Unity also is an absolute Attribute We say that God is One in the masculine gender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.20 We say also that the Father is One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Son is One that the Holy Ghost is One in the masculine gender But we cannot say of Father Son and Holy Ghost that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unus One in the masculine gender but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unum One in the neuter gender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is we cannot deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are truly Three I esteem these two last Arguments the more because they are grounded on the express words of Scripture they are each singly and much more conjointly sufficient to overthrow the universality of that Axiom of St. Augustin Quicquid ad se dicitur Deus c. But what will then become of the Arian Objection I answer That I conceive that Objection a weak Sophism and capable of an easy Solution Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 3. I will give it in St. Augustin's own words Quicquid de Deo dicitur vel intelligitur non secundum accidens sed secundum substantiam dicitur Quapropter ingenitum Patri secundum substantiam est genitum esse Filio secundum substantiam est diversum est autem ingenitum genitum diversa est ergo substantia Patris Filii To this sense All the Predicates concerning God or the Divine Persons are either substantial or accidental Predications Not the latter because nothing is mutable in God if the former then to be unbegotten is a substantial Predicate of the Father and to be begotten is a substantial Predicate of the Son But to be unbegotten and to be begotten are contrary one to the other therefore the substance of the Father and Son are diverse or different St. Augustin seems not to acknowledge an accidental Predication concerning God and it is confessed that to be unbegotten or to be begotten are necessary and not accidental Predications of the Father and Son St. Augustin answers to the Objection That there was a middle Predication betwixt these two substantial and accidental which was a relative Predication Now it is very true that there is a middle Predication betwixt these two an essential Predication and an accidental one Secondly it is as true that in the Objection of the Arian this middle Predication was a relative Predication But with all submission it was error non causoe pro causâ to assign the relativeness of the Predication as the reason of its being a middle Predication The Objection is a plain Sophism equivocating in the phrase Substantia which has a double sense in this Mystery sometimes it signifies the same with Person or Hypostasis sometimes the same with Essence in the former sense the Conclusion is sound and orthodox that the Substance that is Hypostasis of the Father and Son is different And the Solution of this Objection is plain and easy A personal Predication is a middle Predication betwixt an essential and an accidental Predication and that a personal Predication may be as necessary as an essential one amongst humane persons the difference of Sex is a personal yet necessary Predication Amongst the Divine Persons to be unbegotten to be begotten to proceed distinguish the Persons but divide not the Essence Paternity is necessary to the Person of the Father but not essential to Him for then Paternity would be common to the whole Trinity St. Augustin could not have failed of this true Answer had he read the Greek Fathers and from them learned the true Distinction of Hypostasis and Vsia Lastly What Rule can I my self give concerning the plural or singular Predication of any Attribute concerning the Divine Persons I answer First That all plural Predications are either equipollent with or reducible to this one allowed Proposition That there are Three Divine Persons This is plain and needs neither Illustration nor Proof Secondly That all singular Predications are equipollent with or reducible to this other allowed Proposition viz. That there is but One God Is not this the same Distinction of an essential and personal Predicate which I have before declared insufficient I answer That so indeed the Schoolmen expound it To them this fundamental Article of Natural Religion there is but One God is the same with this that there is but One Divine Essence But I conceive that these are distinct Articles The Unity of the Divine Essence is but the Explication of the Unity of the Trinity and is not a question to any one to whom the Doctrine of the Trinity is not in some measure revealed Whereas the Article of the Unity of God is an Article of Natural Religion no Mystery but capable of being found out by Natural Reason alone One great occasion of this mistake was the expressing the Article of the Unity of God and of the Unity of the Trinity by the same Phrase The Unity of the Trinity is often expressed by this Phrase that the Trinity or Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God But tho they are the same Words they have a different import when predicated of the whole Trinity conjointly and when they are part of that fundamental Article of Natural Religion that there is but One God A just Exposition of this prime Article of Natural Religion will as I conceive give a Rational Account of these hitherto esteemed insuperable Difficulties of which by God's Grace in my Second Part. CHAP. IV. IN reference to the sacred Articles of Religion N. 1. we ought to have a double care not only to think but speak inoffensively to take care that our Words as well as our Opinions be Orthodox and especially ought we to be thus cautious in the Mysterious Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation where a word disordered I had almost said a Comma misplaced may render us in the judgment of the warm contending Parties guilty of no less than Heresy 'T is St. Augustin's Observation concerning the Mystery of the Trinity that Nec periculosius alicubi erratur Lib. 1. de Trin. cap. 3. nec laboriosius aliquid quoeritur It is no where more dangerous to Err nor more difficult to apprehend than in this Mysterious Subject A Wise Person will have a great care therefore to keep the beaten Path to speak in the received Language of the Church The Learned Calvin gives us his own Experience Expertus pridem sum quidem soepius Calvin's Instit lib. 1. cap. 3. n. 5. quicunque de verbis pertinacius litigant fovere occultum virus That they who obstinately quarrel against the Phrases of the Church are Hereticks in their Hearts It were to be wished that himself had sufficiently considered this when in the same Section he wishes Vtinam sepulta essent hoec nomina viz. Trinitas Persona Hypostasis Essentia Consubstantialis c. That the Ecclesiastical phrases were all buried or laid aside upon certain
1690 when the Reverend Dean published his Vindication of the Trinity And the second Edition of his Animadversions are printed in 1693 viz. That none then opposed the Reverend Dean's Notions most over-looked them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too this truly is the Case and by those some he especially understood the then Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Animad p. 361. so that this is a meer Complement if not as a Friend hinted put in in hopes of more Preferment Secondly This Article that there is but one God is an Article properly of Natural not the Christian Religion The Christian Religion does repeat and acknowledge it This Article is the Foundation of the Christian Religion and not a Foundation laid by the Christian Religion of which Distinction in my second part when I come to explain the Unity of God Thirdly That Proposition that there is nothing in God but what is God is true without his exception of a Mode which the Animadverter intends by his Parenthesis but the whole relates to the Simplicity of a Divine Person and not of the Trinity Fourthly There is no Composition in the Trinity not because there is no Plurality in the Trinity for then there could be no Trinity but because Father Son and Holy Ghost are not parts nor any ways analogous to component parts of God but each distinct Divine Person is as compleatly perfectly God as each distinct angelical Person is a compleat perfect Angel Fifthly the Christian Religion does declare not only that there is but one God but also that there are three to whom distinctly mark that word distinctly the Godhead does belong which is in other Words that God is one and three neither of which Articles are to be contradicted Sixthly Heb. 1.3 was not the Warrant why the Church stiled Father Son and Holy Ghost by the Title of Persons the term in that place is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hypostasis and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Person secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in the singular not plural Number The Enquiry is not whether Father Son and Holy Ghost be each an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether they be Hypostases in the Plural Number thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in that very place from before St. Jerom's time in all the Authentick Translations of that Epistle so far as I know till Beza's Translation constantly renderd by substantioe Substance fourthly The place it self requires this Translation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies there not the Person of the Father but something which the Father in our Conception hath See Petav. lib 6. de Trin. cap. 6. per totum The Son is not the Image of his Father's Subsistence in the Sense of the Animadverter that is of his Paternity but of his Father's Substance or Nature Hypostasis answers to Glory by which is certainly meant the Father's essential Glory fifthly The Fathers who in their private Comments expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Person as our Translation also renders it did it to express a further Similitude between the Father and Son viz. That the Son is a Person as well as the Father which is a true Exposition but perhaps not intended in this place however it overthrows the subtleties of the Schools that the Relations constitute each a Person for then the Son could not be the Image of the Father in Personality as he is not his Image in Relation is not a Father but a Son Sixthly And stated their Personalities upon three distinct Subsistences allotted to one and the same God-head First This is a secondary and less principal Enquiry about which there would be little or no difficulty if the great difficulty in this Controversie were first determin'd viz. What the three Divine Persons are A Person in this sacred Mystery is that to which the ternary Number belongs Three Persons as a late Reverend Author expresses it are three Somewhats Anim. p. 120. three Relatives says the Animadverter Agree but what we must add to Somewhats to Relatives and there needs not a word to determine what the three Personalities are If we say with the Ancients three Hypostases that is three Substances and neither St. Augustin St. Hierom nor St. Hilary knew any other Sense of the term Hypostases Every compleat Substance is a Suppositum and has a proper Mode of Subsistence and then there is no more difficulty in conceiving three Hypostases to have three Modes of Subsistence than for the Socinians or Jews to explain how God whom they believe one Person one Hypostasis has one Mode of Subsistence Secondly To allot three Modes of Subsistence to one and the same singular God-head is quickly said but it is such a Choke-pear that the several Parties of the scholastick Tribe have not known how to swallow 1. The Foundation of it is a Mistake viz. a false Translation of that noted Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that Phrase signifies not as the Schoolmen from their ill Translations mistook it modes of Subsistence in the Abstract but the Modes or Properties of the subsistent Being or Person in the Concrete this Phrase signifies not the personal Forms or Personalities but the Properties of the Person already constituted which two differ as a Form and an Adjunct Personality is the Form a personal Property is an Adjunct and supposes the Person already constituted and formed Justin Martyr or rather the Author under his Name whom our Animadverter quotes Anim p 252. after those remarkable words so often imitated by the succeeding Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Terms unbegotten begotten proceeding are not Names of the Essence but Properties of the subsistent Being or Person and before that latter place viz. that these Terms are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not denoting the Essence but signifying the Hypostases or Persons Hypostasis signifies the Person in concreto and not the Subsistence in abstracto as the Animadverter has falsely translated it I say that Author has in the middle between these two places a Passage that undeniably evinces the Sense of the Phrase in Dispute That Author illustrates the former Phrase by the example of Adam whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose personal Property was to be immediately formed by the Hands of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Formation of Adam gives us his personal Property for it declares how he was produced I believe the Animadverter himself will not have the Confidence to pretend that the Formation of Adam by the hands of God was the Personality of Adam that which properly constituted Adam a Person but only a Property of Adam considered in our Conception as already constituted This Sense of the Phrase was undisputed in the learned Damascen's time Damas lib. 1. de ortho fide cap. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore all things that the Father hath are also his that is the Son 's
our Church whom you vouchsafe only the bare Title of Church-men to None then opposing them The Reverend Dean's Notions concerning the Trinity most overlooking them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too This is truly the Case Is not this in your own words To throw your Scurrility at high and low Preface p. III. at all about you and below you at an unsufferable rate Is this the Character of so Learned and every way Excellent a Clergy not to oppose most to overlook nay some to countenance and advance the Author of the worst of Heresies Tritheism it self You explain your self p. 361. when you call the late Learned and Worthy Archbishop of Blessed Memory his Great Lord and Patron whom you here designed by those words and advancing the Author for them too I need add but one place more at present p. 379. where you tell the Reader how thin a Bottom the Reverend Dean has to support him But it seems Coward-like in my apprehension to accuse the Reverend Dean as a Person of so thin a Bottom and yet immediately in the same page to declare That if any one besides him shall attempt an Answer to your Discourse you shall not in the least trouble nor concern your self about him whosoever he be You mean probably that you will not in Print Answer any such Discourse but it is not always in our power to avoid being troubled or concerned However if that will do you any kindness I design not an Answer to your Animadversions so far as they are personal betwixt the Reverend Dean and your self The Reverend Dean needs not so weak a Pen as mine to defend him His own is best able to chastise you if that Learned Person were not better imployed more to the Glory of God and the Service of the Church of England If the Novelty of the phrase of three infinite Minds startled many of our Clergy I do assure you That yours of three Modes has displeased more not one whom I have had the honour to consult but are better reconciled to three infinite Minds since the reading of your eighth Chapter than they were before They believed the Article without enquiring into the Modus But if they must determine the Modus if they must chuse to profess three infinite Minds or only three Modes The former is an intelligible Notion There is a difficulty indeed how to reconcile this with the Article of the Unity of God but the latter is to most meer Metaphysical Cant. They believe and can readily understand that each distinct Divine Person is an infinite Mind from whence the Consequence lies fair that three distinct Divine Persons are three distinct infinite Minds But they cannot in the least comprehend how a Divine Person can be a Mode which you expresly affirm p. 121. A Person here in this Mystery imports only a Relation or Mode of Subsistence c. My design is by God's assistance to vindicate this great Article of a Trinity in Vnity against the Socinians The Church by God's Providence has overcome the Arian Heresy a much more subtle Heresy than that of the Socinians which perswaded me that treading in the steps of the Ancients was the best way to defend the Orthodox Faith at present It was a great surprise to me in my Enquiry to find 1st that those things which at this day are esteemed as the greatest Objections against this Sacred Article had a quite different import in the Judgment of the Ancients 2dly That all these Subtilties which the Schools have taught us in this Mystery were utterly unknown to Antiquity nay in many of them the direct contrary Conclusion most expresly maintained by the Fathers of the Church 3dly That the Subtilties of the Schools were little studied by the Moderns these Animadversions were no small confirmation of this point the Animadverter having in so many places and in the most material Articles not understood the Hypothesis of the Schools which yet at the same time he would be thought to embrace and shelter himself under 4thly That the Article of the Trinity is safe without recurring to the Scholastick Subtilties I am very sensible that to clear all this is a difficult Province and I heartily wish this Lot had fallen to an Abler Hand I am so conscious of my own Defects that nothing but Zeal for that Eternal Truth of this Article in the Belief of which I hope to be saved could have tempted me to expose my self and my own Deficiencies to the Censure of the world It often pleases the Divine Providence by weak means to bring to pass great effects If it shall please his Infinite Wisdom to use so weak an Instrument as my self to illustrate this great Truth or at least to incite by me some Abler Person to adorn this Great Mystery as it deserves To God and his Great Name be all the Glory and I shall then sit down contentedly joyfully with the Shame which any Mistake or Error of mine may bring to my self The Faith of the most Learned Fathers of the Church if I aright apprehend them that Faith at least which I embrace and propose is That the Extra Scriptural Terms used by the Church in this Great and Sacred Article viz. Trinity Person Hypostasis Consubstantial Essence are to be received and understood in the most proper native and genuine Sense of those Terms that is in the same Sense in which they were understood when by the same Fathers they were applied to Angelical or Human Persons And this I conceive in Sense to imply no more than what the same Fathers declared concerning the following Scriptural Expressions viz. That Father Son Spirit Begotten Proceeding Son of God Spirit of God Begotten Son of God c. are to be properly expounded and not in some improper uncouth figurative or Metaphorical Sense I shall divide my Design into Two Parts In the First I shall endeavour to give an Account of all the Metaphysical Terms used in this Mystery and as far as is necessary of the Subtilties which the Schoolmen have introduced in their Explication of them and this I have chosen to do by way of Animadversion upon our Animadverter from a double Reason First in relation to himself to convince him if possible of his Barbarous Treatment of a Worthy and Reverend Person for barely venturing on a new Expression in a Vindication of this Sacred Article The Piety of the Design with all Candid and Ingenuous Lovers of the Article would have attoned for a much greater Erratum Three Infinite Minds or Spirits is capable of an Orthodox Exposition even in the mouth of a Schoolman However the Animadverter of all persons ought to have been silent or the last to have found fault with it who has so often been guilty of greater Slips both in Philosophy and Divinity Secondly In relation to the Socinian Historian who by his Commendation of the Animadversions has adopted them for his own
