Subject supporting it and without which it cannot exist or support it self Which Division being made by Terms contradictory viz. Inhering in another and not inhering in another must needs be adequate and perfect and fully comprehensive of the whole that is divided thereby But now besides these two Terms of Substance and Accident there is another assigned by Logicians Metaphysicians and School-men called a Mode of Being viz. such a thing as being added to another does not make any addition of another Being or degree of Being to it but only restrains and determines it and may be defined an Affection of a thing or Being by which the Nature of it otherwise indeterminate and indifferent is determined to some certain respect state or condition Thus whereas the Nature of a thing may be considered either as yet in its Causes or as actually produced and existing out of them either of these is a Mode of that Nature the first rendring it only Potential the other Actual Nor is this a meer Ens Rationis forasmuch as it affects the Being of a thing antecedently to any Operation of the mind passing upon it And the Reason assigned by some Logicians for the allowing and asserting these Modes is this That some things must necessarily be admitted to belong to Being which are not Beings themselves to prevent an Infinite progress in Beings For since every thing is capable of being defined or described and yet nothing can be defined merely by it self an Identical Proposition being no Definition it must needs be defined by somewhat or other distinct from it self but now if that be also a Being then that likewise must be defined by another Being and that by another and so on in insinitum which would be most absurd Whereas if this definition or description of a thing be made by some Modus of it which is not strictly and properly a Being it self the thing presently stops here without any necessity of proceeding to any more Beings But perhaps it will be here said if these Modes are not so many meer Nothings or Entia Rationis what order or rank shall they be placed in Since those ten heads of Being which we call Predicaments cannot seem the proper Receptacles of things which we own not to be properly or formally Beings I Answer That though they are not Beings properly so called and so not directly and upon their own Account placeable under any of the Ten fore-mentioned Heads of Being yet since they are Appendages of Being as cleaving to it and depending upon it they are accounted under and reduced to those respective Heads or genera of Being to which the Beings modified by them do directly belong Now the Nature of these Modi being thus accounted for we are in the next place to take notice of the difference resulting from them which we call Modal and that is either between two or more such Modes differing from one another as the Personalities belonging to several Persons differ amongst themselves or when a thing or Being differs from the Mode affecting it or Lastly When several things thus modified or affected do by vertue of those Modes differ from one another and thus the Persons in the Blessed Trinity may be said to differ amongst themselves I proceed now to those other Terms of Essence Existence Nature Subsistence and Personality And first for Essence As I shewed that Ens or Being might be truly defined That which is so Essence may be as truly and properly defined That by which a thing is what it is that is to say by which it is Constituted in such a kind or order of Being And this difference I take to be founded in the different ground upon which we conceive of the same thing Accordingly the Essence of a thing no less than the thing it self may be considered either as yet in the Power of its Causes and only producible by them or as actually existing and produced by them By which we see that an Essence as such may be indifferent to exist or not exist and that from hence springs the difference between Essence and Existence There is indeed a Reality ascribed to it even without Existence But that is not properly a reality in the thing it self but partly in respect of the power of its Causes enabling them to produce it and partly because it is properly the Subject of Science and capable of having true Propositions formed of it and Demonstrations built upon it As we may form as true Propositions of a Rose in Winter and demonstrate all the Properties of it as of their proper Subject by their proper respective Principles as well as while it is actually flourishing upon the Tree And this is all the reality which I think can be ascribed to Essence in its separation from Existence As for Existence it self it may be defined that Mode or Affection of Being by which a thing stands actually produced out of the power of its Causes or at least not actually included in any Cause in which sense God himself does exist From whence it appears That in Created Beings Essence bears no such necessary Connexion with Existence since it is not necessarily included in the Nature of any finite Being that it must needs be produced or actually Exist But it must be confessed That Existence being a perfection and in God especially a very great one must of necessity be included in his very Essence as containing in it formally or eminently all sorts or degrees of perfection The next Term is Subsistence which is a Mode of Being by which a thing exists by it self without existing in another either as a part in the whole or an Adjunct in the Subject I say an Adjunct not an Accident for a Substance may be an Adjunct And I think if we would assign a way by which the humane Nature of Christ exists in the Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall hardly find out a fitter than to say That it exists in it as an Adjunct in the Subject For it is certain That it does not exist in it as a part in the whole since by this means the second Person in the Trinity must till his Incarnation have wanted one part of his Person But I shall not be positive in the Application of this Term here In the mean time it must be observed That Essence and Subsistence really differ so far as a Modal difference is reduced to a Real not only in Created Beings but also in Uncreate In Created it is evident forasmuch as a part divided from the whole loses the Subsistence which it had from thence but still continues its Existence as being still a Substance actually subsisting by it self and not inhering in any Subject as Accidents do Nor is it less evident in the Deity it self and the Divine Persons belonging to it For one and the same undivided Existence as well as one and the same Essence or Nature belongs to all the three Persons equally whereas
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
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
he would vouchsafe to teach us how to reconcile them also For I for my own part think it every whit as hard a task to reconcile Contradictions as to reconcile Protestants and I hope much harder And yet this latter he has endeavoured to prove in a certain Book wrote by him in the Year 1685 a thing not to be done But whether it can or no I am sure he has hardly published any Book since but what manifestly proves That there is great need of some Reconciler to do the other But why do I speak of reconciling Contradictions It would be a very troublesome work if it could be done and a very uncomfortable one when it could not And therefore our Author to give him his due has attempted a much surer and more compendious way of clearing himself of this imputation than such a long and tedious way of reconciling inconsistent Propositions could possibly have been For having Asserted That we cannot justly charge a Contradiction where we cannot comprehend the Nature of the thing said to be contradicted and that in the next place there is nothing in the World which he knoweth of the Nature of which we can throughly understand or comprehend I hope it follows That where nothing can or ought to be contradicted as nothing ought to be which cannot be comprehended none can be guilty of a Contradiction And this I suppose none will deny to be an Expedient every way answerable and equal to our Author's Occasions For otherwise I cannot see what can stand between him and the charge of many Scurvy Contradictory Assertions but that which shall effectually prove and make out to us That indeed there neither is nor can be any such thing as a Contradiction CHAP. II. Containing an Account of several Terms commonly made use of in Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons and particularly shewing the Propriety of applying the Words Essence Substance Nature Infinity and the like to this great Subject and lastly proving this Author's Exceptions against the use of them about the same false groundless and impertinent With some further Remarks upon his forementioned Apology OUR Author seems so desirous to advance nothing upon this sublime Subject but what shall be perfectly new that in order to the making way for his particular Novelties he Quarrels with almost all the old words which Divines in their Discourses about the Divine Nature and Persons were heretofore accustomed to make use of He can by no means approve of the words Essence Substance Nature Subsistence and such like as reckoning them the Causes of all the Difficulties and seeming Absurdities that are apt to perplex Mens minds in their Speculations of the Deity and the Trinity 4 Sect. p. 68 69 70. and therefore they must be laid aside and made to give way to other Terms which he judges properer and more accommodate to those Theories To which purpose though our Author has fixed upon two purely of his own Invention which are to do such wonderful feats upon this Subject as in all past Ages were never yet seen nor heard of before and which I therefore reserve in due place to be considered of particularly by themselves yet at present the Author seems most concerned to remove and cashier the fore-mentioned useless cumbersome words and to substitute some better and more useful in their room Such as Eternal Truth and Wisdom Goodness and Power Mind and Spirit c. which being once admitted and applyed to all Disputes about the Divine Nature and an Act of Exclusion past upon the other the way will become presently smooth and open before us and all things relating to the Mystery of the Trinity according to our Author 's own excellent words be made very plain easie and intelligible Nevertheless as I may so speak to borrow another of our Author's Elegancies let not him that putteth on his Armour boast as he that putteth it off A great Promissor with a great Hiatus being much better at raising an Expectation than at answering it And hitherto I can see nothing but words and vapour Though after all it is Performance and the issue of things alone that must shew the strength and reason of the biggest Pretences Now for the clearer and more distinct discussion of the matter in hand I shall endeavour to do these Four things I. I shall shew That the ground upon which this Author excepts against the use of the Terms Nature Essence Substance Subsistence c. in this Subject is false and mistaken II. I shall shew That the same Difficulties arise from the Terms Truth Wisdom Goodness Power c. used for the Explication of the Divine Being that are objected against Essence Substance Nature and the like III. I shall shew That these Terms do better and more naturally explain the Deity or Divine Being than those other of Truth Wisdom Goodness c. And IV. And Lastly I shall shew That the Difficulty of our Conceiving rightly of the Deity and the Divine Persons does really proceed from other Causes These four things I say I will give some brief Account of But because the Subject I am about to engage in is of that Nature that most of the Metaphysical and School-Terms hitherto made use of by Divines upon this occasion will naturally and necessarily fall in with it I think it will contribute not a little to our more perspicuous proceeding in this Dispute to state the Import and Signification of these Terms Essence Substance Existence Subsistence Nature and Personality with such others as will of course come in our way while we are treating of and explaining these And here first of all according to the old Peripatetick Philosophy which for ought I see as to the main Body of it at least has stood it's ground hitherto against all Assaults I look upon the Division of Ens or Being a summary word for all things into Substance and Accident as the Primary and most Comprehensive as we hinted before in our first Chapter But that I may fix the sense and signification of these Terms all along as I go by giving them their respective Definitions or at least Descriptions where the former cannot be had I look upon Ens or Being to be truly and well defined That which is though I must confess it is not so much a perfect Definition as a Notation of the word from the original Verb est For to define it by the Term Essence by saying That Ens or Being is that which has an Essence though it be a true Proposition yet I believe it not so exactly proper a Definition since the Terms of a Definition ought to be rather more known than the thing defined Which in the fore-mentioned Case is otherwise As for Substance I define that to be a Being not inhering in another that is to say so existing by it self as not to be subjected in it or supported this way by it Accident I define a Being inherent in another as in a
