Knowledge by which each Person knows and comprehends himself and whatsoever belongs to him The Major Proposition therefore is to be proved viz. That no Personal Act can be the formal Reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is And I prove it thus The formal Reason of every Thing is in order of Nature before the Thing of which it is the formal Reason but no Personal Act is in order of Nature before the Personality of the Person whose Act it is and therefore it cannot be the formal Reason of his Personality The Major is Self-evident And as for the Minor That no Personal Act is before the Personality of the Person whose Act it is This also is manifest Because such an Act cannot be before the Person himself and therefore not before his Personality For as much as his Personality is that by which he is formally a Person so that it is impossible to be before the one without being before the other too And now that it cannot be before the Person himself is manifest from hence that as every Personal Act in general bears a Relation of Posteriority to the Person to whom it belongs as to the Cause or Productive Principle of all the Acts proceeding from Him so this particular Act of Self-Consciousness bears a Treble Relation of Posteriority to the Person whose Act it is viz. as to the Agent or Principle producing it 2. As to the Subject Recipient of it and sustaining it And Thirdly and Lastly As to the Object which it is terminated to All which Respects it sustains not barely as it is an Act but partly as it is an Immanent Act and partly also a Reflex Act. In the first place therefore every Person being the Agent or Productive Cause of all the personal Acts issuing from Him he must upon that Account in Order of Nature precede the said Acts and consequently every Divine Person must in Nature be before that Act of Self-Consciousness which personally belongs to him And moreover since it is likewise an Immanent Act it relates to him as the Subject in which it is as well as the Cause from which it is and upon that Account also must bear a Natural Posteriority to Him And then lastly as it is also a Reflex Act by which the Person knows himself to be a Person and is Conscious to Himself what he is and what he does it terminates upon him as its Object also So that the Cause the Subject and the Object of this Act being the same Person in this last respect no less than in the two former it bears another and third Relation of Posteriority to Him since every Act not productive of something besides and without the Agent is in Order of Nature Posterior to the Object it terminates upon From all which I conclude That that Act of Self-Consciousness by which each Divine Person knows or is Conscious to Himself of his own Personality cannot be the Formal Reason of the said Personality without being in Order of Nature both before it and after it too viz. Before it as it is the Formal Reason of it and yet Posterior to it as it is an Act proceeding from lodged and received in and lastly Terminated upon the same Person All which is so very plain that hardly can any Thing be plainer And indeed the very word Self-Consciousness contradicts and overthrows its being the ground or Formal Reason of Personality For still Self must be before Consciousness and Self imports Personality as being that by which a Person is said to be what he is and they both stand united in this one Word as the Act and the Object and therefore Consciousness cannot be the Reason of it Or to express the same Thing by other Terms Self-Subsistence must precede Self-Consciousness and Self-Subsistence here implys Personality and therefore Personality upon the same Account must in Nature precede Self-Consciousness and consequently cannot be the formal Effect or Result of it For surely according to the most Essential Order of Things a Person must be what he is before he can know what he is And this Argument I confess being founded upon the Priority of Subsistence to all Acts and particularly to those of knowledge in every Person Self-Conscious does and must Universally run through all Instances in which Personality and Self-Consciousness with reference to one another come to be treated of And as it affects Self-Consciousness so it will equally take place in Mutual-Consciousness too What Allowances are to be here made for the absolute Simplicity Eternity and Pure Actuality of the Divine Nature and Persons when these Notions are applyed to them we have already observed in the first of those Preliminary Considerations mentioned in this Chapter The proper use and design of all which Notions is to lead guide and direct our Apprehensions about that Great Object so much too big for our Narrow Faculties so that whatsoever contradicts the Natural Order of these Apprehensions ought upon no ground of Reason to be admitted in our Discourses of the Divine Nature how much soever it may and does transcend the said Apprehensions And this must be allowed us or we must sink under the vast Disproportion of the thing before us and not discourse of it at all For I cannot think that the Word Self-Consciousness has brought the Deity one jot lower to us or raised our Understandings one degree higher and nearer to that Argument II. My Second Argument against Self-Consciousness being the Formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons is this Nothing in the Nature of it Absolute and Irrelative can be the Formal Reason of Personality in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity but Self-Consciousness is in the Nature of it Absolute and Irrelative and therefore it cannot be the Reason of personality in any of the said Persons Now the Major Proposition is proved thus Nothing in the Nature of it Absolute can be the Formal Reason of any Thing in the Nature of it purely and perfectly Relative But the Personality of every one of the Divine Persons is purely and perfectly Relative and therefore Nothing Absolute can be the Formal Constituent Reason of their Personality The Major of which Syllogism is also manifest For Things Essentially different and thereby uncapable of being affirmed of one another cannot possibly be the Formal Reason of one another And that the Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative to one another and consequently that their Personalities are so many Relations is no less evident from this That Two of them relate to one another as Father and Son and the Third to Both as proceeding from Both and it is impossible for one Thing to proceed from another especially by a Continual Act of Procession without Importing a Relation to that from which it so proceeds so that the very personal Subsistence of these Persons implys and carries in it a Formal Relation For the Father Subsists personally as a Father by that Eternal Communication of his Nature to his Son which Act as proceeding from him is called Generation and renders him Formally a Father and as Terminated in the Son is called Filiation and Constitutes him Formally a Son and in like manner the Holy Ghost Subsists personally
the Things themselves yet derive only an External Habitude and denomination consequent from it upon the Deity it self The 2d Sort of Relation is Intrinsecal and founded upon those Internal Acts by which one Person produces another or proceeds from another For to produce and to proceed whether by Generation or Spiration is that which makes or Constitutes a Plurality of Persons in the Godhead From all which it follows That the Relation by which God as a Creator or Preserver respects his Creatures is extremely different from that by which God as a Father respects his Son The former adding only to the Deity an Extrinsecal denomination but the latter leaving upon it an Internal Incommunicable Character Essentially Inseparable from the Deity So that although it may well enough be said That God might never have been a Creator yet it cannot be said of Him That he might never have been a Father the former being only an effect of his Will but this latter the Necessary Result of his Nature Now these Internal Acts upon which the Divine Relations are founded and from which they flow are First That Eternal Act by which the Father Communicates his Divine Nature to the Son which accordingly is called Generation And that by which the Son receives his Divine Nature from the Father which is called Filiation And. Thirdly The Act of Spiration by which the Father and the Son together eternally breath forth the Holy Spirit And Lastly The Act of Procession by which the Holy Ghost proceeds and receives his Divine Nature joyntly from them both These I say are those Internal Incommunicable and distinguishing Acts from which the Personal Relations belonging to the Three Divine Persons are derived But you will say Does not this infer Four Persons in the Godhead viz. That as Generation and Filiation make two so Spiration and Procession should make two more I Answer No Because the same Person may sustain several Personal Relations and Exert and receive several Personal Acts where those Acts or Relations are not opposite to or inconsistent with one another in the same Subject As for instance The Person of the Father may Exert both an Act of Generation and of Spiration and so sustain the Relations resulting from both without any Multiplication of his Person and the Son likewise may receive and sustain the Act of Filiation and withal Exert an Act of Spiration without any Multiplication of Personality And this because neither are the Acts of Generation and Spiration inconsistent in the Father nor the Acts of Filiation and Spiration incompatible in the Son Though indeed the Acts of Generation and Filiation and the Relations springing therefrom would be utterly inconsistent because opposite in any one Person as likewise upon the same Account would the Acts of Spiration and Procession From whence by plain and undeniable Consequence it follows That Generation and Filiation Spiration and Procession Constitute only Three Persons in the Eternal Godhead and no more For Relations merely disparate do not Constitute several distinct Persons unless they be opposite too That Maxime of the Schools being most true That Sola Oppositio multiplicat in Divinis So that albeit Filiation and Spiration are Terms opposite to their respective Correlates yet being only disparate with reference to one another and as both of them meet and are lodged in one and the same Subject viz. the Person of the Son they neither cause nor infer in him any more than one Single Personality But now if any one should ask me What this Generation and Filiation this Spiration and Procession are I answer That herein consists the Mystery and since such Mysteries exceed the Comprehension of Humane Reason I am not in the least ashamed most readily to own my ignorance thereof in that known Anthem used in the Church Quid sit Gigni quid Processus Me nescire sum processus For tho the Author whom I have been Disputing with by the help and vertue of Two Wonder working words able to make one who is no Conjurer do strange things undertakes to make this greatest of Mysteries Plain Easie and Intelligible and when he has done this as he says he has owns it nevertheless for a Mystery still yet in the Judgment of other Mortals to acknowledge a Thing Inexplicable and in the same Breath to offer an Explication of it too will be thought a little too much for one of an ordinary pitch of Sence and Reason to pretend to and therefore for my own part I dare not look so high Upon the whole matter in discoursing of the Trinity Two Things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon One That each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other That each Person is Incommunicably different and distinct from the other And here if it should be asked How they differ and whether it be by any real distinction between the Persons I Answer Yes But for the better explaining of my Answer we must distinguish of Two sorts of Real Distinctions 1. The first greater viz. When Two Things or real Beings differ from one another 2. The other lesser as when the difference is between a Thing or real Being on the one side and the Mode of it on the other Or between Two or more Modes of the same Being And this Distinction or Difference is called Real in opposition to that which is wholly founded upon the Apprehension or Operation of the Intellect and has of it self no Existence without it But a Being and the Mode adhering to it differ whether the Mind ever apprehends and thinks of them or no. And thus we affirm That the Divine Persons really differ and are distinguished from one another viz. by a Modal or lesser sort of Real difference according to which the Divine Nature Subsisting under and being determined by such a certain Mode personally differs from it self as subsisting under and determined by another Forasmuch as the Divine Nature or Godhead so subsisting and determined is properly a Person Nor ought this smallness of difference between the Divine Persons to be any presumption against the Truth of what we have delivered concerning the Oeconomy of the Blessed Trinity as shall be more particularly shewn in Answer to one of this Author's Objections against it before we come to a conclusion of this Chapter In the mean time to sum up the foregoing Particulars the Reader may please to take what I aver to be the Doctrine of the Catholick Church about this great Article in this following Account of it viz. That there is one and but one Self-Existing Infinite Eternal c. Being Nature or Substance which we call God And that this Infinite Eternal Self-Existing Being or Nature Exists in and is common to Three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost Of which the Son eternally issues from the Father by way of Generation and the Holy Ghost joyntly from both by way of Spiration which Three Divine Persons superadd to this Divine Nature or
were far from being Sabellians so they very well knew both what to assert and how to express themselves without giving any ground for their being thought so From all which it follows That for this very cause that Modes of Subsistence import the least Real difference that can be they are therefore the fittest to state the Distinction of the Divine Persons upon So that our Author here relapses into a fault which he has been guilty of more than once viz. In alledging that as an Argument against a Thing which is indeed a most Effectual Reason for it And so I come to his Third and Last Objection against our making these Modes of Subsistence the ground or Formal Reason of the Distinction between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which is That it makes the Three Divine Persons only Three Modes of the Deity or only Modally distinguished whereas according to his Doctrine there are no Modes in the Deity and much less can a Mode be God And that As all must grant that the Father is not a Mode of the Deity but Essentially God so no Man can think that the Father begot only a Modus and called it his Son whereas a Son signifies a Real Person of the same Nature but distinct from the Father Thus he discourses pag. 83. 84. And is not this close and profound reasoning But as profound as it is if it be at all to his Purpose his Argument must lie in this That all the forementioned Absurdities unavoidably follow from deriving the Distinction of the Three Divine Persons from Three distinct Modes of Subsistence belonging to one and the same Divine Nature But this consequence I utterly deny and to make out the Reason of this denial I shall consider what he has said particularly And here first of all I would fain know Whether this Man will never leave confounding things perfectly different and taking them for the very same For to affirm the Three Divine Persons to be only Three Modes of the Deity is one Thing and to affirm them to be only Modally distinguished is quite another The former we absolutely deny and as positively hold the latter And yet this wretched Fallacy would he impose upon his Reader all along viz. That the Assertors of these Modes of Subsistence in the Trinity make a Person to be only a Modus Subsistendi But that is his own Blunder For we do not say That a Person is only a Modus but that it is the Divine Nature or Godhead Subsisting under such a Modus so that the Godhead is still included in it joyned to it and distinguished by it This is what we affirm and abide by and what sufficiently overthrows his pitiful Objection And as for his Absurd Denial of all Modes in God that has been throughly confuted already so that we have nothing more to do but to admire that Invincible and Glorious Ratiocination of his in these Words p. 84. No Man says he can think that the Father begot only a Modus and called it his Son No good Sir No none that I know of is in any danger of thinking or saying so no more than that Socrates begot only the Shape and Figure of a Man and then called it his Son or to turn your own blunt Weapon upon your self no more than God the Father begot another Self-Consciousness besides his own and called that his Son Nevertheless I hope it will be granted me That Socrates might beget one of such a Shape and Figure and by Xantippe's and this Author 's good leave call that his Son and that God the Father might beget a Person endued with such a Self-Consciousness amongst other Attributes and call that his Son too But I perceive this Author and the Fallacy of the Accident are such fast Friends that it is in vain to think of parting them In the mean time as I told him what we do not hold concerning the Father's Generation of the Son so for his better Information I shall tell him what the Assertors of these Modes of Subsistence do hold concerning it viz. We do hold and affirm That the Father Communicates his Nature under a different Mode of Subsisting from what it has in himself to another and that such a Communication of it in such a peculiar way is properly called his begetting of a Son In which we do not say That the Father begets a Modus no nor yet an Essence or Nature but that he Communicates his own Essence or Nature under such a distinct Modus to another and by so doing begets a Person which Person is properly his Son This Sir is the true Account of what the Assertors of the Personal Modes of Subsistence hold concerning the Eternal generation And if you have any thing to except against it produce your Exceptions and they shall not fail of an Answer I am now come to a close of this Chapter and indeed of the whole Argument undertook by me against this Author In which I have Asserted the commonly received Doctrine about this great Article of the Trinity both from the Ancient Writers of the Church and against this Author's particular Objections and in both fully shewn That the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are one and the same undivided Essence Nature or Godhead diversified only by Three distinct Modes of Subsistence which are sometimes called Properties and sometimes Relations So that a Divine Person is formally and properly the Divine Nature Essence or Godhead with and under such a distinct Mode Property or Relation And this I averr to be the common current generally received Doctrine of the Church concerning the Trinity For Councils and Fathers hold it the School-men teach it the Confessions of Churches where they are any thing particular upon this Subject declare it and all Divines both Papist and Protestant in the several Bodies of Divinity wrote by them do Assert it only this Author who yet forsooth owns himself a Protestant of the Church of England denies and explodes it To whom therefore if he were not too great in his own Eyes to be Counselled and Advised I would give this Charitable piece of Counsel for once viz. That for the future he would not presume at such a rate to contradict the whole World till he has learn'd not to contradict himself CHAP. IX In which this Author's Paradoxes hoth Philosophical and Theological as they occurr in this his Discourse are drawn together Examined and Confuted I Am sensible that I am now engaged in a Subject that would threaten the Reader with a very long Chapter should I follow it as far as it would carry me For I am entered into a large Field Viz. this Author 's Paradoxical Assertions In the traversing of which I shall observe no other Method but just to take them in that order in which they offer themselves throughout his Book save only that I shall give my Reader this premonition That such of them as I have particularly
Similitude besides it self to allude to and yet afterwards producing several Similitudes Allusions and Metaphors out of the Fathers to explain both this In-being and this Mutual-Consciousness by God give him a better Memory for as these things represent him no Man living would he but impart his skill could be so fit to teach the Art of Forgetfulness as himself But after all I must not omit to give the Reader notice of another of his Absurdities though of a lower rate viz. That all along Page 57. he takes a Pattern or Example and a Similitude or Metaphor for Terms equivalent whereas a Pattern or Example imports a perfect entire Resemblance between it self and the thing of which it is the Pattern and indeed approaches next to a Parallel Instance while on the other side an Agreement in any one respect or degree is sufficient to found a Metaphor or Similitude upon And therefore tho it may easily be granted this Author That there is no Pattern or Example of such an Union as is between the Father and the Son yet that does not infer that there is nothing in Nature that bears any similitude to it since this may very well be without the other as that place in Iohn 17. 11. and 21. has already proved And now I should here have finished my Remarks upon this particular Head but that there is a certain Passage in order to his proving that there is nothing in Nature like the Unity between the Father and the Son and it is this That in Substantial Unions that which comprehends is greater than that which is comprehended So that if Two Substances should be United by a Mutual-Comprehension of one another the same would be both greater and lesser than the other viz. greater as it comprehended it and less as it was comprehended by it P. 57. Now this Proposition I will neither note as Paradoxical nor absolutely affirm to be false But so much I will affirm viz. That it is nothing at all to his Purpose and that he can never prove it to be True For besides that he still confounds an Example or Parallel Case with a Similitude I would have him take notice First That this Maxim Omne continens est majus contento upon which he founds a Majority of the thing comprehending to the thing comprehended is wholly drawn from and founded upon the Observations made by the Mind of Man about Corporeal Substances endued with Quantity and Dimensions in which the Substance comprehending is and must be of a greater Dimension than the Substance comprehended But what is this to Spiritual Substances Concerning which I demand of this Author a solid Reason Why Two such Substances may not be intimately united by a Mutual-Permeation or Penetration of one another For all that can hinder such a Penetration or Permeation as far as we know is Quantity which in Spiritual Substances has no place and then if such a Mutual-Penetration be admitted these Substances will be mutually in one another and United to one another not indeed by a Comprehension of one another of which there is no need if such a thing could be but by a Mutual-Adequation or exact Coequation of one to the other so that nothing of one Substance shall exist or reach beyond or without the other but the whole of both by such a Permeation mutually exist in each other This I say I neither do nor will affirm to be actually so but I challenge this Author to prove that it cannot be so and till he can it may become him to be less confident In the next place I have one thing more to suggest to him about Substantial Unions which he talks so much of viz. That the Term is Ambiguous and may signifie either First The Union of two or more Substances together and so the Father and the Son who are not two Substances but only two Persons as has been shewn in the foregoing Chapter can never be substantially United Or Secondly It may signifie the Union of Two or more Persons in one and the same Substance which is truly and properly the Union of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity And thus though there is no Instance in Nature of Persons so united yet by way of Allusion and Similitude the Union of the three fore-mentioned Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will in one and the same Soul alledged by St. Austin may pass for a small or as this Author himself calls it Page 126. Line 28. A faint Resemblance of the Union of the said Three Divine Persons in the same Nature or Substance which according to his excellent Talent of Self-Contradiction he positively denies here in Page 57. and as positively affirms in that other now pointed at In fine this Assertion That the Father and the Son cannot possibly be One or in One another which is here the same but by Mutual-Consciousness Page 57. Line 23 24 25. unavoidably infers and implies That they are not One by Unity of Substance Unity of Essence or Unity of Nature For I am sure neither Substance Essence or Nature are Mutual-Consciousness And if the Church will endure a Man asserting this I can but deplore its Condition PARADOX If we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God says this Author but Infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness the Essence of God though considered but as one Numerical Person is as perfectly unintelligible to us as one Numerical Essence or Substance of Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity Page 69 70. Answer This Proposition is False and Absurd and to prove it so I shall lay down these following Assertions First That it is certainly much easier for Humane Reason to conceive one and the same Divine Nature or Deity as Subsisting in one single Person than in Three distinct Persons Secondly That Essence Substance Wisdom Power and Goodness are in the Divine Nature which is a pure simple Act all but one and the same Thing or Being Thirdly That notwithstanding this Essence or Substance and Wisdom Power and Goodness are formally distinct from one another That is to say The Conceptus Objectivus or proper Essential Conception of one does not imply or involve in it the proper Conception of the other Upon which Account one of them cannot properly be said to be the other Now these Three Things thus laid down it is readily granted to this Man That Essence or Substance Wisdom Power and Goodness are really one and the same Being and that therefore it is vain and foolish to seek for any Essence or Substance in God which is not also Wisdom Power and Goodness But this by his favour is not the point For if he will nevertheless say That the Divine Nature expressed by one Infinite Essence or Substance Subsisting in One Person is as unintelligible as the same Subsisting in Three distinct Persons Nay that One and the same Numerical Wisdom Power and Goodness consider'd as Subsisting only in one Person is not more Intelligible than the same
by that Act of Procession by which he proceeds from and relates to both the Father and the Son So that that proper Mode of Subsistence by which in Conjunction with the Divine Essence always included in it each of them is rendred a Person is wholly Relative and so belongs to one of them that it also bears a Necessary reference to another From all which it undeniably follows That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are in the Formal Constitution of them Relative to one another and consequently That the Three Personalities by which they become Formally Three Persons and are so denominated are Three Eternal Relations But now for the Minor Proposition in the first Syllogism viz. That Self-Consciousness is a Thing in the Nature of it Absolute and Irrelative that I think can need but little Proof it being that Act by which each Person intimately knows and is Conscious to himself of his own Being Acts Motions and every Thing personally belonging to him so that as such it terminates within and looks no further than that one Person whom it is an Entire Survey and Comprehension of And as it is an Absolute and Irrelative Term so it may be Conceived distinctly and fully without Conceiving or implying the Conception of any Thing or Person besides And now what Relation does or can such an Act of Self-Consciousness imply in it It is indeed on the contrary a direct Contradiction to all that is Relative For it incloses the Person wholly within himself neither pointing nor looking further nor referring to any one else If it be here said That each Person by an Act of Self-Consciousness intimately knows the Relation which he stands in to the other Two Persons To this I Answer Two Things 1. That to know a Thing or Person to be Relative or to be Conscious of the Relation belonging to it or him does not make that Act of Knowledge to be either a Relation or of a Relative Nature 2. I Answer That this very Thing proves Self-Consciousness not to be the Constituent Reason of Personality For if the Father knows himself to be a Father by an Act of Self-Consciousness it is evident That Self-Consciousness did not make him so but that he was a Father and had the Relation of a Father and thereby a Personality belonging to him as such in Order of Nature Antecedent to this Act of Self-Consciousness and therefore that this Self-Consciousness cannot be the Reason of the Relation nor of the Personality implyed in it Forasmuch as it is in several respects Posterior to the Person whom it belongs to as in the foregoing Argument we have abundantly shewn But to take a particular and distinct Account of this Notion in the several Persons of the Trinity Does the Father become a Father by being Conscious to himself that he is so or rather by that Act by which he Communicates his Nature to and thereby generates a Son Or does the Son's Relation to the Father consist in his being Conscious to himself of this Relation Or Lastly does the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father and the Son and so personally relate to both by that Act of Self-Consciousness by which he is Conscious to himself of this Procession All this is Absurd Unnatural and Impossible For no Person is related to another by that Act of Self-Consciousness by which he knows and reflects Personally upon himself And yet it is certain That to be a Father is a Relative Subsistence and to be a Son depending upon the Father by an Eternal Act of Generation perpetually begetting him is also to have a Relative Subsistence and lastly to be Eternally proceeding from Both as the Holy Ghost is must likewise import a Way or Mode of Subsisting altogether as Relative as the Two former In which three ways of Subsistence consist the Personalities of the Three Persons respectively and upon these Self-Consciousness can have no Constituting Influence at all as being an Act quite of another Nature to wit Absolute and Irrelative and resting wholly within the Person whom it belongs to From all which I conclude That Self-Consciousness neither is nor can be the Formal Reason of Personality in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity And this Argument I take to have the force and clearness of a Demonstration Argument III. The Third Argument is this 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 But this is Absurd and therefore so must that be likewise from which it follows The Consequence appears from this That there is no Repugnancy but that there might be so many Self-Consciousnesses or Self-Conscious Minds or Spirits for the Deity to Communicate it self to And therefore if Self-Consciousness be the Formal Reason of Personality there is no Repugnancy but that there might be Three Thousand Persons in the God-head as well as Three The Proposition is proved thus Because this Repugnancy if there be any must be either from the Nature of Self-Consciousness in the several Self-Conscious Minds or Spirits it belongs to or from the Nature of the God-head which is to be Communicated to them But it is from neither of them For First there is nothing in the Nature of Self-Consciousness to hinder its Multiplication into never so great a Number of Particulars but that there may be Three Thousand or Three Millions of Self-Conscious Minds or Spirits as well as Three Nor in the next place is there any Repugnancy on the Part of the God-head That Three Thousand Self-Conscious Spirits should subsist in it any more than that Three should For the Godhead considered precisely and abstractedly in it self and not as actually included in any Person is as able to Communicate it self to the greatest Number as to the smallest If it be here said That the Three Persons are not only Three Self-Conscious Spirits but also Three distinct Infinite Self-Conscious Spirits as our Author says they are and of which more in the next Chapter I Answer That there may be as well Three Thousand distinct infinite Spirits as Three For Infinity is as much inconsistent with the least Plurality of Infinites as with the greatest and therefore if it be no Repugnancy that there should be Three distinct Infinite Minds neither is there that there should be Three Thousand So that if Self-Consciousness be the Formal Reason of Personality there appears no Repugnancy either from the Nature of Self-Consciousness or the Number of the Spirits endued with it nor from the supposed Infinity of the said Spirits no nor yet from the Nature of