by an incomprehensible ineffable kind of Union and Conjunction And if this does not satisfy as it rationally may I must needs profess that my Thoughts and Words can neither rise higher nor reach further This difficulty is not peculiar to the Asserters of a Trinity of Divine Persons They who acknowledge but one Divine Person in the Godhead are equally concerned in this question Whether the Subsistence of one or more Divine Persons added to the Divine Nature infers a Composition in a Divine Person The Animadverter confesses That in all finite Persons Subsistence and Nature infer a Composition he means a modal Composition a Composition of Substance and Mode This manifestly increases the difficulty how a Substance and Mode should not be a modal Composition in a Divine Person He tells you indeed it does not if we please we may take his word if not his thoughts and words can reach no higher But by his leave I shall consider this point more carefully All Composition is Distinctorum Vnio so as to constitute some whole that is in Composition there must be an Union and also the several things united must in some sense be component parts otherwise we could not distinguish Composition from a bare local Union Now according to the Animadverter the Divine Nature or Substance is one thing and the Mode another a Mode is to him a thing added and a Divine Person a whole so that it is manifest according to him that there must be a modal Composition in a Divine Person in God in a pure simple act which is void of all Composition Nay further those Schoolmen who assert these real Modes reduce some of them to Substance some of them to the accidental Predicaments Those Modes which intimately adhere to Substance as Existence Subsistence they reduce to the predicament of Substance those Modes which complete Substance it self cannot be any thing accidental of a different kind and nature from Substance and yet they cannot be perfect Substances for then they would want other Modes to perfect them but they suppose each of these Modes a substantiale quid a substantial thing tho not so perfect as Substance So again those Modes which perfect an Accident are each of them accidentale quid something accidental tho not a perfect Accident Now I freely profess that I have no Notion of this substantiale quid which is not a perfect Substance nor of an accidentale quid which yet is not a perfect Accident However from this Explication of these Philosophers minds it is manifest that a Substance and Mode in finite Persons infer a Composition of a Substance and a distinct substantiale quid To apply this to the Opinion of the Schoolmen concerning the simplicity of a Divine Person The Subsistence as I have already declared they believed to be one absolute Essential the Divine Relations which they call Modes of Subsistence because according to them they constitute the Divine Persons and render each Person incommunicable which a Mode of Subsistence does in finite Persons I say the Divine Relations of Paternity Filiation and Procession they first declared to be no predicamental Relations for then they must have been esteemed proper Modes Modus non potest non esse quid imperfectum cum non attingat absolutam rationem entis Suarez lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 4. N. 11. p. 410. and the Schoolmen were never so silly as to believe there was any thing so imperfect as a Mode in God they never believed a substantiale quid which was not so perfect as a Substance in God They call the Divine Relations transcendental Relations which in our imperfect way of Conception are but as so many substantial Modes perfecting the one absolute Subsistence of the Divine Essence they believed each distinct Divine Relation to be not a bare substantiale quid but a most perfect infinite Substance with a Relative Form or as they often speak a Relative Substance And here I must again acknowledge that I am as little able to conceive a Relative Substance as a substantiale quid before J am substantia non erit substantia quia relativum erit Absurdum est autem ut substantia relativè dicatur omnis res ad scipsam subsistit quanto magis Deus St. Austin lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 5. But will not this Notion of the Schoolmen infer an higher Composition in a Divine Person viz. of two Substances an Absolute Substance the Divine Nature and a Relative Substance the Relation They answer That the Absolute and Relative Substance are not united but identified one with another this being an Axiom to the Schoolmen Suarez lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. N. 3. p. 407. In Divinis omnia sunt Vnum ubi non obviat relationis oppositio but there cannot be pretended relationis oppositio betwixt an Absolute and Relative Substance and by the same Axiom they endeavour to shew how these three Relative Substances may be one absolute Divine Nature one God But then comes the grand Difficulty of all If each distinct Relative Substance be the same or identified with the one singular absolute Divine Nature are not the three Relations from thence identified one with another Is not this an infallible Axiom in reason Quae sunt eadem uni tertio sunt eadem inter se This is the Gordian Knot which almost every Schoolman gives a different answer to but at last they are generally obliged to cut it and deny the truth of the Axiom in the Divine Nature I thought it necessary to give this account of the Opinions of the Schoolmen to shew the Animadverter how little reason he had to lay so great a stress upon the Metaphysicks of Modes Nothing was farther from the thoughts of the Schoolmen with whose Names he flourishes so often than to believe that there were true Modes in God The Divine Relations according to them were only Modes in Name or in our imperfect Conception of them As for my own private Opinion with all submission to better Information I conceive That Existence in a finite Person or Being much more in a Divine Person is only the actuality of a Person or Being That Subsistence adds only a Negation of incompleteness to substantial Existence even in finite Persons and consequently infers no sort of Composition in them and therefore much less infers a Composition in a Divine Person Again I do believe that all predicamental Relations amongst the Creatures are no positive Modes but only external Denominations the same which the Schoolmen are obliged to affirm of the Relations of the Divine Persons to the Creatures Nor can I see any Absurdity of extending the same conclusion to the Internal Relations as the Schoolmen call them As for instance The Relation of Paternity may justly as I conceive be stiled an extrinsical Denomination extrinsical I say not to the sacred Triad but to the Person of the Father who is denominated by it and in the same sense Filiation extrinsical
The utmost their Hypothesis will allow them to pretend to is That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a distinct Person from the Person of the WORD According to the Schoolmen the Humane Nature of Christ subsists and is a Principium quod of all its own Actions equally with the Humane Nature of any other Humane Person they seem to me to strive to disguise the Heresy of Nestorius by saying That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a distinct Person from the Person of the WORD because it subsists by the Subsistence or Personality of the WORD To explain this a little The Schoolmen who under pain of Heresy assert but one singular absolute Substance in the Trinity found a great and almost insuperable difficulty so to explain the Incarnation that only the Person of the WORD and not the whole Trinity was incarnated or became Man This is an obvious enquiry What it is which was immediately united to the Humane Nature of Christ so as to denominate Christ both God and Man To assert that the singular common Divine Nature was immediately united to the Humane Nature was to assert the Incarnation of the whole Trinity since whatever belongs to the common Divine Nature immediately belongs equally to the whole Trinity it remains therefore according to them that only the Mode of Subsistence of the WORD was immediately united to the Humane Nature This Answer has visibly many difficulties in it which may be considered hereafter Now I am only to enquire how it denies the Humane Nature of Christ to be a distinct Person from the Person of the WORD The Humane and Divine Nature of Christ have say they but one singular Mode of Subsistence Well grant that possible What follows The Schoolmen say that then they are not two distinct Persons I cannot for my life see the Consequence That Maxim of the Law Quando duo jura concurrunt in una persona oequum est ac si concurrerent in duobus may be as I conceive applied here If we suppose it possible for one Personality to constitute two distinct Natures each a Person it is a meer wrangle of a term to deny these two Natures to be two distinct Persons they have all the Properties of two distinct Persons they are two distinct Principia quoe equally with two other Persons The Animadverter does not barely alledge these to me unintelligible Subtilties of the Schools as the only defence of the sacred Article of the Incarnation against Nestorianism but in his third and next Argument to prove that Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in finite Persons He unwittingly I charitably presume has endeavoured to overthrow the defence which the most Learned and Orthodox Fathers of the Church have given us of this sacred and mysterious Article P. 73. N. 4. The Soul of man is Self-conscious and yet not a Person therefore c. P. 74. lin 22. If the Soul be a Person then the Body must be joined to it by being assumed into the personal subsistence of the Soul as the Humane Nature of Christ is assumed into the personal subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon the composition and constitution of a man will be an Hypostatick Union between Soul and Body which I suppose no Body will be either so bold or absurd as to affirm all Divines accounting an Hypostatical Union so peculiar to Christ's Person as not to be admitted in any other Person or Being whatsoever For an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. such an one as makes a compound Hypostasis are quite different things and this Author shall in due time be taught so much if he has any thing to object against it The Compiler of the Athanasian Creed has in this spoke the sense of the Catholick Church For as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is one man so God and Man is one Christ that is One not by Confusion of Substance but by Unity of Person I hope no True Son of the Church of England nor indeed Candid Lover of the Article but will pardon my digression if it deserve to be called such to vindicate this Similitude whereby the most Learned Fathers of the Church have endeavoured to illustrate and defend this Article against all its Heretical Opponents The Animadverter first objects That then the Constitution of a Man will be an Hypostatick Vnion Alas Obj. 1. How extremely afraid are some persons of having the Articles of their Faith found agreeable to the common Principles of Reason If by an Hypostatick Union he means that the Soul and Body of Man only subsist by the same singular Mode of Subsistence and that nothing but the Mode of the Subsistence of the Soul is immediately united to the Body I do assure the Animadverter that I believe not a Syllable of this I do not believe that one Mode can modify two Subjects or that a corporeal Body can be terminated perfected by a Mode of an incorporeal nature such as the Soul is Figure is a Mode of quantity and yet to me it seems unconceivable that a Giant should be terminated by the figure of a Dwarf without any alteration of his quantity or that a Dwarf should have the figure of a Giant and yet not altered in quantity Less am I able to conceive that the Humane Nature of Christ should be terminated by a Mode of Subsistence which belongs to a Divine Nature Secondly Obj. 2. If the Constitution of a Man be an Hypostatick Union then an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. such an One as makes a compound Hypostasis will not be quite different things then the Hypostatick Union in Christ will be also an Hypostatick Composition and then the Person of Christ will be a compound Hypostasis Well and what follows from all this why nothing but a threatning of the Animadverter's That in due time we shall be taught the Falshood of all this But not to await his due time I answer that to say that the Hypostatick Union in Christ is also an Hypostatick Composition or which is the same that Christ is a compound Hypostasis is so far from being a Paradox that it is the received Language not only of the Greek Fathers but of the Councils Syn. 5a. Constantin Can. 4. Sancti Patres docuerunt unitatem Dei verbi ad carnem animatam anima rationali intellectuali secundum compositionem Theodori autem Nestorii sequaces divisione gaudentes affectualem unitatem introducunt Sancta Dei verò Ecclesia utriusque perfidioe impietatem ejiciens unitionem Dei verbi ad carnem secundum compositionem confitetur Vide Can. 7um hujus Concilii Lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 3. sect 12. p. 232. Hear Petavius's Confession Christi Domini Hypostasin sive personam à plerisque Patribus dici compositam ex naturis duabus ut ab Cyrillo Damasceno Maximo aliis To which add what the Learned Suarez hath observed Suarez de
denominates him the particular Person of the Father This last Question is what the Fathers were chiefly concerned in The Noetianists the Patri-Passianists rarely disputed the Personality of Father Son and Holy-Ghost None who understand the meaning of the Term can deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them a proper Person if he acknowledges that each of them is properly God None can imagine that that Being which is God is either an Accident a Part or to please the Animadverter an Adjunct to any other Being Those only deny the Personality who esteem the Son and Holy Spirit that is each of them not properly God but something in God the Personal Word or Wisdom of God the Father or his Personal Power This was the great Controverted Debate Whether the Father Son and Holy Ghost that is whether Each of them was a Distinct Person and consequently whether they were Three Persons Now Paternity say the Ancient Fathers in this sense constituted the Father a distinct Divine Person The Schoolmen change the Question and say That it constituted him a Person In the same sense Filiation according to the Ancients constituted the Son a distinct Person and Procession Sanctification constituted the Holy Spirit a distinct Person from Father and Son This Observation will be of great use to any one who shall read the Ancients concerning the Personality of Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. III. P. 93. N. 1. COnsideration 5. When the terms Cause formal Reason constituent or productive Principle and the like are used about the Divine Nature and Persons they are not to be understood as applicable to them in the strict and proper signification of the said Terms but only by way of Analogy as really meaning no more than a causal or necessary dependance of one Notion or Conceptus Objectivus upon another so that it is impossible for the Mind to conceive distinctly of the one but as depending upon or proceeding from the other Compare this with his first Consideration P. 92. That the natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the universal Reason of things according to which the Conception of one thing presupposes and depends upon the Conception of another makes no Prius or Posterius and yet is by no means to be contradicted or confounded in our discoursing of God This the Animadverter lays down as a Rule to guide our Discourses concerning the Divine Persons To which I answer First That these Considerations contain a direct Heresy the express Heresy of Sabellius Secondly That the Animadverter himself notoriously breaks these Rules even where he ought to have kept them First It is the direct Heresy of Sabellius to assert That there is no Prius and Posterius between the Divine Persons The Compiler of the Athanasian Creed denies a Prius or Posterius in the Trinity in reference to Duration or Time they are all three Co-eternal But to deny a Prius and Posterius in Original is to deny that there is a Father and Son in the Trinity Again it is very pleasant for the Animadverter to tell us That this Prius and Posterius is founded in the Vniversal Reason of things and yet denies it in the Divine Nature As if Universal Reason did not reach infinite as well as finite Nature I suppose he means That there is a natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the particular reason of finite Natures which makes no Prius or Posterius in the infinite Divine Nature And it is as pleasant to hear him telling us That this natural Order of Prius and Posterius must not be contradicted in our discoursing of God when in the very immediate preceding words himself had contradicted it and affirmed that there was no Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature Secondly Himself most shamefully confounds this Natural Order of Prius and Posterius when he asserts p. 98. That the Father is formally constituted a Person by his own personal Act of Generation P. 249. That personal Properties are properly Personalities P. 250. That the Relation and Mode of Subsistence make but one single indivisible Mode of Being Yet says the Animadverter in the next immediate words according to the Natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence as precedent to the Relation For as much as Human Reason considers things simply as subsisting before it can consider them as related to one another The meaning of all this is That these are Rules when he hopes that he can confute the Dean of St. Paul's Self-Consciousness cannot be Subsistence because according to the natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence before the Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal Reason of Personality for as much as it is a Personal Act one property of the Person already constituted These are Demonstrations against the Dean of St. Paul's What pity was it that the Dean of St. Paul's never asserted this once in all his Book for then it would have been allowed the Animadverter that in one single Article he had been too hard for the Dean But why are not these Rules to himself Is not Generation as much a personal Act as Self-Consciousness Is not the Attribute of being a Father one property of a Person already constituted Is not this Relation founded upon and posterior to a personal Act of Generation Can any thing according to human Reason be related before it is I believe the Animadverter in this point must borrow his own words and tell us That his Thoughts and Words can reach no higher Lastly The Animadverter denies a Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature to purpose when he tells us That even Productive Principles when used in reference to the Divine Persons that is Father and Son are not applicable to them in the strict and proper Signification of the said term With his leave the Father is strictly and properly the productive Principle of his Son or else he cannot be strictly and properly the Father of his Son or else he did never strictly and properly beget his Son The Arians deny a proper Generation and assert That the Father is an Adoptive Creative and not Generative Father of his Son The Sabellians on the other hand adulterate both the Divine Generation and Mission and expound them in a figurative improper Sense Against both these Heresies the Church has ever professed a true and proper Generation amongst the Divine Persons P. 94. lin 25. N. 2. Self-Consciousness is a personal Act and therefore Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is and to whom it personally belongs The Consequence I allow the Animadverter I only enquire Why it concludes not against Generation which is as confessedly a Personal Act as Self-consciousness Secondly To affirm that Self-consciousness is a Personal Act is the greatest Heresie to the Schoolmen A Personal Act is an Act proper and peculiar to some
