Adjective Form may as I have shewed be plurally predicated Nay if it were unlawful to predicate plurally an absolute Essential Attribute the Whole Church has hitherto erred which has never scrupled the Phrase of Three Divine Holy Omnipotent c. Persons or in the Phrase of the Athanasian Creed which all the Schoolmen esteemed to be genuine Three Co-eternal Persons The Schoolmen indeed were infinitely perplexed how to reconcile the Author of that Creed to himself that it was lawful to say Three Co-eternal Persons and yet at the same time forbidden to say Three Eternals in the Masculine Gender Here Thomas Aquinas their Leader help'd them at a dead lift and when he could not bring the Rule concerning the Distinction of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective to this Creed he brought the Creed to the Rule And as Petavius somewhere observes contrary to all Rules of Grammar he interpreted all those Adjective Phrases Substantively that is he taught that they ought to have been put into the Neuter Gender it ought to have been non tria oeterna sed unum oeternum c. which Construction the Athanasian Creed will very well bear in our English Translation But I must here acknowledge to my Reader that this Distinction of an absolute and relative Predicate as the adaequate Reason of a Plural or Singular Predication in this Sacred Mystery is much Ancienter than the Schoolmen claims the Authority of the Latin Fathers who all received it from St. Augustin Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 3. That Learned and Acute Father pinch'd with an Arian Objection which himself calls calidissimum machinamentum first as I believe invented this Distinction and gave us this Maxim in relation to this Mystery Quicquid ad se dicitur Deus Ibid. Cap. 8. de singulis Personis simul de tota Trinitate singulariter non pluraliter dicitur His great Name gave this Axiom Authority with the succeeding Latin Fathers from whom the Schoolmen borrowed it First I ballance St. Augustin's Authority with his own words August Lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 6. Pater ad se dicitur persona with his own argument formerly mentioned N. 4. of this Chapter which demonstrates that this term Persona is an absolute Attribute Ibid. the same he saith of Hypostasis Omnis res ad seipsam subsistit quanto magis Deus And yet the undoubted Faith of the Church is that this term Hypostasis or Persona may be plurally predicated that we may say That there are Three Divine Hypostases or Persons If the Reader shall enquire Whether St. Augustin saw not this obvious Objection against his own Axiom I Answer That he did see it and that he chose rather to forsake the universal Faith and Language of the Church than to part with an Axiom he thought so serviceable against that Calidissimum Machinamentum that subtle Objection of the Arians Magna inopia Humanum laborat eloquium dictum est tamen tres personoe August Lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 9. non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur omnino which words if we strip them of that Rhetorick wherewith that Eloquent Father has cloathed and disguised them carry this plain sense That though the universal Language of the Church has called Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons yet to speak the truth the Phrase ought not to be used the thing ought not to be said we must say somewhat therefore we say Three Persons Non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur omnino I speak not this to derogate from the Honour of that deservedly Great and Learned Father but to Vindicate the Truth of this Sacred Mystery Amicus S. Augustinus magis Amica fides When St. Augustin departs from the received Faith of the Church it can be no fault to observe it or to depart from him That Learned Father confesses That he understood not the distinction of Hypostasis and Essence in this Sacred Mystery Augustin Lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 8. Dicunt quidam illi Groeci Hypostasim sed nescio quid volunt interesse inter Vsiam Hypostasim That Learned Father confesses the unhappy reason of these mistakes he wanted the assistance of the Greek Fathers the most accurate Writers in this Mystery of the Trinity as the Latin Fathers are judged the most accurate in the Pelagian Controversie Augustin Lib. 3. de Trin. praefatio Graecoe autem linguoe non sit nobis tantus habitus ut talium rerum libris legendis intelligendis ullo modo reperiamur idonei quo genere literarum ex ijs quoe nobis pauca interpretata sunt non dubito cuncta quoe utiliter quoerere possumus contineri II. Letter of Advice c. S. V. P. 148. P. 149. The Learned Mr. Dodwell has laid the same Charge to the Schoolmen viz. That they were Ignorant of the Greek Fathers and necessitated to rely on Ignorant Translations that they were Unskilful in Critical Learning that they were not ingenuously Rational in the proof of their Principles P. 151. That most of Lombard's Principles were for the much greater part Transcribed from St. Augustin that is originally from the Authority of one private Person from whom it was derived by the rest without any new Examination All I would observe from hence is That there is no necessity of concluding the Sacred Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation indefensible because the Subtleties of the Schools built for the much greater part