makes the distinction of the Persons is the addition of a Created immaterial nature in the second Person of the Blessed Trinity of a Created material one in the third and the substraction or precision of both of these in the first The Son is said to be begotten of the Father being a similar immaterial and as it were univocal effect of his Power and Will and the Holy Ghost to proceed from them both because though the human nature of Christ and the subtle matter which makes the body of that Person which is called the Holy Ghost be both of them emanative and by consequence eternal yet the emanation seems more natural from one immaterial nature to another then from immaterial to material and so the Son is at least prior natura then the Holy Ghost though not cognitione and the subtle matter which is one part of the third Person of the Blessed Trinity being Created though from all Eternity yet in some sense for the sake of the Son as hath been already declared and being also produced by the Father by a contemporary consent of will in the Son or in the human nature though they be supposed contemporary to one another yet this is enough to make it no improper way of expression to say that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son though in this I do not justifie the heats on either side between the Greek and Latin Churches neither do I think the Schism to be the less inexcusable because the Latins in a matter of this subtlety were in the right I do not deny but that the Father or the simple divine substance is always vitally united to the human nature of Christ and also to a certain subtle and aethereal matter in that manner which hath been already declared but yet notwithstanding the real distinction of the Father from the Son or of the first Person of the Blessed Trinity from the second is always as really and as clearly preserved as if in the first case there were no second Person or no vital union with the human nature or as if in the second there were no third or no vital union of the divine and human nature with the aethereal matter for in the first place as hath been already largely represented there are some operations of the simple divine substance to which the human nature being but finite cannot adaequately extend and in this case that substance is of necessity considered as a Person acting by it self and in the second notwithstanding the vital union of one or more immaterial nature to a material yet there are some abstracted operations wherein the immaterial substances do perfectly withdraw themselves from any intercourse or communication with matter as is plain in those operations of the human soul which are purely speculative and intellectual in which the animal concupisciblâ— or plastick life have no share but they are purely the operations of separated and abstracted Spirits and such as would undoubtedly accompany the mind of Man though it were disentangled from this mortal body and yet the vital union is not interrupted all this while but the digestion and Animal secretion still goes on the bloud still circulates and the Plastic faculties perform their office in men not yet arrived to their full growth as well as in Embrios not yet attained to their just form and shape in their Mothers Womb not that I would be thought to compare these things with one another but only in general to represent that an immaterial nature tho vitally united to a material may yet have operations purely spiritual and altogether abstracted in which that union is not at all concerned and those operations which are performed on the one hand by the abstracted and on the other by the Compound and Heterogeneous nature may well enough be considered as the actions of two Jeveral and distinct persons as in St. Paul's description of the strife and contention between the Flesh and Spirit Rom. 7. 15. That which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. Where it is manifest that the soul of man considered by it self in its most inward and abstracted speculation is considered as one person and as united and vitally interwoven with a body or vehicle of matter as another and this is enough to show that a compound and a simple person are by no means the same or to defend the personality of the Holy Ghost as distinct from the simple substance of God the Father Further that by the Holy Ghost nothing else is meant but the vital union of an aethereal or subtle matter to the simple and original divine substance of God the Father is clear not only from the words themselves by which it is expressed in Hebrew Rouach and in Greek Pneuma which signifie nothing else but a subtle matter but also from the History of the Creation where the spirit of God is said to have moved upon the face of the Waters in the Hebrew it is Merachepheth which the Rabbins interpret of the incubation of any bird or fowl upon the young or eggs by which it is manifest that they understood the Spirit of God not simply of any wind or subtle matter whatsoever but of such as was animated with a divine life and fitly disposed by brooding upon the Chaos to make it fruitful and fertile and when God spake to Moses out of the burning bush when he gave the Law upon Mount Sinai in Fire and Smoak when he went before the Camp of the Israelites like a Cloud by day and like a Flame by night when such flaming and fiery apparitions as these are so frequently called in Scripture by the name of the glory of God all these are meant of that subtle matter which being animated and enlivened by a divine life is called Rouach hachodesh pneuma hagion the Holy Spirit the spirit or breath or wind of God so also when Moses desired to see the