hatred or Desire every one of these Acts would prove a distinct Person because they are the Acts of Self-consciousness which distinguish one Person from another as every Act of Reason proves a reasonable Creature because it is the exercise of Rationality but yet no Man will say that it is every Act but the principle of Reason which makes a reasonable Creature and no more does any particular Act but the principle of Self-consciousness distinguish between Self-conscious Persons much less such Acts as may be separated from the Person as I doubt Self-complacency is from Damned Spirits or if he will not allow Souls to be Persons as it will be from Damned Men. He has drawn this Argument out to such a length and has so many pretty Remarks that I have much ado to keep my word with you but let him go like a wrangling Wit as he is and I 'll go on As Self-consciousness makes a Person one with it self and distinguishes it from all other Persons so the Dean apprehends That a natural Mutual-consciousness makes Three Persons as naturally One as it is possible for Three to be One and that is the Unity of the Godhead not the Unity of One Person but the Unity of Three or a Trinity in Unity And this is his next Attempt to prove That the Unity of Three Divine Persons in the Godhead can't consist in Mutual-consciousness He proceeds upon the same mistake and therefore the same Answer will serve By Self-consciousness he understood as you have seen the acts of Self-consciousness and then the act Supposing a Person could not be the formal Reason of Personality and thus by Mutual-consciousness he understands the Acts of Mutual-consciousness which supposes the Unity of Nature and therefore cannot be the cause or reason of it now though I know not of what use that Dispute is about the Priority of Being and the first Modes and Affections of it to any Act of Knowledge or any other Acts especially when we speak of the Divine Nature which we know has no Modes and Affections no Priority so much as in Conception if we conceive aright of him between his Being and a pure and simple Act yet I will not put the Animadverter out of his way when there is no need of it an easie obvious distinction between the Principle and the Act answers all A Self-conscious Principle without which we can't conceive a Mind makes a Mind one with it self and distinguishes it from all other Minds and by the Acts of Self-consciousness which suppose the Principle every Mind feels it self to be One and distinguished from all others And thus the natural Principle of Mutual-consciousness between Three Persons unites them inseparably in One Nature and the Acts of Mutual-consciousness are the Acts of Unity whereby they know and feel themselves to be essentially in each other and therefore to be essentially One Just as we consider Reason either as the Principle or as the Act the first constitutes a reasonable Nature the second is the actual exercise of Reason and thus all his Arguments vanish like Smoak rise in a dark Cloud but immediately disperse and are seen no more till they return as such Vapours use to do in Thunder and Lightning or some threatning Storm 1. His first Argument is this No Act of Knowledge can be the formal Reason of an Unity of Nature in the Persons of the blessed Trinity But an Act of Mutual-consciousness is an Act of Knowledge Ergo. Nothing will satisfie the Animadverter but formal Reasons whereas the Dean no where asserts That Mutual-consciousness is the formal Reason of this Unity but that Three Persons who are thus Mutually-conscious to each other must be essentially One nor does the Dean place this Unity in an Act of Mutual-consciousness which signifies the Principle as well as the Act and then Mutual-consciousness if it were no more than Knowledge of which presently must not be considered as an Act of Knowledge Arg. 2. If Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons be the Cause Reason or Principle of Mutual-consciousness in the said Persons then their Mutual-consciousness is not the Cause or Reason of the Unity of their Nature but the former is true and therefore the latter is so too If by this he means That these Divine Persons could not be thus Mutually conscious except they were essentially One it is true but nothing to the purpose for they may be thus essentially One by Mutual-consciousness or Mutual-consciousness may be essential to this Unity though they could not be thus actually conscious to each other unless they were thus united as to have and to feel each other in themselves If by the Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons he means the Sameness and Homoousiotes of Nature this I grant is a necessary Foundation for Mutual-consciousness without which they could not be One nor mutually conscious to each other but I deny that it is the immediate Cause Reason or Principle of Mutual-consciousness The ancient Fathers were very sensible That when the same Nature subsisted distinctly in Three distinct Persons the meer Sameness and Homoousiotes of Nature could not make this essential Unity and therefore they added their Perichoresis or the mutual In-being of these Divine Persons in each other which the Dean calls Mutual-consciousness which is the only natural Union and In-being of Minds He proves That Unity of Nature is the Cause and Principle of Mutual-consciousness because Mutual-consciousness is an essential Property equally belonging to all the Three Persons and therefore as all Properties and internal Attributes do must issue and result from the Essence and Nature and therefore can have no antecedent causal influx upon the same Nature so as to constitute either the Being or the Unity of it Now I grant That Mutual-consciousness does equally belong to all Three Persons for they are all mutually-conscious to each other and I grant that it is essential to the Divine Nature as to subsist in Three distinct Persons so in Three mutually-conscious Persons but yet Mutual-consciousness belongs not immediately to Nature but to Persons and is that intimate Union of Persons which consists in feeling each other in themselves The Dean will leave the Animadverter to Philosophize by himself concerning