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
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
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
Principle upon which I impugn this Author's New Hypothesis so it does and must as I have noted run through all or most of the parts of this Disputation both about Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness too And accordingly in the first place I Argue against it thus Argument I. No Act of Knowledge can be the Formal Reason of an Unity of Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity But an Act of Mutual-Consciousness is an Act of Knowledge And therefore no Act of Mutual-Consciousness can be the Formal Reason of an Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons The Major I prove thus Every Act of Knowledge supposes the Unity of a Thing or Being from which that Act flows as Antecedent to it and therefore cannot be the Formal Reason of the said Being For still I affirm that Being and consequently Unity of Being which is the first Affection of it must in Order of Nature precede Knowledge and all other the like Attributes of Being And if so no Attribute Subsequent to a Thing can be the Formal Reason of that Thing which it is thus in Order of Nature Subsequent to For neither can Omniscience it self one of the greatest and most acknowledged Attributes of the Divine Nature be said to be the Reason either of the Being or of the Unity of the said Nature And therefore neither can any Act of Knowledge whatsoever be so This is my first Argument which I think sufficient fairly to propose without any farther Amplification Argument II. If Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons be the Cause Reason or Principle of Mutual-Consciousness in the said Persons then their Mutual-Consciousness is not the Cause or Reason of the Unity of their Nature But the former is true and therefore the latter is so too As for the Consequence of the Major Proposition it is as evident as that Nothing can be the Cause and Effect of the same Thing And for the Minor That Unity of Nature or Essence in the Divine Persons is the Cause Reason or Principle of Mutual-Consciousness is proved from this That we can no otherwise conceive of Mutual-Consciousness than as of an Essential Property equally belonging to all the Three Persons And all Properties or Internal Attributes are accounted to issue and result from the Essence or Nature of the Things which they belong to and therefore can have no Antecedent Causal Influx upon the said Nature so as to Constitute either the Being or the Unity thereof But the Divine Nature or Essence being one and the same in all the Three Persons there is upon this Account one and the same Knowledge in them also And they are not one in Nature by vertue of their Mutual-Consciousness but they are therefore Mutually Conscious because the perfect Unity and Identity of their Nature makes them so And to Assert the contrary is of the like import still allowing for the Disproportion of an Infinite and Finite Nature as if we should make Risibility in a Man the Principle of his Individuation and affirm That Peter's having this Property is that which Constitutes him this particular Individual Man which is egregiously absurd in all the Philosophy I ever yet met with whatsoever it may be in this Author's Argument III. To affirm Mutual-Consciousness to be the Cause of the Union of the Three Divine Persons in the same Nature is to confound the Union and Communion of the said Persons together But such a confusion ought by no means to be allowed of and therefore neither ought that to be Asserted from whence it follows Now certain it is That all Acts of several Persons upon one another as all that are Mutual must needs be are properly Acts of Communion by which the said Persons have an Intercourse amongst themselves as acting interchangeably one upon the other But then no doubt both their Essence and Personality must still go before this Mutual-Consciousness since the Three Persons must needs be really one in Nature before they can know themselves to be so And therefore Union of Knowledge as I think Mutual-Consciousness may properly be called cannot give an Union of Nature It may indeed suppose it it may result from it and upon the same Account may infer and prove it but it can never give or cause it nor be that Thing or Act wherein an Unity of Nature does properly consist whatsoever this Author Asserts to the contrary But the Truth is all that he has said both of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness and he has no more than said it as never offering at the Proof of any Thing is founded in a manifest Perversion of that Natural Order in which Humane Reason Conceives and Discourses of Things Which Order to give an Instance of it in our discoursing of any particular Person or Complete Being proceeds by these steps First we conceive of this Person as possessed of a certain Essence or Nature Constituting or rendring him what he is Then we conceive of this Nature as one which is the first Affection resulting from Being After this we consider this Being as stepping forth or exerting it self in some Acts whether of Intellection Volition Power or the like In which whole process the Order of these Conceptions is such That it cannot with any Accord to Reason be transposed so as to have the second or third put into the place of the first But now let us see how contrary to this Order our Author's Hypothesis proceeds For whereas Nature or Being should be first Unity next and the Acts issuing from thence obtain the Third place and then those Acts stand in their due Order amongst themselves This Author on the contrary makes Mutual-Consciousness which is by two Degrees or Removes posterior to Unity of Nature in the Persons whom it belongs to to be the Cause or Formal Reason of the said Unity For first Self-Consciousness is posterior to this Unity and then Mutual-Consciousness is posterior to Self-Consciousness as being an Act supervening upon it For Mutual-Consciousness is that Act by which each Person comprehends or is Conscious of the Self-Consciousness of the other two and therefore must needs presuppose them as the Act must needs do its Object And therefore to make as this Author does Mutual-Consciousness the Constituent Reason of the Unity of the Three Persons when this Unity is by two degrees in Order of Nature before it runs so plainly counter to all the Methods of true Reasoning that it would be but time lost to pursue it with any further Confutation Argument IV. Our 4th and last Argument proceeds equally against Mutual-Consciousness and Self-Consciousness too and is taken from that known Maxime in Philosophy That Entities or Beings are not to be multiplied without manifest Necessity That is we are not to admit of New Things nor to coin new Notions where such as are known and long received are sufficient to give us a true and full Account of the Nature of the Things we discourse of and to answer all the Ends and
Argument I. Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods But the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Gods And therefore the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits The Minor I suppose this Author will readily concur with me in howbeit his Hypothesis as shall be shewn in the certain Consequences of it Contradicts it and if it should stand would effectually overturn it For by that he asserts a perfect Tritheisme though I have so much Charity for him as to believe that he does not know it The Major Proposition therefore is that which must be debated between us This Author holds it in the Negative and I in the Affirmative and my Reason for what I affirm viz. That Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods is this That God and Infinite Mind or Spirit are Terms Equipollent and Convertible God being truly and properly an Infinite Mind or Spirit and an Infinite Mind or Spirit being as truly and properly God And to shew this Convertibility and Commensuration between them yet further Whatsoever may be affirmed or denied of the one may with equal Truth and Propriety be affirmed or denied of the other And to give an Instance of this with reference to the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity As it is true that one and the same God or God-head is Common to and Subsists in all and every one of the Three Persons so is it true That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit is Common to and Subsists in the said Three Persons And consequently as it is false That one and the same God or God-head by being Common to and Subsisting in the Three Persons becomes Three Gods or Three God-heads so is it equally false That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit by being Common to and Subsisting in the said Three Persons becomes Three Infinite Minds or Spirits This is clear Argumentation and craves no Mercy at our Author's Hands If it be here objected That we allow of Three distinct Persons in the God-head of which every one is Infinite without admitting them to be Three distinct Gods and therefore why may we not as well allow of Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits in the same God-head without any necessity of inferring from thence That they are Three distinct Gods I Answer That the Case is very different and the Reason of the difference is this Because Three Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three Absolute Simple Beings or Essences and so stand distinguished from one another by their whole Beings or Natures But the Divine Persons are Three Relatives or one simple Being or Essence under three distinct Relations and consequently differ from one another not wholly and by all that is in them but only by some certain Mode or respect peculiar to each and upon that Account causing their Distinction And therefore to Argue from a Person to a Spirit here is manifestly Sophistical and that which is called Fallacia Accidentis or since several Fallacies may concur in the same Proposition it may be also à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter For so it is to conclude