by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8.6 St. Hilary finds this God of whom are all things and this Lord by whom are all things in the Mosaical History of the Creation And God said Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and God made the firmament and divided the waters c. 1. Gen. 6 7. Where as he applies it the Father commands and the Son his Almighty Word makes all things So the Psalmist tells us of the Father He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast 33. Psal. 9. Or as it is in the 148 th Psal. 5. He commanded and they were created And by whom they were created St. Iohn tells us In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made 1 Joh. 1 2. This he thinks proves a plain distinction of jubentis Dei facientis Dei God that commands and God that does for common sense will not allow that they should be one single Solitary Person much more reason have we to distinguish them when both the Old and New Testament distinguish them But whatever dispute this may admit that Account Moses gives of the Creation of Man he takes to be an unexceptionable Proof of a Plurality of Divine Persons And God said Let us make man in our image after our likeness So God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him 1. Gen. 26.27 Now if we understand these words as spoken by God in the same sense as we should and ought to understand them had they been spoken by men which St. Hilary lays down as a Principle That God speaks to us as we speak to one another and expects to be understood by us according to the common use and acceptation of such forms of speech then let Vs make man in Our Image after Our Likeness cannot signify a singular and solitary Person for such a form of speech naturally imports a Plurality of Persons and a common Nature and Likeness No single solitary Person speaks to himself to do any thing but only wills and chuses what to do and execâ—â—es his own purposes much less does he speak to himself in the Plural Number which in common use signifies some Companions and Partners in the work Let Vs make cannot signify One single Person nor can Our Image admit Two Persons of an unlike and different Nature when the Image is but one and the same and therefore this must prove that there are more Divine Persons than One and that they have all the same Divine Nature Were God but one single and solitary Person this would be a most unaccountable form of speech and there can be no pretence to put such a harsh sense on the words unless we certainly knew that there was no other Divine Person but he who spoke but then if instead of knowing this we certainly know the contrary that when God made the World he was not alone but had his Eternal Substantial Wisdom the Person of the Eternal Word with him by whom he made the world this puts the matter out of doubt And this St. Hilary proves frâ—m that account which Solomon gives of Wisdom 8 Prov. 22 c. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was Then I was by him as one brought up with him rejoicing always before him And therefore the Father was not alone and did not speak to himself when he made the world his own Wisdom a Divine Eternal Person co-operating with him and rejoicing in the Perfection of his Works But besides this he proves at large that the Angel which so often appeared to Abraham Hagar Iacob to Moses in a Burning Bush and is in express terms called God the Judge of the world the God of Abraham and Isaac and Iacob was not a Created Angel nor God the Father and yet was True and Perfect God even the Son of God who in the fulness of time became Man and adds several Passages in the Psalms and Prophets which plainly own a Divine Person distinct from God the Father to be True and Perfect God I need not tell those who are acquainted with the Writings of the Ancient Fathers that they all insist on the same Arguments to prove the same thing that there is not in any one point a more universal Consent amongst them which is too Venerable an Authority to be over-ruled by Criticism it being no less than a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture from the Apostolick Age. But I am no further concerned in this at present than to shew what Notion the Catholick Fathers had about the Unity of God These Fathers did not fence against the Objection of Tritheism by distinguishing away the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit by making the Son God ex accidenti secundum quid for they knew nothing of an accidental or secundum quid God which I must own sounds to me very like Blasphemy and Contradiction that when this Name God signifies the most necessary and absolutely Perfect Being any Person to whom this Name does naturally and essentially belong should be God by Accident or only in a limited and qualified sense But without fearing the Charge of Tritheism they with Moses and the Prophets own another Divine Person distinct from the Father but as Real and Substantial a Person and as truly and perfectly God as the Father is Insomuch that Tertullian when he had alledgâ—d that Tâ—xt 45. Psal. 6 7. which the Apostle to the Hebrews applies to Christ 1. Heb. Thy throne O Gâ—d is for ever and ever the scepter of thy Kingdom is a right scepter Therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows was not aâ—raid to add Ecce Duos Deos Behold Two Gods That is Two Divine Pâ—rsons each of whom is by himself truly and essentially God for notwithstanding this he would not say there are Two or Three Gods and gives his reason for it He owned a Plurality of Gods even Tritheism it self in that sense of the word Tritheism which the Arians and Sabellians objected against the Faith of the Trinity as Three Gods signify no more than Three Divine Substantial Persons each of whom is truly and perfectly God as having distinctly in himself the whole and perfect Divine Nature but this he and the other Fathers deny to be Tritheism they are God and God and God but not Three Gods And they think it a sufficient proof as any man would who believes the Scripture that this is not the Scripture-Notion of Tritheism because the same Scripture which teaches us that there is but One God attributes
found a Trinity but it is not a Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Nature but a Trinity of extrinsecal accessory Ideas But since he has used some Art in palliating this Heresy it will be necessary to take off the Disguise The first step he makes to it is by seeming to own That there may be some greater Mystery and Obscurity in the Doctrine of the Trinity than that Account which he has given of it But if this Account says he of the Trinity be too easy and falls far short of those high expressions of distinction found in Scripture as I think it does and no other grounded upon any Notions our Souls have framed of Vnity and Distinction can be true or consistent as I have before particularly proved then it necessarily follows That God must be One and Three in some way or manner not conceivable by human Vnderstanding Here he thinks he has found a safe Retreat He asserts and proves as he would have us believe from all the Notions of Distinction and Unity which our minds can frame That God is and can be One in no other Notion than of One single Person in the first and proper sense of a Person for an Intelligent Person and that God neither is nor can be Three in the sense of Three Proper Distinct Persons If you charge him with Sabellianism for this then he retreats to an obscure confused knowledge to such a way and manner of God's being One and Three as is not conceivable by human Understanding Well But will he allow us with this obscure and confused knowledge to believe the Holy Trinity to be Three Divine Proper Distinct Persons and One God in a way and manner unconceivable by Human Vnderstanding By no means This he has proved by all the Notions of Unity and Distinction cannot be true or consistent nor is it possible for us to believe what we do not understand the terms of or what contradicts our former knowledge and we are not bound to believe what is not possible to be believed nor can God in Justice or Goodness require such a Faith of us as we have already heard So that Sabellianism we may believe and must not believe any thing contrary to it and then we may believe that there is something more in it than we understand if we please And therefore we may observe That he is not concerned about any difficulties in the Notion of the Divine Unity which all Catholick Writers have been most concerned for how to reconcile the Unity of God with a Trinity of Divine Persons but that which troubles him most is the Distinction which the Catholick Fathers never disputed about but positively asserted in the most proper and real sense against the Sabellian Hereticks But he seems sensible as well he may be that the Sabellian Notion of Persons falls very short of those high Expressions of Distinction which are found in Scripture And here it is that he allows of an obscure and confused Knowledge When he has rejected a True Personal distinction all other kinds of distinction he can think of will not answer those high expressions of distinction found in Scripture and therefore provided you do not believe them distinct Persons you may believe if you please that there is some other unknown and unconceivable distinction between them This is plainly what he means by his obscure confused Knowledge by his general confused Faith by his general confused Notion of the Trinity and therefore he religiously keeps to that form of words That One and the same God is Three which must be understood in his Notion of One and the same God that is One single Person for all his Notions of Vnity and Distinction are on purpose designed to prove That One God can't be Three in a true and proper Notion of a Person and therefore he never so much as names that question How Three Divine Persons are One God Which can never be reconciled to a Sabellian Unity of a Single Person SECT VI. What it is the Scripture requires us to believe concerning the Trinity THE Considerer having laid the Foundations of Sabellianism in his Natural Sentiments proceeds to examine what the Doctrine of the Scripture is concerning this matter and to reconcile the Scripture to his Natural Sentiments though the more reasonable and safer way had been first to have learnt the Faith from Scripture and then to have corrected the Mistakes of his Natural Sentiments by Scripture I do not intend to enter into a long dispute with him here but shall only let the Reader see what it is he would prove and what he asserts for his whole business in short is to prove That the Sabellian Notion of the Unity of God or of One single Person and of Three Names Titles Characters extrinsecal Respects and Relations is the True Scriture Doctrine of the Trinity This he very freely tells us That the Sum of all that the Scriptures plainly and expresly teach concerning a Trinity is this That there is but One only God and what he means by One only God we have often heard the Author and Maker of all things But that One God ought to be acknowledge and adored by us under those Three different Titles or Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost Which Words are very remarkable He does not say That this One God is to be acknowledged and adored in Three who have the same One Divinity subsisting whole and perfect and distinctly in each of them which is the Catholick Faith But this One God is to be acknowledged and adored by us under these Three different Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost So that Father Son and Holy Ghost are not the One God for neither of them is God but they are only the different Titles and Characters of the One God And though God when represented by different Characters is God still under each Character yet neither of the Characters is God no more than the Titles and Characters of a Man is the Man Now one might have expected that the Considerer should have proved That the Scripture-Notion of One God is That there is but One single Divine Person in the true and proper Notion of the word Person who is God and that these Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost do not in Scripture signify Three Distinct Real Persons but are only Three Different Titles and Characters of the same One Divine Person This indeed had effectually proved what he pretends to but he was too wise to attempt either The first he says nothing at all of but takes it for granted that he has demonstrated That by his Natural Notions of Unity and Distinction but had he not first demonstrated that nothing could be true and consistent and that God can require us to believe nothing which contradicts his Natural Notions he should have a little enquired what the Notion of Scripture is about this matter But taking it for granted that he
