God-head before the Incarnation For this account will admit the Personality of Christ to be founded first †P. 32. in the Humane Nature according to some of his Lordship's Criticks which he dares not contradict who place the foundation of the Sonship in the lower Nature Yea this Description will admit the Patripassian Heresie of but one Person in the Deity For if the Eternal Word were no Person distinct from the Father the Union thereof with the Humanity constitutes the Father an incarnate Person or otherwise by this State of his Lordships Doctrine the Father Son and Holy Ghost may be conceived as one incarnate Person Whereas his Lordship well knows our Faith to be clear That the Eternal Word is personally distinct or a distinct Person from the Father and alone assumed the Humanity into a Personal Union with himself and so alone was the Person of Christ exceptively of the Father and the Holy Ghost from this Personality and Character § 5. Now if a Man would enquire into the Motives of this affected obscurity in his Lordship that leaves open a gap to so many Heresies his Lordship's Words would lead one to a conclusion or at least a fair jealousie that his Lordship does not believe any Distinction really Personal between the Father Word and Holy Spirit but that the true and real Personality of Christ is proper to the Humane Nature For he teacheth us that those whom the Church calleth Persons the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Where that artificial Word only derogates from the propriety and fitness of the term Person as if the Scripture terms did not come up to it nor justifie it And if his Lordship will stand by the †P. 45. plain intention of his Words elsewhere he places Christ's Personality only in his Manhood in these words That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word So that the Word must be different from the Person in whom it dwelt which must be the Heresie of Sabellius Maâ—… or Nestorius In short while he 〈◊〉 the Canonical term of Person to contain some notion in it not imported in the Scripture terms he seems for that cause to censure it for that the Scripture does not come up so far as to teach three Persons but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost But when he says this third Opinion is than by the Incarnation God and Man truly became one Person I would fain know whether the term Person be proper for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no If not the Doctrine is to be blamed that teaches him to be truly one Person since the truth of a Character is the greatest propriety and if it be not true the Doctrine that teaches it is to be cashiered But if to avoid this it be true then I would fain be instructed whether the Church does not use the term Person in the same formal intention concerning the Father Son and Holy Spirit when She calls them three Persons as She does when She calls Christ or the Son of God incarnate a Person For if She uses the term in the same formal intention then if the Christ be a proper Person so are the Father and Holy Spirit two other Persons properly and truly distinct in the sense of the Church but if the Church has one intention in the Term when applied to Christ 〈◊〉 God-man and another when applied to the Eternal Trinity let this be made out by just Authority and I have done § 6. But the Order of his Lordship's Discourse obliges me to break off a little from this Disquisition till the next Section where we must resume it For he tells us if we will believe him that the term Person by those of our Perswasion came to be applied to the three to discover those who thought that these three were different names of the same thing which were for the most part and were generally called Patripassians and were expelled as Hereticks from the Church Now wherein lay their Heresie Why in this That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were not three co-essential Persons really distinct which was the Catholick Faith instead of which they coined this pretence That those Names had not three distinct subjects of which they were predicates or denominations but only were three titles of God the Father who became incarnate and suffered for us Now hence it appears that their Heresie consisted in the denial of what was ever before received in the Church That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were three Persons And if so then is his Lordship's insinuation false and injurious that the term Person had its rise and occasion from Patripassianism and consequently is of a later Date that by this fraudulent Hypochronism the term and the sense of it may be taken for not Primitive and Traditional but a mere later and artificial invention Now to prove what I say to be true I am to produce authentick Testimonies Now in the Latin World the first I ever have read of that taught Patripassianism was Praxeas against whose Heresie herein Tertullian wrote and charged in for denying the Eternal Word to be a * Tert. ad Praxeam Non vis enim eum substantiâ—um habere in re per substantiae proprietatem ut res persona quaedam videri possit substantial and real Person which Tertullian though then a Montanist then asserted with the Church though his †Tert. ibid. Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam Personam conditam Sic Filius in suâ personâ profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae Novatian de Trinit secundam Personam efficiens terms and senses were sometimes very singularly odd concerning the production of the second Person In the Eastern Church several lapsed into the like Error the most famous of which was Sabellius from whom the Heresie was entitled Sabellianism which denied what that Church also had ever asserted That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were three Persons instead whereof they asserted them to be but one Person For the truth hereof I shall recite the Words †Athan. con Sabell Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Athanasius as beyond all Exception valid From whence it appears that the Sabellians asserted but one Person against that Plurality of Persons fore-acknowledged in the Church And now I leave it to his Lordship to explain how the denial of three Persons could be Apostasie as this Father calls it had not the Faith of them been before expresly avowed and received For Heresie is an opposition of true received Faith and Apostasie must be from an antecedent Profession So that the Doctrine of a Personal Trinity was not later than Patripassianism but the Original Faith Nor does his Lordship seem candid in concealing this which was the substance of that Heresie while he mentions only their teaching three Names of one thing or Person which was a Conâ—ectary or at least a Colour added to
