or rather he himself in some former Pamphlets has observed very material differences between the Dean's Hypothesis and some of these Learned Men He neither owns the Platonick Inequality of Dr. Cudworth nor the Sabellian Composition and Union of others but asserts Three Real Distinct Coequal Coeternal Persons not in one singular and solitary but in one numerical Nature and Essence But I believe the Dean will heartily thank him for giving him the late Archbishop and Dr. Bull two such Names as will command Reverence and shelter him from the Imputation either of Novelty or Heresy at least as to this Point And it is worth observing from the example of these two great Men at what rate some Persons judge of Men and Doctrines The good Archbishop by his Trinitarian Adversaries is charged with Socinianism and by his Socinian Adversaries with Tritheism and yet he must have very ill luck if he could stumble upon two such Extremes As for Dr. Bull his Learned and Elaborate Defence of the Nicene Faith was printed at Oxford and received with Universal Applause as it highly deserved None of them to this day have charged him with the least Heresy and I believe will not yet venture to do it And yet as this Writer confesses and as every unprejudiced Reader must own the Doctrine of the Defence as to this Point is the very same with the Dean's Hypothesis which these very Persons have condemned as Impious and Heretical So true is it Duo cùm faciunt idem non est idem All that this Socinian intended by bringing Dr. Bull into the Fray was to follow the Blow which the Animadverter and the Oxford Decree had given to a Trinity of distinct proper subsisting living intelligent Persons which is all that Dr. Bull or the Dean assert by their Charge of Tritheism which he hoped would be a sufficient Answer to that otherwise unanswerable Book and together with Dr. Bull would confute all the Fathers at once on whose Authority he so much relies and to whom he perpetually appeals for no Christian must hearken to those men whatever their Authority be did they really as they are unjustly charged preach Three Gods and thus he thinks he has got rid of all Antiquity and of the Tritheistick Trinity with it But still this makes well for the Dean who will be contended to stand and fall with the Catholick Fathers and will never desire to be thought more Orthodox than they That Dr. Bull asserts a Real Substantial Trinity in as high and express Terms as ever the Dean did is so plain throughout his Book that it is needless to prove it All his Arguments suppose this Hypothesis and are unintelligible without it and therefore I shall take notice but of one or two particular Passages whereon as we shall presently see this whole heavy Charge of Tritheism rests He tells us That Hypostasis both before and in and after the Nicene Council was used by the Catholick Fathers for Subsistence or a particular thing which subsists by it self which in intelligent Beings is the same with Person That in this sense they taught Father and Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be two Hypostases and Father Son and Holy Ghost to be three Hypostases And that upon this account Tertullian to assert the Subsistence of the Son against those who denied him to be a distinct Person from the Father affirms him to be Substantiam rem Substantivam Substance and a substantial Being And having by many irrefragable Instances proved this use of the word to be very Catholick he adds That probably this word Hypostasis would still have been used in this sense had not the Arians abused it to countenance their Heresy expounding it to a more general Notion of Essence Nature and Substance and teaching as the Catholick Fathers did That the Father and Son were two Hypostases but thereby meaning that they were of a different Nature and Substance unlike to each other And that in opposition to them it was that the Sardican Council taught Father and Son to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Hypostasis that is as they themselves expresly affirm in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or one Nature and Essence We may find a great deal more to this purpose in the same place in his Vindication of Origen from the Objections of Huetius who charges him with denying the Father and Son to be of the same Essence and Substance or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he opposes those who denied the Holy Ghost to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Substance of his own distinct from the Father and the Son whereas that learned man shews that Origen by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meant no more than Hypostasis in which sense that word is often used among the Ancients and therefore in opposition to those Noetian Hereticks asserts Father Son and Holy Ghost to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three Hypostases as Hypostasis signifies Rem singularem individuam per se subsistentem quae in iis quae vita intellectu gaudent idem est quod persona A singular and individual thing which subsists by it self which in Beings that have Life and Understanding signifies a Person so that Three Hypostases are Three substantial self-subsisting living intelligent Persons And tho' the Phrase of Three Minds Three Spirits Three Substances ought to be used very cautiously and not without great necessity when applied to the Holy Trinity for fear of the Arian Notion of Three Substances yet it is evident how far this learned man is from thinking such Expressions to be Impious and Heretical He expounds Three Hypostases to the very same Sense and elsewhere quotes