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nature_n	father_n	person_n	union_n	3,953	5	9.3015	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52608	Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S-th, Dr. Cudworth, and Mr. Hooker as also on the account given by those that say the Trinity is an unconceivable and inexplicable mystery / written to a person of quality.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703.; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing N1505B; ESTC R32239	45,913	35

the Arian Trinity is but of Persons all of them Homogenial all of them Eternal Spiritual and Uncreated They that shall deny this to be the Doctrine of the Fathers will find themselves obliged to answer to two things which are indeed fairly and truly unanswerable The first is Why those Fathers who contend for the Homo-ousios consubstantial or of the same Substance do yet expresly reject the Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Substance and Essence in Number The Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Essence or Substance in Number is the very Doctrine of the Schools and Moderns but is denied by the Fathers as meer Sabellianism which invincibly proves that by one and the same Substance and Essence they meant not one and the self-same or one in Number but one for Kind Nature or Properties Secondly They must also satisfy the Citations of D. Petavius and S. Curcellaeus and these in the Intellectual System which do all of them severally and much more conjunctly clearly show what the Sense of the Fathers was about Homo-ousios and consubstantial It appears by this and abundance more the like that Dr. Cudworth had the same Apprehensions concerning the three Divine Persons with Dr. Sherlock they both apprehend the three Persons to be as distinct and different and as really three several Intelligent Beings and Substances as three Angels are or as Peter James and John are Dr. Sherlock saith they are however called one God because they are internally conscious to all one anothers Thoughts and Actions but I do not believe that Dr. Cudworth would have allowed so much to the Son and Spirit as to be internally conscious to all the Thoughts and Actions of the first Person he always speaketh of them as every way inferior to the Father he will not allow them to be Omnipotent in any other respect but only externally that is to say because the Father concurreth Omnipotently to all their external Actions whether of Creation or Providence Dr. Cudworth desires to distinguish his Explication from all others of the Moderns by this Mark that it alloweth not the three Persons to be in any respect but Duration Co-equal for saith he three distinct Intelligent Natures or Essences each of them Pre-eternal Self-existent and equally Omnipotent ad intra are of necessity three Gods nor can we have any other Notion of three Gods but if only the first Person be indeed internally Omnipotent and the other two subordinate in Authority and Power to him you leave then but one God only in three Divine Persons This is Dr. Cudworth's Explication Every one will readily make this Exception he thinketh either that there is one Great God and two Lesser Ones or else only the first is true God and the other two in Name only The Doctor foresaw without doubt this Objection therefore see how he hath endeavour'd to prevent it First he reports some Answers of the Fathers to this Difficulty which Answers he expresly rejecteth For some of them said that the three Persons are one God by their Unity of Will and Affection Others said they are one God as all Men or all Mankind are called Homo or MAN namely because they All have the same Specifick Nature or Essence or Substance even the Rational For as all Men have the same Specifick Essence or Nature which is the Rational so the Divine Persons also agree in one Nature namely the Eternal Spiritual and Self existent But Dr. Cudworth confesseth that an Union of Will and Affection is only a Moral Union not a Physical or real Unity and as three Human Persons would be three distinct Men notwithstanding the Moral Union in Affection and Will so also the three Divine Persons will be three distinct Gods notwithstanding such an Union in Will and Affection As to the other that the three Persons are but one God by their having the same Specifick Nature or Essence or as some call it Substance namely because they are all of them Spiritual Self-existent and Coeternal he calleth it an absurd Paradox contrary to common Sense and our common Notions of things for so all Men will be but one Man because they have the same Specifick Essence or Nature namely the Rational and all Epicurus his Extramundan Gods will be but one God Then he propoundeth divers other Explications which he neither approveth nor expresly rejecteth tho 't is plain that he disliked them for the Explication on which he insisteth and which appears to be his Sense of the matter is this that follows The three Divine Persons are one God because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head or Chief even the Father He adds here expresly that if the Persons were Co-ordinate i. e. equal in Authority Dignity or Power they should not be one but three Gods This is at large Dr. Cudworth's Opinion the short of it is that the three Persons are as really distinct Beings Essences or Substances as Dr. Sherlock hath imagined them to be And as their Substances or Natures are not one but three so also must their Understandings and other Personal Powers and Properties The Doctors