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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	divine_a	father_n	unity_n	3,863	5	9.5773	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60380	The judgment of the fathers concerning the doctrine of the Trinity opposed to Dr. G. Bull's Defence of the Nicene faith : Part I. The doctrine of the Catholick Church, during the first 150 years of Christianity, and the explication of the unity of God (in a Trinity of Divine Persons) by some of the following fathers, considered.	Smalbroke, Thomas.; Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1695 (1695)	Wing S4000; ESTC R21143	74,384	80

incontestably it is that the Fathers believed the three Divine Persons to be so many distinct spiritual Substances in Number it will be controverted by no Body that they are also in the Judgment of the Fathers distinct Minds and Spirits Secondly But as I said the before-mentioned Explications of the Unity of God or how the three Divine Persons are yet but one God are another and an invincible Declaration that they held the said Persons are three Minds Spirits and Substances If the Fathers had held that the three Persons are but one only numerical Substance one infinite Spirit one omniscient Mind and Energy and that they are called Persons only because the one numerical Substance subsists in three Modes that is after three several manners I say if this had been the Opinion of the Fathers the Question would not have been how the three Persons can be but one God but how they can be called Hypostases or Persons As at this day no Man is so foolish as to charge the Nominal Trinitarians with Tritheism or holding three Gods but only with Gotham Philosophy and Divinity in calling Modes or a Substance subsisting after three manners Persons when it is so obvious that Modes are not Persons but certain Affections and accidental Denominations belonging to Persons The Fathers would never have troubled themselves nor would any ever have objected it to them or demanded it of them how they could say there is but one God if the three Persons by them so called were but one numerical Substance subsisting three manner of ways or in three relative Modes all the Question as I said would have been what they meant by this Gibberish subsisting in three Modes or three manner of ways What Occasion was there for the Fathers to tell us the three Divine Persons may be called one God because the Son and Spirit are originated from the Father are like to him in all Divine Properties and subsist in him what need I say was there of these Excuses or how are they possibly applicable to the three Divine Persons if the Persons were not taken to be so many Spirits Minds and Substances but only a threefold manner of Subsistence of the same numerical Substance Mind and Spirit I omit for the present a great deal that might be farther said on this Subject because when the Nominal Trinitarians have called till they are hoarse weary and asham'd to Universities and Bishops to espouse their Cause and to censure the real Trinitarians after all the very Names by which the three Divine Persons are called a Father his Son an Holy Spirit distinct from both do so manifestly imply those Persons to be distinct Beings Substances Minds and Spirits and not Modes or Relations only of the self same numerical Being and Spirit that it will always be carried against them by the Majority of considering Divines All their Appeals notwithstanding it will not be long e're they are told by their Superiors in the Church that 't is expedient for them to be quiet left themselves be censured as Sabellians or as we now speak Unitarians To sum up all I say the Fathers beld that the three Divine Persons are three distinct spiritual intellectual Substances three Minds three Spirits this appears say I farther by their Explications of the word Consubstantial by their Answers to this Question how three such Persons can be but one God and by the Terms which they use concerning the three Persons a Father his Son a Spirit distinct from both These things being I suppose sufficiently establish'd we may rely on it that Dr. Bull will not deny that I have truly reported what the Fathers the Post-nicene Fathers say I but Dr. Bull says all the Fathers held both concerning the three Divine Persons and how we must understand them to be but one God Therefore now I will examine his whole Hypothesis it hath these Parts 1. There are three Divine Hypostases or intellectual Substances three ommscient almighty Minds and Spirits each of these has all Divine Perfections and is singly and by himself a most compleat and perfect God 2. Yet doth not this contradict that most great and indisputable Truth visible in the Works of Creation and ascertained by Revelation of holy Scripture that there is but one God because of the three Divine Hypostases and Spirits before described the second and third are originated from the first have the same Nature and Properties that he has and are propagated from him by an internal Production so that they are always inseparably in him and he in them by a mutual Pervasion Immeation or Penetration There is no necessity that I should concern my self against the first of these Propositions for if I