THE PRESENT STATE OF THE Socinian Controversy AND THE Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers Concerning A TRINITY in UNITY By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Dean of St. Paul's Master of the Temple and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXC VIII THE PREFACE I Have little to say to the Reader having sufficiently Explained the Design of this Treatise in the First Section Those who remember how this Controversy has been of late managed may possibly expect what they will not find some sharp Resentments of the Ill Usage I have met with and as sharp Returns but I write not to Revenge my self but to Explain and Vindicate the Truly Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith of a Trinity in Unity which requires a Composed and Sedate Mind both in the Writer and Reader For this Reason I have thus long delayed the Publication of this Treatise the greatest part of which was Printed Two Years since that those who will ever grow Cool might have time to recover their Temper And did I not hope that the Publication of it at this time would tend more to quiet Mens Minds to stop the Mouths of Hereticks and to secure the Catholick Faith than a Passive Silence it should never see the Light how much soever my own Reputation might suffer by it But I persuade my self That the Authority of the Catholick Church and of the Catholick Fathers is not at so low an Ebb even in this Age as to be easily despised and therefore their Explications their Arguments their Answers to the Objections of Hereticks will have their due weight and I have not gone one step further I appeal to the Catholick Fathers and am contented to stand or fall by their Sentence I have not wilfully misrepresented their Sense in any thing and have taken all possible care not to mistake it and as far as Human Authority is concerned here I must leave the matter for I know of no further Appeal The CONTENTS CHAP. I. SECT I. THE Present State of the Socinian Controversy and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question Page 1. SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture-Terms 4 The Form of Baptism the Rule and Standard of Faith ibid. That these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost are more easily understood and give us a truer Idea of a Trinity in Vnity than any Artificial Terms 5 c. 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 12 This particularly Explained with respect to those Terms Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Existence Subsistence Person c. 13 c. SECT IV. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the real distinction of Persons in the Trinity 20 c. SECT V. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the Vnity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead explained at large 24 SECT VI. Concerning the Vnity of God 33 In what sense the Catholick Church believed in One God ibid. Tritheism an old Sabellian and Arian Objection against the Trinity 34 How answered by the Catholick Fathers 37 c. CHAP. II. AN Examination of some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy 51 What Ways the Considerer dislikes 52 c. What way he took viz. consulting Scripture and Natural Sentiments 56 SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity 60 What the Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith ibid. What Evidence we have for this Tradition from the Ancient Heresies condemned by the Catholick Church 64 Of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture 77 SECT III. What is sufficient to be believed concerning the Trinity 80 His Requisites to make it possible for us to believe a thing 81 SECT IV. Concerning his state of the Question That One and the same God is Three different Persons 84 His Examination of these Terms God Unity Identity Distinction Number and Person And 1. Of the Notion of God 86 SECT V. His Notions and Ideas of Unity Distinction Person His Sabellian Notion of a Person that there is but One single Person in the Trinity as Person signifies properly a particular Intelligent Being 88 This he proves from his Notions of Vnity and Distinction the Vnity and Distinction of Ideas of Principle and of Position 91 What he means by an obscure confused Knowledge and a general confused Faith of the Trinity 101 SECT VI. What the Scripture requires us to believe concerning the Trinity 103 His Sabellian Notion of One God to be adored under Three different Titles and Characters Ibid. His Scripture-proof of this Examin'd 104 c. His attempt to reconcile this with God's being One and Three 108 c. And with the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity 113 His Account of the Vnion of God and Man 115 What end the belief of the Trinity and Incarnation serve not as a Matter of Faith and Speculation but as an artificial representation of God's love to man 120 CHAP. III. AN Account of the Sabellian Heresy and by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed it 124 The several kinds of Sabellianism 1. Those who made Father Son and Holy Ghost to be only Three names appearances and offices of the same Person And here the question was not whether the Son was a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person but whether they were distinct Persons from the Father 125 By what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed this Heresy 127 2. That the Son is distinguished from the Father only as a man's word is distinguished from himself 133 And by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed this Heresy 134 3. Some made God a compound Being and Father Son and Holy Ghost the Three Parts of this one God 143 By what Arguments the Fathers opposed it Ibid. CHAP. IV. COncerning the Homoousion or One Substance of Father Son and Holy Ghost 150 SECT I. The true sense of the Homoousion from those misrepresentations which were made of it and the Answers which were given by the Nicene Fathers to such Objections 152 SECT II. Some Rules for Expounding the Homoousion 158 SECT III. What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion 163 SECT IV. A more particular Inquiry into the full signification of the Homoousion with respect to the specifick Vnity of the Divine Nature 170 SECT V. That by the Homoousion the Nicene Fathers did not meerly understand a specifick but a natural Vnity and Sameness of Substance between Father and Son 180 Damascen's distinction between one in Notion and one in reality Ibid. This appears from their Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 181 And the Catholick Fathers lay the
and Institution as far as relates to this Mystery These words Person and Hypostasis were very anciently used without any Definition to determine their Signification till they became matter of dispute Boetius has given us a definition of Person which has been generally allowed of ever since that a Person is an individual Substance of a rational Nature Let us then examine whether this definition can belong to a Divine Person to one who is True and Perfect God As for Substance Boetius tells us That it is essential to the Notion of Person for a Person cannot subsist in Accidents much less in Modes which are less than Accidents and it is certain no other Notion of Person can belong to one who is God For a Person who is God must be Substance in the most Perfect and Absolute sense that is as I have already explained it Perfect Being and Essence As St. Austin expresly tells us That in God to Be and to be a Person is the same thing and that when we say the Person of the Father we mean nothing else but the Substance of the Father and thus it is with respect to the whole Trinity It is certain St. Austin never dream'd of defining a Person much less a Divine Person by a Mode For to make a Person who is God and therefore the most Perfect Being a Mode which if it be any thing is next to nothing no Substance but a meer Modification of Substance is both new Divinity and new Philosophy unknown either to Fathers or Schoolmen But meer Substance can't make a Person unless it be a Living Understanding Substance the Substance of a rational Nature And this must be the Notion of a Person when applied to God for God is Pure Infinite Mind and Intellect the First and Supreme Life and Intellect in whom to Live to Understand and to Be is the same thing as I observed before from St. Austin and if a Divine Person signifies One who is God every Person in the Godhead is Supreme Absolute Life and Intellect And this is what we must understand by a Person when we say That the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person for no other Notion of a Person can belong to any one who is True and Perfect God There is another Term of great consideration in this definition which still remains to be Explained and that is Individual That a Person is an Individual Substance of a Rational Nature which Boetius opposes to Vniversal Substances which are nothing else but the abstracted Notions of generical or specifick Substances which have no real and actual Subsistence and therefore are not properly Substances but only the Ideas of Substances and therefore are not Persons neither for Substance and Person are only in Singulars and Individuals which Subsist by themselves Thus Human Nature considered in general as common to all Mankind has no actual Subsistence and therefore is not a Human Person but it subsists only in particular Men and that makes every particular Man a Human Person for the Person of the Man is nothing but the Man himself And so St. Austin tells us it is in the Holy Trinity the Person of the Father is the Father himself and the Person of the Son is the Son himself and if Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three they must be Three Persons for each of them is himself and not the other and Three Selfs are Three Persons I and Thou and He are Personal Pronouns I my self Thou thy self He himself by which Argument the Catholick Fathers prove against the Sabellians that Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Persons by these Personal Pronouns which the Scripture applies to them as our Sâ—viour speaks of himself in the first Person I and my Father of his Father in the Second Person I thank Thee O Father of the Holy Ghost in the Third Person when He the Spirit of truth shall come Now I and Thou and He must signifie Three distinct Persons or Three Selfs Person indeed as St. Austin observes is not a Relative Term but is spoken ad se of the thing it self For if Person were a Relative then as we say The Father is the Father of his Son so we must say The Person of the Father is the Person of the Son which is absurd but yet Person must be praedicated Plurally according to the number of Selfs for as many Selfs as there are so many Persons are there for Selfs make numbers because one self is not another Three singular intelligent Selfs singulares intelligentes as Melancton calls them is the proper Notion of Three Persons and in this sense Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Persons if each of them be True and Perfect God For God is certainly himself If the Father be God the Father himself is God if the Son be God the Son himself is God if the Holy Ghost be God the Holy Ghost himself is God This is the plain express Doctrine of Scripture and what every man may understand and what every one who believes a Trinity must profess and no man needs believe more SECT IV. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the real Distinction of Persons in the Trinity II. THESE Names Father Son and Holy Ghost especially when the Name GOD is Attributed to each of them That the Father is God the Son God the Holy Ghost God proves a real and substantial distinction between them for these are opposite Relations which cannot meet in the same Subject For a Father cannot be Father to himself but to his Son nor can a Son be Son to himself but to his Father nor can the Holy Ghost Proceed from himself nor in this sense be his own Spirit but the Spirit of the Father and Son from whom he Proceeds And therefore the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit nor the Son the Father or Holy Spirit nor the Holy Spirit either Father or Son And yet if each of them be God each of them Perfectly is or is Perfect Being and therefore are as Perfectly Distinct as three which perfectly are and are not one another To talk of Three Distinct Beings Substances Minds or Spirits may be Misrepresented by perverse Wits to the prejudice of the Divine Unity though the Catholick Fathers besides Hypostasis did not scruple to use the same or other equivalent Expressions concerning the Holy Trinity when they disputed against the Sabellians yet if we believe a Trinity whether we will or no we must acknowledge Three each of which Perfectly Is or is Perfect Being and no one is the other For if we deny this we must either deny that the Father Is or that the Son Is or that the Holy Ghost Is and to deny either of these is to deny a Trinity And if it be Objected against this That according to St. Austin's Notion though it was not peculiarly his but common to all the Greek and
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
Contradictions as he cannot require us to believe and consequently That whatever is plainly revealed implies no Contradiction how much soever it may be above our comprehension because God does require us to believe what he plainly reveals this had put an end to this Dispute and left the belief of the Trinity possible whatever difficulties we might apprehend in conceiving it But this great Zeal against believing Contradictions when applied to the belief of the Trinity is a very untoward Insinuation as if the Doctrine of the Trinity as commonly understood were clogg'd with Contradictions and that we must cast all such Contradictions which in the Socinian account is the Doctrine it self out of our Faith and therefore That whatever the Scripture says we must put no such sense on it as implies any Contradiction to our former knowledge This is an admirable Foundation for Considerations concerning the Trinity and what an admirable Superstructure he has rais'd on it we shall soon see I may possibly discourse this Point of Contradictions more at large elsewhere at present I shall only tell this Author That as self-evident as he thinks it this Proposition is false That it is impossible to believe what implies a Contradiction to our former knowledge and that God cannot require us to believe it I grant that all Logical Contradictions which are resolved into is and is not are impossible to be believed because they are impossible to be true and such is his Contradiction about the Whole and its Parts for to say That the Whole is not bigger than any of its Parts is to say That a Whole is a Whole and is not a Whole and that a Part is a Part and is not a Part. But contradictory Ideas may both be true and therefore both be believed and every man believes great numbers of them The Ideas of Heat and Cold White and Black Body and Spirit Extension and No Extension Eternity and Time to have A Beginning and to have No Beginning are contradictory Ideas and yet we believe them all that is we believe and know that there really are such things whose Natures are directly opposite and contrary to each other Now when there are such Contrarieties and Contradictions in Created Nature it may justly be thought very strange to true Considerers that our Natural Ideas should be made the adequate measures of Truth or Falshood of the Possibilities or Impossibilities of things that we must not believe what God reveals concerning himself if it contradicts any Natural Ideas And yet I challenge this Considerer and all the Socinian Sabellian Arian Fraternities to shew me any appearance of Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity but what are of this kind that is not Logical Contradictions but Contradictions to our other Natural Ideas And if our Natural Ideas of Created Nature contradict each other it would be wonderful indeed if the Divine Uncreated Nature should not contradict all our Natural Ideas Every thing we know of God is a direct Contradiction to all the Ideas we have of Creatures an Uncreated and a Created Nature an Infinite and a Finite Nature are direct Contradictions to each other Eternity without Succession Omnipresence without Extension Parts or Place a pure simple Act which is all in one without Composition an Omnipotent Thought which thinks all things into Being and into a Beautiful Order these and such like Ideas of God are direct Contradictions to all the Ideas we have of Creatures and can any Contradiction then to any Ideas of Created Nature be thought a reasonable Objection against believing any thing which God reveals to us concerning himself But of this more hereafter SECT IV. Concerning his State of the Question That One and the Same God is Three Different Persons THese are his Preliminaries Axioms Postulata's all in the strict demonstrative way but now he comes to apply all this more closely to the business in hand but then he very unfortunately stumbles at the Threshold The Proposition he proposes to examine by these Principles is this That One and the same God is Three Different Persons Where he met with this Proposition in these very Terms I know not I 'm sure there is no such Proposition in Scripture nor did I ever meet with it in any Catholick Writer It is very far from giving us a true and adequate Notion of the Catholick Faith concerning the Trinity it is of a doubtful signification and in the most obvious sense of these words which I fear will appear to have been intended by this Considerer is manifest Heresy For if by One and the same God he means That there is but One who is God and That this One and same God is Three different Persons it is the Heresy of Sabellius at least if he would have owned the Term different which inclines more to the signification of diversity than of mere distinction which savours of Arianism and more properly relates to Natures than to Persons We meet with different forms of speech in Catholick Writers concerning the Unity and Trinity in the Godhead all which must be reconciled to form a distinct and compleat Notion of the Trinity That Deus est Vnus Trinus God is One and Three is very Ancient and very Catholick That the Father is the One God in a peculiar and eminent sense is both the Language of Scripture and of the Church That each Person Father Son and Holy Ghost is by himself True and Perfect God is likewise the Doctrine both of the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Fathers That the Trinity is One God That Father and Son are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnum One Divinity Christ himself teaches us That Father Son and Spirit are also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One St. Iohn teaches us And nothing is more familiar both with the Greek and Latin Fathers than to call the Trinity One God and in consequence of this That One God is the Trinity though this they rather chose to express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three Persons And whoever would give an account of the Catholick Faith of the Trinity must have respect to all these Notions and not content himself with any one of them as to make the best of it the Considerer here does when he only proposes to enquire How One and the same God is Three Persons But he ought to have enquired also in what sense each Person is by himself True and Perfect God and the Person of the Father in a peculiar and eminent sense the One God and to have framed his Notions of Unity and Distinction with an equal regard to all these Catholick Expositions which would have secured him from the Sabellian Heresy which now his Words are very guilty of whatever He himself be But let us now proceed to his Examination of these Terms God Vnity Identity Distinction and Number and Person As to the Notion of a Deity he confesses he has not a
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
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
Consubstantial Son is a true and real Son for which reason as he observes the Arians would not allow the Son to be Consubstantial because they would not allow him to be a true genuine Son and for this very reason the Nicene Fathers inserted the Homoousion in their Creed But yet if we would rightly conceive of God of Father Son and Holy Ghost of the Unity and Distinction of the Ever Blessed Trinity we must not form our Notions by the Ideas of Substance and Consubstantiality which we have no distinct conceptions of but we must learn their Unity Distinction and Consubstantiality from those Characters the Scripture gives of Father Son and Holy Ghost This Rule St. Ambrose expressly gives us with reference to the Son and the Reason is the same as to the other Divine Persons If we would avoid Error says that Father let us attend to those Characters the Scripture gives us to help us to understand what and who the Son is He is called the Word the Son the Power of God the Wisdom of God all this we can understand and not only St. Ambrose but all the other Catholick Fathers as I have already shewn prove the Consubstantiality Coeternity Coequality Unity and Distinction of Father and Son from these Names and Characters which they understood in a true and proper sense for a Living Subsisting Son and Word and Power and Wisdom and there is no difficulty in conceiving all this if we contemplate it in these Characters nay it is impossible to conceive otherwise of it As impossible as it is to form any notion at all of those Philosophical Terms whereby this Mystery is commonly represented when we abstract them from those sensible Characters and Ideas which the Scripture has given us and begin our Inquiries with them It will be of great use to represent this matter plainly that every man may see what it is that obscures and perplexes the Doctrine of the Trinity and confounds mens notions about it to the great scandal of the Christian Religion and the disturbance of the Christian Church The great difficulty concerns the Unity and Distinction of the Ever Blessed Trinity that they are really and distinctly Three and essentially One And this is represented by One Nature Essence and Substance and Three Hypostases and yet Hypostasis signifies Substance and every Divine Hypostasis is the whole Divine Essence and Substance Now if we immediately contemplate this Mystery under the notion of Substance it is impossible for us to conceive One Substance and Three Hypostases that is in some sense Three Substances or which is all One as to the difficulty of conceiving it though the form of Expression is more Catholick Three each of which is the whole Essence and Substance and neither of them is each other we may turn over our Minds as long as we please and change Words and Phrases but we can find no Idea to answer these or any other words of this nature But now if instead of Essence and Hypostasis we put Mind and its Word we can form a very intelligible notion of this Unity and Distinction and prove that Unity of Substance and Distinction of Hypostases which we cannot immediately and directly form any notion of For Eternal Original Mind and its Living Subsisting Word are certainly Two and neither are nor can be each other the Mind cannot be its own Living Word nor the Word the Mind whose Word it is and yet we must all grant that Eternal Mind is the most Real Being Essence Substance and that a Living Subsisting Word is Life Being Substance and the very same Life and Substance that the Mind is and all that the Mind is for a perfect Living Word can have no other Life and Substance but that of the Mind and must be all the same that the Mind is The Eternal Generation of the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of the Father Life of Life Substance of Substance Whole of Whole is impossible to be conceived as immediately applied to the notion of Substance but the Generation of the Word Whole of Whole is very conceivable for the Mind must beget its own Word as we feel in our selves and a Mind which is perfect Life and Substance if it begets its Word must beget a Living Subsisting Substantial Word the perfect Image of its own Life and Substance And as impossible as it is to conceive much more to express in words this Mystery of the Eternal Generation yet the necessary relation between a Mind and its Word proves that thus it is we feel it in our selves though we are as perfectly ignorant how our Mind begets its dying vanishing Word as how the Eternal Mind begets an Eternal Living Subsisting Word And the Generation of the Word includes in it all the Properties of the Divine Generation that it is Eternal for an Eternal Mind can never be without its Word that it is without any Corporeal Passions or Esslux or Division begotten in the Mind and inseparable from it Now if we conceive after the same manner of the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit can any man deny this to be an Intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Unity though we can form no distinct Idea of One Essence and Substance and Three Hypostases For if we can conceive Father Son and Holy Ghost Eternal Original Mind its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit to be Essentially One and Three the Catholick Faith is secured though we do not so well understand the distinction between those Abstract Metaphysical Terms of Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis especially when applied to the Unity and Distinction of the Eternal Godhead which is above all Terms of Art The Catholick Faith is That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God but yet there are not Three Gods but One God and this the Doctrine of the Divine Relations gives us a very intelligible notion of for we cannot conceive otherwise of the Eternal Mind its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit but that each of them are True and Perfect God and yet a Mind its Word and Spirit can be but One and therefore but One God But One Substance and Three Hypostases is but a secondary notion of a Trinity in Unity to secure the Catholick Faith against the Sabellian and Arian Heresies Against the Sabellians the Catholick Fathers asserted Three Hypostases against the Arians One Substance and the Essential Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove both the One Substance and Three Hypostases but though One Substance and Three Hypostases be the Catholick Language yet those Men begin at the wrong end who think to form an intelligible notion of a Trinity in Unity from these abstract Metaphysical Terms This is not the Language of the Scripture nor have we any Idea to answer these Terms of One Substance in Three distinct Hypostases when we consider them by themselves without relation to the Divine Nature to which alone these