had already demonstrated this That One God signifies One single Person he only proves That the Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost belong to God and therefore That these Terms must all be so understood as to include the same God the One single Divine Person in their Signification The first I think he proves well enough That these Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost belong to God and this vindicates him from being a Socinian But when he applies all these Titles and Characters to One and the same God that is in his sense to One and the same single Person this proves him to be a Sabellian for this was the Doctrine of Noetus and Sabellius That these different Titles and Characters did belong but to One single Person who is God He proves That these Titles and Characters Father Son and Holy Ghost do signify God from the forms of Baptism Salutation and Blessing Go teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all From whence as he adds I infer That all these terms Father Son and Holy Ghost signify God because I cannot possibly conceive 't is agreeable to the nature of the Christian Religion that the Ministers of it should teach baptize or bless the people in any other name but God's I like this Argument very well but if it proves any thing it proves more than he would have it That Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself true and perfect God and not all Three One single Person for it seems altogether as absurd to teach baptize or bless in Three Names and Titles when there is but One single Person signified by those Three Names And therefore his Inference is not very plain That if any One of these Terms signify God they must all Three signify God and if all Three signify God they must all Three signify One and the same God for God is One. This is very artificial but not plain The consequence is plain That if Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Names of God they must all signify One God by the Unity and sameness of Nature because there is but One God but not by the Vnity of Person because the Scripture mentions Three each of whom is God Which proves That God is One in Nature but Three in Persons as the Catholick Church has always believed As for what he adds That the One Supreme God the Lord and Maker of all things is here meant by the word Father is a thing not questioned and therefore Sâ—n and Holy Ghost are terms expressive of the same Divine Nature may in some sense be allowed if he will distinguish between Nature and Person but according to the sense of Scripture and the belief of the Catholick Church Father Son and Hâ—ly Ghost are the names of Three Real Distinct Divine Persons not of One Divine Nature in the sense of One Persâ—n But though we allow this with the Catholick Church That the Father is the One Supreme God we have no reason to allow this to the Considerer who will not allow Father Son or Holy Ghost to be Names of Divine Persons or to be Names or Relations of the Divine Nature considered as the Divine Nature for he says they are extrinsecal that is â—xtra-essential Ideas Titles Characters Respects Relations and therefore Father according to this Hypothesis is not the essential Name of the One Supreme God but given to him for some extrinsical and extra-essential reasons is his Name not by Nature but by Institution and then must be proved to be his Name which the mere form of Baptism cannot do for the Name God is not expressed in it much less does it prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are One and the same God or One single Person It is evident indeed from other Texts That Father is the Name of God but then it is the Name of God the Father and the Son is the Son of God and the Holy Ghost the Spirit of God the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and this does prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost have the same One Divinity the same One Divine Nature as the very Names and Relations of Father and Son and Spirit prove But surely this does not prove That God the Father and his Son are the same One single Person as well as One God for Father and Son all the world over signify Two distinct Persons for no One Person can be Father and Son to himself nor can the Eternal subsisting Spirit of God be the same Person with that God whose Spirit he is Unless he allows that Father in the form of Baptism is the Name of a Person he can prove nothing from it and if Father be the Name of a Person Son and Holy Ghâ—st must be the Names of Persons also and then the Names and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove That they are not One single Person but Three Persons Thus he proves the Son to be God from that Religious Worship which is paid to him which does indeed prove him to be God but not the same One Person with the Father Our Considerer is much mistaken if he thinks it sufficient to prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Titles and Characters of the same One single Person who is the One God if he can prove that each of these Names signify One who is God And the truth is if these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost do not signify Persons they cannot signify God for then they are not Names of Nature but something extrinsecal and accessory to the Divine Nature and therefore they may be the external Denominations of him who is God but not the Names of God considered as God and therefore cannot signify God because they do not signify the Divine Nature in the Persons of Father Son and Holy Ghost but something extrinsical and accessory that is something which is not essential and therefore which the Divine Nature might be without I hope the Considerer did not think of this Consequence That it is possible that God might neither have been Father Son nor Holy Ghost which yet must be allowed possible if these be mere extrinsecal and accessory Titles and Characters Nay this must be allowed unless we will grant that these Names signify Three Real Subsisting Intelligent Coeternal Persons in the Vnity of the same Godhead But these Three Persons do somewhat puzzle him That God should be called Father Son and Holy Ghost is as easily to be believed as that he should be called Adonai Elohim and Jehovah That the same thing should be signified and expressed by several Names is no such incredible Mystery Which still shews us what it is he believes and would prove in all this That
Person signifies an Intelligent Being but he has secured himself against this Imputation by an artificial addition some Intelligent Being acting in such or such a manner He will not allow Person to signify absolutely an Intelligent Being but an Intelligent Being with respect to some peculiar manner of acting and thus One single Person in the proper Notion of Person for an Intelligent Being may sustain Three Persons or Personal Characters with reâ—pect to extrinsecal Relations and the different manner of acting The whole Mystery and Sophistry of this is That God who is One single Person is upon different accounts sometimes called the Father sometimes the Sâ—n and sometimes the Holy Ghost and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost have a Personal signification each of these Names signify Person in a proper sense that is the Person of God but all of them separately and together signify but One and the same single Person for they are all of them attributed to God and God is but One or One Person though this One proper Person may sustain Three figurative Persons or Personal Characters This is plain dealing and this is his Answer to his first Hard Saying That God is One and Three the same God but Three different Hypostases or Persons That God is One and the same single Person under Three Personal Characters which may be called Three Persons because each of them signifies the True and Proper Person of God And here we see in what sense these Gentlemen allow That each Person is Substance is Mind and Spirit and yet that God is but One Substance One Mind and Spirit viz. in the very same sense that this Author affirms that God is but One single Person and yet that the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and for the same reason that they decry and abhor Three Substances Three distinct Minds and Spirits in the Godhead though affirmed to be indivisibly and inseparably One Infinite Substance Mind and Spirit for the same reason they reject Three Intelligent Substantial Persons though our Modern Sabellians have been more cautious generally than this Considerer not to own it in express words Now as for these Terms of Three Substances and Three Minds there may be good reason to let them alone tho when rightly explained no reason to condemn them of Heresy but we must insist on Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Substantial Persons Each of which is Mind and Substance and One is not the Other If they disown this as the Considerer does they are downright Sabellians if they own it we have no farther Dispute about this matter Let us now consider his other Hard Saying That One of these Three Hypâ—stases or Persâ—ns should be both God and Man Now the Hardness of this Saying is not That it is hard to prove from Scripture that so it is or that it is hard to conceive how God and Man can be united which is all that he touches on But it is and always will be a Hard Saying to the Considerer upon another account that is To reconcile it with a Trinity of One proper single Person and Three Personal Characters The Doctrine of the Incarnation is this That the Eternal Son of God became True and Perfect Man by taking the Human Nature into a Personal Union to himself That the Son only became Man not the Father nor the Holy Ghost That two perfect distinct Natures the Divine and Human Nature were without Confusion united in the One Person of Christ and that this One Person is the Eternal Word and Son of God Now if there be but One single Person in the Godhead and Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names or Personal Characters of this One single Person How can the Son be Incarnate and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost It is only a Person that can be Incarnate for a Personal Character can't be Incarnate without the Person and if there be but One single Person and this same One Person is Father Son and Holy Ghost it is impossible that that Person who is the Son should be Incarnate but the Person who is the Father and the Holy Ghost must be Incarnate also because the same Person who is the Son is the Father and the Holy Ghost The short Question is this Whether a True Proper Divine Person was Incarnate in the Incarnation of Christ If not then Christ was not a Divine Person how Divine soever he might be upon other accounts the Divine Nature did not persâ—nally subsist in him he was not personally True and Perfect God and then the Person of Christ was no more than a Man whatever Divine Influences he might receive from God But if the Divine Nature were truly and properly Incarnate in the Person of Christ then if there be but One single Divine Person in the Godhead but One Divine Nature in the sense of One single Person then the whole Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost which are but One True and Proper Person was Incarnate in Christ. This is the true difficulty and he is so wise as to take no notice of it It does not appear to me that he believes one word concerning the Incarnation of God or of a True Divine Person he says He that is in Scripture called the Son of God did appear in the likeness of men He certainly was a True Man but that is not our present dispute Was he in his own Person True and Perfect God Was he a Human Person or the Person of the Son of God appearing in Human Nature He was he says in the Form of God before he took the Nature of Man upon him This sounds well but why does he not speak out and tell us what this Form of God is Whether the True Divine Nature subsisting in him a True Divine Person Well But God did suffer himself to be worshipped and adored in and by the Man Christ Iesus the least that can be inferred from which is That God was more immediately and peculiarly present in Christ than ever he was said to have been any where else as in the Heavens the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims in Prophets and Holy Men who spake as they were moved by the Spirit Now all this might have been spared would he but have said That the Person Iesus Christ was worshipped with Divine Honours as being in his own Person True and Perfect God as well as Man and without saying this he says nothing to prove that Christ is the Son of God Incarnate To say That God did suffer himself to be worshipped in and by the Man Christ Iesus as he was worshipped in the Heavens in the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims for that must be the force of the Comparison does no more prove Christ to be God than it proves the Heavens the Iewish Temple and the Cherubims to be God It may prove a more perfect symbolical Presence of God in Christ which he calls the Fulness
it signified two made of the same Substance by the division and partition of it as two Shillings cut out of the same piece of Silver besides all other Blasphemies the same Father tells us That this destroys the Faith both of Father and Son for in this Sense to be of one Substance can make them no more than Brothers And I need not observe that all the Fathers prove the Son to be Consubstantial to the Father because he was not made nor created but begotten of his Father's Substance which does not refer merely to a specifick Sameness of Nature but to the substantial Communication of the same Nature from Father to Son which is therefore not in meer Notion and Idea but substantially the same in both for they would not allow that a mere specifick Sameness of Nature made Two Persons Consubstantial unless one of them received his Nature and Substance from the other And this seems no improbable account why the Nicene Fathers in their Anathema's added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they teach that the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of his Father in opposition to his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of nothing they must by the Substance of the Father mean that Divine Nature and Substance which is the Person of the Father for there is no other Notion of begetting a Son of his Father's Substance nor is any other sense of the words directly and immediately opposed to his being made of nothing But then since Ousia does often signify a specifick Nature which the Philosophers call a second Substance to prevent this mistake they added Hypostasis which signifies a first Substance or a subsisting Nature and condemn those who say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of another Nature specifically different from the Nature of the Father as the Arians taught or that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any other Substance than that which is the Substance of the Father and consequently not begotten of the Father for both these are essential to the Notion of the Homoousion to have the same Nature for kind or the true perfect Divine Nature and to receive this Nature from the Father by a substantial Generation and the Council condemns those who deny both or either of these I must add one thing more to make this Notion complete that as the Son is begotten of the Substance of the Father so he receives his whole Substance from the whole Substance of the Father This is the constant Doctrine of the Fathers That the Son is Totus ex Toto Whole of Whole That the Divine Generation is not like Human Generations by corporeal Passions by a division of the Father's Substance by a partial efflux or emanation but the Father without any division diminution or alteration of his own Substance communicates his whole Divine Nature to the Son That the Son is perfectly and entirely all and the same that the Father is Thus they expound those sayings of our Saviour All that the Father hath is mine All things are delivered unto me of my Father As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son also to have life in himself Not to signify an external arbitrary Gift and Donation but the Eternal Communication of his whole Divine Nature to the Son that he is Life of Lâ—fe Light of Light God of God Very God of Very God For this Reason the Arians rejected the Homoousion because they thought it absolutely impossible that the Father should beget a Son of his own Substance without a division of his Substance that he should communicate the whole Dâ—vine Nature to his Son and have the same whole Divine Nature himself And the Fathers allow that this is above Human Comprehension as the Divine Nature it self is but think those men little consider the true measure of Human Understanding who will not believe that God has a Son because they cannot comprehend the inessable Mystery of the Eternal Generation The Scripture assures us that God has a Son that Eternal