disprove the second the first will fall of it self if three Hypostases or Spirits cannot be one God this sort of Trinitarians must either give up their three distinct Substances their three Minds and Spirits or openly profess that they believe three Gods Notwithstanding it will not be amiss or besides our Purpose if we show these Gentlemen that whatever Arguments militate against a Plurality of Gods prove also no less effectually and directly that there can be but one Divine intellectual Substance but one infinite Spirit and Mind How do Philosophers and Divines establish the Unity of God or that there neither is nor can be more than one God They say all Plurality of Beings of the same kind and sort is from the Imbecillity Weakness and Unsufficiency in some respect or other of those Beings for if a Being be absolutely perfect infinite in all Perfections all-sufficient for it self and for the Beings to which it relates there is no need that it should be multiplied or be more than one We see say they that all Nature has nothing that is superfluous nothing in vain where-ever one of the sort is sufficient as one Sun and such like the Individuals of that kind never proceed beyond Unity But the Divine Nature as the most excellent of all will much more exclude all Multiplicity more Infinites more All sufficients would be such an impertinent Repetition so altogether vain and to no purpose that we cannot think of it without immediately rejecting it This is the first Argument used by Philosophers to prove the Unity of God no Body will contest it that it equally proves but one infinite Spirit one all-sufficient Mind one absolutely perfect Being They say again it implies a Contradiction that there should be more than one all-sufficient God Mind or Spirit because such a Supposition pretends to make an infinite Addition of the same kind to what is already infinite and to increase All-sufficiency And if there are more Gods or more Minds and Spirits infinite in their Perfections either they are all of them unoriginated or one only is unoriginated and the rest are derived from him by Generation or Creation The Trinitarians with whom we have now to do answer that only one the Father is unoriginated the other Persons

Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Glocester Dr. Sherlock Mr. How and others imbrace this Notion of the Trinity 'T is not unlikely that by degrees it will exclude the Sabellian Nominal Trinity of the Schools and not only exclude it but be the Occasion that it shall be declared Heretical 'T is true that more commonly in Universities they go the way of the Schools but the scholastick Trinity implies so many Follies and is so certainly nothing else but a disguised Sabellianism that the real Trinitarians may probably enough carry their Point against the Nominals if the Difference between them breaking out into a Contention shall fall into the Hands of able Managers We have seen how the Fathers understood the Trinity but the Difficulty is still behind how did they make out the Unity of God For if there are three spiritual intellectual Substances three infinite Spirits three eternal all-knowing and all-powerful Minds Three each of which is a perfect God do we not lose the Unity of God the principal Article of revealed Religion and the grand Design of both the Testaments while we believe and affirm three such Persons Dr. Bull here offers his Hand at a dead lift he tells us the Fathers easily came off from this Exception or Doubt by saying 1. The Son and Spirit had their Original their Being and Godhead from the Father therefore having proceeded from him as their Principle and Fountain they are not distinct Gods from him but one God with him The Fathers granted that were not the Son and Spirit originated from the Father the three Divine Persons being so many several Principles would also be so many Gods but because the Son and Spirit are not as the Father self-originated or unoriginated but from the Father therefore they are rightly said to be one God with him Every one sees that there lies this Exception against this Account of the Unity of God If to be originated from the Father will make the Persons so originated to be one God with him or one with him and with one another it follows that not only the Son and Holy Spirit but Angels also and Men nay the whole Creation the very vilest Parts of it shall be one God with the Father and with the pretended Trinity and one with one another because they are all originated from the Father Therefore the Fathers said 2. Bare Origination from the Father will not constitute the Persons so originated one God or one with him or with one another unless they have the same Substance with the Father that is as has been said the same for Kind and Properties And this Confideration they said excludes all Creatures from being one God or one with the Father or the blessed Trinity for created Substances are finite subject to Change and Accidents In a word they are wholly unlike to the Divine Substance They foresaw that it would be again objected here If to be originated from another who is of the same kind with the Persons so originated from him will make them all to be one for Instance will make the Son and Spirit to be truly one and