that passage of St. Hilary concerning the Synod at Antioch as truly Catholick where in opposition to the Sabellians they assert the Divine Persons in the Trinity to be tria in substantia or tres substantias three in Substance or three Substances Thus when Petavius accuses Methodius for calling Father and Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two Creating and Operative Powers he answers That Father and Son might with less offence and better reason be called Two Powers by Methodius than Two Natures and Substances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called by other Fathers who yet were always accounted Catholick but such expressions as these must be understood only personally and then they are Orthodox So that according to this learned man Two Personal Natures Substances and Powers are Catholick Expressions and this is the very account which Dr. Sherlock in his Defence if he were the Author of it gives of Three Minds and Spirits that he understood it personally for Three Divine intelligent Persons and therefore is as Orthodox in these very Expressions as Dr. Bull and those Catholick Fathers to whom he appeals In another place speaking of some Modern Divines who allow the Son to be of the Father considered as a Son
but not as God that he receives his Person but not his Essence or Divine Nature of the Father he observes that we cannot conceive the Person without the Essence unless by Person in the Divinity we mean no more than the meer mode of subsistence which is plain Sabellianism So that this Writer has done Dr. Sherlock a greater kindness than he was aware of and as it will quickly appear has lost his own Cause by it if Dr. Bull have truly represented the sense of the Fathers as all learned and unprejudiced men must own he has For here are such a Cloud of Witnesses to the Doctrine of a Real Substantial Subsisting Trinity as no later Authorities whatever they are can stand against What I have now quoted is only what first came to hand but there is hardly any thing in the whole Book but what by immediate and necessary consequence proves the real dictinction of proper subsisting Persons in the Trinity that each Person is by himself in his own proper Person as distinguisht from the other Two Infinite Mind Substance Life Wisdom Power and whatever is contained in the Notion and Idea of God Instead of particular Quotations for the proof of this I shall only Appeal to the Titles of the several Sections of that learned Work which I believe no man can make common sense of without acknowledging a Trinity of proper substantial subsisting Persons The First Section concerns the Preexistence of the Son of God That he who afterwards was called Jesus Christ did subsist before his Incarnation or Nativity according to the Flesh of the Blessed Virgin in another and more excellent Nature than that of Man That he appeared to the Holy Men under the Old Testament as a kind of Anticipation of his-Incarnation That he always presided over and took care of his Church which he was to Redeem with his own Blood That he was present with God his Father before the foundation of the World and that by him all things were made This is the Faith of Christians and this he proves to be the constant Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers for the first three hundred years and so it continued to After-ages Now let any man consider what a pretty kind of dispute this is about the Preexistence of the Son if he have no proper permanent Existence of his own but considered as a Divine Person is only another Name for the Father or an immanent Act like the transient Thought or transient Act of Reason in Man For if the Son be not a distinct Person from the Father and as proper a subsisting Person as the Father himself is the Question will amount to no more but this Whether God the Father had a Being before Jesus Christ was Born of the Virgin or before the World was made Or Whether he had any immanent Acts of Wisdom or Reason before he made the World Or Whether he took the Name of Son upon himself before he made the World or made any Creature to know him or his Name The Christian Fathers were Wiser men than to talk at this impertinent rate and therefore they did believe that God had a Son in a true and proper Sense a subsisting living omnipotent Son by whom he made the World who appeared in his own proper Person to several of the Patriarchs under the Old Testament and in the fulness of time was Incarnate of the substance of the Virgin Mary The very Question it self necessarily supposes this to make Sense of it much more impossible is it to understand what the Fathers say upon this Argument upon the Sabellian or Socinian Hypothesis The Second Section concerns the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father That the Son of God is not of a created or mutable Essence but perfectly of the same Divine unchangeable Nature with his Father and therefore is True God of True God Now What Sense can be made of this if the Son be not as truly and properly Substance in his own Person as distinguished from the Person of the Father as the Father is in his own Person For How can the Son be Consubstantial or of the same Substance with the Father if he be no Substance at all Especially since this Learned man has proved That the Catholick Fathers rejected the Homoousion in the Sabellian Sense for one singular Substance of Father and Son and that they assert as common Sense would teach us that nothing is Consubstantial to it self but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing is Consubstantial to another The Third Section concerns