distinguish as subtilly as they please an Intelligent Person is a Mind and a Substantial Person is a Substance and Three are Three of which more presently There may indeed be a very Heretical Sense put upon these words to say That there are Three Infinite Minds or Persons for the Heresy is the same whatever the word be wholly divided and separated from each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Absolute Principlees Independent on each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Unbegotten ones without any relation to each other as Father Son and Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Substances in the Arian Notion for Three distinct Kinds and Species of Substance or Three Natures and Essences specifically different All this I say is False Impious and Heretical and has been condemned as such by the Catholick Church And could they have affix'd any such Sense as this on the Preacher's Words they would have done well to have shewn it and then they had done very justly and religiously in condemning such an Impious Sense of these Words but to condemn Words in themselves very Orthodox as Impious and Heretical without giving the least Intimation wherein their Impiety and Heresy consists is a new way of proceeding which they never learnt from any of the Ancient Councils But Party Shibboleths always do the best Execution the less they are understood The Charge is drawn up as fully and emphatically as it is possible 1. That these aforesaid Words are False 2. That they are Impious 3. Heretical 4. Contrary to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church And 5. In particular contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England as publickly received This they Judge Declare and Determine and had they Proved it too they had done all at once but now the hardest part still remains and men who will not take their bare word for it will judge all over again And I hope it will give no Offence to that Great and Learned Body of the University of Oxford to examine the rash and hasty Judgment of some of the Heads of their Colleges and Halls In order to this I shall briefly premise some few plain Observations the more effectually to shew the Rashness and Injudiciousness of this Decree As 1. That no form of words is to be condemned as False Impious and Heretical which do not necessarily and manifestly contain a False Impious and Heretical Sense Words may be new unusual inconvenient and want the stamp of Ecclesiastical Authority which are not False Impious or Heretical These are very different Crimes to broach new Words and new Heresies when the Words themselves are not manifestly Heretical And certainly such men ought to have understood this who take upon them to be Judges of Heresy Nay 2dly Such new forms of speech as are liable to an Heretical sense are not therefore to be rejected if they are of use to secure the True Catholick Faith and those who use them declare the Orthodox sense wherein they use them All learned men know that the Homoousion it self was charged with as many Heresies as any other word can well be Some charged it with Sabellianism others with a division and partition of the Divine Substance as if the Son 's being begotten of his Father's Substance and so being Consubstantial or of one Substance with him signified such an Efflux and Emanation as divided the Father's Substance and communicated part of it to the Son But when the Catholick Fathers rejected these perverse and Heretical senses of the word and declared in what sense they used it in opposition to the Arian Heresy and that it was the most significant word which could be used to that purpose and which those subtle Hereticks who equivocated in all other forms of words could by no means elude the Nicene Council received it into their Creed and Eusebius of Caesarea and some others who at first scrupled the use of that word subscribed to it when they were satisfied of its Orthodox signification It is reasonable for all men to consider this who pretend to find Heresy in words Whether those who use them own that Heretical sense which they charge upon them for otherwise they may as well condemn the Homoousion as False Impious and Heretical as Three distinct Infinite Minds and Spirits if they have no regard to the sense of those who use these words nor to the end for which they are used 3. And if we will ever allow of Unscriptural Words to explain and secure the Catholick Faith which none but secret or open Hereticks ever quarrel'd at there may be the same reason and necessity for it in our Age that ever there was in any Age of the Christian Church and then it is as justifiable now as ever it was The Church never had Authority to make a new Faith but always had and always will have Authority to declare and explain the True Catholick Faith in such words as are most aptly expressive of it and necessary to countermine the Arts and Evasions of Hereticks This Apology the Nicene Fathers made for putting the Homoousion into their Creed as St. Athanasius declares at large in his Book de decretis Synodi Nicaenae The Arians made a shift to reconcile their Heresy to all other Forms of words by the Homoousion detected their Hypocrisy and Heresy This was too plain and express to be evaded by equivocal senses and therefore they could never be reconciled to it and the Catholick Fathers thought that a very necessary reason for the use of it Now if such