Christ-Church It cannot be denied that could they but prevaricate they might pass for as Orthodox and as sound Trinitarians as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calumniators their Faith concerning God is the same both for Sense and Terms but the Professor though a real Unitarian and only a Nominal Trinitarian can asperse Socinus they on the contrary see no reason to disclaim their Friends and Partisans Other Nominals soar high they explain their Trinity after a very peculiar and surprizing manner The Father say they is the Fountain of the Deity the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons he is original Mind and Wisdom who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections and also Willed that is Loved himself in a most perfect manner No one will doubt say they that God always or from all Eternity perfectly understood himself and 't is Natural and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding to Will or Love himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings 't is the first Affection of such Beings and adheres inseparably to them But seeing whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood therefore the Father as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image because thus conceived and as it were generated by him is called the Son 't is also called the Wisdom of God his reflex Wisdom because 't is the Wisdom that resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections As God understandeth he Willeth also or Loveth himself this second Act or God's Loving himself is the Holy Spirit or third Person as understanding himself or the reflex Wisdom of original Mind and Wisdom was the second Person of the Trinity To understand one self and to love or will one self in created and finite Beings are but only Acts of the Vnderstanding and Will but in God we call them Persons Though nothing can be more ridiculous than this account of a Trinity yet to purchase their quiet the Socinians are content to wear a strange and odd Badg For Peace-sake they will say with our Holy Mother the Church Understanding or reflex Wisdom is a Person and Love another Person and these two with original Wisdom shall be called a Trinity Indeed we could wish that so grave a Matron as the Church would leave off Trifling but seeing for the main of it the thing is true for 't is true that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom and he Vnderstandeth and Willeth himself we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things The Church requires us to say Father Son and Spirit Trinity three Divine Persons but she declares at the same time that the meaning only is God or original Mind Vnderstandeth and Loveth himself it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother about a few uncouth or ill-chose Terms and Words on which she confessedly puts a sober meaning a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God or that there is in truth but one subsisting Divine Person Well here are two Explications of the Trinity by the Nominals The first saith the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation Redemption and Sanctification or God considered as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the World or of Mankind The other saith the second and third Persons of the Trinity are indeed three Acts of God but they are internal Acts even his Understanding and Loving himself So that the whole Trinity is original Mind or the subsisting Person of the Father Knowing and Willing himself so these two Parties But another Division of the Nominals tell us the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God whether External or Internal but they are three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power say they are that Trinity which the Church teaches and she teaches no other But then say I 't is evident again that the Church and the Socinians are well agreed for the latter no less than the former believe this Trinity and the only Hereticks in these Questions are the Real Trinitarians who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons three distinct Spirits three Almighty All-knowing Beings But they are not very many tho they are Learned Men that speak after these manners the School-men and the Divines that follow them and who more properly are the Nominal Party deliver themselves in other Terms though in the main in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians all the Divisions of them perfectly agree Because we litigate in the English Tongue and contest these Questions only with English Writers it will be fit to represent the Doctrine of the Schools or the Party which I said are more properly it may be the Nominal Trinitarians out of the late Books of Dr. S th against Dr. Sherlock They teach that God or the Trinity is one Numerical self-same Spiritual and Divine Substance one only Spirit one solitary Being And though he is three Persons by which what they mean we shall see presently there is in the whole Trinty but one infinite Vnderstanding one soveraign Will one almighty Energy or Power of Action in Number This one Divine inteltectual Substance or really subsisting Person is at it were distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation their Relation is not somewhat consequent upon or supervenient to their Subsistence as in created Persons but is one and the same with it These relative Modes being three in Number are the three Personalities of the Deity but the concrete and abstract Terms namely Personalities and Persons are but only different ways of expressing