one God with the Father from whom they are originated then two Sons or a Son and Grandson because they are originated from the same Father and are of the same kind with him shall also be one with him they shall not be three Men but one Man as Father Son and Holy Spirit are not three Gods but one God To wind themselves from this most certain and solid Reasoning the Fathers devised a third Elusion as wise as either of the two former they said that 3. Origination of two Persons from a first Person tho they are all of the same kind will not make them one or one God except as it most luckily happens between the three Divine Persons the originated Persons are propagated interiori productione that is are generated by an internal Production so that they are always and inseparably in the Person that produced them And this at length is the Fathers whole Explication of a Trinity in Unity They said in short three distinct Divine Persons Substances Spirits each of which is singly and by himself a perfect God are notwithstanding but one God because the second and third Persons are originated from the first and are of the same Kind and Properties with him and are generated or propagated by an internal Production so that they inseparably and always remain in the Father and he in them This in effect is to say that naturally properly and truly speaking there are three Gods or there are three Gods in Number but in regard that God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are of the same kind with God the Father are originated from him and are eternally and inseparably in him they may in a Catachrestical improper and respective Sense all be called one God I will examine very particularly the whole Hypothesis of these Fathers their Trinity of Substances Minds and Spirits and their Explication now laid down how three such Persons and Divine Minds can be but one God Only for preventing if it may be future Cavils I would first take notice that this Explication of the Unity of God or how three Persons can be but one God by the Fathers and Dr. Bull evidently supposes that they held the three Divine Persons are so many distinct Substances Minds and Spirits as well as distinct Persons I think 't is sufficient to prove that the Fathers held the three Persons are so many distinct Spirits and Minds in that they so certainly affirmed them to be distinct spiritual Substances if the three Divine Persons are three distinct Substances all Men the very nominal Trinitarians themselves will grant that they are distinct Minds and Spirits Dr. Bull hath incontestably proved by a great Number of Quotations and might have proved by a great many more that by consubstantial or of the same Substance the Fathers meant not the same Substance in Number but the same in Properties As Stars are consubstantial to Stars and the Bodies of Men to the Bodies of Beasts because they are Substances of the same kind that is corporeal and of the same Properties for all Stars are lucid and the Bodies of Men and Beasts are organized and subject to Alteration So are the three Divine Persons consubstantial being of the same kind that is to say spiritual and having the same Properties namely Eternity Immutability Omnipresence and the other Divine Attributes I will undertake for it that none of the Nominal Trinitarians as angry as some of them are will ever attempt to confute Dr. Bull 's first Chapter of his second Section where he gives this Account of the word Consubstantial out of the Fathers But if the Divine Persons are therefore Consubstantial because they are of like kind and have the same Properties their Substance is not the same in Number but only as Dr. Bull speaks the same in Nature And if this be true as

they propose such an Explication how three infinite Minds and Spirits are but one God as all Men of Consideration will take to be a Declaration and Assertion of three Gods for they will have three infinite Minds to be one God because they have three distinct Divine Substances qualified each of them with all distinct Divine Properties when these Substances and Properties are the very Marks and Notifications of their distinct Divinities or that they are distinct Gods But themselves also acknowledg that if Origination from the Father and to be specifically consubstantial with him were sufficient to make the Son and Spirit one God with the Father then James and John being originated from their Father Peter and consubstantial in all Respects with him it will follow that Peter James and John are not three Men but one Man or Peter James and John are one Man with Peter To get rid of this they advance a third Bull more ridiculous than either of the two former it is this 3. If the originated and consubstantial and Divine Persons are propagated from the first Person by an internal Production so that they are always and inseparably in the Person that produced them they are thereby most truly one God with him Here the Reader needs only to consider that we are arguing concerning three such Persons as are confess'd by these Opposers to be three distinct Substances Now to say of two of these Substances that they are propagated by an internal Production is a Bull to add that that they are inseparably in the Person that produced