the Son of this One God the Father and the Spirit of God be the Spirit of this same One God And though the Son of God be God and the Spirit of God be God that is the Name of their Nature not of their Persons and therefore can no more be multiplied with the Persons than the Divine Nature is The Son of God is God but it is Authoritate Paternae Naturae as St. Hilary speaks not by any Absolute Godhead of his own but in right of his Father's Nature and Divinity which he received by an Eternal Generation Thus it must be where there is but One Absolute Nature with its Internal Processions Let us put the Case in a Human Mind and suppose That its Word and Spirit were Distinct Living Intelligent Hypostases in the Mind Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature perfectly the same with the Mind but distinct Hypostases but would any one for this Reason call these Three Three Men or Three Minds And yet such a Living Subsisting Word and a Living Subsisting Spirit would as perfectly have the Nature of the Mind as the Mind it self but neither of them would be an absolute Mind but one the Word of the Mind and the other the Spirit of the Mind not Three Minds but One Mind with its Essential Word and Spirit This though an Imaginary Case gives us a sensible representation of the difference between the Eternal Mind and its Eternal Word and Spirit which I freely acknowledge cannot properly be called Three Infinite Minds and Spirits for though the Eternal Subsisting Word is an Infinite Mind and so the Eternal Subsisting Spirit yet Mind as well as God is the Name of their Nature not of their Persons which is Identically one and the same in all This as I take it is what some Learned and truly Catholick Writers mean in distinguishing the several Acceptations of this Name God That sometimes it signifies the Divine Nature and Essence in general as when we say The Trinity is One God that is One Divinity that there is but One Divine Nature and Essence in all the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity Sometimes it signifies Personally as when we say The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that is the Person of the Father the Person of the Son and the Person of the Holy Ghost is God But then they are still forced to acknowledge that the Name God is not predicated Vnivocally of all Three Persons but that the Father is God in a more excellent and eminent Sense than the Son is God or the Holy Ghost God as being God of himself an Unbegotten Self-originated God the Fountain of the Deity to the Son and Holy Spirit Upon which account he is so often by the Catholick Fathers called the One God and the only True God Now all this is very True and very Catholick but with all submission it seems to me to be an inconvenient way of speaking which perplexes the Article with different Senses and is liable to great Cavils and Misconstructions as the Examples of Dr. Payn and the Author of the 28 Propositions witness and when most dexterously managed will sooner silence than convince an Adversary The Divine Essence must be considered only as in the Divine Persons when we say That the Trinity is One God the true meaning is That Three Persons are One God and the general abstract Notion of the Unity of Essence does not account for this but the Unity of the Divine Essence in Three Thus to say That the Father is God in the highest sense of that Name God and that He alone strictly speaking is a Being absolutely perfect because he alone is Self-existent and all other Beings even the Son and Holy Ghost are from him may be expounded to a very Catholick Sense and was certainly so meant but is liable to great Cavils when Men take more pains to pick Quarrels with Words than to understand an Author An Absolutely Perfect God and a God that wants any Perfection sounds not only like Two Gods but like Gods of different Kinds for every diversity of Nature alters the Species All that is meant by this is certainly True and Catholick and taught in express words by the Primitive Fathers That the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father that the Son is all that the Father is excepting his being the Father and unbegotten that is excepting Paternity and Self-existence or Self-origination and that upon this Account the Father is eminently called the One God the Son God of God that is God as the Son of God What I have now discoursed seems to me to give the fairest Account of this Matter I take the Name God always to signify a Person in whom the Divine Nature is not the Divinity in the Abstract and then the Name God must belong to any Person after the same manner as the Divine Nature is his that is he must be called God in no other sense than as he is God Now as I have already shewn there is but One Absolute Divinity with Two Internal Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature And if we make this our Rule of Speaking as we must do if this be the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and we will fit our words to the nature of things then it is very plain That the Name God absolutely belongs only to him who is this Absolute Divinity that is the Person of the Father that no other Person is God in recto absolutely and simply God but only he that he is the One God the only True God as both the Scripture and Fathers own But what becomes then of the Son and Holy Ghost Is not the Son God and the Spirit God Yes the Name and Title of God belongs to them as the Divine Nature does that is not absolutely as to the Absolute Divinity but as to Divine Processions to Divine Subsisting Relations in the Unity of the Godhead that is the Second Person in the Trinity is God but not in recto as God signifies that Person who is the Divinity but as the Son of God as habens Deitatem having the Divinity not absolutely and originally but by Communication by Eternal Generation And so the Holy Spirit is not absolutely God but the Spirit of God and God only as the Spirit of God as an Internal Procession in the Divine Nature But in what sense then can we say That the Trinity is One God or that Three Persons are One God Must we not necessarily own that God in these Propositions is taken Essentially for the Deity in the abstract and not as considered in any One Person For will we say That the Trinity or Three Persons are but One Person No! and yet in this Proposition The Trinity is One God by One God I understand One who is absolutely God One Absolute Divinity which is the Father who has indeed a Son and Spirit in the Unity of his
23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 165. l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 188. l. 16. marg r. ex iâ—demutabilis p. 208. l. 24. Identity p. 216. l. 5. â— Man's r. Man p. 225. l. 34. marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 230. l. 2. r. Identity p. 236. l. 14. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 245. l. 10. r. an Angel p. 304. l. 2. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 12. de Trin. l. 2. marg l. 15. de Trin. l. 7. l. 32 videri p. 347. l. 14. r. his p. 349. l. 12 13. r. where-ever p 350 marg l. 8. r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Curious Reader may observe â—ome other Mistakes which I hope will not disturb the Sense THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SOCINIAN Controversy CHAP. I. SECT I. The Present State of the Socinian Controversy the unreasonableness of it and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question THE Faith of the Holy Trinity is so fundamental to the Christian Religion that if Christianity be worth contending for That is For if God have not an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ and of our Sanctification by the Spirit which in its Consequences is the whole of the Gospel and distinguishes it from all other Religions is utterly lost Those various Heresies relating to the Divinity Person and Offices of Christ and the Holy Spirit which began to appear even in the Apostolick Age and have ever since under several forms and disguises disturbed the Peace of the Church is proof enough how much the great Enemy of Mankind thinks himself concerned by all possible means to corrupt this Faith and that great unwearied unconquerable Zeal wherewith the Catholick Fathers have always defended this Faith shews of what importance they thought it and therefore it is no wonder and ought to give no scandal to Christians that these Disputes are again revived among us with as much fury and insolence as ever for there never was a more unhappy Season for the Enemy to sow his Tares But that which is most to be lamented is That the lukewarmness of some and the intemperate Zeal of others have given greater scandal to the World and more shaken the Faith of Christians than all the Opposition of our Adversaries could have done I need say no more the Case is too well known and the Evil Effects too visible among us I will make no new Quarrels if I can help it but sincerely endeavour to prevent the Mischiefs of what has already happened as far as is necâ—ssary to secure the Faith of Christians and to wrest those Weapons out of our Enemies hands which some professed Friends have unwarily furnished them with To do this I shall endeavour in the first place to restore this Controversie to its original state and take off those Vizards which make it appear very frightful to ordinary Christians This Dispute about the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity has of late been dressed up anew with some old School-Terms which how proper soever they may be to give Learned Men a more distinct Idea and Conception of that Adorable Mystery only amuse common Christians and confound them instead of teaching them better This as it was at first occasioned by Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Christian Faith which forced the Catholick Fathers to use some unscriptural Termâ— which by degrees improved into great Subtilties and disturbed the Church with very nice and wrangling Disputes so our Modern Socinians at this day place the main strength of their Cause in these Disputes and think it a sufficient Confutation of the Faith of the Ever Blessed Trinity that the Trinitarians themselves cannot agree about the Sense of Person Hypostasis Substance Nature Essence nor in what Sense God is One and Three but advance very different and as they think contrary Hypotheses to reconcile the Unity of God with the distinction of Three Persons in the Godhead As if there were no difference between what is fundamental in this Faith and such Metaphysical Speculations As if no man could believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost without determining all the Disputes of the Schools Learned men may dispute these matters and things may so happen as to make such Disputes necessary but the Faith of Christians may be secured and Heresies may be confuted without them The Faith is plain and certain even all that is necessary to the purposes of Religion but men may leap out of their depths where they can find no footing and when such Questions are asked as no man can certainly answer it is very likely that they will be answered very different ways and upon very different Hypotheses and there is no great hurt in this neither while these different Hypotheses are neither made new Articles of Faith nor new Heresies but serve only for Hypotheses to give a probable Answer to such Questions as ought never to have been asked and to stop the mouths of Hereticks when they charge the Catholick Faith with Nonsense and Contradiction To distinguish rightly between these two will set this Controversy upon its true ancient bottom which will spoil the Triumph of our Adversaries and possibly may rectify the Mistakes and allay and qualify the intemperate Heats and Animosities of those whom a common Faith ought to make Friends SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture Terms THE Catholick Fathers have always appealed to the Form of Baptism as the Rule and Standard of Faith that as we are baptized so we must believe In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is a plain simple Faith which every Christian may understand and which every Christian must profess That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature and inseparably united to himself and that this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the joint Object of the Christian Faith and Worship This is the true Christian Faith and this is all that we are concerned to defend against our Adversaries and would men stick to this without engaging in Philosophical Disputes which we know little or nothing of and which the Scripture takes no notice of we should soon find how weak and impotent all the Attempts of Hereticks would prove Whatever Disputes there are about the signification of those words Nature Essence Substance Person Hypostasis Subsistences Relations c. there is no Dispute about the signification of Father Son and Holy Spirit we have natural Idea's belong to these words when applied to Creatures and when God is pleased in Scripture to represent himself to us under thâ—se Characters if we must understand any thing by them we can understand nothing else but what the words signify all the World over only allowing for that infinite distance there is between God and Creatures which requires us to abstract from all material and creature imperfections We
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
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
the Son to be a distinct Substantial Person this Dispute we hear nothing of but the only Dispute was concerning the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and that proves that they did own the Son to be a Substantial Person for were he not in a true proper sense a Person and a Substantial Person he could not be Consubstantial with the Father Nay St Austin expresly tells us That Arius agreed with the Catholicks against the Sabellians in making the Son a distinct Person from the Father and if so the Catholicks taught That the Son was as distinct a Person as Arius did though not a Separate and Created Person as he did Now when Arius would have reduced Christ into the number of Creatures though he made him the first and most excellent Creature created before the World and God's Minister in making the World as like to God as a Creature can possibly be but not of the same Nature with God the Catholick Church would not bear this but in a most Venerable Synod collected from most parts of the Christian World condemn this as contrary to the Faith always received and owned in their several Churches Thus far at least the Tradition of the Church was Sacred and Venerable and the concurrent Testimony of all these several Churches was a more certain Proof of the Apostolick Faith than all the Wit and Subtilty of Arius For Wit may patronize New Errors but cannot prove That to be the Ancient Apostolick Faith which the Church had never received from the Apostles nor ever heard of before This I take to be a very sensible Proof what the Faith of the Christian Church was from the Times of the Apostles till the Council of Nice and consequently what that Faith was which the Church received from the Apostles And this abundantly satisfies me That whatever loose Expressions we may meet with in some of the Fathers before the Arian Controversy was started and managed with great Art and Subtilty though I know of none but what are capable of a very Orthodox Sense it is certain that they were not Arians nor intended any such thing in what they said For had Arianism been the Traditionary Faith of the Church it must have been known to be so and then how came the Church to be so strangely alarm'd at the first news of it Or what shall we think of those Venerable Fathers and Confessors in that Great Council who either did not know the Faith of the Church or did so horribly prevaricate in the Condemnation of Arius when they had no other apparent Interest or Temptation to do so but a Warm and Hearty Zeal for the Truly Ancient and Apostolick Faith It is certain Arius never pretended Catholick Tradition for his Opinion but undertook to reform the Catholick Faith by the Principles of Philosophy and to reconcile it to Scripture by new-coin'd Interpretations though in this he fail'd and found the Great Athanasius an over-match for him It is not with Faith as it is with Arts and Sciences of Human Invention which may be improved in every Age by greater Wits or new Observations but Faith depends upon Revelation not Invention and we can no more make a New Catholick Faith by the power of Wit and Reason than we can write a True History of what the Apostles did and taught out of our own Invention without the Authority of any Ancient Records Men may do such things if they please but one will be Heresy and the other a Romance And yet this is the bold and brave Attempt of Secinus and his Disciples They are so modest indeed as not to pretend Antiquity to be on their side they can find no other Antiquity for themselves but in Cerinthus and Ebion who separated from the Catholick Church and were rejected by them and it does not seem very modest to set up such men as these against the Universal Consent of the first and purest Ages of the Church The Socinians who know very well what the Charge of Novelty signifies in matters of Religion That a New Faith is but another Name for New Heresies Though they reject the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Catholick Tradition of the Faith from the Apostolick Age yet they appeal to Scripture and Natural Sentiments as the greatest and best Antiquity in opposition to Apostolick Tradition This is our Considerer's way which he prefers before a Traditionary Faith and by the same reason the Socinians may oppose it to a Traditionary Faith And if we must always expound Scripture by our Natural Sentiments this Author had best consider whether he can prove a Trinity by Natural Reason or fairly reconcile the Natural Notion of One God with the Catholick Faith of the Trinity or of Three each of whom is True and Pâ—rfect God from the mere Principles of Natural Reason for if he can't he must not in his way find a Trinity in Scripture But of this more hereafter 3. Let us now in opposition to this pretence consider of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture The Holy Scripture at least in pretence is allowed on all hands to be a Compleat and Authentick Rule of Faith but the question is since men differ so much in expounding Scripture What is the safest Rule to expound Scripture by whether the Traditionary Faith of the Church or our Natural Sentiments or Natural Reason I do not mean that we must learn the Critical Sense of every Text from Catholick Tradition for we have not in all points such a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture though even in this respect we shall find that the Catholick Fathers have unanimously agreed in the Interpretation of the most material Texts relating to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ. They sometimes indeed alledge such Texts especially out of the Old Testament as our Modern Criticks will not allow to be proper and apposite but even this shews what their Faith was and yet these very Expositions which have been so anciently and unanimously received though they may appear at this distance of time too forc'd and mystical have too Sacred and Venerable an Authority to be wantonly rejected We may learn from Christ and his Apostles what mysterious and hidden Senses were contain'd in the Writings of the Old Testament such as it is very probable we should never have found in them had not Christ and his Apostles explained their meaning And the nearer any Writers were to the Apostolick Age the more they were addicted to these Mystical Interpretations which is a good reason to believe that they learnt it from the Apostles themselves But this is not what I now intend my present Argument reaches no farther than this That if we can learn what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ has always been Then 1. It is very reasonable to conclude That they
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
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
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