a Trinity of Divine Persons is owing to Revelation alone and from thence ex posteriori we learn that a Trinity that is neither more nor fewer of Divine Persons is necessary Three Divine Persons are necessary because no Person can be Divine and not have necessary Existence Again we believe that there are no more than Three because God has revealed the existence but of Three and commanded us to worship but Three viz. Father Son and Holy Ghost The Schoolmen pretend to prove the number of a Trinity of Divine Persons not from the formal Reason of Personality for what Reason can we give why a fourth Divine Person might not have proceeded from the three first a fifth from the first four and so in infinitum but from these two Maxims First That there can be but one unproduced Divine Person This to me is a sacred Article by no means to be contradicted and in this I agree with the Learned Henry de Gandavo That those Arguments which prove the Article of the Unity of God demonstrate this Proposition Secondly That there can be no more than two distinct Processions viz. Generation and Spiration If the Schoolmen understood this Proposition That the Scriptures have revealed but these two Processions I entirely agree with them But they argue ex priori A Spirit say they can substantially produce only by his Understanding or Will the former they tell us is proper Generation the latter Spiration Animad c. p. 116. But I cannot keep pace with these Gentlemen whom the Animadverter commends for venturing so little It suffices to my Faith that the quod sit of this Mystery is expresly revealed in Scripture viz. That the Son is begotten and that the Holy Ghost proceeds But what either the One or the Other is how they differ or why God might not have had two Sons or two Holy Spirits or have produced a fourth Divine Person by a different sort of Procession from either Generation or Spiration are things above my thoughts and words I approve of that Ancient Anthem of the Church Quid sit gigni quid processus Me nescire sum professus far beyond the Modern Subtilties of the Schools For this is a received Maxim in the Schools P. 113. lin 10. N. 6. with reference to the Divine Nature and Persons Repugnat in Divinis dari absolutum incommunicabile Greg. de Valen. Tom. 1. p. 874. And it is a sure Rule whereby we may distinguish in every one of the Divine Persons what is Essential from what is Personal For every Attribute that is absolute is communicable and consequently essential and every one that is purely relative is incommunicable and therefore purely Personal and so è converso I shall crave leave to put this Question more largely than the Animadverter has done and enquire What it is which determines the singular or plural predication of any Attribute concerning the Three Divine Persons The Schoolmen commonly give the same Answer with the Animadverter viz. That a Personal Attribute may be plurally predicated an Essential Attribute may be predicated singularly of the Three Divine Persons Secondly That a Relative Attribute is a Personal Attribute and an Absolute Attribute an Essential one To whom I answer That the first distinction concerning a Personal and Essential Attribute is true but insufficient for the difficulty Secondly That the second distinction of an Absolute and Relative Attribute is not necessarily universally true I say the former part of this Rule I confess to be true but answers not the difficulty A Personal Attribute may be predicated plurally if common to more than one Person For all such Predications are reduced to this received one of the Church That there are Three Divine Persons All Essential Attributes may be predicated singularly being equipollent to this that there is but one Essence of Father Son and Holy Ghost But this will not give us satisfaction in our present Enquiry As for instance It is the received Language of the Church That Father Son and Holy Ghost may be truly stiled Vnus Deus Vnus Dominus Vnus Creator as also the allowed Phrase of the Schools that Father and Son are Vnus Spirator and that it is Heresy to assert that Father Son and Holy Ghost are Tres Dii Tres Domini Tres Creatores or to say of Father and Son that they are Duo Spiratores I know the Schoolmen assert that Deus Dominus Creator are Essential Attributes but they cannot pretend this of Spirator to be the Spirator of the Holy Ghost is confessedly a Personal Attribute Attributa Divina positiva adjectivè sumpta rectè praedicantur in plurali de Divinis Personis Suarez lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 11. n. 12. p. 401. how comes that under pain of Heresy to be predicated singularly of Two Divine Persons viz. of Father and Son Secondly Sic enim Tres Personae rectè dicuntur Divinae Dominantes ac Creantes Pater Filius dicuntur Spirantes Spiritum Sanctum licet sint unus Spirator N. 12. p. 401. It is confest by the most rigid of the Schoolmen that it is lawful to say That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Tres Deitatem habentes Tres Dominantes Tres Creantes That Father and Son are Duo Spirantes How shall we extricate our selves out of this difficulty Is Deus an Essential Attribute and Deitatem habens a Personal One What difference is there in sense betwixt Deus and Deitatem habens Dominus and Dominans Creator and Creans Spirator and Spirans Can the Concrete term Deus be better explained than by its abstract Deitatem habens It 's manifest from these Examples that the distinction of an Essential and Personal Attribute will not solve this difficulty The Schoolmen confess this and therefore give us a second distinction of a Noun Substantive and Noun Adjective viz. That an Essential Attribute when exprest by a Noun Substantive is always to be predicated singularly but when the same Attribute is exprest by a Noun Adjective then it may be plurally predicated of the Divine Persons But I enquire How comes this Rule also to hold in the Personal Attribute of a Spirator Can a Criticism of Grammar make a Personal Attribute to be predicated as an Essential one and an Essential Attribute to be predicated in the nature of a Personal Attribute Secondly This is the very Question Why two Phrases in Sense and according to all the Rules of Logick equipollent should be so differently interpreted merely from a Criticism of Grammar that the one of them should be Orthodox and the other Heretical It 's also manifest from these Instances that the second Rule of an Absolute and Relative Predicate is false Deus Dominus Creator Spirator are manifestly Relative Attributes There can be no dispute of the three last and the Scripture Expressions of my God thy God our God your God prove the Relativeness of this term God Besides that an absolute Attribute put into an
Divines and soberer Reasoners than any of those pert confident raw Men who are much better at despising and carping at them than at reading and understanding them tho wise Men despise nothing but they will know it first and for that very cause very rationally despise them First I believe that the Animadvertor is the very first Person who commended the School-men for venturing little or for proceeding upon the surest Grounds both of Scripture and Reason The Boldness of the Schools is known to a Proverb he that has but cast his Eye upon Aquinas his Sums must from his own Experience confute the Animadvertor this Character of the School-men that they ventured little puts me in mind of a certain Person I once knew who commended Aristotle for Writing excellent Latin I leave the Application to the Animadvertor himself The second part of their Character is almost as proper they and the Animadvertor proceed upon the surest Grounds of Scripture much alike This last in his Eighth Chapter wherein he professedly endeavours to state the Doctrine of the Trinity quotes only one single place Heb. 1.3 and even that he has mistaken The School-men's Principles were for the most part St. Augustin's Authority as to the first Schoolmen for the latter generally Transcribed one from another A wise Man will no more praise than he will despise any thing till he first knows it and for that cause rationally praise it and not as the Animadvertor has done praise them for venturing little and for proceeding upon Scripture Grounds when it is notorious that they were guilty of the contrary faults After all Praising the School-men is Dispraising himself and his own Hypothesis The Modes of the School-men are only such in name in our imperfect Conception of things the Animadvertor's Modes are such in reality but of this hereafter P. 119. n. 4. Argument I. Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits are three distinct Gods c. Here I shall enquire into the import of these two Phrases Three infinite Spirits and Three Gods An Explication of these two Phrases is sufficient to solve this Objection and indeed the whole difficulty The rigid'st of the School-men allow That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Tres infinitam Spiritualem naturam habentes nor can there be any dispute either from Grammar or Logick that infinitus Spiritus and infinitam Spiritualem naturam habens are in sense exactly Equipollent and if these two are Equipollent in the singular number I would fain know a reason why the plural Number of these two Phrases should not be Equipollent that is why tres infiniti Spiritus should not signify the same with tres infinitam Spiritualem naturam habentes If any shall object the distinction of the Schools concerning Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective that Spiritus is a Noun Substantive and therefore according to them implys a multiplication of the form viz. the Spiritual Nature whereas Spiritualem naturam habens is an Adjective and only implys a multiplication of the Suppositum First I Answer That the distinction is groundless in it self and needless in respect of the difficulty it pretends to solve Secondly Allowing it to be true It only causes the Phrase to be less accurate not as the Animadvertor pretends absolutely Heretical the Phrases of the Athanasian Creed non tres aeterni c. observe not this rule yet the School-men charge not Athanasius with Heresy with denying a plurality of Persons but choose to say that he understood those Phrases Substantively the same favourable Construction ought a School-man to make of this Phrase viz. that Spiritus in this Phrase ought to be taken Personally Adjectively for Spiritualem naturam habentes and then it is Orthodox But if I will not allow this Criticism of the Schools concerning Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective how came no Man to venture upon it before the Dean of St. Paul's I Answer First That there is a very good reason why this Phrase is not to be found in Antiquity the reason the Reverend Dean himself gives viz That though there are three Holy Spirits yet not three Holy Ghosts in the Trinity that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spiritus was by the Ancient Fathers Appropriated to signify the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity and consequently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or tres Spiritus would accordingly to them have implyed Three Holy Ghosts strictly so called And for the same Reason the Phrase of one Spirit in reference to the whole Trinity is not that I know of above once to be found in all Antiquity and that in that bold Father St. Augustin Lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 11. Hom. 5. in Jerem. who was not afraid to say of the Phrase of Three Persons Non ut illud diceretur Secondly I find Origen quoted for the very Phrase Tres Spiritus David in Psalmo confessionis postulat Amongst the Moderns the learned Genebrard a Man of great Note in his Time and of great Skill in relation to this Mystery Genebrard Resp ad Scheghium p. 52. not barely justifies the Orthodoxness of the Proposition but declares that it was Propositio vera ac fide ab Ecclaesia Catholica omnibus temporibus recepta a true Article nay an Article of Faith and received as such by the Catholick Church of all Ages The Proposition is thus set down by Genebrard Tres sunt Spiritus oeterni quorum quilibet per se Deus there are three Eternal Spirits whereof every single Spirit is God with much more to the same purpose in the same place The same Answer will serve in reference to the Animadvertor's Objection That three Infinite Spirits are three Gods Tres Dei when it signifies the same with tres Deitatem habentes with tres Divinae Personae is Orthodox Genebrard lib. 2. de Trin. p. 155 Hear the learned Genebrard Si mavis dicere tres Deos id est tres Divinas Personas possis dicere atque interpretari Nam vocabulum Deus aliquando sumitur Hypostaticè ac ultrò citroque commeat cum Divina Persona sive Hypostasi ut cum in Niceno Symbolo legitur Deum de Deo c. But this Objection of Polytheism against the Doctrine of the Trinity I reserve to be handled at large in my Second Part. p. 119. lin 29. n. 5. My Reason for what I affirm viz. That three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits are three distinct Gods is this that God and Infinite Mind or Spirit are terms equipollent and concertible Every Page of the New Testament confutes this assertion This term God is a thousand times in Scripture appropriated to signifie the Person of the Father as in these and the like Phrases The Son of God the Spirit of God God sent his Son c. But this term Infinite Mind or Spirit is not capable of such Appropriation any more than the Phrase of a Divine Person can be appropriated to that signification Infinite Mind or Spirit is therefore