differ only in this that Dr. Sherlock maketh the Unity of the three Persons in the Godhead to consist in the Mutual-Consciousness of the Persons But Dr. Cudworth in this that the Father is both the Principle Root or Fountain or Cause and also the Head of the other two Persons They neither of them believe one Numerical but one Collective God one God not who is really one God but is one God in certain Respects as of Mutual Consciousness or of being the Cause Principle and Head of all other Beings and of the second and third Persons Dr. Cudworth contends by a great number of very Pertinent and Home Quotations that his Explication I mean that part of it which makes the three Persons to be so many distinct Essences or Substances is the Doctrine of the Principal if not of all the Fathers as well as of the Platonists and I for my own part do grant it For I am perswaded that no Man hath read the Fathers with Judgment and Application but he must discern that tho they do not express themselves in the incautelous unwary and obnoxious Terms used by Dr. Sherlock as neither doth Dr. Cudworth yet the Fathers as much believed the three Persons are distinct Minds and Spirits as Dr. Sherlock doth all the Difference as I said is only this that they and Dr. Cudworth do not use his very Terms They do not say in express words three Minds or three Spirits but the Comparisons which they use and their Definitions or Descriptions of what they mean by Persons are such that it cannot be questioned by any that they apprehended the three Persons to be three distinct Spirits Minds and Beings having each of them his own

Philosopher Des Cartes but the Discoverer of which is Dr. Sherlock When Dr. Sherlock came out with his Vindication in Answer to the Brief History of the Unitarians and the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius the more ignorant of the Doctors and Rectors and all the young Fry of Lecturers and Readers about Town were his Hawkers to cry it about and cry it up They questioned not what such a Master in Polemicks had delivered especially with so much Assurance and Confidence and with so much Keenness and Contempt of the poor kick'd Note-maker and Epistler But the more learned among them said from the very first that indeed Dr. Sherlock meant honestly and he might have propounded this Explication to his private Friends to be considered and debated but it was liable to too many obvious Exceptions to be published to all the World without great Corrections in the manner of Expression But the Socinians presently saw their Advantage and resolved to make use of it accordingly in about four or five Weeks time out came their Observations on the Vindication of Dr. Sherlock which in some Editions of them are prefaced with the Acts or Gests of Athanasius Here they tell the Doctor that he hath published a worse Heresy than even ours is held to be by our bitterest Opposers in one word that he hath revived Paganism by such an Explication of the Trinity as undeniably introduces Tritheism or three Gods They show him that his Error was condemned by the Antients in the Person of Philoponus and in the middle Ages in the Person and Writings of Abbat Joachim but more severely since the Reformation in the Person of Valentinus Gentilis who was condemned at Geneva and beheaded at Bern for this very Doctrine They demonstrate to him by a great many unexceptionable Arguments that a Mutual Consciousness of three supposed Divine Spirits and Minds having each of them his own peculiar and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action is so far from making three such Spirits to be one God in number that 't is the clearest and the certainest Demonstration that they are three Gods Mutual-Consciousness maketh them to be a Consult or Council a Cabal or Senate of Gods if you will but by no means one Numerical God or one God in Number The Observations of the Socinians opened all Mens Eyes to see and acknowledg that Dr. Sherlock had greatly overshot the Mark and that it was necessary he should yield his Place to some new Opponent who in these Disputes with the Socinians would speak more cautiously All Endeavours therefore were used by his Friends to perswade Dr. Sherlock to be quiet and because such an Example had been made of him they stopped a while all Sermons and other Tracts that were going to the Press against the Socinians The Politicians among them feared the Success of a War that in its Beginnings had been so unsuccessful they said to one another we need not trouble our selves with the Socinians because being Masters of all the Pulpits we can sufficiently dispose the People to the Orthodox Belief without the help of printed Answers and Replies 'T is about three Years since these Observations on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication were made publick and all this time he hath very peaceably taken the Imputations of Heresy and Paganism tho he had said in the Preface to his Vindication That having dipped his Pen in the Vindication of so glorious a Cause by the Grace of God he would never desert it while be could hold a Pen in his Hand The Socinians did not design to give him any farther Trouble but Dr. S th not able to endure that such Aspersions should lie at the Door of the Church could not refrain from declaring to all the World that the Church had suffered nothing in the Defeat of Dr. Sherlock He professeth that the Charge drawn up against Dr. Sherlock by the Socinians is true for he hath in very deed advanced an Explication of the Trinity saith