distinct Persons for if they be Two Persons then the Son is as True and Real a Person as the Father is This I have already taken notice of and need not now repeat it only I cannot but observe what Athanasius tells us of these Hereticks That when they were convinced by the plain Evidence of Scripture that God the Father and Christ who called himself the Son of God were Two Persons they then took Courage and owned Christ to be a Person but not a Divine Person as the Eternal Word of God but only a Human Person as he was Man But Athanasius tells them That this was neither better nor worse than the Heresy of Paulus Samosatenus or what we now call Socinianism to make Christ a mere Man for he can be no more if the Divine Word which St. Iohn tells us was Incarnate be not the Person If the Word Incarnate be the Person then Christ is God-Man if the Man be the Person he can be no more than a Man This Athanasius confutes at large and proves That what Christ says of himself cannot belong to a mere Man But that which I would observe is this That both these Hereticks who denied the Divine Word to be a Person and Athanasius and the other Catholick Fathers who affirmed him to be a Person agreed very well in the Notion of a Person viz. That a Person is a distinct intelligent Being who does really and actually subsist and subsists distinctly from all other intelligent Beings That the Divine Word in the Godhead is such a Person as a Man is in Human Nature Such a Person these Hereticks would allow Christ to be considered as a Man and such a Person Athanasius affirms Christ to be considered as God or the Divine Word for otherwise they wrangle about words and do not oppose each other The Fathers proved That Christ was a Person and a distinct Person from the Father by those Texts which represent him as speaking to and of his Father and which attribute many Personal Acts to him The Sabellians could not deny but that these were Personal Acts and did prove Christ to be a real subsisting Person but then would not allow the Word to be the Person but only the Man Christ Jesus to be the Person The Fathers on the other hand allow their Notion of a Person which is the only true intelligible Notion but prove That the Divine Word which was Incarnate not merely the Man Christ Jesus was this Person and therefore that this Divine Word is a real substantial subsisting Word not like the Word of a man which is a transient Act but has no subsistence of its own The Sabellians would have allowed a Trinity of Persons in any other Notion of a Person than as a Person signifies a real subsisting intelligent Being but the Catholick Fathers would own no other Notion of Person but this and taught that there were Three Persons in the Trinity in the same sense in which the Sabellians denied there were Three Persons Three such Persons as they affirmed there was but One that the Son and Holy Ghost were Divine Persons in the same sense that the Sabellians owned the Father to be a Person that is Three such Persons as they called Three Gods The reason of this I 'm sure is not to be answered That if the Catholick Fathers understood what they did when they opposed the Sabellians who made the Divine Word only to be the Word of a Divine Person but not a Divine Person himself they must assert the Divine Word in a strict and proper sense to be a Divine Person and not merely the transient Word of a Person which has no subsistence which is a more sensible Argument than all the Criticisms about Persona and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And yet they express themselves so fully and clearly in this matter that there is no need of guâ—ssing at their meaning Tertullian reduces this Dispute to this one single Question which is the true state of it whether the Son and Word of God considered as distinct from God the Father be a Substance and has a Subsistence of his own Which he expresly affirms and offers his reasons for the Proof of it This he tells us is necessary to make the Word a real Being and Person Res Persona that he have a real Substance and a Substance of his own proper to himself per Substantioe proprietatem without which he cannot be Second to God nor the Father and the Son God and his Word be Two Now for the Son and the Word to be a substantial Being per proprietatem Substantioe by a Substance proper to himself as distinguished from God the Father must signify That the Personal Substance of the Son is not the same but a distinct Substance from the Personal Substance of God the Father so distinct that the Father and Son are Two Persons in the same sense and notion that the Father is One Person In answer to their Objection That the Word of God was but like the Word of a Man which was nothing else but a Voice and Sound a Vibration of the Air which conveyed some Notions to the Mind but was it self Emptiness and Nothing without any Substance of its own he answers That God himself is the most real and perfect Substance and therefore whatever proceeds from or is begotten of his Substance must be a real substantial Being much less can the Son and Word who gave Being to all other Substances be an insubstantial Nothing himself For tho there may be equivocal Causes which may produce things of a different nature from themselves yet nothing can produce nothing He argues farther That this Word is called the Son of God and God The Word was with God and the Word was God And that Word which is the Son of God and himself God can't be an insubstantial Nothing unless God himself be Nothing If God begets a Son he must be a substantial Person as all Creature-Sons are much more the Son of God And such a Son who is himself God must have all the Reality and Perfections which belong to the Notion of God But he argues farther from what St. Paul tells us That he was in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God In Effigie in the Image of God Now says he in what Image of God was he Certainly in another but not in none The meaning of which is That every Person as a Person has his own Personal Image but thus he was not the Personal Image of the Father because he was not the same Person with the Father but yet if he was the Image of God he must be his True Substantial though not his Personal Image the true living Image of his Father's Person but not his Person He seems indeed in what follows to have entertained too gross and corporeal imaginations of the Substance and Image of God but this was his own Mistake and
kind but as actually subsisting in Particulars which are distinguished from each other by their distinct Subsistence or by such other Properties and characteristical Marks as are peculiar to each of them and not common to the whole kind as the persons of Peter and Iames and Iohn though they have the same common Nature are yet distinguished from each other Now if the One Divine Nature be in this sense a common Nature that it is really and actually communicated by the Father to the Son and Holy Spirit and does distinctly subsist whole and entire and perfect in all Three Divine Persons it cannot be One singular solitary Nature which cannot subsist distinctly in Three for in perfect singularity there can be no distinction nor can One singular Nature be Three Subsistences when there is but One which subsists Athanasius or whoever was the Author of that Treatise of the common Essence of Father Son and Holy Ghost proves that all Three Persons have the same common Nature from the same Names and Attributes and Works Dominion and Power ascribed distinctly to them all and gives this account why though the Father be God and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God yet we must not say that there are Three Gods but One God in Three Persons because a common Nature has a common Name as he shews that all Mankind in Scripture are called one Man upon account of their common Nature and if this be allowable among men to unite all Mankind in one Name and to speak of them as one Man notwithstanding all that diversity which is between them in external form strength will affections opinions c. how much more reasonable is it to call the Three Divine Persons One God who are distinguished and separated from the whole Creation by One undivided Dignity One Kingdom One Power One Will and Energy And that we may not suspect that by One common Nature they meant One singular Substance and Nature common to Father and Son which it is impossible to form any Notion of St. Basil tells us what he meant by a common Nature such a Nature as has the same Notion and Definition that is which is common as a Genus or Species is common As for example If the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to his Suppositum or Substance be Light we must acknowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Essence and Substance of the Son to be Light also and whatever other Notion we form of the Being and Essence of the Father the same we must apply to the Son And herein he places the Unity of the Godhead or the One Divinity that though the Divine Persons differ in Number and in their peculiar Characters yet that Divine Nature which subsists distinctly in each of them has but one and the same Notion and Definition and therefore is but one and the same in all If this be not a specifick Sameness and Unity all our Logicks deceive us I 'm sure the Unity of an Individuum or singular Nature was never thought to consist in a common Notion or Definition of its Nature and yet this is the account which the Fathers unanimously give of the One common Divinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost No man who understands any thing of this Controversy can be ignorant of that famous Dispute de Ingenito Genito concerning the Vnbegotten and the begotten Nature By this Sophism the Arians endeavoured to prove That the Son could not be Homoousios consubstantial or of the same Nature with the Father because an Unbegotten Nature cannot be the same with a Begotten Nature Now had the Catholick Fathers believed the singularity of the Divine Nature in the modern Notion of it this Objection had been unanswerable for it is absolutely impossible that the same singular Nature should be both begotten and unbegotten as much as it is that the same single Person should be both begotten and unbegotten I desire to know how any Sabellianist who acknowledges but One singular solitary Substance of the Deity would answer this Objection I know no possible way they have but to deny that the Divine Nature of the Son is begotten that though the Son be begotten his Divine Nature is not begotten but only his Personality or Mode of Subsistence without a begotten subsisting Nature And this indeed would effectually answer the Objection for if there be not a begotten and unbegotten Nature the foundation of the Objection is lost And this is so obvious an Answer upon the Hypothesis of Singularity that it is sufficient to satisfy any thinking man that the Câ—tholick Fathers did not believe this Singularity of the Divine Essence since none of them ever gave this Answer to the Objection But we need not guess at their meaning for they themselves expresly reject this Answer which is the only proper and pertinent Answer upon this Hypothesis and give such other Answers as contradict the Notion of the Singularity of the Divine Essence As strange as some think it the Catholick Fathers from the very beginning of Christianity owned the Divine Nature and Substance of the Son to be begotten nothing is more familiar in all their Writings than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Natura genita Deus genitus unigenitus Deus St. Gregory Nyssen agrees this matter with Eunomius that the Divine Nature of the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Begotten Substance so does St. Basil so do the other Fathers When Eunomius objected That God being unbegotten cannot admit of Generation St. Basil allows this to be true in one sense viz. That he who is unbegotten cannot in his own proper Nature be begotten because it is impossible that an unbegotten Nature should it self be begotten But the other sense of the words That he who is unbegotten himself can't beget so as to communicate by a substantial Generation his own Nature to the Son he rejects as Blasphemy both against Father and Son which is a plain demonstration what St. Basil's Judgment was about an unbegotten and begotten Nature Eunomius urged That unbegotten and begotten are both Names of Nature and therefore must signify two Natures as different from each other as unbegotten and begotten are Now to prove that begotten is not the Name of Nature and Substance St. Basil uses this Argument That if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same if begotten and substance signify the same thing then as he who is begotten is the begotten of him who begets so we may in like manner say that he who is begotten is the Substance of him who begets and then the Name begotten will not signify the Substance of the only begotten Son but the Substance of the God of all that as the Son is the begotten of God so he is the Substance of God and thus the begotten is the Substance of the unbegotten which he says is ridiculous And yet as ridiculous as St. Basil thought this those must of necessity
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.
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
Eternal Self-Originated Being who had no beginning of Being and received his being from no other and that there is no other Self Originated Being but himself This is the Notion which all Mankind have of One God That there is one Infinite Eternal Self-Originated Being or Nature and if there be as it is certain there is but one such Nature and Divinity there can be but One God And this is Established in the Christian Faith which owns but One God the Father who is therefore in Scripture in a peculiar manner called the One God and the Only True God Thus fâ—r all Christians are agreed but here our Arian and Socinian Adversaries stop For how can the Son be God and the Holy Ghost be God if the Father be the only Self-Originated Being and the One True God Now the very Notion of a Son Answers this difficulty or at least proves that so it is however it may exceed our finite Comprehension It is Essential to the Notion of a Son to be of another of him whom we call his Father and to receive the same Nature from him Man begets a Man and God begets God but there is an infinite distance between these two as there is between God and Creatures When Man begets a Man he does not Communicate his own whole entire numerical Nature to his Son but with part of his own Substance Communicates the same specifick Nature to him or a Nature of the same kind and therefore a Man and his Son are two Men as having two particular Natures though specifically the same But if we believe that God has a Son begotten by him of himself I say not created out of nothing nor made of any other prae-existent Nature or Substance but eternally begotten of himself we must acknowledge that the Father and the Son are perfectly One excepting that one is the Father and the other the Son All men who know any thing of the Divine Nature know that God is the most Pure Simple Uncompounded Being and if God who has no parts and cannot be divided into any begets a Son he must Communicate his Whole Undivided Nature to him For to beget a Son is to Communicate his own Nature to him and if he have no parts he cannot Communicate a part but must Communicate the Whole that is he must Communicate his whole self and be a second self in his Son Now a Whole and a Whole of a Whole are certainly two but not two Natures but one Nature not meerly Specifically but Identically One for it is impossible that a Whole which is Communicated without Division or Separation should have the least imaginable diversity from it self so as to become another Nature from it self for a Whole of a Whole must be perfectly and identically the same with that Whole of which it is for a Whole can be but One. This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sameness and Identity of Nature which the Fathers assert and whereon they found the Unity of the Godhead And this is the meaning of that distinction of the Schools between unum numero and re numerata one in number and in the thing numbred Two must always be allowed to be Two in number as Father and Son are though they are but One in re numeratâ in the Sameness and Identity of Nature as Christ tells us I and my Father are One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Neuter-Gender which must relate to Nature not to Number To distinguish or multiply Natures there must be some real or notional diversity and alterity between them as Boetius observes But a Whole can never differ in the least from the whole of which it is no more than the same Whole can differ from it self and it is this Sameness and Identity which is called a Numerical Unity of Nature and is peculiar to the Divine Nature there being nothing like it in Creatures Not that the Divine Nature considered as in the Father is the same in number with the Divine Nature as communicated to and subsisting distinctly in the Son for then the Father and the Son can't be two for the Person of the Father and his Divinity or Divine Nature is the same and the Person of the Son and his Divine Nature is the same and if this Oneness relate to number there can be but One Person as there is but One Nature but a Numerical Unity of Nature does not exclude a Number of Persons each of whom has the whole Divine Nature Perfectly and Distinctly in himself it does not exclude the actual and perfect communication of the same Divine Nature to more than one but only excludes all imaginable diversity and alterity and what is not aliud is unum that which is not another thing another different Nature is but One That is the Divine Nature is numerically One in opposition to any other Absolute Self-originated Divinity not in opposition to the Eternal Communications of its self to the Son and Holy Spirit If the Divine Nature as actually and distinctly subsisting in Three be as perfectly One as the Idea of God is One as any specifick Notion suppose of Human Nature is One then it is Identically and Numerically one and the same And indeed this is the true reason why the Catholick Fathers so often represent the Unity of the Divine Nature by Allusions and Metaphors signifying a specifick Unity because the Divine Nature as subsisting in Father Son and Holy Ghost is as perfectâ—y one and the same as the specifick Notion and Idea of any Nature is which abstracts from all the diversities and differences which are found in Individuals Which one Observation will help us to expound several disputed passages in the Fathers as I could easily shew were that my present business Father Son and Holy Ghost though they have one undistinguished undiversified Nature and therefore are One in Nature yet are Three in Number because they have this one undivided undistinguished undiversified Nature after a different manner which the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manner of Existence or the manner how they come to be which though it sounds very harshly when applied to that which has no beginning of Being as most other expressions do when applied to God and Criticized on by perverse and Comical Wits must be allowed in such a qualified sense as is proper to an Eternal Being or we must deny Eternal Generation and Procession which is though not the beginning yet a Communication of Being And thus the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mode or manner of Existence and Being is that he is Self-originated and receives his Being from no other the Son 's is that he is Eternally Begotten of the Father and receives his Nature and Being without any beginning from the Father the Holy Ghost's is that he Eternally Proceeds from Father and Son and this is all the distinction that is between them They have but one undivided undiversified Nature but these opposite Relations
Whole must be the same Whole and in this Unity of Nature consists the Unity of the Godhead I grant a Whole of a Whole is very unconceivable to us and so is the Notion of an Eternal self-originated Being and of Creation to the full as unconceivable as the Eternal Generation of a Whole from a Whole But this is a difficulty in the Notion of an Eternal Generation not of a Trinity in Unity If God begets a Son as the Scripture assures us he has an only begotten Son he must communicate his own Nature to him and besides the Testimony of Scripture That all the Father has is the Son 's his whole Nature and Divinity Reason assures us that God being a pure simple Being without composition or parts if he communicate his Nature to his Son he must communicate it whole and entire without division or separation and if this be so it is certain that Father and Son he who begets and he who is begotten are Two and it is as certain that the same whole Divinity communicated by the Father to the Son is but the same One Divinity and One Divinity though actually subsisting in Three can be but One God not Three Gods It is certain this is the most perfect Unity that can be between Three who are truly and really the same and yet distinct for they can nâ—ver be more One than to be Three Same 's and Three Wholes for the Communication of a Whole may make a Number but cannot distinguish or multiply Nature SECT VI. Concerning the Unity of God BUT our Socinian Adversaries and some who would not be thought Socinians have espoused such a Notion of One God as makes the Faith of a Trinity absolutely irreconcilable with the Faith of One God By One God they mean One who is God but the Faith of the Trinity owns Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God and I grant it is as absolutely impossible to reconcile these two as it is to reconcile Contradictions for to say that there is but One who is God and to say that there are Three each of whom is God is a manifest Contradiction and yet without saying this last we must deny a Trinity It is in vain to think to solve this with Words without Sense If there is but One who is God we must either make Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Names or Modes or Manifestations of the same One Numerical Divine Person which was the ancient exploded anathematized Heresy of Noetus and Sabellius or we must make the Son and Holy Spirit to be mere Creatures if we allow any Personality to them as Arius Macedonius Paulus Samosatenus and such like Hereticks and our Modern Socinians do But we with the Scriptures and the Catholick Church reject this Notion of the Unity of God which is to assert the Unity but to deny a Trinity And because this seems to be so prevailing a Notion at this time I shall shelter my self as well as I can under the Authority of the Catholick Fathers and the Catholick Church That there is but One God was always the Faith of the Catholick Church as appears from all the Ancient Creeds but then they did not believe in One God as One God signifies One Divine Separate Person which is never expressed in any Christian Creed but in One God the Father who has an only begotten Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Unity of the same Godhead There is no Christian Creed which teaches the Belief of One God who is not a Father and if the One God be a Father he must have a Son of his own Nature and Substance and the Son of God consubstantial with God the Father must be God the Son This is what Tertullian tells us That there is One God with his Oeconomy that is with his only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit The Catholick Church so believed in One God as to acknowledge Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is truly and really God as they must necessarily do if they believed a Trinity And upon this account they were charged with Tritheism or with asserting Three Gods because they owned a Trinity of Divine Substantial Persons really distinct from each other each of which is truly and perfectly God So that this is no new Charge against the Asserters of a Real and Substantial Trinity and the Ancient Christians had no regard to it for Tritheism in this Objection signified no more than the Bâ—lief of the Trinity or of Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead which is the true Christian Faith As to shew this briefly In answer to this Objection against the belief of a Real Substantial Trinity from the Unity of God they tell us it is Judaism and Heresy to place the Unity of the Godhead in the Unity of a Person to teach that there is but One Divine Person as there is but One God We may find enough to this purpose in Tertullian against Praxeas and Athanasius against the Sabellians in St. Hilary St. Austin and many others Athanasius commends the Iews for opposing the Polytheism and Idolatry of the Gentiles But then he charges them with as great Impiety themselves in denying the Son of God by whom all things were made and in accusing those of Polytheism who worship the Father by the Son And he exhorts his Readers to separate themselves from those Iudaizers who corrupt Christianity with Iudaism who deny God of God and teach One God in the Iewish Notion of it In which he taxes the Sabellians who taught that the Word of God is like the Word and Wisdom of a Man within him in his Heart and Soul and therefore that God and his Word are but One Person St. Hilary frequently takes notice of this Corruption of the Evangelical Faith as he calls it under the Pious Profession of One God to deny the Only begotten God to deny Christ to be born God or to be True God but only a Powerful Creature thereby to preserve the Faith of One God which they think the Birth of God does overthrow In which he distinctly charges the Sabellians and Arians the first for making God but One Person for fear of introducing a Trinity of Gods with a Trinity of Persons the other for making Christ a mere Creature though the first and most powerful Creature for fear of making a Second God should they have owned him to be God of God of the same Substance with the Father In opposition to this he tells us what the true Faith is which they have learned from Divine Revelation Neither to preach Two Gods nor One Solitary Divine Person for so solus must signify in this place and undertakes to prove both from the Evangelists and Prophets That when we profess our Faith in God the Father and God the Son we must neither own God the Father and God the Son to be One Person as the