of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation †P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus
cum Tryph. Clem. Alex. Protrep Tertull Praesc adv Jud. con Marcion l. 2. con Prax. Novatian de Trinit Euseb Praep. Ev. l. 7. c. 15. con Marcell l. 2.17 Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 2. Panegyrista Paulini ap Eus Eccl. Hist l. 10. Constant ad Sanctor Caetum ap Euseb c. 9. Pastor Hermae l. 3. Similit 9. Athenag Legat. Theoph. ad Autolyc Orig. con Cels l. 1. l. 2. l. 3. l. 4. l. 5. l. 6. l. 7. de Princip l. c. 2. Cypr. de Idol Vanit Basil con Eunom l. 5. Serm. in Princip Naz. de sacr Pasch Prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Roman Martyr in Apotheof Greg. Thaumat ad Origen Athan. ubique Pseudo-Ambros de fide con Arian Aug. con 5. Haeres in Evan. Joh. c. 1. Tract 1 2. de Tempor Ser. 190. infinities plura reperies ejusdem generis apud omnes Primitive as well as suceeding Ages to be sealed with their Blood and Sufferings and was not a mere upstart project to supply the former Tritheism taught in the more ancient Church Now if according to the common and universal Senses and Notions of all Men the Mind is the Parent and Original of all actual Reason in it then if the Divine Reason be the truest and most Essential Reason the Parent Principle thereof must be the truest and most Essential Mind which Principle of this Reason the Scripture having owned Paternal it follows that God the Father is an Eternal Mind having a coessential Reason for its coessential Issue the perfect Image and Character of its Parent § 22. In the next place let us see whether the Character of the Holy Spirit agrees well to the Substantial Love of God according to the Doctrine of the traduced Ancients Let it then be noted that that Mind in which a vital and consubstantial reason perfectly subsists doth by that reason in one clear intuitive luminous and Archetypal Idea discern all possible Forms Essences Habitudes Powers and Reasons of things and therefore very particularly all the distinctive forms and differences of good and evil From whence there must proceed in such a Mind and Reason a vital and essential Spirit which we in our Language would perhaps call a Principle of Holiness to wit an essential Love of all the Forms and Reasons of Good and therein an essential aversation of all the kinds and degrees of Evil this being but one and the same Spirit having different aspects on different objects Now without such a Spirit of Love and Holiness no being can be perfectly good or happy since perfect goodness as well as happiness consists essentially in love and purity Now the goodness of things must be the proper object of such Love and must be discerned by that actual Reason that contains in it the Idea's of all things possible Whence this Love is as essential to the Deity as Reason and thereupon the Apostle faith †1 Joh. 4.8 that God is Love the suum of which truth is nobly celebrated * Const ad Sanct. Caet ap Eus c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the great Constantine as the Doctrine which he had been taught by the Christian Fathers herein according with the perpetual Theology of God's People who ever acknowledge this Holiness of the Divine Wisdom and Spirit from its constant indication For * Sap. Sal. 1 3 4 5. froward thoughts separate from God and into a malicious Soul Wisdom will not enter nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will fly deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in for Wisdom is a loving Spirit c. § 23. But here again a fresh difficulty arises from the homonymy of terms For St. Paul calling our Lord †1 Cor. 1.24 the Wisdom of God the generality and the exactest of the Fathers follow him in that style and make the Wisdom and Logos to be the same subsistence distinct from the Holy Spirit Some of the Ancients as great as any speaking distinctly * Iren. Theoph. Antiochen p. 81. c. 108.114 distinguish the Logos from the Sophia and make the Sophia the Person of the Holy Spirit and yet again at other times †Theoph. Antioch p. 81. confound the Logos and Sophia for the same second Person the Son * Theoph. p. 81. Tertull whom also they call the Spirit of God the Father Wherefore 't is necessary to our Theory that we remove this Cloud And here we are to distinguish Wisdom into speculative and practical for which distinction there is apparent authority in the Scripture and ground in our own inner Experience Now the Reason of any Spiritual Nature is its formal proper speculative Wisdom but an Holy Spirit and temper of Mind is the practical In this latter sense the forequoted place out of the Apochryphal Wisdom calls the loving Spirit of God or his Spirit of Discipline Wisdom but †Sap. Sal. 7.22 c. elsewhere the same Author Preaches that in Wisdom which is the Artificer of all things there is a Spirit which among other attributes is Holy and loves the thing that is good and is Almighty where the in-existence of the Holy Spirit of Love in that Wisdom the Artificer of all things puts a distinction between this Spirit and Wisdom and so hereby Wisdom in this place as well as by its Character must be the Archetypal Logos or Architectonick Reason of God the Father And hence these ambiguous Fathers seem to have copied their Theories and Language sometimes calling the Logos Wisdom to wit the intuitive sometime the Holy Spirit as the practical Wisdom of God the Father And so there are learned Men that ground the alledged homonymy of the Word Spirit in some forms of Scripture But I that think the Scripture as a Rule for Canonick Theology thinking it unsafe to fix any exorbitant Senses on the Terms expressive of the Trinity without absolute necessity am apt to think those Fathers called the Logos the Spirit of God sometimes through some Scriptures by them so mistaken or appearing in that sense to them under a loose and general Notion that whatsoever issues from the Essence of God the Father so issues by a Spiritual Efflux or else is of a Spiritual Substance as the Father is and so as Tertullian calls the Logos Spirit of Spirit and God of God But since all these Fathers expresly own a Trinity of Persons the third of which is signally characterized by the appropriate Title of Holy Spirit there can be no doubt of the consonancy of their Faith to the Catholick Doctrine and to this Theory of it in the Holy Spirit which to serve his Lordship I am here to illustrate § 24. These Bars being thus removed we shall proceed to examine on what ground this Substantial Love of God is called by the name of Spirit Now this