face of God but was denied for this reason that no Man could see the face of God and live but yet was permitted to see his back parts which were nothing else but a certain vigorous and piercing flame the meaning is plainly this that no Man in this life can converse with the naked essence or immaterial nature of God but his back parts or that aethereal and subtle matter to which from all eternity he hath been vitally united these may possibly fall under human cognizance as they did under that of Moses even in this life and this in truth is the main if not only business of this subtle matter besides the forming of Ideas in it as hath been already suggested that being animated and informed by the life of God it is the instrument of the divine power in its external operations thus as God being cloathed with this subtle matter did incubate and brood upon the Mass and order and dispose its several parts as seemed best
any impressions or that it should be capable of any motion mutability or change in which the very nature of true happiness consists for perfect rest and perfect peace go together Secondly It is absurd to say that one Divine Substance can send another for this were to suppose a plurality of Gods which hath been already sufficiently exploded besides that to send implying a superiority and to be sent a subjection both of which are absolutely impossible and absurd with respect to two Divine or infinitely perfect substances compared together it is likewise absurd in this respect to affirm of one Divine Substance that it sends or commands or that it is obedient to or is sent by another Thirdly though the Human Nature of Christ be so intimately twisted with and so vitally Vnited to the Divine and Omnipresent Substance of God the Father as that these two lives the Divine and the Human do by this means become one life and have a mutual self-consciousness and enjoyment of each other so as to constitute the same Person the unity of Person consisting in nothing else but an unity of common life yet when we speak of sending and being sent this in the utmost propriety of Speech can be understood of nothing else but the Human Nature of Christ which being formerly Vnited for it is but finite and by consequence cannot be adequately coextended to the whole divine space which is infinite and Omnipresent to that part of the Divine space where the most perfect and the most highly honoured and exalted Spirits have their sublime and glorious abode far above the dreggs and impurities of this Earthy Region was in the fulness of time for wise and gracious purposes predetermined and preordained of God from everlasting commanded to descend into it and adding human flesh to human nature to appear in the likeness of a mortal Man and to put on the form of a Servant notwithstanding that the vital union betwixt the Father and him continued all this while and being really united in that intire and vital manner to any one part of the Divine Substance or space it was as much in some sense as if he had been really and adaequately coextended to the whole because tho' in this Divine space it may be said of this what is in general true of all extension that it hath partem extra partem so that this part is not that or vice versa yet in the first place the parts of an Omnipresent extention are therefore utterly inseparable and indivisible even by cogitation from each other because the whole is Omnipresent and fills the very utmost possibility of space and in the second tho' the parts be never so distinct yet are they all of them acted by the same Divine Life which is one self-consciousness or self-sensation running through the whole indivisible inseparable and tyed to it self by an Vnity of self-enjoyment which is the highest the noblest and the strictest unity in the nature of things by which means it comes to pass as it is plain it must do that whatsoever is vitally united to any part of this Divine space which is all of it animated by one indivisible and inseparable life is at the same time effectually united to the whole and hath always the highest and the closest enjoyment and imbibition of that Divine life which a finite Substance is capable of receiving But yet in this action of sending and being sent it is not the Human nature but the Divine that sends and it is not the Divine nature but the Human that is sent and as the Father is said to beget the Son in these two senses which have been already explained first that he begat or produced the human nature of Christ out of the emanative fruitfulness of the Divine substance by an eternal generation secondly that by the same emanative and eternal power and goodness he did vitally unite this first born of all the Creatures the only begotten Son of God in that immediate and emanative sense into a feeling and enjoyment of his own Divine substance and life so that they became one Person which may very truly and properly be said to be God as being deno-Minated as there is all the reason in the world it should from the principal chiefest life so the descent of the Human Nature of Christ from one part of the divine substance to another notwithstanding that it were all the while vitally and consciously united to that Divine life which is indivisibly inseparably and self-consciously the same through all the parts of the Divine substance or space is as plainly asserted as it is possible for words to express it in that passage of St. John c. 3. 