dicamus tres substantioe incommunicabiles seu relativoe Lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 6. The Learned Suarez acknowledges the Divine Persons to be tres res tria entia but he thinks it better to add tria entia relativa to be tria aliquid No Protestant Writer can deny them to be tres per se subsistentes and in that sense tres substantias Indeed there never had been any scruple of this Phrase had not this term Substantia been ambiguous and sometimes signified the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence Whence the warm St. Jerom Quis ore sacrilego tres substantias proedicabit Whence himself says that there was Poyson in the term Hypostasis whereas there is neither Poyson in the one or the other term if rightly Interpreted P. 123. l. 13. n. 13. And Bellarmin a Writer Orthodox enough in these Points and of unquestionable Learning otherwise in his second Tome p. 348. about the end says that to assert that the Father and Son differ in Substance is Arianism And yet if they were two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible Authority is very low with the Animadvertor when he takes shelter in Orthodox Bellarmin and lays hold on a dubious Expression in a plain case Every one knows that the Arians asserted that the Substance of the Son was not barely different in number but different in kind specifically different from the Substance of the Father and how impossible soever the Animadvertor judges it for two Substances not to differ in Substance the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon did expresly assert That Christ in his Humane Nature and we Men who are confessedly two Substances in number were consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am perswaded that the unquestionably Learned and Orthodox Bellarmin if he were now alive nor the Animadvertor for him will have the Boldness to say that this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to differ in Substance Again the Orthodox Bellarmin justified Calvin who ventured to Condemn that Expression of the Nicene Council that the Son was God of God and affirmed that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of himself Dr. Bull. def fidei Nicaenae S. 4. cap. 1. n. 7. p. 439. Bellarmin thought this only a Dispute of a Phrase Verbi solum locutionis Such an Orthodox Person who can thus easily part with the Nicene Faith may easily find out a new sort of Arianism For to believe Father Son and Holy Ghost three co-equal co-eternal Substances Hypostases was not the Arianism which the Nicene Fathers opposed Since for one and the same Substance to be common to all three Persons p. 124. lin 4. n. 14 and withal to belong incommunicably to each of the three and thereby to distinguish them from one another is contradictious and impossible This is the Faith of the Schools that one and the same Substance one and the same singular Nature is common to all three Persons and withal belongs incommunicably to the Father quatenus ingenita incommunicably to the Son quatenus genita incommunicably to the Holy Spirit quatenus spirita See Animadv c. p. 160. This Faith the Animadvertor declares to be contradictious and impossible which is in his own words not to be able to forbear Writing and yet not know when one writes for and when against an Opinion p. 124. lin 8. n. 15. On the other side to assert two distinct Substances in each Person is altogether as absurd and that as upon many other Accounts so particularly upon this that it must infer such a composition in the Divine Persons as is utterly incompatible with the Absolute Simplicity and Infinite Perfection of the Divine Nature The Schoolmen who assert an Absolute Substance and a Relative Substance in each Divine Person deny a composition from hence for that the Absolute and Relative Substance are not united but identified one with another The Ancient Fathers asserted that the common Divine Nature and each single Hypostasis differed not really but only ratione from each other as Homo and Petrus Angelus and Michael in which cases there is no composition and therefore à majori there is no composition in a Divine Person p. 124. n. 16. Argument III. One Infinite Mind cannot be three Infinite Minds Nor three Infinite Minds one Infinite Mind Therefore the Divine Persons who are one Infinite Mind as they are one God cannot be three Infinite Minds This is the sum in short of his Third Argument which to swell up his Book and make a shew of he repeats backwards and forwards This Argument is a meer Fallacy equivocating in the term Mind or Spirit which is to be interpreted in a concrete or in an abstract sense When the Schoolmen say That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God they do not take this term God in a concrete sense but in an abstract sense Father Son and Holy Ghost are not habens Deitatem which is the concrete sense of this term God but either habentes Deitatem in the Plural Number or Deitas the Godhead it self in the Singular Number So the learned Genebrard Lib. 2. de Trin. p. 154 Nota Dei nomen aliter accipi in his enuntiationibus Pater est Deus Filius est Deus Spiritus Sanctus est Deus aliter in hac Pater Filius Spiritus Sanctus sunt unus Deus Nam in primis Deus idem quod habens Deitatem quod quidem Personae congruit in postrema non simpliciter habentem Deitatem sonat sed ipsam potiùs Deitatem Now the Animadvertor himself will not say that tres habentes Deitatem cannot be one Essence nor that tres habentes infinitam spiritualem naturam cannot be one Infinite Spiritual Nature one Infinite Mind or Spirit in the abstract sense of the term in which only the Divine Persons are said to be one Infinite Mind or Spirit It is in a different sense of this term Infinite Mind or Spirit viz. in the concrete sense that we multiply it and say that three Divine Persons are three Infinite Minds And this Answers the Animadvertor's Fourth Argument drawn from the Athanasian Form p. 128. n. 17. which is grounded upon a false Supposition viz. That this term Infinite Mind is necessarily a Predicate perfectly Essential whereas p. 130. lin 17. when it is taken concretely it must be understood as a Personal Attribute viz. for habens infinitam spiritualem naturam which in the words of Genebrard personoe congruit The Animadvertor's Overplus p. 131. lin 2. n. 18. That the Heathens believed God to be one Infinite Mind cuts deeper than he is aware of For these same Heathens did as certainly believe that God was one single Person as well as one Infinite Mind Nay which is a far greater Objection the Jews God's own People not only did but to this day do most firmly believe that God is one Divine Person and
that the Divinity has a Fountain is to say in other words that the Divinity is begotten which can neither be affirmed in truth or propriety of speech p. 159. lin 18. The Divine Persons may properly be said to be begotten but not the Divine Nature But with the leave of the Animadvertor all Antiquity before Peter Lombard and the Oxthodox Lateran Council not considering the Consequences of Expressions did venture thus far and used the Phrase of Begotten Wisdom speaking of the Divine Nature of the Son Nay which may possibly sway more with the Animadvertor he himself has allowed it to be very true p. 156. l. 10. that the Son is an Eternal begotten Mind and Wisdom and I am sure then the Son must be an Eternal Begotten Divine Nature and the Father the Fountain of the Deity to the Son For my part I like the Subtilties of the Schools never a whit the better for charging those Expressions with Falshood or Impropriety which so many great Lights of the Church thought both true and proper I fear not his Consequences nor his Threats I do believe with Athanasius that the Father is truly the Fountain of the Deity to the Son and Holy Ghost and that he has no Fountain of his own Divinity and that his being thus the Fountain of the Divinity is the reason of appropriating the Title of one God to his Person alone And that though the Son and Holy Spirit are each of them truly Essentially God yet they cannot with any more Propriety be called the One God the only true God than each of them may be stiled unbegotten the Fountain of the Deity or God of Himself The Socinians say That the Person of the Father is the only true God so say the Ancients so says the Animadvertor so say I But the Socinians say that this Title of Only true God is an Essential Attribute distinguishing the Essence of the Father from the Son and Holy Spirit I say that it is only a Personal Attribute and Prerogative distinguishing the Person of the Father from the Son and Holy Ghost but not dividing their Essence The Animadvertor declares That it is an Essential Attribute in common to Father Son and Holy Ghost which of these Interpretations best Vindicate the Christian Faith will be more fully discussed in my Second Part. CHAP. V. n. 1. THE last Chapter was chiefly spent in considering the import of several Plural Predications and Phrases concerning the three Divine Persons and particularly of the Phrase of three Infinite Minds In this the Animadvertor enquires into the Historical truth of this Assertion whether the Ancients believed the Divine Persons to be Intelligent Minds or Beings This the Reverend Dean thought an uncontested Article to all who professed the Faith of a Trinity of Divine Persons The Reverend Dean was of the learned Genebrard's Opinion before quoted viz. That this was Propositio vera ac fide ab Ecclesia Catholica omnibus temporibus recepta and therefore as it is usual in uncontested Articles was less curious in Collecting the Proofs of an undisputed Opinion which yet I speak not as if I thought the Proofs of this Assertion brought by the Reverend Dean insufficient One thing however I can by no means omit that the Animadvertor has disjoynted the fairest Proof of the Fathers Opinion in this Debate and treated of it in his next Chapter viz. That Father Son and Holy Ghost were esteemed so certainly to be three Infinite Minds by the Ancients that they asserted Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one by a Specifick Unity Now though I should grant to the Animadvertor that the Fathers did not understand such Assertions in the strictest sense of such Phrases but only by way of Resemblance of which afterwards yet this must be allowed that the Ancient Fathers could have had no shadow or pretence for such an Assertion unless they had believed Father Son and Holy Ghost to be three Intelligent Beings which is but another Phrase for three Intelligent Minds It never entred into the Mind of any one Man who understood what a Specifick Unity means that One simple Being under three distinct Relations which is the Animadvertor's Hypothesis of the Trinity was one by a Specifick Vnity Animadv c. p. 120. lin 32. But of this more in its proper place p. 154. lin 29. n. 2. The Son is the Substantial WORD and Wisdom of the Father and that this can be nothing else but to say That he is an Intelligent Being or Infinite Mind And he is so I the Animadvertor confess But does this infer that he is therefore a distinct Intelligent Mind or Being from the Father This we deny and it is the very thing which he ought to prove And it is not come to that pass yet that we should take his bare Affirmation for a Proof of what he affirms It seems the Animadvertor is one of those who do not know a Proof unless it be put into Mood and Figure for him There is a Personal Word and Wisdom of the Father so there is of the Son and Holy Ghost that is to say the Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them Personally Wise and Personally Act. The Personal Wisdom of the Divine Persons is an Attribute the Personal Word of every one of the Divine Persons is an Act and not a Person But the Person of the Son is the Substantial WORD and Wisdom of the Father such a Wisdom which is an Infinite Mind and not the Attribute of an Infinite Mind such a WORD who is a Person and not a Personal Act. And it is absolutely impossible that both these Characters of being an Infinite Mind and also the Wisdom of the Father can belong to the Son unless he be a distinct a Personally distinct Intelligent Mind from the Father This little Particle of is the same in this Mystery with proceeding Of the Father is the same with proceeding from the Father God of God the same with God proceeding from God Light of Light the same with Light proceeding from Light The Son is the Substantial WORD and Wisdom proceeding from the Father Now as the Procession of the Divine Persons from one another is the allowed Proof of their Plurality so if there be a Substantial Wisdom proceeding from the Father there must be the same distinction between this Substantial Wisdom and the Person of the Father But here comes the mighty Objection Obj. p. 156. lin 27. That if Wisdom of Wisdom proves two Wisdoms or Light of Light imports two Lights then by the same Reason God of God very God of very God will and must infer two distinct Gods two distinct very Gods which says the Animadvertor is most monstrous blasphemous stuff I Answer That the Phrase God of God Sol. does necessarily imply a multiplication of this term God in some sense or other One and the same Numerical God in concreto can never be God of God and also
not God of God To be God of God and also not God of God are contradictious and therefore can never be verified of one and the same Subject of one and the same God in concreto of one and the same God in Person Nor is this any Blasphemous stuff it only proves that one sense of the term God is equipollent with a Divine Person in the words of Genebrard before quoted Chap. 4. n. 4. Vocabulum Deus aliquando sumitur Hypostaticè ac ultrò citróque commeat cum Divina persona sive Hypostasi ut cum in Niceno Symbolo legitur Deum de Deo c. It is the Faith and has been the Language of the Church before the Nicene Council that Deus est Trinus in Personis that God is Three in Persons And this is the just and easie Answer to that dreadful Objection of the Socinians that three Divine Persons infer three Gods as three Angelical Persons infer three Angels viz. That if by three Gods the Socinians mean that there are three Divine Persons that there are tres Deitatem habentes that Deus est trinus in personis in these senses in the term God we acknowledge and embrace the Conclusion as an Article of our Faith and despise the weak Sophistry of their Objection which only equivocates in the term God Ask a Socinian what he means by God in that Phrase of three Gods He will readily Answer that he means a Divine Person and consequently this Formidable Objection amounts to no more than this That three Divine Persons are three Divine Persons Therefore c. Just so does the Animadvertor deal with the Reverend Dean He declares that he takes God and Infinite Mind to be equipollent and I will assure him that none will deny that three Infinite Minds are three Infinite Minds And so the Reverend Dean is eternally confuted or rather the Animadvertor ought to be ashamed of so weak a Sophism If the Animadvertor or any Socinian will deal like a Scholar and not like a Sophister let either of them produce those Arguments which deny a Plurality of Gods and shew that they are equally strong against the Faith of three Infinite Minds or three Divine Persons and they shall not fail of an Answer by God's assistance as soon as I can finish it but this more properly belongs to my Second Part. It is a meer begging of the Question to say that this term God is not capable of Multiplication when it signifies equipollently with a Divine Person or any other equivalent Phrase as an Infinite Mind or the like p. 160. lin 3. n. 3. It is one and the same Wisdom which is both ingenita and genita though as it is one it is not the other The Animadvertor p. 156. lin 9. had declared it to be very true that the Son is a begotten Mind and Wisdom and in the same place denies That the Eternal Mind or Wisdom begetting and the Eternal Mind or Wisdom begotten are two distinct Minds but only one and the same Mind or Wisdom under these two distinct Modifications of Begetting and being Begot In this place the Animadvertor advances one step higher and tells us that unbegotten Wisdom and begotten Wisdom are not two Wisdoms but only one Wisdom under two several Modifications as also that Father Son and Holy Spirit are one Infinite Spirit under three distinct Modalities Now say I if this be a fair Solution of this difficulty it is impossible for the wisest Person to be certain that he can count two For ought any one then can tell the Reverend Dean and the Animadvertor may not be two Persons but only one Person under two Modifications The highest Proof that can be brought in such Enquiry is that Contradictions may be verified concerning the Reverend Dean and the Animadvertor that what the one is the other is not Now there cannot be a plainer fuller Contradiction than to be begotten and to be unbegotten Again this Answer undermines the Faith of the Catholick Chuch the Faith of three Divine Persons The Sabellianist asserts that Father Son and Holy Ghost are not three Persons but one Person under three distinct Modalities which Modifications diversifie and distinguish the Person they belong to but not multiply him The same Person is both the Father and the Son but as he is one he is not the other Now the allowed Proof of a Plurality of Divine Persons is from the contradictory Predicates which may be verified of Father Son and Holy Ghost in the words of the Athanasian Creed The Father is made of none neither created nor begotten the Son is of the Father alone not made not created but begotten The Holy Ghost is of the Father and Son neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding If this be a good Argumument to prove a Plurality of Divine Persons I desire to know why an unbegotten and begotten Wisdom are not equally two Wisdoms The Moderns who follow the Schoolmen say indeed the same thing with the Animadvertor that it is one and the same singular Wisdom which is both unbegotten and begotten that is one Wisdom under two distinct Modifications But then they understand themselves better than to say That it is very true that the Son is a begotten Wisdom They say that Begotten Wisdom is to be understood in an improper sense and consequently that the Contradiction is only in words and not in reality According to the Schoolmen the Son is unbegotten Wisdom The Wisdom of the Son is equally unbegotten with the Wisdom of the Father and that Proposition the Son is begotten Wisdom is only true according to them sensu reduplicativo viz. That the Son who is begotten is also Wisdom Now certainly unbegotten is a very improper sense of being begotten The Phrase of Begotten Wisdom was used without scruple by the Ancients and though Lombard and the bold Lateran Council condemned this Phrase Hand over Head yet the more Prudent Persons of the Romish Church thought it more elegible to allow the Phrase in complyance with Antiquity and strive to evade it by a stretched Interpretation by a sensus reduplicativus The Animadvertor has here borrowed the words of the Shoolmen but without understanding their meaning Nay it is very observable that the Animadvertor who here in p. 156. tells us That it is very true that there is a begotten Mind or Wisdom is of a quite different Opinion p. 159. lin 18. viz. That this cannot be said in Truth and Propriety of speech For God cannot properly be said to beget Wisdom c. I leave him at his leisure to reconcile these two places His the Reverend Dean's Allegation is this p. 166. lin 4. n. 4. That it is usual with the Fathers to represent the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity as distinct as Peter James and John The Animadvertor Answers That the term as distinct is ambiguous For it may either signifie 1. as Real or 2. as Great a distinction As
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