mention also that the Devil who long time universally tyrannized is yet never said to be poured out upon all Flesh But now the aforesaid Attributes given to the Prince of Devils manifestly set forth his Supremacy in the Kingdom of Darkness and therefore in the Kingdom of God the like Phrases of the Holy Spirit of God must denote his Supremacy therein and by consequence his Deity since God alone is the one Supreme King of that Kingdom and thus our Faith is established firmly against the Macedonians also § 32. Now of what hath been said thus much I believe would be granted by all the Anti-personists that there is in God the Father an essential Reason and Spirit of Sanctity though not personally subsistent For a Person being with them a complete suppositum rationale and intellectual Subject or Being separate and standing single from all others they hold it a contradiction to hold three Persons in one individual Deity § 33. To this I hope to give so just and candid an answer as may embolden his Lordship to joyn in the Litany heartier and to speak clearer next time in his Theological Essays The name Person or whatsoever answers thereto in the learned Languages first of all signifies a Man's Face natural and artificial and thence the whole single Man hence after were the Gods in profane and intellectual Spirits in sacred Writings represented personally and so now the Term Person agrees to all single intelligent Beings by common and inartificial use But we that have no natural Idea of the Modes of Subsistence peculiar to Father Son and Holy Spirit without Divine Revelation cannot without it conceive the form of their Personality So for this we must rest wholly on Divine Revelation And accordingly I would describe a Person for a Theological Term thus whatsoever hath Personal Titles and Characters properly attributed to it by God's Word the same is a Person though we cannot frame an Idea of the form of its Personality And then I can add but the Divine Mind Reason and Holy Spirit have three properly distinguishing Personal Characteristick Titles Father Son and Paraclete to be owned in our avowed Faith and Baptism therefore these three are three distinct Persons though we cannot form a natural Idea of the Mode of their Personality * Aug. de Tempor Ser 189 Ego Personas in Patre Filio Spiritu Sancto non dico quasi personas hominum Personam Patris dico quod Pater est Filii quod Filius est Spiritus Sancti quod Spiritus Sanctus est dividuntur enim proprietatibus sed naturâ sociantur and though yet we are sure they are not separate and disjoyned like three Humane Persons In this mystery therefore the sense of this term is not vulgar nor of common Notion but peculiarly and necessarily Technical For since God hath revealed that in the Unity of his Nature there is one first Principle with two other co-eternally emanant or descendent from him and subsisting individually in him by which he created and governs all things and this under the Personal and Distinctive Characters of Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete and many other Personal Attributes distinctive of their proper Subsistences in the Essential Unity of the Godhead the Term Person fell unavoidably into Canonical use though under a strict care against the vulgar notion of Humane or such like separate Persons and restrained only to the revealed Theories of the Mystery And under this regular limitation I challenge the Art of the World to sind out any one Characteristick Term so fit proper and congruous to denote their formal Personalities ascribed to them in the Scripture as this of Person in which the whole Catholick Church of old unanimously agreed antecedently to any Conciliar Definitions and is therefore of greater Antiquity and Authority than the Greek Hypostasis which though well founded in * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. yet was a while of ambiguous use and interpretation till it was by the help of Athanasius and others canonically adjusted and fixed according to the sense of our Term Person And yet supposing a sensible defect in these Terms Person and Subsistence what modest Man would upbraid the whole Church of God for such an insuperable impotency in Humane Nature which all wise Men perceive and own in their speaking of God after its utmost endeavours cares and consultations upon cogent necessities to fix the terms of our Faith and Doctrine in the best manner possible while yet the Revilers can produce nothing better or equal 'T is certainly an intollerable indecency against the Gravity Duty Care and Right ' of Men that are in Authority of proscribing Doctrines in any Profession what soever for to such certainly it belongs to fit Terms of Art to their Theories as reason shall require as well as they can without the merit or hazard of malevolence and detraction § 34. But because I would fill the thirsty and candid Soul with a satisfying Theory herein I will dig deeper into the grounds of these Personal Characters in the Scriptures and the Traditional Term of Person thence Canonically used First then Personality is a Character only of what is substantial and intellectual as are the Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete who therefore have a good ground of bearing those Personal Titles But tho' these peculiar Titles have this common Basis yet have they their peculiar and formal reasons of Distinction The first Principle of all being called Father from his Eternal generation of the Logos which is called Son from being so eternally generated of the Father's Substance without division or partition thereof And * Con. Arian Orat. 2. here the Father being ever Father never Son and the Logos ever Son never Father St. Athanasius justly as well as sagaciously appropriates these Titles to these Persons in a primary Right and peculiar Excellency above all others since earthly Persons change their Character being one while Sons other while Fathers and Sons other while Fathers only and other while neither The Personal Distinctives of the Holy Spirit are taken from his connatural Operations and Offices which are Personal and the Titles therefore apposite Now that the essential Reason and Spirit of God the Father should each be as equally Personal as the Socinians themselves confess the Father to be will hence appear rational for that they are consubstantial with him and as substantially Divine as that Eternal Mind from and in which they are and live without any inequality in their Nature Perfection or essential Dignity And therefore if one be distinctly Personal so must the others also And therefore the Pronoun He first belonging to God original i. e. the Father as the first Person is properly also communicable to the other Persons each of them deriving their Deity and Personal subsistence from him with peculiar reasons of their proper Personal Characters and Distinctions And hence it was necessary to a just