upon the sole Authority of St. Augustin seem so to most St. Augustin himself confesses this Axiom of quicquid ad se dicitur Deus c. false in relation to this Term Person or which is worse That the Phrase of Three Persons ought not to be used A second Argument which I shall bring against this Axiom of St. Augustin's Quicquid ad se dicitur Deus c. I shall take from the Attribute of Existence Existence is an absolute Predicate We say that God is that the Father is that the Son is that the Holy Ghost is yet we cannot say that Father Son and Holy Ghost is but are I and the Father are one these Three are One. Now every Novice in Logick can inform us that Deus est is the same with this Deus est existens Pater est the same with Pater est existens and consequently Hi tres sunt the same with Hi tres sunt existentes Here also again I may plead St. Augustin's Authority against his own Axiom He once ventured to change our Saviours words and to say Qui gignit quem gignit unum est But upon second thoughts he put this passage into his Retractations and in his Books of the Trinity he affirmed it to be Sabellianism Heresy to change the Verb. Pluraliter dictum est ego pater unum sumus Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 9. Non enim dixit unum est quod Sabelliani dicunt sed unum sumus Thirdly
wrest it from me I must put this into form and then the weakness of it will evidently appear The Argument of the Animadvertor is to this purpose If the Nicene Fathers held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more then they held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature and if they held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity then they could not hold a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity But the Nicene Fathers and those after them held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more c. that is A Numerical Unity of God infers a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons and a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons is inconsistent with a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature in the Divine Persons Now grant this last to be true in the Animadvertor's Sense what follows That the Nicene Fathers who held the Antecedent must also hold the Consequent By no means This indeed follows that they ought to have held the Consequent if they embraced the Antecedent not that they actually did It is a very weak Argument that such Persons embrace such a Conclusion because they hold such Premises from whence another believes that such a Conclusion does necessarily follow Secondly I must examine his Antecedent The Nicene Fathers held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This is ambiguously expressed The Nicene Fathers the whole Catholick Church holds and acknowledges one God and in what Sense God is one it is impossible he should be more For one and more than one are contradictorily opposed and therefore impossible to be verified of the same Subject in the same Sense But neither the Nicene Fathers nor the Catholick Church do so hold God to be one but they also hold God to be Three that is In a different Sense of the term God viz. God is Three in Persons that is When this term God is taken as equipollent with a Divine Person for undoubtedly the Catholick Faith is that there are Three Divine Persons The Jews Socinians Mahometans do indeed hold that there is but one Numerical God but one in Person that there is but one Divine Person but the Christian Faith is that Deus est unus Trinus Again The Numerical Unity of God does not determine the Modus of the Unity of the Trinity does not determine that there is a Trinity of Divine Persons and much less of what kind their Unity is Lastly It is a mistake though a common one that a Numerical Unity of the common Divine Essence and a Specifick Unity of the same Essence are inconsistent A common Essence must of necessity be Numerically One even in Three Humane Persons the Common Humanity the Species of Humanity is numerically One there is as strictly one Species of Adam Eve and Seth as there is one Person of Adam The Moderns indeed say that there are three singular Humane Natures of Adam Eve and Seth but it is a Contradiction to say that the singular Nature of Adam is common to Eve It is the Objection of the Animadvertor that a Specifick Unity in the Trinity would imply three singular Divine Natures in the three Persons of which afterwards But be that so still the common Divine Essence would be numerically One that is the Species of the Divinity would be but one or which is the same the common Divine Nature would be an Universal Petav. l. 4. de Trin. c. 13 14. This Observation alone will answer the greatest part of two Chapters wherein Petavius has endeavoured to impose upon his Reader as if the Nicene Fathers had believed a Singularity of the common Divine Essence whereas his proofs are only concerning a Numerical Unity of the common Divine Essence But there was a very good reason for the thing he was a Jesuit and those of his own Order and of his own Church would never have suffered his elaborate Work of the Trinity to have been published if he had not made a seeming Defence for the Faith of the Schools the Singularity of the common Divine Essence and that was impossible upon his Principles viz. The Authority of the Ancient Fathers he therefore shamm'd this of the