account of the Divine Attributes by Essence and a Mode is this in his own Words Ibid. The constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysitians in their Discourses upon God Can a Reader unacquainted with these Debates believe that by the constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysitians we are to understand the single Aninmadverter alone and yet that is the truth So p. 51. l. 3. he with the same confidence and something else tells us That all Divines hitherto have looked upon and professedly treated of the Divine Nature and Attributes as different and distinct from one another still considering the first as the Subject and the other as the Adjuncts of it What must we say when a Person shall set up for a Critick in the most mysterious Article of our Religion and himself understands not the first Elements of Divinity Did any Divine before himself compound God of Subject and Adjunct Did any Divine before himself assert that Holiness Goodness Truth Knowledge Eternity c. were Adjuncts in God Does he know what an Adjunct is Quod alicui preter essentiam adjungitur something added conjoyned to the Essence of a Being Do not all Divines teach That the Divine Attributes may be predicated in abstracto of God God is his Wisdom his Power his Goodness but a Subject cannot be so predicated of its Adjunct But I am ashamed of confuting so weak a Notion yet our Animadverter has the Face to say That without this Notion it is impossible to discourse intelligibly of the Divine Attributes Ibid. p. 217. P. 223 Qu. 3. n. 27. What is the Substance or Nature of God I answer It is a Being existing of and by it self Incorporeal Infinite Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent c. The Animadverter triumphs over this and some other questions the Reverend Dean had made as easie and trifling for that is the natural Sense of calling them not so very formidable c. But I conceive that he mistook the Reverend Dean's Mind in asking this question which probably was What Notion we can frame in our Minds of the Substance of God of an infinite immaterial Substance However I shall wave that and tell him That he has extremely failed in the answer of this easie Question First When he tells us that the Nature of God is a Being God is properly called a Being but his Nature ought to be stiled an Essence and not a Being when we speak properly and according to the formal Conception of things Secondly To be a Being existing of it self is not of the Nature or Essence of God otherwise the Son and Holy Spirit are not each of them God for certainly neither the Son nor Holy Spirit exist of themselves to be a Being existing of it self is a personal property of the Father alone Thirdly Existing by it self is but an explication of being an Hypostasis or Suppositum which indeed agrees to Father Son and Holy Ghost but yet by the Consent of sober Divines is not esteemed an essential Predication and consequently ought not to be put into the Definition of God Fourthly Incorporeal Infinite c. are Attributes that is according to the Animadverter Adjuncts to the Essence or Nature of God how come they therefore to make up part of the Definition of the Nature of God But I am tired and have reason to believe my Reader so with the observation of the Animadverter's Mistakes and therefore I have omitted very many I did observe and doubtless a more attentive Reader would find many which escaped my notice The Animadverter in this Book has concern'd himself chiefly with three Articles Christ's Satisfaction His Incarnation and the Doctrine of the Trinity and I do not find upon the strictest Search that he understands any one of them Concerning the last of these Articles the Reader cannot have a clearer Proof than by Examination of the Animadverter's eighth Chapter wherein he professedly endeavours to lay down the positive Faith of the Church concerning this Article CHAP. VII I judge it neither improper nor unusefull to represent what the Church has hitherto held and taught concerning this important Article of the Trinity p. 240. l. 2. n. 1. as I find it in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern Make room for this mighty Man keep silence and learn what Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern have taught in this important Article Goliath himself was not more compleatly armed Cap-a-pee but Goliath wanted little David's Sling he came not in the name of the Lord. And it seems this great Opiniator has forgot his Bible behind him quite forgot Christ and his twelve Apostles in the Crowd of Fathers and School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern Shall I need to remind this great Critick that if Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern have determined I will not say against but without a sufficient Foundation of Scripture their determination is no rule of a Protestant's Faith Article 8. Our Church receives the Creeds themselves because they may be proved by most certain Warrants of Holy Scripture I acknowledge it a great Confirmation of my Faith as to this Article that Councils and Fathers have explained the Scriptures in the same Sense in which I believe them The Ecclesiastical Phrases and Forms of Speech are very usefull to detect aequivocating Hereticks or as they speak in short what the Scriptures deliver in several places or as they are Arguments ad homines to those who acknowledge their Authority p. 240. l. 14. n. 2. Now the commonly received Doctrine of the Church and Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judge but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this That the Christian Religion having laid this sure Foundation that there is but one God and that there is nothing i. e. no positive real Being strictly and properly so called in God but what is God and lastly That there can be no Composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self and yet the Church finding in Scripture mention of three to whom distinctly the God-head does belong it has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1.3 expressed these three by the Name of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence allotted to one and the same God-head and these also distinguished from one another by three distinct Relations First The Complement is very high to the Church of England that he will submit the Faith which he finds in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern to the Judgment of the Church of England but whom does the Animadverter mean by the Church of England this is his Character of the Churchmen the Clergy of the Church of England in
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Ghost relating to the Creatures to a temporal Act can never be the Personality of the Holy Ghost but only a personal Property of the third Person of the Blessed Trinity The School-men take shelter in the Term Spirit which of it self is common to the whole Trinity and call the Procession of the Holy Ghost by the Term Spiration But the whole Greek Church believe the Holy Ghost the Spirit of the Son and yet denies the Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and whatever may be said for the pious Credibility of this Article in the Sense of the Western Church yet I find that our greatest Divines Laud Stillingfleet Chillingworth c. have deny'd that this is an Article of Faith or that the Greek Church is guilty of Heresy in denying of it Further from St. Augustin we learn that this Sense of this Term Spiration was unknown to the Latin Church in his time Lib 5. de Tr. cap 11. Ille spiritus sanctus qui non Trinitas sed in Trinitate intelligitur in eo quod propriè dicitur spiritus sanctus relativè dicitur cum ad patrem filium refertur quia spiritus sanctus patris filii spiritus est sed ipsa relatio non apparet in hoc nomine Nor has the Mission of the Divine Persons which to the Ancients was a sacred proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Blessed Trinity fared better in the Exposition of the Schoolmen than the internal personal Acts. According to their Master they affirm that the Son was sent not only by the Father and the Holy Spirit Lib. 1. Sent. Dist 15. which last may be allowed in an improper Sense but also by himself So true is that ancient Observation of Athanasius Athan. graecolat apud comel Tom. 1. p. 516. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They who assert the Trinity to be a Monad with the Animadverter a simple Being will find themselves obliged to adulterate the Divine Mission and Generation The Personalities by which the Deity stands diversify'd into three distinct Persons P. 241. l. ult n. 3. are by the Generality of Divines both Ancient and Modern called and accounted Modes or at least something Analogous to them since no one thing can agree both to God and the Creatures by a perfect Univocation I intreat the Animadverter to inform me where he learnt that new Phrase of a Deity diversified Many have scrupled the Phrase concerning the Divine Persons are afraid of asserting that the Divine Persons differ or are diverse Himself tells us Anim. c. p. 175. that they are distinguished from one another and no more But to tell us of a singular Deity diversify'd which is the Animadverter's Hypothesis is to me new Divinity Secondly The Personalities are called and accounted Modes c. Does the Animadverter know no difference betwixt these two in our treating of God or a Divine Person The former I allow the latter I as positively deny and I find the Animadverter's heart failed him Modes or at least something analogous to Modes I desire the Reader to compare these words with what he lays down p 285. l. 13. That it is equally absurd to deny Modes of Being to belong to God where equally absurd from the foregoing Line is the same with grosly absurd and this explained p. 284. To be a gross Absurdity and no small proof of Ignorance Now this gross Absurdity this no small proof of Ignorance was the Assertion of the Reverend Dean That there are no Accidents or Modes in God Himself allows no Accidents nor do the Reverend Dean's Words in the least deny a Distinction of Modes and Accidents but rather confirm it As to the Animadverter's Distinction of them I have already spoken to it Chap. 1. n. 2 5 c. and shall only repeat that all the new Philosophers despise it and leave him to harangue by himself P. 284. that none of them have any skill in Logicks or Metaphysicks that they are grosly absurd Philosophers and have given no small proof of their Ignorance by such their opinion The same Absurdity the Animadverter lays to the charge of this other Assertion That there are no Modes in God and this the Animadverter will prove both from the manifest Reason of the thing P. 285. and from unquestionable Authority Ibid. n. 4. First for the reason of the thing If Modes of Being should not be allowed in God then I affirm it to be impossible for any distinction and consequently for any Person to be in God This Argument as he has framed it is built upon a mistake in Divinity If we take this term God in a Concrete Sense for habens Deitatem in the singular number there is no Distinction nor any Persons in habente Deitatem See Chap. 4. n. 2. The Argument ought therefore to run thus If Modes of Being should not be allowed in the Trinity then I affirm it to be impossible for any Distinction and consequently for any Persons to be in the Trinity and even thus framed I take it to be the boldest Assertion I ever met with in Divinity Another Person would certainly have worded the Argument thus Then I conceive it to be impossible or it seems to be impossible but this pleases not our positive Animadverter he affirms the thing to be impossible I deny the consequence which the Animadverter proves thus If there be any Distinction in God or the Deity or the Trinity it must be either from some distinct Substance or some Accident or some Mode of Being For I desire Him or any Mortal breathing to assign a fourth thing beside these But it cannot be from any distinct Substance for that would make a manifest Composition in the Divine Nature or Trinity nor yet from any Accident for that would make a worse Composition and therefore it follows That this Distinction must unavoidably proceed from one or more distinct Modes of Being To which I answer briefly That three distinct Substances make no Composition in the Trinity Three distinct Substances make no Composition in a Trinity of Angels Every Plurality is not a Composition but when the Plurality is by way of component Parts But the Father a Divine Person is not a part of God that is the Heresy of Sabellius The Father a Divine Person is perfectly compleatly God An Accident would make a Composition in God because it is impossible that a Divine Person should solely consist of an Accident A Divine Person is certainly a Substance if therefore we add an Accident we compound a Divine Person of Substance and Accident By the same Argument a Mode of Being inferrs a Composition A Divine Person the Father can never be solely a Mode but must consist of Substance and Mode See cap. 1. n. 14. and become a modal compositum as Substance and Accident inferr an accidental compositum Secondly A Mode is in its own Nature
second Substance So says Thomas Aquinas in his own quotation Anim. p. 272. Hoc nomen Hypostasis apud Graecos significat tantum substantiam particularem quoe est substantia prima sed Latini utuntur nomine substantioe tam pro primâ quam pro secundà P. 249. lin 24. n. 13. The word Subsistentia being by them looked upon as barbarous and not in use St. Augustin manifestly derived Substantia from Subsistere St. August lib. 7. de Tr. cap. 4. and in that Sense translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet argued against the Plurality of the Phrase Nam si hoc est Deo esse quod subsistere ita non erant dicendoe tres substantioe ut non dicuntur tres essentioe Si autem aliud est Deo esse aliud subsistere sicut aliud Deo esse aliud Patrem esse vel Dominum esse relativè ergo subsistet sicut relativè gignet relativè dominatur Ita substantia non erit substantia quia relativum erit Sicut enim ab eo quod est esse appellatur essentia ita ab eo quod est subsistere substantiam dicimus absurdum est autem ut substantia relativè dicatur omnis res ad seipsum subsistet quanto magis Deus Nothing is more evident than that St. Augustin thought relativè subsistere to be a great Absurdity which is his Objection against the Phrase of three Hypostases and also three Persons that they signified absolutely Ibid. cap. 6. yet the Animadverter has the Confidence to quote St. Augustin p. 267. As stating the divine Personalities upon Relation for founding Personality in and upon something relative Nor on the other side P. 249. lin 29. n. 14. would the Greeks acquiesce in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor admit of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of falling thereby into the contrary Error of Sabellius I doubt not that the Sabellian Heresy was the cause why the Greeks were not content with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they did not refuse to admit of the Phrase but thought it alone insufficient but required afterwards either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Pet. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. S. 9. N. 15. I. that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are three kinds of Sabellianism The first is the most common the confounding the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which was otherwise called the Patri-passian Heresy which asserts That Father Son and Holy Ghost are only three Names or three Offices of one Person and consequently that the Father suffered this is properly the Heresy of Noetus and not of Sabellius Sabellius Petav. lib. 1. de Trin. cap. 6. S. 5. says Epiphanius expresly denied the Father to suffer However the Latin Fathers scarce knew any other Species of Sabellianism which with Submission I conceive to be one cause why they are less accurate in treating of this Mystery than the Greek Fathers II. A second Species of Sabellianism is the Contraction of the Trinity to the single Person of the Father acknowledging the Father to be a true proper Person asserting the Word or Son to be not strictly and formally the Person of the Father but an Attribute of the Father His personal Wisdom in the same Analogy as Wisdom is an habit of Man in like manner asserting the Holy Spirit to be the personal Power of the Father This Sabellius himself embraced and explained the Trinity by the Similitude of the Body of the Sun its Light or Ray and its Heat The first Epiphan Hoer 62. he resembled to the Father the second to the Son the third to the Holy Ghost this the ancient Fathers called Judaism that is such a Trinity which a Jew would own and by the same reason it may be stiled a Socinian Trinity No Socinian in this Sense will scruple a Father Vide Sti. Basilii Ep. 64. a Word and an Holy Spirit A third Species of Sabellianism is the compounding the Divine Persons which is contrary to a Confusion of them this asserts a real distinction betwixt the Divine Persons but then it makes Father Son and Holy Ghost to be as three parts of some whole Petav. Addenda ad Tom. 2. de Trin. p. 866. So Petavius varius à seipso discrepans videtur Sabellius fuisse ut interdum personas tres quasi partes alicujus totius esse diceret ut ex Epiphanii loco colligitur Petavius undoubtly alludes to that other Similitude of the Trinity mentioned by Epiphanius Epiphan Haer. 62. That the Trinity was by Sabellius sometimes compared to the Body Soul and Spirit in one Man These three are but one Hypostasis These three are Co-essential Parts of one Man which possibly moved Sabellius to invent this Hypothesis to have an evasion to assert in some Sense an Homoousian Trinity Vide Pet. lib. 1. de Tr. cap. 6. S. 3. This kind of Sabellianism was by some of the Fathers called Atheism This Hypothesis in reality ungodding Father Son and Holy Ghost Not the Body alone or the Soul alone or the Spirit alone but all three conjoyntly are one Man so not the Father alone or Son alone or Holy Ghost alone but all three conjoyntly are God whereas the Catholick Faith is that each distinct Person is God The Father is God the Father the Son is God of God the Holy Spirit is in the Language of the Church God the Holy Ghost See both these kinds of Sabellianism condemned by Athanasius in his Oration contra gregales Sabellii Now the Phrase of three Hypostases is contrary to all the Forms of the Sabellian Heresy Of the first there is no doubt the second is as plain to be an Hypostasis and to be an Attribute are inconsistent and contradictory So also to be an incompleat Part a component Part and an Hypostasis are inconsistent It is essential to an Hypostasis to have totale attributum to be a compleat and perfect whole so the Words of the first Article of the Augustan Confession quoted by the Animadverter p. 278. Et utuntur nomine personae ea significatione qua usi sunt scriptores Ecclesiastici ut significet non partem aut qualitatem sed quod propriè subsistet That which properly subsists can neither be as a Part of any Whole nor as a Quality or Attribute of any Being The Scripture says the Reverend Dean of St. Paul s Im sure represents Father Son and Holy Ghost Vindication of Trinity p. 66. as three intelligent Beings not as three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is downright Sabellianism The very Dreggs of Sabellianism as I take it worse than Sabellianism for as the Reverend Dean adds Faculties are not Persons no nor one Person neither A Million of Faculties and Attributes will not make one Person A Million of Qualities will never make one Substance and a Person is a Substance
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