them is another but 't is worst of all to say that by their Inexistence in the Father the Son and Spirit are one God with him this I say is a worse Blunder a more inexcusable Oversight than internal Production or inseparable Substances Internal Production when said of Substances is a Contradiction both in the Sense and Terms 't is as much as to say a Production not produced a Generation not generated And a Substance being that which can exist separately or by it self and needeth not as an Accident to inexist in something else therefore an inseparable Substance is a Substance without being a Substance or a Substance and no Substance Dr. Bull will answer it may be the Substances of the Son and Spirit are always and inseparably in the Father not from a natural Inhability to subsist as they are Substances by themselves or separately but only because the Nature of the Divine Unity requires that the second and third Persons of the Godhead should always inexist in the first and he in them But if this be the Meaning of inseparably it is impertinently as well as falsly added Impertinently because the word always had been enough and only proper to be here used Falsly because things are not inseparable if only they are not actually separated but of their own Nature have an Hability to exist separately The Bull therefore remains against whatsoever Excuses but were that which the Doctor aims to say never so true we shall see presently it will not in the least avail his Cause For as I said the greatest Blunder and Inobservance of all is what Dr. Bull and the Fathers take to be the Strength of this Hypothesis namely this that the second and third Persons being always in the first are therefore one God with him For it is to be noted that these Gentlemen hold not only that the Son and Spirit are in the Father but he also in them it is the mutual Inexistence of all the three Persons and not only of the Son and Spirit in the Father that maketh them to be one God I ask hereupon whether this mutual Inexistence Immeation or Penetration of the three Persons be such that their Substances become continuous as the Parts for Instance of the same Piece of Gold are or only contiguous like more Pieces of Gold that are heaped or bagged together Are the Substances of the three Divine Persons I say continuous as to use another Instance the Parts of the same Angel or Soul are continuous and indiscerpible or are the only contiguous as God or the Divine Substance which pervades all things Spirits as well as Bodies is contiguous to the things which it pervades and immeates If Dr. Bull says that the Divine Persons Minds and Spirits or the three Divine Substances have such a mutual Inexistence that they become continuous as the assignable conceivable Parts of each Person 's own Substance are or as the Parts of an Angel or Soul are He says thereby and therein that the Substances and Persons are identified which is Heresy because as the Athanasian Creed speaks it confounds the Persons If the Substances are continuous and thereby identified the Properties also of the three Substances in Mr. Bull 's Hypothesis will be identified too for in this Hypothesis there cannot be distinct Understandings Wills and Energies if the Substances are not distinct but continuous and thereby identified But we need not to insist on this for Dr. Bull dares not say that the Substances of the Divine Persons are identified or continuous he must say and will say that they do so inexist in one another that they are only contiguous there is only a Contact of their Substances not an Identification or Continuity But if there be only a Contact of the three Substances they are as much three Gods and separate Substances in the Physical Sense of the word separate as three Men imbracing one another are three distinct Men not one Man or as God and the Creation are separate Substances tho he inexists in pervates or immeates the Works he hath made and they again exist in him The Fathers that were Philosophers when they said the three Divine Persons or Substances are in one another meant by their mutual Love and Agreement but those Fathers that were not learned or understood only the Platonick Philosophy which is wholly moral and metaphysical and never meddles with the natural Reasons of things I say the Fathers that were not natural Philosophers imagined such an Inexistence of the three Persons that the said Persons were physically and substantially in one another and thereby say they one God They knew not that a substantial Inexistence must either be by the Continuity of the Substances which confounds the Substances or Persons or only by Contiguity or Contact which can no more make three Divine Persons and Spirits to be one God than three Men fitting close on the same Bench are thereby one Man or than God who is in all Spirits whether Angels or Souls and they in him are the same Being or the same Substance not separate Substances In short Dr. Bull and these Fathers say the three Divine Persons are three distinct several Substances and do substantially immeate or inexist in one another yet so that they are not continuous or identified as the Parts of the same numerical Substance are but only contiguous We say hereupon that this will never make