13. where our Saviour saith concerning himself No Man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of Man which is in Heaven in which place by Heaven God or the Divine space was understood in the Language of the Jews and by his coming down from thence was meant the removal of his Human substance from one part of this Divine space to another and by his being in Heaven as every Man is in some sense being included in the large comprehension of the Divine space is meant in a more especial manner for it is manifest that something peculiar to himself is here exprest the vital union of the two natures together by which he was really God as well as Man and by his ascending thither notwithstanding that his Human substance continued all this while below is meant that he that is vitally united to any one part of the Divine space does at the same time enjoy a most entire and perfect Communion with the whole by reason of that indivisible and inseparable Life which enjoys it self fully perfectly and entirely in every part of the divine space which is the strictest Bond of Vnity that can be conceived and by which all the parts besides that they are actually inseparable by reason of the Omnipresence of the whole are still more closely and intimately connected with each other as if they were all the very same Thirdly in that Prayer of our Saviours uttered in the bitter Agonies of his human nature immediately before his Passion O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt which the Evangelist assures us to have been three times repeated it is manifest that the divine nature or substance is consider'd as a distinct and separate Person by it self endued and furnished with a distinct Will from that of the human nature and though it be true that in the human nature it self there was an absolute resignation to the divine Will nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt yet these Words themselves do sufficiently express it to have been only a passive resignation and an Instance not so much of Inclination as Obedience it was an Instance of submission and reluctancy together O
left in Hell neither his Flesh did see Corruption and to the Testimony of St. Peter we may add that of St. Paul in the 13th of the Acts from the 34th to the 37th verses And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead now no more to return to Corruption he said on this wise I will give you the sure mercies of David wherefore he saith also in another Psalm Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy one to see Corruption for David after he had served his own Generation by the will of God fell on sleep and was laid unto his Fathers and saw Corruption But he whom God raised up saw no Corruption From which places compared with the words of our Saviour himself the argument is clear David as his words are expresly applied by two of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul introduces Christ addressing himself to God the Father in such terms as do manifestly ascribe the miracle of the Resurrection to his Power but our Saviour he ascribes the same miraculous event to himself destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up the result of which two places compared together is unavoidably this that Christ and God the Father are the same the same in substance although they be divided and distinguished in Person Further yet Jonas his being three days and three nights in the Whales Belly was Typical of Jesus lying for the same space of time in the Grave by the application of our Saviour himself for so he tells us Mat. 22. at the 39th and 40th verses An evil and adulterous Generation seeketh after a sign and there shall be no sign given it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the Whales Belly so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the Heart of the Earth and if the swallowing up of Jonas was Typical of the burial of Christ and the continuance of the one under that Calamity Typical of the continuance of the other then certainly the escape of Jonas after three days was likewise Typical of the Resurrection of Christ after the same space of time but now Jonas his deliverance was wrought by the immediate Power of God Jonah 2d and the 10th And the Lord spake unto the Fish and it vomited out Jonas upon the dry Land and therefore though the Scripture had not expresly asserted it yet the Analogy of Type and Antitype would have required that the Resurrection of Jesus should be owing likewise as indeed it was in it self a much more miraculous event unto the same Divine Power but yet our Saviour as hath been shewn ascribes the same event wholly to himself therefore God and Christ are certainly the same and this is my second argument for the Divinity of Christ which is taken from his Resurrection from the dead But thirdly he that made the World and all things that are therein he certainly was God as well as Man but Christ made the World and all things that are therein therefore Christ certainly was God as well as Man That no Human Power or Vnderstanding nay that nothing short of the Divinity it self could possibly create contrive dispose and preserve the World will I suppose be granted by all it being utterly unconceiveable that any skill or power but what is infinite should be able to bring so prodigious an effect to pass but now that Christ made the World is as plainly asserted in the New Testament as any one thing that is in it so the Author to the Hebrews tells us God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son whom he hath appointed Heir of all things by whom also he made the World who being the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person and upholding all things by the word of his Power when he had by himself purged our sins sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high and again Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thine