the Co-eternal Existence of the Son with the Father Now for Father and Son to Coexist necessarily supposes that they both Exist and actually subsist by themselves for two cannot Exist and Subsist together unless each of them actually subsist For as the Fathers observe nothing can properly be said to Coexist with it self For it can admit of no Question Whether any one has been as long as he has been And therefore since the Co-eternity of the Son has been a very serious Dispute between the Catholicks and the Arians it is certain that both of them owned Father and Son to be two distinct Persons which did distinctly Exist and Subsist The Fourth Section teaches the Subordination of the Son to the Father that tho' the Son be Co-equal with the Father as having the same Divine Nature with the Father without any change or diminution yet he is Subordinate to the Father as receiving the Divine Nature from him That the Father is God of himself the Son God of God Now if the Son receive the Divine Nature by an eternal Communication from the Father he must have it in himself in his own Person and be a living subsisting Son true God of God and if he be a true proper Person and subordinate to the Father he must be a distinct Person for no Person can be subordinate to himself These Questions Dr. Bull has discoursed at large with great variety of Learning and acuracy of Judgment and it is a Mystery to me how those who pretend to admire Dr. Bull should quarrel with Dr. Sherlock or that those who pay any reverence to the Catholick Fathers should quarrel with either of them This Socinian as I observed before was glad to draw Dr. Bull into the number of Tritheists but by that means he has drawn in all the Catholick Fathers too and has now drawn together so many Tritheists as he will never know how to get rid of again or to speak more properly he has unanswerably Confuted the Charge of Tritheism and discovered the Trick and Mystery of it by charging the Catholick Faith it self and all the Catholick Fathers the most zealous Patrons and Advocates of it with Tritheism SECT II. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Holy Trinity THE very Name of Socinianism is justly abhorred by all Christians who place all their hopes of Salvation in the Incarnation Sacrifice and
he has both imperfectly and falsly represented the Opinion of the Realists 1. He tells us They say that the Holy Trinity or the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct infinite Substances Three Minds Three Spirits Now any one would hence conclude That this is the Universal Doctrine of all the Realists and that this Phrase of Three Substances Minds and Spirits is the Parting point between the Realists and Nominals That all who believe a Real Trinity own Three Infinite Minds and Spirits and that no man can believe a Real Trinity who does not own this Now this is manifestly false as our late Experience proves The greatest number of Realists as far as I can guess who believe a Real Trinity a Real subsisting Father a Real subsisting Son and a Real Subsisting Holy Spirit do yet reject those Expressions of Three Infinite Minds and Spirits which are liable to a very Heretical Sense either Arianism or Tritheism and therefore were very sparingly and with great Caution used by the Catholick Fathers tho' they used Three Hypostases in the very same Sense and did not condemn Three Natures and Substances when personally used as we have seen above And therefore the late Dispute about Three Minds does not in it self divide the contending Parties into Realists and Nominals as the Socinians too hastily conclude and think to carry their Cause by it Very good Catholicks may dispute such expressions as we know they did the Homoousion it self for One Substance is as liable to an Heretical Sense as Three Substances for that may be Sabellianism and the other may be Arianism or Tritheism and both of them rightly understood may be very Orthodox but whether they are or no must be judged by the Sense in which they are used and the Catholick Fathers like good Christians have easily yielded to each other in a dispute of words when it has appeared that the difference has been only in words not in the Faith What Athanasius says upon a like occasion is a very good Rule to maintain Christian Peace and Unity To corrupt the Faith is always unlawful tho' we palliate it with the most popular and orthodox forms of speech but a true and holy Faith does not degenerate into Impiety and Heresy by some new improper expressions while he who uses such words has a Pious and Orthodox sense But to proceed Tho' all Realists do not agree about the use of those words Three Minds or Substances yet they all do and all must agree in what follows viz. They are Three such Persons that is as distinct and as really subsisting and living as three Angels or three Men. They are so without doubt if they be real proper Persons for a Person lives and subsists and Three Persons must be really distinct or they can't be Three that is the Father's Person is no more the Person of the Son nor the Person of the Son the Person of the Father than Peter is John or John is Peter but then they do not subsist dividely or separately as Peter and John do He adds Each Person has his own peculiar individual Substance his own personal and proper Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action an Omnipotence Omniscience and all other Divine Attributes divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence Omniscience c. of the other Two Persons Now I except against nothing in this but the Phrases of peculiar and individual substance