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
not only the Name and Title of God but the Divine Nature and Perfections to more Persons than One. And this is the only Answer that need be given and the best Answer that can be given to this Objection of Tritheism for God knows his own Nature and his own Unity best And it is enough for us to acknowledge God to be One as the Scripture teaches him to be One that is that there is but One God but that this One God has an Eternal only begotten Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Unity of the same Godhead This is the account Tertullian gives us of those Expressions when the Scripture asserts that there is but One God and that there is none besides him For without denying the Son we may truly affirm That there is but One only God whose Son he is For though he has a Son he does not lose his Name of the One and only God when he is named without his Sâ—n and so he is when what is said is appropriated to him as the first persâ—n for in the order of Nature aâ—â— of ouâ— Conceptions the Father is befoâ—â—â—he Son and therefore must be named bâ—â—ore him So that there is but One God the Father and besides him there is no other which does not deny the Son but another God which rejects the multitude of False Gods which the Heathens worshipped but the Son as being inseparably united to him is included in the Unity of the Father's Godhead though not named which as he well observes he could not be without making another God of him Had the Father said There is no other God besides me excepting my Son this had made the Son another God a new separate Divinity and would have been as improper as if the Sun should say There is no other Sun besides me excepting my Rays The Sum of which is this That the Title of the One and only God and besides him there is no other God does in a peculiar manner belong to the Father who is the One only God with his Son and Spirit but this does not exclude the Son or Spirit from being true and perfect God for they are not other Gods from the Father but have the same Divinity and are inseparably â—mited to the Father and therefore are included in the â—â—ity of the Godhead without being named whereas thâ—â—r being named would have excepted them out of the Unity of the Godhead and made other Gods of them And though the Son when he is named alâ—ne is called God this does not make Two Gods because he is God only by his Unity with his Father St. Hilary gives much the same account of it That when the Scripture teaches that there is One God and no other God besides him this does not exclude the Son of God from being true and perfect God because the Son is not another God He being of the same Substance with God the Father God of God and inseparably united to him Another God does not signify another Divine Person but another Divinity another separate and independent Principle and Fountain of Deity And besides this St. Hilary endeavours to prove at large from several Texts of the Old Testament that this very expression of one God and no other besides him is applied not only to the Father but to the Son and is very justly applicable to each of them because each of them have a Personal and Incommunicable Unity The Father is the One God and there is none besides him for he is the only Deus Innascibilis the only God who is God of himself without any Communication of the Divine Nature to him from any other Divine Person The Son is the One God and there is none besides him that is the Deus Vnigenitus the only begotten God and there is no other begotten God but he So that each of them is the One God For between One and One that is One of One there is no Second Nature of the Eternal Dâ—ity I shall not dispute these matters now which will be more proper in another place it is enough at present that we learn from them what Sense these Fathers had concerning the Unity of God viz. That it is not the Unity of a Sâ—ngle Person so as to exclude all other Persons from the Name and Nature of God but a Unity of Nature and Principle That there are not Two different Divinities nor Two Principles of Divinity which have no Communication with each other but that there is One Self-originated Being who communicates his own Nature without Division and Separation to his Eternal Son and by and with his Son to his Eternal Spirit Thus St. Hilary concludes this Dispute That to confess One God but not a solitary God that is not one single solitary Person is the Faith of the Church which confesses the Father in the Son But if out of ignorance of this Heavenly Mystery we pretend that One God signifies One single Divine Person we know not God as not owning the Faith of God in God This is plain sense which every Christian may understand and what every one must believe who wiâ—l be a Christian We must believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son and that each of these Three is in himself as distinguished from the other Two true and perfect God but though they are Three and each of them true and perfect God yet they are not Three Gods because there is but One and the same Divinity in them The same individual numerical Divine Nature being whole perfect undivided in them all originally in the Father by Generation in the Son and by Procession in the Holy Ghost as I have already explained it which is the most perfect Unity we can conceive between Three Wholes or Three each of which have the same whole undivided Nature distinctly in themselves If this will not be allowed to be such a Unity as is included in the Notion of One God that the natural Notion of One God is of One only who is God which is contradictory to the belief of Three each of whom is in himself true and perfect God the answer the Catholick Fathers give to this as I have now shewn ought to satisfy all Christians that this is not the Scripture-notion of One God That there is but One who is God because the same Holy Scriptures which teach us that there is but One God do also teach us that there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead That not only the Father is God as an Infinite Eternal Self-originated Being and upon this account in a peculiar manner called the One and only true God but the Son also is true God and the Holy Ghost true God by the Communication of the same Divine Nature to them Now God knows his own Nature and Unity best and if he declares himself to
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
enquire 1. What that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith 2. What Evidence we have of this Tradition concerning the Trinity in the Catholick Church 3. Of what Authority this ought reasonably to be in expounding Scripture SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity FIrst then Let us consider what that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith Now since Christ gave the Supreme Authority of preaching the Gospel and planting Churches to his Apostles those only must be reckoned the true Apostolick Churches from which we must receive the true Christian Faith which were planted by the Apostles or by Apostolick men and lived in Communion with them It is not sufficient to prove any Doctrine to be the true Primitive Faith That it was preached in the Apostles days but that it was the Faith of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and received their Faith from them for that Only is the Primitive and Apostolick Faith And therefore though Arians and Socinians could prove their Heresies to be as Ancient as the Apostolick Age as we grant something like them was this does not prove theirs to be the true Christian Faith if it were not the Faith of the Apostolick Churches And this was very visible in those days what these Churches were which were planted by the Apostles and lived in Communion with them and is very visible still in the most Authentick Records of the Church For the Hereticks which sprang up in that Age separated themselves from the Apostles and thereby made a visible distinction between the True Apostolick Churches and Heretical Conventicles And in after-Ages they either separated themselves or were cast out of the Communion of the Church This St. Iohn accounted a great advantage to the Christian Church and an Infallible Proof of False Doctrine and Heresy as it certainly was at that time for if the Apostles taught the True Faith those who separated from the Apostles and preached another Gospel which they never learnt from them must be Hereticks 1 Ioh. 2.18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they no doubt would have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us The Separation of Hereticks in that Age was a visible renouncing the Apostolick Faith and Communion and therefore how many Heresies soever started up it was still visible where the Apostolick Faith and Tradition was preserved and this was of admirable use to preserve the Faith of the Church sincere and uncorrupt For had these Hereticks continued in Communion with the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and secretly propagated their Heresies and infected great numbers of Christians without dividing into distinct and opposite Communions it would have been a great dispute in the next Age which had been the true Apostolick Faith when the Members of the same Churches which all their time lived in Communion with the Apostles should preach contrary Doctrines and pretend with equal confidence Apostolick Tradition which the greatest Hereticks might very plausibly have done had they always lived in Communion with the Apostles But they went out from us says St. Iohn that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us that the world might know how to distinguish between Catholick Christians and Hereticks and between the True Catholick Faith and the Corrupt Innovations of Perverse men And this I take to be a good reason to this day why we should keep the Communion of the Church sincere and uncorrupt and not set our doors open for Arians and Socinians and all sorts of Hereticks to mix with us For though since the Câ—mmunion of the Church has bâ—en so broken and divided by Schisms and Factions and Hâ—resies it is no proof of the True Apostolick Faith merely that it is the Faith of such a Church though the Church of Rome still vainly pretends to such Authority yet it would soon ruin the Christian Church and the Christian Faith to have no distinction preserved between true Apostolick Churches and the Apostolick Faith and the Conventicles of Hereticks the impure Off-spring of Cerinthus and Ebion of Photinus or Arius And therefore I cannot but abhor that Accommodating-Design which some men have expressed so warm a Zeal for to Comprehend away the Faith of the Holy Trinity in some loose general Expressions without any particular determined Sense and to purge our Liturgies of every thing that savours of the Worship of the Blessed Trinity that Arians and Socinians may join in Communion with us Which is a plausible Pretence under the Notion of Christian Charity and Communion to betray the Christian Faith Not expresly to renounce it but to bury it in silence as a Useless and Church-dividing Dispute I am satisfied this Holy Faith can never be Confuted but could these men prevail it might soon be Lost. But to return This is a sure Foundation for our Enquiries into the Faith of the Primitive Church To know what the Primitive Church is for otherwise we may mistake Old Heresies for the Primitive Faith But those Churches which were planted by the Apostles or Apostolical men and received their Faith from them and lived in Communion with them are the true Primitive and Apostolick Churches and their Faith is the true Primitive Apostolick Faith and what that was Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus assure us The Faith and Worship of Father Son and Holy Ghost And what their Faith was as to all these Three Divine Persons is evident from the Writings of those Ancient Fathers who preserved the Succession and Communion of these Apostolick Churches But this is not what I intend at present but from hence it appears That those Ancient Heresies which were rejected and condemned by the Apostolick Churches as soon as they appeared could not be the Apostolick Faith These Hereticks separated from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and therefore could not receive their Faith from them nor did they pretend to this while the Apostles lived though they forged new Gospels and Acts and Revelations for them when they were dead And thus all the Heresies of Simon Magus Menander Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus and all those other Divisions and Subdivisions of Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Doctrine of the Divinity of our Saviour or his Incarnation are all rejected from the Apostolical Faith for these Hereticks did not receive their Doctrines from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches as they themselves owned by their Separation from the Apostolick Churches and these Churches gave Testimony against their Corruptions as soon as they were known and there is no need of any other Confutation of them if we allow the Doctrine of
but yet that Jesus Christ was a Divine and Human Person though Christ was one Person and Jesus another And therefore as the Nicene Creed which we find also in the Ancient Oriental Creeds teaches us to believe in One God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible not to exclude Christ from being the Maker of the World but in opposition to those Hereticks who would not allow the Supreme God who is the Father of Christ to be the Maker of the World but attributed the Creation of this World to one or more Inferior Angels So they add And in One Lord Iesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in opposition to those who made Christ and Jesus Two Persons And yet in this very Heresy we may see what the Ancient Catholick Faith was That Jesus Christ was God and Man as Cerinthus himself owned though he would not unite Christ and Jesus into One Person nor make the Union inseparable The Valentinian Heresy though dressed up after the mode of the Pagan Theology was a manifest Corruption of the Christian Faith under a Pretence of a more perfect knowledge of Divine Mysteries and we may still see the broken Remains of the Catholick Tradition of the Trinity among them Their Pleroma by which they seem to understand the Fulness of the Deity as St. Paul uses that Phrase 2 Col. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily I say this Pleroma consisted of several Aeons or Divine Persons which were propagated from the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father in gradual Descents and all together made up the Compleat and Perfect Deity which were more or fewer according to the various Fancies of Hereticks Now from these wild Conceits we may in some measure learn what the Catholick Faith was That the Godhead was not confined to one Single and Solitary Person but that there is such a Foecundity in the Divine Nature as communicates it self to more Persons than one For had it been the known and received Faith of the Christian Church That there is but One Person in the Godhead as well as but One God there had been no pretence for these Hereticks who called themselves Christians and boasted of a more perfect knowledge of the Christian Faith to have invented such a number of Aeons which they included within their Pleroma as the several Emanations of their Deity And we may observe that most of the Names which they gave to their several Aeons are Scripture-Names and Titles which the Pagan Theology knew nothing of and which they could learn no where but from the Christian Church Basilides I think was one of the first who gave us any distinct account of these Aeons which was new modell'd by Valentinus and other succeeding Hereticks and his first and Supreme Aeon as Epiphanius tells us was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Unbegotten One who only is the Father of all and by others is called the Propater and the Unknown Invisible Incomprehensible Father Now though the Heathens very familiarly call their Supreme God the Father of Gods and Men with respect to his Creating Power yet as the Notion of Father is founded in a substantial Generation as these Hereticks plainly understood it so it is the peculiar Character of God under the Gospel who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son It is certain the first Person in the Godhead was never called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One that is unbegotten but to distinguish him from One who is begotten the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten who is God also but God oâ— God And it is observable what Tertullian tells us of Heracleon That he made his first Aeâ—n to be illud quod pronunciat which some Criticks not understanding think to be a defect in the Copy but the sense is plain that his first Aeon is he that pronounceth or speaketh by which he represented the Eternal Generation of the Word So that his first Aeon is the Pronouncer or Speaker that is the Father of the Eternal Word which St. Iohn tells us was in the beginning was with God and was God Which shews that this is nothing else but a disguized Corruption of the Catholick Faith concerning the Eternal Generation of the Word from the Eternal Unbegotten Father To confirm this I observe farther That most of the Names which they give to their other Aeons are such Names Titles or Characters as the Scripture gives to Christ or the Holy Spirit which they have multiplied into so many distinct Persons or Aeons such as the Mind Word Prudence Power and Wisdom Truth Life Light the Only begotten the Paraclete and the like Valentinus indeed as Epiphanius observes did model his Thirty Aeons according to Hesiod's Genealogy and Number of Gods and with some manifest allusions to them but yet he retained as many Scripture-Names as he could the better to reconcile unwary people to his fabulous Genealogiâ—s as the hidden and mysterious sense of Scripture And it is impossible such Fables should ever have obtained any Credit had they not been grafted on the Catholick Faith and pretended to improve it with new degrees of Light and Knowledge When these Heresies were pretty well silenced up start Noetus and Sabellius who ran into the other Extreme The Valentinians had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity by multiplying Three Divine Persons into Thirty Aeons besides all their other Pagan and Fabulous Conceits about them This offended these men as downright Polytheism as indeed it was no better and to avoid this they reject a Trinity of Real and Substantial Persons for a Trinity of Names that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names of the same Person who is sometimes called the Father at other times the Son or the Holy Ghost with respect to his different Appearances or Operations Or they made the Son and Holy Ghost not Two Persons but Two Personal Attributes in God his Wisdom or Power Or they made the Trinity but Three Parts of One Compounded God as a Man consists of Body Soul and Spirit which of late have been revived among us under different Names After these men arose Arius and his Followers who out of great Zeal also for the Unity of God framed a New and more Subtile Heresy They were sensible that Father and Son were not Two Names but Two Real Distinct Persons and therefore they attributed the whole entire Divinity to the Father and made the Son not to be God by Nature but the most Perfect and Excellent Creature as Perfect an Image of God as any Creature can be but not Consubstantial with God nor Coequal and Coeternal with him All these Heresies were rejected and condemned by the Catholick Church in their several Ages as soon as they appeared and were taken notice of And this is one very good way to learn what the Catholick Faith was from its Opposition to
fulâ— and adequate Idea of God but yet he knows which of those distinct Ideas he has in his mind are applicable to God and which are not But the present question does not conceâ—n the Idea of God which I hope we are all agreed in That God is a Being infinitely perfect But whether this Name God in the Question of the Trinity signifies only One who is God or One single Divine Person Or Whether this Name and the perfect Idea which belongs to it be applicable distinctly to Three to Father Son and Holy Ghost That each of them is True and Perfect God and neither of them is each other and all Three but One God This had been the true Explication of the Term God as applied to the Doctrine of the Trinity To have told us what is meant by God when this Name is peculiarly attributed to the Person of the Father when it is attributed to each Person distinctly and when it is jointly attributed to them all That Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God â—t is certain all this must be resolved into the same One Divinity which is perfectly in each of them and inseparaâ—ly and indivisibly in them all And the true stating of his matter had been very proper and would have saved all his other Labour And therefore to save me some labour I will briefly tell him how the Catholick Fathers understood it which is the only possible way I know of reconciling these different Expressions When they tell us That the Person of the Father is in an eminent and peculiar manner the One God by this they understand That the Father alone is self-originated and from himself That the Whole Divinity and Godhead is originally his own which he received from no other Which is the first and most natural notion we have of God and of One God When they say That though the Father in this sense be the One God yet the Son also is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost True and Perfect God they ascribe Divinity to the Son and Holy Ghost upon account of the Eternal and Perfect Communication of the Divine Nature to them For he who has the True Divine Nature is True and Perfect God And therefore the Son who is eternally begotten of his Father of the Substance of his Father and is Consubstantial with him is True and Perfect God but God of God and the like may be said of the Holy Spirit who eternally proceeds from Father and Son When they teach That the Trinity is One God they mean by it That the same One Divinity does subsist whole and entire indivisibly and inseparably but yet distinctly in them all as I have already explained it So that the Unity of the Godhead gives an account of all these Expressions Why the Father is said to be the One God and yet that the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God and Father Son and Holy Ghost but One God All this is taught in Scripture and is the Faith of the Catholick Church and I would never desire a better Proof of the Truth and Certainty of any Notion than that it takes in the whole Mystery and answers to every part of it which no other account I have ever yet met with can do SECT V. An Examination of his Notions and Ideas of Unity Distinction Person c. AND now the Sabellian Scene opens apace If the Heresy of Sabellius was That there is but One who is God but One Divine Intelligent Person as well as One Divine Nature this our Considerer expresly owns and does his Endeavour to prove it absolutely impossible that it should be otherwise that is That the Catholick Faith asserted and defended by the Catholick Church against Sabellius is absolutely impossible To explain the word Person he tells us It signifies one of these two things either a particular Intelligent Being or an Office Character or some such complex Notion applicable to such a Being If you would know in which of these senses we must understand the word Person when we say there are Three Persons in the Trinity he tells us plainly That the simple Idea of God can be applied but to One single Person in the first sense of the word Person as it signifies a particular Intelligent Being Nature or Principle And that all the Personal Distinction we can conceive in the Deity must be founded on some accessory Ideas extrinsecal to the Divine Nature a certain Combination of which Ideas makes up the second Notion signified by the word Person And for this he appeals to Natural Sentiments mistaking Heresy for Nature And if we fairly and impartially examine our own Thoughts upon this Subject we shall find That when we name God the Father we conceive the Idea of God so far as we are capable of conceiving it as acting so and so under such respects and relations and when we name God the Son we conceive nothing else but the same Idea of God over again under different relations and so likewise of the Holy Ghost Noetus Praxeas or Sabellius never taught their Heresy in more express words than these And what is to be done now Must we dispute this Point over again with the Considerer and confute a Heresy which has been so early so often and so constantly condemned by the Catholick Church For my part I can pretend to say nothing new which has not long since been much better said by the Catholick Fathers and therefore before we part I shall acquaint him with their Judgment in the Case and leave it to rest on their Authority and Reasons But it may not be amiss to mind this Considerer That he has all the Schoolmen as far as I have heard or had opportunity to consult them as well as the Catholick Fathers against him in his Notion of a Person for they all receive Boetius's Definition That a Person is an Individual Substance of a Rational Nature Or it may be the Authority of Melancthon may be more considerable with him who tells us That the Church in this Article of the Trinity understands by Person an Individual Intelligent Incommunicable Substance And adds That the Ancient Ecclesiastical Writers distinguish between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there is but One Essence or Nature and Three Hypostases that is Three really subsisting not commentitious vanishing confused but distinct particular Intelligent Persons And the Censure he passes upon Servetus upon this score is very remarkable That Fanatical Fellow Servetus plaid with the word Person and contended That in Latin it anciently signified a Dress or Habit or the distinction of an Office as Râ—scius is sometimes said to act the part of Achilles sometimes of Vlysses Or the Person of a Consul is one thing and the Person of a Slave is another as Cicero speaks that it is a great thing to maintain the Character of the Person of a Prince in the Commonwealth And