a Creature St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expresly written and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors So that his Lordship's Observation though never so well intended is however partly false and partly impertinent And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it it will amount to no more than this That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature because he whom the Christians worshipp'd in our flesh was by them owned to be the Eternal God Yet no doubt the Jews ever did and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature who really as they think had no Deity in him else had they also thought him to be God they had been ipso facto converted to us the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine So unlucky is his Lordship even in the fairest part of this Discourse as if God had laid this Curse on him that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum c. PART II. § 1. I Have now I think performed my first undertaking that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith A truth so evident to his own Clergy even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities that they ascribe all or seem willing so to do to haste inconsideration and want of judgment not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse I cannot tell but at the best they are but Fig-leaves For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor first uttered to a learned Body and after exposed to the Censure of the World in a matter most fundamental in Christianity most liable to prejudices and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith with their unaccuracies and impertinencies and this not in their particular and private conceptions which the Church hath not authorized but in their most Catholick and established Theories Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men and not to have needed the Candor of a Reader § 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality that 't is not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character The Fathers it is true were Men and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these not with a design to blacken their memory but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions he had dealt very commendably But it falls out quite otherwise For he Taxes them for no real obliquities but their Catholick Principles fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamed of and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them he gives them not so much as one good word but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Bablers which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresie I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England Sure I am as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith so modesty ought to have repressed it if for no other consideration yet for this one reason That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers § 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies which he introduces thus by telling his Clergy that †P. 31. he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood and in what respect these Persons which he calls so according to custom not his own sense are believed to be one and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any other Account of it is to take away its mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible Now what doth this prima facie intimate but that it is not laid down in the Scripture in what respect the Persons are one nor in what respect they are Three But first in the Doctrine of Unity I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence notwithstanding all the wriggles of Hereticks not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7 which his Lordship has exposed * Letter I from Zurich for doubted but in many others And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity I will adventure the proof of it But if his Lordship be not so hardy then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip not a designed Artifice Let it be so yet is it a dangerous one and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction to the service of heretical Comprehensions The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One. This saith he is Scripture * Antap. p. 5. but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not What is this fetch for but that we may not press the Heretick's to own an essential Unity but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith But secondly his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three according to the Scriptures which do instruct us herein with certain notions and respects by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence For are not Father and Son Personal Characters and founded on a substantial generation the Father being the Person Generant as such and the Son the Person generated as such And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind and as such distinguished from its Parent The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and