expressing himself in this sacred and arduous Subject to give it no worse word whatsoever it may deserve affords the Arians and Socinians no small Advantages against this Doctrine should it stand upon the strength of His Defence as thanks be to God it does not But I must not here omit that Passage which in the former part of this Chapter I promised more particularly to consider a Passage which indeed looks something strangely It is that in P. 258. line 27. where he tells us that he allows That in the Blessed Trinity there are Three Holy Spirits but denys That there are Three Holy Ghosts so natural is it for false Opinions to force Men to absurd Expressions But my Answer to him is short and positive That neither are there Three Holy Spirits nor Three Holy Ghosts in the Blessed Trinity in any sense properly belonging to these words However the Thing meant by him so far as it is reducible to Truth and Reason is and must be this viz. That when the Third Person of the Trinity is called the Holy Ghost there the word Holy Ghost which otherwise signifies the same with Holy Spirit must be taken Personally and consequently Incommunicably but when the Father or Son is said to be a Spirit or Holy Spirit there Spirit must be understood Essentially for that Immaterial Spiritual and Divine Nature which is common to and Predicable of all the Divine Persons All which is most true But then for this very Reason I must tell our Author withal That as Holy Ghost taken Personally is but Numerically one so Spirit or Holy Spirit as it is understood Essentially is but Numerically one too And therefore though the Father may be called a Spirit or Holy Spirit and the two other Persons may each of them be called so likewise yet they are not therefore Three distinct Spirits or Holy Spirits nor can be truly so called as this Author pretends they ought to be and we have sufficiently disproved but they are all one and the same Holy Spirit Essentially taken and which so taken is as much as one and the same God And moreover though Spirit understood Personally distinguishes the Third Person from the other two yet taken Essentially it speaks him one and the same Spirit as well as one and the same God with them and can by no means distinguish him from them any more than the Divine Essence or Nature which Spirit in this sence is only another word for can discriminate the Three Persons from one another So that upon the whole Matter it is equally false and impossible That in the Blessed Trinity there should be Three Holy Spirits or Holy Ghosts Terms perfectly Synonymous either upon a Personal or an Essential account and consequently that there should be so at all For as the word Spirit imports a peculiar Mode of Subsistence by way of Spiration from the Father and the Son so it is Personal and Incommunicable but as it imports the Immaterial Substance of the Deity so indeed as being the same with the Deity it self it is equally Common to all the Three Persons but still for all that remains Numerically one and no more as all must acknowledge the Deity to be And this is the true state of the Case But to state the difference between the Holy Ghost and the other Two Persons upon something signified by Holy Ghost which is not signified by Holy Spirit as the words of this Author manifestly do while he affirms Three Holy Spirits but denies Three Holy Ghosts this is not only a playing with words which he pretends to scorn but a taking of words for things which I am sure is very ridiculous And now before I conclude this Chapter having a Debt upon me declared at the beginning of it I leave it to the Impartial and Discreet Reader to judge what is to be thought or said of that Man who in such an Insolent Decretorious manner shall in such a point as this before us charge Nonsense and Heresie two very vile words upon all that Subscribe not to this his New and before unheard of Opinion I must profess I never met with the like in any Sober Author and hardly in the most Licentious Libeller The Nature of the Subject I have according to my poor Abilities discussed and finding my self thereupon extremely to dissent from this Author am yet by no means willing to pass for a Nonsensical Heretick for my pains For must it be Nonsence not to own Contradictions viz. That One infinite Spirit is Three distinct Infinite Spirits Or must it be Heresie not to Subscribe to Tritheisme as the best and most Orthodox Explication of the Article of the Trinity As for Non-sence it must certainly imply the asserting of something for true concerning the Subject discoursed of which yet in truth is contradictory to it since there can be no Non-sence but what contradicts some Truth And whereas this Author has elsewhere viz. P. 4. declared it unreasonable to charge a contradiction in any Thing where the Nature of the Thing discoursed of is not throughly comprehended and understood I desire to know of him whether he throughly understands and comprehends the Article and Mystery of the Trinity If he says he does I need no other Demonstration of his unfitness to write about it But if he owns that he does not let him only stick to his own Rule and then he may keep the Charge of Non-sense to himself But what shall we say to the Charge of Heresie in which St. Austin would have no Person who is so charged to be silent Why in the first place we must search and enquire whether it be so or no And here if my Life lay upon it I cannot find either in Irenaeus adversùs Haereses or in Tertullian's Prescriptions contra Haereticos Cap. 49. Nor in Philastrius's Catalogue nor in Epiphanius nor in St. Austin nor in Theodoret nor in Iohannes Damascenus's Book de Haeresibus nor in the latter Haeresiologists such as Alphonsus à Castro Prateolus with several others I cannot I say find in all or in any one of these the Heresie of not asserting the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits no nor yet the Heresie of denying them to be so But where then may we find it Why in this Author's Book And therefore look no further it is enough that so great a Master has said it whose Authority in saying a Thing is as good as another Man 's in proving it at any time And he says it as we see positively and perhaps if need be will be ready to take his Corporal Oath upon it That such as deny his Hypothesis are Hereticks Now in this case our Condition is in good earnest very sad and I know nothing to comfort us but that the Statute de Haeretico comburendo is Repealed And well is it for the Poor Clergy and Church of England that it is so for otherwise this Man
nothing is so but a Mind or Spirit it may as I have said imply a Mind but it does not directly signifie it But admitting that it does both does this expression prove That the Son is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinct from the Father By no means For not only the Son but the Father may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet they are not Three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Reason of this is because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Essential Attribute following the Divine Nature and therefore common to all the Three Persons and not a Personal Attribute peculiar to any one of them So that granting the Son to be as truly and properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as this Author would have him yet we absolutely deny That he is a distinct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Father And this Expression I am sure is far enough from proving him to be so From Nyssen he passes to St. Athanasius who he tells us observes out of these words of our Saviour John 10. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that our Saviour does not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by so speaking he gave us a perfect Duality of Persons in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an Unity of Nature in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All which is very true and that this distinction of Persons overthrows the Heresie of Sabellius and the Unity of their Nature the Heresie of Arius But then this is also as true that all this is nothing at all to our Author's Purpose For how does this prove either that the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits Or that Self-Consciousness is the proper ground or Reason of their distinction Why yes says He If the Father be an Eternal Mind and Wisdom then the Son is also an Eternal but begotten Mind and Wisdom Very true but still I deny that it follows hence That the Eternal Mind or Wisdom Begetting and the Eternal Mind or Wisdom Begotten are Two distinct Minds or Wisdoms but only one and the same Mind or Wisdom under these Two distinct Modifications of Begetting and being Begot But he pretends to explain and confirm his Notion of a distinct Mind or Wisdom out of those words of the Nicene Creed in which the Son is said to be God of God Light of Light very God of very God By which words I cannot imagine how this Author thinks to serve his turn unless that by Light must be meant Infinite Wisdom or Infinitely Wise Mind and that this must also infer the Father and Son to be Two distinct Infinitely Wise Minds or Wisdoms one issuing from the other But if so then the same words will and must infer them also to be two distinct Gods and very Gods For all these words stand upon the same level in the same Sentence and then if we do but joyn the Term Distinct equally with every one of them we shall see what Monstrous Blasphemous Stuff will be drawn out of this Creed In the mean time let this Author know once for all That Light of Light imports not here Two distinct Lights but one Infinite Light under Two different ways of Subsisting viz. either by and from it self as it does in the Father or of and from another as it does in the Son All which is plainly and fully imported in and by the Particle of signifying properly as here applyed Derivation or Communication in the thing which it is applyed to And this is the clear undoubted sense of the Word as it is used here In the mean time I hope the Arians and Socinians will joyn in a Letter of Thanks to this Author for making such an Inference from the Nicene Creed In the next place he comes to St. Austin where though I am equally at a loss to find how he proves his Point by him any more than by those whom he has already produced yet I will transcribe the whole Quotation into the Margin that so both the Reader may have it under his Eye and the Author have no cause to complain that he is not fairly dealt with Now that which he would infer from thence seems to be this That God the Father is Infinitely Wise by a Wisdom of his own distinct from that Wisdom by which the Son is called The Wisdom of the Father and consequently that they are Two distinct Infinite Wisdoms or Infinitely Wise Minds This I say is that which he would inferr and argue from St. Austin or I know not what else it can be But this is by no means deducible from his words for the Father is wise by one and the same Infinite Wisdom equally belonging both to the Father and the Son but not by it under that peculiar Formality as it belongs to the Son For it belongs to the Son as Communicated to Him whereas it belongs to the Father as Originally in and from Himself And whereas it is objected That if the Father should be Wise by the Wisdom which he Begot then he could not be said to be Wise by a Wisdom of his own but only by a Begotten Wisdom proper to the Son I Answer That neither does this follow since it is but one and the same Essential Wisdom in both viz. in him who Begets and in him who is Begotten Though as it is in him who is Begotten it is not after the same way in Him who Begets So that it is this determining Particle as or Quatenus which by importing a distinction of the manner causes a quite different application of the Term while the Thing is still the same For the Father himself is not denominated Wise even by that very Wisdom that is Essential to Him considered as Personally determined to the Son for so it must be considered as Derived and Communicated and no Divine Perfection can agree to the Father under the Formal Consideration of Derived and Communicated albeit the Thing it self which is Derived and Communicated absolutely considered may and does In a word the Father is Wise by one and the same Wisdom which is both in himself and in his Son but not by it as it is in the Son But by the way it is worth observing That this Man who here in the 102 and 103 Pages denies the Father to be Wise by this Begotten Wisdom which the Son is here called and which in the Sense we have now given of it is very true and alledges St. Austin and Lombard to abett him in it This very Man I say Page 131. Line 24. affirms That the Son is that Wisdom and Knowledge wherewith his Father knows himself Where If for the Father to be Wise and to know himself be formally the same Act and as much the same as his Wisdom and Knowledge can be as it is manifest they are then I leave it to this
always alledged it one or perhaps sometimes both of these two ways First By way of Allusion or Illustration as I have already noted in the foregoing Chapter and as it is the nearest Resemblance of and Approach to this Divine Unity of any that could be found in Created Beings For still their Argument proceeds only by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the one side and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the other as appears from that place quoted out of Maximus P. 107. which Terms surely do not of necessity import an Identity of the Case but only some Similitude in the parts of the Comparison Secondly The Fathers used the forementioned Example as an Argument à minore ad majus viz. That if several Individual Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature upon which Nyssen's who le Argument turns much less could this be said of the Three Divine Persons Forasmuch as it is not only certain but evident That Persons merely distinguished from one another and no more must have a greater Unity of Nature than such as are not only distinguished but also divided from one another by a separate Existence And let any one stretch this Argument of the Fathers further if he can I do not in the least deny but several Expressions may have dropped from the Fathers which if we look'd no further might be drawn to a very inconvenient sense But then also it is as little to be denied That the same Fathers professedly and designedly treating of the same Points have declared themselves in such Terms as are very hardly if at all reconcileable to those Occasional and Accidental Expressions And therefore since their meaning cannot be taken from both it ought much rather to be taken from what was Asserted by them designedly than what was Asserted only occasionally To which I shall add this further Remark That a due consideration of the Circumstances under which those Fathers wrote may very well Apologize for the Deseâ—â—s of some of their Arguments For the Grand Controversie which exercised the Orthodox Writers of the fourth and part of the fifth Century was that with the Arians So that we have the less cause to wonder if some of their Reasonings about the Trinity seem to look no further than the proof of a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons while they had to deal with Adversaries who would not allow so much as this between the Father and the Son but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Likeness of Nature between them which together with the foregoing Considerations may serve as a Key to let us into the true Explication of several Passages of the Fathers about the meaning of which we might otherwise possibly be something at a loss And the same likewise may serve to give a fair Account of what has been alledged by Petavius and mistook by this Author upon the present Subject For to traverse and examine all Petavius's Allegations particularly would require a full and distinct Work by it self But still our Author seems extremely set upon making good his first step of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature from the Fathers and to that purpose he tells us Page 107. Line 23. That one thing wherein the Fathers place the Unity of the Godhead is that all the Three Persons have the same Nature by which he means as shall be shewn presently Specifically the same Nature and a few Lines after he tells us again That some of the Fathers went further than this and plac'd the Essential Unity of the Divine Nature in the Sameness of Essence Lines 30 31 32 of the same Page Now here I would desire this Author to inform me of Two Things First By what Rule of speaking or upon what Principle of Divinity Logick or Philosophy Sameness of Nature ought to signifie one Thing and Sameness of Essence to signifie another and withal to be so contra-distinguished to each other that in the degrees of Unity this latter must be a step beyond the former For the Fathers I am sure make no such distinction but use the words Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence as well as the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 themselves promiscuously so that neither by their Native signification nor yet by their use do they import any more than one sort of Unity Secondly Whereas in Page 106. Lines 23 24. he makes the first step towards this Unity to consist in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Coessentiality which also in the next Page Line 23. c. he explains by Sameness of Nature And whereas in Page 121. he makes a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence the next step introducing it with the word Secondly and telling us That the Fathers added it to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he had before made the first step And whereas notwithstanding this having in Page 107. told us That Sameness of Nature was one Thing wherein the Fathers placed the Unity of the Divine Nature within seven Lines after he tells us That some of the Fathers went further and placed it in the Sameness of Essence which yet it is manifest all along that he reckons not the same Thing with Numerical Unity of Essence I desire to know of him whether there be Two second steps in this Unity or whether there be one between the first and the second For he makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature one step Page 106 107. And Sameness of Essence a further step Page 107. Line 30. c. And then Numerical Unity of Nature another step calling it also the Second Page 121. Line 5. These Things I must confess I am utterly unable to give any Consistent Account of and I shrewdly suspect that our Author himself is not able to give a much better But it is still his way to forget in one place what he has said in another and how kind soever he may be to himself I should think it very hard for another Man to forget himself so often and to forgive himself too Nevertheless our Author without mincing the Matter roundly Asserts a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons telling us Line 23. c. of the fore-cited Page 107. That this is absolutely necessary to make the Three Persons one God and that it is impossible that they should be so without it where it is evident that he means a Specifick Unity both from this that it was the Subject which he had been there treating of as also from this that immediately after he mentions another sort or degree of Unity as a step further than this which since nothing can be but a Numerical Unity it follows That that which was one step short of a Numerical must needs be a Specifical And now is it not strange that in Page 109. which is but the next
save one after this this Man should positively say as he does That the Fathers never so much as Dream'd of a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons having here in Page 107. affirmed it to be no less than absolutely necessary to make the Three Persons one God And that certainly is a necessity with a witness But he who exacts of this Author a consistency with himself for five Pages together deals very severely with him And accordingly the more I consider of this Matter I cannot but think that what he says of the Nicene Fathers holding a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons Page 106. and his affirming that Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril Maximus and Damascen never so much as Dream'd of any such Unity Page 109. Line 22. will by no means consist together For first If by the Nicene Fathers be meant not only those who were present at that Council but those Fathers also who about those Times held the same Faith which was Established in that Council then his two fore-cited Passages contain a gross manifest fulsome Contradiction even as gross as the positive asserting of a thing and the never so much as dreaming of it can import But if by the Nicene Fathers he means only those who sat and acted in that Council he will hardly however perswade any understanding Man That Gregory Nyssen who Wrote and flourished between Fifty and Sixty Years after the Council and Maximus about Sixty and St. Cyril about Ninety could be so grosly ignorant of and Strangers to the Sentiments of those Fathers as not so much as to Dream of that wherein they had placed the Unity of the God-head This to me seems Incredible and morally Impossible since it is not to be imagined that Nyssen Cyril and Maximus could so soon forget or knowingly dare to relinquish the Doctrine of the fore-mentioned Fathers whose Authority was so great and Sacred all the Christian World over And therefore since this Author allows these Fathers not to have Dreamt of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature I conclude That neither did the Nicene Fathers Dream of it any more than they howsoever they might express themselves upon some occasions And thus having as well as he could made his first step by Asserting a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in the Three Divine Persons from the Fathers that is to say partly from what Petavius and Dr. Cudworth had told him of the Nicene Fathers holding such a Specifick Unity between them and partly from the other Fathers never so much as dreaming of it he proceeds now to his other step or rather Counter-step which is to shew That the Unity between the Divine Persons held by the Fathers was no other than a Numerical Unity of Nature or Essence belonging to them For since to be one only Specifically and to be one only Numerically are by no means consistent with one another in respect of the same Persons what can this be so truly and properly called as a Counter-step to that which he had made before His Method being plainly this First he tells us that the Nicene Fathers by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood only a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in the Divine Persons Page 106. And then that the Fathers mentioning them indefinitely held this Sameness of Nature absolutely necessary to make the said Three Persons one God Page 107. And now at length he tells us Page 121. Lines 27 28 29. That though several of the Fathers attempted several ways of explaining that Unity of Nature that is in the Divine Persons yet they all agree in the Thing That Father Son and Holy Ghost Three distinct Divine Persons are united in one Numerical Nature and Essence So that the Sum of all must be this as appears also from his own words in the latter end of Page 120. and the four first Lines of the 121. that according to him the Fathers held a Specifick Unity of Nature necessary to make the Three Divine Persons one God but not sufficient without the Completion of it by a Numerical Unity superadded to it This I say is the Sum of what he delivers and in direct opposition to which I do here deny That there is any such Thing as a Specifick Unity of Nature belonging to the Divine Persons or that the Fathers ever held that there was And to prove this I shall premise this Assertion both as certain in itself and withall affirmed by this Author in those forecited words viz. That all the Fathers held That Father Son and Holy Ghost Three distinct Persons are United in or rather are One by One Numerical Nature and Essence Which being so premised I have these Considerations to oppose to the Admission of any Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature as it belongs to the Divine Persons As First If a Numerical Unity in the same Divine Nature be sufficient to make the Three Divine Persons to whom it belongs One God then a Specifick Unity of the same is not necessary but a Numerical Unity in the same Divine Nature is sufficient to make the said Three Persons One God and therefore a Specifick Unity is not necessary The Consequence is evident because nothing can be necessary to any Thing or Effect beyond or beside what is sufficient for the same since this would imply a manifest Contradiction by making the same Thing in the same respect both sufficient and not sufficient And as for the Minor That an Agreement in one and the same Numerical Divine Nature is sufficient to make the Persons so agreeing One God I suppose this carries with it so much Self-Evidence that no Man of Reason will pretend to doubt of and much less to deny it Secondly A greater degree of Unity and a less degree of Unity are not to be admitted in the Divine Nature But a Numerical Unity and a Specifical Unity are a greater and a less degree of Unity and therefore they are not both to be admitted in the Divine Nature The Major is proved thus because two such Unities would overthrow the simplicity of the Divine Nature forasmuch as they must be either two degrees of the same kind of Unity or they must be two different kinds of Unity Either of which would inferr a Composition by no means to be endured in the Divine Nature As for the Minor it is evident in it self and needs no Proof Thirdly Such a degree or sort of Unity of Nature as may agree to Ten Thousand Individuals neither can nor ought to be admitted in the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons But a Specifick Unity of Nature may agree to Ten Thousand Individuals as well as to Two or Three since upon a Specifick Account it has no Stint or Limitation but may be every whit as well and properly in the former Number as in the latter and therefore it neither can nor ought to be admitted in the Divine Nature Fourthly Such an Unity as is principally
when he has done so he opposes them Both to a Numerical Sameness of Nature as appears from the Adversative Particle But placed between them In which let me tell him he is guilty of a very great mistake both by making those Things the same which are not the same and by making an Opposition where there is a real Coincidence For by his favour one and the same Numerical Divine Nature is a Common Nature too forasmuch as without any Division or Multiplication of it self it belongs in Common to the Three Divine Persons The Term Deus indeed is neither a Genus nor a Species Nevertheless all Divines and School-men allow it to be a Terminus Communis as properly predicable of and Common to Father Son and Holy Ghost and in this very Thing consists the Mystery of the Trinity That one and the same Numerical Nature should be Common to and Exist in Three Numerically distinct Persons And therefore for one who pretends to teach the whole World Divinity while he is Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons to oppose Common Nature to Nature Numerically One and from the Commonness of it to make the Fathers Argue against its Numericalness whereas the same Divine Nature may be and really is both it is a shrewd sign of the want of something or other in that Man that must needs render him extremely unfit to prescribe and dictate in these Matters In fine the sole Point driven at all along by the Fathers as to the Question about the Unity of the Divine Nature for their Arguments to prove the Coequality of the Three Divine Persons against the Arians are not now before us is an Assertion of a Real Numerical Existing Unity of the said Nature in the said Persons I say a Numerical Unity without making any more steps or degrees in it than One or owning any distinction between Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence And much less by making as this Author does a Specifick Sameness of Nature one thing wherein they place the Unity of the Divine Nature and then making Sameness of Essence another and further degree in the Unity of the said Nature and when they have done so by a return back explaining this Sameness of Essence by the Sameness of Nature newly mentioned as he says they do in these words immediately following by way of Exegesis of the former viz. That there is but one God because all the Three Divine Persons have the same Nature Page 107. and the two last Lines All which is a Ridiculous Circle and a Contradiction to boot making Sameness of Nature one step and Sameness of Essence another and then making this Sameness of Essence no more than a Sameness of Nature again so that according to him the Fathers must be said to go further by resting in the very same step which they first made Which way of Reasoning I confess may serve well enough for one who can forget in one Page what he had said in the other just before But by his favour the Fathers were a little more Consistent and understood themselves better than to run Divisions in such a senseless manner upon a Thing that admitted none And thus having shewn how he has dealt with the Fathers in the Account given by him of their Opinion about the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which was the first Head under which I reduced his Allegations from them I come now in the 2d Place to the other and Principal Head under which he undertakes to prove the chief and more peculiar part of his Hypothesis from the said Fathérs viz. That the Unity and Identity of Nature belonging to the Three Divine Persons consists in the Mutual-Consciousness which is between them That is in Truth That they are therefore One God because they are Conscious to themselves that they are so And here I shall begin with shewing how this Author overthrows the Point undertook by him before he produces any Arguments from the Fathers for it And to this Purpose I shall resume those words of his before cited by me out of Page 106. In which he reminds his Reader That Trinity in Unity being so great a Mystery and of which we have no Example in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and that therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head Now here since our Author's Notion and the Fathers too as he says of this Unity is nothing else but Mutual-Consciousness I desire to Learn of him what necessity there was or is of using several Examples and alluding to several kinds of Union to explain or form an adequate Notion of that And I wonder what kind of Thing he would make of his Mutual-Consciousness should he come to explain and describe it by several Examples and several Kinds of Union But this is not all for he tells us likewise as we also observed before that there are several steps to be taken towards the Explication of this Mystery Whereupon I would again learn of him how many steps are necessary to explain Mutual-Conciousness for one would imagine one single step sufficient to represent and declare a Thing which every Body understands This Author indeed confidently enough Asserts That the Fathers give no other Account of a Trinity in Unity than the same which he gives of it Pag. 101. Line 2. But certainly if the Fathers thought several Examples Steps and Kinds of Union absolutely necessary to explain the Notion they had of this Unity and if these cannot be necessary to explain the Notion of Mutual-Consciousness then it must follow That the Fathers neither did nor possibly could by that Unity mean Mutual-Consciousness And if this Author doubts of the force of this Reasoning let him try his skill and see what Learned stuff he is like to make of it when he comes to explain his Notion of Mutual-Consciousness by several Examples Steps and Sorts of Union and out of them all to form one adequate Notion of this so much admired Thing Wherefore I conclude and I think unanswerably That the Fathers by this Unity between the Divine Persons mean one Thing and this Man quite another and consequently that they have given a very different Account of it from what he gives contrary to his equally bold and false Asseveration affirming it to be the very same And now I am ready to see what he has to offer us from the Fathers in behalf of his Mutual-Consciousness but because I am extremely desirous that the Reader should keep him close to the Point and not suffer him to wander from it which in dispute he is as apt to do as any Man living I shall presume to hint this to him That the Point to be proved by this Author is not that the Three Divine Persons have one and the same
Numerical Nature or Essence nor that they are Mutually Conscious to one another of whatsoever each of them is or knows no nor yet that this Mutual-Consciousness inferrs an Unity of Nature in them as a Thing inseparable from it But he is to prove That this Unity of Nature and this Mutual-Consciousness are Convertibly one and the some Thing or that this latter is to the former what the Essence or Form of any Thing is to that Thing That is to say That the Unity of the Divine Nature formally Consists in and is what it is by that Mutual-Consciousness which belongs to the Three Divine Persons This I say is the Thing to be proved by Him And so I proceed to his Arguments which I assure the Reader he shall find very strange ones nevertheless to give him as easie and distinct a view of them as I can I will set down the several Heads of them before I particularly discuss them 1. The First of them is from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribed by the Fathers to all the Three Divine Persons joyntly 2. The Second from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. The Third from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession attributed likewise by the Fathers to them 4. The Fourth from the Representation which St. Austin makes of the Trinity by the Mind and its Three distinct Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will And 5. The Fifth and Last from the Unity of the Original Principle or Fountain of the Deity or rather say I of the second and third Persons of the Trinity All which I shall examine distinctly and in their order But before I do so I think fit to give the Reader an Account in one word of this Author 's whole design in all the Particulars above specified And that is to prove that the Unity of the Divine Nature consists in Unity of Operation and then to suppose for he does not so much as to go about to prove it that this Unity of Operation is Mutual-Consciousness This is the Sum Total of the Business but I now come to Particulars And First for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quoted by him out of Greg. Nyssen Where before we see how far it may be formed into an Argument I think it requisite to give some Account how this Author Discourses of it I must confess I have sometimes wondred what design he could have in so zealously exploding those commonly received Terms of Substance Essence and Nature from any application of them to God which here he does again afresh telling us in Page 115. lines 24 25 26 27. That it confounds our minds when we talk of the Numerical Unity of the God-head to have the least Conception or Thought about the Distinction and Union of Natures and Essences And that therefore we are to speak of God only in words importing Energy or Operation And accordingly for this reason Gr. Nyssen expresses God by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words not signifying Nature or Essence but only Sight and Inspection Nay and this Author has gone a step much beyond this plainly telling us That the Father and the Son are Energy or Operation Page 132. Line 13. And that Nature and Energy are the same in God P. 133. L. 20. and consequently That we are to entertain no other Conception of God but as of a pure simple Operation And thus when we have degraded the Divine Nature from Substance to Operation it is but one step more to degrade it to bare Notion This conceit of this Author I say at first I could not but wonder at but am since pretty well aware of what he drives at by it And that is in short That he thinks it a much easier Matter to make Action or Operation than Substance Essence or Nature pass for Mutual Consciousness And this upon good Reason I am satisfied is the Thing he designs But I believe he will fall short of fetching his Mutual-Consciousness out of either of them And therefore first to Correct that Crude Notion of his That we must not speak of God in Terms importing Nature but Operation I desire this Bold Man as I urged before in Chap. 2 to tell me whether the Names of Iah and Iehovah and I am that I am by which God revealed himself to his People were not Names of Nature and Essence and whether God revealed them for any other purpose than that he might be known and understood by them But for all this he will have us to know from Gr. Nyssen That the Divine Nature is quid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Thing above Name or Expression And it is so I confess as to an adequate complete Conception or Description of it But then I ask him are not the Divine Operations so too Are we able to comprehend them perfectly and to the utmost of what and how they are When the Psalmist tells us that God has put darkness under his feet Psal. 18. 9. and that his footsteps are not known Psal. 77. 19. And the Apostle in Rom. 11. 33. That his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out And are not these passages an Account of his Dealings and Operations in the Government of the World And yet surely notwithstanding all this we may have some true though imperfect Conceptions both of his Nature and of his Operations also And I desire this Assuming Man to inform me What should hinder but that so much as we Conceive of God we may likewise express and what is more prove too For though Gregory Nyssen has told us That the Divine Nature is unexpressible yet I hope a Thing may be proved though the Nature of it cannot always be throughly expressed But the Truth is he makes this Father Argue at a very odd rate For he tells us Page 115. That one way by which Gregory Nyssen undertakes to prove That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Specifick Sameness of Nature as this Man understands it proves a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons is because the Name God does not so properly signifie the Divine Nature as something relating to it Which is a rare Proof indeed it being as much as to say that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature proves one God because God does not signifie Nature But St. Gregory is far from arguing so which besides the Absurdity of it is only denying instead of proving but he proves Sameness and Unity of Nature by Sameness or Unity of Operation and that surely he might very well do without making Unity of Nature only an Unity of Operation And no less absurd is it to represent St. Gregory making Unity of Operation one way whereby the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Specifick Sameness of Nature proves a Numerical Unity of Nature For though Unity of Operation it self proves this yet surely it is not a Medium whereby a Specifick Unity of the said Nature does or can prove it But