Hands they shall perish but thou remainest and they shall all wax old as doth a Garment and as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail so also St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians By him were all things Created that are in Heaven and that are on Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were Created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist St. John likewise tells us that the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth in which nothing can be plainer then that by the word Jesus the Son of God is understood who did indeed take our Flesh and dwell among us he took upon him the likeness of Men and put on the form of a Servant and it is of this very word that he says the word was with God and the word was God and that all things were made by him which is my third Argument for the Divinity of Christ which is drawn from the Creation But fourthly St. John goes further all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made from whence the inference is plain that he himself was never made for then there would have been something made without him for nothing can make it self but if he were unmade and uncreated it follows of necessity that he was Eternal and self-existent and consequently God Fifthly St. John does not only tell us that he made all things and that without him was not any thing made that was made but he says likewise In the beginning was the word now this beginning cannot be understood of the beginning of the Creation as it is in the 1st Chapter of Genesis In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth for he that made the World must of necessity have had his Existence before it and all being nothing else beyond the Creation but a great and vast Eternity behind it not divided by any Periods or Epochas of time it is manifest that this word beginning as it is here used can imply nothing else but the Eternity or self-existence of him of whom it is affirmed for if there was any thing that was before him then it would not be true that he was in the beginning that is there was no assignable no conceiveable moment of Eternity wherein he did not exist and this is my fifth Argument But Sixthly he that hath neither beginning of Days nor end of Life is Eternal and consequently God but Christ had neither beginning of Days nor end of Life
shall instance in to shew what Sentiments the Council of Nice had in this Affair shall be the Story of Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra who was one of those 318 Fathers of which that Council was composed a very strong Oppugner of the Arrian Faction as himself assures us in an Epistle written afterwards in his own Defence to Julius Bishop of Rome but yet notwithstanding not long after this Council he was Deposed from his Bishoprick for Heresie by Eusebius Caesariensis and his Party but Epiphanius makes a great doubt whether he should reckon him among Hereticks or no and it is certain that he not only approved himself to the said Julius the Roman Bishop and to Athanasius himself for a Man sound in the Faith but that the Council of Sardis determined in his favour and judging that he had been abused and misrepresented by the above mentioned Eusebius restored him to his Bishoprick again Now if it can be proved that the Doctrine of Marcellus was no other then that of the singular existent Essence in the Persons of the Trinity then it follows likewise that this was the Judgment of Julius and of Athanasius too to whom he approved himself and not only so but of the Council of Sardis also by whom he was restored and the Doctrine of the Nicene Council being at that time the Orthodox Measure of Faith we may from hence infer their Sentiments likewise The Confession of Marcellus is set down in his Epistle to Julius in Epiphanius in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is we are assured from the Holy Scriptures that the Godhead of the Father and the Son is indivisibly Vnited for if any one shall separate the Son that is the word from God Almighty or God the Father it is necessary that he either maintain the existence of two Gods which is agreed to be repugnant to the Scriptures or that he say the word is not God which is equally inconsistent with the Catholick Faith with the other for the Evangelist tells us the word was God and I have been exactly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or certainly taught that the Son is the indivisible and inseparable Power of the Father for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ saith I am in the Father and the Father in me and whoso hath seen me hath seen the Father also This Faith I having received from the Scriptures and from the Succession of Believers that have gone before me in the profession of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I Preach in the Church and write it to you In which confession Epiphanius himself grants that there is nothing which is not Orthodox and sound but yet he thinks it reasonable to believe he might be guilty of some Errours which occasioned this Defence of himself and Petavius saith That in the Books of Eusebius which were written against him there are several excerpta cited out of his own Writings which cannot bear a Justifiable Interpretation but yet he acknowledgeth Eusebius to have been too uncharitable and morosely critical and censorious in putting the worst construction upon every thing in Marcellus his Writings and representing every thing to an extremity of disadvantage very disagreeable to a fair and candid Writer and the Judgment of Petavius is confirmed by a passage in Epiphanius concerning