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
a Mistake only in Philosophy not in the Traditionary Faith of the Church for which only we alledge his Authority And the Conclusion of this Argument most fully acquaints us what he understood by a Person Whatever says he the Substance of the Word is that I call a Person and to that I give the Name of Son and by acknowledging him the Son I own him to be second to the Father Whoever reads this must confess That Tertullian did believe Father and Son to be Two distinct substantial Persons that though the Son be of the same Substance with the Father as begotten of his Father's Substance yet the Personal Substance of the Father was no more the Personal Substance of the Son than Father and Son were One Person Novatianus who was Cotemporary with St. Cyprian though a Schismatick was charged with no Heresy in this Article and he opposes the Sabellians with the same Arguments and almost in the same words that Tertullian and done before him And tells us particularly That this Divine Word which is the Son of God begotten and born of him is not a mere Sound or Voice like the Word of a Man but that substantial Virtue and Power which proceeds from God A Divine Substance whose Name is the Word Such a Word as is both the Son of God and God God proceeding from God and making a Second Person in the Godhead Epiphanius in opposition to the Heresies of Noetus and Sabellius who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but One Substantial Person affirms over and over That the Father is Substance the Son Substance and the Holy Ghost Substance that is each of them Substance by himself and as distinct in Substance as they are in Person Three Substantial Persons which are not one another nor all the same These Hereticks allowed the Father to be Substance the Son Substance the Holy Ghost Substance but denied them to be Three in Substance but taught that they were but One Substance as they were but One and the same Person Three Names or Three distinct Virtues and Powers of the same One Substance or Person And therefore when in opposition to these men Epiphanius asserts That the Father is Substance the Son Substance and the Holy Ghost Substance he can mean no less but that each of them is as distinctly Substance as he is a Person for to oppose One Substance and One substantial Person you must assert not Three diverse or different Substances but Three as distinct in Substance as they are in Person or Three distinct substantial Persons Epiphanius asserts against these Hereticks That the Son is not the Father but truly and properly a Son begotten of God the Father as to Substance Now a Son which is substantially begotten of the Father and is not the Father must in Substance be distinct from God the Father that is a distinct tho not separate Substance from God the Father Athanasius also is very positive in this That this Divine Word is a Perfect Son of a Perfect Father Being of Being the Image or Character of his Father's Substance not an insubstantial Word but a living Power and the Author of Life to all things not like the Power of a Man which denominates a Man powerful for the Power of Man is not his Offspring or Son whereas this Power of God is his Son that the Father is Perfect Power as the Father of Power and the Son Perfect Power as born of him It were endless to transcribe such Sayings as these out of the Fathers but I cannot miss Athanasius his Argument from those words of our Saviour I am in the Father and the Father in me Now says he the Father is not the Word in the Heart of the Son and therefore neither is the Son the Word in the Heart of the Father but the Living Word begotten eternally of the Living God the Father and being without beginning with the Father insomuch that we cannot conceive the Father ever to have been alone Which attributes as compleat and distinct Personal Subsistence to the Son as to the Father That if the Father who has the Son in himself be a real subsisting Infinite Person the Son who has the whole Father in himself must be as real subsisting Infinite a Person for there is the same reason of both The Answer Athanasius gives to a Sabellian Objection against the substantial Generation and Subsistence of the Word and Son of God is an unanswerable Proof what he thought of this matter The Objection is this That if the Word and Son be truly and substantially begotten this substantial Word must go out of the Father and subsist separately from him Whereas the Word which is in God must be inseparable from him and not appear out of him for how should he appear out of God when God fills all places even Heaven and Earth and therefore there is no place for the Word to subsist in where God is not In answer to this Athanasius first observes what this Objection is levelled against viz. To disprove the true and proper Generation of the Son his Eternal Procession from the Father and Subsistence with the Father that the Father does not compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself nor the Son compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself This is the Faith the Sabellians opposed and which Athanasius defended as the Argument it self will assure us which contradicts no other Notion of Generation or Subsistence but a substantial Generation and a compleat Personal Subsistence of the Word but they could not imagine how the Word should be substantially begotten and compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself in his own Person and Substance distinct from his Father's Subsistence and Person without going out of the Father and subsisting in a separate place from the Father as all Created Births do which opposes nothing but a real substantial Birth and a compleat distinct subsistence of the Word and therefore this is what the Sabellians took for the Catholick Faith and this is what Athanasius defends Who tells them that this is a very ignorant mistake to think that God is circumscribed by place and to conceive the Son in another place and to imagine that the Father and Son must be divided and separated one in this place and another in that if we acknowledge that the Son is begotten of the Father and does appear and subsist by himself distinct from the Father This he proves from Scripture That there is no place that can contain God and therefore we must have no imagination of Place when we think of God the Son and the Holy Spirit That these are false and Atheistical Reasonings That the Omnipresence of God is not a co-extension with all Creatures which is a bodily or kind of Corporeal Omnipresence but his Power holds and contains all things for Power is unbodied and invisible which neither encompasses other things nor is encompassed by them and therefore it is impious to
Homoousion which he afterwards readily received when the Council had declared in what sense they understood it and rejected all corporeal passions all division and partition change and diminution of the Divine Essence which pure simple unbodied eternal unchangeable Mind is not capable of Now all that I shall observe at present is That this very Objection which was thought so formidable necessarily supposes that both they who made it and they who were so much concerned to answer it did acknowledge a substantial generation of the Son for this whole Dispute is downright Nonsense without it If God the Father in begetting his Son does not so communicate his own Nature and Substance to him as to make him a true substantial Son of the same Substance indeed but yet as distinct in Substance from the Father as he is in Person How ridiculous is all this Dispute how the Father communicates his own Nature to his Son for according to these men he does not communicate or propagate his own Nature and Substance at all there being but one singular solitary Divine Nature and Substance with a Trinity of Names Modes or Offices and therefore no danger of any division or partition of the Divine Substance The Dispute between the Catholicks and the Arians about the generation of the Son was this They both owned against the Sabellians that the Son is a real substantial subsisting Person but the Question was whence he had his Nature whether he was created out of Nothing and consequently had a beginning of Being as the Arians affirmed or was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of his Father and so coeternal with his Father as the Nicene Council affirmed That the Substance of the Son was of the Substance of the Father God of God Light of Light Against this the Arians objected That the Son could not be of the Substance of the Father without the division of the Father's Substance which is impossible in an infinite uncreated Spirit as God is which Argument is only against a substantial generation The Nicene Fathers allow this Objection to be good as to corporeal generations but deny that it is thus as to the Eternal Generation of the Son of God for an Eternal Uncreated Immutable Mind if it can communicate its own Nature at all and we learn from Scripture that God has a Son must do it without division of parts for the Divine Nature and Substance has no parts and is capable of no division And it is very absurd to reason from corporeal Passions to the Affections and Operations of Spirits much more of an infinite eternal Spirit Had not the Arians understood the Catholick Fathers of the substantial Generation of the Son they had more wit than to urge an Argument to no purpose for where there is no communication of Substance it is certain there can be no division of it And had not the Catholick Fathers owned this substantial Generation they would have rejected the Argument with scorn as nothing to the purpose and not have distinguished between corporeal generations and the Generation of Eternal and Infinite Mind That though Bodies cannot communicate their own Nature and Substance without division yet an Eternal Mind can so that from these perverse Interpretations of the Homoousion which the Catholick Fathers rejected we may learn what they meant by it for if Father and Son are not Consubstantial in the sense of the Sabellians and Modalists that is that Father and Son are not One Person with Two Names nor One singular solitary Substance common to them both then the Father must be a substantial Father and the Son a substantial Son and these Two substantial Persons are Consubstantial as having the same One Divine Nature and Substance intirely perfectly and distinctly in themselves without any division diminution or separation of Substance by a complete and perfect Generation whereby the Father communicates his whole intire Nature to the Son without any change or alteration in himself SECT II. Some Rules for expounding the Homoousion and in what Sense the Fathers understood it SEcondly Let us now examine what account the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers give of the Homoousion and in what sense they understood it But before I tell you what they expresly say of this matter I shall observe by the way two or three Rules they give us for expounding the Homoousion which are of great use in this Enquiry 1. The first is To give the Homoousion the right place in our Creed as the Nicene Fathers have done They do not tell us abruptly in the first place That the Son is consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father They first tell us That Jesus Christ our Lord is the only-begotten Son of God begotten of his Father that is of the Substance of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God Begotten not made and then they add Of One Substance with the Father This St. Hilary lays great stress on and his Reason is very considerable because if in the first place we say Father and Son are consubstantial or of One Substance this is capable of an Heretical as well as Orthodox Sense as we have already heard for they may be One Substance in the Sabellian Notion as that signifies One Person or One by the Division or Partition of the same Substance of which each has a part for all these perverse Senses may be affix'd to it when this word Consubstantial or One Substance stands singly by it self or is put in the first place without any thing to limit or determine its signification And therefore a true Catholick Christian must not begin his Creed with saying That Father and Son are of One Substance but then he may safely say One Substance when he has first said The Father is unbegotten the Son is born and subsists of his Father like to his Father in all Perfections Honour and Nature not of nothing but born not unborn but coaeval not the Father but the Son of the Father not a Part of the Father but All that the Father is not the Author but the Image the Image of God begotten of God and born God not a Creature but God not Another God of a different Kind and Substance but One God as having the same Essence and Nature which differs in nothing from the Substance of the Father that God is One not in Person but Nature Father and Son having nothing unlike or of a different kind in them And after this we may safely add That Father and Son are One Substance and cannot deny it without Sin This is as plain as words can make it and needs no Comment but fixes and determines the Catholick Sense of the Homoousion For if we must acknowledge the Son to be consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father in no other sense than as a True and Real Son is consubstantial a Son not created out of Nothing but
begotten of his Fathers Substance the Son of God who in his own proper Person is true and perfect God not a part of God but all that God is not One God as One Person with the Father but as having the true Divine Nature distinctly in his own Person This is a Demonstration that the Nicene Consubstantiality is the Consubstantiality of Two real substantial Persons who have the same Nature distinctly subsisting in each of them 2 Another Rule for expounding the Homoousion is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are equipollent terms that to be of one Substance and to be in all things alike to each other signify the same thing I know the Fathers condemned the Arian Homoiousion for they asserted That the Son was like the Father in opposition to his being of the same Nature with the Father and therefore this was an imperfect likeness and resemblance or indeed no likeness at all for a created and uncreated Nature are at such an infinite distance as to have no true and real likeness to each other to be sure not such a likeness as there must be between a Son and a Father Nay sometimes they would not allow that likeness can be properly applied to two individual Natures of the same species as to two individual human Natures which are not like to each other but are the same But yet whether it was proper or improper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be upon all accounts and every way perfectly alike was allowed to be very Orthodox and therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis approves several Oriental Creeds as very Orthodox though they left out the Homoousion because they in the most express terms confessed the perfect likeness and similitude of Nature between Father and Son which they guarded with the utmost Caution against the perverse Interpretations both of the Sabellian and Arian Hereticks And he disputes at large That perfect similitude is a sameness and equality of Nature and calls God to witness that before he ever heard of those words Homoousion and Homoiousion he always thought that what is signified by both these words is the same that perfect likeness of Nature is the sameness of Nature for nothing can be perfectly alike which has not the same Nature And this he says he learnt from the Evangelists and Apostles before ever he heard of the Nicene Faith which he had not heard of till a little before he was banished for that Faith This observation is of great use as St. Hilary notes to confute Sabellianism and to fix the true sense of the Homoousion for if to be Consubstantial or of one Nature signifies a perfect likeness similitude and equality of Nature Consubstantiality must at least signify Two who are thus consubstantial as likeness similitude and equality does and these Two must have One and the same Nature not in the sense of Singularity and Sabellian Unity but of likeness and similitude that Father and Son are One Substance not as One Person is One with himself but as Two Persons are One by a perfect likeness and similitude of Nature which must be the true meaning of Consubstantial if Consubstantiality and likeness of Nature be the same 3. I observe farther That the Catholick Fathers did not make the Homoousion the Rule of Faith that whatever sense some critical Wits can put on it must therefore be owned for the Catholick Faith but they chose it as the most comprehensive word to comprize the true Catholick Faith and to detect the Frauds of Hereticks They taught no new Faith by this word but what the Catholick Church had always taught but secured the Faith by it against the shifts and evasions of Hâ—reticks This is the defence they made to the Arian Objection That it was an unscriptural word they confessed the word Homoousios was not to be found in Scripture but the Faith expressed by that word was Thus St. Austin answers Pascentius and tells us That Christ himself has taught us the Homoousion where he says I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and my Father are One and expounds this of the Unity Dignity and Equality of Nature And adds That it is not the word but the thing signified by that word which is so terrible to Hereticks and if they would dispute to purpose they must not reject the word but the doctrine it contains And thus Laurentius who presided in that Dispute gives judgment in this Controversy That the Homoousion was not the Name of the Christian Faith but signified the Equality of the Trinity and that though this word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by it is true and we must believe honourably of the Unity lest we injure the Trinity We may find enough to this purpose in Athanasius De Decret Syn. Nic. and elsewhere of which more presently And therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis which he wrote to some Catholick Bishops who were very Orthodox in the Faith and yet doubted of this word Homoousion tells them That they are to consider what the Synod intended by that word and not reject the word unless they rejected the Faith taught by it and would profess those Arian Doctrines which the Council condemned in it This is the constant language of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers when the Dispute is concerning the use of this word which gives us this certain Rule for expounding the Homoousion that we must understand it in no other sense than what the Nicene Fathers intended by it for if we do we may acknowledge the Homoousion and yet deny the Nicene Faith What they taught by this word that we must own and what they rejected by it we must reject And though we may fancy that this word signifies more than what the Nicene Fathers understood by it as we have heard what perverse Senses the Hereticks fixt on it yet it being not a Scriptural but an Ecclesiastical word it must be expounded to that Sense and no other which placed it in the Creed SECT III What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion AND this brings me to a more particular Account of the Homoousion and what the Nicene Fathers understood by it Eusebius Pamphili who at first doubted about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ was of the substance of the Father and consubstantial or of One Substance with him gives an account to his Coesareans of the Reasons which moved him afterwards to subscribe to that Form of Faith as appears by his Letter to them recorded in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History He tells them That he did not admit these words without due examination but when he found there was nothing meant by them but what was truly Catholick and Orthodox he complied for Peace sake For by the Son 's being of his Father's Substance they meant no more than