the same thing And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the Godhead by Relations relative Subsistences relative Modes relative Properties or such like So we say also that every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative that is that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person so that as we have but now said both Persons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations or relative Properties of the one self-same Divine Substance Being or Spirit These three relative Modes Relations or relative Properties in the Divine Substance or Godhead are Innascibility or Paternity passive Generation and passive Spiration in plainer English to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or be Breathed the first maketh the Person of the Father the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit This is the Sum of what Doctor S th saith in his last Book or Tritheism Charged pag. 156 157. Mr. Hooker Author of the
should maintain such an Opinion and after having made such Concessions to the Nominals and to the Unitarians as the Realists do They grant it to be certain and incontestable not only in Reason but in Holy Scripture that there is but one God but one Creator they allow this to be so true and evident that the Scripture ought never to be so interpreted as in any degree to contradict this first Article of all revealed Religion because to interpret Holy Scripture at any Time or in any part of it inconsistently with that Article were to make it contradict it self and that too where it speaks most plainly and expresly I say this Foundation being laid and agreed on all Hands I have often wondred at the pretence of the Realists for their Doctrine being a manifest Tritheism as explained by them in saying 'tis what the Holy Scriptures teach they say that the Sacred Scriptures contradict themselves They would have it understood as a great deference on their Parts towards the Holy Scriptures that they imbrace and profess the Doctrine therein contained though such Doctrine very flatly contradicts all Reason and common Sense and withal other parts of the same Scriptures but it were far more becoming such as they are to express their Reverence for the Scripture by interpreting it consistently with it self and with Reason as the Nominals and Unitarians do than to expose it to the contempt and unbelief of all others by such a Reverence of it as this Book needs not that is to say by pretending to believe it indeed but believe it as manifestly inconsistent with it self as well as with that Reason which God has infused into the Human Nature for a Guide and Judg in all either obscure or doubtful Matters It is the Church and the Unitarians that truly reverence the Scriptures by rescuing them from senseless and contradictory which is to say impossible Senses But supposing it were true that the meer Words of some few suspected or ambiguous Texts did seem very much to favour the Doctrine of the Realists yet seeing those Texts as interpreted by the Realists too plainly contradict evident Reason and the Nature of things why will not these Gentlemen see that in such a Clash as this We must interpret the Scripture consistently with Reason and the nature of things because words will bear to be somewhat strained much rather than things The nature of Things and the dictates of Reason are Eternal and Immutable they will not admit or bear the least Stretch Strain or Violence done to them but Words are of a very desultory and vagrant Meaning they are sometimes to be taken Literally or as they Sound sometimes in a metaphorical or figurative Sense sometimes in an Hyperbolical that is excessive nay sometimes in an Ironical which is to say contrary Sense which being the Case of all Books and Writings whatsoever there can never be a real Necessity of so interpreting the Scripture that it should contradict the known Nature of things plain Reason or it self Whereas some say here and are willing always to repeat it that the current of Scripture is so much and so clearly for such a Trinity as the Realists profess that it would be manifest Violence done to the Divine Word to interpret it as the Socinians do I answer Cedò locum name me the Text or Context alledged for the Doctrine of the Trinity that is not interpreted by some of the most Learned Criticks and Interpreters of the Trinitarian Party in the same manner as 't is understood by the Unitarians Why do they pretend that they are constrained and by the clearness and the current of Scripture to profess a Trinity of Divine subsisting Persons when all Learned Men know that the Texts they have to alledg are so far from being the current of Scripture that they are few in Number and also of very suspected Authority that is they are justly doubted of whether they are genuine original Parts of Scripture or have been added to it and so far from being clear that they are extreamly Ambiguous and accordingly not only some but even the generality of Trinitarian Criticks interpret most of them as we do and not only most of them but the Principal of them more particularly the objected Texts that seem to impute the Creation of Things to our Saviour As I said but now Cedò locum I demand that Text or Context which I will not show is interpreted by the most sufficient of their own Party as we take it but if so as 't is not the first Time this Challenge has been made to them why do they so untruly pretend that they are carried away by the Current of Scripture and by the clearness of it both on their sides May they call a few single Texts or