One infinite Essence or One Supream God but the Question still remains what these Three Persons are into which this One Being or Essence is distinguished by these Three distinct Relations Three Relatives are not Three Relations but Three things related to each other What then are these Three Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence Three Relations Three Modes Three Respects without some Being which tho' essentially One is really and substantially Three is Nonsence in Logick for there must be as many real substantial Relatives and Correlates as there are Relations unless the Relation between Father and Son can subsist without a real Father and Son The Person then of the Father the Person of the Son and the Person of the Holy Ghost are not the Relations between Father Son and Holy Ghost but real substantial Persons thus related to each other And if these are Three intelligent Persons let him make if he can Three Gods of Three Minds and excuse Three real intelligent Persons from the same Charge But the Truth is to prevent the Charge of making Three Gods he distinguishes the Three Divine Persons into Three Logical Relations or Modes of Subsistence and if we will be contented with a Trinity of Modes he is for us but this looks very like renouncing a Trinity of Persons to secure the Unity of the Godhead and I fear will prove no better when thoroughly examined In what Sence the Three Divine Persons are Three Relatives or Three Relations I have explained above their Nature is compleat and absolute if the Divine Nature be so but their Subsistence is Relative as it must of Necessity be when the same individual Nature is repeated and subsists distinctly in Three If it be essential to the Father to be a Father he subsists with a necessary Relation to his Son if it be essential to the Son to be a Son the perfect living Image of the Father his Subsistence is wholly Relative as the Subsistence of an Image is which depends upon the Prototype And therefore though each Divine Person be eternal and infinite Mind and with respect to their Three real Subsistences may be called Three infinite eternal Minds as the Dean ventured to call them yet these Three are not Three absolute simple Beings or Essences which stand distinguished from one another by their whole Beings or Natures but One absolute eternal Mind repeated in Three Relative Subsistences without multiplication As a Man and his living Image though each of them have distinctly Humane Nature and upon that account might be called Two Men yet they have but One compleat absolute Humane Nature though it be repeated in the Image and are but One Man in Two Persons or Two Humane Subsistences Had the Dean indeed made Three compleat absolute eternal Minds he had been justly chargeable with making Three Gods but the same eternal and infinite Mind repeated in Three Subsistences necessarily and essentially related to each other are but One eternal God 2. His second Argument is this Three distinct Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Substances But the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances And therefore they are not Three distinct Minds or Spirits The Dean does not pretend to know any thing of the Substance of a Mind much less of God who is an infinite Mind He is contented to know That a Mind is a thinking and understanding Being and though Understanding and Being and Nature or Substance may be distinguished in finite created Minds yet St. Austin has taught him that in God to be is not One thing and to understand another or whatever else can be said of the Divine Nature and therefore not Substance neither So that if in the Unity of the Godhead there be but Three such distinct Understandings or Minds or intelligent Persons who are not each other and do not understand by each other but distinctly by themselves as St. Austin expresly observes That no man will say That the Father does not understand by himself but by his Son he is not concerned about distinct Substances which are the same with to be and to understand in God But his Proofs of both Propositions are entertaining His Major That Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances he proves from the Definition of a Mind or Spirit that it is Substantia incorporea intelligens an intelligent incorporeal or immaterial Substance and therefore Three distinct Minds or Spirits must be Three such distinct Substances Now if a Man should deny his Definition and say That a Mind is res cogitans a thinking Being he would be undone for want of his Substances but I shall only cap Definitions with him at present That a Person is Substantia individua naturae rationabilis the individual Substance of a Rational Nature And therefore if there be Three distinct Persons there are Three such distinct Substances in the Godhead and let us see how he will bring off Three Persons from being Three distinct Substances and I will undertake the Dean shall do as much and do it as well for Three Minds But if a Mind were not a Substance what could it be else Let us know first what Substance is and then we 'll tell him Not quod substat accidentibus I hope for then he immediately proves That God is no Substance because no accident can be in God nor need he fear that the Dean will make a Mind a Mode of Subsistence in his Sence of it but a true and real Mind which does really and actually subsist though these Three eternal Minds are but Three eternal Subsistences of the same One individual eternal Mind As for the Minor viz. That the Three Divine Persons in the blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances he proves first from Authority and he is as dangerous a Man at Authorities as ever I met with He cites Tertullian St. Ierom St. Austin and some others and he might have produced the Authority of all the ancient Fathers to prove that there is but One Substance in God but this is nothing to his purpose for by One Substance they plainly meant the Homoousion that Father Son and Holy Ghost were of the same Nature and by denying Three Substances they principally rejected Three divers Natures of different Kinds and Species in opposition to Arianism which denied the Son to be of the same Nature with his Father this he might have learnt from what he cites from his Orthodox Father Bellarmine That to assert that the Father and the Son differ in Substance is Arianism for the difference the Arians made and the Catholicks opposed was not in the real distinction of their Persons but in the diversity of their Natures and the Reason he adds will not help it out And yet he adds if they were Two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible as if to be distinct and to differ in Substance were the same thing As if Two Men
were not unius Substantiae of one and the same Substance as St. Austin and all the Fathers assert because they are Two distinct Men and each of them has a distinct Nature of his own Or if he will call this a Difference as if to differ in number and in Substance or Nature were the same thing or as if to differ in number proved a diversity of Nature too It is a tedious thing to dispute with Men who must be taught to construe the Fathers and to understand common Sence But if Authority will not do this he is resolved Reason shall and he has as peculiar a Talent at Reason as he has at Authorities He proves That the Three Persons can't be Three distinct Minds because they are not Three distinct Substances Now the Dean may very safely deny this Consequence and try how the Animadverter will prove it That if Three Minds are Three intelligent Persons and a Mind is a Substance therefore Three distinct Minds or Persons are Three distinct Substances for Three distinct Minds may subsist distinctly and yet inseparably in One Eternal and infinite Substance as Three intelligent Persons do Though the true and short Answer is That the same Substance repeated in Three distinct Subsistences is not Three Substances but One as I have often observed in the Case of the Man and his Image But suppose Three Persons were Three distinct Substances inseparably united in One What then What then It is a Terrible then For then Two Substances will concur in and belong to each Person to wit that Substance which is the Divine Essence and so is communicable or common to all the Persons and the Substance which constitutes each Person and thereby is so peculiar to him as to distinguish him from the other and consequently to be incommunicable to any besides him to whom it belongs I am heartily ashamed and sorry to see such Stuff as must necessarily expose our Holy Faith to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels and that I may not contribute to it all this Nonsence shall escape the lash of my Pen. In short the Dean knows no Divine Substance or Essence distinct from the Three Divine Persons nor knows any distinction between the Divine Essence and a Divine Person but that the Essence makes the Person That the whole Divine Essence or Nature is originally in God the Father that this same whole Divine Nature and Essence was by eternal Generation communicated by the Father to the Son and subsists distinctly in him That this same whole Divine Nature by eternal Procession is communicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost and subsists distinctly in him and these Three Divine Persons by an inseparable Union dwelling in each other is that Supream and Sovereign Being who is the One God or a Trinity in Unity It is amazing to think what strange Conceits this Man must have of a Trinity of Persons and Unity of Essence or Substance For I am sure no Man has any Idea of an intelligent Nature and Essence distinguished from a Person or of Persons distinguished from a rational Nature of a Divine Essence and Substance which is no Person and of Divine Persons which are no Substances as it seems they cannot be in the Animadverter's way unless he also will compound every Person of Two Substances What is the Divine Essence and Substance but an infinite and eternal Mind And is not an infinite and eternal Mind a Person The Divine Essence then must be acknowledged to be a Person and to be a substantial Person or the Divine Substance so that there is a Person that is a Substance and if there be but One such single and solitary Divine Essence there can be but One such single and solitary Person Will he then make four Persons in the Godhead the Divine Essence which is a substantial Person and Three Persons which are no Substances Or will he own God to be what Pascentius objected to St. Austin and he rejected with Scorn Triformis Persona One Divine Person under Three Forms this or something more Senceless is the Truth of the Case as may appear more hereafter but I will now proceed 3. His third Argument is this If it be truly said that one and the same infinite Mind or Spirit is Father Son and Holy Ghost I mean all Three taken together and it cannot be truly said that one and the same infinite Mind or Spirit is Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits then it follows that Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits This Logick is a very troublesome thing when Men want Sence The whole of this Argument is this That One infinite Mind can't be Three infinite Minds nor Three infinite Minds One infinite Mind and that Three Persons who are One infinite Mind can't be Three infinite Minds that is That Three can't be One nor One