Numerical Unity in the room of it St. Ambrose St. Augustin St. Hilary and others even of the Latin Fathers in express terms reject the Singularity of the Divinity There is one single passage of Maxentius which ascribes Singularity to the Divine Nature and another I have seen quoted from Anselm tending to the same purpose and these two are all I have ever met with which would have made a poor shew had they stood alone whereas for the Numerical Unity of the common Divine Essence Petavius might have transcribed half the Fathers but this I shall have occasion to mention again The Animadvertor's next refuge is n. 5. p. 175. lin 5. only his own positive ipse dixit that the Fathers always mark that word always alledged the Example of three or more individual Men agreeing in the same Nature either by way of Allusion or Illustration as it is the nearest resemblance of and approach to this Divine Unity of any that could be found in created Beings or else à minore ad majus To which I reply First that these two ways are really but one way what is only a near resemblance must in this debate be à minore ad majus Secondly The Animadvertor's Phrase is universal they always alledged it thus which supposes that not one single Father in any one single passage ever alledged it otherways and that the Animadvertor has examined every single passage and upon his own Experience finds it so Thirdly The Unity of three Humane Persons of three distinct proper Beings of three Substances of three Natures can never be the nearest resemblance of and approach to the Unity of one simple Substance or Being under three Relations An Unity that is barely Notional can never be the nearest resemblance of an Unity that is properly Real There are a thousand Instances in Nature of one simple Being under these Relations the single Person of Adam has three Relations The Animadvertor p. 167. calls it a jocular Argument an Argument fit to be answered by Laughter only to argue from three Humane Persons from Peter James and John to Father Son and Holy Ghost to the three Divine Persons yet here to serve a turn he acknowledges it to be the nearest resemblance of and approach to the Divine Unity that can be found in created Beings I am sure upon the Animadvertor's Principles I may well borrow the Poets words Risum teneatis amici since 't is in Sense as if he had said that three Substances is the nearest resemblance of and approach to one Substance that can be found in created Beings Fourthly This is so far from being an Argument à minore ad majus upon the Animadvertor's Principles that it
is justly esteemed by all the Moderns who follow the Schools one of the difficultest Objections against the Faith of the Trinity viz. that if three Humane Persons have three singular Humane Natures and consequently are so many Men why three Divine Persons should not also infer three singular Divine Natures and consequently be three Gods And the Answer that the School men and Moderns give is that the case is vastly different that the Unity of three Humane Persons is only Notional the Unity of the Divine Persons strictly real The Animadvertor himself p. 300. can tell you of a better Allusion and Similitude to the Union of the three Divine Persons The Vnion of Vnderstanding Memory and Will as one and the same Soul One simple Being with three Faculties is a nearer resemblance of one simple Being under three Relations than three simple Beings n. 6. But let us hear the Animadvertor himself explain this Argument p. 175. à minore ad majus If several individual Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature much less could this be said of the three Divine Persons To which I answer First Does the Animadvertor really believe that three Men cannot properly be said to have more than one Nature or not If he believes it What will become of his Objection that a Specifick Unity implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals What becomes of that famous Passage of his P. 270. that Substantiis Consubstantialibus will neither be Truth nor Sense I suppose he will not deny that several individual Men are Substantioe Substances in the plural Number nor yet that Consubstantialibus signifies of one Substance of one Nature I intreat him to answer this Question Are several Men Consubstantial or not Is Christ according to his Humanity Consubstantial with us Men or not Will he dare to say that the whole Catholick Church has neither spoke Truth nor Sense For the whole Church has ever professed a Belief of Christ's Consubstantiality with us Men. If the Animadvertor shall plead that it was the Sense of the Fathers that three Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature even that is sufficient for my purpose who am now enquiring only into the Judgment of the Fathers This is sufficient ad Hominem to the Animadvertor but for my Reader 's fuller Satisfaction I answer to the Point that so far as this Allegation is true 't is Impertinent and that so far as 't is pertinent 't is false 'T is an acknowledged Truth that the strictest Union that can be betwixt Humane Persons is but a resemblance an Allusion to that inseparable incomprehensible Union betwixt the Divine Persons But this is not the question concerning the Union of the Divine Persons indefinitely but concerning the Unity of their Nature The Fathers maintained that the Unity of the common Divine Nature was of the same