to proceed That Assertion of this Author That God is properly Energy or Operation contains in it more Absurdities than one For first he takes Energy and Operation for the same Thing whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly vis activa and Operation is only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or actual Exercise of that vis or Power But whether it signifies one or both it is certain that God is properly neither of them For as I have shewn before we must speak of God as we are able to conceive of him and we conceive of God not as of an Action but as of an Agent that is as of a Substance acting or exerting it self and upon this Account I do here tell this Author that it is impossible for Humane Reason to conceive of Action or Operation but as founded in Substance and that nothing would more confound and overturn all the Methods Ways and Notions of Men's Minds than to endeavour to conceive of it otherwise And therefore if God is sometimes called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Action it is by a Metonymy of the Adjunct for the Subject or the Effect for the Cause for truly and properly he is not so And now if this Author shall think to take Sanctuary in that known Expression of God That he is a pure simple Act he may please to take notice that the Term Act is Ambiguous and sometimes signifies an Actus Entitativus which is no more than the Entity or Being of a Thing and sometimes an Actus Physicus which is the Operation or Exertion of some Active Power And it is in the former sense only in which God is said to be a pure simple Act and not in the latter And by this Author's Favour every Substance Essence or Nature is such an Act which quite spoils all his fine Notion about expressing God only by Terms of Energy and Operation in exclusion of those of Nature Essence and Substance This I thought fit to premise as throwing up the very foundation of all his Arguments and indeed of his whole Hypothesis And so I come to his Argument the Sum of which is this That the Divine Nature is Divine Energy or Operation and therefore That the Unity of Divine Operation is Unity of Divine Nature and Lastly That this Unity of Divine Nature is Mutual-Consciousness Now it is certain That there is not one of all these Three Propositions true but that is no fault of mine since if they were cast into a Syllogism that would not mend the Matter for the Syllogism must proceed thus Unity of Divine Energy or Operation is Mutual-Consciousness Unity of Divine Nature is Unity of Divine Energy or Operation And therefore Unity of Divine Nature is Mutual-Consciousness Every one of which Propositions is still salse And yet I shall referr it to this Author himself or to any one who has Read and Considered his Book to form a better Argument from what he has said of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with reference to the present Subject if he can Nevertheless whether it be an Argument or no Argument my Answer to his Allegation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with relation to the Unity of the Divine Nature and to Mutual-Consciousness is thus First That it is one Thing to be a Proof of a Thing and another to be that wherein the Nature of the Thing proved does consist Thus actual Ratiocination is a certain Proof of a Principle of Reason yet nevertheless it is not that wherein a Principle of Reason does consist since that may be and continue when actual Ratiocination ceases In like manner I will allow the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be a Proof of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I absolutely deny That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Energy is that wherein the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Nature is or ought to be placed or that the Fathers ever accounted it so how truly and strongly soever it might in their Judgment inferrit What the Fathers designed to prove by Unity of Operation in the Three Divine Persons is evident from the following Passages to which Twenty times as many might be added Gregory Nyssen tells us that those whose Energy is the same have their Nature altogether the same And St. Basil That those who have the same Operations have also the same Essence or Substance But the Operation orEnergy of the Father and the Son is one as appears in that Expression Let us make Man And again Whatsoever the Fatherdoes that likewise does the Son and therefore there is but one Essence of the Father and the Son And again The Sameness of Operation in the Father Son and Holy Ghost evidently shews That there is no difference in their Essence or Substance And accordingly St. Austin The Operation cannot be diverse where the Nature is not only equal but also undivided From all which it is most clear That the Fathers alledge this Unity of Operation only as a Proof or Argument of this Unity of Nature or Essence And therefore since nothing can be a proof of it self That they did not take Unity of Operation and Unity of Nature for one and the same Thing But Secondly Supposing but not granting that it were so viz. That Unity of Operation did not only prove but really was it self this Unity of Nature or Essence yet how will this Author prove that Unity of Nature or Unity of Operation is properly Mutual-Consciousness Is there so much as one Tittle in the Fathers expressing or necessarily implying that it is so And as to the Reason of the Thing it self Will any one say That there is no other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belonging to the Divine Nature but Mutual-Consciousness Or that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the whole Latitude and Compass of it extends no further Nay on the contrary does it not Exert it self in Infinite other Acts And what is yet more does it not more properly belong to any other of the Divine Acts than to an Act of Knowledge bare Knowledge as such being of it self unoperative and Mutual-Consciousness is but an Act of Knowledge I protest I am ashamed to dispute seriously against such Stuff 2. His next Argument to prove That Mutual-Consciousness is formally that Unity of Nature which is in the Three Divine Persons is taken from another Expression of the said Gregory Nyssen viz. That there is amongst the Divine Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concerning which this Author has the boldness to appeal to any one to judge whether this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this single Motion of the Will which at the same instant is in Father Son and Holy Ghost can signifie any thing but Mutual Consciousness which makes them Numerically One Page 117. Lines 8 9 10 c. And he adds That it is impossible they should have such a single Motion of Will passing through them all without this Mutual Consciousness Page 124. Lines 30 31. And this is the
case abundantly sufficient St. Cyril of Alexandria says expresly Christ's saying that he is in the Father and the Father in him shews the Indentity of the Deity and the Unity of the Substance or Essence And so likewise Athanasius Accordingly therefore says he Christ having said before I and my Father are one He adds I am in the Father and the Father in me that he might shew both the Identity of the Divinity and the Unity of Essence And so again St. Hilary The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father by the Unity of an inseparable Undivided Nature By which Passages I suppose any Man of sense will perceive That the thing which the Fathers meant and gathered from those words of our Saviour since expressed by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was no Unity of Mutual Consciousness which they never mention but an Unity of Essence or Nature which they expresly and constantly do Nor does this very Author deny it as appears from his own words though he quite perverts the sence of the Fathers by a very senceless Remark upon them Page 125. lines 20 21. This Sameness or Unity of Nature says he might be the Cause of this Union in the Divine Persons viz by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not explain what this Intimate Union is Now this Author has been already told That the Question here is not what explains this Union but what this Union is But besides this his mistake of the Question I desire him to declare what he means by the Cause of this Union as he here expresses himself For will he make an Union as he calls an Unity in the Divine Persons by Sameness of Nature a Cause of their Intimate Union by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mutual In-being of them in each other and affirm also this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the same thing with Mutual Consciousness If he does so he makes the same thing the Cause of it self For the Sameness of Nature in the three Persons and their Mutual In-being or Indwelling are the very same thing and the same Unity though differently expressed But however if we take him at his own word it will effectually overthrow his Hypothesis For if the Sameness of the Divine Nature in the three Persons be as he says the cause of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same with Mutual Consciousness it will and must follow That this Sameness or Unity of Nature can no more consist in Mutual Consciousness than the Cause can consist in its Effect or the Antecedent in its Consequent And this Inference stands firm and unanswerable against him But as to the Truth of the Thing it self though we allow and grant the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons and the Mutual In-being or In-dwelling of the said Persons in each other to be the same Thing yet we deny That this their Mutual In-being is the same with their Mutual Consciousness But that their Mutual Consciousness follows and results from it and for that cause cannot be formally the same with it And so I have done with his 3d. Argument which he has drawn from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is indeed nothing else but a bold down-right Perversion of Scripture and a gross Abuse of the Fathers 4. His fourth Argument is from an Allegation out of St. Austin who though he does not as our Author confesses Name this Mutual Consciousness yet he explains a Trinity in Unity as he would perswade us by Examples of Mutual Consciousness particularly by the Unity of three Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will in the same Soul all of them Mutually Conscious to one another of the several Acts belonging to each of them And his 9th Book is spent upon this Argument In which he makes the mind considered with its knowledge of it self and its love of it self all three of them as he says but one and the same Thing a faint Resemblance of the Trinity in Unity And this is what he Argues from St. Austin To which I Answer First That Faint Resemblances are far from being solid Proofs of any Thing and that although similitudes may serve to illustrate a thing otherwise proved yet they prove and conclude nothing The Fathers indeed are full of them both upon this and several other Subjects but still they use them for Illustration only and nothing else And it is a scurvy sign that Proofs and Arguments run very low with this Author when he passes over those Principal Places in which the Fathers have plainly openly and professedly declared their Judgment upon this great Article and endeavours to gather their sence of it only from Similitudes and Allusions which looks like a design of putting his Reader off with something like an Argument and not an Argument and of which the Tail stands where the Head should For according to the true Method of proving things the Reason should always go first and the Similitude come after but by no means ought the Similitude ever to be put instead of the Reason But Secondly To make it yet clearer how unconclusive this Author's Allegation from St. Austin is I shall demonstrate That this Father does not here make use of an Example of Mutual Consciousness by shewing the great disparity between the thing alledged and the thing which it is applyed to and that as to the very Case which it is alledged for For we must observe That the Mutual Consciousness of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity is such as is fully and entirely in each Person so that by virtue thereof every one of them is truly and properly Conscious of all that belongs to the other Two But it is by no means so in those three Faculties of the Soul Understanding Memory and Will For though the Understanding indeed be Conscious to all that passes in the Will yet I deny the Will to be Conscious to any Thing or Act that passes either in the Understanding or the Memory and it is impossible it should be so without exerting an Act of Knowledge or Intellection which to ascribe to the Faculty of the Will would be infinitely absurd It is true indeed That one and the same Soul is Conscious to it self of the Acts of all these three Faculties But still it is by virtue of its Intellectual Faculty alone that it is so And the like is to be said of its Knowledge and of its Love of it self For though it be the same Soul which both Knows and Loves it self yet it neither knows it self by an Act of Love nor loves it self by an Act of Knowledge any more than it can Will by an Act of the Memory or Remember by an Act of the Will which is impossible and amongst other proofs that it is so it seems to me a very considerable one That if a Man could remember by his Will this Author in all likelyhood would not forget
himself so often as he does It is clear therefore on the one side That the Acts of Understanding Memory and Will neither are nor can be Acts of Mutual Consciousness and on the other that Father Son and Holy Ghost do every one of them Exert Acts of Mutual Consciousness upon one another and consequently that as to this thing there is a total entire difference between both sides of the Comparison For which cause it is to be hoped that this Author himself will henceforth Consult the Credit of his own Reason so far as to give over proving That the Unity of the Divine Nature in the three Blessed Persons consists wholly and solely in the Mutual Consciousness of the said Persons by Examples taken from such Created Things as are by no means Mutually Conscious to one another But to manifest yet further the Vanity of this his Allegation out of St. Austin I shall plainly shew wherein this Father placed the Unity of the Three Divine Persons And that in short is in the Unity of their Nature Essence and Substance This is the Catholick Faith says he that we believe Father Son and Holy Ghost to be of one and the same Substance And again Let us believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost These are Eternal and Unchangeable that is One God of one Substance the Eternal Trinity And moreover speaking of such as would have Three Gods to be Worshipped he adds That they know not what is the meaning of one and the same Substance and are deceived by their own Fancies and because they see Three Bodies separate in three Places they think the Substance of God is so to be understood I think it very needless to add the like Testimonies from other Fathers how numerous and full soever they may be for our Author having here quoted only St. Austin I shall confine my Answer to his Quotation and think it enough for me to over-rule an Inference from a Similitude taken out of St. Austin by a Plain Literal Unexceptionable Declaration of St. Austin's Opinion The Sum of the whole Matter is this That the thing to be proved by this Author is That the Three Divine Persons are One only by an Unity of Mutual Consciousness And to prove this he produces only a Similitude out of St. Austin and that also a Similitude taken from things in which no such thing as Mutual Consciousness is to be found By which it appears that his Argument is manifestly lame of both Legs and as such I leave it to shift for it self 5. In the fifth and last place He tells us That the Fathers also resolved the Unity of the God head in the three Divine Persons into the Unity of Principle meaning thereby that though there be three Divine Persons in the God-head Father Son and Holy Ghost yet the Father is the Original and Fountain of the Deity who begets the Son of his own Substance and from whom and the Son the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds of the same Substance with the Father and Son so that there is but one Principle and Fountain of the Deity and therefore but one God Page 128. line 6. Now all this is very true but how will our Author bring it to his purpose Why thus or not at all viz. That the Numerical Unity of Nature in the three Divine Persons by being founded in and resolved into this Unity of Principle does therefore properly consist in Mutual Consciousness This I say must be his Inference and it is a large step I confess and larger than any of the Fathers ever made Nevertheless without making it this Author must sit down short of his Point And yet if he really thinks that his Point may be concluded from hence why in the Name of Sence and Reason might he not as well have argued from Gen. 1. 1. That God created the Heavens and the Earth and that therefore the Three Divine Persons are and must be one only by an Unity of Mutual Consciousness For it would have followed every whit as well from this as from the other But since the Creation of both I believe never Man disputed as this Man does while he pretends to prove his Mutual Consciousness from the Unity of Principle in the Oeconomy of the Divine Persons And yet if he does not design to prove it from thence to what purpose is this Unity of Principle here alledged where the only Point to be proved is That the Unity of the Divine Nature in the three Persons is only an Unity of Mutual Consciousness But to come a little closer to him If this Author can make it out that the Father Communicates his Substance to the Son and the Father and the Son together Communicate the same to the Holy Ghost by one Eternal Act of Mutual Consciousness common to all three Persons then his Argument from Unity of Principle to an Unity of Nature consisting in Mutual Consciousness may signifie and conclude something but this he attempts not nor if he should would he or any Man living be ever able to prove it But he is for coming over this Argument again and tells us That as Petavius well observes it does not of it self prove the Unity that is to say the Numerical Unity of the God-head but only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature i. e. as he elsewhere explains himself the Specifick Sameness of Nature And that therefore the Fathers thought fit to add That God begets a Son not without but within Himself Page 128. line 17 c. In Answer to which Observation though it affects the Point of Mutual Consciousness the only thing now in hand no more than what he had alledged before yet in vindication both of the Fathers and of Petavius himself I must needs tell this Author That it is equally an Abuse to both For as to the Fathers it has been sufficiently proved to him That neither is there any such thing as a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in the Divine Persons nor that the Fathers ever owned any such but still by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 held only a Numerical Unity of Nature and no other so that their saying That God begot a Son within himself was rather a further Explication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than any Addition at all to it And as for Petavius whereas this Man says That he has observed That this Argumentation of the Fathers does not of it self prove the Numerical Unity of the God-head in the three Persons I averr That Petavius observes no such thing He says indeed If this Reasoning viz. from Unity of Principle were considered Absolutely and Universally it would prove rather a Specifick than a Numerical Unity of Nature and gives a Reason for it from Humane Generation But then he does by no means say That the Fathers Arguments in this Case ought to be so considered but plainly limits them to the Divine Generation as of a peculiar kind
differing from all others And thereupon no less plainly Asserts That when the Father begets the Son he Communicates to him the same Numerical Substance and Nature and says expresly That the force and strength of the Fathers Argumentation is taken from the proper Condition and Nature of the Divinity and the Divine Generation from whence they collect not any kind of Unity of Essence but only a Singular and Numerical Unity in the three Divine Persons Which he makes good by Instances from St. Athanasius and St. Hilary And this is the true state of the Case and shews That Petavius understood the Fathers whether he who takes upon him to be his Corrector and Confuter does or no. In the mean time it is shameless to insinuate in this manner that Petavius represented these Arguments of the Fathers as proving only the Specifick Sameness of Nature and not the Numerical Unity of the God-head when he plainly shews That they designed thereby to prove a Numerical Unity of Essence in the Divine Persons and nothing else But this Author seems to assume to himself a peculiar Privilege of saying what he will and of whom he will In which nevertheless I cannot but commend his Conduct as little as I like his Arguing For that as he makes so bold with so Learned and Renowned a Person as Petavius So he wisely does it now that he is laid fast in his Grave For had Petavius been living and this Man wrote his Book in the same Language in which Petavius wrote his which for a certain Reason I am pretty well satisfied he never would there is no doubt but Petavius would have tossed him and his New Notion of three distinct infinite Spirits long since in a Blanket and effectually taught him the difference of insulting over a great Man when his Head is low and when he is able to defend himself We have seen how little our Author has been able to serve himself of the fore mentioned Resolution of the Unity of the Divine Nature into an Unity of Principle by way of Argument in behalf of his Mutual Consciousness Nevertheless though it fails him as an Argument yet that he may not wholly lose it he seems desirous to cultivate it as a Notion and upon that score tells us That it needs something further both to Complete and Explain it which with reference to his own Apprehensions of it I easily believe but however I shall take some Account of what he says both as to the Completion and Explication of it And First For the Completion He tells us That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Essential to one God and that upon this Account there must be necessarily three Persons in the Unity of the God-head and can be no more As to which last clause he must give me leave to tell him That it is not the bare Essentiality of the three Persons to the God-head which proves that there can be no more than three belonging to it but it is the Peculiar Condition of the Persons which proves this without which the Essentiality of the Three would no more hinder the Essentiality of a Fourth or Fifth than the Essentiality of Two could take away the Essentiality of a Third And therefore though the Proposition laid down by him be true yet his Reason for it will not hold But one choice Passage quoted by him out of a great Father I must by no means omit viz. That upon Account of this Unity of Principle St. Austin calls the Trinity Unam quandam summam Rem Page 123. line 8. Concerning which I desire any Man living except this Author to declare freely whether he thinks that St. Austin or any one else of Sence and Learning would call three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which are neither Numerically nor Specificully nor so much as Collectively one Unam quandam summam Rem But in the Second Place As for his Explication of the said Notion he tells us That he shall proceed by several steps and those as he would perswade us very plain and Universally acknowledged by all Page 126. lines 16 17 c. Nevertheless by his good leave I shall and must demur to two of them as by no means fit to be acknowledged by any and much less such as are acknowledged by all And they are the Third and Fourth In which he tells us That in the first place Original Mind and Wisdom and in the second That Knowledge of it self and lastly Love of it self are all of them distinct Acts and so distinct that they can never be one simple individual Act And withal that these Acts being thus distinct must be Three substantial Acts in God that is to say Three subsisting Persons By which three substantial Acts he must of necessity mean three such Acts as are three Substances Forasmuch as he adds in the very next words That there is nothing but Essence and Substance in God Page 130. line 7 8 9. to the middle of the page Now against these strange Positions I Argue thus First If the three fore-mentioned Acts are so distinct in God that they can never be one Simple Individual Act then I inferr That the said three Acts cannot possibly be one God Forasmuch as to be one God is to be one pure simple indivisible Act. And thus we see how at one step or stroke he has Ungodded the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity For these three Acts he tells us are the three Persons in the God head Though I believe no Divine before him ever affirmed a Person to be an Act or an Act a Person with how great Confidence soever and something else this Man affirms it here Secondly If those three Acts in the God-head are three distinct infinite Substances as he plainly says they are by telling us Page 130. line 19. That there is nothing but Essence and Substance in God then in the God-head there are and must be three distinct Gods or God-heads Forasmuch as an infinite Substance being properly God every distinct infinite Substance is and must be a distinct God These I affirm to be the direct unavoidable Consequences of those two short Paragraphs in Page 130. which he makes his Third and Fourth Explanatory Steps But because he may here probably bear himself upon that Maxim That there is nothing but Essence and Substance in God which yet by the way might better become any one to plead than himself let me tell him That that Proposition is not absolutely and in all Sences true If indeed he means by it That there is no Being whether Substance or Accident in God besides his own most Pure Simple Indivisible Substance or Essence which is the commonly received sence of it it is most true But if he therefore affirms That neither are there any Modes or Relations in God this will not be granted him For in God besides Essence or Substance we assert That there is that which we call Mode Habitude and Relation And by one or
Constantinople being the Fifth General one in the Year 553 for Condemning of the Tria Capitula we have a large and Noble Confession of Faith made by that Emperour and owned and applauded by all the Council and inserted amongst the Acts of it And in this we have the Three Divine Persons several times expressed by so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Term equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and indeed importing withall the Personality or Formal Reason of the same and that so fully and plainly that nothing could or can be more so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is We profess to Believe One Father Son and Holy Ghost Glorifying thereby a Consubstantial Trinity One Deity or Nature or Essence and Power and Authority in Three Subsistences or Persons And again to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We worship says he an Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity having both a strange and wonderful Distinction and Union that is to say an Union or Singularity in respect of the Substance or God-head and a Trinity in respect of Properties Subsistences or Persons with several more such Passages to the same Purpose and Signification And then as for the Council it self the first Canon of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is If any one Confess not One Nature or Substance One Power and Authority of Father Son and Holy Ghost a Coessential Trinity and One Deity to be Worshipped in Three Subsistences or persons Let such an one be Accursed In the next place we have the Sixth General Council and the Third of Constantinople called by Constantinus Pogonatus against the Monothelites in the Year 681. In the Acts of which Council Article 6. we have the Council owning the same Thing and in the same words which a little before we quoted out of the Council of Chalcedon And moreover in the Tenth Article the Council declares it self thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is We believing our Lord Iesus Christ to be the True God do affirm in him Two Distinct Natures shining forth in One Subsistence or Person Agreeably to this the Council immediately following called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the â—atines Concilium Quini Sextum Consisting chiefly of the same Persons with the former and called by the same Constantine about Ten Years after for the making of Canons about Discipline by way of Supplement to the Fifth and Sixth Councils which had made none This Council I say in the first of its Canons which is as a kind of Preface owns and applauds the Nicene Fathers for that with an Unanimous Agreement and consent of Faith they had declared and cleared up one Consubst antiality in the Three Hypostases or Subsistences of the Divine Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And Lastly in the Florentine Council held in the Fif teenth Century in which the Greeks with their Emperor Iohannes Palaeologus met the Latines in order to an Accord between them touching that so much controverted Article about the Procession of the Holy Ghost In this Council Isay we have the Greeks also expressing the Personality of the Holy Ghost by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whereas the Latines affirmed that the Holy Ghost the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say stream or flow from the Son the Greeks desired them to explain what they meant by that Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether they understood that he derived both his Essence and Personality from him and that in these words very significant to our purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which we see that even with these Modern Greeks also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is all one with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie Essence and Person as applyed to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity Hist. Concil Florent in the last Chapter and Question 7. of Section 8. Pag. 246. set forth by Dr. Creyghton 1660. I cannot think it requisite to quote any Thing more from the Greeks upon this Subject it being as clear as the Day that both Fathers and Councils stated the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three distinct Hypostases or Subsistences of one and the same God-head Essence or Substance distinguished thereby into Three Persons And so I pass from the Greeks to the Latines whom we shall find giving an Account of the same partly by subsistences and Modes of subsistence and partly by Relations But not equally by both in all Ages of the Church For we have before shewn That there was a long and sharp Contest between the Greeks and the Latines about the Word Hypostasis and that the Latines dreaded the use of it as knowing no other Latin Word to render it by but Substantia which they could by no means ascribe plurally to God and as for the Word Subsistentia that was not then accounted properly Latin and it was but upon this occasion and to fence against the Ambiguity of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it came at length into use amongst the Latines And even after all it must be yet further confessed That notwithstanding that fair foundation of Accord between the Greeks and Latines laid by the forementioned Council of Alexandria and the hearty Endeavours both of Athanasius and of Gregory Nazianzen after him to accommodate the business between them the Latines were not so ready to come over to the Greeks in the free use of the Word Hypostasis as the Greeks were to comply withthe Latines in the use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answering to their Persona And therefore in vain would any one seek for an Explication of the Divine Persons in the Trinity by the Terms Subsistentiae or Modi Subsistendi in the earlier Latin Writers such as Tertullian about the latter end of the second Century and St. Cyprian about themiddle of the Third and Lactantius about the latter end of the same and the beginning of the Fourth Nevertheless find it we do in the Writers of the following Ages And how and in what sence it was used by them shall be now considered And here we will begin with St. Ambrose who is full and clear in the case in his Book in Symbolum Apostolicum Cap. 2. Tom. 2. in these Words Ità ergò rectum Catholicum est ut unum Deum secundùm Unitatem Substantiae fateamur Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum in suâ quemque Subsistentiâ sentiamus A Passage so very plain that nothing certainly could more effectually declare That this Father reckoned the Personalities of the Three Divine Persons to consist in their several and respective Subsistences The next whom we shall alledge is St. Hilary who flourished in the Fourth Century and wrote Twelve Books