Three which if it be universally true there is an end of a Trinity in Unity if it be not universally true that is if Three may be One and One Three the meer opposition between Three and One which is the whole force of his Argument is childish Sophistry For if they be Three and One in different Respects this is no Contradiction Every Divine Person is an infinite Mind and as distinctly so as he is a distinct Person and yet by their essential and inseparable Union to each other all Three are but One eternal infinite Mind as they are but One God But when these Three Divine Persons are said to be Three and to be One eternal and infinite Mind they are Three and One Mind upon different Respects every Person by himself as a distinct Person is an eternal infinite Mind that is is a knowing intelligent Being and has all the Perfections of an infinite Understanding distinguished from the other Persons by Self-consciousness and all Three Persons by their inseparable Union to each other are but One eternal infinite Mind as having each other in themselves by Mutual-consciousness and let the Animadverter shew where the Contradiction is That there should be Three Self-conscious infinite Minds as there are Three infinite Persons united into One mutualconscious Mind as Three distinct Persons are united in the Unity of the Godhead especially when this One eternal Mind is entirely and perfectly repeated without the least change in Three eternal intelligent Subsistences each of which is distinctly an eternal Mind but the same One individual eternal Mind 4. His fourth and last Argument is this Whatsoever Attribute may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in the Athanasian Form so belongs to them all in common that it can belong to none of them under any Term of distinction from the rest But the attribute infinite Mind or Spirit may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in and according to the Athanasian Form And therefore it can belong to none of them under any Term
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
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
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
from all other Persons but he will not allow Self-consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality which the Dean no where says it is and as for Mutual-consciousness he allows the Three Divine Persons to be thus mutually-conscious and that this Mutual-Consciousness may suppose an Union of Nature the Dean would have said Unity of Nature though an Union of Persons for Unity is Oneness Union is a Conjunction of more than One and therefore there can be no Union of Nature unless there be a number of Natures united into One but there is an Union of Persons in the Unity of Nature and that Mutual-consciousness may result from this Union and upon the same account may infer and prove it but it can never give or cause it for their Essence and Personality what but One Personality as One Essence in Three must still go before their Mutual-consciousness since the Three Persons must be really One in Nature before they can know themselves to be so To be so How is that To be One That they must be One before they can know themselves to be One What is that to the purpose Can they be One before they are Mutually-conscious even in the order of conceiving it Can they be One before they are in one another Or is there any other mutual In-being of Minds but Mutual-consciousness But what confounded work does this make with the pure simple uncompounded eternal Nature of God to prove a Priority or Posteriority of Being or Causality in the Divine Nature from the order of our Conceptions When we certainly know that the Divine Nature is eternal and therefore has nothing before nor after in it that it has no Parts or Composition and therefore nothing in order of Nature before or after nothing that can be conceived as a Cause or Effect is it not demonstrable that all such Conceptions reduced into such exact Order and Method are false because there is nothing in the Divine nature that answers to them And though the imperfection of our Knowledge makes it necessary to distinguish the Divine Nature into different Conceptions as far as we can know any thing of God and can form distinct Notions which we can view by Parts Is this a Reason to frame Ideas of Priority and Posteriority of Causes and Effects of formal Reasons and essential Properties when we know there is no such thing in God and can form no distinct Conceptions of them Is it not a wise Dispute whether Essence Subsistence Personality the distinction of Persons or the Unity of Nature Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness be first or last which is the Cause and which the Effect when we know that the Divine Nature did eternally subsist in Three Self-conscious and mutually-conscious Persons and have no other Conception of their Distinction and Unity But let those distinguish and methodize their Conceptions into unconceivable Confusion that please if Self-consciousness necessarily results from and infers and proves a distinction of Persons and Mutual-consciousness supposes results from infers and proves the Union of the Divine Persons in the essential Unity of the Godhead it will satisfie the Dean without disputing the formal Reasons of Personality and Union For this proves a Trinity in Unity and gives us as intelligible a Notion of it as we have of Three distinct Self-conscious Persons which are mutually conscious to each other which either makes or proves an essential Distinction and Unity and to dispute about the Cause of Self-consciousness or Mutual-consciousness is to dispute about the naked Essences or essential Properties of things which the Dean rejected from the beginning as without the Compass of Humane Knowledge 4. His fourth and last Argument discards the Notion of Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness not only as new and suspicious but as wholly needless in this Subject Why so Pray what hurt have these seemingly innocent Words done Are they not English Do they signifie nothing Or can't he understand them The last is the truth of the Case and it is a hard case that the Dean must be bound at the peril of having a great scolding Book writ against him to furnish the Animadverter with Understanding if he venture upon any Terms which he can't find in some Orthodox Schoolmen for Peter Lombard will not pass muster with him But the Sum of all is That nothing can be signified by these Words Self-consciousness and Mutual consciousness which is not fully clearly and abundantly signified by that one plain Word and known Attribute the Divine Omniscience Now suppose this Why may not that One Comprehensive Attribute of Omniscience very properly receive different Names according to its different Objects as the several Arts and Sciences do If as he says by this Omniscience every Divine Person knows himself and the same Person by the very same Omniscience knows all that is known by the other Two Persons and the other Two Persons by the same knows all that is known by him yet to know himself and to know whatever others know though it may belong to the same Omniscience is not the same Knowledge because it has not the same Object for Self and Others are as distinct Objects as Father Son and Holy Ghost are distinct Persons and therefore this Knowledge may be distinguished by different Names as it is by different Objects And since as he confesses the general Notion of Omniscience does not distinguish Persons as Self-consciousness does nor Unite them into One as Mutual-consciousness does these Terms were necessary to express something which Omniscience does not express viz. wherein these Divine Persons are distinguished and wherein they are One. But after all this is a Mistake for though Self-consciousness and Mutual consciousness may in some Sence be called Knowledge yet they are of a different Kind and Species from what we strictly call Knowledge that is they differ as Speculation and Sensation Self-Knowledge properly signifies to contemplate our own Natures in their Idea to draw our own Image and Picture as like the Original as we can and to view our selves in it But Self-consciousness is an intellectual Self-Sensation when we feel our selves and all the Thoughts Knowledge Volitions Passions of our Minds and know what is Self and what belongs to Self by feeling it He who knows not the difference between intellectual Sence and Knowledge is as unfit to meddle in this Controversie as a Blind-Man is to dispute of Colours Thus the Mutual-consciousness of Three Persons is not their mutual Knowledge of each other though they know each other as perfectly as they know themselves but their Mutual-Sensation and feeling each other in themselves which makes them naturally One An omniscient Being knows all things but feels himself and Omniscience as the Animadverter observes belongs to Nature but Mutual-consciousness to Persons which might have satisfied him That there is a great difference between Omniscience and Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness between knowing all things whether the Object be Self or any other
LICENS'D ERRATA PAge 9. line 3. for usual r. unusual p. 21. l. 8. f. any r. an l. 24. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 22. Marg. l. 9. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 11. p. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A DEFENCE OF Dr. SHERLOCK's NOTION OF A Trinity in Unity In ANSWER to the ANIMADVERSIONS upon his Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed TRINITY With a POST-SCRIPT Relating to the Calm Discourse of a Trinity in the GODHEAD In A Letter to a Friend LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street MDCXCIV A DEFENCE OF Dr. SHERLOCK's NOTION OF A Trinity in Unity c. SIR I Had heard very often and very much of the Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity but I had also heard such a Character of it which both Friends and Foes agreed in that I could not perswade my self to read it For a Satyrical Wit is no diversion to a Wise Man except in a Play and where it hurts no Body and I could never think that true Divine Wisdom rests on an ill-natured and perverse Spirit But your late Letter awakened me for I could not but think that Book whatever other Faults it had must be worth reading which you could think worth answering and seem so impatiently to expect when the Dean or some body for him should Answer it As for the Dean he has given Testimony to the World that he has not been Idle all this while but much better employed And to speak my Mind freely I don't see how he is obliged to Answer unless you think a Man bound to Answer Ballads and Lampoons for he is as little concerned in it as you are that had it not been for the Title Page and some particular Expressions which the Dean uses and the Animadverter furiously opposes without understanding them I could never have guessed against whom he had Writ I had a little before read over the Vindication and the Notions lay fresh and easie in my Mind but as soon as I dipt into the Animadversions they were all on a sudden confounded and put into disorder The Animadverter Disputes earnestly subtilly and triumphantly opens his whole Armory of Metaphysicks and because they are thin airy Weapons which do no great Execution he points them with Wit and Satyr to make them pierce the deeper It was the Saying of a very Witty Man that He who Writes lies down but it is to be supposed he forgot it when he made the Experiment himself But I must say this for the Animadverter That he is as fair an Adversary upon this account as one would desire as he spares not those who lie down before him so he very civilly takes