expressions as these Three distinct Infinite Minds and Spirits or Three Substances be as necessary in our Age to detect and oppose Sabellianism and to secure the Catholick Faith of a Real Substantial Trinity which is all that is intended by them as the Homoousion was at the time of the Nicene Council to detect and oppose Arianism this will justify the use of such expressions how novel soever they may be thought and what necessity there is for this in our Age will appear presently 4. It is a sufficient justification of any Unscriptural Forms of words in Articles of Faith that though the express words are not found in Scripture yet all that is and that is intended to be signified by those words is found in Scripture for no words can be false impious and heretical which contain the true Catholick Faith as taught in Scripture Thus Athanasius and the other Nicene Fathers answer that Arian Objection against the Homoousion that it is not to be found in Scripture that though the word is not in Scripture the Faith signified by that word is and thus St. Augustine particularly defends it in his dispute with Pascentius 5. No Expressions can be said to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church which have been used by Catholick Fathers either in the same or in equivalent terms and contain that Doctrine which the Catholick Fathers always taught Having premised this let us now examine
genuinely and inseparably of the same Nature with Father and Son All this was approved of as very Orthodox And then the Synod examined those who affirmed That there was but One Substance in the Trinity What they meant by it Whether they understood it as Sabellius did to deny the Real Subsistence of the Son and Holy Spirit to make an Unsubstantial Son and an Unsubsisting Spirit This they also denied and told the Synod that they thought Hypostasis signified the same with Ousia Essence Substance Nature And therefore they owned but one Hypostasis or Substance because the Son is of the Substance of the Father and by reason of the Identity of Nature between Father and Son for they believed but One Divinity and one Divine Nature and not one Nature of the Father and another different Nature of the Son and of the Holy Spirit This Explication also was approved by the Synod and thus this matter was reconciled Those who taught Three Substances in the Trinity and those who believed but one Substance when they had given their several Explications were both owned by the Synod and owned each other for Catholick Christians and both Condemned Arius and Sabellius though the Synod thought it better to adhere strictly to the words of the Nicene Creed but soon after they distinguished between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then Three Hypostases still in the notion of Three Substances and One Nature was the Catholick Language which St. Basil gives a large account of Ep. 300. of which more elsewhere So that Athanasius and those Glorious Confessors for the Nicene Faith in the Alexandrian Synod owned Three Substances in the very same sense in which we now use those words to contain the true Catholick Faith and if they knew what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church was our Oxford Heads are out in their guess 5. The last Charge is That Three distinct Minas and Substances is especially contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England publickly received What they may mean by publickly received I can't tell there may be some Doctrines too publickly received in the Church of England which are not the Doctrines of the Church and I doubt Sabellianism is one of them But if they mean by publickly received the Doctrine of our Articles and Creeds this is the very same with the Doctrine of the Catholick Church We make profession of the Nicene Faith every Week and that asserts a Real and Substantial Trinity if Athanasius understood it The only pretence I can guess they had for this charge if they thought of any themselves must be the Form of the Athanasian Creed which will not permit us to say that in the Plural Number of all Three Divine Persons which it allows us to attribute distinctly to each distinct Person in the Singular Number we may say the Father is Almighty the Son Almighty and the Holy Ghost Almighty but must not say that there are three Almighties but one Almighty But will they hence frame an Universal Rule That nothing must be said of the Holy Trinity in the Plural Number considered as Three We will not attribute any thing to the Holy Trinity in the Plural Number which this Creed forbids we will not say there are Three Almighties Three Eternals Three Omnipotents Three Infinites Three Gods or Three Lords but this Creed does not forbid us saying There are Three Minds or Three Substances nay it teaches us to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as you have already heard in the Language of the Nicene Age and more expresly in After Ages signified Three Substances and therefore must do so in this Creed The reason given in the Creed against this Plural Praedication is Because there is but One God and therefore such terms as immediately and directly multiply the Deity and Godhead must not be exprest Plurally and thus the Plural Praedication of any Divine Perfections in the abstract does Three Omnipotents Three Infinites Three Eternals which are Equivalent to Three Omnipotencies Three Infinities Three Eternities and they to