examined and laid open in the foregoing Animadversions I shall now set down without any further Descant or Enlargement upon them or at least with very little But as for those which I there passed over without any Notice or Remark as I did it all along with full purpose to treat of them by themselves so I shall particularly insist upon them now And the Reader may please to take them as they follow PARADOX It is a vain and arrogant presumption says this Author to say What is or what is not a Contradiction when we confess we do not understand or comprehend the thing we speak of p. 4. And again I know nothing in the World that we do perfectly understand p. 7. line 19. Answer According to these Two Assertions taken together I affirm That though a Man discourses never so falsly and inconsistently of God or indeed of any thing in the World besides yet he cannot justly be charged as guilty of a Contradiction And moreover since this Author affirms page 97 That for any one to say That Three Divine Persons who are divided and separated from each other are each of them God and yet that they are not Three Gods but one God is a direct Contradiction I desire to know of him Whether he comprehends what the Godhead and what the Divine Persons are And if not Whether according to his own Rule it is not a vain and arrogant Presumption in him to say what is a Contradiction when he professes himself not to comprehend the thing he is speaking of and about which the Contradiction is said to be PARADOX This Author having declared the Intimate and Essential Unity between the Father and the Son from those Words of our Saviour John 14th Chap. 10. Ver. I am in the Father and the Father in me Subjoyns That this Oneness between them is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it and we cannot long doubt what kind of Union this is if we consider that there is but one possible way to be thus United and that is by this Mutual-Consciousness p. 57. Answer These Words I charge with Contradiction and consequently with Absurdity upon two Accounts First because they Contradict our Saviour's Words And Secondly Because they Contradict the Author 's own Words 1. And first concerning those of our Saviour Whereas this Author says That this Oneness between the Father and the Son is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it Our Saviour in Iohn Ch. 17. where this whole Passage is repeated twice affirms something to be like it viz. in ver 11. where he prays to his Father That they viz. Believers may be One as We viz. his Father and Himself are One And again ver 21. That they may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee So that our Saviour expresly asserts a Likeness of something to this Union on the one side and this Author as expresly denies it on the other In which according to his blundering undistinguishing way he confounds Likeness and Sameness of kind as all One as shall presently be further shewn In the next place our Saviour as plainly as Words can express a Thing says That he and his Father are One by a Mutual In-being or In-existence in one another And this Man as expresly says That there is no possible way for them to be one but by Mutual-Consciousness But I on the contrary deny That Mutual-Consciousness is Mutual-Inexistence or Mutual-Inexistence Mutual-Consciousness any more than that Being or Existence is properly Consciousness or Knowledge and therefore if they cannot possibly be one but by Mutual Consciousness it is certain that they are not so by Mutual-Inexistence which yet our Saviour in Words properly and naturally signifying Inexistence affirms that they are And the more intolerable is this Assertion in this Author for that in Pag. 56. he affirms that these Words of our Saviour ought to be understood properly and if so I hope they do not only exclude Metaphors but all other Tropes and Figures also for Proper is not adequately opposed to Metaphorical but to Figurative whatsoever the Figure be And I do here affirm That if our Saviour's words be understood of Mutual-Consciousness they do not signifie properly but figuratively and the Figure is a Metonymy of the Subject for the Adjunct forasmuch as in God Being or Inexistence are to be look'd upon as the Subject and Knowledge and the like Attributes as the Adjuncts And therefore I do here tell this bold Man again that for him to say as he does that the forementioned words of our Saviour ought to be understood properly and yet to interpret them to a sense not Proper but Figurative which by interpreting them of Mutual-Consciousness he evidently does is both an Absurdity and a Presumption equally insufferable But in the 2d Place I charge the forecited Passage of this Author with the same Absurdity for being as Contradictory to his own words as it was to those of our Saviour For whereas he here says First That this Oneness between the Father and the Son expressed in those words I am in the Father and the Father in me can be no other kind of Union than an Union by Mutual-consciousness And Secondly That it is such an one that there is nothing in Nature like it I desire him to turn to Page 106. of his Book where he tells us That the Fathers use several Examples and allude to several sorts of Union thereby to form a Notion of the Unity of the Godhead in the Three Divine Persons Let him I say read this and tell me Whether those Examples and Allusions could be of any use to form a Notion of that Unity to which they bore no Resemblance at all For I for my part ever thought that there can be no Allusion of one thing to another without some similitude between them and that a similitude is always on both sides it being not possible for Peter to be like Iohn but Iohn must be like Peter too And if this Man does not yet blush at such contradictory Assertions let him turn a little farther to Page 126 127. where he tell us particularly that St. Austin explains this Unity by Examples of Mutual-Consciousness and by several Similitudes mark the words of which the Unity of Understanding Memory and Will with the Soul of Man is alledged by him for One and that a notable one too for that these Faculties as he there says are mutually in one another and the Example of Love and Knowledge in the same Mind is alledged by him as another such a Simile affirming them in like manner to be mutually in one another Now I say after all this ought not the Reader to stand amazed when he reads the Man first affirming that the Unity between the Father and the Son mutually existing in one another by virtue of the Mutual-Consciousness between them has nothing like it in Nature nor has any Example Metaphor or
to this Socinian Objection which by a manifest Fallacy proceeds à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter viz. That because Equality cannot belong to the Essential Glory or Majesty of the Godhead considered abstractedly from the Divine Persons therefore neither can it agree to the same Glory or Majesty upon any other Account whatsoever which is utterly false forasmuch as considered according to the Three different ways of its Subsistence in the Three Persons it may as Subsisting under any one of them be said to be equal to it self as Subsisting under the other Two PARADOX This Author represents Gregory Nyssen as first asserting a Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons which also he makes all along to be signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then asserting that this Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature makes the said Three Persons Numerically One Page 118. the latter end Answer This is too great an Absurdity for so Learned a Father to be guilty of and therefore ought to lie at this Author 's own Door for that a Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature should make any Thing or Person Numerically One any more than a generical Unity can make Things specifically One is beyond measure senceless and illogical PARADOX Though the Fathers says he assert the singularity of the Godhead or the Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence yet they do not assert such a Numerical Unity as where there is but one Person as well as one Essence but such a Numerical Unity as there is between Three who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the very same Nature but are not merely united by a specifick Unity but by an Essential Union and therefore are Three and One Page 121 Line 15. Answer In these Words there are several Absurdities which he falsly charges upon the Fathers but ought in all Reason to take to himself As 1. He supposes a specifick Unity and an essential Unity to be distinct Unities whereas every specifick Unity or Union call it at present which you will is also an essential Unity or Union For a specifick Unity is one sort of an essential Unity which in its whole compass contains the Generical the Specifical and the Numerical and therefore thus to contra-distinguish a Species to its Genus is fit for none but such a Logician as this Author it being all one as if one should say of Peter That he is not only a Man but also a Living Creature 2. The second Absurdity is That he owns a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons which sort of Unity I have abundantly proved in Chap. 7. the Divine Nature not to be capable of for he says here of the Divine Persons That they are not merely United by a specifick Unity which Words must imply that however so united they are 3. He makes Two sorts of Numerical Unity contrary to all Rules of Logick viz. One where there are several Persons of one Nature as here in the Trinity and the other where there is but One Person as well as One Nature But let me here tell him That the Divine Nature is every whit as numerically One in the Three Persons as if there were but one Person in the Godhead and no more And in this very Thing as has been shewn does the Mysteriousness of an Unity in Trinity consist I say The Divine Nature is as Numerically One in the Three Persons as the humane Nature was numerically One in Adam while there was no other Person in the World but himself nay much more so since it is not multiplicable as that was And to affirm That the Numerical Unity of the Godhead is not so perfect or is not the very same Subsisting in Three distinct Persons as if we could imagine it to subsist but in One Subverts and Overthrows such an Unity in Trinity as the Church in all Ages hitherto has maintained PARADOX Having told us That the Fathers universally acknowledged the Operation of the whole Trinity ad Extra to be but One and from thence concluded the Unity of the Divine Nature and Essence for that every Nature has a Virtue and Energy of its own Nature being a Principle of Action and if the Energy and Operation be but One there can be but One Nature He adds within four Lines after That this is certainly true but gives no Account how Three distinct Persons come to have but One Will One Energy Power and Operation nor that any Account that he knows of can be given of it but by Mutual-Consciousness Page 124. Line 7 c. Answ. Were I not acquainted with this Man's way of Writing I should be amazed to see him in so small a compass so flatly contradict himself For will he in the first place assert in the Three Divine Persons a Numerical Unity of Nature And in the next assert also that this Unity of Nature is proved by Unity of Energy and Operation And after this tell us That this gives no Account at all how Three distinct Persons come to have but one Will and Energy Power and Operation For does not Unity of Nature in these three distinct Persons prove this While the said Unity of Nature proves Unity of Operation as the Cause proves its Effect and Unity of Operation again proves Unity of Nature as the effect proves its cause This any one of sense would think is a fair full and sufficient Account how Three distinct Persons having all but One Nature come thereby all to have but one Will Energy and Operation And should any one else argue otherwise I should think him beside himself but this Author in this Discourses like himself PARADOX Knowledge Self-reflection and Love are distinct Powers and Faculties in Men and so distinct that they can never be the same Knowledge is not Self-reflection nor Love either Knowledge or Self-reflection though they are inseparably united they are distinct P. 130. L. 11 12 c. Answ. Here also is another knot of Absurdities For First Knowledge Self-reflection and Love are not in Men distinct Powers and Faculties as this unfledged Philosopher calls them but only distinct Acts. Secondly Admitting that Knowledge were a Faculty as it is not yet I deny that Knowledge and Self-reflection would make Two distinct Faculties forasmuch as it is one and the same Intellectual Faculty which both exerts an Act of Knowledge and an Act of Reflection upon that Act of Knowledge or upon it self as producing the said Act. For which Cause it is as has been observed before that Philosophers hold that the Understanding is Facultas supra se Reflexiva all of them allowing both the direct and the reflex Acts of Knowledge to issue from the same Faculty Thirdly He says That albeit the forementioned Acts are distinct yet they are inseparably united But this also is false for whether an Act of Knowledge may be without an Act of Self-reflection as some not without Reason think it may I am sure in
Men of whom alone we now speak both an Act of Knowledge and of Self-reflection too may be without an Act of Love consequent thereupon And if the former may be without the latter then they are not inseparably united as this Author here says they are PARADOX He says That Love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person P. 133. Answ. If this be a true and good Consequence then the Ground and Reason of it must be This That every distinct Act in God is and must be a distinct Person And if so then every Decree in God whether it be his Decree of Election or of Reprobation if there be such an one or of creating the World and sending Christ into it and at last of destroying it and the like are each of them so many Persons For every Divine Decree is an Act of God and an Immanent Act too as resting within him and as such not passing forth to any Thing without Him that Maxim of the Schools being most true that Decreta nihil ponunt in esse Nor is this all but most of the Divine Acts are free also so that there was nothing in the Nature of them to hinder but that they equally might or might not have been which applied to the Divine Persons would make strange work in Divinity In the mean time if this Author will maintain this Doctrin viz. That Acts and Persons are the same in God as I think he ought in all Reason to maintain the immediate consequences of his own Assertion I dare undertake that here he will stand alone again and that he is the only Divine who ever owned or defended such wretched Stuff PARADOX These three Powers of Understanding Self-reflection and Self-Love are one Mind viz. in Created Spirits of which alone he here speaks adding in the very next words What are mere Faculties and Powers in Created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead c. Pag. 135. at the latter end Answer This is a very gross Absurdity and to make it appear so I do here tell him That the Three foremention'd Powers are no more one Mind than three Qualities are one Substance and that very Term Powers might have taught him as much Potentia and Impotentia making one Species of Quality under which all Powers and Faculties are placed So that his three powers of Understanding Self-Reflection and Self-Love are one only Unitate Subjecti as being subjected in one and the same Mind but not unitate Essentiae as Essentially differing both from one another and from the Mind it self too in which they are Certainly if this Man did not look upon himself as above all Rules of Logick and Philosophy he would never venture upon such absurd Assertions PARADOX He tells us That the Son and Holy Ghost Will and Act with the Father not the Father with the Son and the Holy Ghost Pag. 169. Line 13 14 c. Answ. This is a direct Contradiction For if the Son and Holy Ghost Will and Act with the Father the Father must Will and Act with the Son and the Holy Ghost And he who can find a distinct sense in these two Propositions and much more affirm the first and deny the latter has a better Faculty at distinguishing than any Mortal Man using his Sense and Reason will pretend to It being all one as if I should say I saw Thomas William and John together of whom William and John were in the Company of Thomas but Thomas was not in the Company of William and John And I challenge any sensible thinking Man to make better sense of this Author 's fore-mention'd Assertion if he can But this must not go alone without a further cast of his Nature by heightning it with another Contradiction too which you shall find by comparing it with pag. 188. line 4. where he affirms That Father Son and Holy Ghost act together having before expresly told us here That the Father does not will and act with the Son and Holy Ghost which very Assertion also to shew him the further fatal Consequences of it absolutely blows up and destroys his whole Hypothesis of Mutual Consciousness by destroying that upon which he had built it For if the Father may and does Will and Act without the Son and Holy Ghost then farewel to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they must never be alledged in this Cause more PARADOX Nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature Page 234. Line 22 23. Answer This is a most false Assertion and directly contrary to Scripture And to prove it so I shall lay down these Four Conclusions First That the Godhead or Divine Nature neither is nor can be visible to a Corporeal Eye by an immediate sight or Intuition of the Godhead it self Secondly That God is visible to such an Eye only by the special Signs or Symbols of his Presence Thirdly That God is visible by a Body personally united to him only as the said Body is such a Sign or Symbol of his peculiar Presence And Fourthly and Lastly That a Body actually assumed by God for a Time is during that Time as true and visible a Symbol of his Presence as a Body or Nature personally united to him can be And thus it was that God appeared visibly to the Patriarchs in Old Time and particularly to Abraham to Gideon and to the Father and Mother of Sampson who thereupon thought that they should Die for having seen God Face to Face For generally all Interpreters hold the Person who thus appeared to have been the Second Person of the blessed Trinity the Eternal Son of the Father though sometimes called simply the Angel and sometimes the Angel of the Covenant from the Office he was then actually imployed in by his Father as the extraordinary Messenger and Reporter of his Mind to holy Men upon some great Occasions This supposed I desire this bold Author to tell me Whether the second Person of the Trinity God equal with the Father was personally united to the Body which he then appeared in or not If not then the forementioned Assertion That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature falls shamefully to the Ground as utterly false But if he was personally united to it then these Paradoxes must follow 1. That he either laid down that assumed Body afterwards or he did not if he did then an Hypostatical Union with God may be dissolv'd and not only so but there may be also a thousand personal Unions one after another if God shall think fit to assume a Body and appear in it so often which would be contrary to the sense of all Divines and to all Principles of sound Divinity which own but one hypostatical Union and no more Or 2. He still retains an Union to that assumed Body and then there is a double hypostatical Union viz. One to the visible Body assumed by him in
out of the Fathers do not prove Mutual-Consciousness to be that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does consist but that the Fathers place it in something else CHAP. VIII In which is set down the Ancient and Generally received Doctrine of the Church concerning the Article of the Blessed Trinity as it is delivered by Councils Fathers Schoolmen and other later Divines together with a Vindication of the said Doctrine so explained from this Author's Exceptions CHAP. IX In which this Author's Paradoxes both Philosophical and Theological as they occur in this Discourse are drawn together Examined and Confuted CHAP. X. In which this Author 's Grammatical and other such like Mistakes as they are found here and there in his Writings are set down and remarked upon CHAP. XI In which is given some Account of this Author's Temper and insolent way of Writing as well in Extolling himself as in Depressing and Scorning his Adversaries in both which he has not his Parallel CHAP. XII Containing a Brief Review and Conclusion of the whole Advertisement IT having been found requisite to make some Alterations and Additions in this Second Impression of these Animadversions c. yet that those who have bought up the former may suffer thereby as little as may be the Author has thought fit for their use and benefit to cause the said Additions and Alterations to be Printed in a Sheet or two by themselves Some of the most Considerable Errata of the Press are thus to be Corrected PReface Page 5. Line 2. of the Quotation for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 7. l. 5. of the Quotation for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 8. l. 23. for at read as Book p. 6. l. 20. for asserter r. Assertor p. 51. l. 10. for Analagous r. Analogous p. 71. for Chap. II. r. Chap. III. p. 72. l. 29. for destinct r. distinct p. 103. l. 17. for it r. that p. 116. l. 4. for Spirits r. Spirits p. 126. l. 7. for one and another dele and l. 17. for infiinite r. infinite p. 131. l. 23. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 25. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 132. l. 7 8 9. r. campósque lucentémque Titaniáque totámque p. 138. l. 28. for of Deity r. of the Deity p. 143. l. 8. instead of me read Men p. 155. l. 19. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 157. l. 10. of the Quot for utrûm r. utrùm p. 160. l. 31. for Denaeus r. Danaeus p. 161. l. 5. for our read our l. 8. in Quot for genetricem r. genitricem p. 164. l. 31. for gratis r. gratis p. 168. l. 14. dele one to p. 173. l. penult for imploying r. implying p. 196. l. 8. of the Greek Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 198. l. 21. for separately read separately p. 205. at the end of the second Greek Quot for quarta read quartâ p. 207. l. 18. for of Three read of the Three p. 215. l. 11. for specificully read specifically p. 220. l. 19. for quod sic read quòd sic l. 20. for quod non read quod non p. 224. l. 28. for in self r. in it self p. 229. l. 2. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 231. l. 2. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 6. of the Gr. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 232. in the 3d Gr. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 233. l. 1. of the 4th Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 234. l. 6. of the second Quot ex-eâ r. ex eâ p. 237. l. 14. for the Unity r. That Unity p. 253. l. 6. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 260. l. 3. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 9. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 263. l. 16. for ergò r. Ergo p. 266. l. 16. for audiérant r. audierant p. 268. l. 22. for Beotius r. Boetius and ibid. l. 25. for Difinition r. Definition p. 278. l. 17. for Nicaenae r. Nicenae p. 283. l. 6. for on r. upon p. 284. l. 1. for Bu r. But p. 285. l. 7. for Metaphisician r. Metaphysician alibi p. 288. l. 5. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 17. for Concession r. a Concession p. 289. l. 6. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 8. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 291. in the Latin Quot l. 2. for tantummodo r. tantúmmodo l. 8. for quarc r. quáre p. 310. l. 25. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 25. for asserter r. Assertor p. 333. l. 13. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 335. l. 31. for Archbishop r. Bishop p. 343. l. 30. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 351. catch word for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. Greek Errata p. 352. Correction the 25th for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 362. l. 16. for wreaking r. reeking p. 364. l. 8. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 365. l. 24. for ita r. itá If the Reader chance to meet with any more Faults in Accents he is desired to Correct or Excuse them together with all Mispointings which in Books of any length are commonly too many to be particularly and exactly set down Besides that here through the faintness of the Character several Letters Points and Accents do scarce appear in some Copies though legible in others Animadversions c. CHAP. 1. Representing the Sence and Signification of the Word Mystery as also a Vindication of the Use and Application of it to some of the most Difficult and Sublime Truths of the Gospel and lastly a full Proof That the Account given by this Author of his Explication of the Article of the Trinity is wholly inconsistent with the Mysteriousness of it together with some Remarks upon his needless Apology for Writing against the Socinians IN Order to the better Examination of what this Author has wrote about the Holy Trinity I think it requisite to premise something concerning the Signification Sence and Nature of a Mystery For certainly the Unity of One and the same undivided God-head in a Trinity of distinct Persons is one of the greatest Mysteries if not absolutely the greatest in our Christian Religion Now a Mystery according to the common signification of the word is derived either from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which
yet every Person has his own proper distinct Subsistence by himself which must make as great a difference between Existence and Subsistence as that which unites several Persons into one Nature and that which personally distinguishes them from one another And then also for Christ's Person with reference to his humanity though this subsists by the Subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet it does not properly subsist by the Existence of it since every distinct Nature must have its own distinct Existence which shews That even in the Oeconomy of this Divine Person Existence and Subsistence must be considered as formally different since something we see may relate to and be affirmed of one which cannot be affirmed of or bear the same relation to the other Now whatsoever Being or Nature this Mode of Subsistence does belong to that is properly called a Suppositum as being a thing which by no means exists in any other but as a Basis or foundation supports such things or Beings as exist in it from which also it receives its Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Consequence of this is That as Subsistence makes a thing or Being a Suppositum so suppositality makes it incommunicable since that which makes it uncapable of existing in another must also hinder it from being Communicated to another And another Consequence of the same is That every Suppositum or Being thus Subsisting by it self is a compleat Being that is such an one as is not made for the Completion of any other For whatsoever is so must naturally exist in it as a part does in the whole or at least be originally designed so to do This Account being given of Subsistence and of a Suppositum which is Constituted such by it it will be easie to give an Account also what a Person is which is properly defined Suppositum Rationale or Intelligens So that as a Suppositum is substantia singularis completa per se subsistens so the Ratio Intellectiva being added to this makes it a Person which is a farther perfection of Suppositality and the utmost perfection of Subsistence as Subsistence and Suppositality is the utmost Bound and Perfection of Existence in all Beings not Intelligent If it be here now asked Whether Subsistence or Suppositality added to bare Nature does not make a Composition I Answer That in Created finite Persons it does but not in Uncreated and Infinite And the reason is Because though all Composition implys Union yet all Union is not therefore a Composition but something higher and transcendental so that in the Divine Persons of the Trinity The Divine Nature and the Personal Subsistence coalesce into one by an Incomprehensible Ineffable kind of Union and Conjunction And if this does not satisfie as I think it rationally may I must needs profess That my Thoughts and Words can neither rise higher nor reach further Having thus stated and fixed the signification of the fore-mentioned Terms I cannot but remark these two things of the Term or Word Essence As 1. That it is sometimes taken not only for the Ratio formalis entis but simply and absolutely for an entire Entity or Being it self And 2. That those two other Terms Nature and Form are for the most part used as Terms equipollent and of the same signification with it Nature being the Essence of a thing considered as an Active Productive Principle and Form being the Essence or Nature of a thing as it is the chief Principle giving Being and Perfection to it in the way of Composition Nevertheless it is sometimes also applyed to simple uncompounded Natures promiscuously with the other So that we see here That Essence Form and Nature generally taken are only three formally distinct Considerations of one and the same thing which I thought fit to take notice of to prevent all cavil or mistake about the use of these Terms I have now gone over and severally given an Account of the Notions of Being Substance Accident Modes of Being Essence Form Nature Subsistence and Personality and hereby I hope laid some foundation for our clearer and more intelligible discoursing of the great Article we have undertook to rescue from a false Vindication There being hardly any one of all the foregoing Terms of which a clear and distinct Notion is not highly requisite to a clear explicite and distinct consideration of the Subject now before us Concerning which I think fit to note this That so far as I can judge the thing now in dispute is not what fully and exactly expresses or represents the Nature of God for nothing can do that But what is our best and most rational way of conceiving and speaking of him and subject to fewest Inconveniences and for this we shall debate it whether this Author or we take the best course These things being thus premised and laid down we shall now resume the four Heads first proposed to be spoken of by us and Discourse of them severally And 1. I shall shew That the Ground upon which this Author excepts against the use of the Terms Substance Essence Subsistence c. in treating of this Subject is false and mistaken His Exceptions against them we find in Page 68 69 and 70. of his Book The great difficulty says he of conceiving a Trinity of Persons in one Infinite and undivided Essence or Substance arises from those gross and material Ideas we have of Essence and Substance when we speak of the Essence or Substance of God or Created Spirits We can form no Idea of Substance but what we have from matter that is something extended in a triple dimension of length breadth and depth which is the Subject of those Qualities which inhere and subsist in it And therefore as matter is the Subject of all sensible Qualities so we conceive some such Substance of a Mind or Spirit which is the Subject of Will and Understanding Thoughts and Passions and then we find it impossible to conceive how there should be three Divine Persons which are all Infinite without three distinct Infinite Substances each distinct Infinite Person having a distinct Infinite Substance of his own And if we grant this it seems a plain Contradiction to say That these three distinct Infinite Substances are but one Numerical Infinite Substance c. Thus far our Author And I freely grant That this does not only seem as he says but really is a Contradiction And before I have done with him I will prove to him also That to say That three distinct Infinite Minds are but one Numerical Infinite Mind which shall be effectually laid at his Door or That three distinct Infinite Minds are not three distinct Infinite Substances or Essences are as gross and palpable Contradictions as the other But he goes on in the same Page a little lower We know nothing says he of the Divine Essence but that God is an Infinite Mind and if we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God but an