his turn and lays himself as fairly open to Satyrical Wit if the Dean or any of his Friends would condescend to exercise it upon him When he ventures upon any thing like Wit he always makes himself a Jest and never so much insults and triumphs over an Enemy as where he is certainly himself in the Wrong I will not entertain you with particular Remarks of this Nature read over his Book again if you have the Patience and see if this be not true But Sir as well as I love you I 'm resolved to humble you for giving me the trouble of reading this Book not by giving a particular Answer to the whole which would be too unmerciful but by convincing you that it needed no Answer and to let you see what a trifling Author you have either admired or feared will prove some little Humiliation to you But I shall do it in short to save my self as much as I can the pains of Writing and you of Reading and therefore shall consider only the main Points of Dispute between the Animadverter and the Dean concerning Self-Consciousness Mutual-Consciousness and Three eternal and infinite Minds He rages furiously against the Dean according to his Custom in a whole long Chapter for discarding those good old Terms of Essence Substance Nature c. for his own new-invented Terms of Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness that any one who reads it would believe That the Dean would not allow GOD to be a real Substantial Being or to have any Nature or Essence whereas he no where denies That these are very good Words and not only useful but necessary in some cases but yet very apt to confound us with Material and Sensible Images when we go about to form a Notion and Idea of GOD. We know not the naked Substance or Essence of any Thing not of Matter much less of Spirit and much less of an infinite and eternal Spirit and therefore as we can form no other Idea of Matter but by its sensible Qualities so we can form no Idea of a Spirit but by such Attributes and Powers as are proper and essential to a Spirit which is so far from being a Novelty that it is to think and speak with all the considering part of Mankind but let this pass which the Dean is no more concerned in were his Words and Sence truly and candidly represented than the best Christian Writers both Ancient and Modern as were easily shewn did I not fear the Animadverter should he know it would rail at them all for his sake for there is not a more Capital Crime than to speak any thing well of the Dean or to say any thing that he says That which the Dean is more immediately concerned in is the Idea he has endeavour'd to give us of a Trinity in Unity and all that he positively asserts of it is That it is a possible and intelligible Notion and no other in Sence and Substance than what the ancient Fathers made use of to represent this great Mystery by though expressed in other Terms To prepare you to judge equally in this Cause you must remember That the Substance of the Article is not concerned in it here is no Dispute about a Trinity in Unity This the Dean asserts in as full and ample words as the Athanasian Creed it self which some Trinitarians themselves boggle at but without reason as he thinks for whoever will acknowledge Three Persons in the Godhead each of which distinctly considered is GOD and has all the Perfections of the Divine Nature and yet are all Three but one GOD must as he undertakes to prove own the Terms and Explications of that Creed He has been careful to preserve a Real not a meerly Nominal distinction of Persons and yet asserts the Unity of the Godhead in as high terms as ever the Schools did even a Natural Numerical Unity and there is no reason to suspect he dissembles his Sence for then he might have concealed it too having no other obligation to engage in this Cause but a Zeal for this truly Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith Since then here is no Innovation made in the Faith nor any alteration of the least term in it what is the
Fault Truly no other than what the best Writers both Ancient and Modern have been equally guilty of if it can be called a Fault Those who are acquainted with this Controversie know that the great Objection against the Catholick Faith of the Trinity in Unity is not its contradiction to any plain and express Principle of Reason but the unconceiveabless of it It is certain that Three should be One and One Three upon different accounts is no contradiction and then what Principle of Reason does a Trinity in Unity contradict But we must grant that we have no perfect Example of any such Union in Nature and therefore cannot frame a compleat and positive Notion and Idea of such an Union and this some Men miscall Contradicting Reason but if every thing which we have no positive Idea of must be allowed to contradict Reason we shall find Contradictions enow and which is worse must be forced to believe Contradictions for we must confess a great many things to be true which we have no Idea of and cannot conceive how they should be But yet since the unconceivableness of this Union is the great difficulty and great Objection though in truth it is no Objection at all to any one who considers how unconceivable and incomprehensible the Divine Nature is the Ancient Fathers endeavoured to help our conception and imagination of this by some sensible Images Such as the Co-essentiality and Union of the Sun its Light and Splendor of a Fountain and its Streams a Tree and its Branches as the Dean has observed and as every one knows whoever looked into the Fathers But these are Material Images and may serve for Allusions and to render the Notion of a Trinity in Unity possible and credible when we see some faint resemblances of it in the Material World but they cannot help us to conceive what kind of Union there is between the Divine Persons the Union of Matter and Spirit differing as much as Matter