Three Deities and Three Godheads or Three Divine Natures but though we cannot distinguish between the Person and the Divinity or Divine Nature of that Person for there is no Composition in God or in a Divine Person as there is in Creatures yet when the same Divine Nature communicated from the Father to the Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit subsists distinctly tho inseparably whole and entire in Three and that which really and actually subsists is Mind and Substance with respect to these Three Subsistencies they are and must be Three Minds and Substances though with respect to the sameness and identity of the Divine Nature which is Whole and Entire and Inseparable and therefore but One in all they are but One not Three Gods This is all the sense I can make of that known distinction between Substantives and Adjectives in a Plural Praedication That we may say there are Three who Create but not Three Creators Three who are Omnipotent but not three Omnipotents c. that in these Adjective Praedications we consider the Divine Person Mind or Substance as a subject of Jahaesion and these Divine Perfections as Essential Properties or Attributes which may and must be numbred with the Subjects in which they are but Substantives have a more absolute sense and include pure nature without relation to different Subjects and therefore to use them Plurally is to multiply Nature to make more than One Infinite Eternal Incomprehensible Omnipotent Nature and consequently to multiply Gods But from this very distinction we learn that there are Three Suppositums or Subjects and then they will easily be owned to be Three Minds and Substances to which all the Perfections of the Deity belong for when these Divine Perfections are Praedicated Adjectively they must suppose a Subject to which they belong and they being such Perfections as can be only in a Mind they must suppose Three distinct Minds to which they belong Thus I have considered with all possible brevity every particular of this Charge and if these Decreeing and Heresy-making Heads will be just to me they must own that as they and the Animadverter had ordered the matter it was impossible for me to do otherwise unless I would have been trampled on by every Scribler This is a good human reason but I had a better reason for this than any thing meerly Personal They have condemned the true Catholick Faith even the Nicene Faith which is the Faith of the Church of England for Herefy and they have exposed this Faith to the Scorn and Triumph of the Socinian Hereticks who already make their boast That they have a Decree against the real Trinit arians and they only want another against the Nominal ones and then their work is done to their hands tho I think they have Decrees enow against them even all the Fathers and Councils which condemned Sabellius condemned them
Convocation is indeed Decretum Oxoniense or a Decree of the University of Oxford This is what the Animadverter called for and this he would persuade the world he has but let the Oxford Convocation look to this which may prove an ill President But I am inform'd for I confess I know not their Statutes my self that this Decree of the Heads of Colleges and Halls is so far from being the Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford that it is no Judicial nor Authoritative Decree at all not so much as for censuring a Preacher much less for declaring and decreeing Heresy Their Statutes refer such Censures to the Vice-Chancellor and Six Heads Doctors of Divinity and to one or both the Professors of Divinity but give no such Authority to the General Meeting of the Heads much less to Heads who are no Divines nor Doctors in Divinity and some such there were in this Meeting So that this pretended Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford is no more than the private Opinions of some Heads and if that be so Venerable an Authority I will undertake any day in the Year to procure a Meeting of twice as many as Wise and Learned Men to censure their Decree But supposing their Authority to be Just and Regular there is another very proper Question How far their Authority extends Whether to the declaring and decreeing Heresy Whatever the Convocation of the University may challenge this was never before pretended to by the Heads of Colleges and Halls All the Authority I can learn their Statutes give them in such Cases is to summon the Preacher who has said any thing in his Sermon contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England and to require a publick recantation from him or to forbid him ever to preach again in the Vniversity Whereas nothing of all this was done the Preacher not summoned to this Meeting nor his Name as far as I can learn once mentioned in it no Recantation enjoined no Prohibition of his Preaching again But instead of this which was their proper Business they declare and decree Heresy which so many Masters of Arts might have done with as good Authority where ever they had met And they ought notwithstanding all their Zeal against Heresy to have advised with men of Skill how far such an Irregular and Unstatutable proceeding might affect them The Authority of declaring and making Heresy may be of such pernicious Consequence to the Peace of any Church that it is not fit to be intrusted with any Body of men less then a National Synod for otherwise we may have as many different and contrary Religions as there are