Athanasius of whom when Epiphanius himself demanded what his Judgment was of Marcellus he gave him little or no answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only intimated by a smile that he was not far from Heretical pravity but that he looked upon him as a convert He did not say he ever was an Heretick but only seemed to intimate some such thing by a smile upon which a Man might have put different Interpretations as his fancy served as if he had not been far from something that was amiss but afterwards both saw and amended his Errour which is a mighty extenuating way of calling a Man Heretick as can possibly be imagined Petavius himself supposeth him out of hatred and detestation of the Arian Herisie to have run sometimes a little too far into the other extreme and to have enclined to the Sabellian Doctrine but it is strange to me that none of the Bishops that sat to Judge and Determine upon his Cause at Sardis and who were equal Enemies to both Extremes could discern any such thing for it is manifest they approved the Man and his opinions and whereas Petavius gives it still further as his Judgment that in this very Epistle which was directed to Julius his Confession is worded after so cold a manner that it will scarce serve to free him from the imputation of Sabellianism which his Adversaries would have cast upon him It is sufficient to me that it satisfied Julius at that time who knew Marcellus better then Petavius could do and that Athanasius himself was one of his Compurgators who is unanimously acknowledged bating the uncertainty of his resolutions as to the Modus of the Trinity none of which ought therefore to be looked upon as his fixt opinion to have been far enough from any thing that looked that way and yet there is one thing in the Confession of Marcellus which might have been thought to savour of Sabellianism were it not the express Language of the Scripture it self where speaking of the Son he says that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inseparable and indivisible Power of the Father as if he were not a distinct Person but only an Attribute or affection of that Divine Substance which is called the Father but so the Scripture speaks 1 Cor. 1. 24. Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God but what then does it follow from thence that he was not a distinct Person from God the Father by no means but only that he was a Person endued and furnisht with divine Power and Wisdom as when the People said though falsly and mistakenly of Simon Magus Act. 8. 10. This Man is the great power of God they meant no more then this not that he was an Attribute or Affection of God the Father or God the Father in a certain respect not differing from him in Person and in a separate reality of Existence but only that he was a Person working by Divine Power although I confess what the Apostle said of Christ is true in an infinitely more noble and exalted Sense than that which the People said of Simon Magus tho all had been true of him which they can be supposed to have understood by it for they meant no more than that Simon was a Person working by Divine Power and Assistance but St. Paul referred to the Vnion of the two Natures in the Person of Christ by which it came to pass the same divine Substance being common to both as shall be hereafter more particularly declared that the same Power and Wisdom numerically the same as belonging inseparably to the same Divine Substance did belong to both the Father and the Son and what that is
the same time therefore several Persons indued with several individuating differences cannot be partakers of the same common nature which is false as I will now immediately show you proceeding with all imaginable caution that the intellectual System being a wild country and very full of woods I may not unadvisedly fall into an Ambuscade by the following well weigh'd and well considered steps First I say that that which is in it self one cannot be conceived as three without division Secondly that those things which are in themselves distinctly three cannot be conceived as one without composition Thirdly that the Divine Nature being infinitely and immutably perfect is likewise simple and uncompounded uncapable of division on the one hand or composition on the other Fourthly by God the Father I understand that simple similar and Omnipresent Divine Substance or space endued with all possible power goodness and wisdom whose parts by reason of the Omnipresence of the whole are even by cogitation inseparable from each other or that Omnipresent Divine activity and life which is as much and more simply one in and with it self then any other secondary or derivative life can be being all over nothing else but one entire Will Vnderstanding Goodness Fruitfulness or Power of Action and Production which being only that which is truly and properly God is therefore called God the Father as being the most simple in it self and also the source and fountain of Divinity in the two subordinate Persons for the Persons are not equally perfect as to their whole nature although the Divine Substance which makes them all to be God be in all three Numerically and individually the same Fifthly by God the Son I understand the second Person of the Blessed Trinity resulting from the Vnion of the humane Nature with the Divine Substance which Divine Substance being endued and furnished with a life by it self is for that reason a Person by it self simply and abstractly considered for this is the most general and comprehensive notion of a Person that it is a being endued with life or with self-consciousness or self-sensation to which Divine Life the