and Spirit do which have no likeness or resemblance to each other And therefore the Dean was certainly so far in the right to seek for some Image and resemblance of this Mysterious Union in the Unity of a Spirit For a Mind and Spirit is the truest Image of God that is in Nature for God is a Spirit and therefore it is more likely to find some Image of the Unity of the Godhead in a Spirit than in Matter and yet we know nothing of a Spirit but what we feel in our Selves and can Philosophize no farther about it for as Mr. Lock has truly observed we can form no Idea but either from external Impressions or internal Sensations and therefore we can know no more of the Unity of a Spirit neither than what we feel Now whoever considers how he knows himself to be a distinct and separate Person from all other Men will be able to resolve it into nothing else but Internal Sensation which the Dean not improperly calls Self-consciousness The Unity of Matter consists in the Unity of its parts and we can see how far its Unity extends and where it ends for its Unity extends as far as the continuity of its parts extends and ends where that ends But we know of no extension or parts in a Spirit and therefore the very Nature of a Spirit consisting in internal and vital Sensation the Unity of a Spirit consists in the continuity if I may so speak of its Sensation So far as a Man feels himself or is Self-conscious so far he is One entire Person where this Self-conscious Sensation ends he becomes a distinct and separate Person For it is a Self-evident Proposition that in an intelligent Self-conscious Being Self can reach no farther than he feels himself And I would desire any thinking Man to tell me how he knows himself to be a distinct and separate Person from all other Men but only by this that he feels his own Thoughts Volitions and Passions Pains and Pleasures but feels nothing of all this in other Men. I have been forced to explain this more at large to help the Animadverter to some conception of it who I find understood not one word of it as will appear presently But to proceed The Dean having thus observed that the Unity of a single Mind or Spirit consists in such a Natural Self conscious Sensation this led him on to that other Notion of a Mutual-consciousness which may be between Three distinct Spirits and make them naturally One as much as Three can be One. For if a Natural Self-conscious Sensation makes a Spirit One with it self why should not a natural Mutual-conscious Sensation unite Three into One For if natural Unity extends as far as Conscious Sensation then if Conscious Sensation extends to Three why should not these Three be acknowledged to be naturally One That as a natural Self-consciousness makes One natural Person so natural Mutual-consciousness should make a naral Trinity in Unity For my part I believe it is much easier to cry down this representation as a Novelty than to offer one word of Sence against it or to make any other representation of this Mystery with so fair and natural an appearance of Truth and Reason For this Mutual-consciousness being a natural Sensation is not a meer Moral but a natural Union not a Cabal of Gods as a Socinian Writer Prophanely speaks but one supream natural Deity This indeed forced the Dean to speak of the Three infinite and eternal Persons in the Godhead under the Character of Three infinite and eternal Minds for this conscious Sensation whether Self-consciousness or Mutual-consciousness can belong only to Minds and if every Person in the Trinity considered as a distinct Person be not a distinct infinite and eternal Mind there is I confess an end of the Dean's Notion but then I doubt there will be an end of a Trinity of Persons also and we shall have nothing left but a Trinity of Modes and Postures and Names not in the Unity of the Godhead but in the Unity of one Person who is the whole Deity and Godhead But if every distinct Person in the Godhead considered as distinct be an infinite and eternal Mind as it must be if every distinct Person be GOD unless any thing else than an infinite Mind can be GOD though it be an usual way of speaking to call them Three eternal Minds yet there is no Heresie in it nor any intended by it as will appear before we part Nor ought this to pass for meer Fancy and Invention for as the Dean has shewn the Phrases and Expressions of Scripture whereby the Union between Father Son and Holy Ghost is described do naturally represent this conscious Union and cannot well be understood without it for that the Father should be in the Son and the Son in the Father so as perfectly to comprehend and be comprehended with several like Expressions is made very possible and intelligible by a mutual conscious Sensation but nothing else
but what makes a Mind or Spirit or Person One and either distinguishes or separates it from all other Minds and Spirits and Persons and if this be what he means by the formal Reason of Personality I do affirm That Self-consciousness is this formal Reason and that for the very Reason he urges against it That wheresoever the formal Reason of Personality is there is Personality and wheresoever Personality is there is the formal Reason of Personality For wheresoever there is a Person there is Self-consciousness that is every Person is conscious to it self and there can be no Person without it and wheresoever there is Self-consciousness there is by Nature a Person unless its natural Personality be swallowed up in a Supernatural Union to a Superior Person of which more presently And yet to see what meer Mortals the nicest Scholastick Wits are who can spend Days and Years in picking Straws and splitting Hairs this great Leviathan the Witty the Subtle the Good-natur'd Animadverter knows not the difference between the formal Reason and such a natural Property as the Logicians call proprium quarto modo which