rather shreds of Texts the Current of Scripture or talk of the clearness of their Texts when they cannot alledg so much as one but is interpreted to an Unitarian Sense by some of their own best Writers on the Scriptures and of Controversy With how much more Reason and Sincerity may the Unitarians claim the current of Scripture and that 't is clear also on their Side For there is not a Page there but speaks of God in the singular Number there God is never called Persons but Person he is always spoken of and to by singular Pronouns such as I Thou Thee He Him Me which are never used in any Language but only of one single Person never of three subsisting Persons When the Realists say the Scriptures are clear of their side they mean it chiefly of those Texts wherein Christ is called God and of those in which the Creation of the World and of all things is or seems to be attributed to him But how often is the name God given in Holy Scripture to those that either represent God as Kings and Magistrates or that are like to him in some very distinguishing Respect or in whom he dwells after a peculiar manner as Prophets and Heroical Persons is not Moses for one Instance on all these accounts called God and by God himself And is it a Marvel then that the Mediator also of the New Testament as well as he of the Old is dignified with this Name And yet as I have said elsewhere I am well assured that the Realists will never prove against the Author of the Brief History of the Socinians that the name God is really given to the Lord Christ in any Text that is a genuine Part of Scripture that is to say that hath not been corrupted by the Zeal of Catholicks to make it more conformable to their Sentiments As to the Texts that impute the Creation of things to the Son that is to the Lord Christ do not all Learned Men know that the best of the Trinitarian Interpreters some of the zealousest Men of the Party understand all those Texts of the New Creation that is of the Renovation of things on Earth by the Ministry of
seems self-evident that either the Father only must be said to the truly God because he only hath omnimodous Perfection and in the highest Degree or that there is one Great God and two Inferior or lesser ones To this they that maintain the Inequality of the three Persons answer by retorting the Argument thus If the Divine Persons are equal then there are three Omnipotents and three Omniscients which is the very Notion of three Gods and is denied in terminis or expresly by the Athanasian Creed which saith not three Almighties but one Almighty c. But was it ever heard since the Creation of things say the common Enemy to both the Nominals that two contending erroneous Parties did more effectually ruin one another's common Mistake For as 't is self-evident on the one Hand that it being the very Definition of God the Notion that all Men have of him that he is a Being Omnimodously or absolutely Perfect therefore if the Son or Spirit want some Perfections or some degree of Perfection neither of them can be God but the Father only So on the other hand 't is noless incontestable that three Distinct and really subsisting Persons each of which possesses all Perfections and every degree of those Perfections must of necessity be three Gods Why do not these unhappy Men say the Nominals see that three Almighties and three Omniscients are most certainly three Gods and that on the contrary if only one of them is internally and verily Almighty as well as Superiour in Dignity to the other two he only is true God they are Gods only by Courtesy and Civility of Speech Do not the two contrary Arguments of these unlucky Reasoners make a Dilemma that overthrows their common Foundation even this that the Persons of the Trinity are subsisting Persons Have they not shown us how to argue succesfully against them both for we learn from themselves to say either the imagined subsisting Persons of their Trinity are equal or not equal if equal they must be three Gods because nothing is wanting to any of them toward making him a perfect God if unequal only one of them is properly and truly God the other two by Civility and Courtesy only they may be Gods to those that have a mind to compliment but wanting some Perfections or some Degrees of Perfection neither of them can be God in a Theological or Philosophical Sense But the Pleasure and Sport of the Nominals increases when the Realists seek to extricate themselves from these Noozes For example The Realists that are for the Equality say Father Son and Spirit though omnimodously Perfect and subsisting Persons are one God by their mutual Concord and Agreement So also Origen and other Antenicenes make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons tho they did not believe the Equality To this the Nominals answer the supposed Divine subsisting Persons are hereby loving Friends which is a good Hearing for should three Almighties fall out what would the World do but if they are not only distinct but subsisting Persons they are as much three Gods in a proper and natural Sense as if they were never so much at odds Concord doth not make a Real or Physical Unity which is the Unity of God but only a Moral Vnity or such as is between Friends or Allies Other Realists almost all the Moderns see and confess this therefore they say their Gods are one because they are in one another But say the Nominals God is in his Creatures more especially in the Faithful and they in him as our Saviour himself witnesses are they thereby all but one God is the Creature deified by being in God and he in us No no say others