and divers in number for peculiar and individual I would say a singular substance for tho' a singular substance in created Natures is a peculiar and individual substance also it is not so in the Divinity The Catholick Fathers always distinguish'd between One Substance and One singular Substance of the Godhead To deny One Substance or the Homoousion was Arianism To assert One singular Substance was Sabellianism for One singular Substance is but One Person which denies a Trinity of Persons But the Divine Nature and Substance is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and Common and therefore not One singular Substance which can never be common and by the same Reason a Personal Substance though it be singular and appropriate to such a particular Person and therefore as incommunicable as the Person is yet it is not peculiar and individual in the common acceptation of those words but the same One common undivided inseparable Essence of the Divinity subsisting distinctly and singularly in each Person Thus for the same Reason I will not say that the Personal Omnipotence c. of the Father is divers in number from the Personal Omnipotence of the Son because it is the same One Omnipotence as it is the same One Divinity which subsists distinctly in each Person but we may and must say That the Personal Omnipotence of the Father is not the Personal Omnipotence of the Son no more than the Person of the Father is the Person of the Son But this disguised Socinian has taken great care in representing the Doctrine of the Realists to conceal their Faith of the perfect undivided Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature in Three distinct subsisting Persons which yet he knows they as Sacredly profess as they do the real distinction of Persons and is owned in as high terms by Dr. Sherlock himself as by any of his Adversaries and is almost the only Pretence of those many Contradictions he is charged with by such as will not understand a perfect distinction in perfect Unity which yet is essential to the Catholick Faith of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity But as for this Author whether he had thought such a Distinction and Unity reconcileable or not yet when he undertook to represent the Doctrine of the Realists he ought to have represented it whole and entire and to have left it to the judgment of the Reader whereas he is very careful to observe that they say the Three Persons in the Trinity are Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits which yet only some of them say but takes no notice that these Three distinct Persons have One undivided Nature and Essence which they all agree in For this would have spoiled his Objections of Tritheism and what he immediately adds about Three Creators and Governors of the World which they never owned any more than Three Gods for tho' there are Three who are Omnipotent and Three who create yet they are so inseparably united in Nature that they are but One Agent One Omnipotent and produce but One Effect As the Catholick Fathers concluded for this Reason that as the Scripture teaches us That there is but One God and yet that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God so it attributes the making and government of the world both to Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet there is but one and the same world which is made and governed which proves that though they act as distinctly as their Persons are distinct yet there is such an essential
self-same Substance of Father and Son but so that the Son is a true and proper Son a real subsisting Person Substance of his Fathers Substance God of God Light of Light very God of very God Begotten not Made of one Substance with the Father by whom all things were made which so expresly declares the Sense of the Council that this Author durst not so much as mention God of God Light of Light c. which can never be reconciled with his Notion of One Substance which leaves no Substance nor any real subsistence to the Son distinct from the Father It is a bold stroke and worthy of our Author to make the Nicene Council determine for Sabellianism in the term Homoousios but yet he has a little Story which he thinks proves it beyond exception for which he quotes Socrates That Historian tells us That there happened a great quarrel in Aegypt about the word Homoousios which he says was like fighting in the dark without distinguishing Friends from Enemies for neither of them seemed to understand each other as to those matters for which they reproached one another This our Author takes no notice of for it would not serve his purpose it appearing from hence that the Accusations on both sides were causeless and like dealing blows in the dark But now our Author begins Those Fathers of the Council that were against the term Homoousios but those Fathers of the Council are not in Socrates but only those who declined the term Homoousios but the Fathers of the Council served his purpose better and therefore he makes bold with the Historian or of One Substance which the Historian has not added neither accused such as were for it as Sabellians and Montanists but the Historian says did suppose that those who received that Term did introduce the Doctrine of Sabellius and Montanus that is that this was their design in using that Term which as he observed before was their mistake calling them also blasphemous because they seemed to take away by that word the real Existence of the Son of God While on the other hand they that stood for Homoousios believed that such as were against it did introduce more Gods and therefore detested