That Three Persons are Three distinct Gods since the difference of Persons is only from a diverse respect between them but Three Gods import Three absolutely distinct Natures or Substances And whereas we say That the Three Persons are all and every one of them Infinite yet it is but from one and the same Numerical Nature Common to them all that they are so the Ternary Number all the while not belonging to their Infinity but only to their Personalities The Case therefore between a Mind or Spirit and a Person is by no means the same Forasmuch as Person here imports only a Relation or Mode of Subsistence in Conjunction with the Nature it belongs to And therefore a Multiplication of Persons of it self imports only a Multiplication of such Modes or Relations without any necessary Multiplication of the Nature it self to which they adhere Forasmuch as one and the same Nature may sustain several distinct Relations or Modes of Subsistence But now on the other side a Mind or Spirit is not a Relation or Mode of Subsistence but it is an Absolute Being Nature or Substance and consequently cannot be multiplyed without a Multiplication of it into so many Numerical Absolute Beings Natures or Substances there being nothing in it to be multiplyed but it self So that Three Minds or Spirits are Three Absolute Beings Natures or Substances and Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are accordingly Three distinct Infinite Absolute Beings Natures or Substances That is in other words They are Three Gods which was the Thing to be proved and let this Author ward off the Proof of it as he is able Argument II. My Second Argument against the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity being Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits is this Three distinct Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Substances But the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances And therefore they are not Three distinct Minds or Spirits The Major Proposition is proved from the Definition of a Mind or Spirit That it is Substantia Incorporea Intelligens an Intelligent Incorporeal or Immaterial Substance and therefore Three distinct Minds or Spirits must be Three such distinct Substances And besides if a Mind or Spirit were not a Substance what could it be else If it be any Thing it must be either an Accident or Mode of Being But not an Accident since no Accident can be in God nor yet a Mode of Being since a Spirit not designed to concur as a part towards any Compound is an Absolute Entire Complete Being of itself and has its proper Mode of Subsistence belonging to it and therefore cannot be a Mode it self From whence it follows That a Spirit is and must be a Substance and can be nothing else As for the Minor viz. That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances this is evident both from Authority and from Reason And first for Authority Tertullian against Praxeas affirms Semper in Deo una Substantia And St. Ierom in his Epistle to Damasus Quis ore sacrilego Tres substantias praedicabit And St. Austin in his 5th Book de Trinitate Chap. 9. and in Book 7. Chap. 4. And Ruffinus in the 1st Book of his History Chap. 29. All affirm One Substance in God and deny Three and yet the same Writers unanimously hold Three Persons which shews That they did not account these Three Persons Three Substances And Anselmus in his Book de Incarnatione Chap. 3. says That the Father and the Son may be said to be Two Beings provided that by Beings we understand Relations not Substances And Bellarmine a Writer Orthodox enough in these points and of unquestionable Learning otherwise in his 2d Tome page 348. about the end says
Author to tell us which of these two Assertions is false for both of them I am sure cannot be true But he who makes nothing to contradict himself within the compass of two or three Pages and sometimes as many Lines may do it cum Privilegio at the distance of near Thirty And whereas it is urged again from the same place in St. Austin That if we say the Father begets his own Wisdom we may as well say That he Begets his own Goodness Greatness Eternity c. I Answer No doubt but we may say one as well as the other but that in Truth and Propriety of Speech we can say neither For God cannot properly be said to beget Wisdom and much less his own Wisdom nor indeed any of his other Attributes or Perfections Essentially taken and considered he may indeed be said to Communicate them and by such Commmnication to Beget a Son But still though these are thus said to be Communicated it is the Person only who is or can be properly said to be Begotten But our Author tells us Page 103. out of the next Chapter of St. Austin the words of which he should have done well to have quoted that he there calls God the Father Sapientia Ingenita and the Son Sapientia Genita and are not these Two distinct Infinite Wisdoms I Answer No For that the Wisdom here spoken of is not taken Absolutely and Essentially but only Personally That is for Wisdom under two several Modifications which Modifications though they diversifie and distinguish the Thing they belong to yet do not multiply it For still it is one and the same Wisdom which is both Genita and Ingenita though as it is one it is not the other Sapientia or Wisdom considered Absolutely and Essentially in it self belongs in Common to all the Three Persons but with the Term Genita or Ingenita joyned with it it imports a peculiar Mode of Subsistence which determines it to a particular Personality So that Sapientia quatenus Genita properly and only denotes the Person of the Son In like manner when the Third Person of the Trinity is called the Spirit the Term Spirit is not there taken Essentially for that Infinite Immaterial Incorporeal Nature Absolutely considered for so it is common to all the Three Persons but for that Infinite Incorporeal Nature Quatenus procedens aut spirata and under that peculiar Mode of Subsistence it belongs not to the other Two Persons but stands appropriate only to the Third Nevertheless this makes them not Three distinct Infinite Spirits as we have already shewn but only one Infinite Spirit under Three distinct Modalities Accordingly when the Son is here called the Wisdom of the Father that very Term of the Father imports a Modification of it peculiar to the Son but yet this Modification does not make it another Wisdom from that which is in the Father since one and the same Wisdom may sustain several determining Modes Our Author's next Quotation is out of Peter Lombard Page 103. whom for the Credit of what he Quotes from him he styles the Oracle of the Schools though he who shall read Lambertus Denoeus upon the first Book of his Sentences will quickly find what a Doughty Oracle he is The Passage quoted proceeds upon the same Notion which we find in the foregoing Citation out of St. Austin whom he also alledges for it Nevertheless I shall Transcribe this also as I did the other both for the Choice Stuff contained in it as also that the Reader may have it before him and thereby see what use our Author is able to make of it for his purpose First of all then he tells us That in God to be and to be Wise is the same thing And I grant it with respect to the Absolute Simplicity of the Divine Nature but for all that I must tell him That to Be and to be Wise fall under two formally distinct Conceptions of which the former does not include the latter and that for this Reason such as treat Scholastically of these Matters do always allow a formal difference between them and never treat of them but as so considered And let me tell him also that this consideration looks yet something further as inferring That Things formally distinct must have formally distinct Effects so that the formal Effect of one cannot be ascribed to the other And moreover that it is a very gross Absurdity to confound the Formal Cause with the Efficient and so to argue from one as you would do from the other Which Observations being thus laid down let us see how this Man and his Oracle argue in the Case And it is thus If the Wisdom which He viz. God the Father Begets be the cause of his being wise then it is the cause also of his very Being In Answer to which I deny the Consequence For that Wisdom is the cause of one's being Wise only by a formal Causality viz. by existing in Him and affecting him in such a particular way and this it does without being the Cause also of his Existence that being a Thing formally distinct from his Being Wise And therefore though Wisdom I grant must presuppose the Existence of the Subject where it has this Effect Yet it does not formally cause it or rather indeed for this very reason cannot possibly do so But he proceeds and argues further viz. That supposing the Wisdom Begotten by the Father were the Cause both of his Being and of his being Wise then it must be so either by Begetting or Creating him for so I Interpret Conditricem but for one to say That Wisdom is any way the Begetter or Maker of the Father would be the height of Madness It would be so indeed And so on the other side to attempt to prove the Father and the Son to be Two distinct Infinite Minds by such strange odd uncouth Notions as these which St. Austin himself particularly treating of them in his 7 and 15 Books de Trinitate confesses to be Quoestiones inextricabiles this I say whatsoever may be the height of Madness is certainly not the height of Discretion Nevertheless as to the Argument it self I deny the Consequence And that because the Begetting or any otherwise Producing a Thing imports a Cause operating by a proper Efficiency or Causality whereas Wisdom being only the formal Cause of one's being Wise as it would be no other could it be the Cause of one's very Being also operates only by an Internal Improper Causality viz. in a word Wisdom makes one Wise as Whiteness makes a Thing White not by producing any Thing in him but by Existing in him and affecting him by it self after such a certain manner and thereby giving him such a certain Denomination Now from hence let any one judge how foreibly and Philosophically this Man Disputes the Truth is were the whole Argument Conclusive it were nothing to his purpose But I was willing to shew That his way of arguing is
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