but the Divine Persons who are thus in one another have like Substances Natures and Properties which cannot be said of God and the Creatures Admirable again cry the Nominals but remove this one Scruple If these resembling Gods are so united in their Substances or so in one another that their Substances are continuous like the Parts of the same Angel or like the assignable Parts of the same Divine Person 't is plain that by such an Union or mutual Immeation of their Parts they are become but one subsisting Person in number which is what the Nominals and Socinians contend for but if they are only so united or so in one another that their Parts are only Contiguous like Wine and Oil shook together and yet never incorporating this is but only Contact and Juxta-position and doth not make the three Persons to be one much less one God any more than all the Men in a close Croud are one Man or than the Wine and Oil before-said are one Substance In a word say the Nominals who sees not that the three Divine subsisting Persons having like Substances or Properties or what is all one like Natures are but only Gods resembling one another and whether they be in at out of one another likes are never the same 'T is well but it may be they have better luck who say the Divine Persons are not equal but the Second and Third are subordinate in Authority and inferiour in their Perfections The Objection against them is that hereby either the second and third Persons are neither of them God but only the First or here is one great God and two lesser They reply that as a Father and his two Sons are one Master of the Family though the Authority and Power is in the Father and only secondarily derivatively and less absolutely in the Sons So Father Son and H. Spirit are one God because the two latter though subject and inferior to the former have like Authority and Power with him for that he always concurs with them But the Nominals cry this is not one God in a Physical or Natural Sense but only in a Political and that the supposed Father of the Family and his two Sons may as well be said to be one Man as one Master For in very Deed only the Father is Master though he delegates Authority and Power to his Children during his Pleasue or if Power and Authority is absolutely and irrevocably conferred on them they are as much Masters as he and there is no longer one Master but three Secondly Another Argument of those that contend for the Equality is if the Son and Spirit are unequal to the Father and he only hath omnifarious Perfection with all degrees of those Perfections then the two former are very unnecessarily superadded to the latter he is perfect God without them they add nothing to him we can understand them but only as Foils to set off and to recommend his Perfections This Reasoning also is retorted by them that hold the inequality of the Persons in the supposed Trinity for they reply if there are three equally perfect Divine subsisting Persons two of them are redundant or more than needs If we suppose them say these Gentlemen unequal we leave but one God because the
thinking that the Son is Almighty that he every where denies that he may be Prayed to except only as to a Mediator who saith he is to Pray with us and for us Origen's first and 2d Books concerning Prayer have so many Arguments directed against Praying to any but the Father and particularly that we should not Pray to the Son he calls them Fools that do that it well appears indeed he held Father and Son to be subsisting Persons as the Realists do and that he durst say there are two Gods a first and a second God but yet that in Truth the Supream Divinity or true Divinity is in the Father only Which also is the Opinion of all the Ante-Nicens and was the Doctrine that Arius afterwards maintained with whom those Modern Realists who hold the Inequality do almost wholly symbolize it may be said that most of those who hold the Inequality of the supposed three Divine subsisting Persons perfectly agree with the Ariani molles the moderate Arians But here comes one that will make all the World to know the inmost thoughts of the Realists he perfectly and in terms discovers their Secret 'T is St. Basil called by his Party of Realists who hold the Inequality Basilius Magnus Basil the Great To those saith this bold Man who accuse us as holding three Gods we answer God is not one in Number but only in Nature He means as the Nature of Man namely the common Humanity is one but there are many particular Men Peter James John c. So the Nature of God or the common Divinity is one but there are as truly more Gods in number or more particular Gods as there are more particular Men Father Son and Spirit are each of them as truly a God as Peter James and John are each of them a particular Man This famous Passage is to be found in Basil's 141st Epistle ad Caesarienses Again Adv. Eunom In the Number and in the Properties there is a Diversity or Multiplicity in the Properties by which each Divine Person is characteriz'd we believe a Diversity and an Vnity only in what makes the Deity i.e. In the Divine Attributes that are common to all the three Divine Persons for each Person has Omniscience Omnipotence and Omnipresence perfect Goodness which Attributes make the Deity as Rationality and Risibility make the Humanity Basil then held that to this Question how many Gods it must be answered three Gods in Number or three Personal Gods and one in Nature or Divine Properties Which is to say in very Deed three Gods but yet Gods so resembling one another that from the sameness of their Attributes or