and from his own words is bound to defend them for an Acurate Account of what the Church and Schools have taught in this Mystery or else confess that he has opposed possibly forsook the Faith of the Church and Schools before he understood either In my Second Part I intend to enquire more carefully into that uncontested Article of The Vnity of God especially since I am verily persuaded that most of the Subtilties not to say Perplexities wherewith this Article of the Trinity is too often obscured arise from want of a just stating of that First Article of Natural Religion the Unity of God It will be an ease both to my Reader and my self to divide my First Part into Chapters and numbred Sections and be more ready in case of any occasion of Reference or Comparison My design will also apologize for me if I sometimes take occasion to digress much farther than a bare Answer to the Animadversions seems to require since my desire is to bring as far as I conveniently can all Metaphysical or Nice Disputes into this First Part that my Second Part may be more suited for the use of those persons who are less acquainted or less delight in these Terms of Art I also crave leave to acquaint the Reader that for the avoiding of unnecessary Disputes I judge it sufficient at this time to reduce the Question to what is owned and professed on both sides As for instance Both Jews and Socinians acknowledge one Divine Person Both also acknowledge God's relation to his Creatures If therefore the Divine Relations within the Trinity are capable of the same Solution with the Relation of God to his Creatures I mean in respect of their Real Existence that sufficeth for my purpose So if the Suppositality of Three Divine Persons be capable of the same Solution with the Suppositality of One Divine Person whether that Suppositality be a Mode or Negation I need not in my present Design strictly determine CHAP. I. Animadv c. chap 2 p 30. 2d Edition N. 1 BUT because the Subject I am about to engage in is of that nature that most of the Metaphysical and School-Terms hitherto made use of by Divines upon this occasion will naturally and necessarily fall in with it I think it will contribute not a little to our more perspicuous proceeding in this Dispute to state the Import and Signification of these Terms Essence Substance Existence Subsistence Nature and Personality with such others as will of course come in our way while we are treating of and explaining these c. The Method is extremely judicious and ought to be commended but if we state the Import of these Terms falsly or imperfectly we shall obscure and perplex our selves and our Readers instead of assisting them to understand things more perspicuously The simple Faith of this Sacred Article to pious and docible minds needs not any of these Metaphysical or School-terms accordingly the divinely-inspir'd Writers have used none of them But the subtle Equivocations and Objections of the Arians on one hand and the Sabellians on the other together with the great Veneration paid to the Conclusions of the Schoolmen in this Mystety have made it necessary to enquire into the just signification of these and other School Terms and Distinctions N. 2. And here first of all according to the old Peripatetick Philosophy which for ought I see as to the main Body of it at least has stood its ground hitherto against all assaults I look upon the division of Ens or Being a summary word for all things into Substance and Accident as the Primary and most Comprehensive I see no necessity from this Mystery to concern our selves with this Metaphysical Dispute Whether Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance The Ancient Fathers denied any Accidents in God or in a Divine Person because God was immutable whereas an Accident potest adesse aut abesse sive subjecti interitu is separable from its Subject is changeable So St. Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 4. Nihil itaque accidens in Deo quia nihil mutabile aut amissibile But not one of them so far as I can find ever gave this Metaphysical Reason that it would compound God or a Divine Person of two Beings All the new Philosophers who are neither a small nor contemptible Body of Men explode this Division of Ens they do all deny that Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance Ens is not Vnivocum but Analogum to Substance and Accident that is an Accident is not properly a Being but Analogous or like to a Being not properly Ens simpliciter but Ens entis an affection of Being Lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 9. S. 15. p. 391. rather than a Being Accidens saith the Learned Petavius proprie non est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affectio quaedam Sola vero substantia esse dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocatur Transubstantiation as I verily believe first persuaded the Schoolmen to teach That Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance as being capable to exist separate from Substance Nay this monstrous Doctrine cannot persuade the new Philosophers of the Romish Church to believe these real Accidents they rather chuse to affirm that God by a perpetual Miracle causes the appearances of Bread and Wine to all our Senses than to acknowledge that Accidents are distinct Beings from the Substance they affect Aristotle himself appropriates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence to Substance if therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are Relatives if that only be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Being which hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Essence nothing but Substance according to that Philosopher can be such P. 31. N. 3. As for Substance I define that to be a Being not inhering in another c. A Division rather than a Definition of Substance is necessary in this Mystery Aristotle divides Substance into first and second Substance And it is no such contemptible Enquiry as possibly the Animadverter may imagine whether the Ancient Fathers of the Church when they so often say that Father Son and Holy Ghost are of one Substance are not to be interpreted of a second Substance P. 31. N. 4. Accident I define a Being inherent in another This I have already spoken to N. 2. P. 31. N. 5. But now besides these two Terms of Substance and Accident there is another assigned by Logicians Metaphysicians and School-men called a Mode of Being viz. such a thing as Being added to another does not make any addition of another Being or degree of Being to it but only restrains and determines it c. All the new Philosophers deny real Modes equally with real Accidents Nor can I see any necessity to recur to such a nice Metaphysical Debate to explain this sacred Mystery Neither Jews nor Socinians fly to this Metaphysical Notion to explain the Suppositality of One
Divine Person nor need Christians so nice a Speculation to defend the Suppositalities of Three Divine Persons If there are any real Modes in the Creatures I approve of the Animadverter's description of them that they are adjuncts or added to the Being that they restrain or determine the nature of the Being But from this very description of a Mode I am satisfied there can be no proper Modes in God or a Divine Person but of this afterwards When the Animadverter adds in the same pag That a Mode is not a meer Ens rationis Ibid. p. 31. he seems to me to contradict himself that it is in some sense an Ens rationis and consequently not real So when he tells us That Modes were invented to prevent an infinite progress in Beings Ibid. upon a supposition that Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance he gives us the right reason the Union of Substance and Accident could not be an Accident that is a Third Being for then that would want another Being to unite it to Substance and so in infinitum But there never was so strange an Explication of this reason as that given by the Animadverter Ibid. p. 31. For since every thing is capable of being defined or described and yet nothing can be defined meerly by it an identical proposition being no definition it must needs be defined by somewhat or other distinct from it self but if that be also a Being then that likewise must be defined by another Being and that by another and so on in infinitum which would be most absurd Whereas if this definition or description of a thing be made by some Modus of it which is not strictly and properly a Being it self the thing presently stops here without any necessity of proceeding to any more Beings There are few mistakes but they have some plausible colour or ground but this is so extreamly extravagant that I cannot conjecture in the least what the Animadverter aim'd at None ever put the Modus of any thing into a proper Definition What Logician ever affirmed that Definitio constet ex genere differentia modo A proper Definition contains only the Essence the quiddity as the Schools speak of any Thing or Being but a Mode according to the Animadverter is a thing added or an adjunct that is quod alicui preter Essentiam adjungitur what is besides the Essence and consequently ought not to be put into the proper Definition of the Being But perhaps it will be here said Ibid. p. 32. N. 6. If these Modes are not so many meer nothings or entia rationis what order or rank shall they be placed in since those ten Heads of Being which we call predicaments cannot seem the proper Receptacles of things which we own not to be properly or formally Beings I answer That tho they are not Beings properly so called and so not directly and upon their own account placeable under any of the ten forementioned Heads of Being yet since they are appendages of Being as cleaving to it and depending upon it they are accounted under and reduced to those respective Heads or Genera of Being to which the Beings modified by them do directly belong It is a common saying That a Fool may ask more Questions and raise more Difficulties in an hour than a wise Man can answer or satisfy in a day but certainly he is not overwise who without any necessity will be starting Difficulties which himself cannot unfold The Faith of this sacred Article as I said before needs none of these Metaphysical Disputes and if it did the Reader would be strangely deceived who should rely upon our Animadverter's skill in Metaphysicks First He has confounded Predicamental and Physical Accidents Even those Metaphysicians and Schoolmen who asserted Accidents to be distinct Beings from Substance never understood that assertion in large of all the Predicamental Accidents but only of quantity and quality He himself is pleased to tell us p. 241. that posture is a Mode of the Body and I believe he has not confidence to deny that posture properly belongs to the predicament of Situs All predicamental Relations are by the said Schoolmen esteemed Modes and not distinct Beings Secondly To differ in predicament is not a certain sign of differing so much as in Mode much less to be two distinct Beings or Accidents according to the Animadverter who calls them ten Heads of Being Action and Passion differ in predicament yet are by Aristotle himself esteemed but one Motion which as it proceeds from the Agent is called Action as it is terminated upon the Patient is called Passion Thirdly Nor are all Modes to be reduced to those predicaments to which the Beings by them modified do directly belong Figure and proportion are Modes of quantity and yet are reduced to the predicament of quality Fourthly This reduction of Modes is what I believe the Animadverter did not in the least understand but of this when I come to speak of the composition of a Divine Person Now the nature of these Modi being thus accounted for P. 32. N. 7. we are in the next place to take notice of the difference resulting from them which we call Modal and that is between two or more such Modes differing from one another as the Personalities belonging to several Persons differ amongst themselves or when a thing or Being differs from the Mode affecting it or lastly when several things thus modified or affected do by vertue of those Modes differ from one another And thus the Persons in the Blessed Trinity may be said to differ amongst themselves No Divine had ever more reason to have informed himself aright of the nature of these Modi and of modal difference For I believe no man before himself ever laid so great a stress upon both these Points Hear his own words p. 285. If Modes of Being should not be allowed in God then I affirm it to be impossible mark those words I affirm it to be impossible for any distinction and consequently for any persons to be in God What is this but to tell the world that whoever does not understand the Metaphysicks of Modes and yet believes the Trinity believes what the Animadverter affirms to be impossible in Reason Now this Assertion shall in due time be examined So p. 246. He affirms that the Divine Persons which the whole Christian Church professes to differ by a real difference I say he affirms that they differ by a modal or lesser sort of real difference of which Assertion also in due place Now we are to examine how well this great Dictator in Philosophy and Divinity understands a Modal difference He names three kinds of Modal difference two of which are false and all three impertinent First two Modes when they belong to one Being differ indeed by a Modal difference but when we speak of them indefinitely as they belong to different Beings they differ by the same difference by which the Beings
themselves differ that is by a strictly real difference The personalities of different persons always differ by the same difference by which the persons themselves differ that is by a strictly real difference The second of a Being differing from its own Mode is acknowledged to him The third viz. the difference of several things modified or affected is peculiar to the Animadverter never any Philosopher dreamed that several things differ by a modal difference they always differ by a strictly real difference However the Animadverter has here spoke a very great truth That the Divine Persons differ as several things but this utterly overthrows the Animadverter's Hypothesis According to him the Divine Persons differ not as several things but as one and the same Being under one Mode differs from it self under another Mode this is the only modal difference the Animadverter's Hypothesis requires and this with great profoundness of judgment he here omits The other three are nothing to the purpose had they been all never so true in Philosophy P. 33. lin 4. N. 8. Essence may be truly and properly defined That by which a thing is what it is that is to say by which it is constituted in such a kind or order of Being By Essence in this place the Animadverter understands what Metaphysicians call the Ratio Formalis of a thing that is he takes this term Essence in a transcendental sense in so large a sense that not only Substance Accident a mode of Being but even an Ens Rationis may be said to have an Essence for there is a ratio formalis of every one of these by which each of them is constituted respectively a Substance Accident Mode or Ens rationis Now to talk of truly and properly defining a Transcendental is the same blunder in Logicks as he would be guilty of in History who should enquire for the Father or Grandfather of Adam Every Novice in Logicks knows that a true and proper definition consists of a Genus and Difference and consequently that nothing but a Species is capable of a true and proper definition The supremum Genus in each predicamental scale is not capable of a strict Logical definition much less a transcendental Term that is transcendental to all the predicaments But this is the least part of the mistake according to this description of Essence there are at least Four Essences in the Trinity The Divine Relations of Paternity Filiation Procession have each their proper distinct ratio formalis by which each of them is constituted a relation of such a kind nay these Essences of the Divine Relations would differ Specifically for so Paternity differs from Filiation and all Divines acknowledge That the Absolute Divine Nature is a true proper Essence Aristotle appropriates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence to Substance First or Second So did the Fathers of the Church so do all the Moderns Translating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by consubstantial of one Substance Of which more hereafter As for Existence it self it may be defined P. 33. lin 27. N. 9. that Mode or Affection of Being by which a thing stands actually produced out of the Power of its Causes or at least not actually included in any cause in which sense God himself does exist Some few Schoolmen who have supposed that the Human Nature of Christ wanted a Proper or Created Existence have asserted That Existence is a Mode in Created Beings that is something added to the Thing or Being and consequently capable of being Substracted But these are very few and the Animadverter is of a contrary Opinion p. 35. The generality believe that Existence is only the Actuality of the Thing or Being and that all it adds to the Being is only a Negation in the Animadverter's words that the Being is not actually included in any Cause But not one single Divine I firmly believe before his own dear self ever affirmed that Existence was a proper Mode in God His very next words confute this assertion p. 34. that Existence is necessarily included in his very Essence but a Mode a thing added to the Essence cannot be included in the Essence Again in the same page he ascribes one single undivided Existence to the Three Divine Persons which if Existence were a proper Mode would be very difficult to be conceived How Three distinct Persons can be modified or affected with one single undivided Mode P. 34. lin 6. N. 10. The next Term is Subsistence which is a Mode of Being by which a thing exists by it self without existing in another either as a part in the whole or an Adjunct in the Subject I say an Adjunct not an Accident for a Substance may be an Adjunct Subsistence is strictly a Mode of Existence that is it modifies the Existence of a Substance and distinguishes the Existence of a complete Substance from the Existence of an incomplete Substance or Part. Two things are therefore implied in this term Subsistence 1. That the Being which is said to subsist is a Substance and not an Accident not a Quality c. 2. That it is a whole and complete Substance and not a part of some whole This is plain and easy and that which Subsistence adds to Existence may be only a negation of Incompleatness The Animadverter is not satisfied with the common definition of Subsistence but to shew us his profound skill in Philosophy and Divinity at one time has added to the vulgar description of Subsistence those remarkable words or an Adjunct to the Subject and lest we should not sufficiently take notice of it he repeats it with an Emphasis I say an Adjunct not an Accident for a Substance may be an Adjunct Now I must profess that I have always a prejudice against new Definitions both in Philosophy and Divinity commonly they only proclaim the mistake of the Inventer of them First He needed not have cautioned us against an Accident the former part of the Definition had secured sufficiently against such a mistake a Thing existing by it self can never be an Accident except our Animadverter believes Transubstantiation Secondly What a mighty Secret has he instructed the World in viz. That a Substance may be an Adjunct I would fain know one person that understood the meaning of the terms who ever doubted of it However I will endeavour to requite his kindness and inform him That a Suppositum may be an Adjunct nay which is more every substantial Adjunct unless Hypostatically united is a Suppositum or subsisting Being If the Animadverter ever saw a Woman with Child or a Nurse carrying a Child in her Arms he might have been convinced of the truth of this Assertion That a Suppositum may be an Adjunct Nay further Had this Paradox in Philosophy been never so true it is of no use in reference to the subsistence of the Three Divine Persons Well but it would explain the mysterious Incarnation of the Second And I think if we would assign a way Ibid.