the Son on which account he hath personal and distinctive Pronouns and Attributes given him Which shews the form of distinction to be Personal and the different Mode of their descent origination and mission So much therefore of the Modes of their distinction being taught by the Scriptures is also well taught by the Church and ought to have been so by his Lordship though other Modes of this Subsistence that are not revealed pass our measures and capacities and Men's inauthentick speculations on them are not to be admitted for Catholick or Canonical § 4. And now we come to consider the exorbitances of the Fathers in their teaching the Respects and Modes of this Unity and Distinction †P. 31. In this saith his Lordship too many both Ancients and Moderns have perhaps gone beyond due bounds while some were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanations and a foecundity in the Divine Essence Now here it must be noted that the Ancients and Moderns which his Lordship here speaks of are the Defenders of the Faith of the Trinity against the Arian and other Ancient Heresies Now as great Friends as my Lord and Petavius are I would fain know how they can be reconciled herein For if * Petav. citat Bullo in Prooem Defens Fid. Nicen. p. 8. Arius were a genuine Platonist in the created pre-existence of the Logos how came any of the Anti-Arian Ancients to be Platonick in their Doctrines of Eternal Pre-existence and Emanations 'T is hard that Arians and Catholick Fathers should both be in the same Platonick Errors in a point in which they were contradictory and in which alone their great division was founded But as for the Eternal Emanations asserted by the Fathers they were taught purely from all ill mixtures of Platonists and others in that while they from sacred Tradition assert those Effluxes yet they all deny them to be like corporeal Emanations by corporeal abscissions or divisions of parts It would be endless to cite places of this kind Let it suffice that the Doctrine of Emanation * Sap. Sal. 7.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was pure Jewish Theology by which term received into the forms of Christian Theology they meant the derivation of the whole Divinity from the Father to the Logos and the Holy Spirit without †Athan. Expos Fid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. de Syn. Nic. con Arian decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any division or partition of Substance For the truth of which I referr instead of many to one Athanasius that spake the sense of the whole Church in his time and of the Fathers before him Now the Fathers all denying an emanation which like that of Bodies consists in abscission of Parts will hereby be discharged from the fancies of Platonick Emanations which the * P. 28. Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity charges with such Abscission in the Platonick Triad We are not yet advanced to the Beatisick Vision nor the tongues of Angels nor if we were could we adequately describe the glorious Mysteries of these Divine Subsistences yet God himself gives us leave to speak of his revealed Truths herein according to our infirmities that we who see these Mysteries remotely and only by dark resemblances may communicate those notions in as remote forms of expression while we keep however to the Schemes himself has set us and embase those Theories with no Humane Corruptions And hence I freely allow the words of Emanation as being taken from the Images of corporeal Effluxes not to be fully equal to the Mystery intended but such as would be apt to lead us into crass and material conceptions of the Deity did not our Theology expresly forefend us But under this guard the terms are not only innocent but Authentick and that Authority with the Fathers descended not from Plato but from Canonical and allowed Scriptures which have set corporeal Emanations as dark Symbols of these internal Communications of the Divine Essence in the Trinity of which sort of Similes are the * Athan. ad Serap Sp. S. non esse Creaturam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Id. de Syn. Nic. con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. con Arian Orat. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Rays and Emanations of Light and Glory and the streams of Fountains from which in the Scriptures the Fathers have taken those Emanatory forms of expression which therefore owe not their Authority or Reception to Plato that so his Lordship should call them Platonical in derogation to the Grandeur of the Christian Theology like the reproach of Amelius upon St. John as if he also had preached the Philosopher 'T is true indeed the Primitive Fathers writing for our Faith against Gentilism do often cite this Philosopher not as an Author of our Principles but as a good witness to the Greeks for their Credibility though sometimes when upbraided with him by the Heathens they freely call him a plagiary of the Jewish and Sacred Theology which he afterwards cook'd up after a Greek Mode Now the Corruptions in Plato's Doctrine of the Trinity the Fathers use not nor are pleased with but those seeds of true Theology that are in him they love and cherish not as Plato's but as God's the Wisdom of God having graciously permitted some Notions and Rudiments of Faith to be conveyed to the Wise of the Heathen before the publication of Christianity to prepare a way for its after-reception and vindication among them And having thus vindicated the Ancients in their Doctrines of these Essential Emanations let me observe how tectly sly and abusive his Lordship's Reflexion on them is Some saith he were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanation as if all the Catholick Ancients had not the same Notions of Emanation but some were for and some against these Emanations But here it had been fair to have graced the Margin with the Catalogue of the Emanatory and Antiemanatory Ancients and I do here urge and challenge his Lordship to produce them in foro to speak for themselves before sentence be passed upon them This I doubt is an hard task but a demand that cannot be denied me without shame But it seems these Platonick Ancients were grown old unto Dotage and become Children again and as such were pleased poor Souls with the pretty Baubles that Plato invented for them and thus we have made a good beginning upon the Fifth Commandment if the Sense thereof may extend to the Fathers of our Religion and the Church § 5. To the absurdity of Emanations succeeds that of foecundity in the Divine Essence which his Lordship taxes in both Ancients and Moderns that is most eminently in St. Athanasius and Bishop Pearson that were in their respective Ages the exactest and gravest Divines in the World without exception or diminution