Essential not Personal Properties they may be called one God even as all Men or Mankind from the sameness of their Nature namely the Rational are in common speech often times called Man Which Comparison or Explication of their Meaning and Doctrine is often used by St. Basil and St. Gregory Nyssen the Patriarchs and Founders of those Realists who affirm the Equality of the supposed Divine subsisting Persons As for the Modern Realists they are only some late Writers of our own Nation the first and chief is Dr. Cudworth after him followed Dr. Bull then Dr. Sherlock my Lord the Bishop of Glocester Mr. How Mr. Milbourn Mr. J.B. in his late Learned and Bitter Answer to Dr. S th Some of these are for the absolute Equality of the Divine Persons in all Essential Attributes such as Power Wisdom Omnipresence but some as Dr. Cudworth especially will allow the Son and Spirit to be equal in nothing to the Father but only that they are Coeternal and by this he thinks he sufficiently acquits himself of Arianism But both Parties most openly avow their Tritheism and that many ways By saying there are three infinite Spirits three Omniscient Minds three Divine intellectual Substances three Divine Persons as really Subsisting and as truly Distinct and divers as three Angels or three Men are Again by their Explication of the Possibility and the Manner of an Unity in Trinity Some of them saving three subsisting Divine Persons are one God by a certain most close Unition of their Substances Others by mutual Consciousness of one another's Thoughts and Actions or because besides their having like Substances and Properties they are also in one another They see nor what 't is marvellous Men of their Sense should not see that several subsisting Persons each of which is a perfect God three Almighties three Omniscients whether Conscious or not Conscious to one another whether in or out of one another whether agreeing or at odds none of these Foreign Considerations can so alter the Case but that all Three must as truly be three perfect Gods as each of them is confessed to be one perfect God But let us hear Mr. J. S. in his late Answer to Dr. S th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock For as this Gentleman is well skilled in these Questions so he delivers his Mind without much Reserve he seems not to be afraid to say what he thinks because 't is so certain that the Fathers after the Year 380. were in the very same Sentiments concerning the Trinity namely that the Persons of the Trinity arc really distinct and subsisting Persons and equally have all Divine Perfections in the highest Degree He faith pag. 141. Each distinct Divine Person is as compleatly and perfectly God as each distinct Angdical Person is a compleat perfect Angel He demands at pag. 75. Will the Animadverter Dr. S th deny that one Divine Person is one God I will answer for Dr. S th 'T is Heresy to say that the Persons of the Trinity are as distinct as three Angelical Persons for Angels or Angelical Persons are distinguished in their Substances and have so many several Understandings Wills and Energies but in all these Respects the Persons of the Trinity are not distinct but are Identically the same Nor is one Person of the Trinity as compleatly and perfectly God as an Angelical Person is compleatly and perfectly an Angel for one Angelical Person is a compleat and perfect Angel but all three Persons of the Trinity and not one only are necessary to compleat the Notion and due Conception of one God Therefore to his Question Is not one Divine Person one God I answer no three Divine Persons are one God that is to say taking the word Persons in the Sense that the Church intends it namely for Relative Persons or the threefold Relation of the Deity But taking a Divine Person as this Author and his Fellow-Realists do for a subsisting Person a distinct intellectual Being and Infinite Mind and Spirit I answer and the Church also so answers that indeed every such Person is one God and three such are three Gods Page 85. When God is said to be three Persons the term God is taken in a Logical Sense and is equivalent to a terminus Communis or a Species As who should say there are truly three Gods in
to the Papists themselves as to us of the Reformation their Memory is glorious and ought to be precious also among us But we say also that the Augéan Stable was too foul to be absolutely cleansed at once even by Hercules and his Companions Dr. Luther did a great deal the Labours of his Companions and Seconds were very laudable but much Filth is still left behind We desire to be fairly and candidly heard concerning some corruptions in the Faith and some abuses in the Morality still taught and particularly which is the Subject of these present Papers concerning the Object of our Faith and Worship Almighty GOD. We see we own that the Doctrine of the Church meaning by the Church the Nominal Trinitarians is sound as to the Sense and Intention of it but we humbly offer that the Terms in which 't is expressed are Vnscriptural and very Dangerous The words Trinity Incarnation Hypostatical Vnion are never used in Scripture nor is God ever there called Persons but Person And 't is evident that by occasion of these Terms the Vulgar have such a conception of the Trinity as is certain Tritheism When the People hear of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost they know not that thereby are meant only so many Relations of God either internal Relations to himself or external Relations to the Creature but they conceive in their Minds such a Father Son and Spirit distinct