kind and degree with the Unity of the common Humane Nature There is certainly a greater Union betwixt two Humane Persons who are dear and intimate Friends than betwixt two who are mortal Enemies There is a greater Union betwixt two Saints in Heaven than betwixt the best Friends on Earth And yet two mortal Enemies have the same Unity of Nature with the Saints in Heaven The Union of the Saints in Heaven is by our Saviour himself resembled to the Union of the Father and the Son John 17.22 That they may be one as we are one But these words no more denote an illimited equality than those other words of our Lord Matt. 5.48 Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect denote an equality in Perfection If we suppose three unbegotten unproduced Divine Persons three Fathers I cannot see how we can deny such to be Consubstantial since we acknowledge three Angelical Persons to be of one Nature and Substance yet three unbegotten Divine Persons three Fathers are to all the Ancient Fathers three Gods They did not therefore believe that a Specifick Unity was the only Unity of the Divine Persons that they were one upon no other account but if we can know their meaning by their words they did certainly believe a Specifick Unity And this I perswade my self the Animadvertor's Heart misgave him n. 7. He therefore comes in with a third Salvo p. 176. That he does not in the least deny but several Expressions may have dropped from the Fathers which if we looked no further might be drawn to a very inconvenient Sense That is in plain English several Expressions have dropped from them which assert if we look no further a Specifick Unity What from those Fathers who never alledged this Example as a parallel Instance but always used it by way of Allusion or à minore ad majus It seems the Animadvertor's always and never will bear an exception What Salvoe has he for this He gives it us in the following words But then also it is as little to be deny'd that the same Fathers professedly and designedly treating of the same Points here declared themselves in such terms as are very hardly if at all reconcileable to those occasional and accidental Expressions And therefore since their meaning cannot be taken from both it ought much rather to be taken from what was asserted by them designedly than what was asserted only occasionally Now it is well contrived to take the conclusion for granted he is to prove It seems that the Animadvertor would have things come to that pass that we must take his bare affirmation of a thing for a proof of it Petavius Dr. Cudworth the Reverend Dean of St. Paul's have asserted the quite contrary they have already equivalently denied it and the Animadvertor gives us his own ipse dixit that it is little to be denied Again the Animadvertor pretends no more than a difficulty or a doubt whether these designed expressions may not be reconciled to the occasional expressions The Animadvertor makes an if of it to him these latter are hardly if at all reconcileable with the former which is no great wonder since he believes tribus substantiis consubstantialibus to be neither truth nor sense since he believes a numerical Unity absolutely inconsistent with a Specifick Unity Lastly Why is the conclusion stronger than the premises Why does he make the conclusion positive Their meaning cannot be taken from both is the conclusion whereas the premises mentioned only a difficulty or a doubt They are hardly if at all reconcileable The Animadvertor was I believe n. 8. in some measure sensible of the weakness of these answers and therefore He provides a fourth Salvoe Ib. p. 176. viz. that the Orthodox Writers of the fourth and part of the fifth Century were chiefly exercised with the Arian Controversie And the Arians would not allow so much as a specifick Unity of Nature between the Father and the Son but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sameness held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
and a compleat Substance too Again a Million of Qualities Attributes Faculties can never make one God so that if Father Son and Holy Ghost signify three Faculties three Attributes three Modes not only each single Person is ungodded but the whole Trinity conjoyntly cannot be God The Sabellians acknowledge the Divine Persons to be Deum unum the Catholicks Deum unum trinum but this opinion neither unum nec trinum And hence we may see with what Prudence the Church chose the Phrase of three Hypostases and what danger there would be to change it with a late Reverend Author for three Somewhats P. 247. lin 2. n. 16. Which three Persons superadd to this Divine Nature or Deity three different Modes of Subsistence founding so many different Relations Three human Persons add to the common universal human Nature three different Modes of Subsistence according to the Schoolmen and the Animadverter What then would the Animadverter take this Answer for a Solution of this question what three human Persons are The same reply may justly be made to himself This is the difficulty what in the Deity the ternary number can belong to which a Divine Person is not as the Animadverter has mistaken it what in the Deity the ternary number can belong to which a Divine Person has The Schoolmen answer that the ternary number belongs to an infinite relative Substance I agree with them that a Divine Person is an infinite Substance or which I