But what is this to our Author's Purpose And how does he prove this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Mutual Consciousness Why truly by no Argument or Reason produced or so much as offered at by him but only by a confident Over-bearing Affirmation That there is no other Account to be given of that Mutual In-being of the Divine Persons in each other which the Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by Mutual Consciousness Page 125. Lines 6 7 8. But by his leave I must debate the case a little with him before he carries it off so And in order to this I must tell him in the first place That the Question is not whether Mutual Consciousness best explains this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether it be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons And in the next place I demand of him Whether our Saviour's Words do not plainly and expresly signifie the Mutual In-being or In existence of the Persons in one another without any signification of their Mutual Consciousness at all And if so let me hear a Reason Why we should not take our Saviour's meaning from the Native signification of his own Words rather than from those of this Author For will he venture to affirm That the Father cannot be in the Son and the Son in the Father by a Mutual In-existence in one another but only by a Mutual Knowledge of one another Let him take heed what he says and how he ventures beyond his Depth Or will he say That our Saviour meant the same Thing with himself but was not so happy in expressing it For no other Reason but one of these two can be assigned That when our Saviour expresses himself in Terms importing Mutual In-existence this Man shall dare to say That he means nothing by them but Mutual Consciousness I referr it to the Serious and Impartial Reader to Judge of the Horrible Boldness of this Man and withal to observe how extremely he varies from himself about this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Mutual Consciousness For First He sometimes says That Mutual Consciousness is the only thing wherein both the Unity of the Divine Nature and this Mutual In-dwelling of the three Divine Persons does Consist Page 124. lines 4 5. And Secondly He says That Mutual Consciousness is the only thing that can explain or give an account of this Mutual In-dwelling or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 125. lines 6 7. To which I Answer That when he speaks of giving an account of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he means only an Account that there is such a Thing belonging to the Divine Persons our Saviour's Words have given a sufficient Account of that already But Secondly If he means such an Account of it as explains and makes clear to us the Nature of it by shewing what it is and how it is I deny that any such Account can be given or perhaps understood by Humane Reason and much less that his Mutual Consciousness does or can give it Concerning which I shall ask him this one Question viz. Whether the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Mutually Conscious to one another of their Mutual In-existence in one another I suppose he will not because he dares not deny it And if he grants it then it manifestly follows That their Mutual In-existence in one another is in Order of Nature before their Mutual Consciousness and consequently cannot be the same with it nor consist in it For certainly those Divine Persons must Exist Mutually in one another before they can know or be Conscious to themselves that they do so So that we see here that nothing is or can be concluded from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his Mutual Consciousness whether we consider the Use of the Word or the Nature of the Thing But let us see how he makes good his Point from the Authority of the Fathers which was the grand Thing undertook by him in this his 4th Section And here as for the Fathers he both Despises and Reproaches them and that very grosly too For first he tells us That such an Union amongst the Divine Persons as is expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they all agree in but how to explain it they knew not Page 125. lines 17 18. And why then in the Name of God does he referr to the Fathers to justifie his Explanation of that which in the very same Breath he says They knew not how to Explain And the Truth is the Fathers never owned themselves able to explain it and that for a very good Reason viz. because they held it unexplicable and unconceivable and not for that scandalous Reason given by him viz. That they had gross Material Conceptions of the Deity by conceiving of it as of a Substance Page 125. lines 27 28. For says he within two lines after Had they Contemplated God as a pure Mind it had been easie to explain this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Indwelling of the Divine Persons in each other Good God! That any Professor of Divinity should call that easie to explain which the Reason of all Mankind has hitherto bent under as a thing too great and mysterious for it to comprehend or to grapple with So that if ever we have cause to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is here Or that he should tax all those who own themselves at a loss about it for not Contemplating God as a pure Mind But to him I confess who can conceive of such a pure Mind as is no Substance that is to say in other words No being For I am sure he will not so much as pretend it to be an Accident to Him I say I cannot wonder if nothing seem difficult or mysterious In the mean time it is shameless and insufferable in this Man to say as he does Page 100 101. That his Explication of the Trinity is not new but the same with that of the Fathers and afterwards in pursuance of this Assertion to say That the Fathers knew not how to explain it and to give this as a Reason of their not knowing how to do so viz. That they had such gross Notions of God that they could not conceive rightly of this Mystery For this he has roundly affirmed and therefore ought in all Reason either to prove this Charge upon the Fathers or to give the World and the Church of England in particular satisfaction for speaking so falsely and scandalously of such glorious Lights and principal Pillars of the Christian Church and such as I dare say never Preached nor Prayed in any Conventicle But what the Doctrine of the Fathers is concerning this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and how they understood those words of our Saviour expressed by this Term is manifest from the Testimony of two or three of them which I shall set down as in so known a
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
Spiration which Three Divine Persons superadd to this Divine Nature or 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
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
Estius let us cast our Eye upon Suarez speaking much the same Thing with those before mentioned Advertendum est says he hoc nomen Subsistentia apud Antiquos Patres frequentiùs accipi in Vi concreti ad significandam Hypostasim seu Personam In quo sensu nulla est Quoestio inter Catholicos nam de fide est dari in Trinitate Tres Subsistentias realiter distinctas id est Tres Hypostases Suarez in 1 m Thomae de Trinitatis Mysterio lib. 3. cap. 4. And then again for the Relative Nature of the said Subsistences he gives this Account of the Divine Persons and their Personalities Ex his quoe hactenus diximus c. concluditur Relationem Personalem esse etiam proprietatem constituentem Personam seu quâ constituitur Persona De Trinit lib. 7. cap. 7. in the beginning To all which I shall add Martinez Ripalda a short but Judicious Writer upon the Sentences speaking of the Term Hypostasis in these Words Hoeretici says he referente Hieronymo eâ voce abutebantur ad decipiendum fideles jam eâ significantes Essentiam jam Personalitatem incommunicabilem Subsistentiam By which last Expression this Author manifestly shews That he takes Personality and Incommunicable Subsistence for Words Synonymous and consequently that such a Subsistence is and must be that by which a Divine Person is constituted formally what he is I cannot think it necessary to quote any more of this sort of Writers nor am I sollicitous to alledge many of them because I am well assured according to the forecited Saying of Cajetan that these are the Terms and this the Language of them all upon this Subject Only I think fit to remark this That whereas I have alledged some of the School-men and particularly Durandus Thomas and Suarez expressing the Divine Personalities by Relations as well as by Hypostases or Subsistences as they do in both these mean but one and the same Thing viz. a Relative Subsistence or a Subsisting Relation so by both of them they equally overthrow this Author's Hypothesis deriving the Divine Personalities from Self-Consciousness Forasmuch as Subsistence is in Nature before it and Relation is opposite to it it having been demonstrated by me in Chap. 4. That Self-Consciousness is a Thing wholly Absolute and Irrelative and therefore cannot possibly be the Formal Reason of that which is Essentially Relative In a word Self Consciousness is neither an Hypostasis nor a Relation and therefore can have nothing to do here whatsoever other Employment this Author may have for it And now I shall at last descend to the Testimony of several Modern Divines and all of them Men of Note in the Times in which they lived And amongst these let us first hear Philip Melancthon in his common places speaking thus upon this Head Satis constat says he veteres Scriptores Ecclesiae solitos haec duo vocabula discernere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicere unam esse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Essentiam aeternam Patris Filii Spiritùs Sancti sed tres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From him we will pass to Chemnitius who Wrote upon Melancthon's Common Places He in the first Chapter of his Book de duabus in Christo Naturis gives his Opinion thus Hypostases seu Personae Trinitatis omnes unum sunt propter Identitatem Essentiae suae atque adeò non differunt Essentialiter nec separatim una extra aliam sinè aliâ subsistit And presently after this Relatione autem seu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 modo scilicet Subsistendi realiter differunt After Chemnitius let us consider what Calvin says in Book 1. of his Institutions Chap. 13. Sect. 2. Filium Dei Apostolus characterem Hypostaseos Patris nominans haud dubiè aliquam Patri Subsistentiam assignat in quâ differat à Filio Nam pro Essentià accipere sicuti fecerunt quidam Interpretes c. non durum modò sed absurdum quoquè esset And again in Sect. 6. of the same Chapter Personam voco Subsistentiam in Dei essentiâ quae ad alios relata proprietate incommunicabili distinguitur Subsistentiae nomine aliud quiddam intelligi volumus quà m Essentiam In the next place Peter Martyr gives us the same Account of the same Subject Multò rectiùs says he veriùs intelligemus ex isto loco nempe 2 Samuelis Cap. 7. Commate 23. Tres Personas in Unâ Naturâ Divinâ Patrem inquam Filium Spiritum Sanctum quae cùm sint Tres Hypostases tamen concluduntur in Unam Essentiam Petrus Martyr Loc. Com. p. 50. col 2. Loco de Dei Attributis Sacro-Sanctâ Trinitate Likewise Wolfgangus Musculus in his Common Places under the particular Head or common Place de Deo declares the Matter thus Est itaque Deus Essentiâ Unus quemadmodum Naturâ Divinitate Hypostasi verò Trinus And a little after Haec sunt manifestâ fide tenenda Deum viz. Esse Unum Essentiâ Naturâ Divinitate sententiâ Motione Operatione Trinum verò Tribus Personis quarum singulis sua est Hypostasis Proprietas Musc. Loc. Comm. Cap. 6. p. 7. And a little before speaking of the difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in what sence the Ancients understood these Words Voce Essentiae says he id expresserunt nempe Veteres quod commune est in Sacrâ Triade per Hypostasim verò quod Unicuique Personae proprium in illâ est significârunt p. 6. ibid. Piscator also in his Theological Theses speaks after the same manner Quum igitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 semper fuerit Filius Dei quis non videt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de quo loquitur Iohannes semper fuisse Personam seu Hypostasim rem scilicet per se Subsistentem Loc. 2. de Deo p. 57 58. Agreeably to this Tilenus an Eminent Divine expresses himself in his Body of Divinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he sive Personae sunt illa ipsa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae in singulis Personis est Tota ipsae verò Relationibus sive Proprietatibus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sunt distinctae And again Simpliciter dicimus Proprietates istas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 esse diversos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoc est modos Subsistendi Tilen Syntag. par 1. cap. 20. p. 129. The Learned Ursinus in his Theological Treatises under the Head De tribus Personis in Unâ Deitate declares the same Tenendum est nequaquam eandem esse Patris Filii Spiritûs Sancti Personam sed Tres esse Personas seu Hypostases Divinitatis reipsâ distinctas nec plures nec pauciores Ursini Oper. Theol. Quaest. 4. Thesi 2. By which we see that this great Divine reckons Subsistence to be so much the Ground and Reason of Personality that he uses Persona and Hypostasis as Terms