Human being added and being influenced animated and acted by it and vitally united to it there arises from hence a compound life which is distinct from the simple which is a life by it self without the accession of the other and if a life and a person be the very same then another sort of life makes another sort of Person and another sort of person is another person that is a compound Person which is no more the same with simple then unity and composition are themselves the same But to make the solidity of this notion the more plainly to appear it is to be considered that though these two natures the Divine and the Human are always vitally united to one another so as they feel and enjoy the same common life yet there are some cases to be met with wherein the Father that is the Divine and Simple Substance acts as a Person distinctly by it self without the concurrence of the Human with it and there are others wherein they act in concurrence together as if they had but one Will one Vnderstanding one simple and undivided Power of Action and Operation To the first of these Heads there are the following particulars unquestionably belonging First when the Father is said to beget and the Son to be begotten which he did from all Eternity by way of Emanation as it is very easie for any Man to conceive he might do for whatsoever is not in it self impossible and contradictory to be done or performed is a possible object of the Divine Power and was so without question from all Eternity because the Divine Nature was always absolutely and infinitely perfect and by consequence the sphere of possibility to which it is coextended for there is nothing possible which is not so a Divine Power was from all Eternity exactly the same though there had not been that eternal congruity and disposition which there appears to have been in the Divine Nature to the production of the Human by that means as it were to exemplifie and enjoy it self in its most perfect image and resemblance and the Father when he is said to have begotten the Son it is not by any means so to be understood as if one Divine Substance could beget another which is the very height of Non-sense and Blasphemy into the bargain but these two things are manifestly couched under it and to be understood by it First that the Father that is the simple and similar ubiquitary Divine Substance did from all Eternity by way of emanation produce that Human soul or Personality which was the pre-existing soul of Christ before his Incarnation and before all Worlds being the first born of every Creature Secondly he did likewise from all Eternity constitute a vital Vnion betwixt his own simple and ubiquitary Substance and this eternally begotten or emanatively produced Human Soul so as they were made to feel and enjoy one another and where ever there is an Vnity of self-consciousness and reciprocal enjoyment of each others life so as the human life does at the same time participate and share in the Divine this is enough to constitute one common person resulting from the vital Vnion of the Divine and Human Nature into this common life and mutual enjoyment for an Vnity of life is the most strict inseparable and indivisible sort of Vnity that can possibly be conceived and yet notwithstanding the Human Nature though it were eternally produced yet it did not nor could not possibly produce it self which is to suppose a thing or person to be before it is neither did it or could it possibly unite it self in that entire and close manner with the Divine but in both these respects the Human Nature is originally passive though to the latter it may be supposed to concur by a consent of Will though not of Power and God the Father that is the simple and original Divine Substance is considered as a person acting by himself In the second place when the Father is said to send and the Son to be sent here the Father or the simple and self-existing Divine Substance is to be considered as a Person by it self and acting apart from the Son who is said to be sent for in the first place the Divine Substance which is Vbiquitary and Omnipresent cannot be said with respect unto it self either to send or to be sent for whatsoever is Omnipresent is at the same time considered as immoveable and quiescent there being no place into which it is possible for it to remove and this perhaps may not improbably be lookt upon as one eternal cause of the blessedness and Tranquillity of the Divine Nature that by reason of its Omnipresence it is always perfectly at rest within it self it is impassible from it self and from any thing without it it being impossible it should yield or give place to
understanding will not reach as it will not certainly extend to the utmost possibility of Ideas at one and the same time which implies infinite knowledge or knowledge in its utmost Latitude and Perfection an attribute belonging to the Divine Substance and incommmunicable with any other there this Divine Substance is again considered in this fifth particular as a Person acting distinctly by it self Sixthly and lastly in the actuation of those Divine Ideas or in the bringing them out of a state of notion into a state of reality and extra-notional Existence or in the Creation of the material and intellectual World together with the several modifications and motions of the one the several orders and degrees of the other in this also the Father is to be considered as acting by himself the Power of Creation or the producing realities out of a state of non-existence out of a state of possibility into a state of being and from a state of notion into a state of impenetrability tangibility or life being only