them as reviving Paganism Here our Author leaves off but I shall go on with the History Eustathius Bishop of Antioch accuses Eusebius Pamphili as Adulterating the Nicene Faith Eusebius denies That he in the least departed from the Nicene Faith and accuses Eustathius of Sabellianism And thus they wrote against each other as Adversaries and yet both of them Taught That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons that one would wonder whence it came to pass that they could not agree From this Story our Author thus Reasons This is a deciding-testimony in the Case For the Realists will never be able to shew that if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances Three Beings Minds or Spirits How the Fathers of the Council could be accused of Montanism and Sabellianism for Three intellectual infinite Substances Three Divine Beings Spirits or Minds was the Doctrine chiefly opposed by Sabellius and Montanus as all confess Then by his own Confession his Nominalists are Sabellians and all those Fathers and Councils which Condemned Sabellius were Realists and then we have got the Nicene Council again And on the other hand the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios could as little Censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism if it had not been supposed that in opposing Homoousios they professed to believe Three infinite Substances in number Three Divine Minds and Spirits which is the very Doctrine of the Modern Realists 1. Now in answer to this I observe first That the Historian says all this was an angry mistake as angry men are very apt to mistake and to reproach each other with their own mistakes but neither of these Parties were guilty of the Heresies they were charged with neither the one were Sabellians nor the other Tritheists Now this I think proves the direct contrary to what he concludes from it For if those who were charged with Sabellianism for owning the Homoousion were not Sabellians then it is certain that they did not think that the Nicene Council by the Homoousion or One Substance meant One singular Substance for that is Sabellianism And when those who professed the Homoousion and were no Sabellians charged those who rejected the Homoousion with Tritheism they must believe That the Nicene Homoousion is neither Sabellianism nor Tritheism but the middle between both such a Unity and sameness of Substance as is neither a Sabellian singularity nor a Tritheistick diversity and multiplicity of Substances that is where Father and Son are in their own Persons as distinct from each other infinite Substance and yet but one Substance One of One God of God Light of Light This is the Medium which Socrates tells us they both agreed in and therefore wondered how they should come to differ That the Son of God was a true and proper Person and had a real Subsistence of his own and that there was One God in Three Persons 2. But if by Homoousios the Council intended Three distinct Substances that is according to our Sense Three each of which is true and perfect Substance and yet but One Substance How could the Fathers of the Council be accused of Montanism or Sabellianism Had he consulted Dr. Bull he would have learnt the difference between these two but let that pass He Phrases this as if he would insinuate That the Council it self was accused of Sabellianism for this Term which is false But this word Homoousios had sometimes been abused to a Sabellian Sense tho' the Council did not use it in that Sense and some men might still conceal their Heresy under the Covert of an Orthodox Word For this Reason some who professed the Nicene Faith yet disliked the Homoousion and when this Dispute had heated them it was too natural to charge those who from the Authority of the Nicene Council defended the use of that word with such secret Heretical Senses as they thought that word chargeable with And this is the whole Truth of the Case as Socrates tells us and this is a very strange way to prove the Sense of the Council from the groundless accusations of angry and jealous men 3. But how could the Council which contrived and defended Homoousios censure those who were against it as introducers of Tritheism and Paganism which the Historian witnesses that it did with great earnestness But Socrates his Historian says not one word of the Council but only of these angry Disputants censuring and accusing each other and both unjustly but he would sain ascribe all this to the Council because it is not Fathers but Councils he relies on of which more presently But there
may be a very good Reason given why those who rejected the Sabellian Unity and Singularity of the Divine Essence might yet charge those with Polytheism who rejected the Homoousion or Consubstantial and there may be two accounts given of it 1. That they suspected them of Arianism in opposition to which the Council taught the Homoousion one Sense of which was Such a sameness of Nature as is between Father and Son which in Creatures we call a specifick sameness in contradiction to the Arians who taught That the Son was of a different Nature and Substance from the Father as different from God the Father as a created and uncreated Nature differ and this is downright Polytheism and Paganism for this makes the Son and Holy Spirit how excellent soever their Natures are but meer Creatures And for this Reason we know the Catholick Fathers charged the Arians with Pagan Polytheism and Idolatry And the Arians at that time were such zealous opposers of the Homoousion even while they concealed themselves under some other Catholick forms of Speech that it was too