to the Person of the Son and Procession extrinsical to the Person of the blessed Spirit This naturally and easily defends the Simplicity of a Divine Person this frees us of endless and inextricable Questions which fill up every page of the Scholastical Writers This forces us not to hide our selves in a Cloud of Words which signify nothing A Substance and a Mode says the Animadverter infer not Composition in a Divine Person because in him the Substance and Mode coalesce into one by an Vnion and Conjunction that is in other words they infer not Composition because they are compounded Composition and Coalescing into One by an Union and Conjunction differ no more than Definitum and Definition It is truly therefore incomprehensible and ineffable that a coalescing into one by an Union and Conjunction should not be a Composition Mind Wisdom Power Goodness P. 39. lin 6. N. 15. c. are formally distinct from one another and so not affirmable of one another and in speaking of things the formal differences of them must still be attended to Gods Justice and his Mercy are one pure simple Act in him But he that says His Justice is his Mercy speaks absurdly for all that c. Whatever differs really differs also formally but here by formal difference the Animadverter understands that difference which is only formal and not real Now in this sense of the term the express contrary Conclusion is true That whatsoever things are only formally different are therefore affirmable of one another The Conclusion the Animadverter ought to have deduced from his Premises is That Mind Wisdom Goodness viz. in God are not formally affirmable of one another But it is Fallacia à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter to put the first Conclusion in place of the second to say That Mind Wisdom Goodness are not simply affirmable of one another because it will be acknowledged that they are not formally affirmable of one another Secondly Whereas the Animadverter tells us That in speaking of Things the formal Differences of them must still be attended to We need no other Confutation of this Proposition than his own immediate following words viz. That God's Justice and his Mercy are one pure simple Act in him His Justice and his Mercy are formally or in our way of Conception two distinct nay two opposite Acts it is only in the Reality that we affirm them to be one pure simple Act in him Thirdly If things only formally different are not affirmable of one another there could be no Propositions but identical ones or at most where the Subject and Predicate are synonimous Terms No man could say without absurdity That the Father is God because these two terms Father and God formally differ and therefore according to this wise Rule of our Animadverter are not affirmable of one another Has the Animadverter never heard of the Distinction of Sensus Identicus and Sensus Formalis This Proposition God's Justice is his Mercy is true Sensu Identico tho not Sensu Formali We are cautioned indeed by the Learned that we avoid Conclusions which are only true Sensu Identico when such way of speaking is against common Custom or when the formal Sense carries a formal Opposition as in the Divine Attributes of Justice and Mercy and the reason they give is because in such instances the Propositions lead to a formal Sense in which Sense they are false But if we add Sensu Identico that is in what sense we understand these Propositions then they are true and consequently not absurd unless a Truth can be absurd CHAP. II. I Shall crave leave of the Reader N. 1. to say thus much in general of the Animadverters Third and Fourth Chapter wherein he endeavours to prove That Self-consciousness is not the Formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons nor Mutual-consciousness the Formal Reason of their Vnity of Nature That all this is said as I verily believe without an Adversary The Reverend Dean of St. Paul's does not once in his Vindication of the B. Trinity expresly affirm either the one or the other of these Propositions He asks no more of his Reader if I misunderstand him not save to acknowledge That a distinct Self-Consciousness is a firm proof of the Distinction of Persons in this Sacred Mystery and that a singular Mutual-Consciousness is an equal proof of the Singularity of the Divine Nature I conceive That the Reverend Dean never intended to deny that the Distinction of Persons is in order of Nature before their distinct acts of Self-Consciousness or that their Unity of Nature is in the same degree of Priority before their singular Mutual-Consciousness but only intended that quoad nos or in our way of Knowledge or Conception their distinct Self Consciousness proved or was known to us before their distinct Personality and their singular mutual Consciousness in order of our Knowledge before the Knowledge of their Unity of Nature In the Animadverter's Third Chapter N. 2. he endeavours to prepare the way by denying that Self-Consciousness is the formal reason of personality in finite created Persons A Conclusion none affirms who understands the meaning of the terms It is impossible that a personal Act an Effect should any ways be the proper formal cause of its efficient a Person Animad c. P. 71. lin 10. But when he tells us That Personality is the ground and principle of all Action wheresoever it is he is guilty of a great Paradox in Philosophy and a greater in Divinity Personality is properly the Principle of no Action a Person is the Principium quod the Principle which acteth Nature is the Principium quo the Principle by which the Person acts Personality is but a necessary condition of a Being to enable it to act a causa sine qua non which is equivocally called a Cause or Principle Secondly Not the Personality of the WORD but the Humane Nature of Christ exerts the acts of Self-Consciousness Ibid. P. 72. lin 12. and other Humane Personal Acts the Humane Nature of Christ has all the Principles and Powers of Self-Reflection upon its own Acts otherwise Christ would not be a perfect Man P. 72. lin 21. N. 3. That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person is no less evident Since it is taken into and subsists in and by the Personality of the Second Person of the Trinity and therefore can have no distinct Personality of its own 1. Never was so obscure an Argument brought to prove so acknowledged a Conclusion Self-Consciousness is not the formal reason of Personality in finite Persons because the Humane Nature of Christ in the Hypostatical Union is Self-Conscious and yet not a Person nay this latter no less evident than the former 2. 'T is a received Article of the Church That the Human Nature of Christ is not a Person but how to reconcile this with the Subtilties of the Schools is above my skill
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
conditions he there mentions But there is one thing here especially to be noted that several Expressions are rejected by the Fathers of the Church not that they are absolutely uncapable of an Orthodox sense but because they are apt to lead to a false or Heritical sense as for instance In Trinitate datur alius alius sed non aliud aliud The rigid'st of the School-men allow aliud aliud suppositum in Trinitate the Axiom is understood of aliud in an Arian sense of aliud naturâ Again If ever it be lawful to use a new Phrase in this Mystery it will then be lawful when the antient allowed Phrases are rendred in a manner insignificant when three Persons are Expounded by three somewhat 's or are declared to be Metaphorical This seems to me to be the case of the Reverend Dean of St. Pauls by three Persons in this Mystery says he are to be understood three intelligent Beings Vindication of the Trin. p. 66. l. 24. three distinct Infinite Minds to say they are three Divine Persons and not three Infinite Minds is Heritical and absurd that is contains the Heresy of Sabellius and contradicts the Scripture which as the Reverend Dean observes represents Father ibid. Son and Holy Ghost as three Intelligent Beings not as three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is downright Sabellianism The Animadvertor laying hold on the Novelty of the Phrase of three Infinite Minds took occasion to Write and Publish one of the most spiteful and malicious Books that perhaps ever saw the Sun For he is not content to note That this is a Phrase difused by the Church but he calls it a silly Heretical Notion Pref. p. 3. ibib p. 2. solely of his own invention a notion immediately and unavoidably inferring three Gods and p. 376. a Monstrous Assertion by which he holds and affirms the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which I the Animadverter shew unavoidably and irrefragably inferr'd them to be three Gods Now that I may render these Papers more useful to my Reader I shall enquire into the reason why the Church refused several Phrases in this Mystery in what sense the same Phrase was allowed and in what other it was disallowed and more particularly have an Eye to the Animadvertor's Objections against the Phrase of three Infinite Minds It being certain both from Phylosophy and Religion P. 116. l. 5. n. 2. That there is but one only God or Godhead in which Christian Religion has taught us that there are three Persons It is ominous to stumble at the Threshold these two Terms God and Godhead are formally distinct and therefore ought not to be Confounded Every thing which may be affirmed of one of these Terms cannot with equal Truth and Propriety be always affirmed of the other The Christian Religion has taught us That there are Three Persons in the Godhead or in the words of the first Article of our Church in the Unity of the Godhead For the Unity of the Godhead and the Unity of the Trinity are equipollent Articles and there are certainly Three Persons in the Trinity in the Unity of the Trinity But if we take this term God as distinct from Godhead we can by no means say That there are three Persons in God or in one God The Christian Religion compels us to acknowledge that each distinct Person is God which would be impossible if there were three Persons in God For how can that Person be God which wants something which is in God for each distinct Person has not three Persons in him Hence the 11th Council of Toledo Nec rectè dici potest ut in uno Deo sit Trinitas with the Animadvertor's leave the Heretick Sabellius and not the Christian Religion taught this Article that there are three Persons in one God It had been to be wished P. 116. l. 12. n. 3. I confess That Divines had rested in the bare Expressions delivered in Scripture concerning this Mystery and ventured no farther by any particular and bold Explication of it But since the Nature or rather Humor of Man has still been too strong for his Duty and his Curiosity especially in things Sacred been apt to carry him too far those however have been all along the most Pardonable who have ventured least and proceeded upon the surest grounds both of Scripture it self and Reason Discoursing upon it Does the Animadvertor consider the import of those Words of resting in the bare expressions delivered in Scripture If I understand them they forbid the shortest Paraphrase they except not the most necessary Vindication of the Scripture Expressions from the false interpretations of Hereticks Again Is this the best Defence the Animadvertor can give for the Fathers of the Church who have not only exceeded the bare Expressions delivered in Scripture but expressed their Faith of this Mysterious Article by Sundry extrascriptural terms such as Trinity Person Hypostasis Substance Essence Consubstantial c. Was this only a wanton Humour in them an Humor too strong for their Duty a Curiosity which carried them too far Was this a fault and crime tho a pardonable one When it served the Animadvertor's design against the Reverend Dean these extrascriptural Terms were neither ambiguous faulty nor improper Animadv c. p. 147. l. 3. but much the contrary though now he condemns the Inventors of them as acting contrary to their Duty All are in some measure faulty even those who have ventured least those who have proceeded upon the surest grounds both of Scripture it self and of Reason discoursing upon it which I am satisfied is his own notion and not an over-wise one that we cannot escape a fault even where we proceed upon the surest Grounds not where we proceed upon the surest Grounds both of Scripture and Reason The Arians of old and the Socinians of late and some favourers of them or who otherwise occultum virus fovent in the words of Calvin have embraced some False and Heretical Notion of this Mystery are very angry with the extra scriptural Terms used by the Church in this Mystery But the Apology which the Nicene Fathers made for themselves was That the Arians and other Hereticks were the occasion of it these Hereticks Equivocated in the sense and meaning of the bare Scripture Expressions and the more ancient and simple Phrases of the Church so that the Church was obliged to use new Expressions to detect the Frauds of subtle and cunning Hereticks The Church chose not these Terms to express a new Faith by to say more than the Scripture had said but to say that in short which the Scripture had scatteringly delivered in several places And such I affirm the ancient Writers and Fathers of the Church Ibid. and after them the School-men to have been who with all their faults or rather infelicities caused by the times and circumstances they lived in are better
plead those Sacred words of their Law I am the Lord thy God Thou shalt have no other Gods before me That all their Doctors for the space of two thousand Years interpreted those words in their Natural sense viz. as spoke of one Divine Person What shall we say to this Objection Did God suffer the wisest of the Heathen Philosophers the most Pious Persons of the Jewish Religion to believe an Heresie of him for so many Ages Did God speak of himself in the most Sacred part of the Law in such words which Naturally lead to Heresie For I and me Naturally lead to the belief of one Person speaking This is the great Objection with which the Socinians flourish An Answer to which would be of more worth than a thousand such Books of Inadversions as the Socinian Considerer calls these Animadversions Considerations on the Explications c p. 23. For my own part I cannot be so fond of the Subtilties of the Schools as for the sake of them to confess so harsh a Conclusion I do most firmly believe that the Faith of a Trinity of Divine Persons and the Article of the Unity of God as it was believed by the wisest of the Heathens and the Jewish Church are by no means inconsistent The whole Truth was not revealed to the Jewish Church or at least so very obscurely that very few of them understood it But yet I verily believe that what was revealed was a most Sacred truth I believe that the God whom the Heathen Philosophers by the Light of Nature worshipped was one Divine Person I believe that the same one Divine Person spake of Himself in those Sacred words of the Law I am the Lord thy God c. I also believe that this One Divine Person was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Nor does this contradict that common Article of the Christian Faith viz. That God is Three Persons as the Socinians vainly pretend and some others unwarily grant them God is not three Persons as he is Just or Good or Holy as if three Persons were Essentially included in the Divine Nature For then no one single Person could by himself be God then there could not be a Son of God or a Spirit of God When God is said to be three Persons the term God is taken in a Logical sense equivalent in Predication to a terminus communis or a Species and signifies that the Divine Nature subsists in three Persons that this term God is truly predicable of three distinct Persons But a further disquisition of this Difficulty belongs to my Second Part. The Animadvertor accuses the Reverend Dean of giving a scurvy stroke at the Trinity p. 135. lin 7. n. 19. p. 89. where he the Reverend Dean affirms that the Expression of the one true God and the only true God cannot properly be attributed to the Son nor Holy Ghost Ibid. l. 19. and consequently if he asserts that these terms cannot with equal Propriety be attributed to and predicated of the Son and Holy Ghost we have him both Arian and Macedonian together in this Assertion First The Reverend Dean never asserted that the Son or Holy Ghost could not properly be called the one God or only true God only that they could not so properly be stiled so as the Father The Fathers of the Nicene Council indeed of the whole Eastern Church did expresly appropriate the Title of One God to the Father and God of God to the Son by which Opposition it appears that by One God in the first Article of the Creed they meant a God of himself which is a Personal Attribute and peculiar to the Father Our Saviour appropriates this Title of Only true God to the Person of the Father Hilary lib. 3. de Trin. and St. Hilary who was never hitherto esteemed either an Arian or Macedonian expresly asserts this to be Debitum Honorem Patri St. Paul has patronized this Appropriation Ephes 4.6 To us there is one God and Father Now for my part I had rather be esteemed an Heretick Arian and Macedonian with my Saviour St. Paul St. Hilary all the Oriental Fathers than Orthodox with the Animadvertor and Bellarmin I do assure him that I am neither afraid of him nor the Socinians I crave no Favour at either of their Hands for this Profession of my Faith That the Title of one God only true God is a Proper Personal Prerogative of the Father alone p. 138. lin 21. n. 20. And as for the Father's being the Fountain of the Deity I hope he looks upon the Expression only as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native sense for fear the Consequences of it may engage him too far to be able to make an handsome Retreat which I assure him if he does not take heed they certainly will Oratio contra gregales Sabellii propè initium Athanasius tells us that we might rightly call the Father the only God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he only is unbegotten and he only is the Fountain of the Deity This learned Father has hitherto been esteemed the very Test of Orthodoxy in this Mystery The Reverend Dean's Notion and Phrase is borrowed from him who would not have thought himself safe under so Venerable a Name But alas the World is strangely altered Athanasius himself must come to School to the Animadvertor to learn how to speak I hope he that poor Novice Athanasius looks on the Expression as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native sense I hope also that I may be allowed to vindicate this Phrase of that great Light of the Church from the Exceptions of a bold Animadvertor May I in the Name of Athanasius enquire of this great Critick which of these two words Fountain or Deity are to be interpreted Metaphorically That of Fountain is plainly Metaphorical Athanasius was never so weak as to believe that the Deity was a River of Waters and the Father the Fountain of it If the Animadvertor means that this term Deity is Metaphorical I must require his Proof and not his Affirmation Again neither Athanasius nor any of the Ancient Fathers ever intended by this Phrase that the Father is the Fountain of the Deity that he was the positive Fountain of the Divinity in his own Person any more than Philosophers and Divines mean that God was the cause of Himself when they say that God is of Himself Athanasius added to avoid the suspicion of such an absurd sense that he was unbegotten as well as the Fountain of the Deity What then is the fault of this Phrase of Athanasius Why alas poor Athanasius was unacquainted with the subtilties of the Schools He said plainly and bluntly that the Father was the Fountain of the Deity whereas he ought to have said Animadv c. p. 191. lin 10. That he was the Fountain of the two other Divine Persons To say