that he was of the Father not as a part of the Father or of his Substance and when the Son is said to be consubstantial with the Father they did not understand this after the manner of Bodies by division abscission or any change of the Father's Substance but the only meaning is That the Son has nothing like a created Nature but is in every respect perfectly like his Father as not being of any other Substance or Nature but of the Father Athanasius gives us a very particular account what it was that forced the Nicene Fathers to add those two words to their Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Son is of the Substance of the Father and Consubstantial or of One Substance with the Father which was to cut off all Evasions and Subterfuges from the Arian Hereticks and to force them to confess the Truth or to confess their Heresy which they endeavoured to palliate and conceal under ambiguous words When the Nicene Fathers taught That the Son is of the Father the Arians were contented to allow this but meant no more by it but that the Son is of the Father as all other Creatures are of God and therefore they added That the Son is of the Substance of God to distinguish him from all Creatures and this is the true interpretation of that Phrase That the Son is of the Substance of the Father that he is no Creature Thus when the Fathers taught That the Word was the true Power and Image of the Father in all things and invariably like the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Arians owned this also in a qualified sense because Creatures are said to be the Power the Image the Likeness of God and therefore they were forced to express the sense of Scripture and what sense they understood the Scripture in concerning the Son's being the Likeness and Image of God by adding that the Son is Consubstantial or of One Substance with the Father to declare that the Son is not so of the Father as meerly to be like him but to be the very same in likeness and similitude to the Father and to be inseparably united to his Father's Substance and that he and the Father are One as he himself hath said The Word is always in the Father and the Father in the Word like the light and its splendor and this the word Homocusios signifies and was used by the Council to this very end to distinguish and separate the Word from all created Nature as appears from the Anathema they immediately denounce against those who said That the Son of God was produced out of nothing was a Creature of a mutable Nature the Workmanship of God or of any other Substance but the Substance of the Father And therefore he adds That those that dislike these words ought to consider the sense in which the Synod uses them and to anathematize what the Synod anathematizes and then if they can let them quarrel with the words though he is very confident that no man who owns the sense of the Council and understands the words in their sense can dislike the words From whence it appears that Athanasius would have allowed those for Orthodox Christians as I observed before St. Hilary did who should confess the Eternal Generation of the Son that there was no time before he was and that he had no beginning of Being that he is no Creature nor of any other Substance but only of the Father and that he always was inseparably united to him and one with him though they should have boggled at those words That the Son is of the Substance of the Father and consubstantial with him But the true reason why the Nicene Fathers did so earnestly contend for these words of the Substance of the Father and Consubstantial was because they found by experience that no other words would hold the Arian Hereticks who concealed their Poyson under any other form of words though in appearance very Orthodox as the Catholick Bishops found to their cost in the Council of Ariminum and upon several other occasions which is the account the Synod of Paris gives the Eastern Bishops of this matter But though they desired that all would agree in the use of this word as most expressive of the true Catholick Faith yet they never rejected the Communion of any Bishops merely upon this account while they prosessed the true Catholick Faith which the Nicene Council intended to signify by this word and condemned those Arian Blasphemies which they intended to condemn by it Before this Council had taken the Homoousion into their Creed and made it the Test of the Catholick Faith Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria in his Book against the Sabellians had let drop some Expressions for which he was charged with denying the Homoousion and accused for it to his Name-sake Dionysius then Bâ—shop of Rome which occasioned his Apology to the Roman Bishop which Athanasius gives us an account of He owns That he did say that the word Homoousion was not to be found in Scripture yet what he taught of Christ did plainly signify what is meant by the Homoousion that he is no Creature but homogeneous or of the same Nature with his Father which he explained by Human Births which are manifestly of the same kind there being no difference of Nature between Parents and Children who differ only in this That Parents are not their own Children whereby he signified that God the Father and God the Son had but one and the same Nature though the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father The same he says he represented by other similitudes of Homogeneous Productions as a Root and its Branches the Fountain and Rivers which are not the same with each other but have the same Nature These are true Catholick Representations of the Homoousion and this Dionysius thought a sufficient Justification of his Faith and Athanasius thought so too without using that term especially if we add what he discourses more at large de Sent. Dionysii contra Arianos I shall only observe farther That the Learned Dr. Bull takes this very way to prove that the Ante Nicene Fathers did own the Faith of the Homoousion or that the Son is consubstantial to the Father though we seldom meet with the word it self in their Writings because they teach the same things which the Nicene Fathers intended by that word As 1. When they affirm the Son of God is not only of the Father but that he proceeds from and is begotten of the Father 2. That the Son is the True Genuine Proper Natural Son of God 3. When they explain the Generation of the Son by the Root and its Branches the Sun and its Rays the Fountain and River which are of the same Nature and therefore represent the Father and Son to be of the same Substance 4. When they except the Son of God out of
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
evident from what I have already discours'd The Fathers in opposition to Sabellius universally rejected One singular solitary Nature and Substance as destroying a Trinity of Real Persons for in their Philosophy One singular Substance is but One Person and therefore Three Persons each of which is by himself True and Perfect Substance can't be One singular Substance which is Proof enough that when they explain the Unity of the Divine Substance by its Sameness and Identity they could not by this Sameness and Identity mean Singularity but such a Sameness as is between Real Distinct Subsisting Substantial Persons who are every way alike without the least Change or Variation Which the Greek Fathers commonly call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latin Fathers as St. Hilary especially Indifferens Indissimilis Natura That this is the True Notion of this Sameness and Identity of Nature appears from those Representations which the Catholick Fathers make of it viz. That it is such a Sameness and Identity as there is between a Perfect Living Subsisting Word and that Perfect Mind whose Word it is such a Sameness as is between Father and Son between the Prototype and the Image between the Seal and the Impression between Life of Life Wisdom of Wisdom Power of Power c. neither of which is the other and yet both are the same That God hath an Eternal Word which was in the Beginning was with God and was God that this Eternal Word was the Son of God and this Son the Perfect Likeness and Image of his Father the Brightness of his Glory and the Express Character of his Substance is the known Doctrine of the Scripture and Fathers That this Word is not like the Word of a Man but the Substantial Essential Living Subsisting Omnipotent Word and this Son a True Natural Genuine Son and this Image a Substantial Living Image and a Living Substantial Character of the Father that this Word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Distinct Person from him whose Word he is that the Son is not the Father nor the Father the Son but that they are alius alius that the Image is not the Prototype nor the Prototype the Image nor the Chararacter and Impression that whose Character it is I have already proved to be the Received Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers against the Sabellians and were there any occasion for it I could confirm it with innumerable Testimonies The only Question then is What this Sameness and Identity of Nature is And if we will allow for that difference there is between God and Creatures we may learn as the Fathers teach us what this Sameness of Nature between the Divine Persons is from the Sameness and Identity between a Mind and its Word between Father and Son between the Prototype and the Image the Seal and its Character and Impression Now what this Sameness and Identity is is so visible that a few words will explain it It is not the Sameness of Singularity for the Mind and its Word a Father and Son the Prototype and its Image the Seal and its Impression are visibly Two Nor is it the Sameness of meer Likeness and Similitude how Exact and Perfect soever we conceive that Likeness to be for every one must confess that there is a vast difference between the Perfect Likeness of Two Minds Two Men Two Originals and Two Seals and that Sameness which is between a Mind and its own Word a Father and his own Son a Prototype and its own Natural Image and the Seal and the Impression which is made by it just as much difference as there is between Similitude and Nature or between a perfect Likeness of Nature and Identity And therefore the complete and adequate Notion of Sâ—meness and Identity between Two who are really distinct in Subsistence and Personality and are not each other must be this That an Eternal Unproduced Person produces another in his own Nature Whole Perfect Entire without the least Conceivable or Possible Difference or Diversity excepting this That One Produces and the Other is Produced For Two such who distinctly subsist are really Two Persons in One and the Same Individual Nature Thus it is with a Perfect Mind and its Perfect Living Subsisting Word which is perfectly it self as its own Perfect Natural Image Two in Number but One in Re in Nature Thus it is with a Father and such a Son as is Whole of Whole they are Two and the Same the Son the Natural Living Image of the Father in whom the Father sees Himself and is seen in Him as Christ tells us He that hath seen me hath seen the Father Which is agreeable to the common Forms of Speech to call the King's Picture or Image the King as the Catholick Writers frequently observe which would be exactly and philosophically true were it a Perfect Natural Living Inseparable Image And this is what the Catholick Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness or Identity of Nature as might easily be proved by numerous Citations But I will content my self with a few The Nicene Fathers taught That the Father and the Son were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Nature and Substance This as I observed before they explain by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perfect Invariable Likeness and Similitude without the least Difference and Diversity and this is what they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness and Identity of Nature which cannot be the Sameness of Singularity but the Sameness of Indifference and Indiversity such a Sameness as is between Two which are perfectly alike and differ in nothing from each other Athanasius gives this account why the Nicene Fathers taught That the Son was Homoousios of the same Substance with the Father that they might signifie that the Son was not only like the Father but so of the Father as to be the same in Likeness Now the Sameness and Identity of Likeness cannot be the Sameness of Singularity and yet this he calls the Sameness and Identity with his Father That the Son is the Natural Genuine Son of the Father and the Word God's own proper Word and the invariable Likeness between the Light and it's Splendor the Unity of Nature and the Identity of Light With several Expressions noted in the Margin which signifie the most perfect Sameness in Nature Thus the Son is the Image of God the Character of his Substance Nature and Essence which is the Language of Scripture and the constant Doctrine of the Fathers And from hence they conclude the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature between Father and Son or a perfect Likeness and Similitude By which Argument they prove That he is no Creature but that he is Eternal and Omnipotent and all that his Father is because this is the Nature of a Perfect Living Image to be perfectly all and the same that the Prototype is
this as they all own for the Fathers made no scruple to say That God begat God Essence Essence Wisdom Wisdom Life Life and that the Son is begotten and only begotten God God of God Light of Light Wisdom of Wisdom and begotten Wisdom Upon these Authorities Richardus Victorinus contends earnestly that we ought in plain terms to own That Substance begets Substance and that those who deny it reject the Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers But Peter Lombard and most other Schoolmen especially since the Council of Lateran justify themselves in this matter by saying That the Fathers intended no more in such expressions than what they themselves own though they reject that way of speaking When the Fathers taught That God begat God Essence Essence Substance Substance Wisdom Wisdom Life Life they meant no more than that the Father who is God Essence Substance Wisdom Life begat his Son who is also truly and really God Essence Substance Wisdom Life and the reason why they rather chose to say That the Father who is God and Essence and Wisdom begets the Son who is God and Essence and Wisdom c. than to say That God begets God Essence Essence Wisdom Wisdom is this Because God and Essence and Wisdom c. signify absolutely and so may multiply Gods Essences Wisdoms as when we say Man begets a Man the begotten Man is as absolutely a Man as he who begets and he who begets and he who is begotten notwithstanding their relation are two absolute Men And therefore to prevent all such mistakes and to secure the Catholick Faith of the Real Distinction of Persons and Suppositums in perfect Unity without the least diversity or multiplication of Essence they attributed Active Generation to the Person of the Father and Passive Generation to the Person of the Son which proves a Real Distinction of Persons and Suppositums for he who begets cannot be he who is begotten and yet preserves the Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature But how can this be if Person and Essence Suppositum and Nature be the same as it is in God For then if the Person be begotten the Essence which is that Person must be begotten also and if the Person begets the Essence must beget Now this is in some sense true and therefore the Catholick Fathers promiscuously used these terms That the Father begets a Son or God begets God or Essence begets Essence and the Schools themselves own That the Father who is God begets the Son deitatem habentem who has the Divinity the Divine Nature and Essence and has it by his Generation and Birth which in reality is the same though they thought the expression less liable to mistake For the truth of the Case is this The Schools that asserted the perfect Singularity of the Divine Essence fenced against all Expressions of an absolute signification which multiplied Natures for Two absolute Natures cannot be singularly One and therefore would not say that Nature and Essence begets or is begotten for in these Propositions the terms Nature and Essence unless qualified and restrained signify absolutely and so infer Two absolute Natures and Essences that which begets and that which is begotten and therefore they rather call this a Communication than a Generation of Nature because this last signifies relatively That which is communicated may be a Singular Nature which subsists distinctly in more than one but with a necessary relation to its Original and such a Communication does not multiply Natures but only Essential Relations And this is the difference they made between Deus Deitatem habens God and one who has the Divinity that God signifies absolutely an Absolute Independent Divinity which has no relation or communication with any other but One who has the Divinity may signify One who has it not originally and absolutely but by communication from another and in an Essential Relation to him as the Son and the Holy Spirit have which is the same Divinity in Three and but One in Three And therefore I think the Schools were very much in the right for rejecting Tres Dii Three Gods when at the same time they owned Tres Deitatem habentes Three who have the Divinity for these do not signify the same thing The first unless qualified is Polytheism the second the Christian Trinity in Unity though I confess I should not chuse to call the Father One who has the Divinity but simply God because he is absolutely and originally so and not by communication and for that reason is both in Scripture and in the Fathers eminently callâ—d God and the One God whereas the other Divine Perâ—â—â—s are the Son of God and the Spirit of God and as Teâ—â—â—â—â—ian observes never called God when joined with the Father though they are when spoken of distinctly by themselves For the same Reason the Schools forbid the use of Abstract or Subâ—tantive Terms in the Plural Number when we speak of the Dâ—vine Persons but allow of Plural Adjectives because Substantives signify absolutely and multiply Natures as well as Persons or Suppositums but Adjectives may signify relatively and multiply Persons without multiplying Natures as Three Eternals Three Omnipotents Three Infinites in a Substantive sense signify Three Eternal Omnipotent Infinite Natures as well as Persons but Three who are Eternal Omnipotent Infinite signify a Trinity of Eternal Omnipotent Infinite Persons but do not necessarily signify a Trinity of Natures since these Three may subsist in the same Eternal Omnipotent Infinite Nature and each of them have this Eternal Infinite Nature and all the same But still the difficulty remains if Person or Suppositum and Nature be perfectly the same How the Father can communicate his Nature and not his Person How there can be Three Incommunicable Persons and Suppositums and but One Nature and that communicable to more than One That thus it is and how it may be is better explained by an Example than by any words without it And I shall instance in a living substantial Image This is the true Character of the Second Person of the Trinity that he is so the Son as to be the Living Perfect Image of God as has been explained at large elsewhere as you may find in the Margin Now every man must confess that the Prototype and the Image are two distinct Incommunicable Suppositums the Prototype is not the Image nor the Image the Prototype and yet we must confess that there is and must be but one and the same Nature in both not Specifically but Identically the same for a perfect Image is and can be nothing but the same that the Prototype is the same Eternity the same Life the same Wisdom Power and Goodness but all this not Personally the same for their Persons are not and cannot be the same but identically and invariably the same or else it can't be a true and perfect Image And this makes it evident that though Person and Nature be perfectly the same
Singularity of the Divine Essence for it proves quite the contrary it is the Unity of Three which is a Trinity in Unity not the Unity of One which is Singularity and Solitude In the next place I observe That by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Catholick Fathers understand in this Mystery the inseparable Union of Relatives in the same Individual Nature not the Union of compleat absolute Natures how close and inseparable soever it may be There is by Nature no Inseparable Union but in the same Individual Nature Three compleat Individuals though of the same Kind and Species how closely and intimately soever they be united are not by Nature inseparable nor essentially One for they may be parted by that Power which united them and when they are parted can subsist apart as Three compleat Minds how intimately soever they should be united by God yet can never be essentially and inseparably One for they are not essential to each other they might have subsisted apart and may be parted again and an External Union cannot so make them One as to be naturally inseparable Which I think is a Demonstration that a Natural Inseparability which is an Essential Unity can be only in One Individual Nature between such Relatives as are Essential to each other and can neither be nor be conceived divided or separated And therefore the Catholick Fathers represented the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Examples of Natural Unions between things Essentially related to each other in One Individual Nature which either cannot be conceived or at least cannot subsist apart Of this last Kind are a Fountain and its Streams a Tree and its Branches whereby they not only represent the Homoousion but the Inseparable Union of the Divine Persons as every one knows for there cannot be a Fountain but its Waters must flow out nor Streams without a Fountain from whence they flow and though Branches may be separated from the Tree yet they live no longer than they are united and are Branches of that Tree no longer But these are very imperfect Images and without great caution will corrupt our Ideas of the Divine Unity Of all Corporeal Unions the nearest resemblance we have of this and which the Fathers most insist on is the Sun and its natural Splendor for we cannot conceive the Sun without its Splendor nor the Splendor without the Sun they never were never can be parted and therefore though two are essentially one This Representation the Scripture makes of it which calls the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Brightness of his Father's Glory and in this Sense they teach that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Light of Light as it is in the Nicene Creed whereby they do not mean two distinct independent Lights which either are or may be parted though one be lighted at the other this was the Heresy of Hierachas as St. Hilary tells us who represented this Mystery by two Candles one of which is lighted at the other or by one and the same Lamp which is divided and burns in two Sockets but that Light and Splendor which is essential to the same Sun and can never be divided from it as Athanasius teaches But the truest Images we have of this in Nature is the Inseparable Union which is between a Mind and its own Internal Word which are so essentially related to each other in the same Individual Nature that they can never be parted nor conceived apart the Mind can never be without its Word nor the Word subsist but in the Mind It is evident That two compleat absolute Minds can never be thus united for they are not Essential to each other not naturally one and therefore not naturally inseparable but a Mind and its Word though two are essentially One and therefore can never be parted but must subsist together and these are the Characters the Scripture gives us of God the Father and his Son the Father Infinite Eternal Self-originated Mind the Son his Eternal Infinite Living Subsisting Word And if Father and Son this Eternal Mind and Eternal Word be as essentially One as a mans Mind and his Word are One this is a Demonstration of their Inseparable Union and gives us a sensible Notion and Idea of it This is the account Athanasius every where gives of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Father and Son are inseparably One the Father being in the Son and the Son in the Father as the Word is in the Mind and the Light in the Sun To separate the Divine Persons so as not to be in each other whatever other Union we own between them Dionysius of Alexandria charges with Tritheism for the Divine Word must of necessity be one with God and the Holy Spirit be and subsist in him And this Athanasius resolves into such a Sameness and Unity of Nature as must be between two Relative Subsistencies in the same Individual Nature That the Son is in the Father as the Word is in the Mind and the Splendor in the Sun that he is a genuine proper natural Son in the Father's Essence and Substance not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not subsisting out of his Father's Substance as other Creature Sons do That the true Notion of the Sons being in the Father is that the whole Being of a Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Genuine Natural Birth of the Father's Substance the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Splendor is of the Sun That the very Being of the Son is the Form of Species and Divinity of the Father That as the Sun and its Splendor are two but not two Lights but one Light from the Sun enlightening all things with its Splendor and Brightness so the Divinity of the Son is the Divinity of the Father and therefore inseparable and thus there is but one God and none else besides him All this plainly refers to the Inseparable Union and Inbeing of Relatives of the same Individual Substance which are really distinct but essentially in each other as the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word that Thought it self cannot part them which is such an Union as can never be between compleat absolute Substances which are not naturally Inseparable nor essentially One. Herein Athanasius places the adequate Notion of the Homoousion the Sameness Identity and Unity of Nature He tells us That for this reason the Nicene Fathers taught the Homoousion or that the Son is Consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father to signify that the Son is not only like the Father but to be so of the Father as to be the same in likeness not after the manner of Bodies which are like each other but subsist apart by themselves as Human Sons subsist separately from their Parents but the Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father is of a different Kind and Nature from Human Generations for he is not only like but inseparable from his Father's Substance