Father Page 102. That is to say than Three vagrant Words applyed by him to he knows not what and to be found for ought appears he knows not where All which being manifestly so I desire any Sober Person to shew me something but like a Reason to prove That the Fathers and other Church-Writers from whom all these Quotations were drawn placed the Personal Distinction of the Divine Persons in Self Consciousness and their Unity only in Mutual-Consciousness On the contrary as these Words were never so much as mentioned by them so I affirm That whensoever in speaking of the Trinity they proceed beyond the bare Word and Name of Person so as to give any Account of the Thing signified thereby and the Reason thereof they do it constantly by Subsistences Modes of Subsistence and Relations This I am positive in and withal that as they never mentioned the Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness upon this Subject so I avert moreover That when they use the Words Subsistences Modes of Subsistence and Relations on the one side and of Unity or Identity of Nature Essence or Substance on the other which they always do they neither do nor can mean Self Consciousness by the former nor Mutual-Consciousness by the latter nor yet the Things signified by either of these Terms And that for these Reasons First Because all Modes of Being importing Existence are in Order of Nature antecedent to the other Attributes of Being such as are Knowledg Wisdom Power and the like And Self-Consciousness is no more as being but a branch or sort of Knowledg and nothing else And Secondly Because nothing Absolute can give Distinction and Incommunicability to the Divine Persons the Rule of the Schools being undeniably true Non dari in Divinis Absolutum Incommunicabile Gr. Valent. Tom. 1. Pag. 874. But such a Thing I affirm Self-Consciousness to be and in Chap. 4. have abundantly proved it so So that it is evident That all the Fathers and Ancient Writers in all the Terms which they used to express the Trinity and Divine Persons by had no regard to Self-Consciousness either Name or Thing and consequently that it is a Term wholly foreign and unapplicable to this purpose And what is said of their silence about Self-Consciousness extends to Mutual-Consciousness too And the Truth is the other forementioned Terms asserted by us against this Innovator are to be looked on by all Sober Intelligent Men as a set of stated Words or Forms of Expression first pitched upon by the Ablest Divines and Writers of the Church then countenanced and owned by Councils and lastly established by a kind of Prescription founded upon a long continued use of the same throughout the several Ages of the Church as the best and fittest helps to guide Men in their Conceptions of and Discourses about this great Mystery and such as the Church in treating of so arduous a Point never yet would nor durst go beyond So that the Question now is Whether they ought to be abandoned and made to give place to a New Mushrom unheard of Notion set up by one Confident Man preferring himself before all Antiquity A Notion no doubt long before he was Born throughly considered canvased and laid aside as not only insufficient but Impertinent to give any tolerable Account of the Trinity by Well but having declared this for the Catholick Orthodox and Received Doctrine about the Blessed Trinity viz. That it is one and the same Divine Nature Essence or Substance diversified into Three distinct Persons by Three distinct Modes of Subsistence or Relations so that by vertue thereof God is truly and properly said to be Three Persons and Three Persons to be One God Having I say vouched this for the Doctrine of the Church let us in the last place see what this Author has to object against it And here his First Reason to put it into Form for him for once may run thus Whatsoever constitutes and distinguishes the Divine Persons is really and truly in God bu Modes of Subsistence are not really and truly in God and therefore Modes of Subsistence do not constitute or distinguish the Divine Persons The Major is evident and shall be readily granted him And the Minor he positively asserts by denying any Modes to be in God as particularly in Page 47. in these Words All Men grant says he that there are no Accidents Qualities or Modes in God And again Pag. 84. There are no Modes no more than there are Qualities and Accidents in the Deity So that we see here what this Author holds concerning all Modes with reference to God In Answer to which Argument as I have formed it and I challenge him to shew that I have at all wronged him in it if he can I deny the Minor viz. That Modes of Subsistence are not in God And as for his Two forecited general Assertions That Modes are no more to be allowed in God than Qualities and Accidents which by the way are so put together as if Qualities were not Accidents I have these Two Things to remark upon those Two Assertions so positively laid down by him First That it is a gross Absurdity and no small proof of Ignorance to reckon things so vastly different as Modes and Accidents are upon the same Range or Level and then to argue and affirm the same thing of both And therefore I do here with the same Positiveness tell him That Modes and Accidents do extremely differ and that none of any skill either in Logick or Metaphysicks ever accounted them the same For an Accident affects the Subject it belongs to so that it is also a distinct Being it self But a Mode affects it so that it is not a distinct Being it self I will not deny but Accidents may sometimes in a large and loose sence be called Modes But I deny That Modes are either Accidents or everso called where they are particularly and distinctly treated of by themselves School-men and Metaphysicians may speak very differently of Modes when they mention them occasionally and when they discourse of them professedly and under a certain and peculiar Head And whensoever they do so if this Author can bring me any one Logician Metaphisician or School-man who takes Accidents and Modes promiscuously for the same Things I dare undertake to forfeit to him a greater Sum than ever yet he received for Copy-money in his Life Secondly My next Remark upon his foregoing Assertion is this That as it is grosly absurd to confound Modes of Being with Accidents so it is equally absurd to deny Modes of Being to belong to God And this I shall prove both from the manifest Reason of the Thing and from Unquestionable Authority And First For the Reason of the Thing If Modes of Being should not be allowed in God then I affirm it to be impossible for any Distinction and consequently for any Persons to be in God Which I prove thus If there be any distinction in God or the Deity
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
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
which he appeared of old and the other to that Body which he was Born with in the World All which Positions are horrid and monstrous but unavoidably consequent from the foregoing Assertion But for the further Illustration of the Case I do here affirm to this Author That God is as visible in an assumed Body whether of Air or Aether or whatsoever other Materials it might be formed of as in a Body of Flesh and Blood personally united to him I say as visible For notwithstanding the great difference of these Bodies and the difference of their Union and Relation to God One being by a temporary Assumption and the other by a personal Incarnation yet no Corporeal Eye could discern this Difference during the Appearance but that one was for the time as visible as the other and therefore since both of them were truly Symbols of God's peculiar Presence the only way by which the Divine Nature becomes visible to a Mortal Eye it demonstratively overthrows that positive false Assertion of this Author That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature PARADOX All the Circumstances of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Death were so punctually foretold by the Prophets and so peremptorily decreed by God that after he was come into the World there was no place for his Choice and Election And he could not shew either his Love or his Humility by choosing Poverty Death c. Page 242. Line 5. Answer This is False Absurd and Dangerous and indeed next to Blasphemous as overthrowing the whole Oeconomy of Man's Redemption by the Merits of Christ. For that which leaves no place for Choice leaves no possibility for Merit For all Merit is founded in freedom of Action and that in Choice And if Christ after his Incarnation had not this he could not Merit And whereas the Author says That Christ chose all this as the second Person of the Trinity antecedently to his Incarnation I Answer That this is indeed true but reaches not the present Case For what he did before he was Incarnate was the Act of him purely as God but a meritorious Action must still be an humane Action which could not proceed from the second Person before his Assumption of an humane Nature I readily grant and hold That the Actions of Christ's humane Nature received a peculiar Worth and Value from its Union with his Divine Person yet still I affirm that this Worth and Value was subjected and inherent in his humane Actions as such and thereby qualified them with so high a degree of Merit So that whencesoever this Merit might flow they were only his humane Actions viz. such as proceeded from him as a Man that were properly and formally meritorious And whereas this Author states the Reason of this his horrid Assertion upon the Predictions of the Prophets and the peremptory Decrees of God concerning all that belonged to or befell Christ I do here tell him That neither Predictions nor Decrees though never so punctual and peremptory do or can infringe or take away the freedom of Man's Choice or Election about the things so decreed or foretold how difficult soever it may be for humane Reason to reconcile them and if this Man will affirm the contrary he must either banish all Choice and Freedom of Action or all certain Predictions and peremptory Decrees out of the World let him choose which of these two Rocks he will run himself against for he will be assuredly split upon either This vile Assertion really deserves the Censure of a Convocation and it is pity for the Church's sake but in due time it should find it PARADOX Concerning Person and Personality he has these following Assertions which I have here drawn together from several parts of his Book viz. The Mind is a Person Page 191. Line 21 22. A Soul without a Vital Union to a Body is a Person Page 262. Line 17. And the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing power and Constitutes the Person Page 268. Line 28. A Beast which has no Reasonable Soul but only an Animal Life is a Person c. Page 262. Line 18 19 20. And again We may find the Reasonable and Animal Life subsisting apart and when they do so they are Two Persons and but One Person when United Page the same at the end of it And lastly One Agent is One Person Page 268. Line 2. Answer In all these Propositions so confidently laid down by this Man there are almost as many Absurdities and Falsities as there are Words I have already shewn this of some of them in Chap. 3. and therefore I shall be the briefer in my Remarks upon them here And first for that Assertion That the Mind is a Person To this I Answer That the Mind may be taken Two ways First Either for that Intellectual Power or Faculty by which the Soul understands and Reasons Or Secondly For the Rational Soul it self In the former Sense it is but an Accident and