Dr. S th which immediately and unavoidably inferreth three Gods Pref. p. 2. It not being the Design of Dr. S th in his Animadversions to prove the Truth of the Doctrine of the Trinity but only to explain or declare it that is to notify in what Sense and manner 't is held by the Church we must say that his Performance is an accurate and learned Work He concerneth not himself with the Socinians but only rescues the received Doctrines of the Church from the Misrepresentations of them by Dr. Sherlock who either understood them not or ventur'd to depart from them Nor do we concern our selves with Dr. S th but whereas he is the only Writer since the Revival of these Controversies who has indeed understood what the Church means by a Trinity in Unity therefore we must take leave to say and will also prove it that this his true Explication of the Trinity is for all that a great Untruth or rather a great piece of Nonsense Dr. Sherlock's was a Rational and Intelligible Explication tho not a true one 't is not Orthodox as Orthodoxy is reckoned since the Lateran Council Dr. S th's is a true and Orthodox Explication of what the Church intends to say but 't is neither Rational nor Intelligible nor Possible But of that in its proper place for I must next examine the Trinity according to Plato defended by Dr. Cudworth Of the Explication by Dr. Cudworth IT will be necessary in the first place to declare Dr. Cudworth's Explication more largely and clearly than hath been yet done In accounting for the Doctrine of the Trinity he professeth to follow the Platonick Philosophers with whom saith he not the Arians as some suppose but the Orthodox Fathers perfectly agree These held a Trinity of Divine Persons Co-eternal indeed but not Co-equal for the Son and Spirit are inferior to the first Person or the Father in Dignity in Authority and in Power They are so many distinct Substances not one numerical Substance as hath been taught by the School-Doctors and the Lateran Council For tho the Fathers said that the three Persons have but one and the same Substance Essence or Nature they did not mean thereby one and the self-same Substance or Essence in Number but the same Essence or Substance for Kind or Nature Because each Person of the three is Spiritual Eternal Infinite a Creator and necessarily existent therefore they were said by the Fathers and Platonists to have the same Nature Essence or Substance and not because their Essences or Substances Physically or Properly so called are one and the same Physical Substance in Number In few words saith he this famous Term Consubstantial or of the same Substance was never intended by the Platonists or by the Fathers to deny as the Schools do three distinct individual Essences or to denote one Numerical Substance or Essence but only to signify that the Trinity believed by the Orthodox is not made up of contrary or unlike Natures as

Understanding and all other Personal Qualifications It is indeed apparent Tritheism and that was the true Reason why the Schools advanced a new Explication but because the Schools durst not find fault with the Fathers or seem to depart from their Doctrine therefore what the Father 's intended of one Specifick Essence or Nature or Substance that the Scools interpreted of one Numerical Substance Nature or Essence but of that hereafter when we examine their Doctrine in its own place Dr. Cudworth being so great a Philosopher as every one knows he was found himself very hard put to it what to say colourably and reasonably concerning the Persons of the Trinity He saw that either he must say that they are but one self-same Essence or Substance in Number or that they have distinct and several Substances or Essences To say that they are or they subsist in one self-same Substance or Essence in Number is such Jargonry in Philosophy that is to say in the Nature and Possibilities of Things that he never speaks of it without a just mark of Contempt 't is Nonsense saith he and 't is impossible and besides that 't is Sabellianism and a Trinity not of Persons but of Words and Names Well shall we say then that the three Persons are three distinct Substances is it not plain Tritheism No saith the Doctor for the Persons are not equal the Father is both the Principle or Original and the Head of the other two Persons and besides that he only is Omnipotent ad intra But then will some say indeed this Explication leaveth us but one God which is the thing we look'd after but it is by utterly abolishing the Godhead of the Son and Spirit it maketh only the Father to be really God the other two Persons are so only by a certain Dependance on him both in Origination and Acting As bad as this Consequence is and as clear Dr. Cudworth is forced to swallow it and to sit down contented with it he thought it should seem it is better somewhat to strain the use of Words than the Natures and Possibilities of Things 'T is hard indeed that we must say one Supream and two Dependent Persons make but one God but 't is harder to say three Persons have but one Substance or Essence in Number Words are Arbitrary Signs applied to things according as Men please and therefore are capable of Alteration in their Use but the Nature of Things is absolutely unchangeable three Persons can never be one Substance Essence or individual Nature No Philosophy but that of Gotham will allow that one Intelligent Substance can be more than one Person but divers Philosophers especially the Platonists have called three Distinct Intelligent Divine Substances