great a reason to suspect those of Arianism who denied the Homoousion whatever they would seem to own besides and when men are angry less reasonable suspicions than these are thought sufficient to form an Accusation and this is one fair account of it Such men were thought secret Arians and therefore charged with Polytheism 2. But there was another Notion of the Homoousion which the Catholick Fathers thought absolutely necessary to the Unity of God and consequently that the denial of it would introduce three Gods instead of three Divine subsisting Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead And that is That when the Son is said to be Homoousios or Consubstantial with the Father the meaning is that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the very Substance of the Father and not of any other created or uncreated Substance This St. Basil is positive in That Two who are of the same Substance for Kind are not therefore Consubstantial as Father and Son but are rather Brethren unless one be of the other But now many true Catholicks very much suspected this Term because it seemed to imply a Division and Separation of the Father's Substance for How can the Son be of the same Substance with the Father without a division of the Father's Substance The Nicene Fathers answered That the very Name of Son and the natural Notion of Generation did necessarily prove that the Son must be of the Father's Substance but then the absolute purity and simplicity of the Divine Essence which is a perfect indivisible Monad proves That this eternal Generation of the Son can't be by a division of Substance as it is in human Generations but is whole of whole in an ineffable and incomprehensible manner so as no Creature can understand which is no great wonder when we can understand so little of Creature Generations especially when Creation it self is as perfectly unaccountable as the Eternal Generation for we can no more understand how the World was Created of nothing than how the Son was Begotten of his Father's Substance whole and perfect without any division or separation That the whole Divine Essence is originally in the Father and communicated whole to the Son subsists whole and distinctly in Both and is One in Both. This is that sense of the Homoousion which occasioned so many warm Disputes between the Catholicks themselves for this reason that Party which rejected the Homoousion accused those who received it of Sabellianism because they asserted That there was but One and the same substance in Father Son and Holy Ghost which was the Heresy of Sabellius and the heat of Dispute would not suffer them to see how vastly the Catholick Homoousians and Sabellians differ'd tho' they both asserted but One Substance for the Sabellians asserted but One single Substance which is but One real subsisting Person and therefore made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three Names of the same Person But the Catholicks asserted Three real subsisting Persons who were Substance Substance and Substance and yet but One of One the perfect same of the perfect same Vna substantia non unus subsistens One substance not one that subsists and therefore generally rather called them Three Subsistences than Three Substances not but that they owned each Subsistence to be a Substance but they were in the common acceptation of the word not Three Substances but One Substance really and actually subsisting Thrice which they allowed to be One and One and One but not Three On the other hand those who received the Homoousion accused those who rejected it of Polytheism and Tritheism for in truth to deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are so of one substance that the Son receives his whole substance of the Father and that the Holy Ghost receives his whole substance of Father and Son is to make them Three absolute independent self-originated substances which have no relation to each other Three such as the Father is who is of no other but himself and the Catholick Fathers always accused this of Tritheism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Fathers was the same to them as to say Three Gods and they vindicated the Doctrine of a real subsisting Trinity against the Sabellian and Arian Charge of Tritheism by saying That they did not own Three Fathers but only One Father One Self-originated Divinity which communicates his own substance to the Son and therefore they are not Two Gods but God of God But now these good Fathers tho' they were right in the Notion of Tritheism and in the Nicene Notion of the Homoousion yet they wrongfully accused those who rejected that term of Tritheism for they owned that the Son was of the Father that all that the Son was he was of the Father that he was God of God Light of Light and therefore not an absolute Self-originated God but One God with the Father but they did not like those terms of Consubstantial and One Substance and of the Father's Substance as having something too material in their conception and sounding harsh as if the Son were part of the Father's substance which was objected against the Homoousion in the Nicene Council it self which yet disclaimed all such absurd senses and received the term as the most infallible Test against Arianism But tho' the Authority of the Council over-ruled the generality of Christians yet some who were truly Catholick and Orthodox in the Faith could not digest it and this was the true occasion of this dispute and these mutual fierce accusations and let our Author now make the best he can of it but instead of doing him service he will never be able to defend himself against it After all our Author was aware of a very terrible Objection against his sense of the Nicene Homoousion for one single Sabellian substance and person viz. that the Catholick Fathers rejected and condemned this sense of it as Heresy even