Declarers and Decreers of Heresy In the Statute 1 Eliz. ca. 1. we find the power to order determine or adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresy restrained only to such as heretofore have been determined ordered or adjudged to be Heresy by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Or by the first Four General Councils Or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures Or such as hereafter shall be ordered judged or determined to be Heresy by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Assent of the Clergy in their Convocation And if the King could not grant a greater Authority than this to his High Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Affairs it is not likely that any other Body of men have it and my Lord Cook says That this is a direction to others especially to Bishops in their adjudgng Heresy 3 Instit. pa. 40. and how they have observed this Law in their Decree they had best consider Oxford Reasons have formerly had a very just Veneration paid to them and will have so still whenever they are penned with the same strength and clearness but they have a greater Opinion of their Authority than I can find the rest of the world has if they think by a meer Decree without pretending to give the least reason for it to silence all disputes and to bear down all Reasons and all Authorities on the other side But since these Heads are pleased to take part in the quarrel which one would have thought they need not have done had they not suspected the Success of their Animadverting Champion I accept this exchange with all thankfulness As for the Animadverter he might for me have writ on as long as he pleased and have railed and triumphed as much as he pleased and the world might have judged of him and his performances as they pleased His last Book I have read nothing of and could never persuade my self to read all his first Book there is such an Evil Spirit and such Venom in his Writings as is enough to give an Unchristian Tincture to those who read them He resolved never to answer any one but my self and I resolved never to read what he writ and thus there was some hope to see an end of this matter when he grew weary of writing or his Bookseller of Printing But now I hope to meet with no new Animadverters who shall all fare alike with me but with Men of Ingenuity and Candor good Learning and good Tempers who will reason without Sophistry and Misrepresentations weigh Authorities in an equal Balance and contend for Truth not for Victory and then it is indifferent to me whether I overcome or am overcome for Truth is better than Victory and will make an Honest Man triumph in being conquered Having thus considered the Authority of this Decree which the Animadverter so much glories in let us now examine the Decree it self These words Three distinct Infinite Minds and Three Substances as applied to the Three Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity are singled out in this Decree and parted from the Body of the Sermon without any thing to explain in what sense the Preacher used them and therefore we must conclude that these Words are absolutely condemned as False Impious and Heretical That though a Mind in this place signifies an Intelligent Person and Substance a Substantial Person and Three Infinite Intelligent Persons and Three Infinite Substantial Persons is the Catholick Faith as I doubt not to make appear yet Three Distinct Infinite Minds and Three Substances when they are used in no other sense than for three Intelligent and Substantial Persons must be condemned as Impious and Heretical These are wonderful nice Criticks to make the same Doctrine owned and acknowledged to be the same in one Form of Words to be truly Catholick and Orthodox and in another Form of Words which do and are intended to signify the same thing False Impious and Heretical This is a strange Magical Power of Words Hoc est Corpus in the mouth of a Popish Priest never were pretended to make a more Miraculous Transubstantiation I wish it at last appear that these Gentlemen do really believe Three Infinite Intelligent Persons and Three Substantial Persons in the Trinity for let them
Ghost by a diversity and dissimilitude of Essences So that St. Hilary thought that Three Substances when they are not used in an Arian sense to fignifie a diversity of Nature but only to signifie Three substantial subsisting Persons in opposition to Sabellius are very Catholick Words and contain a true Catholick sense in this sense and for the very same reason we use these Expressions of Three distinct infinite Minds and Three Substances And I hope these Heads will not take it amiss if One St. Hilary have more Authority with me than all they together 3. As for One Substance which was taught by the Nicene Council and inserted into their Creed St. Hilary very plainly and frequently tells us in what sense we are to understand it that there is one Substance of the same Kind and Nature in genere naturae secundum proprietatem naturae not one Substance as that signifies one subsisting Person but as it signifies perfectly the same Nature in every thing alike without the least difference or variation that the Homoousion signifies one Nature perfectly alike and the same by Natural Propagation because the Essence of the Son is from no other Cause but the Essence of the Father and therefore Father and Son may both be said to be of one Nature or