like better as freer from Ambiguity an infinite substantial Being and that this may be multiplied as well as Divine Person with the Trinity N. 17. The design of the Animadverter in quoting so many places of the ancient Fathers is very vain to prove a Conclusion which none denies that the three Personalities are in some Sense or other three Modes of Subsistence However in respect of the Greek Fathers I have formerly observed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not signify a Mode of Subsistence nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subsistence in the Abstract but a subsistent Person or Being in concreto Ruffinus believed Trinitatem in rebus ac subsistentiis N. 18. Anim. p. 268. and not with the Animadverter Trinitatem in modis ac subsistentiis Subsistentia to the Ancients signified concretely the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Boetius of all the Latin Fathers of those times seems most acquainted with the Writings of the Greeks and therefore most expresly determins for the Universality of the common Divine Essence N. 19. he defines a Person in common to God Angels and Men to be rationabilis naturoe individuam substantiam he uses Subsistentia afterwards which shews he looked upon the terms as equivalent Secondly He gives us these remarkable words of the Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Boetius thus translates Id est essentioe in solis universalibus quidem esse possunt in solis verò individuis particularibus substant Quo circa cum ipsoe substantioe in universalibus quidem sunt in particularibus verò capiant substantiam jure substantias particulariter subsistentes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 groeci appellaverunt These words are capable of no Evasion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in Universals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Individuals and Particulars that the Greeks whose very words he quotes understood it in this Sense and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood Substantias particulariter subsistentes and this jure not impropriè not by a Fetch as Thomas Aquinas Anim. c. p. 272. afterwards Secundum quod Divina verbis humanis significari contingit This Caution is necessary to reconcile the Subtleties of the Schools and the Faith of three Hypostases But Boetius had no need of any such Caution and therefore he used it not and it is the more remarkable that these words I have quoted out of Boetius are in that very Book of two Natures in the one Person of Christ which the Animadverter quotes so that either the Animadverter never read Boetius or read him at a very careless rate N. 20. Peter Lombard is express against the Relativeness of this Term Lib. 1. Sent. Dist 23. n. 1. Person Est unum nomen c. Persona quod secundum substantiam dicitur de singulis Personis pluraliter non singulariter in summa accipitur c. and Dist 25. That this Term Persona is to be taken in one Sense when we say that the Father is a Person the Son is a Person c. and in a different Sense when we say that Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Persons in this last Phrase it only signifies three Personalities in the former a proper Person Now this to me is a betraying of the Catholick Faith a Confession that we ought not to say three Persons if we speak properly if we understand this Term Person in the same Sense in which we say that the Father c. is a Person N. 21. P. 273. The Animadverter quotes these words of Thomas Aquinas Hoc nomen persona in divinis significat relationem per modum rei subsistentis sic hoc nomen Hypostasis I wish our great Critick had translated these words I take this to be the meaning of them viz. That this Name Person in the Trinity signifies a relation conceived by us after the Nature of a Substance and not after the Nature of a Mode which the Animadverter has all along with so much confidence pretended I cannot define Substance better than by res subsistens N. 22. P. 275. lin 9. Only I think fit to remark this That whereas I have alledged some of the Schoolmen and particularly Durandus Thomas and Suarez expressing the Divine Personalities by Relations as well as by Hypostases or Subsistences as they do in both these mean but one and the same thing viz. a Relative Subsistence or a subsisting Relation c. If the Animadverter means that a Relative Subsistence and a subsisting Relation are according to the Schoolmen materially identically the same thing it is no News The Schoolmen hold that the Relation and the Divine Essence in each single Person are thus identically the same each single Person being God that is a pure simple Act. But if he means that they are formally the same it is manifest that he understands neither of the Phrases nor what the Schoolmen meant by them Subsistence which himself very justly calls p. 97. Self-subsistence is an absolute Attribute and can no more be relative than Self-Consciousness By a relative Subsistence the Schoolmen mean that the Relation in each single Person modifies the one common absolute essential Subsistence and renders it incommunicable which of it self as being infinite it was not But a Divine Person being as Ruffinus observed Hoc ipsum quod extat subsistit and consequently the Divine Persons being three Somewhats subsisting three Hypostases in concreto and not three Personalities with Peter Lombard Thomas Aquinas