from both as are so many several subsisting Spirits so many distinct All-perfect Beings in very Deed so many Living Gods and not one God under three several Conceptions For tho they are taught to say three Divine Persons and but one God and that God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost tho each of them is God yet all of them are but one God this last all of them but one God because they know not how 't is to be conceived with the other namely that each of them is God and one of them is God the Father another God the Son they utterly lose the Conception of one God and retain only what is intelligible to them namely three Divine Persons each of them a God We think that the Church having gained her Point against the Fathers and Realists in the Lateran Council and having been in Possession of the Truth for near 500 Years together she may now fling off the Disguise hitherto used the dangerous Tritheistick terms Trinity Persons and the rest she may now begin to declare the Truth she owns in Terms and Words that are proper for it Why does she frown upon those nay persecute them that believe the Unity of God in the Sense that she holds it only because they would cast out the Terms that so plainly favour the Tritheists that is the Realists What has the Church to fear has not the Lateran Council and all Writers ever since declared the Realists to be Hereticks therefore what need is there to retain their Terms when we have discharged the Notions intended by them 'T is true we can say as the Church does three Divine Persons the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God taking these words in the Church's Sense not for subsisting Persons that is to say Living Spirits but for Relations Properties Modes or such like We can say God was Incarnate meaning he did inhabit the Lord Christ after an ineffable manner and without Measure which is really as much as the Church intends by the word Incarnation We own the eternal Generation of the Son or Word and Procession of the Spirit by and from the Father explaining our selves with the School-Divines the Church and divers Fathers thus that God or the Father or original Wisdom conceived a most perfect Image of himself by understanding and considering his own Perfections and that he loveth or willeth as well as understandeth himself We can even say three Divine subsisting Persons intending with Dr. S th the Schools the Lateran Council and the Church Relative Subsistences whose Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation Which are Dr. S th's express words Tritheism charged p. 156. I cannot but ask it again why does the Church keep or impose on us such Words and Terms as in their present Signification destroy the Faith we both imbrace the Faith of the real Vnity of God We can say as the Church says we can use her Terms because we know her meaning but we cannot but say of them as Mr. Calvin did when ask'd his Opinion of the English Common-Prayers Tolerabiles Ineptiae For in very Deed 't is meer Trifling and something worse when the signification of these Terms and Words is wholly altered from what it antiently was yet still to retain them while the Church knows at the same Time that they give wrong Notions to the Vulgar making all our People Tritheists and serve also to animate and harden the Realists in their Heresy But I must do the Church this right to confess that most of her greatest Men particularly the first Reformers have publish'd to all the World their hearty desire that all these terms of the Realists were abolish'd and all were obliged to use the Scripture-Language and Words only which would heal all our Breaches and perfectly restore our Peace not only in this but in almost all other Questions and Strifes Let us hear of so many as might be alledged Dr. M. Luther and Mr. J. Calvin M. Luther complains The word Trinity sounds odly it were better to call Almighty God God than Trinity Postil major Dominic Mr. Calvin is yet less pleased with these kind of Terms he says I like not this Prayer O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity It savours of Barbarity the word Trinity is barbarous insipid profane an human Invention grounded on no Testimony of God's Word the Popish God unknown to the Prophets and Apostles Admon 1. ad Polon Decemb. 17. 1695. FINIS
the War against the Saracens in the Holy Land but really to raise a Crusade or Holy War against the Albigenses and to confirm the Vassalage of John King of England to the See of Rome against the Consent of the English Peerage that is in short to inlarge the Jurisdiction and increase the Authority of the Western Patriarch or Bishop of Rome 2. My second as I said incontestable Proof that the Nominal Trinitarians are the Church is that the Divinity-Chairs and all Writers whether of Controversy or Systems have ever followed the Doctrine of the Schools which is the Doctrine of the Nominal Trinitarians and the Creed and 2d Canon of the beforesaid Council of Lateran in declaring the Doctrine of the Trinity They all take it as the Council-Schools and Nominals do for their Foundation That there is but one only and self-same Divine Substance and in that Substance but one infinite Undestanding but one almighty Energy and Will in number Which is to say there is but one really Subsisting divine Person or God is but one subsisting Person tho in a Critical or Classical Sense of the word Persons namely when Persons is used only for various Relations of the same really subsisting Person we may say there are three Divine Persons A subsisting Person is by Confession of all one