the Animadvertor they are three Infinite Minds in the highest sense The Animadvertor charges the Phrase of three Infinite Minds with the grossest Tritheism it immediately and unavoidably infers three Gods Preface pag. II. The Reverend Dean pleads the Authority of the Nicene Fathers that they had said as much nay more than he they had asserted a Specifick Unity of the Trinity which in the Animadvertor's Judgment implies a multiplication of the Divine Nature that is three Infinite Spiritual Natures whereas three Infinite Spirits in the bare Phrase implies no more than that there are three possessing one Infinite Spiritual Nature Now I presume if the Dean or rather if Petavius and Dr. Cudworth were not mistaken the Animadvertor will abate something of his Confidence he will hardly have brow enough to say That the Notion of the Trinity which the Nicene Fathers advanced was a silly Heretical Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring three Gods The same Request I make to all my Orthodox Readers that they will be pleased to lay aside their Prejudice against the Admission of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity till this Historical Truth be fairly determined The Nicene Fathers Judgment is not indeed the Rule of our Faith but it deservedly demands a Veneration from all Modest and Pious Christians and is infinitely to be preferred before the bare Authority of the Schoolmen or Moderns The Animadvertor Answers n. 3. p. 174. lin 16. I must confess my self very unfit to take such great and truly learned Persons to task and that upon comparing this Author the Reverend Dean and Petavius together I find much more Reason to believe that he mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers If the Animadvertor is unfit to take two such learned Persons to task why does he contradict their Judgment Why does he call it a traducing misrepresenting the Fathers Why does he so confidently aver That the Fathers never mark that word never used the Example of three or more individual Men agreeing in the same Nature as a parallel instance of the same sort or degree of Unity He should have added p. 175. lin 5. of Nature with that which is in the three Divine Persons The Fathers never believed indefinitely universally the same Unity betwixt Humane Persons as betwixt the Divine Persons nor is that the Question but whether they believed the same Unity of Nature betwixt the latter as is confessedly betwixt the former A Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature if we for once only suppose such an Unity has quite different Consequences from what a Specifick Unity of a created Humane Nature implies which yet alters not the Unity of each Nature Well but the Animadvertor has compared the Dean and Petavius May I ask him why he did not also consult Dr. Cudworth He gives him a Complement in the foregoing Lines his Piece is not so rare but it might easily have been procured He was a Protestant Divine a Person of great and deserved Repute for Learning and Skill in Antiquity and which is more gives judgment against himself He himself embraces the Platonick Hypothesis which infers a Generical not Specifical Unity of the Trinity He lays a very severe charge to this Notion of a Specifick Unity It seems plain that this Trinity of St. Cyril and such who believe a Specifick Unity is no other than a kind of Tritheism and that of Gods independent and co-ordinate too The Platonick and Nicene Hypothesis of the Trinity both agreed in this that the common Divine Essence was an Universal They differed in this that the Platonists held the Divinity to be a genus and consequently capable of admitting degrees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the distinct Divine Persons The Nicene Fathers held the Divinity to be a Species capable of no degrees of no essential degrees but that Father Son and Holy Ghost are perfectly equal touching the Godhead in the words of the Athanasian Creed The Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is all one the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal I say the Testimony of this learned Person is of the more weight as being against his own Judgment We naturally in such cases weigh the words of an Author with more exactness when his Authority makes against us than when it agrees with us Him therefore we have left us as an unanswered Witness What does the Animadvertor say to Petavius Has the Reverend Dean misrepresented Petavius or not Why does not the Animadvertor speak plain Why does he keep a muttering between his Teeth That he finds more reason to believe that the Reverend Dean mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers We want a categorical Answer whether Petavius did represent a specifick Unity of the Trinity to be the meaning of the Fathers and if he did so whether in so doing he mistook their meaning and sense This question which was too hard for the Animadvertor I will answer for him but I cannot promise to his good liking The Reverend Dean did not mistake the meaning of Petavius as might be proved from innumerable places of Petavius I shall content my self with two only Petav. l. 4. de Trin. cap. 7. S. 2. In hoc uno Graecorum proesertim omnium judicium opinionesque concordant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est essentiam sive substantiam sive naturam quam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocant generale esse aliquid commune ac minimè definitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verò proprium singulare circumscriptum Ibid. c. 9. S. 1. Again Antiquorum plerosque dicentes audivimus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive naturam commune quiddam esse multis quod universale vocant Hypostasim verò idem atque individuum sive singulare These words are capable of no Evasion Petavius in express terms declares that according to the Judgment of all the Greek Fathers the common Divine Essence is Generale quippiam as opposed to singulare is commune quiddam multis quod Vniversale vocant Thus Petavius as well as the Reverend Dean takes in the subject before us Common Nature and Specifick Nature to be all one Had the Animadvertor consulted the seventh and ninth Chapters of this fourth Book of Petavius concerning the Trinity he could neither have doubted of Petavius's Judgment nor well of that of the Ancient Fathers Well the Animadvertor has a Refuge for himself if Petavius has given his Judgment against him in the immediate following words n. 4. But however I shall lay down this as a Conclusion which I take to be undoubtedly true p. 174. ib. viz. That the Ancient Fathers as well the Nicene as those after them held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature That is in other words They held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This Conclusion I hold and have good reason to believe that neither Petavius nor Dr. Cudworth shall be able to
except Innascibility or the property of being unbegotten which notifies not a difference of Essence or a different essential Dignity but a personal Property even as Adam being unbegotten for he was immediately formed by God and Seth begotten for he was the Son of Adam and Eve proceeding out of the side of Adam for she was not begotten differ not in Nature for they are all Men or human Persons but in a distinct personal Property These words need no Comment Seth's Birth and Eve's Procession of the Rib of Adam are not their Personalities not their Modes of Subsistence but their personal Properties not that which constituted them Persons but that which distinguished them in our Conception one from another that which constituted them distinct Persons one from another Besides the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not of it self capable of any other Interpretation to be unbegotten a negation See Ch. 2. n. 10. can never be the Father's Mode of Subsistence his Personality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Animadverter is a term not importing in it any positive Relation but only a meer Negation of all Producibility by any superior Principle Anim. c. p. 248. This term therefore cannot signifie causally and consequently not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here stiled contrary to the Animadverter's Observation I acknowledge to the Animadverter that every Person Ibid p. 250 251. and consequently the Divine Persons are formally constituted such by a Mode of Subsistence or what we are obliged to conceive of as a Mode of Subsistence that is each distinct Person has a distinct Mode of Subsistence and the three Divine Persons have in our Conception three distinct Modes of Subsistence Nay I will add further that I believe that no Man who understands the meaning of the term Hypostasis and uses it without Aequivocation will or can deny any part of this The Reverend Dean expresly acknowledges this truth A Beast is a Suppositum Vind. of the Trinity p. 262. that is a distinct living subsisting Being by it self But I do here deny to the Animadverter that the Ancient Fathers did ever assert that the Divine Relations were in this proper formal Sense Modes of Subsistence or that That Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to the Divine Relations and much more when applied to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was by them understood in the proper formal Sense of which we are now enquiring Secondly If the Animadverter could get over the first Difficulty Anim. c. p. 120. he would find a second behind how one simple Being which is the Animadverter's Hypothesis of the Trinity can have three Modes of Subsistence The whole School of the Thomists and Scotists assert an absolute essential Subsistence and consequently one Subsistence of the whole Trinity they esteem the three Divine Persons to be unum subsistens unum suppositum aut personam incompletam says Cajetan one of the most famous Commentators upon Aquinas to which Suarez only replies Suarez de incar q 3. Act. 1. disp 11. S. 5. p. 285. Cavendus est hic loquendi modus utpote alienus à modo loquendi conciliorum Patrum Theologorum that is have a care lest Hereticks hear us and take advantage at such a novel Expression otherwise Suarez finds no fault with the Doctrine and indeed to say That Existence or Subsistence by it self is Relative is a contradiction to the very Phrase Subsistence by it self denies all relation to any other So that according to the Thomists and Scotists the three Personalities are not three Modes of Subsistence not three Subsistences but one essential absolute Subsistence with three Relations or three relative Modes or three Modes of Incommunicability But of this I have already spoke Chap. 1. n. 11 12 13. Thirdly To allot three Subsistences to the God-head is to contradict the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Properties are not Names of the Essence of the God-head but of the Persons The God head does not properly subsist but the Divine Persons subsist Cajetan may inform the Animadverter what is the consequence of ascribing Subsistence to the God-head even the same with calling it a suppositum or incompleat Person where the term incompleat is only added to avoid the grossness of the Phrase otherwise they ascribe all the Divine Acts to this unum subsistens unum suppositum and call them essential Acts whereas the Notion of Philosophers is that actiones non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attribuuntur that Actions ought not to be attributed to the Nature but to the Person endowed with such Nature The Person is the principium quod Nature only the principium quo the power by which the Person acteth The School-men retain in words the personal Acts of the Divine Persons that Generation is the personal Act of the Father Incarnation the personal Act of the Son Sanctification the personal Act of the Holy Spirit Active Spiration the personal Act of the Father and Son But these are meer words Generation according to the School-men is the reflex Act of the Divine Understanding whereby it knows it self and this singular individual Act they ascribe in common to Father Son and Holy Ghost So every thing that is an Act in Incarnation is according to them the Act of the whole Trinity they pretend indeed that the same singular reflex Act of the Divine Understanding only generates as it proceeds from the Person of the Father and that the Incarnation is only terminated upon the Person of the Son But what Pretence to invent for Sanctification I do not find that they are yet agreed The sacred Scriptures give Sanctification for the distinguishing Character of the third Person he is so called in the very Form of Baptism to deny this distinguishing Character was Sabellianism to the Ancients Yet this the School-men have undeniably done in the Act of Sanctification The Maxim of the Ancients was that Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa They have not only misconstrued indivisa for confusa but in reality left out the Exception ad extra and confounded the Actions ad intra as well as those ad extra So Spiration to the School-men is that Act of the Divine Will whereby it loves it self and this singular individual Act they also ascribe to the Holy Spirit equally with the Father and the Son Only say they The Divine Will 's loving it self is not Spiration in the Person of the Holy Ghost but only in the Person of the Father and Son How much better is it with the Ancient Fathers to confess these to be inscrutable Mysteries than to expose the sacred Article by such bold and abstruse Definitions and yet these are the Gentlemen whom the Animadverter commends for venturing little for preceding upon the surest grounds of Reason and Scripture Again Sanctification which the divinely inspired Writings give us as the peculiar
imperfect as Suarez quoted before Chap. 1. n. 14. says Modus non potest non esse quid imperfectum cum non attingat absolutam rationem entis But I will ask no other authority but his own to confute this singular Assertion of the Animadverter's that there are Modes in God This is his own Definition p. 31. A Mode of Being is such a thing as being added to another does not make any Addition of another Being or Degree of Being to it but onely restrains and determines it I have already shewed that such an Addition would make a Composition Chap. 1. n. 14. now I argue from the latter words that a Mode restrains and determines the Being or Nature it belongs to And will the Animadverter say That the Divine Nature can be restrained or determined If he dares I desire to know the difference betwixt a Nature restrained and determined and a finite Nature or whether the Animadverter will say That the Divine Nature can be Finite Or whether our acute Animadverter to borow his own words will distinguish betwixt terminus and finis and say that the Divine Nature may be determined but cannot be Finite p. 55. the Animadverter tells us That the Divine Nature is that of which there neither are nor can be any Bounds Limits or Determinations and therefore I hope I may say from his own Definition of a Mode not any Modes And this may suffice at present to answer his manifest Reason N. 5. Anim. c. p. 286. His unquestionable Authority is no less than all Divines Metaphysicians and Schoolmen they do unanimously concurr in this thing they universally affirm Modes of Being to be in God and to belong to him Nay and which is more they do in these very Modes state the Ground and Reason of the Personalities c. Now I do confess that the Phrase of three Modes of Subsistence in the Trinity is used by most Divines by most who treat of the Trinity so is the Term of Modes used by the new Philosophers that is not the question But whether all Metaphysicians Schoolmen and Divines do assert Modes of Being in the Trinity in the Sense in which the Animadverter has defined them A Copernican Astronomer uses the Ancient Terms of Art of Epicycles invented by the Ptolemaists and uses the Phrases of the Sun 's rising and setting c. does he therefore embrace the Ptolemaick Hypotheses All wise men understand Phrases according to the known principles of the Speaker The Schoolmen believed that three finite persons had three proper real modes of Subsistence in the sense of the Animadverter they declare that the modes of Subsistence which constitute the Divine persons are in our imperfect conception analogous to the former but in the reality not Modes but perfect infinite relative Substances Holiness goodness in the creatures are proper adjuncts nor can our imperfect minds conceive of them otherwise in God and therefore we call them Attributes in God But our judicium correctivum tells us that this is only the weakness of our conception of things and that the Divine simplicity will not admit of any proper Attributes in God The same mistake has the Animadverter made in those words of the Reverend Dean which he quotes p. 287. viz. That the same numerical Essence is whole and entire in each Divine Person but in a different manner By which words it appears that he grants that of the Manner which he had before denied of the Modus it is a shrewd temptation to me to think that certainly this acute Author takes Modus for one thing and Manner for another The oftner I read these words the more I admire at the presumptuous confidence of him that wrote them I am sure no man can give a more convincing argument of his utter unacquaintance with the principles of the new Philosophy than these words nay indeed with the principles of all Philosophy and Divinity There is a mode habitude or relation whereby God is related to and respects a created Being God as a Creator is related in one manner and God as a Governour or Judge is related in another manner What then are the Relations of a Creator and Governour or Judge true and proper modes in God The Animadverter will himself determine the contrary p. 242. they derive says he only an external Habitude and Denomination consequent from it upon the Deity it self A Posture of the Body according to the Schoolmen is a real Mode a distinct accidentale quid from the Body it self according to the new Philosophers a different posture is only a different circumstance a different external habitude of the parts of the Body or of the whole Body in respect of the different situation of the parts yet not one of them would scruple the phrase that the Body standing is in a different manner from the Body sitting I am really ashamed of spending the Readers time in confuting so weak objections Modus is Latin for Manner therefore he that uses the one or the other phrase must necessarily assert Modes of Being in the sense of the Reallists for I do more than conjecture that the Nominalist Schoolmen did not believe these Real Modes but my distance from Libraries will not give me leave to determine any thing positively concerning their opinion Risum teneatis n. 6. Thirdly if we should grant the Animadverter a triplicity of proper Modes if we confess the three Personalities to be three proper Modes nay if we allow that the three relations of Paternity Filiation and Procession and the three Personalities in the reality make but three Modes notwithstanding the distinction that natural reason conceives betwixt proper modes of Subsistence and relations resulting from Beings constituted I say all this if liberally granted to the Animadverter would avail him very little For first it would only increase the difficulty what we must do with the fourth Relation of Active Spiration Four Modes in the Trinity would be new even to the Schoolmen themselves But of this afterwards Secondly this would leave us as much in the dark what the three Persons are A Person is not Personality but the Subject of Personality The Father is not Paternity but the Subject of Paternity Paternity is a personal Property but will any one dare to say that God the Father is a Personal Property Paternity according to the Animadverter is a Mode not so perfect as a Being It is boldness to ascribe a Mode to God the Father but to say that the Father is in recto a Mode not a Being is the height of folly and madness This is the constant language of the Ancient Fathers that the Divine Persons are distinguished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in subject Lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. §. 9. p. 324. Hence Petavius speaking of the Divine Persons according to the opinion of the Ancient Fathers says Non unum simplex habere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Phrases of the