Word which was in the Beginning was with God and was God The very Notion of a Son signifies that he has the same Nature with his Father and receives his Being and Nature from his Father is Substance of his Father's Substance for thus all other Sons receive their nature and substance from their Parents The absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature whiâ—h has no Corporeity no Composition no Parts and therefore can be divided into none proves that the Divine Generation can have nothing like to Human Generations no more than God is like a man and therefore must be as much above Human Comprehension as the Divine Nature is We certainly know what it is not That it is not by any separation or division of Substance for the Divine Nature is a pure simple indivisible Monade but how this Monade can communicate it self we cannot tell But this we know That if a Monade does generate it must generate a perfect whole for when the whole is a simple indivisible uncompounded Monade it must generate its whole or nothing Thus much is evident That to communicate a whole perfect undivided Nature and Substance is the most perfect Generation He is the most perfect Father who communicates his whole Substance to his Son without division or separation who without ceasing to be what he was himself begets a Son wholly and perfectly the same with himself For the more perfectly One Father and Son are the more perfect is the Generation and they cannot be more One than to be One and the same Substance communicated whole and entire from Father to Son There is nothing like this in human Births for the imperfection of created Nature will not admit it the Father communicates the first Seeds and Principles of Life with part of his Substance but the Child is nourished grows and encreases to its just proportion by adventitious matter which never was the Substance of the Father and therefore Father and Son are not One Substance though the Father communicates the same specifick Nature with part of his Substance to his Son Now though we cannot conceive how a whole begets a whole yet we must grant that this is the most perfect Generation for to generate is to communicate Nature and Substance to beget 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another self as the Ancients speak of the Divine Generation and then the more perfectly the Son is the Father's self the more perfect the Generation is and therefore thus God must beget a Son if he begets at all for he must beget in the most perfect manner And thus the Son must be begotten if he be begotten at all for if he be a Son he must be of his Father's Substance and that not a part but the whole for the Divine Substance must be a perfect indivisible Inseparable Monade This Eternal Generation of the Son is
must not think that God begets a Son as men do by corporeal passions or division of his substance or that he begets a Son without himself or separate from himself or that because a Creature-father is always older than his Son therefore God can't beget a Son coâ—ternal with himself for all these Circumstances do not belong to the essential Notion of a Father but of a Creature-father But then it is essential to the Notion both of Father and Son that the Father communicates his own Nature to the Son and that the Son receives his Nature and Being from his Father that Father and Son do truly and really subsist by themselves though they may be and when we speak of God the Father and his Son are inseparably united to each other that the Son with respect to his Nature is perfectly the same that his Father is the son of a man as true and perfect Man as his Father is and therefore the Son of God as true and perfect God By these Arguments the Catholick Fathers confuted both the Sabellians who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three Names and the Arians who denied the Consubstantiality of the Son or that he had the same Nature with his Father For both these Heresies destroy'd the essential Notion and Idea of Father and Son which includes in it both a real distinction and sameness of Nature that they are as really Two but infinitely more one and the same than any other Father and Son in Nature are Now I cannot see but that as these Names and Characters are better understood and liable to less dispute so they convey to our Minds a more distinct conception of God the Father and his Eternal Son than any other artificial Terms Were there no Controversy about Nature Essence Person Substance Hypostasis yet they immediately convey no Idea of God the Father and his Eternal Son to my mind much less give me a more distinct Conception than these Terms Father and Son do For they neither acquaint me what God is nor what Father and Son is and as the Schools themselves assert cannot be Univocally or in the same sense spoken of Creatures and of God who is Super-Essential above all Praedicaments and Terms of Art that is Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Person do not and cannot signify the same thing when spoken of God as when applied to Creatures And this has occasioned all those Disputes concerning the Use and Signification of these words when applied to God which indeed is no reason for wholly discarding these Terms which the Perverseness and Importunity of Hereticks has forced the Church to use and which have now been so long used that the Ecclesiastical Sense of these Words is very well known to Learned men if they would be contented to use them in that Received Ecclesiastical Sense in which the Catholick Fathers have always used them but yet it is a reason not to clog the Faith of ordinary Christians with them who are not skilled in Metaphysical and Abstracted Notions and it is a reason to reduce the Controversy as much as possibly we can to Scripture Terms when these Artificial and Metaphysical Terms divide even the Professors of the Catholick Faith and give too just occasion to the vain Boasts and Triumphs of Hereticks To represent this matter plainly I observe That all all those Unscriptural Terms which the Catholick Fathers made use of for the Explication of this Adorable Mystery were intended for no other purpose but to give us some distinct Ideas and Conceptions of what the Scripture teaches concerning the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost by using such Terms as signify something in Creatures which bears some though a very imperfect anology and resemblance to what we are to conceive of God And therefore the Fathers justifie the use of such words by shewing That all they mean by them is contained in Scripture and reject any Words and any such Sense of Artificial Words as cannot be justified by Scripture Which by the way is a more infallible Rule than all Metaphysical Subtleties to find out in what sense the Fathers used such Words by observing to what Scripture-Notions they apply them and how they justifie their use from Scripture when they are Disputed If this be the truth of the Case as it certainly is then the Catholick Faith does not depend upon the use of these Terms for it was before them for they were intended only to explain and illustrate the Catholick Faith and to comprise Scripture-Notions in Terms of Art which must be acknowledged to be of great use and was by experience found to be so in the Disputes with ancient Hereticks while the Fathers agreed in the sense of these Terms But when these Terms themselves are become the great matter of Dispute and men who as is to be hoped agree in the Catholick Faith cannot agree about the Propriety and Signification of such Terms nor how they are to be applied and used whether in the singular or plural Number whether substantively or adjectively in recto or obliquo and our Adversaries abuse such Disputes to the Reproach of the Catholick Faith as a perplex'd uncertain contradictious Riddle and Mystery which men can know nothing of or can never agree in it becomes absolutely necessary at present to take this Controversy out of Terms of Art and to let our Adversaries see That our Controversy with them is not concerned in these Disputes That it is not about the Signification and Use of such words as Essence Nature Substance Person c. but Whether the Supreme Eternal Self-originated Father have not an Eternal Son eternally begotten of himself and an Eternal Spirit the Spirit of the Father and of the Son eternally proceeding from them And whether this Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit are not True and Perfect God In this all sincere Trinitarians do heartily agree with each other and are ready to join issue upon this State of the Controversy with all their Adversaries of what denomination soever And if we can prove from Scripture That God has an Eternal Son begotten of himself and that this Eternal Son is True and Perfect God as the Father is and that the Father and Son have an Eternal Spirit who is True and Perfect God as Father and Son is I hope this is a sufficient Confutation of Socinianism and yet all this may be proved without concerning our selves in any Metaphysical Disputes And therefore such Disputes as these though they give opportunity to our Adversaries to make some Flourishes and to cast Mists before peoples eyes are not of that moment as they would represent them they neither prove Socinianism to be true nor the Catholick Faith of the Trinity to be false or uncertain I do not intend at present to dispute this Point with the Socinians Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit for there is no dispute about the Father be not each of them True and Perfect God This has been proved
often enough already to the satisfaction of all sober Enquirers who pay a just Veneration to Scripture and shall be done again when a fair occasion offers But the Question under Debate now is Whether we cannot explain and defend the Doctrine of the Trinity without the use of Ecclesiastical or Scholastick Terms and whether the Disputes of Divines about the Use and Signification of such Terms proves any Dâ—sagreement in the Faith when they all consent to the Scripture Explications of it The great Dispute is about the Distinction and Unity of the Godhead and by what Terms to express this Wonderful Distinction and Wonderful Vnion as some of the Fathers call it All sincere Trinitarians do agree That God is Vnus Trinus One and Three but we having nothing in Nature like this we know not by what Names to call it Those who have most critically examined the force of words find them all upon some account or other defective or improper for this purpose That St. Austin well said That in these Sublime Mysteries we can no more express what we conceive of them in Words than we can conceive of them as they are When we profess to believe that there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead the next question is What Three they are That is By what common Name to call them which may be multiplied with them or spoken of them in the Plural Number which St. Austin thinks not easily found The Greeks called them Three Hypostases which signifies Three Individual Substances This seemed hard to the Latins who acknowledged but One Substance in the Godhead and therefore they called them Three Persons though this did not satisfy St. Austin who looked upon Person as an Absolute not a Relative Term and therefore the Plural Predications would not agree with his Rule quae ad se dicuntur that what is predicated absolutely must be predicated only in the Singular Number And in truth if this be a good Rule it is a demonstration that there can be no common Name for these Three for whatever is a common Name for them all must be absolutely predicated of each of them And therefore St. Austin could give no other reason why we say Three Persons and not Three Essences or Three Gods but only this That since we acknowledge there are Three it is fitting to agree upon some common Name to denote the Trinity by and Ecclesiastical Use had given this Signification to the word Person But then besides this the great Dispute is What is meant by a Person when applied to the Three in the Blessed Trinity Some adhere to the old approved Definition of a Person That it is the Individual Substance of a Rational Nature which is the very definition of the Greek Hypostasis as Boetius owns Others are afraid of this for if every Person be an Individual Substance and there are Three Persons they know not how to avoid the Consequence That then there are Three Individual Substances in the Trinity And consequently since we can have no other Notion of the Divine Substance but Infinite Mind and Spirit there must be Three Infinite Minds and Spirits in the Godhead which they think infers Three Gods And therefore they will not allow a Person to be a Substance at least not an Individual Substance but a Mode or at most a Mode of Subsistence or Relation or Property or a Person in the Tragedian or Comedian sense of a Person as one represents and personates another or to signify an Office or Magistracy and so one man may be as many several Persons as he has Offices I can't answer for all these different significations of the word Person as applied to this Sacred Mystery especially as they are used by some Modern Writers for I believe there is no such material difference between the Fathers and the Schools as some men imagine of which more hereafter But as to my present purpose I must profess I can see no necessity why we must find out a Common Name for the Three in the Blessed Trinity when the Scripture has given us no Common Name for them much less why we should dispute eternally about the propriety and use of such words to hazard the Catholick Faith at least the Honour and Reputation of it together with the Peace of the Church If I am asked not only Who but What the Three in the Ever-blessed Trinity are I know no better Answer to make than what the Scripture has taught me That they are God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost which signifies all that can be express'd by any Artificial and Unscriptural words is an Answer liable to no Exceptions or Misrepresentations and in which all must agree who believe a Trinity and it shames and silences all those Disputes which are often occasioned by other words though never so wisely and reasonably chosen This Answer shews us what their Nature is what their Distinction is and what Relation they stand in to each other which is the most perfect knowledge we can have of the Ever-blessed Trinity in this world SECT III. That the Title of GOD attributed in Scripture distinctly to Father Son and Holy Ghost gives us the best Account of their Nature and must determine the Signification of Ecclesiastical Words 1. AS for the first the design of some common Name for these Three is to form some common Notion and Idea of them in which they all agree And is any thing else so common to them Is there any thing else which is common to them but the Name and Nature of God Can any thing else give us so true and perfect a Character and Idea of each of them as this does When we say the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God we attribute every thing to each of them which signifies any Perfection for the Idea of God comprehends all possible Perfections And we reject every thing which has the least signification of Imperfection we abstract our minds from all Material and Creature-Images which Names common to Creatures are apt to impose upon us and when we are forced to apply any such Names to God we learn from hence in what Notion to understand such Words when applied to God Men may very subtilly distinguish between the formal Conceptions of Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Existence Subsistence Person Personality Suppositality and the like and neither understand God nor Creatures much the better for it But let them but tell us what they mean by these Terms and then every Child can tell whether they belong to Father Son and Holy Ghost or not For as far as they are included in the Notion of God and signify true Divine Perfections so far they belong to all Three For if the Father be God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God then Father Son and Holy Ghost each of them by themselves are whatever is included in the Notion and Idea of