Reason why he pitches upon Truth Wisdom and Goodness rather than upon Eternity Omnipotence and Omnipresence For these in their proportion express the Divine Nature as much as the other but neither the one nor the other can grasp in the whole Compass of the Divine Perfections so as to be properly denominable from all and every one of them as Substance and Essence and such other Terms as barely import Being are found to 〈◊〉 I conclude therefore that in our Discourses of God Essence Substance Nature and the like are so far from being necessary to be laid aside as disposing our Minds to gross and unfit Apprehensions of the Deity that they are much fitter to express and guide our thoughts about this great Subject than Truth Wisdom or Power or all of them together as importing in them both a Priority and a greater Simplicity and larger Comprehensiveness of Notion than belong to any of them and these surely are Considerations most peculiarly suted to and worthy of the Perfections of the Divine Nature I have now done with my Third Proposition and so proceed to the Fourth and last viz That the Difficulty of our Conceiving rightly of the Deity and the Divine Persons does really proceed from other Causes than those alledged by this Author I shall assign Three As First The Spirituality of the Divine Nature For God is a Spirit Joh. 4. 14. And it is certain that we have no clear explicit and distinct Idea of a Spirit And if so must we not needs find a great difficulty in knowing it For we know Things directly by the Idea's the Species Intelligibiles or Resemblances of them imprinted upon the Intellect and these are refined and drawn off from the Species Sensibiles and sensible Resemblances of the same imprinted upon the Imagination And how can a Spirit incur directly into that Indeed not at all For we can have no knowledge of a Spirit by any direct Apprehension or Intuition of it but all that we know of such Beings is what we gather by Inference Discourse and Ratiocination And that is sufficient But 2. The Second Reason of our Short and Imperfect Notions of the Deity is The Infinity of it For this we must observe That we can perfectly know and comprehend nothing but as it is represented to us under some certain Bounds and Limitations And therefore one of the chief Instruments of our Knowledge of a Thing is the Definition of it And what does that signifie but the bringing or representing a Thing under certain Bounds and Limitations as the Geeek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 manifestly imports Upon which Account what a loss must we needs be at in understanding or knowing the Divine Nature when the very way of our knowing seems to carry in it something opposite to the thing known For the way of knowing is by Desining Limiting and Determining and the Thing known is that of which there neither are nor can be any Bounds Limits Definitions or Determinations And this I think is not only a sufficient but something more than a sufficient Reason why we stumble and fail when we would either have or give a distinct Account of the Deity 3. A Third Reason of the same especially with reference to the Trinity of Persons belonging to the Divine Nature is The utter want of all Instances and Examples of this kind For when a long and constant course of Observation has still took notice that every numerically distinct Person and every Suppositum has a numerically distinct Nature appropriate to it and Religion comes afterwards and calls upon us to apprehend the same Numerical Nature as subsisting in three Numerically distinct Persons we are extreamly at a loss how to conform our Notions to it and to conceive how that can be in three Persons which we never saw before or in any thing else to be but onely in One. For humane Nature which originally proceeds by the Observations of Sense does very hardly frame to it self any Notions or Conceptions of Things but what it has drawn from thence Nay I am of Opinion That the Mind is so far governed by what it sees and observes that I verily believe that had we never actually seen the beginning or end of any Thing the generality of Men would hardly so much as have imagined That the World had ever had any beginning at all Since with the greatest part of Mankind what appears and what does not appear determines what can and what cannot be in their Opinion And thus I have shewn Three Causes which I take to be the True Causes why we are so much to seek in our Apprehensions of and Discourses about the Divine Nature and the Three Glorious Persons belonging to it And the Reason of them all is founded upon the Essential Disparity which the Mind of Man bears to so disproportionate and so transcendent an Object So that it is a vain thing to quarrel at Words and Terms especially such as the best Reason of Mankind has pitched upon as the fittest and properest and most significant to express these great Things by And I question not but in the Issue of all wise Men will find That it is not the defect of the Terms we use but the vast Incomprehensibility of the Thing we apply them to which is the True Cause of all our Failures as to a clear and distinct Apprehension and Declaration of what relates to the Godhead From all which I conclude That the Terms Essence Substance Nature c. have had nothing yet objected against them but that they may still claim the place and continue in the use which the Learned'st Men the Christian Church hath hitherto had have allotted them in all their Discourses and Disputes about the Divine Nature and the Divine Persons which are confessedly the greatest and most Sacred Mysteries in the Christian Religion But as in my time I have observed it a practice at Court That when any one is turned out of a considerable Place there it is always first resolved and that out of merit foreseen no doubt who shall succeed him in it So all this ado in dismounting the Terms Essence Substance Nature c. from their ancient Post I perceive is only to make way for these two so highly useful and wonder-working Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness And therefore let us with all due and awful Reverence as becomes us expect their August appearance and for a while suffer the Mountain to swell and heave up its Belly and look big upon us and all in good time no doubt we shall have the happiness to see and admire and take our measures of the Mouse But before I close this Chapter to shew how like a Judge upon life and Death this Man sits over all the formerly received Terms by which Men were wont to discourse of God Sentencing and Condemning them as he pleases not content to have cashiered the words Essence Substance and Nature from being used about this
much at present That the Greek Writers in expressing the Godhead or Divine Nature whensoever they do not use the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 constantly express it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were commonly used in the same sense And likewise the Latins where they express not the same by Deitas or Divinitas do as constantly express it by Natura and Substantia which words stand now particularly condemned by this Presuming Man and that not only in Defiance of all the Ancients but also of the Church of England Her Self which has set her Authorizing Stamp upon those Two Words Substance and Person by applying them to this Subject both in her Articles and Liturgy In the first of them teaching us That in the Unity of the Godhead there are three Persons of one Substance Power and Eternity Artic. 1. And in her Liturgy rendring the Athanasian Creed by the same words Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance As likewise that Passage in the Nicene Creed by the Son 's being of one Substance with the Father And again in the Doxology at the Communion on Trinity Sunday it gives us these full and notable words One God one Lord not one onely Person but three Persons in one Substance After all which with what face can this strange Anomalar Son of the Church while he is sucking her Breasts and at the same time poysoning the Milk with which she should feed her Children I say with what Face can he aver to the World That this word Substance thus embraced owned and used by her ought to be thrown away as the Direct Cause of all the Errours Men are apt to fall into about this great Mystery And that we can have no Notion of Substance but what implies in it something gross and material Which were it so can any one imagine that the Church of England would ever have made use of such a word as could serve for nothing but a Snare and a Trap to betray the Understandings and Consciences of Men into such Errours as may cost them their Souls This is so fouly Reflexive upon her that I would have any Man living give me a good Reason Why this Author should not be call'd upon by Publick Authority to give the Church satisfaction for the Scandal given to all the Orthodox Members of it by the Contumely and Reproach which he has passed upon those Terms and Words which She has thought fit so solemnly to express her Faith and her Devotions by But some Men such is the Regard had to her Laws and Discipline will venture to utter and write any Thing that the Bookseller will pay them for though they throw their Conscience and Religion into the Bargain But God himself who resisteth the Proud seems to have took the Matter into his own Hands and to shew his Controlling Providence over the Minds and Hearts of Men has at length brought this Scornful Man to eat his own words the hardest Diet certainly that a proud Person can be put to and after all the black Dirt thrown by him upon the School-men and their Terms to lick it off again with his own Tongue So that after he had passed such a Terrible Killing Doom upon these words Essence Substance Subsistence Suppositum Person and the like here in his Vindication all on a suddain in a relenting Fit he graciously reaches out his Golden Scepter of Self-Contradiction and Restores them to Life again in his Apology And that the Reader may behold both sides of the Contradiction the more clearly I think it the best and fairest way to give him the Sense of this Author if it may be so call'd in his own Words Vindication I Have not troubled my Reader with the different signification of Essence Hypostasis Subsistence Persons Existence Nature c. which are Terms very differently used by the Greek and Latin Fathers and have very much obscured this Doctrine instead of explaining it P. 101. l. 12. The School-men have no Authority where they leave the Fathers whose sense they sometimes seem to mistake or to clog it with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own P. 138. l. 28. The Truth is that which has confounded this Mystery viz. of the Trinity has been the vain endeavour to reduce it to Terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis and the like Pag. 138. l. the last P. 139. l. 1. And speaking of the Ancient Fathers in the same Page he tells us They nicely distinguished between Person and Hypostasis and Nature and Essence and Substance that they were three Persons but one Nature Essence and Substance But that when Men curiously examined the signification of these words they found that upon some account or other They were very unapplicable to this Mystery Hereupon he asks the following Questions in an upbraiding manner viz. What is the Substance and Nature of God How can three distinct Persons have but one Numerical Substance And What is the distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence And Lastly At the end of the same Page He confesses that some tolerable Account of the School-Terms and Distinctions might be given but that it would be a work of more difficulty than use Apology HE viz. the melancholy Stander-by is very angry with the School-Doctors as worse Enemies to Christianity than either Heathen Philosophers or Persecuting Emperours Pray what hurt have they done I suppose he means the corruption of Christianity with those barbarous terms of Person Nature Essence Subsistence Consubstantiality c. which will not suffer Hereticks to lie concealed under Scripture-Phrases But why must the School-men bear all the blame of this Why does he not accuse the Ancient Fathers and Councils from whom the School-men learn'd these Terms Why does he let St. Austin escape from whom the Master of the Sentences borrowed most of his Distinctions and Subtleties But suppose these unlucky Wits had used some new Terms have they taught any new Faith about the Trinity in Unity which the Church did not teach And if they have only guarded the Christian Faith with an Hedge of Thorns which disguised Hereticks cannot break through is this to wound Christianity in its very Vitals No no They will only prick the Fingers of Hereticks and secure Christianity from being wounded and this is one great Cause why some Men are so angry with the School-Doctors tho' the more General Cause is because they have notIndustry enough to Read or understand them Apology P. 4 5. I have to prevent all exceptions given the Reader the whole Paragraph in which the last Clause strikes Home indeed tho' in such Cases some think this Author would do well to take heed of striking too Home and Hard for fear the Blow should rebound back again and do execution where
he least intended it Now here the Reader is desired to observe the Soveraign usefulness ascribed by our Author to those School-Terms Person Nature Essence Subsistence Consubstantiality c. As That they will not suffer Hereticks to lie concealed under Scripture-Phrases That the Schools learned all these Terms of the Ancient Fathers That they have guarded the Christian Faith with an Hedge of Thorns which disguised Hereticks cannot break through That instead of wounding Christianity in its Vitals they only prick the Fingers of Hereticks and secure Christianity from being wounded All these great and good Things he tells us have been done in behalf of Christianity by the School-men and their fore-mentioned Terms here in this Apology and now if the Reader will but look back into the Vindication too our Author will there tell him also How and by what Way and Means the said School-men and their Terms have Atchieved all these worthy Feats viz. By their Obscuring instead of Explaining the Doctrine of the Trinity By their mistaking the Meaning of the Fathers or clogging it with peculiar Niceties of their own Also by confounding the Mystery of the Trinity through a vain endeavour to reduce it to such Terms of Art as Essence Substance Subsistence Nature Person and the like As likewise by the said terms being found very unapplicable to this Mystery And lastly Because though some tolerable Account might possibly be given of their meaning yet that it would be of little or no use to give any such Account or Explication of them So useful it seems does he account them to secure Christianity against Hereticks that it is of no use at all to explain them And now I hope when the Reader has considered what this Author has said on both sides he will acknowledge that Hand and Glove cannot more exactly agree than the Vindication and the Apology And as for that Melancholy Stander-by upon whose Account this Apology is pretended to have been written if he will but read and compare the Apology and Vindication together I dare undertake that he will not be half so Melancholy as he was before But does this Author in sober sadness think that this is the way to Confute Hereticks thus to play backwards and forwards to say and unsay and only to set two Books together by the Ears Let me tell him That God is not mocked nor the World neither and that he owes an Account of what he has wrote to both For my own part so far as my Converse reaches I meet with no serious and judicious Person who does not reckon that this Author by his Desultorious Inconsistent but withal Imposing way of writing will in all likelihood make Twenty Hereticks before he Confutes One. It is indeed an amazing Thing to consider That any one Man should presume to Brow-beat all the World at such a rate and we may well wonder at the force of Confidence and Self-Conceit that it should be able to raise any one to such a pitch But Naturalists have observed That Blindness in some Animals is a very great Help and Instigation to Boldness And amongst Men as Ignorance is commonly said to be the Mother of Devotion so in accounting for the Birth and Descent of Confidence too whatsoever other Cause some may derive it from yet certainly He who makes Ignorance the Mother of this also reckons its Pedigree by the surer side CHAP. III. In which the Author 's New Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness is briefly declared Self-Consciousness made by him the formal Constituent Reason of Personality in all Persons both Create and Uncreate and on the contrary proved against him in the first place That it is not so in Persons Create OUR Author not being satisfied with the Account given of the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity by the Schools nor with those Notions about it which have hitherto obtained in the World till he came into it no doubt as a Person peculiarly sent and qualified to rectifie all those Imperfect and Improper Notions which had been formerly received by Divines He I say with a Lofty Undertaking Mind and a Reach beyond all before and indeed beside him and as the Issue is like to prove as much above him too undertakes to give the World a much better and more satisfactory Explication of this great Mystery and that by two new Terms or Notions purely and solely of his own Invention called Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness which though still joyned together by our Author in his Explication of the Blessed Trinity have yet very different Effects as we shall presently see For by Self-Consciousness he means a Mind 's or Spirit 's being Conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings and Affections and I suppose all other Internal Motions too which no other finite Spirit is or can be naturally Conscious to but it self And this he says makes a finite Spirit Numerically one or one with it self for he uses both Expressions and withal separates and distinguishes it from all other Spirits so that hereby every Spirit feels only its own Thoughts Passions or Motions but is not Conscious to the Thoughts Passions or Motions of any other And this so far as his own Words import he means by Self-Consciousness As for Mutual-Consciousness That takes place when two or more Spirits or Minds know all that of one another which each Mind or Spirit knows of its self by a particular Self-Consciousness of its own And this I conceive to be a just Account of what this Man means by Mutual-Consciousness Now the Effects of these two as I noted before are very different For Self-Consciousness according to him is the Constituent Principle or formal Reason of Personality So that Self-Consciousnss properly Constitutes or makes a Person and so many Self-Consciousnesses make so many distinct Persons But Mutual-Consciousness so far as it extends makes an Unity not of Persons for Personality as such imports distinction and something personally Incommunicable but an Unity of Nature in Persons So that after Self-Consciousness has made several distinct Persons in comes Mutual-Consciousness and sets them all at one again and gives them all but one and the same Nature which they are to take amongst themselves as well as they can And this is a True and strict Account of this Author 's New Hypothesis and such as I suppose he will not except against because justly I am sure he cannot howsoever I may have expressed the Novel Whimsey something for the Reader 's Diversion Now by what has been said it is evident that the Author assigns Self-Consciousness as the formal Reason of Personality in all Persons Universally whether Finite or Infinite Create or Uncreate For having first stated it so in Finite and Created Spirits Pag. 48. lin 26 c. He afterwards applies it to Infinite and Uncreate viz. the Three Persons of the Godhead And therefore that we may proceed fairly and without any ground of Exception in the Case we will examine I. Whether or no
Self-Consciousness be the Reason of Personality in Finite Persons And II. Whether it be so in Infinite And First For Finite or Created Spirits I deny Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality in these And before I give my Reasons against it I shall premise this one Consideration viz. That wheresoever the formal Reason of Personality is there is Personality And again That wheresoever Personality is there is the formal Reason of Personality viz. That they exist Convertibly and that one Mutually and Essentially infers the other Now this premised and laid down my Reasons why I deny Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality in Finite or Created Beings are these 1. Argument 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 The Argument I conceive is very plain For whatsoever pre-supposes a Thing is in Order of Nature Posterior and Subsequent to the Thing so pre-supposed by it and again on the other hand the formal Reason of any Thing is in Order of Nature precedent to that Thing of which it is the Reason We will therefore prove the Major Proposition And we do it thus 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 which Acts. So that there must be a Person before there can be an Act or Action proceeding from or attributable to a Person In a word there must be a Person in Being before any Action issues from him and therefore the Act must essentially and necessarily pre-suppose the Person for the Agent But now Self-Consciousness does not only do this but which is more it also pre-supposes another Act Antecedent to it self For it is properly and formally a Reflex Act upon the Acts Passions or Motions of the Person whom it belongs to So that according to the Nature of the Thing there is not only a Person but also an Action which is and must be Subsequent to a Person that is Antecedent to Self-Consciousness which being a Reflex Act must needs in Order of Nature be Posterior to the Act reflected upon by it And therefore Self-Consciousness which is by two degrees Posterior to Personality cannot possibly be the formal Reason of it 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. Our Second Argument is this The Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is perfectly Conscious to it self of all the Internal Acts whether of Knowledge Volition Passion or Desire that pass in it or belong to it and yet the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person and consequently Self-Consciousness is not the proper formal Reason of Personality forasmuch as it may be in that which is no Person That the Humane Nature of Christ is thus Self-Conscious is evident since it has all the Principles and Powers of Self-reflection upon its own Acts whereby it intimately knows it self to do what it does and to be what it is which are in any particular Man whatsoever so that if any Man be Conscious to himself of these things the Humane Nature of Christ which has the same Operative Powers in perfection and those essentially proper to and inseparable from it self which the rest of Mankind are endued with must needs be so too And then as for the Assumption That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person is no less evident Since it is taken into and subsists in and by the Personality of the second Person of the Trinity and therefore can have no distinct Personality of its own unless we will with Nestorius assert two Persons in Christ an Humane and a Divine And the Truth is If Self-Consciousness were the formal Reason of Personality since there are two destinct Self-Consciousnesses in Christ no less than two distinct Wills an Humane and a Divine viz. One in each Nature I cannot see how upon this Author's Hypothesis to keep off the Assertion of Nestorius That there are Two distinct Persons in him also 3. My Third Argument against the same shall be taken from the Soul of Man in a state of separation from the Body And it is this The Soul in its separate Estate is Conscious to it self of all its own Internal Acts or Motions whether of Knowledge Passion or Desire and yet the Soul in such an Estate is not a Person And therefore Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality for if it were it would and must Constitute a Person wheresoever it was Now that the Soul in its separate Estate is thus Self-Conscious I suppose no body will pretend to deny but such as hold a Psychopannychisme viz. such a dormant Estate as renders it void of all Vital Motion or Action during its separation from the Body But this being an Errour which few now a-days think worth owning neither shall I think worth the disproving But for the Minor Proposition That the Soul in its separate Estate is not a Person In this I expect to find some Adversaries and particularly our Author himself who expresly affirms That the Soul in such a separate Estate is a Person Pag. 262. A Soul says he without a Vital Union to an Humane Body is a Person Nor does he bestow the Name and Nature of a Person upon the Soul only as separate from but also as shall be afterwards made appear as it is joyned with the Body which Assertion of his together with some others of near Affinity with it shall in due place be examined by themselves At present in Confirmation of my Argument I shall produce my Reasons against the Personality of the Soul held by this Author and in order to it shall lay down this Conclusion in direct Opposition to his viz. That the Soul of Man is not a Person And since as we have noted he holds that it is so both in its Conjunction with the Body and its separation from it I shall bring my Arguments against the Personality of it in both And First I shall prove That the Soul while joyned to and continuing in the Body is not a Person and as a Ground-work of the proof thereof I shall only premise this one Thing as a Truth acknowledged on all Hands viz. That the Soul and Body together constitute the Person of a Man The same being plainly Asserted in the Athanasian Creed where it tells us That the Reasonable Soul and Flesh is one Man or one Human Person for both signifie but the same Thing which being thus laid down as a Thing certain and confessed I Argue thus If the Soul and Body in Conjunction constitute the Person of a Man then the Soul in such a Conjunction is not a Person
But the former is true and therefore the latter must be so too The Proposition is proved thus Nothing which together with the Body Constitutes a Person is or can be it self a Person For if it be then the Body must be joyned to it either by being assumed into the Personal Subsistence of the Soul as the Human Nature of Christ is assumed into the Personal Subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon the Composition and Constitution of a Man will be an Hypostatick Union between Soul and Body which I suppose no body will be either so bold or absurd as to affirm all Divines accounting an Hypostatical Union so peculiar to Christ's Person as not to be admitted in any other Person or Being whatsoever For an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. Such an one as makes a Compound Hypostasis are quite different things and this Author shall in due time be taught so much if he has any thing to object against it Or Secondly The Body must be joyned with the Soul as one part joyntly concurring with another to the Composition of the whole Person And if so then the Soul being a Part cannot possibly be a Person Forasmuch as a Part is an Incomplete Being and therefore in the very Nature of it being designed for the Completion of something else must subsist in and by the Subsistence of the whole But a Person imports the most complete Degree and Mode of Being as Subsisting wholly by it self and not in or by any other either as a Subject of Inherence or Dependence So that it is a direct Contradiction to the very Definition and Nature of the Thing for the same Being to be a Part and a Person too And consequently that which makes the Soul the former does irrefragably prove it not to be the other Besides if the Soul in the Composition of a Man's person were an entire person it self and as such concurred with the Body towards the Constitution of the Man then a Man would be an Imperfect Accidental and not a Perfect Natural Compound He would be that which Philosophy calls Unum per Accidens that is a thing made up of two such Beings as cannot perfectly coalesce and unite into one For a Complete 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 Complete or Incomplete it must necessarily make such a loose unnatural Union and Composition But to assert That the person of a Man is such a Compound would be exploded by all who understood any thing of Natural Philosophy So that it would be a very idle thing to attempt any further Confutation of it Let this Author overthrow these Reasonings and support his Assertion against them if he can But having thus disproved the Personality of the Soul while in Conjunction with the Body I go on to disprove it also while in a state of Separation from it Which I do thus If the Soul in such a state be a Person then it is either the same Person which the Man himself was while he was living and in the Body or it is another Person But to Assert either of them is extreamly Absurd and therefore equally Absurd That the Soul in such a state should be a Person And First It is Absurd to affirm it to be the same Person For a Person compounded of Soul and Body as a Man is and a simple uncompounded Person as the Soul if a Person at all must needs be can never be numerically one and the same For that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two things whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound as such including in it several parts compounding it And a simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if a Man while alive be one Person and his Soul after his Death be a Person too it is impossible for the Soul to be one and the same Person with the Man And then for the other part of the Disjunction To Assert That they are two distinct Persons is as Absurd as the other as drawing after it this Consequence viz. That it is one Person who lives well or ill in this World to wit the Man Himself while he was personally in the Body and another Person who passes out of the Body into Heaven or Hell there to be rewarded or punished at least till the Resurrection for what that other Person had done well or ill here upon Earth And does not this look mightily agreeable to all the Principles of Reason and Divinity Nevertheless so much is certain That wheresoever there are two distinct Persons we do and must by all the Rules of Grammar and Logick say That one of them is not the other and where one is not the other we cannot in Truth or Justice say That one ought to account for what was done or not done by the other But then if it be intolerably Absurd as no doubt it is That the Soul in the other World should not be responsible for what the Man himself in Person had done in this then it is altogether as Absurd and Intolerable for any one to represent and speak of these Things under such Terms and Notions as must necessarily throw all Discourse and Reasoning about them into Paradox and Confusion But 't is needless to insist any longer upon a thing so clear or to add any other Arguments in so plain a Case And indeed to me the Soul 's thus changing its state forwards and backwards from one manner of Subsistence to another looks very odd and unnatural As that from an Incomplete state in the Body it should pass to a Personal and Complete state out of the Body which state is yet preternatural to it and then fall back into an Incomplete state again by its re-union to the Body at the Resurrection which yet one would think should rather improve our principal parts in all respects not merely relating to the Animal Life as the bare Subsistence of them I am sure does not These things I say seem very uncouth and improbable and such as ought not without manifest Necessity to be allowed of which here does not appear since all this Inconvenience may be avoided by holding That the Soul continues but a Part of the whole Person and no more in all its Conditions And thus having proved our Assertion against the Personality of the Soul Whether in the Body or out of it let us now see what may be opposed to it And here I suppose some will object That the Soul in a state of Separation is not properly a Part forasmuch as it exists not in any Compound nor goes to the Composition of it To which I answer That an Actual Inexistence in a Compound is not the onely Condition which makes a Thing a Part but its Essential Relation to a Compound
Reason of it is with equal mistake and impertinence alledged by him in this case For he might and should have known That personal Acts are often ascribed to Faculties Vertues and Graces not in strict propriety of Philosophical speaking but Tropically and Figuratively by a Figure which he shall hear further of hereafter called Prosopopoeia which represents Things that are not Persons speaking and doing as if they were so But besides this there are here two Things which this Author takes for granted which yet such dull Mortals as my self will be apt a little to demurr to As First That he takes the Mind and the Soul of Man for one and the same thing whereas very Learned Men both Grammarians and Philosophers hold That in Men there is a great difference between Animus and Anima and that as Anima imports the Spiritual Substance which we call the Soul so Animus signifies only a Power or Faculty viz. The Supreme Intellectual Reasoning Governing Faculty of the Soul or at least the Soul it self considered as exerting the forementioned Acts. But whether it be one or the other we have sufficiently proved against this Author That neither of them can be a Person The other Thing here supposed by him is the Unity or Sameness of the Powers or Faculties of the Soul with the Soul it self which yet the Peripateticks generally and most of the School-men with Thomas Aquinas in the Head of them do positively deny and think they give very good Reason for such their Denial For if Substances and Accidents are Beings really distinct and if Qualities be Accidents and the Powers and Faculties of the Soul come under the second Species of Quality as Aristotle reckons them then it is manifest that they are really distinguished and that there is no Identity between them Nor does there want a further Reason for the same For since the bare Substance or Essence of the Soul considered nakedly in it self may rationally be supposed undetermined and therefore Indifferent to all those Acts or Actions that naturally proceed from it and since withal bare Objects can of themselves neither enable nor dispose the Agent to exert any Action there seems a Necessity of asserting the Intervention of some Third Thing distinct from both which may thus enable dispose and determine the Soul to exert it self in such a particular way of acting rather than another sutably to the several Objects which shall come before it which thing is properly that Quality residing in the Soul which we call a Faculty or Power And this to me seems the true Philosophy of the matter But I need not here press the Decision of the Case one way or other as not directly affecting the Point in debate between us Only I thought fit to suggest these Remarks to check this Author 's bold unwary way of dictating and affirming in things disputable and dubious and to remind him how much it becomes and concerns one that writes Controversies to be more liberal in his Proofs and less lavish in his Assertions But before I quit this Point about the Personality of the Soul since this Author has so absolutely and expresly affirmed That the Soul or Mind of Man is a Person and given this for the Reason of it That being the Superiour Governing Power in Man it does as such Constitute the Person over and above the Arguments which have been already brought for the Confutation of it I desire to leave with him two or three Questions which seem naturally to rise from this Wonderful Position As First Whether the Soul or Mind of Man be one Person and the Man himself Another Secondly Whether the asserting of the Soul to be a Person because it Constitutes the Person does not infer so much viz. That the Soul is the Person that Constitutes and the Man the Person that is Constituted unless we will say That the Soul Constitutes it self a Person And then Thirdly Whether to say or assert this does not infer Two distinct Personalities in the same Soul one in order of Nature before the other viz. That by which it is it self formally a Person and that other which by its Constituting it self a Person is Constituted and caused by it But since it is too hard a Task to drain any one Absurdity especially a very great one so as to draw forth and represent all its naturally descending Consequences I desire the Author with the utmost if Impartial strictness to compare the foregoing Questions with his own Assertion and to see First Whether they do not directly spring from it And next Whether the Matter couched under the said Questions if drawn out into so many Positive Propositions would not afford as many Intolerable Defiances to Common Sense Reason and Philosophy But thus it is when Men will be Writing at Thirty and scarce Thinking till Threescore But to proceed and shew That it is not only the Soul or Mind of Man which our Author dignifies with the Name and Nature of a Person but that he has almost as free an hand in making every thing he meets with a Person as K. Charles the Second had in making almost every Person he met with a Knight So that it was very dangerous for any one who had an Aversion to Knighthood to come in his way our Author out of the like Over-flowing Communicative Goodness and Liberality is graciously pleased to take even the Beasts themselves into the Rank and Order of Persons in some imitation I suppose of the Discreet and Humble Caligula so famous in History for making his Horse Consul And for this Let us cast our Eyes upon Page 262. where he has these words worthy in sempiternam rei memoriam to be wrote in Letters of Gold A Beast says he which has no Rational Soul but only an Animal Life as a Man has together with an Humane Soul is a Person or Suppositum or what you will please to call it But by your favour Good Sir the Matter is not so indifferent for Person and Suppositum are by no means the same Thing and I pity you with all my heart that you should think so For any single Complete Nature actually subsisting by it self is properly a Suppositum but not therefore a Person For as Subsistence superadded to Nature Constitutes a Suppositum so Rationality added to Suppositality Constitutes a Person which is therefore properly defined Suppositum Rationale or Intelligens as we have sufficiently shewn already in our Second Chapter So that to call a Beast a Person is all one as to call it a Rational Brute Which this Author who can so easily reconcile Contradictions or which may serve him as well swallow them may do if he pleases and so stand alone by himself in this as well as he says he had done in some other Things But others who think themselves obliged to use Philosophical Terms only as Philosophers intended them dare not venture to speak thus for fear Aristotle should bring an