competible to God himself and belonging only to infinite Power as the Ideas themselves which were the principles and patterns according to which the realities were made could not in their full extent and comprehension and at one and the same time be present to any wisdom or understandng but that which was infinite and by consequence Divine though I deny not but that the Son that is the human nature in conjunction with the divine for of it self it could not do it may in some sense be said to have made the World as the Scripture asserts him to have done and in what sense that is shall be now very suddenly and very clearly declared For as there are some operations of the divine nature to be met with wherein the Father or the simple divine substance acts as a distinct Person by it self without the concurrence of the human nature so there are others wherein the divine and human nature act joyntly and as it were confederately together and are considered as one common person endued with one common life understanding and will and they are these First in the business of Creation which though it hath been already appropriated as an incommunicable act to the simple divine substance yet we find notwithstanding in Scripture that the Creation of the World is attributed to the Son likewise that is to the second person of the blessed Trinity or to the human nature vitally and personally united to the divine as well as to God the Father or to the simple divine substance it self the reasons of which if I am not mistaken are principally if not only these that follow First that all things being produced out of nothing by the divine power or by a bare act of the divine will and the human nature being vitally and personally united to the divine so as to be partaker of the life of God and to be wholly determined and acted by his will the will of the human nature being as it were included absorpt and swallowed up in the divine and the one being perfectly determined and acted by the other whatsoever effect follows any determination or motion of the divine will may very properly be said to be the effect also of the human in conjunction with it and acting as one common person with one indivisible and common determination it being no more possible to separate the one will from the other than it is to dissolve the union of the two natures or to divide any emanative and immediate effect from its immediate and emanative cause and it is in a manner the same case as in the Line Where if you consider A as the first mover and B and C as quiescent yet B being first moved by the motion of A the motion of C is rightly affirmed to be owing to them both acting in common and in conjunction together notwithstanding that the original power of moving be wholly to be ascribed to and to be derived from A whose Creature B as to its motion is as C in the same respect may be said to be the common creature of them both Secondly the human nature of Christ tho' personally and vitally united to the divine yet being as it hath been said already but a finite nature and though there were in it a perfect Conjunction and Symphony of will in all things to the divine will and understanding so far as the sphere of its capacity would reach yet that capacity being finite and imperfect it wanted some external helps to give it the more full and comprehensive notion of the divine nature and by consequence the more large and plentiful enjoyment of it for which reason it was that from all Eternity there was Created a Sub-eternal and Aethereal matter which being united to and animated by the ubiquitary and original life which is called God the Father constituted the third Person of the Blessed Trinity which is called the Holy Ghost Now God being infinitely perfect and happy in himself it could not be that this Aethereal matter was produced by him for the more full and perfect enjoyment of himself for there could be nothing in any Creature especially an inanimate one as this subtle matter without the conjunction and animation of the divine life must be which was not before hand eminently and transcendently to be found in himself who is considered as its emanative and its only cause neither is it reasonable to conceive though it proceeded from all eternity from the Divine Substance by way of emanation that it was created out of no end or design or that no use was made of it from all eternity till in the fulness of time the aspectable Vniverse was Created wherefore it is but reasonable in this case to suppose that this subtle matter was employed partly in forming the Vehicles of the Caelestial Hierarchy the Angels and immortal Spirits the Morning Stars and Sons of God that sung together and shouted for joy when the first corner stone of the World was laid and consequently did exist before it And that they were really cloathed with such Aetherial Vehicles or Caelestial Bodies as we shall be our selves after the Resurrection if there be any sense in the 15th Chapter of the first to the Corinthians and our Saviour himself assures us that in the future state we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels or equal to the Angels that are in Heaven seems to me plainly to be asserted by the Psalmist in these words Psal 104. 4. Who maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a flaming Fire not to repeat here what I have * Apology for the mid way Sermon of the Omnipresence elsewhere said concerning the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel in the new Testament and that they had also a pre-existence before the Foundation of the World were laid seems not obscurely to be imployed by the Psalmist in that immediately