Sabellians did nor Two different Substances as the Arians did For when God is born of God this Divine Nativity will neither admit a Unity of Person nor a Diversity of Nature For Father and Son he who begets and he who is begotten must be Two Persons and the Son who is begotten of the Substance of his Father must be consubstantial with him It were easy to multiply Quotations to this purpose both out of these and numerous other Ancient Writers but this is Proof enough that the Primitive Fathers would not be frighted out of the true Catholick Faith of a Real and Substantial Trinity by the loud Clamours of Tritheism but rejected such a Notion of One God as confined the Godhead to One Single Solitary Person as Iudaism and an Anti-trinitarian Heresy For we know in what sense the Iews owned but One God viz. in the very sense that the Socinians and all Anti-trinitarians do that is That there is but One who is God but One Divine Person and in this sense these Ancient Fathers rejected it But besides these general Sayings they industriously confute this Notion of the Unity of the Godhead which confines it to one single Person that the One God is so One that there is and can be but One Divine Person who is true and perfect God The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament do expresly teach that there is but one God This the Ancient Hereticks perpetually objected against the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity And St. Hilary observes what danger there is in answering this Objection if it be not done with great caution For it may be equally impious to deny or to affirm it For the True Catholick Faith of One God lies between two such contrary Heresies as are ready to take advantage one way or other whatever Answer you give If you own that there is but One God without taking notice that this One God has an only begotten Son who is True and Perfect God the Arians take advantage of this against the Eternal Godhead of the Son If you say That the Father is God and the Son God and yet there is but One God the Sabellians hence conclude That Father and Son are but One Person as they are One God But in opposition to both these Heresies he tells us That though the Catholick Church did not deny One God yet they taught God and God and denied the Unity of the Godhead both in the Arian and Sabellian Notion of One God And consequently That they professed to believe God and God and God though not Three Gods but One God yet in that very sense which both Ancient and Modern Hereticks call Tritheism There is no dispute but the Scripture does very fully and expresly teach us That there is but One God Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord 6. Deut. 4. which our Saviour himself approves 12. Mark 29. and the Scribe expounds 32. Well master Thou hast said the truth for there is One God and there is none other but He And this is often confirmed both in the Old and New Testament But then the Fathers think that they have an unanswerable Argument to prove That by One God is not meant that there is but One who is God because the same Holy Scriptures which teach us that there is but One God do attribute the Name and Dignity and Power and all the Natural Perfections of God to more than One. St. Hilary explains this Argument at large the sum of which in short is this That we must learn the knowledge of God from Divine Revelation for Humane Understandings which are accustomed to Corporeal and Bodily Images are too weak of themselves to discern and contemplate Divine things nor is there any thing in our selves or in Created Nature that can give us an adequate notion and conception of the Nature and Unity of God We must believe God concerning himself and his own Nature and yield a ready assent to what he reveals to us For we must either deny him to be God as the Heathens do if we reject his Testimony or if we believe him to be God we must conceive no otherwise of him than as he himself hath taught us This is very reasonable if we believe upon God's Authority To believe all that God reveals and to expound the Revelation by it self not to put such a sense upon one part of the Revelation as shall contradict another but to put such a sense upon the words as makes the whole consistent with it self As in the present Dispute concerning the Unity of God The Scripture assures us that there is but One God and we believe that there is but One God Excepting the Valentinians and such kind of Hereticks all Christians both Catholicks and Hereticks agree in this Profession But the Question is In what sense the Scripture teaches that there is but One God Whether this One God signifies One single Divine Person or One God with his Only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit who have the same Nature and Divinity The Arians and Socinians embrace the first Sense of the words That One God is One Divine Person and for this reason will not own Christ or the Holy Spirit to be True and Perfect God because there is but One God and Three Divine Persons they say are Three Gods Now unless we will pretend to understand the Divine Nature and the Divine Unity better than God himself does we must refer this Dispute to Scripture and if we have the same Authority to believe more Divine Persons than One that we have to believe but One God then the Unity of God in the Scripture-notion of it is no Tritheism nor any objection against the belief of a Trinity for there may be but One only God and yet Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead This is St. Hilary's Argument and it is a very good one That Moses himself who has taught us that there is but One God has taught us to confess God and God that we have the same Authority to believe the Son of God to be God that we have to believe One God And therefore though we do and must believe One God we must not so believe One God as to deny the Son of God to be God for this is to contradict Moses and the Prophets This Argument he prosecutes at large throughout the IV th and V th Books of the Trinity and alledges all those Old Testament Proofs for the plurality of Divine Persons and for the Divinity of Christ which whatever opinion some Modern Wits and Criticks have of them have been applied to that purpose by all Christian Writers from the beginning of Christianity and were that my present Business might be easily vindicated from the Cavils and Exceptions of Hereticks St. Paul tells us That there is One God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and One Iesus Christ
be but One God but yet requires us to believe his Eternal Son to be true and perfect God and his Eternal Spirit to be true and perfect God it is certain that the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is very reconcilable with the Unity of God For as far as Revelation must decide this Dispute we are as much obliged to believe That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God as we are to believe That there is but One God Those who will not acquiesce in this must appeal from Scripture to Natural Reason which is a very absurd and impudent Appeal for the plain sense of it is this That they will believe their own Reason before the Scriptures in matters relating to the Divine Nature and Unity which all wise men acknowledge to be so much above human comprehension That is That they know the Unity of God better than God himself does or which is the same thing That they will never believe any Revelation to come from God or any thing how express soever the words are to be the meaning of the Revelation any farther than their own Reason approves it Of which more elsewhere And yet I dare appeal to any man of a free and unbiass'd Reason in this Cause What is that Natural Notion we have of One God Is it any thing more than that there is and can be but One Eternal Self-originated Being who is the Principle or Cause of all other Beings And does not the Scripture do not all Trinitarians with the whole Catholick Church own this Do not all the Christian Creeds teach us to profess our Faith in One God the Father from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their Godhead Thus far then Scripture and Reason and the Catholick Faith agree Does Reason then deny that God can beget of himself an Eternal Son his own perfect Image and Likeness If it does then indeed Scripture and Reason contradict each other But I believe these men will not pretend to prove from Reason That God could not beget an Eternal Son and if this cannot be proved by Reason as I am certain it never can then Reason does not contradict Scripture which teaches us that God has an only begotten Son And if God have an only begotten Son Reason will teach us that the Son of God must be True and Perfect God and yet not another God because he has one and the same Nature with his Father This is all that any Christian need to believe concerning this matter and all this every Christian may understand and all this every one who sincerely believes the Faith of the Holy Trinity does and must agree in Those who do not I will at any time undertake to prove to be secret Hereticks and Enemies to the Christian Faith and as for those who do I will never dispute with them about some Terms of Art and the Propriety of Words in a matter which is so much above all words and forms of speech And here I leave this matter upon a sure Bottom and here we are ready to join Issue with our Socinian Adversaries Our only Controversy as to the Doctrine of the Trinity with them is Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit each of them be True and Perfect God If we can prove this which has been the Faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages we need dispute no other matters with them nor can any Disputes among our selves give any Support to their Cause A Dispute about Words may look like a difference in Faith when both contending Parties may mean the same thing as those must do who sincerely own and believe That the Son is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost is True and Perfect God and that neither of them are the Father nor each other And therefore those different Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity which the Socinians of late have so much triumphed in and made more and greater than really they are and more sensless too by their false Representations can do them no real service among Wise Men tho it may help to amuse the Ignorant If any men have subtilly distinguished away the Catholick Faith they may take them to themselves and increase their Party by them But if this were the Case as I hope it is not it is no Objection against the Catholick Faith that some men openly oppose it and others at least in some mens opinions do secretly undermine it There is reason to guard the Christian Faith against all inconvenient or dangerous Explications which seem to approach near Heresy if this be done with due Christian Temper and Moderation but I hope the Disputes of the Trinitarians are not so irreconcilable but that they will all unite against a Pestilent and Insolent Heresy which now promises it self glorious Successes only from their private Quarrels CHAP. II. An Examination of Some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy BEfore I put an end to this Discourse it will contribute very much to the better understanding of what I have said and give a clearer Notion of the Use of it to apply these Principles to the Examination of a late Treatise entituled Some Considerations concerning the Trinity The Author I know not he writes with Temper and though he takes the liberty to find fault he does it Civilly and therefore he ought to meet with Civil Usage and so he shall from me as far as the bare Censure of his Principles will admit I was I confess startled at the first entrance to find him own the Vncertainty of our Faith in these Points concerning the Trinity for if after the most perfect Revelation of the Gospel that we must ever expect and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for above Sixteen Hundred years this Faith is still uncertain it is time to leave off all Enquiries about it As for the many absurd and blasphemous Expositions that have been made of this Doctrine if by them he means the Ancient Heresies which infested the Church they are so far from rendring our Faith uncertain that as I shall shew him anon the very Condemnation of those Heresies by the Catholick Church gives us a more certain account what the true Catholick Faith was I agree with him that the warm and indiscreet Management of contrary Parties has been to the Prejudice of Religion among unthinking people who hence conclude the uncertainty of our Faith and it concerns good men to remove this Prejudice by distinguishing the Catholick Faith from the Disputes about Ecclesiastical Words and the Catholick Sense of them and I hope I have made it appear this may be done and then the Faith is secure notwithstanding these Disputes and as for any other Offence or Scandal let those look to it who either give or take it This Considerer dislikes all the Ways and Methods which have hitherto been taken to compose these Disputes 1. He