Simile and always alledged it to the explication of the Nicene form without fear of being impeached of Sabellianism But as for Justin's Simile of several Fires and Tatian's several Torches though the invaluable Dr. Bull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hereby well shews that these Ancients held the Homoousion yet * Bull Defen Fid. Nie. p. 357. Similia autem quae post ea quae hue usque explicavimus adbibet Tatianus ad mysterium sive aeternae productionis sive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utcunque iâ—â—â—strandum nolo omnino praestare c. he confesses Tatian's Simile which is the same with Justin's to be lame and such as he will not make out and so with this note I conclude this long disquisition § 9. But before we leave this our form of Faith it may not be amiss to find it out a better Original Now the Glorious purity of the Divine Essence is such that for it we have no adequate conception and therefore we are forced to celebrate it by names of the greatest Glories and Purities which we know and which seem by the intention of God in Nature to be Symbols of it And of all these the most Excellent is Light This in General St. Paul * Eph. 5.13 excellently defines that †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. whatsoever doth make manifest is Light according to the Greek derivation of the Word And accordingly the Vrim in the Pontifick Pectoral is by the Septuagint rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that that which is most excellently manifeslative that is the most perfect and true Light Of these there must be two sorts according to the two great parts of the Mundane System i. e. intellectual and corporeal and of these the intellectual are really the nobler and of these the manifestative Light of the Deity must be the truest and highest of all upon which no Manichean darkness can border Hence St. John saith that * 1 Joh. 1.5 God is light and in him is no darkness at all which is originally true of God the Father and as really true of the Son and Holy Spirit For of the Son the same St. John saith †Joh. 1.9 That he is the true Light that Lighteth every Man that cometh into the World and if true then not Parabolical or Metaphorical Only So that as the Scriptures teach the Father to be originally God and the Son really God of God the Father so when they teach God the Father to be true original Light and the Son to be true Light also by immediate consequence they teach the Son to be true Light of Light Original like that Text which the Fathers apply to this purpose In thy Light shall we see Light So that our Light of Light is not the product of a Simile in two Candles but a literal truth revealed in the Scriptures and thence as truly taken as God of God And we may as well deny the reality and truth of the Life of God deny him to be the living God though he himself swears by that Life and attests the truth of it as to deny that he is true Light which is expresly asserted of the Father and the Son Now the Son being what he is from the Father here is literal Scripture for Light of Light Light indeed inaccessible yet Light true and essential And from hence I dare deduce the Nicene form instead of that Chandlers Shop whence his Lordship's fancy had its illumination Here then will I fix his Lordship in this Question Whether the Logos the Son of God be really what the Scripture calls him true Light and Life If not I yield the Argument but at his Lordship's peril But if he really be then the Creed is true without a Metaphor from Divine Revelation not from humane conceits and adumbrations As for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I grant it a term metaphorical but that is nor in the Creed perhaps because a Simile and the same like all Similes below the dignity of the Hypostasis represented thereby but however this is nothing to his Lordship's pretty Simile that he found out for the good old Faith and Fathers but the Light of Light is as literally true as any thing spoken of God can be or is in Holy Scripture § 10. But supposing many Fathers had borrowed their dim light from these Candles yet it seems it led them like an Ignis fatuus into strange brakes if as his †Lordship taxes them * P. 31. in this way of explaining this matter they have said many things which intimate that they believed an inequality between the Persons and a subordination of the second and third to the first That the Fathers do teach a Pensonal Gradation or Subordination in the Deity Igrant and for the account hereof I referr to Dr. Bull 's fourth Section of his Great Monument of the Faith But had these Fathers fallen into the conceit of this Simile of Souls propagated from Souls or Candles lighted from Candles I cannot see how they could have bended it to assimilate such or any Subordination For there is none such between Souls propagated from Souls or Candles lighted from Candles though there be succession of time Beside Inequality and Subordination either Respects Essences or Persons and his Lordship ought to have named the particular sort least his Reader should be apt to mistake that these Fathers held an essential Inequality and Subordination as many Heresies did and the terms to common Ears will seem to import but this he leaves undetermined that we may not see him in the dark Besides even in the Personal Subordination his Lordship ought to have been clear that it signifies no proper Inferiority or Subjection such as is between supreme and inferiour Authorities among Men the plenitude of the Highest not being imparted to the Subject Governour which no Fathers assert in the Trinity and yet the terms of Inequality and Personal Subordination simply set without an explanatory guard will to common senses suggest this wrong Notion as the Sense of the Fathers though their Subordination is explicitely no other but what consists in the order of Emanations and the Operations ad extra accordingly the Father originally working all things by the Logos and the Holy Spirit who therefore were commonly called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministers and Officers to the Father till Hereticks took up their Words and Authorities for a Cavil to a greater degradation than ever was intended or would have been endured by those Fathers Wherefore his Lordship is obliged by all Laws of integrity to shew the exorbitancy of this Subordination which they all own or if not to prove that these Ancient Souls and Candlesticks propagated the Doctrine of any other Subordination which I dare undertake he can never do but without doing it must incurr the guilt of defaming the Innocent that are now with God § 11. But