particularly a Quality In the second it is an Essential part of the whole Man and therefore upon neither of these Accounts can be a Person For neither an Accident nor a Part can be a Person which as such must be both a Substance and a compleat Substance too And secondly Whereas he says That a Soul without a vital Union to the Body is a Person I tell him That the Soul without such an Union is still an incomplete Being as being originally and naturally designed for the Completion and Composition of the whole Man and therefore for that reason cannot be a Person And then Thirdly whereas he adds That the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing Power and Constitutes the Person I answer That it is the former and does the latter only as it is the prime essential part of the whole Man and for that very cause is an incomplete Being as every part is and must be and consequently cannot be a Person In the next place for an Answer to his saying That a Beast is a Person I refer him to his own positive Affirmation pag. 69. line 18. That a Person and an Intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms And the same may serve for an Answer to his next Absurdity That when the Reasonable and the Animal Life subsist apart they are Two Persons For the Animal Life separate from the Rational is void of all Reason and the very Definition of a Person is That it is Suppositum Rationale aut Intelligens In the last place By his saying That One Agent is One Person which I am sure he affirms universally of every single Agent he makes every Living Creature under Heaven a Person For every such Creature is endued with a Principle of Life and Action and accordingly acts by it and by so acting is properly an Agent From all which it follows That this Author as great as his Retinue may be has many more Persons in his Family
Person and Hypostasis or Subsistence c. applyed to the Godhead and the Divine Persons served only to perplex obscure and confound Men's Apprehensions of them and for that cause ought to be laid aside I say I do not in the least question but that all and every one of these Propositions would have been publickly and solemnly Condemned in Council and the Author of them as high as he now carries his Head like another Abbot Joachim severely dealt with for Asserting them and that upon great Reason Forasmuch as the Two chief of those Terms viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Substance and Subsistence were equally with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self opposed by those Two grand Arian Hereticks and Furious Disturbers of the Church Ursacius and Valens who with their Accomplices vehemently contended to have them all wholly suppressed and disused So that as for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father and the Son they would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no mention at all to be made of any such Thing and as for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it ought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so much as to be named concerning any of the Three Persons And as one Reason for this they alledged the satisfaction of Tender Consciences Which shews That there are some such tender Consciences in the World as when opportunity serves may put the Church not only to part with its Liturgy Rites and Ceremonies but its very Creed also for their sake But right or wrong those Two Arian Incendiaries pressed hard for the Abolition of these Two Words as this Author also does in this his Vindication treading hereby exactly in the steps of those Blessed Leaders who no doubt understood the Interest of their base Cause well enough and were both Self-Conscious and Mutually-Conscious how much they served the design they drove at by what they did And since Things were so in former Days what hinders but that in these latter Days likewise the same if not prevented may happen again And that One who tho' he carries himself as if he were able to teach the whole World yet for some certain Reasons professes himself a Learner still having already exploded the Terms Substance and Subsistence as not to be used about the Trinity may upon the winning prospect of some Approaching Advantage as where Advantage is the Teacher some care not how long they continue Learners be very easily prevailed upon to send the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 packing after its Fellows and to abandon and cast off that too For though such an One should give the Church his Oath to the contrary there is no security from thence but that a Perpetual Learner by a due waiting upon Providence may all in convenient time Learn to forget it too And a Self-Contradictor having freely allowed a Thing at one time as freely and fully disown it at another Wherefore it was no doubt upon a most serious consideration of the force of Words in Conjunction with the Tempers of Men That the Sixth General Council and Third of Constantinople was so jealously concerned and so remarkably strict to fence against all Heretical Mischief from that Quarter as appears from the Concluding Article of the Synodical Sentence pronounced by the said Council against the Monothelites as we find it thus set down in the Acts thereof These Things therefore being thus with the utmost care and exactness on all sides formed and drawn up by us We Decree and Enact That it shall not be lawful for any one to Produce Write Compose Conceive or Teach another Faith or this in any other way or manner But as for those who shall presume to Compose or Contrive another Faith or Publish Teach or deliver forth another Creed to such as shall be ready to come over to the Acknowledgment of the Truth from Heathenism or Judaisine or any other Sect whatsoever or shall introduce any unusual way of speaking or new Invented Terms as tending to Subvert all that has been defined by us if they be Bishops or in Clerical Orders we decree That they shall be deprived of their Bishopricks or said Orders or if they be Monks or Laymen that they shall be Anathematized So that we have here a clear and full Declaration of a General Council against all teaching not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not only against delivering another Faith but against delivering the same in another way or manner than the Council had settled and against the use of all new-Invented Terms all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness themselves not excepted as in the Judgment of the Council destructive in their consequence to the Faith declared and all this upon pain of Deprivation or Anathematization as the Quality of the Persons concerned should happen to be According to the rigour of which Sentence and the Proceeding of the Church in those â—ges sutable to it Deprivation or Suspension would no doubt have attended this Author had he then lived and produced his new Terms in defiance and reproach of the former received ones And if such a punishment had actually befallen him he would have found that in those Days Men were not wont either to be Suspended or Deprived in order to their Promotion I know indeed that in the Apology lately put out by him for Writing against the Socinians he utters some Things contrary to what he had Asserted in this his Vindication of the Trinity But this the Reader ought not at all to be surprized at it being as Natural to some Men to Write as to Breath and to Contradict themselves at to Write And no Man of Sence who knows this Author will reckon that he knows his Iudgment or Opinion from any Book Wrote by Him any longer than till he Writes another nor from that neither till he has Wrote his last Having given the Reader this short Prelibation or Taste of the Book which I shall more particularly and fully examine presently I think fit to remark something also upon that other Piece mentioned by me and Entituled A Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ c. A Book fraught with such Vile and Scandalous Reflexions upon God's Justice with reference to Christ's Satisfaction that it may deservedly pass for a Blasphemous Libel upon both And I do seriously think that never was any Book Licensed Published and suffered to pass Uncontrolled more to the Disgrace of the Church of England than this which the Reader will quickly see upon his Reading some Passages of it which I am sure if he be but Christianly disposed be cannot do but with extreme Horrour But before I direct the Reader to his Blasphemies I shall lay before him one Grand leading Absurdity which utterly Evacuates and Overthrows the whole Doctrine of Free Grace and the Redemption of Mankind thereby and indeed by Consequence
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
Action of Battery against them who certainly has a Pate to break as well as Priscian and is as sensible of hard usage how patiently soever he has took it hitherto at this Author's hands But to give the said Author his due he is not so much a Slave to his word as to speak the same Thing in all places of his Book For to quote his own Authority though of little value but when brought against himself in page 62. of this very Tract he has these words A Person says he and an Intelligent Substance are Reciprocal Terms And are they so Why how then comes a Beast in page 269. to be a Person Is a Beast an Intelligent Substance Or can a Beast be a Person and yet not an Intelligent Substance when he affirms That they are Terms Reciprocal If I have not quoted this Author fairly and justly let the Advantage be his and the shame mine But if I have then let all the Learned and Impartial World which I appeal to judge whether one who talks thus Ignorantly and Self-Contradictiously about the Nature of a Person be fit to prescribe to the whole Church New Terms and Models never heard of before to explicate the Persons of the Sacred Trinity by But the Truth is the distance between the 69. and the 262. pages was so great and the Contradictions which passed within that compass so Numerous that how gross and bulky soever this one might be yet with the help of a little good luck it might well escape the Author's Eye in such a Crowd And perhaps it had been never the worse luck for the Author Himself if it could as easily have escaped the Reader 's Eye too And now to sum up in short the Chief Heads of what has been treated of in this Chapter I have proved against this Author That Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in Created Beings And that first by an Argument drawn from the very Nature of the Thing For that Self-Consciousness presupposes Personality and therefore cannot be the formal Reason of it As also from two Notable Instances One of the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ. The other of the Soul of Man in its state of Separation from the Body Both of which I have shewn to be perfectly Self-Conscious of all the Internal Acts Motions and Passions respectively belonging to each of them and yet that they were neither of them Persons And pursuant to this Subject I have by clear and solid Reasons overthrown the pretended Personality of the Soul both in a state of Conjunction with the Body and of Disjunction from it which in both is asserted by this Author And Lastly I have examined his Absurd Unphilosophical Assertions about these Matters in one whereof he ascribes a Personality even to Beasts themselves By all which it is but too manifest against this Assuming big-talking Man that as loftily as he carries it yet in very Deed and Truth he does not understand what those Terms Suppositum and Subsistence Person and Personality mean So fit is he as I have said to treat of the Divine Persons of the God-head whom yet he has made so bold with And here I should judge it high time to conclude this Chapter but that methinks it is pity to leave this fine