dislikes those who are for reverencing the Mystery of the Trinity without ever looking into it at all who think it proposed to us only as a Trial and Exercise of our Faith and the more implicit that is the fuller do we express our Trust and Reliance upon God Now if by not looking into it at all he means not enquiring what they are to believe concerning the Trinity nor why they believe it this I acknowledge is a very odd sort of Faith but I believe he cannot name any such men whose avowed Principle this is An Implicit Faith is only meritorious in the Church of Rome but then an Implicit Faith is to believe without knowing what or why but these Ignoramus or Mystery-Trinitarians as some late Socinian Considerers have insolently and reproachfully called them and whom our Author ought not to have imitated never teach such an Implicit Faith as this much less admire the Triumph and Merit of Faith in believing Contradictions and the more the better Under all the appearance of Modesty and Temper these are very severe and scandalous Reflections upon some of the Wisest and Greatest Men amongst us and which this Considerer had little reason for as will soon appear The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the most Fundamental Article of the whole Christian Faith and therefore an explicite Knowledge and Belief of it is essential to the Christian Profession and thus all Protestant Divines teach and whatever Voluminous Disputes there may be about it the true Christian Faith of the Trinity is comprized in a few words and the Proofs of it are plain and easy For the Scriptures plainly and expresly teach us that there is but One God and that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son as I have already explained it This we all teach our people to believe upon the Authority of Scripture which is the only Authority we can have for matters of pure Revelation and expound those Texts to them which expresly contain this Faith and vindicate them from the Cavils and perverse Comments of Hereticks And this I think is not to reverence the Mystery without ever looking into it at all when we look as far as we can till Revelation bounds our prospect And this is to look into it as far as God would have us and as far as is necessary to all the purposes of Religion that is as far as the knowledge of this Mystery is of any use to us Now when this is done there are a great many wise men who think we ought to look into this Mystery no further and there seems to be a very good reason for it viz. because with all our looking we can see no further There are indeed some curious Questions started about reconciling the Unity of God with the belief of a Trinity in which there are Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God for if there be but One God how can there be Three each of whom is True God Now whatever Answer may be given to such kind of Objections and pretended Contradictions these Learned Men think there is no reason to clog the Christian Faith with them nor to disturb the minds of ordinary Christians with such Subtilties That the Authority of God who has revealed this and the acknowledged Incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is a sufficient Answer to all Objections and as ridiculously as a Witty Man may represent this That is the truest Faith not which can believe Contradictions but which can despise the pretence of Contradictions when opposed to a Divine Revelation for that resolves Faith wholly into Divine Authority which is the true Notion of a Divine Faith To say that this will not suppress any of our Doubts or Disputes in Religion is a manifest mistake for such a profound Veneration for the Authority of God would silence them all And whatever is the Natural Propension of the Soul to the search of Truth Natural Reason will tell us that there are a thousand things which we can know nothing of and that it is in vain to search after them but that the Divine Wisdom is unsearchable and therefore God is to be believed beyond our own knowledge or comprehension and when we are agreed about the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation that will silence all our Disputes about what is revealed and set bounds to our Enquiries And I never knew before the danger of submitting our Reason to Faith of a blind resignation of judgment as he is pleased to call it to a Divine Revelation for that is the matter in debate Blasphemies and Contradictions may and have been imposed upon mens Faith under the Venerable Name of Mysteries but such Blasphemies and Contradictions were never revealed in Scripture and therefore belong not to the present Enquiry which only concerns believing what we allow to be revealed without looking any farther into it We allow all men to examine the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation and to examine what is revealed but here we must stop and not pretend to judge of what is revealed by the measures of human Reason which is so inadequate a Rule for Divine and Supernatural Truths This is all very plain and if he will allow the Truth of this he must confess that what he has said upon this first Head is nothing to the purpose It is a very popular thing to decry Mysteries and to cry up Reason but to be very cautiously imitated because it is generally found that such men are either no great Believers or no very deep Reasoners 2. In the next place he tells us of a very strange sort of men who call the Doctrine of the Trinity an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet are at a great deal of pains to bring it down to a level with Human Vnderstanding and are all very earnest to have their own particular Explications acknowledged as necessary Articles of Faith An Incomprehensible Mystery is what Human Reason cannot comprehend to bring an Incomprehensible Mystery down to the level of Human Vnderstandings is to make it comprehensible by Reason and those are notable men indeed who undertake to make that comprehensible by Reason which at the same time they acknowledge to be incomprehensible It is to be hoped this Considerer does a little mistake them Men may be-believe the Trinity to be an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet speak of it in words which may be understood which does not pretend to make the Mystery comprehensible but to deliver it from Nonsense Jargon and Heresy that is not to explain the Mystery which is and will be a Mystery still but to secure the true Christian Doctrine of the Trinity which they desire may continue an Article of the Christian Faith still There are he tells us a third sort of men who are for no Mystery that is the
Socinians and I was glad to find them censured and rejected but wonder'd how they came to be numbred among those men who have laboured in this good design of explaining the Trinity and reconciling the Disputes about it Well All these Methods have proved ineffectual let us then to omit other matters enquire what Course our Considerer took to make himself a fit and competent Judge of this Controversy Take the account of it in his own words I have endeavoured to deliver my self from Prejudice and Confusion of Terms and to speak justly and intelligibly And not being yet prepossess'd in favour of any particular Explication the better to preserve my freedom of examining the Subject in hand I have purposely forborn to search the Fathers Schoolmen or Fratres Poloni or read over any later Treatises concerning this Controversy while I was composing the present Essay resolving to consult nothing but Scripture and my own Natural Sentiments and draw all my Reflections from thence taking only such which easily and without constraint offered themselves Thus Des Cartes made a New Philosophy and this is the best way that can be thought of to make a New Faith This has an appearance of great Indifferency and Impartiality but it is a great mistake when men boast in this as a virtue and attainment and an excellent disposition of mind for the Examination of Matters of Faith I never in my life yet saw any one example to the contrary but that when men who had been educated in the Christian Faith and tolerably instructed in the meaning and the reasons of it could persuade themselves to be thus perfectly indifferent whether it were true or false but this indifference was owing to a secret byass and inclination to Infidelity or Heresy It is in vain to pretend such an absolute freedom of Judgment without being perfectly indifferent which side is true or false For if we wish and desire to find one side of the question true and the other false this is a Byass and our Judgment is not equally poiz'd And certainly in matters of such vast consequence as the Christian Faith and especially that great Fundamental Article of the Holy Trinity such an Indifferency as this is can never recommend either an Author or his Writings to sober Christians Will this Considerer then own that it was indifferent to him when he undertook this design whether the Doctrine of the Trinity should upon Examination appear true or false If it were not the Socinians will tell him that he had not preserved a Freedom of Judgment and then he did well in not consulting the Fratres Poloni for he had condemn'd them without hearing or if he were persuaded concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity Was it indifferent to him whether the Sabellian or Arian or True Catholick Notion of a Trinity contained in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds were the True Faith That is Was it indifferent to him whether the Ancient Heresies condemn'd by the Catholick Church or that Faith which the Catholick Church has always own'd and professed be the True Faith For my part I confess I am not thus indifferent I will never shut my eyes against plain Conviction which is all the Freedom of judging which is allowable but my Prejudices are and I hope always will be on the side of the Catholick Faith No wise man can be thus indifferent And we shall find this Considerer was not so very indifferent for the main Principles he reasons on are some Popular Mistakes and Prejudices which he seems to have espoused without due Consideration But let us allow him to be as free and unprejudic'd as he pleases I cannot think that he took a good method to understand this Sacred Mystery He laid aside Fathers Schoolmen and other later Treatises concerning this Controversy and consulted nothing but Scripture and his own natural Sentiments To consult Scripture is indeed a very good way and absolutely necessary in matters of pure Revelation which can be certainly known no other way but the Fathers at least are very good Guides and have very great Authority in expounding Scripture and our Natural Sentiments otherwise called Natural Reason is a very bad a very dangerous Expositor of Scripture in such Supernatural Mysteries and has no Authority in these mattters and how our Considerer has been misled by his Natural Sentiments will soon appear A few words might serve for an Answer to the Considerer but since this is the great Pretence of Socinians and other Hereticks to set up Scripture and Natural Reason against Scripture and the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church and our Considerer and some other unwary Writers chime in with them it will be very necessary to shew how this betrays the Catholick Faith and makes Reason and Criticism the Supreme Judge of Controversy and then men may dispute on without end and believe at last as they please The Considerer tells us I take it for granted in a Protestant Countrey that Scripture is the only Standard of all necessâ—ry Revealed Truths Neither in the present Case is there any room for a Traditionary Faith For besides that all the Fathers and Ancient Writers ground their Exposition of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture I cannot conceive that the Subject is capable of a plainer Revelation as I shall endeavour to shew more fully in the following Discourse What this last Clause means we shall understand better hereafter but his denying a Traditionary Faith is very extraordinary for if we can prove from the most Authentick Records what the constant belief of the Catholick Chuâ—ch has been especially in the first and purest Ages of it This I take to be a Traditionary Faith nor is it the less Traditionary because the Fathers and Ancient Writers sound their Expositions of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture For if this be true then we have a Traditionary Faith of the Trinity and a Traditionary Exposition of the Scripture for the Reason and Proof of that Faith both in one which I take to be a greater Authority and safer Guide than mere Scripture and our Natural Sentiments And though Protestants allow Scripture to be the only Standard of Faith yet he might have remembred that the Church of England requires us to expound Scripture as the Ancient Fathers expound it But this Wholly is a Mistake for the Primitive Fathers pleaded Tradition as well as Scripture against the Ancient Hereticks as two distinct but agreeing Testimonies as this Author might have known would he have been pleased to have consulted Irenaeus and Tertullian de praescriptionibus with divers others What he means by a plainer Revelation I cannot tell it makes it somewhat plainer to know what the Catholick Faith has always been and what the Catholick Interpretation of Scripture has always been which is the plainest and strongest Answer to Wit and Criticism and Natural Sentiments when they contradict this Traditionary Faith But to discourse this matter more particularly I shall