he allows to be a good Argument against the Arians which he could not have done had he not allowed this Consciousness in the Trinity but then observes That the Arians did as effâ—ctually consute them as to the distinction of Persons and thus between them both the Catholick Faith of a real distinction of Persons in the Sameness and Conscious Unity of Nature was vindicated In short If the whole Divine Nature is conscious to it self as every Created Mind is conscious to all that is in it self and the Three Divine Persons subsist in the Individual Unity of the same Nature then these Divine Persons must be intimately and mutually conscious to each other as a Mind its Word and Spirit are and however Men please to philosophize about this as to the prius posterius whether they will make the Unity of Nature the cause of this mutual Consciousness and therefore in order of Nature prior to it or make mutual Consciousness not the cause of this Unity but the Essential Union of Three Distinct Subsisting Persons in the Unity of the same Individual Nature I will not contend with any Man which of these speak most properly Consciousness is the Unity of an Intelligent Nature and the mutual Consciousness of Persons in the same Nature and the Conscious Unity of Nature in Three Distinct Persons is the same thing We cannot conceive the Unity of a Mind without Consciousness nor any other kind of Unity of a Mind but a Conscious Unity nor can we conceive an Internal Essential Consciousness without an Essential Unity and if the mutual Consciousness of Persons in the same Nature is the Consciousness of Nature I cannot see why we may not say That it is at least One Notion of the Unity of Nature too But to return where I left off if this may be called a a Digression what I have now said is sufficient to shew how necessary this Doctrine of Relations is to give us a sensible notion of a Trinity in Unity To assert a Real Trinity we must assert Three Real Distinct Subsisting Substantial Intelligent Persons neither of which is each other and each of which is by himself in his own proper Person True and Perfect God But this say Sabellians Arians and Socinians is to assert Three Gods which the Catholick Church always abhorred the thoughts of Now how the Fathers answered this Charge and vindicated the Divine Unity in a Trinity of Real Subsisting Persons I have already particularly shown as by the Consubstantiality the perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature whole of whole their Inseparability and Unity of Operation but we can form no distinct Idea of all this but only among Personal Subsisting Relatives of the same Individual Nature Whatever is not this is a meer Specifick Consubstantiality and Identity of Nature and an External Union how inseparable soever it be which must make a number of Individuals in the Divine as well as Human Nature but now it is plain to a Demonstration That if God hath an Eternal Subsisting Word and an Eternal Subsisting Spirit they can be but One Individual Essence as a Man's Mind and Word and Spirit are One and therefore all Three but One God as a Man with his Mind and Word and Spirit iâ— but One Man which is an Intelligible Notion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Individual Essence and Godhead For though the Word of God be a Person which a Mâ—n's Word is not yet if his true Nature and Character is the Word he is the same to the Eternal Mind which a Man's Word is to his Created Mind and therefore God and his Living Subsisting Word must be One Individual Essence as a Man's Mind and his Word are One a Word must be conceived and begotten of the Mind and can have no other Substance if it be a Living Substantial Word but that of the Mind and if it be a perfect Word the perfect Image of the Mind it must be whole of whole all that the Mind is for the whole Mind is in its perfect Word and Image and lives and subsists in it and the whole Word in the Mind So that the Câ—eternity the Coequality the Consubstantiality the Identity the Inseparability the Unity of Operation between God and his Word is so far from being Jargon Contradiction Unintelligible Nonsense that iâ— God have an Eternal Word it is self-evident that thus it must be When we contemplate the Consubstantiality of Father and Son under the notion of Substance we can form no Idea of a whole which is of a whole that the Father should communicate his whole Essence and Substance to the Son and be the whole himself and this is no great wonder since we can form no Idea at all of the Divine Substance but we can very well understand That the Whole Mind must be in its Word that the Eternal Mind and its Word must be Consubstantial Coeternal Coequal Two but perfectly the same inseparably in each other for all this is included in the very Relation and Notion of a Mind and its Word I 'm sure a Living Subsisting Word which is not Consubstantial Coeternal Coequal with that Eternal Mind whose Word it is that a Mind should be without its Word that an Infinite Eternal Mind which is perfect Life and Being should have a vanishing perishing Word as Man has not a living subsisting Word that a Mind and its Word should ever be parted that the Word should not be and subsist in the Mind and the Mind in the Word I say all this contradicts all the Notions we have of a Mind and its Word We cannot immediately and directly contemplate the Divine Nature and Essence which is so infinitely above us and therefore we must contemplate it in such Ideas and Representations as God himself makes of it and if they are such as we can form an intelligible notion of we have no reason to complain of unintelligible Mysteries and Contradictions though when we reduce it into Terms of Art we find our Minds confounded and perplext and unable to form any distinct and easy Ideas The Arians to avoid the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father would not allow the Term Substance to be used of God the Catholick Fathers proved that Substance is in Scripture used concerning God and that the Arians could not reasonably reject it because they used it themselves for though they would not own the Son to be of the same Substance with the Father they taught that he was of another Substance which still is to own Substance in God But though God be in the most true and absolute sense perfect Essence and Being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or according to St. Ambrose his derivation of the Word which shews what he meant by it whether it shews his skill in Greek or not that Essence and Substance is that which always is and that which always is is God and therefore God is Essence and Substance and a
Terms can belong for there is no such thing in created Nature and therefore we can have no Idea of it It is abundantly sufficient in this Case that we have a clear and distinct Notion of One Substance and Three Hypostases in the Essential Unity and Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost Three subsisting Relations in One Individual Essence and Substance though when we abstractedly consider these Terms of One Substance and Three Hypostases we can form no consistent Notion or Idea of it And now let our Socinian Adversaries who talk so loud of Absurdities Contradictions Nonsense false Counting and Tritheism try their skill to make good these Charges against the Divine subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Individual Essence SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity BUT since one Nature and Essence and Three Hypostases or Persons is the Catholick Language and necessary to guard the Faith from those Two Extremes of Sabellianism and Arianism it will be necessary to consider how to apply these Ecclesiastical Terms to the Three and One in the ever Blessed Trinity And here were I so disposed I might enter into a very large and perplext Dispute but my design as far as possibly I can attain it is only to explain what the Catholick Fathers meant by these Terms and to give a plain and sensible Notion of them And after what I have already so largely discoursed concerning Nature and Hypostasis I have little more to do than to compare them together and to shew in what the Catholick Fathers placed this Distinction And as nothing is of greater consequence than rightly to understand this matter so nothing requires greater Caution nor greater Application of Mind Whosoever is conversant in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers must acknowledge it not only reasonable but necessary to distinguish between their Faith and their Philosophy Their Faith which they received srom the Scriptures and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church is plain and simple and the same in all That there is but One God who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself True and Perfect God and all but One God which is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that they are in a true and proper Sense Three and One This is the Catholick Faith wherein they all agree but then those Philosophical Terms which the importunities of Hereticks who corrupted either the Faith of the Unity or Trinity forced them to use in the Explication of this Mystery are of a different Consideration These have not always been the same nor have all agreed in them and the wisest Men have owned great Improprieties in them all when applied to this Sacred Mystery and indeed it is impossible to be otherwise for that infinite Difference and Diversity there is between the Divine and Humane Nature nay all created Nature can never admit of any Common Terms proper to express both The most perfect Creatures bear only some imperfect Analogy and Resemblance to what we conceive of God and therefore when we apply such Words and Terms to the Divine Naturâ— as are borrowed from Creatures and we have no other we must understand them only by way of Analogy and Accommodation and when we expound such Terms as are used by the Catholick Fathers in such an accommodated Sense we must apply them no further than that particular Matter they intended to represent by them I have already shâ—wn this in several particular Passages relating to the Homoousion but now I am more particularly to consider the difference between Essence and Hypostasis and I shall only shew how the matter of fact stands what has occasioned this difficulty what the true state of the Controversy is and how we may form some sensible notion of this Distinction and if I should mistake in so nice a Point as this I hope it will be a pardonable Mistake while I make no change in the Catholick Faith and intend it only as an Essay if it be possible to silence or qualify the Dispute about words The Greek Fathers attribute all the Heresies relating to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to this one Mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same for then if there be but One Essence in the Blessed Trinity there must consequently be but One Hypostasis which is Sabellianism or if there be Three Hypostases there must be Three Natures and Essences either in the Arian or Tritheistick Notion Thus with reference to the Incarnation two Natures must be two Persons or Hypostases as Nestorius taught or One Person must be but One mixt and compounded Nature too which was the Heresy of Eutyches This some Fathers thought a fundamental Error in Philosophy introduced by Aristotle who makes the first Substance which is the only true and proper Substance to be that which is predicated of no Subject nor is in any Subject that is what we call a Subsisting Individual as this Man or this Horse And therefore Theorianus observes That the Catholick Fathers understood Essence and Hypostasis in a very different sense from the Greek Philosophers that is by Essence and Substance they did not mean one singular Individuum or singular Nature and Substance as Aristotle did but a common Nature not a common Notion as Genus or Species which are Aristotle's second Substances but a common Subsisting Nature which is one and the same whole and perfect in every Individual of the same kind And what Aristotle call'd his first Substance a singular Subsisting Nature that they called Hypostasis a common Subsisting Nature with its individuating Characters and Properties It is evident some Ages past before these words Essence and Hypostasis were thus nicely distinguished or at least before this Distinction was so unanimously received for as I have already observed these Words were used very promiscuously which occasioned the Alexandrian Schism and it does not appear to me that this Distinction was setled by Athanasius and the Bishops with him in that Synod as some seem to think though soon after it generally prevailed as we may learn from St. Basil Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril of Alexandria Damascen Leontius Theorianus Theodorus Abucara Ignatius Sinaita and generally all the Catholick Writers of the Eutychian and Severian Age who universally agree in this That Essence and Hypostasis differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that which is Universal differs from what is Proper and Singular Now so far these Fathers were certainly in the right That if they must apply Philosophical Terms to Divine Mysteries which the Cavilling Objections of Hereticks made necessary there was an absolute necessity for them to change their signification for as there is nothing common to
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 Son to the Eternal Spirit and all Three are Infinite in Wisdom Power and Goodness and all other Divine Perfections This is but One Divinity One Godhead for there is not a Second and Third Divinity in the Son and in the Holy Spirit but the One Divinity of the Father But yet we must confess that here is Number Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three and how can that Divinity which is perfectly and distinctly in Three be One Individual Nature One Numerically One as Human Nature in every particular Man is One Now this must be resolved into the second Notion of Essential for Essential Productions for all Essential Productions in the Unity of Nature though they may be distinguished and numbred among themselves are but One Individual Nature It will be in vain to seek for an Example of this in Created Nature and I believe the reason of it will be evident without it An Eternal Self-originated Mind is True and Perfect God the First Supreme Cause of all things and has all the Perfections of the Divinity wholly in it self is the One and only True God But if it be essential to an Eternal Mind to have an Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Spirit by an Eternal Generation and Procession then this Eternal Word and Spirit are essential to an Eternal Mind not as Essential Perfections or Essential Parts but as Essential Productions or Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature Thus the Scripture represents this Mystery That there is One God who has an Eternal Word and an Eternal Spirit and the Catholick Fathers as I have already observed insist on this as a natural Demonstration of a Trinity That the Eternal Mind must have its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit Now if the Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit are essential to the Eternal Mind it is certain that Father Son and Holy Ghost the Eternal Mind its Word and Spirit are but One Individual Divinity every thing that is essential is included in the Notion of an Individual Nature for that is not a Compleat and Perfect Nature nor an adequate notion of Nature that wants any thing that is essential Now though we may have a general Notion and Idea of a God That he is an Absolutely Perfect Being which Includes all the Divine Attributes and Perfections without knowing any thing of the Son or Holy Ghost yet if we consider this Absolutely Perfect Being as Eternal Self-originated Mind with its Eternal Word and Spirit as essential Productions or Processions we can consider them no otherwise but as One Individual Divinity this Eternal Word and Spirit being essential Processions of the Eternal Mind which can never be separated from it For such essential Processions are not only coeval and consubstantial with the Nature from whence they proceed as the Sun its Light and Heat by which Argument the Catholick Fathers proved the Coeternity and Consubstantiality of the Son and Holy Spirit with the Eternal Father but whatever distinction there is between them they are One Individual Nature if all that be One Individual Nature which is essential to such a Being and such all essential Processions are as well as essential Perfections These are two very different Questions and of a very different consideration What God is and Who this God is In an answer to the first we form the Idea and Notion of all Divine Perfections or of an absolutely Perfect Being which is the true notion of the Divinity and whoever has all these Divine Perfections is True and Perfect God and this is our natural notion of God as that signifies the Divinity which gives no notice of any distinction in the Divinity for there can be no diversity in Absolute Perfections and therefore no distinction or number according to the Philosophy of the Fathers But when we consider who God is or what is the Subject of all these Divine Perfections we can form no other Idea of it but an Eternal Infinite Self originated Mind this the Wisest Philosophers as well as Christians are agreed in That God is an Infinite Mind and this rightly explained may teach us some distinction in the Divinity for all Men must grant what they feel in themselves that every Mind has its Word and Spirit and cannot be conceived without them and therefore the Eternal Mind must have its Eternal word and Spirit too and the reason why this did not lead all Mankind into the natural belief of a Trinity of Persons Mind Word and Spirit in the Unity of the Godhead was plainly this Because they found that their own Word and Spirit were not permanent subsisting Persons but were the perishing Creatures of the Mind which were no sooner produced but died and vanished as our Thoughts do and thus they conceived it was with the Divine Mind which is one kind of Sabellianism as I observed above But yet the Catholick Fathers thought this natural belief That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Divinity or Divine Mind is not without its Word a very proper Medium to prove a real subsisting Word in the Divinity for an Infinite Perfect Mind which is all Life Being Substance if it begets its own Word as every Mind does must beget a Living Substantial Subsisting Word the perfect Image and Character of its own Life and Infinite Being However thus much I think we must own That since every Mind must have its Word and Spirit in the Individual Unity of its own Nature and the Holy Scripture assures us that God who is the most perfect Mind has his Word and Spirit and that this Divine Word and Spirit is an Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Spirit this is a very good foundation for the belief of a Real Trinity both from Reason and Scripture The natural Notion and Idea of a Mind teaches us this distinction in the Divinity and Natural Reason strongly infers from the perfect Productions of an infinitely perfect Mind that the Divine Word and Spirit must be an Eternal Living Infinite Word and Spirit and the Holy Scripture confirms all this And therefore Scripture and Reason are so far from contradicting each other in this Article that the Belief of the Trinity though it be ultimately resolved into the Authority of Revelation yet has Reason on its side as far as it can judge of such matters Which proves a considerable Authority when the obscure and imperfect Conjectures of Reason are explained and confirmed by Revelation For though the Notion of an absolutely perfect Being which is the Natural Idea of the Divinity teaches no such distinction yet the Idea of an Infinitely Perfect and Self-originated Mind which is as natural a Notion of God does Thus Damascen teaches us to distinguish between the Divinity and in what the Divinity is or to speak more accurately what is the Divinity and that which proceeds eternally from this First Cause that is the Hypostases of the Son and Holy Spirit the first teaches us
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