grant such a conception allowable that there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies For if he be no Tritheist in allowing this Conception why does he reflect on it as Tritheite in the Fathers And yet his Lordship diversifies the Operations much more exclusively each of other Person than any Fathers do and in such a manner as inferrs a Tetrad in the Deity in which according to his Lordship the Father must be a second Principle For his words run thus †P. 42. In the Divine Essence which is the simplest and perfectest Vnity there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies By the first God may be supposed to have made and to govern all things by the second to have actuated and been most perfectly united to the Humanity of Christ and by the third to have inspired the Penmen of the Scriptures and the Workers of Miracles and still to renew and purifie all good Minds all which notwithstanding we firmly believe there is but one God Now whatsoever acts by another is distinct from that other by which it acts and prior in the Agency by the order of Reason If then God acts by the first which is the Father that God is in Nature and Subsistence antecedent to the Father and the first hath a former and if God who acts by three be distinct from those three by which he acts there are then four Distincts and Distinctions in the Deity or else the three are not essential in the Deity but only operant and unsubstantial Powers and Qualities Yet is it against Faith to say that God acts or creates by the Father because it makes him secondary by an unallowable conception the Canonical Faith herein being that God original or God the Father acts by his Son and Holy Spirit But whether we make the Father primary or secundary if we attribute the Creation to him exclusively of the Logos and Holy Spirit and the Inspirations to the Spirit exclusively of the Father and the Son and the Divine Operations in the Union of our Nature with the Logos to the Logos only exclusively of the Father and Holy Spirit according to his Lordship's scheme of conceptions we rove from truth from Scripture from Catholick Tradition which ascribes these to the single Persons by a peculiar respect of Oeconomick Order but not by an exclusive propriety of Operation And yet though his Lordship recommends this conception of such a separate Agency in his three Divine Anonymities yet can he find no such incongruities in the received Doctrines of those his despised Fathers But 't is time to take breath and consider what reformation following extinguished this Tritheism in the Catholick Church and Faith Why Others therefore laid another foundation in one numerical Deity or Being Now what is this but to insinuate nay openly to assert that the former Fathers that believed Emanations and Foecundity and argued from the specifick Homoousion with the respective Operations did not fundamentally own one individual Deity And yet how could they that stuck to the Nicene Creed deny the fundamental Article of one God which yet all the taxed Fathers defended as the Faith of all the former Fathers who made the Monarchy a fundamental Principle against Gentilism and were herein exactly and professedly followed by all their Successors Nay the feature of his Lordship's reflexion seems to attaint all Antiquity of Tritheism till after the Doctors of the specifick Homoousion and distinct Operations ceased as not holding the Unity of the Godhead for his conjunction therefore makes this Unity a post-nate Principle taken up upon the apprehension that the former Doctrines of the Church were Tritheite according to his Lordship's general Imputation § 14. And now it seems high time to observe upon what fancies for they are represented as such these Tritheite Principles were reformed by these over seri patrum nepotes * They then observed †P. 32. that the Sun besides its own Globe had an Emanation of Light and another of Heat which had different Operations and all from the same Essence And that the Soul of Man had both Intallection and Love which flowed from its Essence So they conceived that the Primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an Eternal Word it designed all things This they thought might be called the Son as being the generation of the Eternal Mind while from the fountain Principle together with the inward Word there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and that was to be the Soul of the Creation and was more particularly to animate the Church and in this Love all things were to have life and favour This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark nicety by the Schools and grew to be the universally received explanation So that it seems these conceptions these reforming conceptions are very novel and the Doctrine derived from them became not universal but by the Definitions of the Schools § 15. But before we come to justifie their due Antiquity let us consider whether as his Lordship represents them the Tritheism of the former Fathers were really amended by them For in this Simile here are two Emanations from the Globe of the Sun Light and Heat which have different Operations which if they represent different Operations of the different Persons in the Deity this reduces that Tritheism which the Simile was designed to avoid So unhappy were these Theological Tinkers in mending the former Theories § 16. But however let us see whether these Theories had not really a more early Original and Reception in the Universal Church I begin with the Simile of the Sun †Apolog c. 21. sup citat §. 7. Vide. Now Tertullian the most ancient of all our Latin Writers used this Simile and says that in respect thereof the Logos was ever backward celebrated under this Title as the Ray of God So * Instit l. 4. c. 29. ille tanquam Sol hic quasi radius à Sole porrectus Lactantius had learned the same Simile from Tertullian or his Church So †In Evan. Joh. c. 5. Tract 20. Si separas candorem Solis à Sole separa Verbum à Patre St. Austin an African likewise had from his Fathers derived the same Example of the Sun The Greek Fathers that lived in and just after the Nicene Council so often so uniformly and canonically use it who yet argued from the specifick Sense of the Homoousion that the citations of them would fill a Volume so this Fancy is not later than these Tritheit Homooufiasts And to let his Lordship see that it was an Ante-Nicene Simile not only the Scripture term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may convince but the express production of it * Theognost ap Athan de Syn. Nic. con Arian Decret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