Trim Notion of Self-Consciousness so without taking a little further View of the Curious Artifice and admirable Contrivance of so rare a production For if it were not such could this Author vaunt of it at such a rate as he does pleasing himself and proclaming his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as upon an Invention forsooth which all Antiquity before him could never yet reach to Nevertheless to deal clearly and plainly amongst Friends such a Cheating Lurching thing does this Expectation usually prove that after all these Pompous Shews and Glorious Boasts of Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness ushered in with twenty Encomium's at least like so many Heralds or Tip-staves or rather Yeomen of the Guard marching before it yet in Truth after all this noise it is like an Owl stripp'd of its Feathers but a very Mean Meagre Ordinary Thing being in down-right Terms neither more nor less than only one Property of a Rational or Intelligent Being by vertue whereof the Soul is as the Schools express it Supra se Reflexiva that is to say Able by a Reflex Act of Knowledge intimately to know and consider it self and its own Being together with its own Acts Motions and Operations This is the Sum Total of the Matter and all that Self-Consciousness is or can truly pretend to be And which is yet a further Diminution to it as poor and mean a Notion as it is it is Borrowed too But you will say From whom Why Even from Honest Des Cartes and his Cogito ergo sum Only with this unhappy difference in the Application of it That this Proposition which Des Cartes lays as the Basis and Ground-work of his Philosophy our Author places with its Heels upwards in his Divinity For whereas Des Cartes insists upon Cogitation only to prove and infer Being as one would prove a Cause from its Effects or rather an Antecedent from its Consequent Our Author on the contrary makes Cogitation the very Cause and Principle of Being and Subsistence by making it the formal Constituent Reason of Personality in the Person who Thinks or Reflects than which nothing can be more false and ridiculous And this according to the Truest and most Philosophical Account of the Thing is the very utmost which this New and so much bragg'd of Notion amounts to And I do hereupon Challenge this Author to prove these two Things if he can First That the Self-Consciousness hitherto spoken of by him is any Thing more than a bare Property of an Intelligent Being whereby it reflects upon it self and its own Thoughts and Actions And in the next place That such a Property does or can Constitute the Being or Nature which it flows from and belongs to properly a Person These two things I say I call upon him to prove and if he does not by dint of Argument make them good he exposes a poor senceless infant Hypothesis to the wide World and then very unmercifully leaves it to shift for it self In fine I cannot but again and again own my Amazement at the Confidence of some bold presuming Men who set up for Enlightners of the Church and new Modellers of Divinity in the strength of some odd upstart Notions which yet are not able to acquit or support themselves upon and much less against the very first Elements and Principles of a long tryed and never yet baffled Philosophy CHAP. IV. In which is proved against this Author That neither is Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality in the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity nor Mutual-Consciousness the Reason of their Unity in one and the same Nature HAving thus examined and as I think overthrown our Author's Notion of Self-Consciousness with reference to
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
it must be either from some distinct Substance or some Accident or some Mode of Being for I defie him or any Mortal breathing to assign a fourth Thing besides these But it cannot be from any distinct Substance for that would make a manifest Composition in the Divine Nature nor yet from any Accident for that would make a worse Composition And therefore it follows That this Distinction must unavoidably proceed from one or more distinct Modes of Being This I affirm and according to my promise made to this Author in the foregoing Chapter I shall be ready to defend the Truth of this Assertion against him whensoever he shall think fit to engage in the Dispute Secondly In the next place for the proof of this from Authority I affirm that all Metaphysicians School-men and Divines at least all that I have yet met with do unanimously concurr in these Two Things 1. That they utterly deny any Accidents in God And 2. That they do as universally affirm Modes of Being to be in God and to belong to him Nay and which is more That they do in these very Modes state the Ground and Reason of the Personalities and the distinction thereof respectively belonging to the Three Persons of the Godhead And for a further proof of what I have here affirmed and withal to shew how unable this Man's Memory is to keep pace with his Confidence whereas in the forementioned page 47. He affirms That all Men mark this Word deny Accidents Qualities and Mâ—des to be in God He himself afterwards in page 48. Owns That the School-men hold these different Modos Subsistendi in the Godhead and accordingly there sets himself as well as he is able to confute them for it Now how shall we reconcile these blind Assertions that so cruelly buâ—t and run their Heads against one another For will he say That the School-men do not grant such Modes to be in God after he himself has done his poor utmost to confute them for holding it Or having said That all Men deny these Modes to be in God and yet that the School men grant and hold it will he say That the School-men are not Men and so come not under that Universal Appellative What the School-men hold and assert in this Matter has been sufficiently shewn already But I must needs tell this Author upon this occasion That he seems to have something a bad Memory and withal to have more than ordinary need of a very good one There is one Thing more which I think fit to observe and it is something pleasant viz. That our Author having exploded all Modos Subsistendi in God and Chastised the School-men for holding them even to a forfeiture of their very Humanity he yet vouchsafes afterwards by a kind of Correctory Explication to allow them in this sence viz. That the same Numerical Essence is whole and entire in each Divine Person but in a different Manner P. 84. Lines 12 13 14. By which Words it appearing that he grants that of the Manner which he had before denied of the Modus it is a shrewd Temptation to me to think That certainly this Acute Author takes Modus for one Thing and Manner for another In fine I appeal to the Judicious and Impartial Reader Whether a Man could well give a more convincing Argument of his utter Unacquaintance with the True Principles of Philosophy and Theology than by a Confident Assertion of these Two Positions 1. That Accidents and Modes of Being are the same Things And 2. That such Modes are not at all to be allowed of or admitted in God Secondly His Second Objection against our stating the distinction of the Divine Persons upon Three different Modes of Subsistence is That these Modes are little better than Three Names of One God Which was the Heresie of Sabellius P. 83. To which I Answer Two Things First In direct and absolute Contradiction to what he asserts I affirm That the difference between Three Modes of Subsistence in the Godhead and only Three distinct Names applyed to it is very great For Names and Words depend only upon the Will and Pleasure of the Imposer and not upon the Nature of the Thing it self upon which they are imposed and for that cause neither do nor can Internally affect it But on the contrary all Modes of Subsistence spring from the Nature of the Thing or Being which they affect both antecedently to and by consequence independently upon the Apprehension or Will of any one So that altho neither Man nor Angel had ever considered or thought of or so much as known that there were such or such things yet the Modes of Subsistence proper to them would have belonged to them as really and as much as they do now And if this Author cannot by this see a vast difference between these and so many bare Names thanks be to God others can both see and defend it too But Secondly Whereas he says That these Three Modes are but little better than Three Names I answer That his very saying so is Concession that they are something at least more and better To which I add further That this something as small a Difference as it makes is yet sufficient to discriminate things which are only Distinguishable and no more For separable or divisible from one another I am sure they are not Nay this is so far from being a just and rational Exception against placing the difference of the Divine Persons in so many different Modes of Subsistence that in the Judgment of very Great and Learned Men it is no small Argument for it For St. Cyril says That the difference between the Divine Persons by reason of the perfect Unity of their Nature as it were blotting out or taking away all Diversity between them is so very small as but just to distinguish them and no more and to cause that One of them cannot be called the other the Father not the Son nor the Son upon any Account the Father c. I thought fit to Transcribe the whole Passage tho' the latter part viz. from the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. is most immediately and directly to the Purpose which I here alledge the whole for And Thomas Aquinas tells us That the Divine Persons ought to be distinguished by that which makes the least distinction In like manner Durandus affirms That the first Instance of Plurality or remove from Unity ought to be the least And therefore that the distinction of the Divine Persons since it is the first ought to be by distinct Relations compatible in the same Essence Which for that cause is a less distinction than any that can be made by Things Absolute And Lastly Bellarmine averrs pofitively That the distinction of the Divine Persons ought to be the least that is Possible Supposing all along that it must still be Real and not barely Nominal or Imaginary This was the Judgment of these Learned Men who as they