particular Substance having one Understanding Will and Energy or power of Action in number therefore God being according to the Council Schools and all Nominals one Substance or one particular spiritual Substance with one only Understanding Energy and Will he can be according to them but one subsisting Person tho he may be more Metaphysical or Classical Persons that is more Relations or Properties This I say is the Doctrine of that Council of the Schools and of the Nominal Trinitarians and it has always been approved and taught by the Divinity-Chairs and by the Writers both of Systems and Controversy therefore the Nominals not the Realists are the Church I shall grant that the real Trinitarians have on their side the most and most considerable of the Fathers reckoning from about the Year of Christ 140 and meaning those Fathers whose Writings have been suffered to come down to our Times and excepting out of the Number the Party in the first Nicen Council which some little time after the breaking up of that Council were considered as the Orthodox Party and the Church and were persecuted as such by the Arians But the Nominals have what is much more considerable all the Moderns accounting the Moderns from the Council of Lateran or the Year 1215. Since that Council Learning and more especially Theological Learning has not only been revived but greatly improved the later Divines have been better Criticks Interpreters Philosophers than the Fathers were and the two last Ages only have afforded more Hundreds of able Divines than there were single Persons of the Fathers Of the Latin Fathers only St. Jerem would have been accounted a Learned Divine in our Age and of the Greeks Origen Eusebius the two Gregories Basil St. John Chrysostom and four or five more had the rest wrote in any part of the two last Ages they should undoubtedly have been reckoned among the Scriblers The Nominals therefore if you demand Authority produce a General Council not only establishing their Hypothesis or Explication of the Trinity but denouncing Anathema to the contrary Doctrine and the Realists if you require a Poll if you will be judged by most Votes they have for them an hundred far more Learned Moderns against one Father who can be cited for their Opposers the Realists Why the Nominals are so called their Doctrine and Agreement with the Unitarians THE Church then as I said is unquestionably the Nominal Party and this Party is so called because as the Realists are denominated from their believing three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many real subsisting Persons so the Nominals believe three Divine Persons who are Persons in Name only indeed and in truth they are but one subsisting Person This will appear by all more fully and clearly by the account I shall now give in their own Words and Terms of their Doctrine Hypothesis or Explication The Nominals are one Party in several Subdivisions they must be called one Party because their Explications so far agree as really to leave but one God and one Divine Person properly and physically so called All the Divisions of the Nominals accord that there is but one only and self-same Divine Essence and Substance the Divine Substance according to them is one in Number not as the Realists hold one in Properties only which indeed were only a likeness of Substances not an Vnity As the Divine Substance is numerically One so according to the Nominals is the Divine Understanding Energy and Will they are not repeated as the Persons are but they are one as strictly and properly as the Essence or Substance is one Or more clearly if it may be thus as there is but one Divine spiritual Substance so there is but one omniscient Understanding but one omnipotent Energy but one most Holy Will. They allow indeed of three Persons in the Sense hereafter declared but all these Persons have but one Understanding one Will one Energy in Number Having laid this honest and sound Foundation they take a Latitude and without quarrelling with or censuring one another in declaring what is to be meant by the three Persons One saith they are only three Acts of God whereby he is denominated after three several manners On the account of his Creating Redeeming and Sanctifying Mankind he is called three Persons for say these Gentlemen a Creator is a Person a Redeemer is a Person a Sanctifier is a Person If you reply true but one Person may perform all these Acts and sustain all these Denominations they answer you have rightly understood them for they intend not to say there are three Divine physical or subsisting Persons but three Persons in a Critical or Classical or if you will Metaphysical sense of the word Persons For instance three such Persons as one Man who happens to be a King a Husband and a Father may be said to be Every Body knows who is that Learned Professor that preached this Trinity first in three Sermons to the University of Oxford with great applause afterwards maintained it with no less Approbation among the London Divines in divers Letters by him published The Socinians not only never denied three such Persons in God or such a Trinity but as willingly avow it as this Professor himself his Learned Auditory at Oxford or his Admirers at London Why are we Hereticks while he is not only confest to be Orthodox and Catholick but is esteemed as a worthy and deserving Apologist for the Faith Why may not the Author of the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius or he of the Considerations on the Explications and Defences of the Trinity succeed to this Professor in his Canonship at