Divinity which is absolutely and originally in the Father Well then Here is One Divine Person viz. the Eternal Father who is absolutely and originally God and Two more the Son and Holy Ghost who are each of them in his own Person true and perfect God by having all the Divine Perfections But are not these Three then Three Gods the Unbegotten God who is originally and absolutely God the Begotten God and the Proceeding God No it is the constant Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers that the Trinity is but One Divinity and One God una Summa res One Supreme Being as St. Austin taught and from him Peter Lombard and was confirmed by the Council of Lateran in the Condemnation of Abbot Ioachim For Father Son and Holy Ghost though they are Three true and proper Persons are but One Individual Nature for it is Essential to the Eternal Mind to have its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit and the Eternal Word and Spirit live and subsist in the Mind and though living subsisting Persons yet are as individually One with the Mind as a Created Mind its Word and Spirit are One. Whatever is Essential to Nature is in the Individual Unity of it and that is but One Individual Nature which has nothing but what is Essential to it and therefore if as I have already observed and as the Catholick Faith teaches the Son and Spirit the Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit are Essential Processions of Eternal Original Mind and essentially indivisibly and inseparably in it Father Son and Holy Ghost are as essentially and inseparably One Individual Divinity as any One Nature is One with it self But is not this a kind of Sabellian Composition of a God A whole Divinity made up of Three partial and incomplete Divinities Which St. Austin calls a Triformis Deus By no means What is compounded is made up of Parts which make a compound Nature but perfect Hypostases however united can make no Composition However you unite Iames and Iohn you can never make a compound Man of them because each of them have a perfect Human Nature and as Damascen observes we do not say That the Nature or Species is made up of the Hypostases but is in the Hypostases So that each Divine Person being a complete and perfect Hypostasis having the whole Divine Nature in himself as being True and Perfect God their Union in the same Individual Nature though it makes them One Essential Divinity yet it cannot make a Compound God for however their Persons are united the Divinity or Divine Nature is not compounded each of them being True and Perfect God and not One God by Composition but by an Individual Unity of Nature in Three For every Divine Person is not God in the same sense that every Human Person is a Man as having an Absolute Individual Nature of his own for in this sense the Father only is God as being Absolute Original Divinity an Eternal Self-originated Mind and Three such Persons must be acknowledged to be Three Gods but as I have been forced often to repeat it the Son and Holy Spirit are Divine Persons as they are Eternal Living Subsisting Processions in the Divine Nature which proves them to have the very same Divinity and to be but One Individual Divinity but not One Compound God For One Individual Nature in Three though distinguisht into Distinct Subsisting Persons makes such a natural inseparable Unity of Will Energy and Power that they are as perfectly One Almighty Agent as every single Person is One Agent as I have shewn above It is thought by some a manifest Contradiction to say as the Athanasian Creed teaches us The Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet there are not Three Gods but One God But whoever carefully considers what I have now said must own that this is the only true and proper way of speaking in this Mystery If there be but One Absolute Divinity there can be but One God for the Divine Processions in the Unity and Identity of the same Individual Nature cannot multiply the Divinity nor multiply the Name and Title of God for the Name God does not originally absolutely and immediately belong to them but only relatively The proper immediate Character of the Second Person in the Trinity is not God but the Son of God and the Word of God and so the Third is the Spirit of God And though we must necessarily own that the Son of God and the Spirit of God are each of them True and Perfect God equal in all Divine Perfections to the Father as being all the same that the Father is excepting his being a Father yet they are not Three Gods for this is not their immediate Original Character but there is One God the Father his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit This is what I have above observed from Tertullian That there is One God with his Oeconomy that is his Son and Spirit and that Christ is called God when he is spoken of by himself but when he is named together with the Father he must have his own proper Title which is the Son of God and the Reason is the same as to the Holy Spirit by which Rule we can never say That Father Son and Holy Ghost though each of them be God are Three Gods but there are Three God the Father his Son and Holy Spirit The Father God of himself the Son and Spirit Eternal Processions and Divine Subsisting Relations in the Unity and Identity of the Father's Godhead They have all the same Divinity their Glory equal their Majesty coeternal but their different manner of having it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishes their Names and Characters The Father is God absolutely God an Unbegotten Self-originated Being so God that there is no other God besides him The Son is not absolutely God but the Son of God and when he is called God in Scripture it is in no other sense but as the Son of God for the Son of God must be God the Son Nor is the Holy Spirit absolutely God but the Spirit of God which is all we mean when we call him God for the Spirit of God must be God the Holy Ghost This is the Catholick Faith and let any Man try if he can find Three Gods in it For when we number Father Son and Holy Ghost we must not number them by the common Name of Nature which is One Undivided Divinity in them all but by their Relative Names and Characters which do not only distinguish their Persons but signify their Unity Order and Relations in the same Nature We must not call them Three Gods because God is not the original Name of the Son or Spirit and therefore they are not Three Gods but there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead The One God the Father the Son of God and the Spirit of God so that there is but One God in the Christian Faith if the Son of God be
yet if I judge my judgment is true for I am not alone but I and my Father which sent me It is also written in your law That the testimony of two men is true I am one that bear witness of my self and my Father that sent me beareth witness of me This is as express as words can make it If Father and Son were but Oâ—e single Person Christ could not have said I am not alone but I and my Father which sent me for one single Person is in this sense alone how many Names soever he has and if he and his Father are not Two distinct Persons they are not Two Legal Witnesses as Two distinct men are These and such like Arguments we may find in all the Ancient Writers who have engaged in this Controversy and from hence we learn not only what they thought of the distinction of Persons between Father and Son but what kind of Person they believed the Son to be such a Person as has a Personal Knowledge and Will and Power who is capable of being sent of receiving and executing Commands and has all this as distinctly in himself as he is a distinct Person The Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father but each of them know by their own Personal Knowledge the Father wills and the Son wills and wills all the same with the Father but each of them wills by his own Personal Will the Father works and the Son works and they inseparably do the same things but each of them work by their own Personal Power Knowledge and Will and Power of acting is essential to the Notion of a Person and therefore every distinct Person must have a distinct Personal Knowledge and Will and Power and those must acknowledge this who prove the distinction of Persons from distinct Personal Acts as all these Fathers did This is all we ask when we assert a distinction of Persons in the Trinity and this we must insist on or deny a Trinity for if there are not Three who have all the same distinct Personal Acts there cannot be Three distinct compleat Persons for Personal Acts shew a Person and distinct Personal Acts prove distinct Persons and in this sense as all these Arguments prove the Ancient Fathers owned a distinction of Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead Their distinction between Deus invisibilis and Deus visibilis the invisible and visible God whereby they proved the real distinction between God the Father and God the Son is an undeniable Proof of their Opinion in this matter for I urge it no farther It was the received Opinion as far as I can find of all the Ancient Fathers till St. Austin That God the Father never appeared in any visible Representation of himself for he tells Moses No man can see my face and live And St. Iohn assures us No man hath seen God at any time but the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him And yet in the Old Testament we frequently read of God's appearing to men which they therefore expound of God the Son and that his Appearance in a visible Form was a Preludium to his Incarnation This we may see largely proved by Tertullian and St. Hilary and observed by St. Athanasius and the plain consequence they draw from it is That this invisible and visible God cannot be one and the same Person and the consequence is so selâ—-evident that it needs no Proof but it evidently proves what a real substantial as well as distinct Person they thought the Son who could visibly appear while the Father remained invisible for as a visible and invisible God can't be the same Person so a visible God must be a real substantial Person And though St. Austin was of opinion That those Three Men which appeared to Abraham were the Three Persons of the Sacred Trinity and thereby rejected the distinction of the invisible and visible God by attributing a visible Appearance to God the Father which none of the Ancients had done before him yet by these Three distinct Appearances he confirmed the real distinction of the Divine Persons who were as distinct Persons as they appeared to be and therefore as distinct as Three Human Persons for they appeared as Three distinct men And therefore he observes That whereas Two of these Three went to Lot in Sodom Lot speaks to them as to One 19. Gen. 18. And Lot said unto them Oh not so my Lord And justifies Lot in this That though they were two yet they were equal and he would not divide the Father and Son and urges this against the Sabellians who made Father and Son One Person I do not justify St. Austin in this because I doubt whether the Argument be good but by this we may understand St. Austin's Judgment of the real distinction of Persons And to the same purpose the Voice from Heaven at our Saviour's Baptism This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and the Descent of the Holy Spirit like a Dove and lighting upon him is urged by the Ancient Fathers to prove a real Trinity of Divine Persons The Voice from the Father in Heaven the Son on earth and the Holy Ghost descending like a Dove which being Three distinct Manifestations and all at a time must represent the Father who spoke from Heaven the Son who was on Earth and the Holy Ghost who descended like a Dove to be Three distinct Persons not One single Person which cannot speak of himself in the Third Person nor descend on himself in a distinct visible Appearance The Sabellians being unable to maintain this Point which is so manifestly absurd and so irreconcilable with all the forms of speech used in Scripture concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost found it necessary to allow some distinction between them but yet were so afraid of Tritheism that they kept religiously to their main Point that One God was but One Person and therefore would admit of no other distinction but what was reconcilable with the Unity of a Person 2. Hence secondly some of them taught That the Son is distinguished from the Father not as one Person is distinguished from another but as a man's Word or Wisdom which is in his Heart and Soul may be distinguished from himself that is That the Son is not a living substantial subsisting Word no more than the Word of a Man which is only the motion of a living subsisting heart but does not live and subsist it self but being spoke it vanishes and being often repeated never continues and therefore is not another Man nor Man of Man nor with Man as the Divine Word is true and perfect God God of God and God with God and therefore they make God and his Word but One Person as Man and his Word is One Man In answer to this St. Athanasius urges all those Texts which prove Christ and God the Father to be Two
the better for it An Union of Substances seems to signify some kind of Contact which is hard to conceive between Body and Spirit but however an Union of Contact and an Union of Life are two very different kinds of Union and do not include or infer each other and therefore the true Answer to that Question How Soul and Body are united is not to say That their Substances are united or fastened together which gives us no notion of a Vital Union but that the Soul lives in the Body and gives life to it receives impressions srom it and governs its motions But to inquire farther is to inquire into the Reasons of Natural and Essential Unions which are as great Mysteries as Nature is We may as well ask How a Soul lives as how it animates a Body and God alone knows both So that to inquire after the Natural Nexus or Cement of this Union is nothing at all to the purpose and is not the Object of Human Knowledge Now though the Vital Union between Soul and Body and the Union of mutual Consciousness be of a very different Kind and Nature yet the Dispute about the Nexus or the Natural Union of Substances is much the same Consciousness is the Unity of a Spirit Self-consciousness is the Unity of a Person and by the same reason mutual Consciousness is a Natural Union of Three distinct Self-conscious Persons in the Unity of the same Nature And to reject this for want of a Nexus or the Natural Union of Substances is as if we should deny the Union of Soul and Body to be an Union of Life or Animation because this don't explain the Natural Nexus between Soul and Body If a Mutual Conscious Union be an Essential Union of Three distinct Persons in the same Nature as a Vital Union is the Essential Union of Soul and Body we have nothing to do in either Case with the Union of Substances which we can know nothing of and if we could should understand these Unions never the better for it For whatever Union of Substance we may suppose between Soul and Body and the Three Divine Persons in the Holy Trinity it is the Kind and Species of Union which gives us the Notion and Idea of it If you inquire what Spirit and what Matter is It would not be thought a good Answer to these Questions to say a Spirit is a Substance and Matter is a Substance without adding their Specifick Differences that a Spirit is an intelligent thinking Substance and Matter is an extended Substance nor is it a better Answer to that Question what Union there is between Soul and Body or between the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity To say That their Substances are united which gives us no distinct Notion of their Union but a Vital Union and a Mutual Conscious Union contain distinct Ideas and if these be Natural and Essential Unions though we know no more of the Union of Substances than we do what Substance is yet we know that the Soul and Body must be one Natural Person and the Three Divine Persons must be naturally and essentially One God for a Natural Union makes One according to the Nature of that Union It is visible enough what has occasioned this Mistake Men consider Mutual Consciousness between Three Compleat Absolute Independent Minds and rightly enough conclude that how conscious soever they were to each other this could not make them essentially One for every compleat Mind is One by it self and not naturally Conscious to any One but it self and by whatever Power they should be so united as to be mutually Conscious this could not make them essentially One they would be Three Mutually Conscious Minds not essentially One Mind for they are not by Nature One nor mutually Conscious and therefore may be parted again and cease to be so But then in this way of stating it the Objection equally lies against the Perichoresis the inseparable Union and In-being of Minds which can never make Three Compleat Absolute Minds essentially One But if we apply this to the Union of Living Subsisting Intelligent Relatives of the same Individual Essence to Father Son and Holy Ghost Eternal Self-originated Mind its Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Eternal Spirit this Mutual Consciousness gives us the most Intelligible Notion of the Essential and Inseparable Union and In-being of Three in One. I dare not say what other Men can do but I have tried my self and can form no Notion of an Unity in Trinity but what either necessarily includes or ultimately resolves it self into One Natural Essential Consciousness in Three The Divine Nature is indivisibly and inseparably One in Three but we must not understand this Inseparability after the manner of Bodies whose Parts may be divided and separated from each other God is not Body and has no Parts but in the Unity of the Godhead there is Eternal Original Mind an Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit which are inseparable from each other that is can never be parted What then can parting and separating signify in a Mind which has no Parts to be torn and divided from each other I can understand nothing by it but that the Mind does no longer see and know and feel its Word in it self nor the Word the Mind for this would make a perfect Separation between the Mind and its Word that Mind has no Word which does not see and feel it in it self and were it possible that a living subsisting Word should lose all Conscious Sensation of the Mind whose Word it is it would cease to be a Word and commence a perfect separate Mind it self So that as far as we can conceive it the Inseparable Union between Father and Son between Original Infinite Mind and its Eternal Word is an inseparable Conscious Life and Sensation which is such a Natural Demonstration of their Inseparable Union as no other Notion can give us for all Men feel that a Mind and its Word can never be parted a Mind can never be without its Word nor the Word subsist but in the Mind Thus what other possible Notion can we form of the Perichoresis or Mutual In-being of Father and Son as our Saviour tells us I am in the Father and the Father in me which is their Natural and Essential Unity I and my Father are one We all feel how the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word the Mind knows and feels and comprehends its own Word and a perfect living subsisting Word knows and feels that whole Mind whose Word it is in it self for the Word is nothing else but the whole Mind living and subsisting in the Word which is another Hypostasis but perfectly One and the same Nature and therefore as they know themselves so they know and feel each other in themselves As the Father knoweth me saith Christ so know I the Father 10 John 15. And thus to see and know God by an Internal Sensation and to be
in him are â—quivalent Expressions in Scripture 1 John 18. No man hath seen Gâ—d at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Where to see God and to be in the Bosom of the Father must signify the same thing for to be in the Bosom of the Father is put in the place of seeing God that is to see him within to see him in his Bosom as the Word sees the Mind and this is to be in his Bosom and thus the Son is in the Father The same Account we have of the Holy Spirits being in God 1 Cor. 2.11 For what man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of man which is in him even so the things of Gâ—d knoweth no man but the Spirit of God that is the Spirit of God is in God as the Spirit of a Man is in Man and therefore by this In-being the Spirit of God knows all the Things of God by such an Internal Conscious Sensation as the Spirit of Man knows what is in Man Thus what is the Unity of Energy and Operation but the same Conscious Will and Power acting distinctly but inseparably in Three for without this Internal Consciousnâ—ss they must be Three separate Wills and separate Powers and produce distinct and separate Effects but when God his Word and Spirit are in each other and see and know and feel each other in themselves as a Man's Mind his Word and Spirit do though in a more perfect and excellent manner there can be but One undivided Motion of the Divine Will as there is but One Conscious Life in Three the Son lives subsists wills understands and acts in and with the Father and therefore is but One Eternal Life One Almighty Will and Power Now as Novel as some Men think this Notion of the Vnity of Mutual Consciousness to be we meet with it more than once in express words in Sâ— Hilary whose Authority I hope is sufficient to vindicate it from the charge of Novelty Thus with reference to what our Saviour says No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him 11. Matth. 27. St. Hilary observes Hilar. de Trin. c. 2 Illis scientia mutua est illis vicissim câ—gnitio perfecta That Father and Son have a mutual perfect Knowledge of each other And this he asserts to be a Conscious Knowledge connate with him a Conscious Sensation of his Father's Nature in himself which our Sâ—viour himself signifies by his Unity of Nature and Operation with the Father as the Reader may see in the Margin Thus Tertullian long before describ'd this mutual Consciousness between God and his Eternal Word and Wisdom by what we feel in our selves when we silently muse alone our Word does as it were talk with us and return our Thoughts to us is present with us in every Turn and Motion and Pulse of Thought and internal Sensation as conscious to all within us Thus he tells us That the Son alone knows the Father and does not his own but his Father's Will which he knows de proximo imo de initio that is by an immediate Intuitive Knowledge not by External Communication but by Internal Sensation Thus the Son does nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do in sensu scilicet facientem in his own Mind and Will Pater enim sensu agit the Father does all things by disposing and ordering all things in his own Mind and Will Filius vero qui in sensu Patris est videns perficit The Son who is in the Mind and Sense and Will of the Father sees the Father's Will and does it Now let any Man tell me what else can be meant by the Sons being in sensu Patris videns in sensu Patris but this Internal Conscious Sensation St. Cyril of Alexandria calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Son Wills together with the Father and with the same Will Dionysius the Areopagite says This Union does not only exceed all bodily Unions but the Unions also of Souls and Minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Fulgentius tells us The Word was with God sicut in mente verbum sicut in câ—rde consilium as the Word is in the Mind and Counsel in the Heart Marius Victorinus Afer tells us to the same purpose That the Son being in the Bosom of the Father signifies that he is God that he is in the Bosom and Womb of his Substance and therefore they are Consubstantial each of them being in each other and knowing each other But not to multiply Quotations all those Catholick Fathers and Doctors who placed the Unity of the Godhead in Consent and none of them rejected this in a Catholick Sense could understand nothing less by it than this mutual natural Consciousness for any other Consent was down right Arianism as St. Hilary witnesses and yâ—t thus the famous Lucian whom the Arians would have challenged as theirs but whom the Catholick Church always owned expresses it in his Creed and thus per substantiam tria per consonantiam verò unum Three in Substance but in Consent and Agreement One is justified by St. Hilary Hilar. de Synod as very Catholick but then he refers this to the Holy Spirit who is the substantial Bond and Cement of this Union and Consent But Gregory Nyssen who allows of this Unity of Consent more intelligibly represents it by the Consent and Uniformity of all the Motions between the Prototype and its Image or a Man's Face in a Glass which moves and acts with it Thus Christ is the Image of the Invisible God and is immediately and instantly affected together with his Father Does the Father Will any thing The Son also who is in the Father knows the Fathers Will or rather is the Father 's Will. But this I think is sufficient to be said about mutual Consciousness which is so manifestly the Doctrine of the Fathers of some in express Terms and of all according to the true Interpretation of what they taught that I cannot imagine the meaning of this furious Zeal against it but a Sabellian Zeal against Three Conscious Persons for one single Self-conscious Nature As St. Hilary observes in the Dispute between the Sabellians and Arians The Arians allowed Father and Son to be Two Distinct Persons but denied their Consubstantiality or Unity and Sameness of Nature The Sabellians who denied the distinction of Persons but asserted the Sameness Unity and Singularity of Nature which they thought sufficiently proved One Person as well as One Nature as no doubt but it does confuted the Arian Dissimilitude of Nature by what our Saviour says I and my Father are one which they said could be the Language of none but of a Nature conscious to it self of its own Identity and Sameness which