perfection of Christian Theology that our Scriptures Faith and Tradition should Characterize the second and third Hypostasis as personally as the first for otherwise a Personal Distinction and Notion of one and Impersonal Distinctions of the others or either of them must have set them as unequal specifically different and heterogeneous in the same Deity and consequently not consubstantial or co-essential for that the Impersonals must have been in nature inseriour to the Personal which would make a most corrupt mixture a most praerupt and monstrous anomaly in the Godhead § 35. But perhaps some Men with whom no diversities are taken for true but the separate gross and material may censure this Diversity between the Eternal Mind Reason and Holy Spirit of Love so then notional and imaginary that it cannot sustain or ground any Characters personally distinctive without a very violent and abusive impropriety Now if my Lord or any other be in this prejudice let them note that there is a certain true Diversity between them and such as we can somewhat conceive from the Shade we have of it in our own Souls Whence a sedate Theory will conclude that the true and proper Modes of this their distinct subsistence in the Unity of the Godhead are in themselves most perfect and clear and as Illustrious as the Individual Glory of the Divine Essence which one day it will be our Heaven and Happiness more immediately to view in the fulness of indistant Light if at present we will be content to learn our Theories from God's Tradition and not preclude our selves from that blessed capacity by a wanton and affected infidelity for to this glorious intuition this Faith prepares us by cleansing us from Heathen Phaenomena of Providence and drawing us to the nobler Theories of the Creation and the Powers of its Author and exciting us to an active hope and pursuit of that Glory and Happiness that consists in the uninterrupted Vision of God In the mean time however it is rational to believe that there is a far greater reason in that diversity of their Individual consubsistence upon which Personal Attributes Characters Predicates and Distinctives are by the Rules of our Faith given unto them than any humane faculties can reach tho' in these upon Divine Revelation there is Light enought to support the congruity of this Tradition against all opposite Heresies whatsoever § 36. But the Scoffers will be apt to deride this Theory as aiming to render the Faith intelligible which as they think impossible because their prejudices have so fatally blinded them that they fansy no Man can discern what they cannot so will they say that these Theories take away the Mystery and consequently expose the venerableness thereof to contempt whereas it hath been our common Wisdom to cover our Absurdities with a superstitious veil and pretence of unsathomable Mystery Now what shall we do how shall we behave our selves between these contrary extremes To the Anti-Mysterists therefore I reply That if it be hereby made intelligible they have no reason to quarrel at it since their only complaint for their infidelity is that it is unintelligible But to the Crypto-Mysterists who give occasion to the Anti-Mysterists to deride us for absurdities c. I shall only need to say with * Con. Arian Orat. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. St. Athanasius The Faith is no Riddle to be kept in the dark but a Divine Mystery to illuminate our Souls In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God This was not given from Heaven to stupifie and amuse but to sublimate our Theories of God and to exercise our inner Senses unto previous Idea's of that Divinity which will be more immediately opened unto in the State of Glory St. Paul thought it a noble Wisdom to understand Mysteries 1 Cor. 13.2 to which all the Sons of Wisdom though to others there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are initiated Let it therefore be deep and recondite while it is rich and noble the treasure is the better for its difficulty and what is to be gotten is with joy to be communicated to such as have Ears to hear Tell but a Man that there are three in one and one in three without any other Theories how dry and infant must that Notion be How little life and taste is there in such a Rudiment But when a Man is brought by heavenly Theories of the Logos to have some apprehensions of the super-essential Excellency of the Father and almost to feel the vital Love of the Holy Spirit to view hereby the Originals of the Creation and the Schemes of Providence in the Ray of Light Essential in the Archetypal Tables of the Almighty Mind this is Transport this is Aether this is Heaven it self to which we are wafted up by these depreciated Senses of the Fathers Yet whatsoever flight a religious Mind may take in these contemplations God knows these advances of mine are very short and I have no more to advise an aspiring Piety but to drink of these living Waters from their first Fountains the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers But he that thinks it no Mystery or valuable Theory that the first Principle of all is an eternal glorious lucid Mind our of whose foecundity there coessentially streams a luminous and infinite substantial Reason with a benign and adorable Spirit of Substantial Love and Holiness the noble Springs and Fountains of the whole Creation and the World to come forgets the thick darkness of the old Heathen and even of the present untutour'd World in these Idea's and Informations he forgets the shortness of the most sublimate Theories in proportion to the full Glory of the Mystery he forgets how much the Wise of the Heathen admired some few glances of it among the Jews and are themselves valued for them even by our Fathers and our Moderns also he conceives not how divine and surprizing this Light appeared to the World upon the first opening of Christianity how it clears up the delusions of Gentilism and spiritualizes our Idea's of God above all mixtures of carnality and prepares them for a glorious intuition of him hereafter and lastly such Men loath Manna and the Food of Angels forgetting their first weaknesses and the difficulties they struggled with before they attained to this Theology neither do they humbly reflect on their present narrowness in respect of what yet remains within the Veil or else they could never have sallen into contempt of this Revelation as light and void of depth and mystery § 37. Now lest any Man from hence should frame an Objection that upon this Theory we may frame as many Persons in the Deity as there are Attributes of God let it be observed that all the received Attributes of God do denote one or more or all of these three * This word in our tongue I suppose may not offend as being somewhat turned from what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