received this Doctrine from the Apostles it being the Faith of those Churches which were planted by the Apostles received their Faith from them and always lived in Communion with them 2. This makes it reasonable to believe that this very Faith is contained in the Writings of the New Testament for I suppose no man questions but that the Apostles taught the same Faith by Writing which they did by Preaching and then this is a Demonstration against all such Interpretations of Scripture as contradict the Catholick Faith whatever fine Colours Wit and Criticism may give them Nay 3. It is a certain Proof That these Primitive Christians who received these Inspired Writings from the Apostles which now make up the Canon of the New Testament did believe that the same Faith which the Apostles and Apostolical men had taught them by Word of Mouth was contained in their Writings for they could not possibly have believed both what the Apostles taught and what they writ if their Preaching and Writings had contradicted each other We know what the Faith of the Primitive Church was and we know they received these Apostolical Writings with the profoundest Veneration as an Inspired Rule of Faith and had we no other presumption of it but this we might safely conclude That they found the same Faith in these Writings which the Apostles had before taught them by Word of Mouth But besides this we find that all the Catholick Writers appeal to the Scriptures and prove their Faith from them and the Authority of such men who were so near the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition must be very Venerable 4. I shall only add this That since we know what the Catholick Faith was and how the Catholick Fathers expounded Scripture if the Words of Scripture will naturally and easily admit that Sense much more if they will not admit any other Sense without great force and violence let any man judge which is most safe and reasonable to expound Scripture as the Catholick Faith and Catholick Fathers expound it and as the Scripture most easily and naturally expounds it self or to force New Senses and Old Heresies upon Scripture which the Catholick Church has always rejected and condemned This I hope may satisfy our Considerer that he did very ill in rejecting a Traditionary Faith and venturing to expound Scripture by his Natural Sentiments which is a very Unsafe Rule in Matters of Pure Revelation of which mere Natural Reason is no competent Judge SECT III. What is sufficient to be believed concerning the Trinity THus far I fear our Considerer has been a little unfortunate or if it do not prove a Misfortune to him in forming his Notion of a Trinity his Luck is better than his Choice Let us proceed to his next Enquiry What is sufficient for Christians to believe concerning the Trinity or which is all one in this case what is necessary to be believed What the meaning of this Question is I can't well tell nor why he makes sufficient and necessary all one for at least they are not always so That is sufficient which is enough for any man to believe that is strictly necessary which every man must believe But let him take his own way he quits the Term sufficient and enquires what is necessary to be believed whereas in many cases that which is absolutely necessary for all may not be sufficient for some I should much rather have enquired how much may be known concerning this Glorious Mystery than how little will serve the turn which argues no great Zeal for it Well What is necessary to be believed concerning the Trinity He answers Nothing but 1. What 's possible to be believed And 2. What 's plainly revealed Here we begin to see what the effect is of consulting nothing but Scripture and Natural Sentiments I hope he meant honestly in this but if he did he expressed himself very incautiously for these two Conditions are very ill put together when applied to matters of Revelation Plainly revealed had been enough in all reason unless he would insinuate that what is plainly revealed may be impossible to be believed and that how plain soever the Revelation be men must judge of the possibility of the thing by their own Natural Sentiments before they are bound to believe it which makes Natural Reason not Scripture the final Judge of Controversies But we must follow him where he leads us and thus he divides his whole Work 1. To consider how far it is possible to believe a Trinity 2. What the Scripture requires us to believe in this matter As for the first he tells us There are two requisites to make it possible for us to believe a thing 1. That we know the Terms of what we are to assent to 2. That it imply no Contradiction to our former Knowledge Such Knowledge I mean as is accompanied with Certainty and Evidence This in some sense may be true but as it is thus loosely and generally expressed it is very like the Socinian Cant and Sophistry By knowing the Terms he means having distinct Natural Ideas of what is signified by such Terms as he himself explains it I can believe it no farther than the Terms of which it is made up are known and understood and the Ideas signified by them consistent So that all Divine Mysteries must be examined by our Natural Ideas and what we have no Natural Ideas of we cannot we must not believe And this once for all condemns all Supernatural Faith or the belief of Supernatural Objects though never so plainly revealed for we have no Natural Ideas of Supernatural Objects And though Revelation may furnish us from the Resemblances and Analogies in Nature with some Artificial Ideas this will not serve the turn for though they know what such Terms signify when applied to Natural they know not what they signify when applied to Supernatural Objects nor have they any Ideas to answer them As for Instance We know what Father and Son signify when applied to Men but when we say God is not only Eternal himself but an Eternal Father who begot an Eternal Son these Terms of Father and Son begetting and being begotten must signify quite otherwise than they do among men something which we have no Idea of and therefore say the Socinians All this is unintelligible and impossible to be believed unless we can believe without understanding the Terms This Considerer asserts the Premises he had best consider again how he will avoid the Conclusion Another Socinian Topick is Contradiction and this our Considerer makes another requisite to the possibility of believing That the thing do not imply a Contradiction to our former knowledge that is to any Natural Ideas And here he learnedly disputes against believing Contradictions and that it is not consistent with the Wisdom Iustice and Goodness of God to require us to believe Contradictions But if instead of all this he had only said That God cannot reveal such plain and evident
as he represents it but the Personal Union of the Divine Nature of Christ to Human Nature He was not only as conscious of all the Divine Perfections in himself as a man is conscious of his own thoughts which yet by the way is absolutely impossible without being True and Perfect God in his own Person but he knew himself to be God the Eternal Son of God not the same Person with his Father but One with him Were a man thus regularly and constantly Inspired he would know that he was thus Inspired and he would also know that these Divine Perfections are not in himself not seated in his own Human Person nor under the Conduct of his own Will as his own Natural Powers are and therefore must know himself to be a mere Man still not God-Man So that this constant and regular Inspiration this uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity which is all he allows in this matter cannot make any Person God-Man This Inspiration is not a subsisting Person is not the Person of the Son of God is not Incarnate by its Union to Man no more than it is Incarnate in other Prophets The Man is the Person and therefore a mere Creature still tho never so Divinely Inspired This is such an Incarnation as Socinians themselves own in as high expressions as the Considerer can invent Cerinthus owned something more That Christ who descended on Iesus at his Baptism was a Divine Person not a mere Inspiration and rested on him and was most intimately united to him till his Crucifixion That Sect of the Noetians and Sabellians who were called Patripassians for they do not seem by the accounts we have of them to have been all of that mind did acknowledge the Incarnation of God in a true and proper sense as the Catholick Church did the Incarnation of Christ But then their Trinity being but One proper single Divine Person distinguished by Three Names or Personal Characters which is the express Doctrine of the Considerer their whole Trinity was Incarnate suffered and died in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ the Father as well as the Son as it must of necessity be if there be but One Divine Person who is Father Son and Holy Ghost and if this One Person is in a true and proper sense Incarnate But this the Catholick Church abhorred and condemned under the name of the Patripassian Heresy Others of them were Sabellians in the Doctrine of the Trinity but Photinians or Samosatenians that is Socinians as to the Doctrine of the Incarnation as Athanasius often intimates And if I understand him this is the Considerer's way who believes a Trinity in One single Person and an Inspired Man for a God Incarnate And thus we have lost the Trinity and Incarnation and must part with every thing which is peculiar and essential to Christianity with them And now one would wonder after all this what he has to say more about the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation and yet this is his next Enquiry What the Scriptures necessarily oblige us to believe in this Point that is concerning the Trinity and Incarnation Though he has been careful all along never to use this term Incarnation as being sensible that all he said about God-Man would not reach the Catholick Notion of Incarnation When I met with this Enquiry I was in hope that there was something behind to unsay all that he had hitherto said for if what he has already said be true it is certain the Scripture requires us to believe nothing about them But upon Examination I found that the Question was fallaciously stated and the true meaning of it was What the Scriptures oblige us to believe instead of what has hitherto passed for the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation I shall not dispute this Point with him now to shew what he means will be Confutation enough We must not he says look upon the Doctrine of the Trinity as a nice abstracted Speculation designed for the exercise of our Vnderstandings but as a plainer Revelation of God's Love and Good Will towards men and a greater Motive and Incitement to Piety than ever we had before this Doctrine was delivered This we grant That the Christian Faith is not designed merely for Speculation but for Practice but yet all the Doctrines of Faith are matters of Speculation and the Doctrine it self must be believed in order to Practice or else the Revelation of it is of no use at all The Question then is Whether we must not believe the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation Or how much we must believe of them Must we not believe That God has in a true and proper sense an Eternal and Only-begotten Son begotten from Eternity of his own Substance his True Perfect Living Subsisting Image Must we not believe That this Eternal Son of God did in a true proper Notion become Man by uniting Human Nature to his own Person and that in Human Nature he suffered and died for the Redemption of Mankind Truly No if I understand him All this is a nice abstracted Speculation and a very perplexing exercise of our Vnderstandings and we are bound to understand no more by God's giving his own Son to dye for us but his Love and Gâ—od Will to Mankind as it is a great Motive and Excitement to Piety But how can we learn God's Love and Good Will to Mankind from this Doctrine if it be not true if God have no Eternal Son and therefore did not give his Eternal Son to become Man and to suffer and dye for us The Gospel proves the great Love of God to Sinners by the Incarnation Death and Sufferings of his Son that if we do not believe this Doctrine strictly and literally true we lose the Gospel Proof of God's Love to Sinners and of the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's Death and Sacrifice to expiate our sins and of the Power of his Intercession as the Eternal Only-begotten and Well-beloved Son of God But our Considerer will not allow this These Titles and Relations must be chiefly câ—nsidered with reference to the great Work of Man's Salvation But must they not be considered as Three distinct proper Persons in the Unity of the Godhead who have their distinct Parts and Offices in the Redemption of Mankind No but distinct Relations and Offices of One and the same single Divine Person who is the One Supreme God and is All in One Father Son and Holy Ghâ—st Saviour Mediator Comforter But how then can these Titles and Relations signify an Eternal Distinction in the Godhead an Eternal Fâ—tâ—â—r an Eternal Son and an Eâ—ernal Spirit when thâ—se Offices relating only to Man's Salvation were not Eternal This he resolves into the Eternal Purpose and Decree of God to redeem Mankind by the Death and constant Mediation of a Man chosen and enabled for this work by the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him And in consideration of
his Passion and Intercession to impart such Gifts Graces and Spiritual Assistances as would be sufficient to render this Redemption effectual to the saving of much people So that God decreed from Eternity upon his Foreknowledge of Man's Fall that in order to redeem Man he would take upon himself the Distinctions and Offices of Father Son and Holy Ghost Saviour Mediator and Comforter in time and this is all the Eternal Distinction in the Godhead Well But it seems God did not decree from Eternity to redeem Man by his own Son but by a Man chosen and enabled for this Work by the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him that is as we have already heard by an Inspired and Deified Man not by a God Incarnate It is the Man who is the Saviour and Redeemer though he be enabled to this work by the Fulness of the Godhead or a constant regular Inspiration This is downright Socinianism the Catholick Faith is That it is the Son of God who redeems us though he redeems us in Human Nature But if God redeems us by a Man however he be enabled by a Divine Power Why is he said to give his Son for us For this Divine Power is not a Person and therefore no Son nor is the Man his own and only begotten Son Now this would be a difficulty indeed were we to understand God's giving his own Son for us in a proper literal sense but this is nothing but Figure and Representation if we believe the Considerer His words are these Thus when God is pleased to represent his Love to Mankind in the highest Image of Nature that of a Father sacrificing an only-begotten Son the exact Transcript and Resemblance of himself perfectly innocent and obedient to his Will in all things we are to believe that God did thus sacrifice his Son as he assures us he did No but that by the Sufferings and Death of Christ God has given greater Proof of his Love towards us than any man is capable of doing to another and that such an action of an Earthly Parent suggests the nearest and likest Conception we can possibly frame of what our Heavenly Father hath done for us though at the same time we must acknowledge it comes infinitely short of expressing the Riches and Fulness of his Mercy and Loving kindness It does so indeed To believe that God has actually given his own Eternal and Only-begotten Son for us as the Scripture assures us he has is a much nearer and truer Conception of what God has done for us and infinitely exceeds all earthly comparisons Abraham's offering his Son Isaac at God's Command was an Image and Figure but a Typical Figure of it but it was a Type without an Antitype if Christ was not as truly and properly the Son of God as Isaac was the Son of Abraham But if we will believe the Considerer the Scripture does not oblige us to believe this if we do but believe That God is as good to us as if he had sacrificed his only Son for us we need not believe That he did sacrifice his Son I have no Patience to proceed any further if this be true there is an end of the Faith and Hope of Christians CHAP. III. A Brief Account of the Sabellian Heresy and by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed it THE Considerer has given us the most Compleat and Artificial Scheme of Sabellianism that I have yet met with aâ—d has very fairly and openly