belongs to the whole kind only to the kind and always to the kind for such Properties do exist convertibly and One mutually and essentially infers the other which is his account of the formal Reason and thus Risibility is the formal Reason of Humanity which makes well for the Animadverter to prove him to be a Man though he is seldom in so good a Humour as to laugh without grinning which belongs to another Species But since he is pleased to let that pass for the formal Reason of Personality which is convertible with it I hope Self-consciousness may escape pretty well and pass for the formal Reason of Personality But let us hear his Arguments against it 1. The first is worth its weight in Gold and yet will not much enrich the Buyer that according to the natural Order of things Self-consciousness in Persons pre-supposes their Personality and therefore is not cannot be the reason of it Now suppose a Man should reason thus Actual Knowledge pre-supposes a Mind and therefore Knowledge in its Principle is not and cannot be the formal Reason of a Mind would the Animadverter for this Reason deny that the Principle of Knowledge is the formal Reason of a Mind that which makes and constitutes a Mind because there can be no actual Knowledge before there is a Mind and yet the Argument is the very same for if Knowledge in its Principle may be the Nature or formal Reason of a knowing Being or of a Mind though there can be no one act of Knowledge till there is a Mind then Self-knowledge or Self-sensation or Self-consciousness may be the formal Reason of Personality though there must be a Person before there can be any actual Self-consciousness that is to say there must be a self which in this Dispute is all that can be meant by Person before this Self can feel it Self and by this Self-feeling distinguish Himself from all other Selfs I could not but smile to see how gravely this wise Animadverter proves That there must be a Person before there can be any Action proceeding from a Person and summons the whole Posse of Metaphysicks to prove it But I hope notwithstanding this that Self-consciousness in the Abstract as the Dean uses it and as every one but such an Animadverter would understand it is as capable of being the formal Reason of a Person as Rationality is of a reasonable Nature though there must be a reasonable Creature before he can reason as there must be a Self-conscious Nature before there can be actual Self-consciousness But I have something more to say to our Animadverter before I leave his Demonstration as he calls it For as Sophistical as his Argument is the Foundation of it is false and absurdly unphilosophical He says That Personality is the Ground and Principle of all Action wheresoever it is For where there is a Suppositum whether it be Rational which is another Word for Person or not still it is the whole Suppositum that Acts. That it is the Person that acts is certain but where did he learn That Personality is the Principle of all Action I was always taught otherwise That Natura est principium motus quietis Nature is the Principle of Motion and Rest and therefore of all Action And is there no difference between Nature and Personality Is there no difference between being a reasonable Creature and being Peter or Iohn or do Peter or Iohn perform the Actions of a reasonable Creature by Vertue of their being such distinct and particular Persons or by their being Men by the Powers of Humane Nature which are common to all Men are not distinguished from each other nor act and subsist separately by Humane Nature and therefore neither Humane Nature nor any of the Powers or Actions of Humane Nature distinguish Men into particular Persons or are the Reason of Personality but that which limits Nature makes it particular and a particular subsisting rational Nature is a Person is one with it self and distinguished and separated from all others So that we must not seek for any formal Constituent Principle of Personality in a strict and proper Notion as we do of Nature but see in finite Beings where Nature ends and what are the utmost Bounds of it and that distinguishes a common Nature into Persons Now a rational Nature extends as far as Sensation and Consciousness and where that ends there are the Bounds of Nature and that makes a particular Person which feels all that is in himself and nothing else and this is the Dean's Self-consciousness which sets Bounds to Nature and by that makes a Person which is one with it self and separated from all others and therefore in this Dispute is neither to be considered as a Power nor as an Action of Nature neither direct nor reflex but as the Bounds of it which makes a particular subsisting rational Nature which we call a Person For it is plain that as far as Sensation and Consciousness extends a Spirit is One where that ends common Nature divides and subsists in Particulars I cannot but think how this Animadverter must look when he reads over this Argument again especially his Triumphant Conclusion This I look upon as a Demonstration of the Point and I leave it to our Author who is better a great deal at scorning the Schools than at confuting them to answer and overthrow it at his leisure 2. His second Argument I confess looks like something solid and substantial but proves a meer airy vanishing Spectrum when you come near to handle it It is this The Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is perfectly conscious to its self of all the internal Acts whether of Knowledge Volition Passion or Desire which is One of the Passions that pass in it or belong to it and yet the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is
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
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
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
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