Created and Finite Persons I shall now proceed to the Consideration of what he says of it with reference to the three Persons in the Glorious God-head And this I shall do under these following Heads which shall be the Subjects of five distinct Chapters As First I shall treat of his two new Notions viz. of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness and shew That Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in the three Divine Persons nor Mutual-Consciousness the Reason of their Unity in one and the same Nature And this we have here allotted for the business and Subject of this 4th Chapter Secondly I shall prove That the Three Divine Persons of the Godhead are not Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits in the 5th Chapter Thirdly I shall Consider what this Author pretends to from the Authority of the Fathers and School-men in behalf of his New invented Hypothesis and shew That they speak nothing at all for it or towards it And this shall make the 6th and 7th Chapters Fourthly I shall set down the Ancient and generally received Doctrine of the Church and Schools concerning the Article of the Trinity and Vindicate it from this Author's Exceptions in the 8th Chapter And when I shall have discussed and gone over these Particulars I cannot imagine what can be found Considerable in this his Book so far as I have undertook it but what will have received hereby a full and sufficient Answer Though when all is done I confess I have some further Complements to make to this Author upon some other Accounts though still occasioned by this Work of his which I should be extremely wanting both to him and the Cause now before me should I not with all due Address pass upon him And this will add three or four Chapters more to the former and so conclude this Work And First To begin with the first of these I shall endeavour to prove That Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in the Three Divine Persons In order to which I shall premise and lay down these following Considerations Consideration 1. That although the Divine Nature be one Pure Simple Indivisible Act yet in our Conceptions of it which are always inadequate to it there is a Natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the Universal Reason of Things according to which the Conception of one Thing presupposes and depends upon the Conception of another which though it can make no Prius or Posterius in the Divine Nature yet is by no means to be contradicted or confounded in our discoursing of God forasmuch as without our admitting this Rule it is impossible for any Humane Understanding either to Conceive or Discourse consistently or intelligibly of Him at all Consideration 2. Which I think affords us a Rule safely and universally to be relied upon is this That in Things having a dependence between them where we may form to our selves a clear and distinct Conception of one Thing without implying or involving in it the Conception of any other Thing there that Thing is in Order of Nature precedent to all those Things which are not essentially included in the Conception of it Thus for instance we may have a clear and distinct Conception of Entity and Being and of Unity too without entertaining in our Mind at the same time any Notion or Conception of knowledge at all and therefore the Ratio Entitativa of any Thing must needs in Nature precede the Ratio Cognitiva as well as Cognoscibilis of the same Consideration 3. We must distinguish between the Affections or Modes of Being as they are strictly so called and between the Attributes of it The first sort are reckoned of the same Order with Being it self and so precede whatsoever is consequent upon it as the Attributes of it are accounted to be which relate to the Being or Subject they belong to as things in Order of Nature Posterior to it Accordingly in the first rank are Existence Subsistence Personality c. and in the second are all Acts issuing from a Nature or Subject so Subsisting whether they be of Knowledge Volition Power Duration or the like The Denominations derived from which are properly called Attributes Consideration 4. Though there can be no Accidents inhering in God yet there may be Accidental Predications belonging to him And I call those Accidental which are not Necessary or Essential Such as are all Extrinsecal Denominations of him founded on such Acts of God as were perfectly free for him to do or not to do nothing in the Divine Nature obliging him thereto Of which number are the Denominations or Predicates of Creatour Redeemer and the like Since there was nothing in God that made it necessary for him to be so Consideration 5. When the Terms Cause Formal Reason Constituent or productive Principle and the like are used about the Divine Nature and Persons they are not to be understood as applicable to them in the strict and proper signification of the said Terms but only by way of Analogy as really meaning no more than a Causal or Necessary Dependence of one Notion or Conceptus objectivus upon another so that it is impossible for the Mind to Conceive distinctly of the one but as depending upon or proceeding from the other Consideration 6. That the Divine Nature may with all fair Accord to the Rules of Divinity and Philosophy be Considered as Prescinding or Abstracting though not as divided from the Divine Persons Consideration 7. That whatsoever is Essentially included in the Divine Nature thus Considered is equally Common and Communicable to all the Divine Persons Consideration 8. That whatsoever is the proper Formal Reason of Personality is utterly Incommunicable to any Thing or Person beyond or beside the Person to whom it belongs Consideration 9. That for any Absolute Perfection essentially included or implyed in the Divine Nature to be multiplyed in the Three Persons belonging to it is a manifest Multiplication of the Divine Nature it self in the said Persons By which we are given to understand the difference between the Multiplication and the Communication of the Divine Nature to those Persons These Rules I thought fit to draw up and lay down before-hand in order to the use which we shall have of them in the ensuing Disputation And so I proceed to my Arguments against this Author's New Notion of Self-Consciousness with reference to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity And the First is This Argument I. No Personal Act can be the formal Reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is But Self-Consciousness is a Personal Act and therefore Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal Reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is and to whom personally it belongs The Minor I suppose neither our Author Himself nor any one else can deny For if Self-Consciousness be not a Personal Act let any one assign what else it is or what it ought to pass for It is certainly an Act of
the God-head it self but that there might be Three Thousand Persons in it as well as Three But how then comes there to be only Three Why upon these grounds no other Reason can be assigned for it but only that it was God's free Determination that there should be Three and no more And then the Trinity of Persons must be an Effect of God's Will and not a Necessary Condition of the Divine Nature and the further Consequence of this must be that the three Persons are Three Created Beings as proceeding from the free Results of God's Will by vertue whereof they equally might or might not have been But on the contrary our Author himself holds Page 129. line 13. That the Three Persons are Essential to the Divine Nature and so Essential to it that they necessarily belong to it in this number and can be neither more nor fewer than Three And if this be so I am sure it is a Contradiction that it should be otherwise for it is a Contradiction that it should not be which necessarily is and cannot but be But now I have proved that there is no Repugnancy or Contradiction to the Nature of Things considered barely according to their Nature that three thousand Self-Conscious Minds or Spirits should subsist in the Godhead any more than that three such Spirits should so subsist And therefore if it be Absurd and Impossible as undoubtedly it is that so many Persons should belong to the Divine Nature then must the Reason of this Absurdity be fetched from some other Thing than either from Self-Consciousness with reference to the Divine Nature or from the Divine Nature considered in it self abstractedly from all Actual Personality for these as we have shewn afford no sufficient Proof of this Absurdity And therefore I say some other Reason must be found out and assigned against it And accordingly let this Author produce such an one whatsoever it be as shall solidly and conclusively prove That there cannot be Three Thousand Self-Conscious Persons belonging to the Godhead and that from the Nature of the Thing it self as several such Reasons may be brought and I will undertake to him to prove by the very same Reason and Argument as Conclusively That Self-Consciousness is not cannot be the Formal Reason of Personality in the Three Divine Persons of the Trinity In the mean time by that kind of Arguing which is called Deductio ad Absurdum I have sufficiently disproved it by shewing what an Intolerable Absurdity must follow the Asserting it Argument IV. The Fourth and Last Argument shall proceed thus If Three distinct Self-Conciousnesses Formally Constitute Three distinct Personalities then Three distinct Self-Complacencies will Constitute Three distinct Personalities too But our Author Isuppose will not allow of the latter and therefore neither ought he to assert the former The Consequence is plain Because there is no Reason alleagable according to our Author's Hypothesis why Self-Complacency may not found a Personality as well as Sels-Consciousness For they are both of them equally distinct Internal Acts in the Person whom they belong to and as to the Formal Effect of each an Act of Self-Complacency seems to have the Preheminence since it is a greater Perfection to be United to an Infinite Good that is to the Deity by way of Love and Adhesion than barely by way of knowledge and Intellection And Self-Complacency is the former whereas Self-Consciousness rises no higher than the latter And consequently since Self-Complacency is the more Perfective Act of the two knowledge of good being still in order to the Love of it and since withall Personality is the most perfect way of Subsisting which any Nature is capable of it seems most rational to derive the perfectest way of Subsistence belonging to an Intelligent Being from the most Perfective Act of that Being if from any Act at all And now if this Author should Object That Self-Complacency is in Order of Nature Subsequent to Self-Consciousness and so that there cannot be the same ground to make it the Formal Reason of Personality that there is to make Self-Consciousness so I Answer That according to my Principle whereby I deny Self-Consciousness to be the Reason of Personality because it is postnate to Self-Subsistence it is indeed a good Reason but according to our Author's Hypothesis it is none at all For if the Priority of Self-Subsistence to Self-Consciousness according to him hinders not but that Self-Consciousness may nevertheless be the Principle or Reason of Personality why should the precedency of Self-Consciousness to Self-Complacency hinder Self-Complacency from being as proper a Reason or Principle to found Personality upon as the other All this I alledge only as an Argument ad Hominem and desire this Author to consider if any one should borrow some of that Boldness of him by which he dissents from all Antiquity and confidently averr That Self-Complacency is the Proper formal Reason of Personality in each and every one of the Divine Persons I would have him I say consider by what Reason or Argument consistent with his New Opinion he could Confute this other New Assertion For my own part since I think as much may be said for the one as for the other I am ready to set up for Self-Complacency against his Self-Consciousness when he pleases and will undertake to give as good Reasons for my Notion as he can sor his and perhaps better let him begin and enter into the Dispute as soon as he will And as I shall oppose my Self-Complacency to his Self-Consciousness so I shall find out a Mutual-Complacency to Vye against his Mutual-Consciousness too And if any one should here object That this and the like Disputes are of that Nature that the World is not like to be much Edified by them I perhaps think so as much as he But that is no great matter since our Author is of so very Benign a Temper That he does not always Write only for the Reader 's Edification but sometimes for his Diversion too Having thus given my Reasons against this Author's New Notion of Self-Consciousness both with reference to Persons Create and Uncreate and proved That it neither is nor can be the Formal Reason of Personality in either of them I shall now pass to his other New Notion of Mutual-Consciousness whereby those Persons who were distinguished from one another by their respective Self-Consciousnesses are United and made one in Nature by vertue of this Mutual-Consciousness Concerning which Notion also I must profess my self in the number of those who are by no means satisfied with it as of any such peculiar Efficacy to the use and purpose it is here brought for And there are sufficient Reasons against it In giving of which as I must acknowledge That that one Consideration of the Priority of Being whether Essentially or Personally considered together with the first Modes and Affections of it to any Act of Knowledge Attributable to the said Being is the Fundamental
for representing the vanity of his Hypothesis by the forementioned Example and Comparison But I hope the World will give me leave to distinguish between Things Sacred and his Absurd Phantastick way of treating of them which I can by no means look upon as Sacred nor indeed any Thing else in his whole Book but the bare Subject it treats of and the Scriptures there quoted by him For to speak my thoughts plainly I believe this Sacred Mystery of the Trinity was never so ridiculed and exposed to the Contempt of the Profane Scoffers at it as it has been by this New-fashioned Defence of it And so I dismiss his two so much Admired Terms by himself I mean as in no degree answering the Expectation he raised of them For I cannot find That they have either heightned or strength'ned Men's Intellectual Faculties or cast a greater light and clearness upon that Object which has so long exercised them but that a Trinity in Unity is as Mysterious as ever and the Mind of Man as unable to grasp and comprehend it as it has been from the beginning of Christianity to this day In a word Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness have rendred nothing about the Divine Nature and Persons plainer easier and more Intelligible nor indeed after such a mighty stress so irrationally laid upon two slight empty words have they made any thing but the Author himself better understood than it was before CHAP. V. In which is proved against this Author That the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits IT being certain both from Philosophy and Religion that there is but one only God or God-head in which Christian Religion has taught us That there are Three Persons Many Eminent Professors of it have attempted to shew how one and the same Nature might Subsist in Three Persons and how the said Three Persons might meet in one and make no more than one simple undivided Nature It had been to be wished I confess that Divines had rested in the bare Expressions delivered in Scripture concerning this Mystery and ventured no further by any particular and bold Explications of it But since the Nature or rather Humour of Man has been still too strong for his Duty and his Curiosity especially in things Sacred been apt to carry him too far those however have been all along the most pardonable who have ventured least and proceeded upon the surest grounds both of Scripture it self and of Reason discoursing upon it And such I affirm the Ancient Writers and Fathers of the Church and after them the School-men to have been who with all their Faults or rather Infelicities caused by the Times and Circumstances they lived in are better Divines and Soberer Reasoners than any of those Pert Confident Raw Men who are much better at Despising and Carping at them than at Reading and Understanding them Though Wise Men Despise nothing but they will know it first and for that Cause very rationally despise them But among those who leaving the Common Road of the Church have took a By-way to themselves none of late Years especially have ventured so boldly and so far as this Author who pretending to be more happy forsooth in his Explication of this Mystery than all before him as who would not believe a Man in his own Commendation and to give a more satisfactory Account of this long received and Revered Article by Terms perfectly New and peculiarly his own has advanced quite different Notions about this Mystery from any that our Church was ever yet acquainted with Affirming as he does That the Three Persons in the God-head are Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits as will appear from the several places of his Book where he declares his Thoughts upon this great Subject As First in Page 50. he says The Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Infinite Minds really distinct from each other Again in Page 66. The Persons says he are perfectly distinct for they are Three distinct and Infinite Minds and therefore Three distinct Persons For a Person is an Intelligent Being and to say they are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct Infinite Minds is both Heresie and Nonsense For which extraordinary Complement passed upon the whole Body of the Church of England and perhaps all the Churches of Christendom besides as I have paid him part of my thanks already so I will not fail yet further to account with him before I put an end to this Chapter In the mean time he goes on in Page 102. I plainly assert says he That as the Father is an Eternal and Infinite Mind so the Son is an Eternal and Infinite Mind distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost is an Eternal and Infinite Mind distinct both from Father and Son Adding withall these words Which says he every Body can understand without any skill in Logick or Metaphysicks And this I confess is most truly and seasonably remarked by him For the want of this Qualification is so far from being any hindrance in the Case mentioned that I dare undertake that nothing but want of skill in Logick and Metaphysicks can bring any Man living who acknowledges the Trinity to own this Assertion I need repeat no more of his Expressions to this purpose these being sufficient to declare his Opinion save only that in Page 119. where he says That Three Minds or Spirits which have no other difference are yet distinguish'd by Self-Consciousness and are Three distinct Spirits And that other in Page 258. where speaking of the Three Persons I grant says he that they are Three Holy Spirits By the same Token that he there very Learnedly distinguishes between Ghost and Spirit allowing the said Three Persons as we have shewn to be Three Holy Spirits but at the same time denying them to be Three Holy Ghosts and this with great scorn of those who should hold or speak otherwise To which at present I shall say no more but this That he would do well to turn these two Propositions into Greek or Latin and that will presently shew him what difference and distinction there is between a Ghost and a Spirit and why the very same things which are affirmed of the one notwithstanding the difference of those words in English may not with the same Truth be affirmed of the other also But the Examination of this odd Assertion will fall in more naturally towards the latter end of this Chapter where it shall be particularly considered I have now shewn this Author's Judgment in the Point and in opposition to what he has so boldly Asserted and laid down I do here deny That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Three distinct Infinite Spirits And to overthrow his Assertion and evince the Truth of mine I shall trouble neither my Reader nor my self with many Arguments But of those which I shall make use of the first is this
That to assert that the Father and the Son differ in Substance is Arianism And yet if they were Two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible And as for the Greek Writers they never admit of Three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Deity but where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used to signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sometimes it was used And by reason of this Ambiguity it was that the Latin Church was so long fearful of using the word Hypostasis and used only that of Persona answering to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest they should hereby be thought to admit of Three Substances as well as Three Persons in the God-head Nor in the next place is the same less evident from Reason than we have shewn it to be from Authority For if the Three Persons be Three distinct Substances then Two distinct 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 that 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 Since for one and the same Substance to be Common to all Three Persons and withal to belong incommunicably to each of the Three and thereby to distinguish them from one another is Contradictious and Impossible And yet on the other side to assert Two distinct Substances in each Person is altogether as Absurd and that as upon many other Accounts so particularly upon this That it must infer such a Composition in the Divine Persons as is utterly Incompatible with the Absolute Simplicity and Infinite Perfection of the Divine Nature And therefore the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity can by no means be said to be Three distinct Substances but only one Infinite Substance equally Common to and Subsisting in them all and diversified by their respective Relations And moreover since Three distinct Minds or Spirits are Essentially Three distinct Substances neither can the Three Persons of the Trinity be said to be Three distinct Minds or Spirits which was the Point to be made out Argument III. My Third Argument against the same shall proceed thus 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 But it may be truly said That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit is Father Son and Holy Ghost and it cannot be truly said That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit is Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits Therefore the Three Persons in the Trinity viz. Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits This is the Argument Now the Consequence of the Major appears from this That the same Thing or Things at the same time and in the same respect cannot be truly affirmed and denied of the same Subject And therefore since Father Son and Holy Ghost taken joyntly together are truly predicated of one and the same Infinite Mind and Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits cannot be truly affirmed or predicated and consequently may be truly denied of the same it follows That Father Son and Holy Ghost and Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits neither are nor can be accounted the same nor be truly affirmable of one another As for the Minor it consists of two parts and accordingly must be proved severally in each of them And First That it is and may be truly said That one and the same Infinite Mind is Father Son and Holy Ghost viz. joyntly taken as I noted before This I say may be proved from hence That God is truly said to be Father Son and Holy Ghost still so taken And it having been already evinced That one Infinite Mind or Spirit and one God are terms convertible and equipollent it follows That whatsoever is truly affirmed or denied of the one may be as truly affirmed or denied of the other And this is too evident to need any further proof And therefore in the next place for the proof of the other part of the Minor viz. That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit cannot be truly said to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits This is no less evident than the former because in such a Proposition both Subject and Predicate imply a Mutual Negation of and Contradiction to one and another and where it is so it is impossible for one to be truly affirmed or predicated of the other And now after this plain proof given both of the Major and the Minor Proposition and this also drawn into so little a compass I hope this Author will not bear himself so much above all the Rules which other Mortals proceed by as after the Premises proved to deny the Conclusion viz. That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits The Affirmation of which is that which I undertook to confute But before I dismiss this Argument I cannot but take notice That the same Terms with a bare Transposition of them viz. by shifting place between the Predicate and the Subject which in Adequate and Commensurate Predications may very well be done will as effectually conclude to the same Purpose as they did in the way in which we have already proposed them And so the Argument will proceed thus If it be truly and properly said That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit then they cannot be truly said to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits But they are truly and properly said to be one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit And therefore they neither are nor can be truly said to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits The Consequence of the first Proposition is manifest because as we have shewn before one and the same Infinite Mind cannot be Three distinct Infinite Minds without a Contradiction in the Terms And for the Minor viz. That the Three Persons are truly said to be one Infinite Mind or Spirit That also is proved by this That all and every one of them are truly and properly said to be God and God is truly and properly one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit And therefore if the Three Persons are said to be the First they must be said to be this Latter also and that as I shew before because of the Reciprocal Predication of those Terms But as to the Matter before us That God is truly and properly one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit even this Author himself allows who in Page
would have kindled such a Fire for them as would have torrified them with a vengeance But as he has stocked the Church with such plenty of New Hereticks and all of his own making so could he by a sway of Power as Arbitrary as his Divinity provide for them also such a Furnace as that of Nebuchadnezzar whom in his Imperious Meen and Humour he so much resembles yet he must not think That the Sound and Iingle of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness how melodiously soever they may tinkle in his own Ears will ever be able to Charm Me◠over to the Worship of his Idol or make them Sacrifice their Reason and Religion either to Him or to the New Notions which he has set up And indeed I cannot but here further declare that to me it seems one of the most preposterous and unreasonable things in Nature for any one first to assert Three Gods and when he has so wel furnished the World with Deities to expect that all Mankind should fall down and Worship Him CHAP. VI. In which is Considered What this Author pretends to from the Authority of the Fathers and School men in behalf of his Hypothesis and shewn in the first place That neither do the Fathers own the Three Divine Persons to be Three Distinct Infinite Minds nor Self-Consciousness to be the Formal Reason of their Distinction I Have in the foregoing Chapters debated the Point with this Author upon the Reason and Nature of the Thing it self But that is not all which he pretends to defend his Cause by endeavouring to countenance it also with great Authorities and that in these positive and remarkable words This is no New Notion says he but the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools Page 101. These are his very words and I desire the Reader carefully to consider and carry them along with him in his Memory For as they are as positive as Confidence can make them so if they are not made good to the utmost they ought severely to recoil upon any one who shall presume to express himself at such a Rate And now that we may do him all the right that may be The way to know whether this Author's Hypothesis be the Constant Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools is in the first place truly and fairly to set down what this Author's Doctrine is and wherein it does consist as we shall declare what the received Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools is in our Eighth Chapter Now we shall find That the whole Doctrine delivered by him concerning the Blessed Trinity is comprehended under and reducible to these four Heads First That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits Secondly That Self-Consciousness is the Formal Reason of Personality and consequently that each of the Divine Persons is such by a distinct Self-Consciousness properly and peculiarly belonging to him Thirdly That the Three Divine Persons being thus distinguished from one another by a distinct Self-Consciousness proper to each of them are all United in one and the same Nature by one Mutual Consciousness Common to them all And Fourthly and Lastly That a Trinity in Unity and an Unity in Trinity by this Explication and Account given of it is a very Plain Easie and Intelligible Notion These four Heads or Particulars I say contain in them a full and fair representation of this Author 's whole Hypothesis concerning the Oeconomy of the Blessed Trinity And I am well assured That the knowing and Impartial Reader neither will nor can deny that they do so In the next place therefore that we may see how far our Author makes good all the said Particulars by the Authority of the Fathers as he has peremptorily promised and undertook to do I think it requisite to consider how the Fathers expressed themselves upon this Subject and how this Author brings the said Expressions to his purpose For surely the natural way of knowing any Writer's Mind is by the Words and Expressions which he pretends to deliver his Mind by But concerning these we have our Author declaring First That he has not troubled his Reader with the signification of Essence Hypostasis Substance Subsistence Person Existence Nature c. Pag. 101. and some of his Readers could give him a very good Reason why though I fear too true for him to be pleased with But the Reasons which he himself alledges for his not troubling his Readers either with these Terms or the Explication of them are First That they were very differently used by the Fathers themselves Page 101. And be it so yet still for all that used by them they were and that not so very differently neither the chief difference having been about the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet was fairly accorded and well high setled between the Greeks and the Latines before the end of the 6th Century as shall be further made to appear in our Eighth Chapter And his next Reason for his not troubling his Reader forsooth with these Terms is Because they have as he tells us very much obscured the Doctrine of the Trinity instead of explaining it Page 101. which being one of the chief Things which he might conclude would assuredly be disputed with Him for Him thus to presume it before he had proved it is manifestly to beg the Question In the mean time certain it is That these and these only were the Terms which the Father 's used in their Disputes about the Trinity and by which they managed them and consequently were they never so Ambiguous Faulty or Improper as they are much the contrary yet whosoever will pretend to give the Sence of the Fathers must have recourse to them and do it by them and to do otherwise would be to dispute at Rovers or as the word is to speak without Book which may much better become our Author in the Pulpit than in the management of such a Controversie And now let the Reader whom he is so fearful of troubling with any Thing that is to the Purpose judge Whether this Man has not took a most extraordinary way of proving his Doctrine the very same with the Fathers For neither in the first place does he set down what the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning the Trinity was which yet one would have thought was absolutely necessary for the shewing how his own Doctrine agreed with it which he professed to be his design Nor in the next place does he either use or regard or offer to explain those Terms which the Fathers all along delivered that their Doctrine in but is so far from it That he reproaches explodes and utterly rejects them as serving only to obscure this Doctrine instead of explaining it Which in my poor Judgment is such a way of proving the Fathers on his side as perhaps the World never heard of before and will be amazed at now But it is his way and it will