confessed his Design to prove That One God must signify that there is but One who is God but One single Divine Person in the proper Notion of a Person as it signifies an Intelligent Being I have endeavoured to shew him his Mistake and what it is that has mis-led him and how hopeless an Attempt it is to reconcile his Hypothesis with the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation This is so bold an Attempt openly to assert and defend a Heresy which has been constantly condemned by the Catholick Church since its first appearance that I am apt to hope he does not believe his Hypothesis to be Sabellianism or that Heresy which now is best known by that name though Sabellius was not the first Author of it And therefore I will shew him what Sabellianism is and how the Fathers opposed it There were Two Points in dispute between them and the Catholick Christians First Concerning the Personality of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Secondly Concerning the Unity of God Whether it were the Unity of One Person as they pretended That we may rightly understand this matter we must distinguish between the several kinds of Sabellianism because the Arguments and Answers of the Fathers are sometimes adapted to one and sometimes to another Notion of it That Father Son and Holy Ghost were but One Person was asserted by them all but explained very differently and that altered the state of the Question and required different Answers 1. As first They made Father Son and Holy Ghost to be only Three Names Appearances or Offices of the same Person as I observed before And then the state of the Question was not Whether the Son was a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person in as true and proper a sense as the Father was a Person For this they owned by making Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Names of the same Person whereas it is impossible they should be the same Person if the Son were not a Person nor the Holy Ghost a Person If the Son be the same Person with the Father the Son must be a Person for no Person can't be the same Person Which is the same Argument to prove that these Hereticks owned Christ to be a True and Real Person that Novatianus used as I observed before to prove that they owned Christ to be true and perfect God because they made him the same with the Father who is true and perfect God and a true and real and substantial Person And if he be the very same with the Father he must be the same we acknowledge the Father to be viz. a true and real Person and perfect God The Dispute then which the Catholick Fathers had with these Hereticks with respect to this Notion That Father Son and Holy Ghost were the very same Person was not Whether the Son was a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person but Whether the Son and Holy Ghost were truly and really distinct Persons from the Father as the Catholick Church always believed or Whether they were the same Person distinguished only by Three Names Now when the Fathers asserted not only the Personality of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which this Notion did not oppose but the real distinction of Persons That the Son was a Person but not the same Person with the Father they must ascribe the same kind of Personality to the Son which they do to the Father That the Son is as truly and really a Person as the
God and Creatures so there can be no words in the same sense common to them but then this only requires an accommodation of words to Divine Mysteries by way of analogy and resemblance but not to change the Language and Philosophy of Created Nature which after all our Attempts and all our Art of Expression will fall infinitely short of the Divine Nature and give us but a very imperfect Image of it And if by such Attempts we confound our Notions and Ideas of Nature too we shall so much the more confound and perplex our Ideas of God It may help to ease mens Minds of some Notions which lie cross and uneven Briefly to state this matter I confess I am not satisfied of that absolute necessity which some pretend of stating nicely and Philosophically this distinction between Nature and Person in order to understand the Doctrine of the Trinity This was the Catholick Faith long before this Distinction was universally received and Men who understand little of this Distinction may believe very orthodoxly in Father Son and Holy Ghost without it Nay the best the safest and easiest way to understand these and all other Philosophical Terms applied to the Explication of this Faith is to fit them to those Scripture Ideas we have of Father Son and Holy Ghost each of them True and Perfect God and all Three but One God as I have shewn at large in the First Chapter But since there is a very warm Dispute about Nature and â—erson and has been for many Ages and this Distinction is become necessary to secure the Catholick Faith against the Attempts of Hereticks on both sides as the Church has found by long Experience it will be necessary to set this matter in as clear a light as possible we can And the best way I can think of to do this is 1. To consider this distinction of Nature and Person in Creatures As for instance in a Man What the distinction between Nature and Person is in Man and to shew which way soever we state this matter how improper all these Notions are to represent this distinction between Nature and Person in the Blessed Trinity And 2. To shew how the Catholick Fathers accommodated these Names of Essence and Person to the Explication of this Mystery and what Unity and what Distinction they intended to represent by them 1. As for the first If the Infinite distance between God and Creatures will allow us to Philosophize freely about Created Nature without incurring the Suspicion of Heresy I must confess I never could form a distinct notion of the difference between a subsisting Nature and Hypostasis or Person in Man but do what I can I can conceive no otherwise of an Individual Subsisting Human Nature but as of an Individual Subsisting Human Hypostasis or Person nor of an Individual Human Person than as of an Individual Subsisting Human Nature And I have some reason to think that this is not peculiarly my Case for besides that I find other thinking Men blundered in this matter and could never yet meet with a clear and sensible Explication of it I observe that there is no word which in its original institution signifies this difference and it is reasonable to think as to Created Nature that Mankind have no notion of that which they have no word for It is sufficiently known that Hypostasis originally signifies Essence and Substance not Person as distinguisht from Nature which is a later and a mere Ecclesiastical use of it and it is confessed that Persona and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were taken from the Stage and when they were applied to signify a true and real Man they signified only the Man himself not the Personality of a Man as distinguished from an Individual Subsisting Nature And which is much more considerable some of the Fathers as I observed before confess that Aristotle knew no such distinction but in his Philosophy Essence and Hypostasis signified the same thing for Nature and Essence which is his first Substance is an Individuum which subsists not as part of another but as whole and compleat which the Fathers call Hypostasis and therefore Aristotle's first Substance and what these Fathers call Hypostasis is in Creatures one and the same thing and yet all confess That no man ever more nicely distinguisht all the distinguishable Notions in Nature than Aristotle did that what escaped his observation must be very nice indeed And though St. Basil and St. Gregory Nyssen and the other Catholick Writers of that Age do distinguish between Essence and Hypostasis that they differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is common to all the Individuals of the same kind which is a common Nature and what is proper and peculiar to each Individual and distinguishes one man from another yet I do not remember that they quarrelled with the Greek Philosophers or apprehended that they themselves taught any new Philosophy in this Point as afterwards Theorianus and others did nor can I see any other difference there is between them if candidly interpreted but only in words The short account of the matter is this Aristotle's first Substance which subsists by it self these Fathers as they themselves own call Hypostasis not Nature Essence and Substance that is every subsisting Individuum is Aristotle's Nature Essence and Substance the Fathers Hypostasis now when they mean the same thing and own that they do so so far they are agreed in the thing and differ only in words But then these Fathers in every Hypostasis distinguished between the common Nature and such Personal Properties which distinguished common Nature into Individuals or were Characteristical Marks whereby to know one Person from another Now Aristotle indeed never made such a distinction as this but yet all that is material in it is included in his Notion and Definition of Substance For when these Fathers distinguish in every Hypostasis what is common to the whole Kind and what is proper and peculiar to each Individuum they mean no more by it but that Peter for instance considered as a Man is perfectly the same that Iames and Iohn are considered also as Men though there is something so peculiar to Peter as to make him a particular Human Person and to distinguish him from Iames and Iohn and all other Men in the World Now it is certain neither Aristotle nor any Man of sense would ever have denied any thing of all this for it is evident that there is something wherein all Men agree and something proper to every particular Man That which is the same in all Men the Fathers call a common Nature and so does Aristotle a common Specifick Nature but here is some appearance of difference between them which I think if rightly stated is none at all Aristotle makes Nature as actually subsisting by it self as suppose Human Nature in Peter or Iames to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Individuum a particular Singular
and thus a Man begets a Man in his own Nature and Likeness and the Son which is begotten is upon all accounts as much a Man as he who begets and Father and Son are two Men And to beget and to be begotten tho they prove their Persons to be distinct yet are but External Relations not different manners of subsistence in the same Nature And thus God does not beget a Son which would be to beget a Second God For to beget and to be begotten when he who begets begets in an absolute sense all the same that he is himself makes two of the same kind And therefore we must observe That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Personal Character and Property of the Father does not only signify that he has no cause of his Being and Nature but that what he is he is absolutely in himself has an Absolute not a Relative Nature and Subsistence and so consequently the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Personal Property of the Son signifies that his Being and Nature is Relative not only that he receives his Being and Nature from his Father but that he so receives it as to be a Relative Subsistence in his Father's Nature and the like may be said of the Procession of the Holy Ghost As to shew this more particularly God begets a Son his own perfect Image and Likeness but he does not beget his own Absolute Nature in his Son as Man does though he begets his Son of his own Nature and Substance as for instance God is Perfect Absolute Original Mind not only as Original is opposed to what has a Cause and a Beginning but as opposed to an Image but God does not beget an Absolute Original Mind in his Son but only his own Eternal Essential Word which is the Perfect Living Image of Eternal Self-originated Mind and is it self Eternal Infinite Mind in the Eternal Word but is in its own proper Character the Eternal Word of the Eternal Mind not originally an Eternal Mind it self It has all the Perfections of an Eternal Mind as a Perfect Word must of necessity have which is the perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature but it has all these Perfections not as Original Mind but as a Begotten Word which is a different Mode of Subsistence and a sensible distinction between the Eternal Mind and its Word in the perfect Identity of Nature This I take to be a True and Intelligible Account of these different manners of Subsistence which distinguish the Divine Persons in the perfect Unity of Nature that they have all the same Nature and same Perfections but after a different manner which can never be understood in Absolute Natures and Persons for three Men though Father Son and Grandson have all of them Human Nature after the very same manner but in an Absolute Nature and Relative Essential Processions this is to be understood and proves a real distinction and perfect Unity It is evident to all Men that the Mind and its Word are Two and it is as evident that Life Wisdom Knowledge are in Absolute Original Mind after another manner than they are in its Word and yet the very Notion of a Mind and its Word and that Essential Relation that is between them makes it a contradiction to say that any other Life Wisdom Knowledge can be in the Word than what is in the Mind which would be to say That the Word is not the Word of the Mind if it have any thing that is not in the Mind For a Natural Word can have nothing but what is in the Mind and is no farther a Word than it is the Natural Image of the Mind And the like may be said concerning the Holy Spirit which hath all the same Divine Perfections but in a different manner from Original Mind and its Word as eternally proceeding from both This is the Account which the Catholick Fathers give of the Unity of Nature and Distinction of Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity which answers the Objections of our Sabellian Arian and Socinian Adversaries and vindicates those Catholick Forms of Speech which they charge with Tritheism Contradiction and Nonsense As to shew this briefly in one view for each part of it has been sufficiently confirmed already The Catholick Faith teaches us That there is but One God and this is demonstrable from the Doctrine of these Fathers For in this Account I have now given there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Absolute Divinity One Divine Nature and therefore but One God But say our Adversaries One God in Natural Religion and according to the general Sense of Mankind signifies One Person who is God And this also in some sense has always been owned by the Catholick Church That as there is but One Absolute Divinity so the Person of the Father who is this One Absolute Divinity is this One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is but One Person who is God in this Absolute Sense because there is but One Father who as they often speak is the Fountain of the Deity that is of the Divine Processions of the Son and Holy Spirit He is the Whole Absolute Divinity himself and whatever is Divine Eternally and Essentially proceeds from him in the Unity of his own Nature But at this rate what Divinity do we leave for the Son and the Holy Spirit Truly the very same by Eternal Generation and Procession which is originally and absolutely in the Father For it is the Nature of the Father and the Divinity of the Father which is in the Son and Holy Spirit as the Fathers constantly own and as of necessity it must be because there is no other This Eternal Generation and Procession has always been owned as an ineffable Mystery which we must believe upon the Authority of the Scriptures without pretending to know how God begets an Eternal Son or how the Eternal Spirit proceeds from Father and Son which we confess we have no Notion of but we know likewise That this is no reason to reject this Faith no more than it is a reason to reject the belief of an Eternal Self-originated Being because though it be demonstrable That there must be an Eternal First Cause of all things which has no Cause of its own Being but an Eternal necessary Nature yet we can no more conceive this than we can an Eternal Generation and Procession Supposing therefore without disputing that matter at present that God has an Eternal Son that Eternal Self-originated Mind has an Eternal Subsisting Word and an Eternal Spirit it is evident that this Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit must have all the same Perfections of the Eternal Mind must be all that the Eternal Mind is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excepting its being an Absolute Self-originated Mind Now if he be God who has the whole Divine Nature and Perfections then the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God who by Eternal Generation and Procession have that same