Substance And for the sake of the Charge of Tritheism which the Anim adverter makes such a Noise with it will be necessary to observe that St. Hilary gives the same account of the Unity of the Godhead as he does of the Unity of the Divine Substance aud indeed they must be one in the same sense for one divine Substance is one God The Sardican Synod anathematiz'd those who said there were Three Gods And St. Hilary gives this account of it that speaking properly the Divine Substance or Nature will not admit of the plural Number to say that there are more Gods than One excepting when the Title of God is given to Men or Angels by way of Honour not of Nature But in the Nature of God there is but One God yet so that the Son is God because he has the same Nature without any unlikeness or difference with his Father and when there is God of God it cannot be but that each of them must be God because their Nature is not distinguish'd by a different Kind or Species and when he is anathematiz'd who says there are two Gods and he also is anathematiz'd who denies the Son to be God it is manifest that the same Name of God and One God is apply'd to both of them upon account of the same Nature without the least difference or diversity And adds that least the Doctrine of One God should seem to teach that there is but one singular Subsistance of one solitary God without his Son The same Synod condemns those also who under pretence of owning but One God profess only One singular and solitary God the Father under the Name of Father and Son whereas the Father who begets and the Son who is born are to be acknowledg'd One God upon account of the same Nature in both without the least difference or variation Were it not to shorten this Discourse I could easily furnish my Readers with Numerous Quotations to the same purpose out of St. Hilary to whom I now confine my self and particularly to his Book de Synodis that these Authorities may be the more easily found all together to prove That the Catholick Notion of One Divine Substance and One God does not signify One Personal Substance nor One singular solitary God who is but One Person but there is One Divine Substance and One God as the same Divine Nature is communicated whole and entire by the Father to the Son and by Father and Son to the Holy Spirit without the least difference or change or separation Which I shall explain more at large elsewhere Thus much for St. Hilary who has always been allowed a Credible Witness of the Catholick Faith for which he suffered Banishment under Constantius and is now condemned for a Heretick by the Oxford Heads But it is more wonderful to me that men who understand what Hypostasis signifies and in what sense it was used by the Nicene Fathers should condemn the Phrase of Three Substances in the Trinity as False Impious and Heretical when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Three Hypostases which is the Catholick Language is neither better nor worse than Three Substances In the Nicene Council it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are used in the same sense and both signify Substance And Petavius owns that all the Ancient Fathers used Hypostasis in no other sense but to signify Substance and then Three Hypostases are Three Substances And when afterwards they more nicely distinguished between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they still used Hypostasis in the notion of Substance that which did actually subsist which is therefore often rendred by the Latins extantia But to set aside other Observations the Alexandrian Synod under Athanasius is sufficient to put an end to this Dispute When the Catholick Bishops were recalled from Banishment by Julian several of them stopt at Alexandria and met in Council to advise about the broken state of the Church Among other things that fell under consideration there had a Dispute happened among the Catholicks themselves concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether they ought to say That there is but One Substance in the Trinity or That there are Three Substances for so it is plain that both sides understood Hypostasis in the notion of Substance To compose this Difference the Synod called both Parties before them and examined them in what sense they used these words As for those who said there were Three Hypostases in the Trinity they asked them Whether by this they meant as the Arians did Three Hypostases of a different Kind and Nature subsisting by themselves absolutely and independently as perfectly divided and separated from each other as other Creatures and as the Children of men are or as those things which have different Natures as Gold and Silver and Brass Or whether by Three Hypostases they meant as some other Hereticks did Three Principles or Three Gods All this they professed they had neither said nor thought And being asked again Why they then used those Expressions of Three Substances They answered Because they believed in the Holy Trinity not a Trinity of Names but a Real Subsisting Trinity a Father who really and actually is and subsists a Son who in truth and reality is a substantial subsisting Son and the Holy Spirit who actually is and subsists That they never said There are Three Gods or Three Principles but owned the Holy Trinity and but one Godhead one Principle and the Son consubstantial to the Father and the Holy Spirit neither a Creature nor of a different Nature but