one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Di●inity or God therefore nothing hinders but that so also may Christians To this purpose Dr. Cudworth in divers places of his Intellectual System But it is now time to make our Observations on this Doctor 's Explication which I shall do the more carefully because I am perswaded that all the chief Fathers were in his Sentiments that the three Divine Persons are three distinct individual Substances or Essences in Number which by the Schools and all the Moderns is granted to be Tritheism and because it is evident by his Intellectual System that this Doctor understood all the Philosophies Antient and Modern in the most perfect manner and was himself one of the ablest Philosophers we have known His Explication hath these Parts 1. That the Divine Persons are one Specifick but three distinct particular individual Substances or Essences in Number or in the Reality of Things and that otherwise there could not be three Divine Persons but only one such Person 2. That three distinct individual intelligent Divine Essences or Substances commonly called Persons are yet but one God because tho they are three in Number yet they are one in Original for the second and third Persons are derived from the Father as their Fountain and Cause 3. Tho they are three Persons yet they are but one God because they concur to all the same Actions both of Creation and Providence under one Head even the Father The Emphasis of this lies in their concurring to all the same Actions but principally in this that they concur to the same Actions under one Head which is the Father 1. That the Divine Persons are three distinct particular individual Intelligent Substances Essences or Natures and that otherways that is were there but one self-same Substance or Essence in Number they should not be three Persons but only one Person I have granted that if there are three Divine Persons those Persons are of necessity three distinct individual Essences or Substances so that as to this first Proposition the Doctor and the Socinians are perfectly agreed all that we deny is that three such Essences or Persons are or can be but one God But tho the Socinians allow that three Persons must be three distinct Substances or Essences yet all the Modern Trinitarians utterly deny it the reason is because they saw plainly that to say there are three distinct Essences or Substances is to grant in effect to the Socinians what they so much contend for namely that the Doctrine of the Trinity doth imply three Gods Three distinct Divine Persons saith Dr. Cudworth are three distinct Divine Essences or Substances it is true say the Socinians and we grant this to the Doctor no say all the Modern Trinitarians three distinct Divine Essences are not only three distinct Divine Persons but they are also three distinct Gods if once we grant that the three Divine Persons are three Essences the Socinians will extort it from us as an unavoidable Consequence that we teach three Gods The Truth is since the Lateran Council which determined in favour of P. Lombard against Abbat Joachim and the Fathers that there is but one only Divine Essence or Substance in Number I do not believe there hath been any Divine of note but Dr. Cudworth and Dr. Sherlock and some few who may have borrowed it from them who durst ever publish it in Writing that there are three distinct Divine Substances Essences or Natures or that every distinct Person is a distinct Substance They all saw that so to say is to introduce three Gods for if you say there are three distinct Intelligent Almighty All-knowing and Pre-eternal Substances Essences or Natures you have actually said there are three Gods because you can possibly give no fuller nor other Description of three Gods If one All-knowing Almighty Essence or Substance is one perfect God to whom nothing at all can be added 't is no better than fooling or effrontry to deny that three such Essences or Substances are three Gods This plain and clear Reason hath constrained the School-Divines to depart from the Explication of the Fathers and has also obliged all the Moderns to follow the Schools and forsake the Fathers Yet so as out of good Manners

or Essence of God diversified by three Modes of Subsistence But above all I would not have Dr. S th please himself overmuch in this that he hath cited some Passages of the Fathers which describe the Personalities of the Father Son and Spirit by Modes Justin and Irenaeus have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of subsisting others call them Properties but by Modes Properties Characters and such like the Fathers meant quite another thing than Dr. S th and the Moderns do they meant what Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Cudworth mean By a Mode and Property they meant that discriminating Character by which the Individuals of any Specifick Nature are distinguished or differenced from all the Individuals of the same Species or Nature For Example the Individuals of the Specifick Nature of Humanity are particular Men and all these Individuals or particular Men are discriminated characterized differenced or modified each by his particular Properties Peter from John Peter and John from James by particular Properties Characters or Modes both of Body and Mind one for instance is bigger taller wiser or some other the like than the other This was what they meant when they described Personalities by Modes and when they said there were three Properties Modes or Characters in God they meant not in the least to deny that each