not be long before we find him bestowing a like cast of his Kindness upon the School-men too But since notwithstanding all this He allows the Fathers good Men to have meant well and taught right albeit by reason of a certain Infelicity and Awkwardness they had in representing what they meant by what they wrote their meaning ought by no means to be gathered from their own words as possibly also for the introducing a new and laudable Custom amongst the Fathers and Sons of the Church that the Sons must teach the Fathers to speak our Author has for these and the like Reasons in great Charity and Compassion to their Infirmities provided two other and better words of his own Invention viz. Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness by which alone the True Sense and Doctrine of the Fathers in all their Writings about this Article of the Trinity may or can be understood Nevertheless how kind soever this design of his may be yet to me it seems very unreasonable For in the first place it is upon the most allowed grounds of Reason a just and a sufficient Presumption that the Fathers were wholly Strangers to what our Author intends by these two words for that they never so much as mention or make use of the words themselves Whereas to be Self-Conscious and Mutually-Conscious were things no doubt easie enough not only for the Fathers but for any Man else of Common Sense to find out and understand and they might also without much difficulty have been applyed to the Divine Nature as well as other Acts of Knowledge and therefore since the Fathers never used them in this case it is but too plain that they never thought them fit or proper for this purpose For the Arian Controversie was then viz. in the 4th and 5th Centuries in which also the most Eminent of the Fathers wrote against it at the Highest Among which Writers Gregory Nyssen whom this Author so often quotes has a Passage which in this case is to me very remarkable and a Rational ground to conclude that he knew nothing of Mutual-Consciousness as it is here applyed by this Author For that speaking of the Unity of the Divine Persons in respect of one Common though Single Nature he expresses it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of which certainly he could not have chosen a more apposite and proper place to have expressed the same by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had that Father had the same Notion of it which this Author so much contends for But it seems he was either less Happy or more judicious in this Particular And besides all this it is most worthy to be Noted That the very Terms in which the Orthodox Writers expressed themselves about the Trinity and whatsoever related to it were severely canvased and examined and some of them settled by Councils which is a fair proof that the said Terms were fixed and authentick and exclusive of all others and consequently of those of this Author as well as of the Notion signified by and couched under them which he would here with such Confidence obtrude upon the World by and from the Credit of the Fathers though their Writings demonstrate that they were wholly unconcerned both as to his Doctrines and his Expressions Nor can any Want or Penury of words be here pleaded for their silence in this Matter since the Greek being so happy above all other Languages in joyning and compounding words together in all probability had the Fortunes of Greece as the word is been concerned in the case we might have heard of some such words as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or since most such words as in English terminate in ness usually in the Greek terminate in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 possibly we might have met with some such made-words as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since these do more properly import Consciousness than the former which rather signifie Self-Conscience and Mutual-Conscience and so in strictness of Speech differ something from the other But he who seeks in the Greek Fathers for these words or any thing like them as applyed to the Trinity may seek longer than his Eyes can see Nor will his Inquest succeed at all better amongst the Latines For although that Language be extremely less copious than the other and so affords no one Latine word either for Self-Consciousness or Mutual Consciousness but what we must first make and being made would sound very barbarously yet no doubt there were ways and words enough to have otherwise expressed the same thing had they found it the fittest and best Notion to have expressed this great Article by But no such thing or word occurs in any of their Writings But why do I speak of the Greek and Latine Fathers When the very Schoolmen the boldest Framers and Inventors of Words and Terms of all others where they think them necessary to express their Conceptions by notwithstanding all their Quiddities Hoecceities and Perseities and the like have yet no word for Self-Consciousness and Mutual Consciousness which is a sufficient Demonstration that either the thing it self never came into their Heads or which is most likely that they never thought it of any use for the explication of this Mystery which yet they venture further at than any other Writers whatsoever But after all though this Author is very much concerned to ward off the charge of Novelty and Singularity from his Notions for which I cannot blame him this being a charge sufficient to confound and crush any such Notion applyed to so Sacred and received an Article as the Trinity and for this cause is not a little desirous to shelter it with the Authority of the Fathers yet I assure the Reader That he is no less careful and concerned to keep the Glory of the Invention wholly to himself and would take it very ill either of Fathers School-men or any one else should they offer to claim the least share in it For he roundly tells us That the Fathers were not so happy as to hit upon his way of explaining this Mystery Page 126. Line 5. nay and that how right a Judgement soever they might have of it yet in down-right Terms That they knew not how to explain it Page 126. Line 18. which I confess is no small Complement passed upon himself a thing which he is seldom or never failing in but in good earnest a very course one upon the Fathers In short he would appropriate the Credit of the New Invention entirely to himself but with admirable and more than Metaphysical Abstraction at the same time clear himself of the Novelty of it and so in a word prove it of at least 12 or 13 hundred years standing in the World when yet the Author of it was Born since Conventicles began in England as is well known But I frankly yield him the Invention as perfectly his own and such an one too as he
For though the Three Divine Persons differ as really yet it is certain that they do not differ as much But what the Fathers alledged only as an Illustration of the Case this Man is pleased to make a direct proof of his Point which by his Favour is to stretch it a little too far For if he would make the foregoing Example a Parallel Instance to the Thing which he applies it to it would prove a great deal too much as has been shewn and therefore as to the Thing which it is brought for does indeed prove nothing at all Now the Thing it is brought to prove is That the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits but since we have shewn That a Real Difference or Distinction may be much short of such an one as is between two or more Minds or Spirits which we own to be as great as between two or more Men it follows That the Real Difference which is between the Three Divine Persons cannot prove them to be so many distinct Minds or Spirits In short our Author 's whole Argument amounts to no more but this which though it may sound something jocularly is really and strictly true viz. That because Peter Iames and Iohn are so many Men therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are so many Minds A pleasant way of Arguing certainly I have now examined all that this Author has alledged about the distinction of the Three Divine Persons and I have done it particularly and exactly not omitting any one of his Quotations But how comes it to pass all this while that we have not so much as one Syllable out of the Fathers or School-men in behalf of Self-Consciousness Which being according to this Author the Constituent Reason of the Personality and Personal Distinction of the Three Divine Persons will he pretend to prove the Distinction it self from the Fathers and at the same time not speak one Tittle of the Principle or Reason of this Distinction Or will he profess to prove his whole Hypothesis by the Authority of the Fathers and yet be silent of Self-Consciousness which he himself makes one grand and principal part of the said Hypothesis Certainly one would think that the very shame of the World and that Common Awe and regard of Truth which Nature has imprinted upon the Minds of Men should keep any one from offering to impose upon Men in so gross and shameless a manner as to venture to call a Notion or Opinion the Constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools nay and to profess to make it out and shew it to be so and while he is so doing not to to produce one Father or Schoolman I say again not so much as one of either in behalf of that which he so confidently and expresly avows to be the joynt Sentiment of Both. This surely is a way of proving or rather of imposing peculiar to Himself But we have seen how extremely fond he is of this new Invented Term and Notion And therefore since he will needs have the Reputation of being the sole Father and Begetter of the Hopefull Issue there is no Reason in the World that Antiquity should find other Fathers to maintain it CHAP. VII In which is shewn That the Passages alledged by this Author out of the Fathers do not prove Mutual-Consciousness to be that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does Consist But that the Fathers place it in something else OUR Author having undertook to make good his Doctrine about the Blessed Trinity from the Fathers and that both as to the Distinction of the Divine Persons and also as to their Unity in the same Nature And having said what he could from those Ancient Writers for that new sort of Distinction which he ascribes to the said Persons in the former part of his 4th Section which I have confuted in the preceding Chapter he proceeds now in the following and much longer part of the same Section to prove the Unity of the Three Persons in one and the same Nature according to his own Hypothesis And the Proofs of this we shall reduce under these Two following Heads as containing all that is alledged by him upon this point of his Discourse viz. First That it is one and the same Numerical Divine Nature which belongs to all the Three Divine Persons And Secondly That the Thing wherein this Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature does consist is that Mutual-Consciousness by which all the Three Persons are intimately Conscious to one another of all that is known by or belongs to each of them in particular And here the Authority of the Fathers is pleaded by him for both of these and I readily grant it for the first but however shall examine what this Author produces for the one as well as for the other But before I do this I must observe to him That if that Distinction Asserted by him between the Divine Persons whereby they stand distinguished as Three Infinite Minds or Spirits holds good all his proofs of the Unity of their Nature will come much too late For he has thereby already destroyed the very Subject of his Discourse and it is in vain to seek wherein the Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature as it belongs to the Three Persons does Consist after he has affirmed that which makes such an Unity utterly impossible And it has been sufficiently proved against him in our 5th Chapter That Three Infinite Minds or Spirits can never be one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit nor consequently one God Three distinct Spirits can never be otherwise One than by being United into one Compound or Collective Being which could such a Thing be admitted here might be called indeed an Union but an Unity properly it could not And hereupon I cannot but observe also That this Author very often uses these Terms promiscuously as if Union and Unity being United into One and being One signified the very same Thing whereas in strictness and propriety of Speech whatsoever Things are United into One cannot be Originally One and è Converso whatsoever is Originally One cannot be so by being United into One for as Suidas explains the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Union is so called from the pressing or thrusting together several Things into one But our Author who with great profoundness tells us of the same Nature in Three distinct Persons being United into One Numerical Essence or God-head Page 118. Lines 9 10. has certainly a different Notion of Union from all the World besides For how one and the same Nature though in never so many distinct Persons since it is still supposed the same in all can be said to be United into any one Thing I believe surpasses all Humane Apprehension to conceive Union in the very Nature of it being of several Things not of one and the same I desire the Reader to consult the place and
to extract the best sense out of it that he can And thus having presented our Author with this Preliminary Observation I shall now proceed to consider how he acquits himself in the first Thing undertook by him viz. The proving a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons out of the Fathers which tho' I do as readily grant and as firmly believe as this Author does or can yet I think it worth while to shew with what Skill Decency and Respect he Treats the Fathers upon this Subject And here in the first place he tells his Reader That this being a Mystery so great and above all Example in Nature it is no wonder if the Fathers found it necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head And withall That they take several steps towards the Explication of this great Mystery viz. of an Unity of Nature in a Trinity of Persons page 106. In our Examination of which Passages reserving his former words to be considered elsewhere we will first consider the steps which he says the Fathers made towards the Explication of this Mistery And these he tells us are Two First The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Coessentiality of the Divine Persons whereby all the Three Persons of the God-head have the same Nature Page 106. Secondly the other is a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence or Nature Page 121. Line 6. which to answer one Greek word with another we may call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Cyril authorizing the Expression whom we find speaking of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Ammonius Cites him in his Catena upon Iohn 17. 11 21. Now as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature and this Numerical Unity of Nature lying fifteen whole Pages in this Author's Book distant from one another must be confessed to make a very large stride so for all that they will be found to make but an insignificant step as setting a Man not one jot further than he was before For as touching those Words and Terms which the Fathers used to express the Unity of the Divine Nature by I do here without any demurr affirm to this Author That Coessentiality Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence all signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also Unity of Nature and Unity of Essence expressed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do all of them in the sense of the Fathers denote but one and the same Thing viz. A Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature only I confess with some Circumstantial Difference as to the way or manner of their signification For 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Unity of Nature with a Connotation of some Things or Persons to whom it belongs Upon which Account it is that St. Ambrose whom this Author cites speaking of this word in his 3d Book Chap. 7. tells us That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliud alii non ipsum est sibi Nor indeed is any Thing said to be the same but with respect to some Thing or Circumstance besides it self And therefore no wonder if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was anciently rejected since the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to the Person whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs to must import a Singularity of Person as well as an Unity of Essence which would be contrary to the Catholick Faith But 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Unity of Nature or Essence without Connotation of any to whom it belongs Not but that it does really and indeed belong to the Three Divine Persons but that according to the strict and proper signification and force of the word it does not connote or imply them but abstracts or prescinds from them And this is a true Account of these words by which the Fathers without making more steps than one intended and meant the same Thing viz. a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature belonging to all the Three Persons only with this difference That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Unity of the Divine Nature with a Connotation of the Persons in whom it is which also gives it the Denomination of Sameness and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Unity of the same Nature absolutely and abstractedly without imploying or co-signifying any respect to those in whom it is and to whom it belongs So that these words as much Two as they are yet in the sense and meaning of the Fathers import but one and the same Unity But our Author tells us That though indeed the Fathers own an Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons yet since there is a Specifick as well as a Numerical Unity the Dispute is here which of these two Unities we shall assign to the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons And for this He tells us That Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved That the Nicene Fathers did not understand the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Numerical but of a Specifical Sameness of Nature or the agreement of Things Numerically different from one another in the same Common Nature Page 106. about the end In Answer to which I must confess my self very unfit to take such Great and Truly Learned Persons to task and that upon comparing this Author and Petavius together if there can be any comparison between them I find much more Reason to believe that he mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers But however I shall lay down this as a Conclusion which I take to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Ancient Fathers as well the Nicene as those after them held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity That is in other words They held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This Conclusion I hold and have good reason to believe That neither Petavius nor Dr. Cudworth shall be able to wrest it from me For the chief Reason of some Men's charging the Fathers with holding a Specifick Unity of Nature amongst the Divine Persons is drawn from this That some of them and particularly Maximus and Nyssen cited by this Author seem to argue from that Specifick Unity of Nature which is found in several Individual Men to an Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity To which I Answer That the Fathers never used the Example of Three or more Individual Men agreeing in the same Nature as a Parallel Instance of the same sort or degree of Unity with that which is in the Three Divine Persons but
if not absolutely Notional and depends upon the Operation of the Intellect drawing one common Notion from the agreement which it observes in several Individuals is by no means necessary to make the Three Divine Persons One God nor can any way properly belong to them But a Specifick Unity is such an one And therefore it neither is nor can be necessary to the making the Three Divine Persons One God as this Author most absurdly Asserts p. 107. Line 23 24. The Major is evident For that if such an Unity could be necessary upon that Account then there would be some sort or degree of Unity in the Divine Nature so depending upon the Operation of some Intellect or other forming one common Notion out of several Particulars that had not such an Operation passed upon the said Particulars such an Unity could not have been nor consequently could the Three Divine Persons have been one God without it which to affirm would certainly be both a Monstrous and Blasphemous Assertion Fifthly and lastly If a Specifick Unity of Nature consists with and indeed implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in every one of the Particulars to which it belongs then such a Specifick Unity can by no means be admitted in the Divine Nature But a Specifick Unity of Nature imports a Multiplication of the said Nature in every one of the Particulars to which it belongs And therefore such an Unity cannot be admitted in the Divine Nature The Reason of the Consequence is evident because the Divine Nature is uncapable of any Multiplication And herein consists the difference of the Divine Nature's belonging to the Divine Persons and of any other Nature's belonging to its proper Individuals That this latter is by a Multiplication of it self in them and the other by a bare Communication of it self to them so as that the same Numerical Nature exists in and becomes thereby common to all the Three Persons As for the Minor Proposition That a Specifick Unity of Nature consists with and implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals which it belongs to I referr him to all the Logicians and Metaphysicians who have wrote of Species and Specifick Unity of Idem Diversum whether they do not give this Account of it But I fancy this Author has a reach of Cunning tho' but a short one in the case For that having made the Three Divine Persons Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which can never be One by a Numerical Unity he is willing to provide them a Specifical Unity and to see whether that will serve the turn but as the Nature of the Thing unhappily falls out to be that will not do it neither These are the Considerations which I thought fit to advance against the Admission of a Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons And the Conclusion which I draw from them all is this That since the Fathers and that even by this Authors own Confession held a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons we can by no means grant that the said Fathers admitted also a Specifick Unity in the same without making them guilty of a gross Absurdity and Contradiction Forasmuch as these Two sorts or degrees of Unity are utterly incompatible in the Divine Nature I hope by this time the Judicious Reader sees how fit this Man is to be trusted with the Fathers whose Judgment about so weighty an Article he dares misrepresent in such a manner For to sum up briefly what he has said upon this Point First he tells us That the Fathers agree very well in the Account they give of a Trinity in Unity Page 106. and the four first Lines Next he tells us That the Nicene Fathers asserted a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and understood the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only of such an Unity and not of a Numerical Page 106. and the five last Lines And Thirdly That this Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature was absolutely Necessary to make the Three Divine Persons One God and that it was impossible they should be so without it Page 107. Lines 23 24. And Fourthly That the other Fathers of which he there names four never so much as Dream'd of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature Page 109. lines 22 23. And Lastly That the Fathers do not stop in this Specifick Unity and Identity of Nature but proceed to shew how the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proves a true Numerical and Essential Unity of the Godhead in the Three Divine Persons Page 114. Lines 30 31 32 33. From all which Assertions which lie plain and open in the forecited Pages I desire this Author to resolve me these following Queries 1. Whether those Fathers who Assert a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature and those who never Dreamt of such an Unity And those again who by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood only a Specifick and not a Numerical Unity of Nature and those who by the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceed to prove a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons can be said to agree so very well in the Account they give of a Trinity in Unity 2. Whether those could give a true and right Account of a Trinity in Unity who never so much as Dreamt of that which was so absolutely necessary to make the Three Divine Persons One God that they could not possibly be so without it 3. Whether a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in several Persons is or can be a direct and proper proof of a Numerical Unity and Identity of Nature in the said Persons These Questions I say being the Natural and Immediate Results of this Author 's Positions I hope he will graciously vouchsafe sometime or other to give the World a satisfactory Resolution of In the mean time I will tell him what it was that imposed upon him so as to make him talk thus Absurdly and Unphilosophically of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature and traduce the Fathers also as if they held the same And that in one word is That in the Subject before us he takes Specifick Nature and Common Nature to signifie one and the same Thing whereas though every Specifick Nature be a Common Nature yet every Common Nature is not a Specifick Nature no nor a Generical neither And that this was his mistake appears from those words of his in Page 106. where he says That Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved That the Nicene Fathers did not understand the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Numerical but of a Specifical Sameness of Nature or the agreement of Things Numerically differing from one another in the same Common Nature In which words it is evident That he makes Specifick Sameness of Nature and the Agreement of Things numerically different in one and the same Common Nature to signifie Convertibly the same Thing and
Sum of his Argument from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Answer to which before I address my self to his Argument I will give some Account of the Quotation In which by his Favour we are to take the sense of the Father's words from the Father himself and not from the Inferences which he who Quotes them thinks fit to draw from them how good soever he may be at that Work Now what St. Gregory means by them appears plainly by his manner of Reasoning The Question before him was Whether the Three Divine Persons were Three Gods Which St. Gregory denies and amongst other Proofs says That God is the Name of Energy and from the Unity of Energy proves the Unity of the Deity and that three Persons are but one God because the Operation is the same in all To this he raises an Objection from the Sameness of Faculty Office or Operation amongst Men as Geometricians Husbandmen Orators whose Office Business and Operations in their respective way are the same which yet does not hinder but that they are still Three or more several Men. To which he Answers that these act seperately and by themselves but that it is not so in the Divine Nature no Person in the Holy Trinity doing any Thing by himself only or acting separately from the other Two but that there is one and the same Motion ond Disposition of Will passing from the Father through the Son to the Holy Ghost This is the force of St. Gregory's Reasoning and the plain meaning of it is no more but this That Three Men acting the same Thing are still Three Men because they act separately and by themselves but that the Three Persons in the Trinity are but One God because they do not act separately but that there is the same Motion and Disposition of Will in all the Three Persons as on the contrary Three Men's not having one and the same Motion of Will equally proves That they are not One but Three several Men and accordingly makes a manifest difference between Three Men acting the same Thing and the Operation of the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity which is the Sum of St. Gregory's Answer to the forementioned Objection And now what does all this prove Why truly neither of those Two Things which this Author must prove or he proves nothing viz. That this Unity of Motion and Disposition of Will is properly and formally Unity of Divine Nature And next That this Unity of Divine Nature is properly Mutual Consciousness These two Things I say it is incumbent upon him to prove But how it can be done from the fore-mentioned Words or Argument of Gregory Nyssen I believe will pose the Learned'st Man alive to shew The proper Answer therefore to this Argument will be much the same with that just before given to the Argument drawn from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but a Branch and it proceeds thus First I deny the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be any more than a proof of the Unity of the Divine Nature just as either the Effect or the Causality is a sure proof of the Cause but for all that is not the Cause or as a Consequent proves its Antecedent without being the Antecedent or that wherein the Nature of the Antecedent does consist Secondly In the next place I deny that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is formally and properly the same with Mutual-Consciousness any more than an Act or Motion of the Will is formally the same with an Act of the Understanding And before this Author takes it for granted which is his constant way of proving things I expect that he make it appear That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie formally one and the same Thing And it was boldly done of him to say the least to appeal to his Reader about a Thing in which if he understood the difference between an Act of Volition and an Act of Intellection he must certainly judge against him But it may be reply'd That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does at least inserr a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I grant it may But affirm That this is nothing to his Purpose unless it could follow from hence that that which inferrs or proves a Thing is the very Thing which it inferrs and proves which it neither is nor for that Reason can be As for what he adds That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be in the Three Divine Persons without such a Mutual-Consciousness I do readily grant this also But in the mean time is not this Dictator yet old enough to distinguish between the Causa sinè quâ non or rather the Condition of a Thing and the Ratio formalis or Nature of that Thing Between That without which a Thing cannot be and that which that Thing properly is There can be no such Thing as Sight without a due Circulation of the Blood and Spirits But is such a Circulation therefore properly an Act of Sight Or an Act of Sight such a Circulation To dispute this further would be but to abuse the Reader 's Patience And last of all if this Author should take advantage of those words from Gregory Nyssen That God is the Name of Energy Besides that it is not the bare Notation but use of the Word that must govern its signification I would have this Author know That God may have many Names by which his Nature is not signified as well as several others by which it is and may be But I must confess it is a very pleasant Thing as was in some measure hinted before to prove the Divine Nature to be Energy because the Name God does not signifie Nature but Energy or Operation whereas in Truth if it proves any thing it proves that Nature and Energy applyed to God do by no means signifie the same Thing And so I have done with his Argument from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and effectually demonstrated That there is not so much as the least shew or semblance of any proof from this That Mutual Consciousness is properly that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does consist 3. His Third Argument is from the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly Translated Circumincession and signifying a Mutual-Inexistence or In-dwelling of each Person in the other Two The Word was first used in this sence so far as I can find by Damascen a Father of the 8th Century But the Thing meant by it is contained in those words of our Saviour in Iohn 14. 11. 21. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me which I confess are a solid and sufficient proof of the Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature both in the Father and the Son and withal a very happy and significant Expression of the same
other of these in Conjunction with Essence or Substance we give account of all the Acts Attributes and Personalities belonging to the Divine Nature or God-head This is the constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysicians in their Discourses upon God and without which it is impossible to Discourse intelligibly of the Divine Acts Attributes or Persons And as it stands upon a firm bottom so it may well be defended And if this Author has ought to except against it I shall be ready to undertake the defence of it against him at any time But still that he may keep up that Glorious standing Character of Self-Contradiction which one would think to be the very Ratio formalis or at least the Personal Property of the Man Having here in Page 130. made a very bold step by Asserting the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Acts and so distinct that they can never be one Simple Individual Act. In the very next Page but one viz. 132. line 13. he roundly affirms That the Father and the Son are one single Energy and Operation Now how safe and happy is this Man that no Absurdities or Contradictions can ever hurt him Or at least that he never feels them let them pinch never so close and hard What remains is chiefly a Discourse about the different way of the Son 's issuing from the Father and the Holy Ghost's issuing from both As that the former is called Generation because the Son issues from the Father by a Reflex Act and the latter termed Procession because the Holy Ghost issues from both by a Direct Act. But why a Reflex Act must needs be termed properly a Generation and a Direct Act not be capable of being properly so accounted this our Acute Author very discreetly says nothing at all to though under favour all that he says besides leaves us as much in the Dark as we were before And for my own part I cannot think my self concerned to clear up a Point wholly foreign to that which alone I have undertook the Discussion of And thus I have finished my Dispute with Him concerning the Authorities of the Fathers alledged in behalf of his Notion of Mutual Consciousness as that wherein he places the Unity of the Divine Nature belonging to the three Blessed Persons The Sum of which whole Dispute is resolved into this single Question viz. In what the Father 's placed the Unity in Trinity And if they placed it in the Sameness or Unity of Nature Substance or Essence words applyed by them to this Subject at least a thousand Times and still used to signifie one and the same thing then it is plain that they did not place it in an Unity of Mutual Consciousness For I suppose no Man this Author himself not excepted will say That Essence or Substance and Mutual Consciousness are Terms Synonymous and of the same signification And as the whole Dispute turns upon this single Question so in the management of it on my part I have with great particularity gone over all the Proofs by which this Author pretends to have evinced his Doctrine from the Fathers The utmost of which Proofs amounts to this That the Fathers proved an Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common to them all And moreover sometimes illustrated the said Unity by the three Faculties of the Understanding Memory and Will being one with the Soul which they belonged to And lastly That they resolved the Unity of the Trinity into an Unity of Principle the Father being upon that account styled Principium fons Deitatis as communicating the Divine Substance to the Son and together with the Son to the Holy Ghost And what of all this I pray Do all or any of the fore-mentioned Terms signifie Mutual Consciousness Why No But this Author with a non obstante both to the proper signification and common use of them all by absolute Prerogative declares them to mean Mutual Consciousness And so his Point is proved viz That Mutual Consciousness is not only an Argument inferring the Unity of the Divine Nature in the three Blessed Persons which yet was all that the Fathers used the fore-mentioned Terms for but which is more That it is that very thing wherein this Unity does Consist This I say is a true though a short Account of all his Arguments upon this Subject and according to my custom I refer it to the Judicious Reader to judge impartially whether it be not so and withall to improve and carry on the aforesaid Arguments in his behalf to all further advantage that they may be capable of But in the issue methinks the Author himself seems to review them with much less confidence of their Puissance than when at first he produced them For if we look back upon the Triumphant Flag hung out by him at his Entrance upon this part of his Work the only proper time for him to Triumph in and when he declared That his Explication of the Trinity was the Constant Doctrine of the Fathers and the Schools Page 101. lines 24 25. who could have imagined but that he then foresaw that he should prove his Point with all the strength and evidence which his own Heart could desire And yet alas Such for the most part is the vast distance between Promises and Performances that we have him bringing up the Rear of all with this sneaking Conclusion Page 138. line 22 c. It must be confessed says he That the Ancient Fathers did not express their sence in the same Terms that I have done But I leave it to any Indifferent and Impartial Reader whether they do not seem to have intended the same Explication which I have given of this Venerable Mystery These are his words and I do very particularly recommend them to the Reader as deserving his peculiar Notice For is this now the Upshot and Result of so daring a Boast and so confident an Undertaking to prove his Opinion the constant Doctrine of the Fathers viz. That though the Fathers speak not one word of it nay though they knew not how to express themselves about it Page 125. line 18. yet that to an Indifferent Reader and a very indifferent one indeed he must needs be in the worst sence they may seem to intend the same Explication he had given of it So that the sum of his whole Proof and Argument amounts to this and no more viz. That to some Persons videtur quod sic and to others videtur quod non For see how low he sinks in the issue First of all from the Fathers positive saying or holding what he does it is brought down to their Intending it and from their Intending it it falls at last to their seeming to intend it and that is all And now is not this a worthy Proof of so high a Point And may it not justly subject this