Disputes amongst themselves which their common Adversaries are so apt to improve into Scepticism Infidelity or Heresy And therefore for a Conclusion I shall only take a brief Review of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article of a Trinity in Unity and apply it in a few words to our Socinian Adversaries The Faith of the Catholick Church taught by Christ and his Apostles is that there is but One God but this One God is a Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Essential Unity of the same Undivided and Undiversified Godhead And this is the Faith which all the Catholick Fathers have owned and taught in their several Ages The whole Christian Church Baptizes as our Saviour commanded in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and this is the Rule of their Faith to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost A plain simple Faith could Men have been contented to believe God concerning himself Let our Socinian Adversaries tell us what there is absurd impossible or contradictious in this Faith Will they venture to say That it is absurd or contradictious that God should have a Son No! in some sense they will allow this true they themselves believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost they acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God as he is frequently called in Scripture and that in a higher sense than any other Man is the Son of God but that he is but a Man after all though advanced by God to Divine Honours above all Principalities and Powers and made the Judge both of the Quick and of the Dead and this they affirm to be all that the Scripture means in calling Christ the Son of God But this is not the present Dispute They know that the Catholick Church believed otherwise that Christ is the Eternal Son of God begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God very God of very God and they know also that thus the Catholick Fathers expounded those Texts which concern the Sonship and Divinity of our Saviour and they cannot but confess That they are very capable of such an Exposition nay that it is very difficult to put any other sense upon many Texts and the only reason why they reject these Catholick Expositions is the pretended Absurdity and Contradiction of the Catholick Faith Here then we join issue with them and desire them to shew us what is impossible or contradictious in this Faith That there is something incomprehensible in this Mystery that is something which we have no Natural adequate Ideas of we readily acknowledge with the whole Catholick Church and some of our Adversaries grant That it is possible for a thing to be whereof we have no Idea and then it seems to me very unreasonable to add but we are no ways concerned nor can we Reason or Discourse about those things whereof we have no Ideas For the direct contrary seems to be the more natural consequence that if God thinks fit to reveal such things to us of which we have no Ideas we are concerned and obliged to believe them for if they may be true they are the proper Objects of Faith though they want the Evidence of Natural Ideas But I do not intend to dispute this now but refer them to the Bishop of Worcester ' s Answer to Mr. Lock ' s Second Letter and to a late Sermon and its Vindication Concerning the Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy What I have now to say is of another Nature viz. That we have an Idea of a Trinity in Unity and such an Idea as contains nothing absurd impossible or contradictious in it That very Idea which I have so largely explained One Absolute Divinity with Two Eternal Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature The Eternal Father Eternal Self-originated Mind with his Eternal Word his Eternal Son and the Eternal Spirit of Father and Son This is that Idea which the Scripture gives us of it and which the Catholick Church hath always taught Every Man may understand what is meant by it and therefore it is not Jargon and Nonsense and I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from Tritheism and Contradiction and have no more to say of that nature till I hear what they have to object against what is already said and when they come to consider this Matter again as Men that shall certainly be called to an Account for it in this World as well as in the next I hope they will see reason to grow out of conceit with their own Philosophy about Emanations and Processions a Priority of Time and Priority of Nature Self-Existence and Necessary Existence and such like Arian Objections which were made and answered many Ages since and which they may find sufficiently answered in this Treatise This brings back the Dispute to Scripture where the last Appeal must lie in all such Matters without appealing for the Sense of Scripture to Natural Ideas and Philosophy And if the Interpretations of the Catholick Fathers were of any Authority with these Men I have already shewn how they expounded Scripture which will always be a venerable Authority to modest Men and sober Christians how much soever it be despised by Hereticks But it is time to put an end to this Treatise we may consider their Expositions of Scripture some other time THE END DR Sherloc◠Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Third Edition Quarto Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A Sermon Quarto A Vindication of the Sermon in Answer to some Socinian Remarks An Answer to the Animad versions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Trinity By I. B. A. M. Quarto A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet Quarto All Printed for William Rogers Quâ nec dicuntur ut cogitantur nec cogitantur ut sunt Aug. de Trinit l. 5. c. 3. Cùm ergo quaeritur quid tria vel quid tres conferimus nos ad inventendum aliquod speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 3. Ad se quippe Pater dicitur Persona non ad Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 6. Cur ergo non haec tria simul unam Personam dicimus sicut unam Essentiam Deum sed tres dicimus Personas cùm tres Deos aut tres essentias non dicamus nisi quia volumus vel unum aliquod vocabulum servire huic significationi quâ intelligitur Trinitas ne emnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cùm tres esse fateremur Ibid.
Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names of that One single Person who is God But as he proceeds if we allow that these terms Father Son and Holy Ghost are all applied to God in Scripture 't is not thought sufficient to say That these are Three several Names which signify God but we are further required to believe That God is One and Three the same God not the same single Person but Three different Hypostases or Persons and that one of these Three Hypostases or Persons is both God and Man These are the Hard Sayings which puzzle some mens understandings This is the Faith of the Catholick Church and will always be Hard Sayings to Sabellian Understandings which they will never be able to reconcile with their Hypothesis of One single Person in the Godhead But let us hear how he clears himself of these difficulties He observes in the first place That these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost are applied to God in Scripture in a different way from what any of his other Names are So far he is in the right but what is this different way In short it is this That the other Names of God signify only partial Conceptions of the Divine Nature such as Self-existence Power c. and are all contained within the same Idea of God and therefore cannot be the foundation of any distinction in the Godhead Let this pass But each of these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost includes the whole Idea we have of God and something more as being extrinsecal and accessory to the Divine Nature and the whole Idea of God full and compleat before the application of these terms Let us examine this first He says Each of these Names includes the whole Idea of God I beseech you how can that be when they signify something extrinsecal and accessory to the Divine Nature and the whole Idea of God may be conceived full and compleat without them For if these Names are not included in the Idea of God which is full and compleat without them which Assertion by the way overthrows the whole Christian Faith of the Trinity how can they include the Idea of God in them which they are not so much as any part of much less the whole and something more I grant the Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost may connote the Idea of God as the Name of a King and a Father connote the Idea of a Man who is King and Father which I suppose is all he intends by it but then the King must be a Man and the Father must be a Man to connote the Idea of Man And thus in the Blessed Trinity if these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost connote the Idea of God the Father must be True and Perfect God and the Son must be True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost must be True and Perfect God for neither Father Son or Holy Ghost connote the Idea of God upon any other account than as the Whole and Perfect Divine Nature subsists in each of them and that makes the whole Idea of God belong to each of them To proceed He tells us That though all these Names are separately and together affirmed of God yet each of them in so peculiar a manner that there are several occasions where when one of these terms is used with relation to God 't would be improper to use either of the other That is when it is proper to call God Father it is improper to call him Son or Holy Ghost and so on the contrary But the reason of this in his Hypothesis is not that their Persons are distinct and incommunicable but that there are several occasions which make such change of Names improper As a Man who is a King a Husband and a Father all these Names do separately and together belong to him but you must have a care of speaking improperly by applying these Names to improper Relations Well however From hence he says it follows that these Three Names of God Father Son and Holy Ghost must denote a Threefold difference of distinction belonging to God I grant it makes a distinction of Names and external Offices and Relations in God but no distinction of Hypostases and Persons which was the distinction to be shewn but this he absolutely rejects for it must be no other difference or distinction but such as is consistent with the Vnity and Simplicity of the Divine Nature This we would all subscribe to did he mean honestly but his Vnity and Simplicity of the Divine Nature is nothing else but the Unity and Simplicity of One single Person and all the distinction he will allow these different Names to make is no more than what One single Person is capable of For each of these Names includes the whole Idea we have of God and something more Very right if we allow these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost to be the Names of true and proper Divine Persons for then each of them is true and perfect God and the whole Idea of God is included in each of them because the whole Divine Nature is in each of them otherwise neither of these Names include the Idea of God but only connote it as I have already observed And what he adds That as far as these Names express the Nature of God they all adequately and exactly signify the same is very true also if by the same he means the same Nature not the same One single Person And then what he adds 'T is the additional signification which makes all the distinction between them is very true also but he ought to have told us what this additional signification this something more than the whole Idea of God is which is included in these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost and then we might have known what this distinction is All the additional signification that I know of is this That Father signifies God includes the whole Idea of God but besides this Father when it signifies God signifies a Self-originated Unbegotten God who is God of himself and begets a Son of his own Nature and Coeternal with himself Son signifies God but begotten God God of God the living and perfect Image of his Father Holy Ghost signifies God but God proceeding eternally from Father and Son in the Unity and Perfection of the same Divine Nature And this is all the difference between them not a difference of Nature but a distinction of True Real Proper Persons The Considerer seems to allow this That Person is a proper Name for this distinction For Father Son and Holy Ghost have plainly a Personal significatiâ—n each of them without any figure of speech being determined to signify some Intelligent Being acting in such a manner as is there related These Words would betray an Unwary Reader to believe the Considerer as Orthodox as the Nicene Fathers and that he did acknowledge Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three Persons without a Figure as a