Person is a particular Substance Essence or Nature different in Number from all other Substances Essences or Natures or to deny that each Person is a particular Being they meant only that each Individual or each Person besides the common Specifick Nature that is besides the meer Human Angelical or Divine Nature has also some particular Properties or Characters which ultimately distinguish him from all the Individuals or Persons of the same Species Specifick Nature or Kind It is not true therefore what Dr. S th pretends that by Modes of Subsistence the Antients meant no more than certain such Habitudes or Affections as Mutability Presence Absence Posture or such like they meant real discretive and characterizing Properties or Qualifications and by Person they meant a particular individual intelligent Substance or Essence and so modefied or characterized They were far from dreaming that the three Divine Persons an Almighty Son an Almighty Father and an Almighty Spirit distinct in Number from both were only one individual Substance distinguished or diversified by only three such lank and meagre Affections as Absence Posture Adherence or any other that are no more in a Spiritual Substance than those three are in Bodies to which they add no Perfection and from which they are every Moment separable But the Socinians are not concerned what becomes of the Dispute about Persons and Personalities in God whether they are adequately the same yea or no and again whether the Moderns who follow the Schools agree with the Antients in their Notion of them for I will put to Dr. S th a plain Question to which if he is disposed to give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men that either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock or with the Unitarians that is to say he is either a Tritheist or what I doubt he will as much abhor a Socinian He saith there is one only Divine Substance Essence or Nature and thus far we agree with him but he adds this one Substance is so diversified by three Modes Affections or Habitudes or something like to them that we must say under pain of Heresy and Damnation that this one Substance is three Divine Persons a Father his Son and a Spirit distinct from both Therefore I ask have the three pretended Divine Persons each his own proper peculiar and personal Understanding Will and Energy so that there are in the Divine Substance or in God three distinct All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies as there are three distinct Persons as Dr. Sherlock has affirmed Or have the three Persons but one only self-same Understanding Will and Energy in Number as there is but one self-same Substance in Number If he saith the former he joins Hands with Dr. Sherlock and is guilty of Tritheism no less than he for three Omniscient and Omnipotent Understandings Wills and Energies without doubt are three Gods If there be three Omnisciencies and Omnipotencies of necessity there must be three Omniscients and Omnipotents but that is Tritheism even in the Judgment of Athanasius himself who expresly denies three Almighties or three All-knowings And indeed I do not think Dr. S th will say that each Person hath his own proper and personal Understanding Will or Energy so that there are three distinct Understandings Wills and Energies in what his Party call the Godhead I see his Book is written with more Judgment and Precaution than Dr. Sherlock's or even than any that I have seen that have been written in Defence of the Trinitarian Cause But if he denies that there are three All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies he is a Socinian he has granted to us the Point in Controversy he grants the whole that we contend for They will allow him to say there are three Persons or three thousand Persons in the Godhead so long as he grants but one Omnipotent Energy and Will and but one All-knowing Understanding or Wisdom If this be granted to us 't is plain to every one who gives but never so little heed that the Question about three Persons is a meer Strife of Words and the Authors of the Brief History and Brief Notes are tho not in their Words yet in their Senses as Orthodox as Dr. S th and the Schools I will affirm we have no need of our Brief Histories or Brief Notes we need not make an operose Proof of our Doctrine of the Unity of God from the Holy Scriptures or from Reason the whole Controversy with the Church is ended in the Resolution of this short and plain Question Is there more than one All-knowing Almighty Understanding Will and Energy If you say there is but one such Understanding Will and Energy in one self-same Divine Substance you may talk of as many Persons Fathers Sons Spirits Modes Properties Respects Nothings as you please we will only peaceably advise you that these are meer empty Words that have nothing to answer them in the thing under Consideration When you have granted to us that there is but one Divine Substance and but one Omniscient Omnipotent Understanding and Energy what you add more of Persons Properties Thingams and call them a Trinity 't is an Addition only of Words and Names not of Realities or Persons that are properly so called These things being so and so very evident I cannot wonder that so discerning a Philosopher as Dr. Cudworth never speaks of the Trinity of the Schools maintained by Dr. S th without calling it a Nominal Trinity a Trinity of Names and Words only a disguised Sabellianism which is to say Unitarianism or Socinianism drest up in the absurd Cant of the Schools But whereas the