Haughtiness for the future to forbear calling his Antagonists Little Writers till by his Answers he has made them so A further discovery of his rude undecent way of treating such as he writes against is the Language he has bestow'd upon a certain Writer a Nonconformist indeed but yet a Man of Learning as a much greater Man than this Author has found by experience whom he calls a Trifling Scribler who understands little more than Quibbles and Iests Charging him withal with Pertness and Folly to complete his Character p. 15. of his Preface to his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet And in the 12. page of the Book it self and the five first lines He represents him under the name of the Inquirer as one who cannot understand plain and familiar sense nor carry the Connexion of three or four Sentences together Very civil Language indeed becoming a Scholar a Divine and a well-bred Man to a Person who had not in the least provok'd Him For my own part I have no knowledge of the Man but from his Writings and upon the Stock of that knowledge have often wondred that one so able to humble this Reviler would take such gross Reproaches at his hands But the Truth is when I consider as I noted first in my Preface how patiently our whole Clergy has hitherto suffered him to call them Fools and Hereticks by charging all those as such who concur not with him in holding the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which I dare say not one of them held at the time of his uttering this Lewd Reproach I say when I consider this I have cause to surcease all wonder that any Private Man should indure this Insolent Huff to insult over him in such a manner But I shall insist no further upon this master-piece of his Scurrility having in some measure accounted with him for it already Only I shall add this That as it is beyond Example marvellous that any one single Member of a Church should presume to load all the rest with such a charge so it is yet a greater marvel that all should bear it It would be endless to set down all the dirty stuff that has flowed from his Billingsgate Pen. But to repeat and bring together so much as we have taken notice of the Reader may be pleased to bear away in his Memory such Expressions and Appellations as these viz. Epicurean and Ridiculer of Providence Popishly inclined and looking towards an Infallible Interpreter Disaffected to and a slanderer of the Government Little Writers Fools and Hereticks Errant Fopp Trifling Scribler shamefully Ignorant and Impudent Fit to be sent to School again One that understands little else but Iests and Quibbles One that cannot understand plain and familiar sense One that understands neither Greek nor Latine and the like These are the choice Embellishments of his Style But above all that beloved word Nonsense is always ready at hand with him and out it flies at all Persons and upon all Occasions And hardly can he write three or four Pages together but right or wrong he throws it in his Adversary's Face One would think that he was Born with the Word in his Mouth and that it grew up with him from his Infancy and that in his very Cradle he Cryed Nonsense before he could Speak it But to check this ungovern'd Humour of his in thus using this word at all Adventure Let me tell him that it is both a very rude unmannerly Word and most commonly as applyed by him a very false Charge As for the rudeness of it since he owns himself a Son of the Church of England I think he would be much his own Friend if he would remember the Reprimand given him by his old Acquaintance and Antagonist Dr. Owen who in his Vindication c. p. 72. having upon occasion of some of his profane Scoffs called him Goodly Son of the Church of England Immediately subjoyns That he intended it not as a Reflexion upon the Church it self but only to remind this Man of his Relation to that Church Which he there says to his Knowledge taught better Learning and better Manners In the next place as for the falseness of the Charge in his usual application of this Word I would have him know That the Charge of Nonsense does not properly lie against every one who asserts a false Proposition or is guilty of a mistake For Nonsense is not properly opposed to strict Truth but to such plain and manifest Truth as is obvious to Common sense For Truth oftentimes lies deep and abstruse and requires a more than ordinary sagacity to reach and fetch it out which that low Pitch of Reason which we call Common sense cannot always do For in Discourse a Man may be sometimes mistaken in laying his Foundation or Principle and yet be very Clear and Rational in the Consequences he draws from it and sometimes he may fail in drawing Consequences from a True and well-laid Principle in both which cases the whole Discourse is certainly False and Inconsistent Nevertheless according to the common acception of the Word this cannot be called Nonsense It may indeed be called Error or Mistake which is a weakness cleaving too close to Humane Nature for any one of the same Nature to reproach another for it But on the contrary if every Thing that is not strict Demonstration and certain Truth must pass for Nonsense I fear it would overlay whole Volumes and not only prevent the 2d 3d. and 4th Editions of many Books but shrewdly also endanger the Sale of the First Especially if 2d and 3d. by the unlucky escape of some scattering Copies should chance all to appear in the space of Three or Four Days As in the first Publication of a certain Book Entituled The Case of Allegiance c. it fell out But great no doubt is the Art of Bestowing several Title-Pages importing divers Editions upon Books of one and the same Impression And may serve to teach the World what a fruitful Thing the Press is when impregnated by the Prolifick Genius of some Writers and that when it is for the credit of any extraordinary Book and it's Author it can bring forth four five or six Editions of it at the same time Which certainly is a most Ingenious Contrivance but whether it were the Author 's or the Bookseller's is a Question though some think it uses to be done by a kind of Mutual-Consciousness between both But to return to the Point in hand According to the common use of the Word Nonsense He who Discourses of Things obvious to the ordinary Apprehensions of Men with gross and palpable Contradictions of one thing to another or with a plain manifest Incoherence of one part of his Discourse with the other that Man is properly and justly chargeable with Nonsense And let those in the Name of Sense and Reason take it to themselves who have most claim to it But because the
Animadversions UPON Dr. SHERLOCK's Book ENTITULED A Vindication of the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity c. TOGETHER With a more Necessary Vindication of that Sacred and Prime Article of the Christian Faith from his New Notions and False Explications of it Humbly offered to His Admirers and to Himself the Chief of them By a Divine of the Church of England The Second Edition with some Additions LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall MDCXCIII A PREFACE OR INTRODUCTION To the following Animadversions TO be Impugned from without and Betrayed from within is certainly the worst Condition that either Church or State can fall into and the best of Churches the Church of England has had experience of Both. It had been to be wished and one would think might very reasonably have been expected That when Providence had took the Work of destroying the Church of England out of the Papists Hands some would have been contented with her Preserments without either attempting to give up her Rites and Liturgy or deserting her Doctrine But it has proved much otherwise And amongst those who are justly chargeable with the latter I know none who has faced the World and defied the Church with so bold a Front as the Author of Two very Heterodox Books the first Entituled A Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ c. Published in the Year 1674. And the other A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever-Blessed Trinity c. Published in the Year 1690. And as one would think Wrote purposely to let the World see that the Truth cannot be so much shaken by a direct Opposition as by a Treacherous and False Defence I shall in this Preliminary Address to the Reader pass some brief Remarks upon both these Books But first upon this which I have here undertook to Animadvert upon It is now of about Three Years standing in the World and I have wondered even to Astonishment that a Book so full of Paradoxes and those so positively as well as absurdly delivered could pass Unanswered for so long a time For the Author having therein advanced a Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring Three Gods has yet had the Confidence not only to Assert it but to Declare it Heresie and Nonsence to think or hold otherwise that is in other Words to call the whole Christian Church in all Ages and Places Fools and Hereticks For I do here averr and will undertake to prove it as far as a Negative may be proved That no Church known to us by History or otherwise ever held this Notion of the Trinity before And must we then be all Fools and Hereticks who will not acknowledge the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits that is in other Terms to be Three Gods And can so Learned and every way Excellent a Clergy bear this For if they could not whence is it that some Writers amongst them while they are declaring their dislike of his Opinions yet do it with so soft an Air and so gentle a Touch as if they were afraid either to Condemn the Opinion or to Attack the Author Nay and some I find creeping under his Feet with the Title of Very Reverend while they are charging him with such Qualities and Humours as none can be justly chargeable with and deserve Reverence too For my own part I franckly own That I neither Reverence nor Fear him that is I Reverence none who gives whole Communities and Churches such Words nor Fear any One who Writes such Things and in such a manner For even those Mean Spirits who can both Court and Censure him in the same Breath complain That he gives no Quarter where he supposes he has his Adversary upon the least Advantage And if this be his Way and Temper never to give Quarter I am sure he has no cause to expect any whatsoever he may find But still methinks I can hardly believe my Eyes while I read such a Pettit Novellist Charging the Whole Church as Fools and Hereticks for not Subscribing to a Silly Heretical Notion solely of his own Invention For does he or can he think to Live and Converse in the World upon these Terms And to throw his Scurrility at High and Low at all About him Above him and Below him if there be any such at this insufferable rate Does he I would fain know in this speak his Judgment or his Breeding Was it the School the University or Gravel-Lane that taught him this Language Or does he never reflect upon himself nor consider That though he does not others assuredly will One would think by his Words and Carriage that he had ingrossed all Reason and Learning to Himself But on the contrary that this his scornful looking down upon all the World besides is not from his standing upon any higher ground of Learning and Sufficiency than the rest of the World and that he Huffs and Dictates at a much more commanding rate than he Reasons the perusal of my Ninth Tenth and Eleventh Chapters will or I am sure may sufficiently inform the Impartial Reader and shew him how many things there are in this Author's Vindication which too much need Another but admit none In the mean time I do and must declare both to himself and to all others That the forementioned Charge of Heresie and Nonsence as he has laid it is so very Rude Scandalous and Provoking that it is impossible for the Tongue or Pen of Man to reply any Thing so severely upon him which the foulness of the said Expression will not abundantly warrant both the Speaking and the Writing of The Church of England is certainly very Merciful Merciful as a Great Judge once said of K. Charles II. even to a Fault For who by her silence upon what this Bold Man has Wrote and the Encouragement he has since received would not be shrewdly induced after some consider able number of Years if his stuff should live so long to believe that his Notions were the Current Doctrine of our Church or at least of our Church-men at that time None then opposing them most over-looking them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too This is truly the Case and I hope to do the Church of England so much Service at least as to break the Universality both of the Silence and the presumed Acceptance by one plain resolute and full Negative put in against it For upon a due Consideration of the Things vented by this Author and comparing them with the Proceedings and Zeal of the Primitive Church in its Councils I do from my Heart believe That had he lived and published this Book in those Days and Asserted That the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity were Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits And that Their Personal distinction consisted only in Self-Consciousness and their Unity only in Mutual-Consciousness And withal That the Terms Essence Nature Substance