Author to the same Sarcastical Irony which he passed upon his Socinian Adversary Page 92. line 17 c. Right very Right Sir a plain Demonstration But still there is one half of his Promise to be yet accounted for viz. The proving his Opinion to have been the constant Doctrine of the Schools And how does he acquit himself as to this Why in a very extraordinary manner too For first instead of alledging the Authority of the School-men he tells us Page 138. That they are of no Authority at all but as they fall in with the Fathers And withall That instead of doing so They use to mistake and clog the sence of the Fathers with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own And that the Truth is the vain Endeavours of reducing this Mystery to Terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis Person and the like which he says some of the Fathers used in a very different sence from each other have wholly confounded this Mystery And here I cannot but desire the Reader to judge whether this be not a new and wonderful way of procuring Credit to an Hypothesis upon the score of its being the constant Doctrine of the Schools by telling the World as this Man here does that the School-men are a Company of Impertinent Fellows of little or no Authority in themselves and who have by their useless absurd Niceties consounded this whole Mystery For if they are of no Authority but what they derive from the Fathers as he avers why does he quote them upon the same level with the Fathers and plead them both as two distinct Authorities And if they do nothing but pervert and confound this Mystery why instead of alledging them does he not earnestly caution his Reader against them and disswade him from having any thing to do with their dangerous and absurd Writings This certainly is a way of proving a Point by Testimony and Authority so beyond all Example ridiculous that unless the Reader will vouchsafe to read these Passages in the Author himself and so take his Conviction from his own Eyes I can hardly blame him if he refuses to believe my bare Affirmation in a thing so Incredible As for the Terms Essence Substance Subsistence Person and the like which he so explodes I hope I have given my Reader a satisfactory Account both of their usefulness and of the uselesness of such as this Author would substitute in their room in Chap. 2. at large to which I referr him And whereas he says Page 139. line 25. c. That the Deity is above Nature and above Terms of Art and that there is nothing like this Mysterious Distinction and Unity and therefore no wonder if we want proper words to express it by at least that such Names as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures should not reach it It by all this he means that there are no Terms of Art Comprehensive and fully expressive of the Divine Nature and the Mysterious Distinction and Unity of the Persons belonging to it none that I know of thinks otherwise But if he means that no Terms of Art can be of any use to aid us in our inadequate imperfect Conceptions of those great things so as thereby we may conceive of them in some better degree and clearer manner than we could without such Terms pray then of what use are his Self-Consciousness and Mutual Consciousness in this Matter For I suppose he will allow these to be Terms of Art too and such I am sure as he has promised the World no small wonders from But if he will allow any usefulness in those two Terms of Art of his own Inventing towards our better Apprehension of the Divine Nature and Persons the same and greater has the constant use of all Church-Writers proved to be in the Terms Essence Substance Hypostasis Person c. as the properest and most significant the fittest and most accommodate to help and methodize Men's thoughts in discoursing of God and Immaterial Beings of all or any other Terms of Art which the Wit of Man ever yet invented or pitched upon for that purpose And I hope the known avowed use and experience of such great Men and those in so great a number is an abundant overpoise to the contrary Affirmation of this or any other Novel Author whatsoever But all this it seems he endeavours to overthrow and dash with Three Terrible confounding Questions Page 139. Lines 22 23 c. Which yet I can by no means think so very formidable but that they may be very safely Encountered and fairly Answered too As Qu. 1. What says our Author is the Substance or Nature of God I Answer It is a Being existing of and by it self Incorporeal Infinite Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent c. Qu. 2. How can Three distinct Persons have but One Numerical Substance I Answer Every whit as well as they can be said to have but one Numerical God-head or Divine Nature or as they can have one Numerical Mutual Consciousness common to them all Qu. 3. What is the Distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence I Answer The same that is between a Thing or Being and the Modes of it And he who neither knows nor admits of a difference between these is much fitter to go to School himself than to sit and pass judgment upon the Schoolmen And as for the Terms Subsistence and Personality they import the last and utmost Completion of the Existence of Things by vertue whereof they exist by themselves so as neither to be Supported by nor Communicable to any Subject Of which two Modes Personality belongs only to Intelligent Beings but Subsistence to all others to whom the aforesaid Definition does agree And this is the True Proper Difference and Distinction between these Two And this Author may take Notice of it if he pleases However having thus answered his Questions tho' to what purpose he proposed them I cannot imagine yet that he may see how ambitious I am to follow his great Example I shall in requital of his three Questions propose these four to him As First Since in Page 139. he affirms the Deity to be above Nature and all Terms of Art so that we want proper Words and Names to express the Distinction and Unity of the Divine Persons by and that such as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures cannot reach it I desire to know of him upon what ground of Reason it is That speaking of this same Mysterious Unity and Distinction in Page 106. lines 11 12 c. He says That the Fathers used several Examples and alluded to several kinds of Union thereby to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head For if the Deity be so far above Nature and all Terms of Art that there is an utter want of words or Names to express the Unity of it by How could any Examples or Allusions drawn from Nature though never so many form
Fathers to have been not only less happy in expressing themselves about this Mystery than this Author as with great Modesty and Deference to them he often tells us they were but which is yet much worse that they were the most wretchedly unhappy in wording their own Notions of all Men who ever yet set Pen to Paper And as for this Author if Unutterable Unconceivable and Unintelligible can pass with him for Plain Easie and Intelligible it is high time for me to leave off disputing with him and either to have no more to do with him or without any further demurr to profess my self as ready to believe and grant Contradictions as he is or can be to Write them CHAP. VIII In which is set down the Ancient and generally received Doctrine of the Church concerning the Article of the Blessed Trinity as it is Delivered and Explained by Councils Fathers School-men and other later Divines together with a Vindication of the said Doctrine so Explained from this Author s Exceptions THough I cannot think that the Nature and Design of the Work undertook by me which was only to Animadvert upon and confute this Author's Novel Heterodox Notions about the Trinity does or can directly engage me to proceed any further or lay any Necessity upon me to give a positive Account of the Doctrine and Sence of the Church about this great Article yet since this Author in asserting his own Opinion could not be content to do it without reproaching and reflecting upon those Ancient Terms which the Church has been so long in possession of and has still thought fit to use in declaring it self upon this Subject as if instead of Explaining they served only to perplex obscure and confound it and since the Reasonableness or Unreasonableness of either Hypothesis is most likely to appear by fairly setting down one as well as the other and shewing what this Opiniator is gone off from as well as what he is gone over to I judge it neither improper nor unuseful to represent what the Church has hitherto held and taught concerning this Important Article of the Trinity as I find it in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-Writers Ancient and Modern And in this also I must be again content to entertain my Reader only with a Tast or Specimen out of so vast a store which yet I do with very good Reason judge both satisfactory and sufficient in a Point of Divinity Universally owned received and embraced and unless by such as reject and deny the Trinity it self never Impugned or Contradicted before Now the commonly received Doctrine of the Church and Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judge but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this That the Christian Faith having laid this sure Foundation that there is but one God and that there is nothing i. e. no Positive Real Being strictly and properly so called in God but what is God and lastly That there can be no Composition in the Deity with any such Positive Real Being distinct from the Deity it self and yet the Church finding in Scripture mention of three to whom distinctly the God-head does belong it has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1. 3. expressed these three by the Name of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence alloted to one and the same God-head and these also distinguished from one another by three distinct Relations Concerning which we must observe That albeit according to the Reality of the Thing the Subsistence and Relation of each Person make but one Single Indivisible Mode of Being yet according to the Natural Order of conceiving Things we must conceive of the Subsistence as precedent to the Relation Forasmuch as humane Reason considers Things simply as Subsisting before it can consider them as Relating to one another But for the further Explication of the Point before us it will here be necessary to premise what is properly a Mode of Being And this the School Divines do not allow to be either a Substance or an Accident which yet makes the adequate Division of Real Beings since there is no such Being but what is contained under one of them but a Mode is properly a certain Habitude of some Being Essence or Thing whereby the said Essence or Being is determined to some particular State or Condition which barely of it self it would not be determined to And according to this account of it a Mode in Things Spiritual and Immaterial seems to have much the like reference to such kind of Beings that a Posture has to a Body to which it gives some difference or distinction without superadding any new Entity or Being to it In a word a Mode is not properly a Being either Substance or Accident but a certain affection cleaving to it and determining it from its common general Nature and indifference to something more particular as we have just now explained As for Instance in Created Beings Dependence is a Mode determining the general Nature of Being to that particular State or Condition by vertue whereof it proceeds from and is supported by another and the like may be said of Mutability Presence Absence Inherence Adherence and such like viz. That they are not Beings but Modes or Affections of Being and inseparable from it so far that they can have no Existence of their own after a separation or division from the Things or Beings to which they do belong And thus having explained in General what a Mode is we are to know That the Personalities by which the Deity stands diversified into Three Distinct Persons are by the Generality of Divines both Ancient and Modern called and accounted Modes or at least something Analogous to them since no one Thing can agree both to God and the Creature by a perfect Univocation And moreover as every Mode Essentially includes in it the Thing or Being of which it is the Mode so every Person of the Blessed Trinity by vertue ofits proper Mode of Subsistence includes in it the Godhead it self and is properly the Godhead as subsisting with and under such a certain Mode or Relation And this I affirm to be the Current Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools concerning the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and the constantly received Account given by them of a Divine Person so far as they pretend to Explain what such a Person is And accordingly as these Relations are Three and but Three so the Persons of the Godhead to whom they belong are so too viz. Father Son and Holy Ghost But then we must observe also That the Relations which the Godhead may sustain are of Two sorts 1st Extrinsecal and founded upon some External act issuing from God of which sort are the Relations of Creator Preserver Governour and the like to the Things Created Preserved and Governed by him Which though they leave a real effect upon
Deity Three different Modes of Subsistence founding so many different Relations each of them belonging to each Person in a peculiar Uncommunicable manner so that by vertue thereof each person respectively differs and stands distinguished from the other Two And yet by reason of one and the same Numerical Divine Nature or Godhead equally existing in and common to all the Three Persons they are all but One and the same God who is blessed for Ever This I reckon to be a True and Just Representation of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church so far as it has thought fit to declare it self upon this Great and Sacred Mystery Not that I think this sets the Point clear from all Difficulties and Objections For the Nature and Condition of the Thing will not have it so nor have the Ablest Divines ever thought it so for where then were the Mystery But that it gives us the fairest and most consistent Account of this Article both with reference to Scripture and Reason and liable to the fewest Exceptions against it of any other Hypothesis or Explication of it whatsoever And the same will appear yet further from those Terms which the Writers of the Church have all along used in expressing themselves upon this Subject And that both with respect First To the Unity and Agreement of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Nature And Secondly To their Personal Distinction from one another And first For their Unity and Agreement in one and the same Nature The Greeks expressed this by the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Latines by Consubstantialitas and Coessentialitas By all which I affirm That they understood an Agreement in one and the same Numerical Nature or Essence For tho this Author has affirmed That the Nicene Fathers understood no more by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than a Specifick Unity of Nature this Matter has been sufficiently accounted for and his Assertion effectually confuted in the foregoing Chapter In the next place As for the Terms expressing the Distinction and Difference of the Divine Persons from one another the Greeks make use of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subsistences or Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of Subsistence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marks of Distinction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishing Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Notes of Signification And agreeably to them the Latines also make use of the following Terms Trinitas Personae Subsistentiae Modi Subsistendi Proprietates Relationes and Notiones seu Notionalia By which last the Schoolmen mean such Terms and Expressions as serve to notifie and declare to us the proper and peculiar distinction of the Divine Persons And they reckon four of them viz. the above mentioned Paternitas Filiatio Spiratio Processio all of them importing Relation To which some add a fifth which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Innascibilitas a Term not importing in it any positive Relation but only a meer Negation of all producibility by any Superiour principle and upon that account peculiar to the Father who alone of all the Persons of the Blessed Trinity is without Production Touching all which Terms I cannot think it necessary to enlarge any further in a particular and more distinct Explication of them since how differing soever they may be in their respective significations they all concur in the same use and design which is to express something proper and peculiar to the Divine Persons whereby they are rendred distinct from and Incommunicable to one another But these few general Remarks I think fit to lay down concerning them As 1. That albeit most of these Terms as to the Form of the Word run abstractively yet they are for the most part to be understood Concretively and not as simple Forms but as Forms in Conjunction with the Subject which they belong to In the former abstracted sence they are properly Personalities or Personal Properties viz. Those Modes or Forms by which the Persons whom they appertain to are formally constituted and denominated what they are but in the Latter and Concrete Sence they signifie the Persons themselves 2. The Second Thing which I would observe is That there has been in the first Ages of the Church some Ambiguity in the use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Persona For neither would the Latines at first admit of Three Hypostases in God as taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the same Thing for that they had no other Latin Word to Translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by but Substantia by which also they Translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word Subsistentia being then looked upon by them as Barbarous and not in use so that they refused the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of admitting of Three distinct Substances or Essences in the Trinity which they knew would lead them into the Errour of Arius Nor on the other side would the Greeks acquiesce in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor admit of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of falling thereby into the contrary Errour of Sabellius for that they thought the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imported no real Internal difference but only a difference of Name or Attribute or at most of Office and for them to allow no more than such an one amongst the Divine Persons they knew was Sabellianisme And this Controversie of Words exercised the Church for a considerable time to appease and compose which amongst other Matters a Council was called and held at Alexandria about the Year of Christ 362. in which amongst many other Bishops Convened from Italy Arabia Aegypt and Lybia was present also Athanasius himself And in this Council both sides having been fully heard and found to agree in sence though they differ'd in words it was ordained That they should thenceforth Mutually acknowledg one another for Orthodox and for the future cease contending about these words to the disturbance of the Church By which means and especially by the Explication given of these words by Athanasius whereby as Gregory Nazianzen tells us in his Panegyrick upon him he satisfied and reconciled both Greeks and Latines to the indifferent use of them and indeed that Oration made by Nazianzen himself in the Council of Constantinople viz. The second General before 150 Bishops not a little contributing to the same the sence of these Terms from that time forward came generally to be fixed and the Ambiguity of them removed and so the Controversie by degrees ceased between the Greeks and Latines and the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Personae and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Subsistentiae grew
but Three Hypostases or Subsistences This keep this hold c. Theodoret also speaks very fully upon the same Subject in his first Dialogue contr Anomaeos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Such Things as belong properly to the Divine Essence or Substance are in like manner common to Father Son and Holy Ghost But the Term Father is not common to them and therefore Father is no Property of the Essence but of the Subsistence or Person But now if one Thing be proper to the Hypostasis or Subsistence and there be other Properties of the Essence it follows That Essence and Hypostasis do not signifie one and the same thing And again a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Essence or Substance of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost is common being equally and alike Immortal Incorruptible Holy and Good And for this Reason we affirm One Essence and Three Hypostases Auctarium sive Tom. 5. Theodoret. p. 286. Edit Paris 1684. Certainly nothing could with greater Evidence state the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three several Subsistences than the Words here quoted out of this Father And I quote them out of him though I know the same Dialogues are inserted into Athanasius's Works but I am convinced by the reasons given by Garnerius the Learned Editor of this Auctarium that the said Dialogues cannot belong to Athanasius Next to him let us hear Basilius Seleuciensis speaking the same Thing in his first Oration upon the first Verse of the first Chapter of Genesis where upon these words Let us make Man after our own Image and Likeness he discourses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say The Image here formed is but One but the mention here made is not of One Hypostasis or Person only but of Three For the Thing formed being the common Work of the whole Deity shews the Trinity to have been the Former thereof and so gives us one Image or Resemblance of the Trinity But if the Image of the Trinity be but One the Nature of the Hypostases or Persons must be One too For the Unity of the Image proclaims the Unity of the Substance or Essence Basil. Seleuciens Orat. 1. p. 5. Printed at Paris with Gregorius Thaumaturgus c. Anno Dom. 1622. Zacharias Sirnamed Scholasticus and sometime Metropolitan of Mitylene of the Sixth Century in his Disputation against the Philosophers who held the Eternity of the World to a certain Philosopher asking him How the Christians could acknowledg the same both a Trinity and an Unity too Makes this Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We affirm a Trinity in Unity and an Unity in Trinity hereby affirming the Subsistences or Persons to be Three and the Essence or Substance to be only One Johannes Damascenus a Writer of the Eighth Century in his Third Book de Orthodoxâ fide Chap. 11. about the end of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Godhead declares the Nature but the Term Father the Subsistence as Humanity does the Humane Nature but Peter the Subsistence or Person For the Term God denotes the Divine Nature in Common and equally denominates or is ascribed to each of the Hypostases or Subsistences Damascen Page 207. Edit Basil. 1575. I shall close up these particular Testimonies with some Passages in the Creed commonly called the Athanasian which I place so low because it is manifest that Athanasius was not the Author of it it being not so much as mentioned in any Antient Writer as the very Learned Dr. Cave affirms till it occurs in Theodulphus Aurelianensis who lived about the latter end of the Eighth Century Now the Passages are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in some Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is Neither confounding the Hypostases or Persons nor dividing the Substance For there is one Hypostasis of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is One c. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The whole Three Hypostases or Persons are Coeternal together and Coequal These Passages are full and plain and the Creed it self may well claim the Antiquity at least of the Eighth Century My next Authorities shall be those of the Councils But before I pass to them I cannot but observe and own to the Reader concerning some of the first of my Quotations viz. those out of Justin Martyr and that out of St. Athanasius that it has been very much questioned by some Learned Men Whether those Books from whence they are taken do really belong to the Authors to whom they are ascribed and among whose Works they are inserted or no. This I say I was not ignorant of nevertheless I thought fit to quote them by the Names under which I found them placed since many very Learned Persons and much more acquainted with the Writings of the Ancients than I pretend to be have upon several Occasions done so before me And the said Tracts are certainly of a very early date and though the Authors of them should fall a Century or two lower yet they still retain Antiquity enough to make good the Point for which I alledged them Nevertheless I must and do confess it very probable That the more distinct and exact use of the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applyed to the Divine Persons did not generally and commonly take place but as by degrees the Discussion of the Arian and other the like Controversies through frequent Disputes grew to still a greater and greater Maturity And that the use of these Terms did obtain then and upon that Account I think a very considerable Argument to authorize and recommend them to all Sober and Judicious Minds And so I pass to the Testimonies of Councils concerning the same Amongst which we have here in the first place the Council of Chalcedon making a Confession or Declaration of their Faith concerning the Person of our Saviour and that both as to the Absolute undivided Unity of his Person and as to the Difference and Distinction of his Two Natures part of which Confession runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We confess One and the same Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in Two Natures without Confusion c. the difference of the said Natures being by no means destroyed by their Union but rather the property of each Nature being thereby preserved and both concurring to or meeting in One Person or Hypostasis This Account of the Chalcedon Confession we have in the Second Book of Evagrius towards the latter end of the 4th Chapter and a lively Instance it is of the Council's expressing the Personality of Christ by and stating It upon Subsistence In the next place upon Justinian's calling the second Council of
for maintaining that the Passages and Events of Providence are not the Rule which God will have us govern our Actions by but the Precepts and Prohibitions of his Law And what but the same malice could make him insinuate that the same Author was inclined to Popery and an Infallible Interpreter only for saying that one Text of Scripture was obscure and much controverted Which yet St. Peter had said of many Passages of St. Paul's Epistles 1 Pet. 3. 16. and yet without giving any wise Man the least occasion from thence to think that he was then providing an Argument for the Infallibility of his supposed Successor And Lastly what but the bitterest Rancour could make him charge his Adversary as if he had compared the swearing Allegiance to K. W. and Q. M. for the great and notorious Impiety of it with the Villanies foretold by the Prophet of Hazael only because he had told Him that as Hazael had changed his mind notwithstanding his confident Opinion of himself to the contrary so had this Author too For who but one of equal Virulence and Ignorance would have stretched the comparison which respected only the changing of Minds to a Comparison as to the merits of the Cause which it had no relation to at all Indeed no more than that Reply of Hazael Is thy Servant a Dog Was design'd to convince the Prophet That he had not four Legs and not rather only to clear himself from such a currish and belluine temper of mind as those Actions foretold of him must needs imply And I suppose when a certain Person speaking of the New Oath to a certain Bishop said My Lord I will be Crucified before I will take this Oath His meaning was not that he thought the taking it more Painful and Tormenting than a Crucifixion but that he had a greater unwillingness to take the one than to undergo the other And yet this was this Author's way of Treating a very Worthy Man an old Acquaintance and a fair Adversary I am not at all concern'd to espouse or abett the Cause defended by that Learned Person But this I do and ever shall averr That there is a Ius Belli in these Controversial as well as in Military Conflicts and consequently an obligation to Truth and Justice and common Ingenuity even in the exercise of the greatest Hostilities But this Man's usage of his forementioned Adversary is not more Senseless and Illogical than Disingenuous Barbarous and Unchristian And so let the Reader take this as a Specimen of his impotent Spleen and Malice After which let us shew him in his next good Quality his Insolence and first in that Branch of it which concerns his wonderful Opinion and Applause of Himself As to which we shall first of all see him as we have in some degree shewn him before preferring himself before all the Fathers as much happier in giving an explication of the Trinity than they were and this in such a fleering scoptical way scoptical I mean as to the Fathers but highly Commendatory of himself that it would even turn ones Stomach to read his fulsom Expressions For he tells us and that with the most profound humility no doubt p. 101. l. 1. c. If that explication which I have given be very consistent with nay be the true Interpretation of that account the Antients give of a Trinity in Unity I hope it will not be thought an unpardonable Novelty if I have expressed the same thing in other Words which give us a more clear and distinct apprehension of it c. And again p. 126. l. 2. I hope this is no fault neither to give an Intelligible explication of that which all the Fathers taught but were not equally happy in their explication of it No for his comfort no to excel and outdo all the Fathers if a Man can do it can be no fault at all But before this be allow'd him I do here require him to name and produce me but one who acknowledges a Trinity in the whole World besides his own modest self who ever preferr'd his explication of the Trinity for the Happiness and Intelligibility of it before that given by the Fathers I say let him produce me so much as one affirming this if he can So that in short the Comparison here stands between the Fathers and this Author And we see the Preheminence given him above all the Fathers by the sole and single Iudgment of one Doctor and that Doctor is Himself Nay and which is more to put the matter past all Comparison between him and them for the future He tells us as was also observed before in my 7th Chapter That the Fathers neither knew how to speak their own Thoughts of the Trinity nor indeed so much as to conceive of it aright by reason of the grossness of their Imaginations Whereas if they had as he adds but conceived of it and expressed themselves about it as he has done all would have been plain easie and intelligible And as for Gregory Nyssen from whom he had Quoted more than from all the rest of the Fathers together he gives him a cast of his Temper at last p. 119. l. 5. and sends him away with this rap over the Pate That he could not tell what to make of him and his Reasonings for that in his judgment he destroyed all Principles of Individuation And in this manner we have him Pluming himself clapping his Wings and crowing over all the Fathers for which and his quarrelsome domineering Nature together most think it is high time that his Comb were cut In the next place let us see what Elogies he bestows upon himself for his Atchievements in the Socinian Controversie Concerning which he tells the Men of that Persuasion That after his Vindication of the Trinity He believes they will talk more sparingly of Absurdities and Contradictions for the future pag. 153. But why I pray Is it because this Author has got the Monopoly of them and engrossed them all to himself And that therefore the Laws will be very severe upon such as invade his Property For as for any other Reason they have none that I know of to talk more sparingly of Absurdities and Contradictions than they used to do having so many more out of his Writings to talk of than ever they had before But he proceeds and closes his Work with this Triumph over his Antagonist and in him I suppose over all the rest of that Tribe pag. 272. That he is pretty confident that he will never be able to reason to any purpose in this cause again As for his confidence none doubts of it but as for his Prediction if he proves no better a Prophet in what he here foretels of his Socinian Opponent than in what he foretold of that Learned Person who answered both his Case of Allegiance and his Vindication of it viz. That if he would but well examine his Arguments before he answered them he