Sabellianism and it is not probable that these Fathers should not understand the sense of the Council or that while they contended earnestly for the Nicene Faith they should condemn the true Nicene Faith for Heresy as he owns they do This would have put a modest man out of countenance but he takes courage and huffs at these Fathers and private Doctors Particular Fathers are but particular Doctors 't is from general Councils only we can take the Churches Doctrine It is very provoking to see a man banter the world at this rate with the utmost contempt and scorn of his Readers It is plain how great an Admirer he is of General Councils and what he thinks of his Readers whom he hopes to persuade that the Catholick Fathers who made up the Council even Athanassius himself who had so great a part in it did either ignorantly mistake the sense of the Council or wilfully pervert it especially when all the Ante-Nicene Fathers owned the same Faith as he may learn from Dr. Bull and those Catholicks who after the Nicene Council disputed the use of that term Homoousios yet agreed in the same Faith as I have already shewn What follows is all of a piece He expounds the Arian Homoiousios or of a like Substance to signify the same Substance in sort or kind or properties that is specifically the same but only differing in number as Father and Son have the same specifick Nature but are Two Persons And thence concludes that the Nicene Homoousios which the Arians at first refused but afterwards fraudulently subscribed in the sense of Homoiousios must signify but One singular solitary Substance but one Person in the Sabellian Sense But who ever before heard that the Arian Homoiousion signified a specifick Sameness and Unity of Nature Or that the Arians owned Father and Son to have the same specifick Nature as Adam and Abel had The Catholick Fathers themselves as Athanasius Hilary Basil the two Gregory's c. owned such a likeness of Nature as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be equivalent to the Homoousion and to be True Catholick Doctrine and this they asserted against the Arians But it is in vain to dispute with a man who has either Ignorance or Confidence enough thus to impose upon his Readers His next Appeal is to the Sixth General Council which was the Third of Constantinople and when I met with this I was not a little surprized to think what he would make of it This Council as he himself tells the Story determined That there were two Natural Wills and two Operations in the Lord Christ and the Reason of this was because they asserted Two Natures in Christ the Divine and Human Nature and that each Nature has a Natural Will of its own and therefore as there are Two Natures there must be Two distinct and natural Wills in Christ. This is a plain proof of the Mystery of the Incarnation that the Divine Nature in the Person of the Son was Incarnate for there could not be two Wills unless there were two Natures which was the foundation of this Decree in Christ And this Macarius himself in his Confession of Faith profest to own both in opposition to Nestorius and Eutyches Now this Catholick Faith of the Incarnation which is so often and so expresly own'd by this Council is utterly irreconcileable with this Sabellian Unity of the Divine Nature and Substance without running into the Patripassian Heresy that the whole Trinity is Incarnate For if Christ in One Person hath Two Natures be truly and really both God and Man and consequently has Two distinct Wills a Divine and Humane Will either as God he must be distinct in Nature and Person from the Father and the Holy Ghost or if all Three Persons of the Trinity are but one single solitary Nature and consequently but One true and proper Person all Three Father Son and Holy Ghost must be Incarnate and suffer in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ which the Catholick Church condemned as Heresy Well! But he tells us That this Council owned that there is but One Will in the Three Persons of the Trinity and therefore consequently they can be but one true and proper Person This we own with the Council That there is but one essential Will in the Trinity tho' each Person has a Personal Will But this he says cannot be the meaning of the Council because the question was concerning Natural Wills or Powers of willing This is all fallacy A Natural Will is such a Will as belongs to that Nature whose Will it is As a Divine Nature has a Divine Will and a Humane Nature a Humane Will the power of willing is Personal and signifies a Personal Will And it is evident the Council speaks of the first not of the second And not to multiply Quotations I shall give but one plain proof of it Theophanes askt Macarius and Stephen Whether Adam had a reasonable Soul They answer Yes Then he askt them Whether he had a natural Will Stephen the Monk answers That before the Fall he had a Divine Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he Willed together with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demetrius calls this Blasphemy for if he was a Co-Willer he was a Co-Creator also with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others said that this made Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantial with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he who is a Co-Willer with God is Consubstantial also And for this they alledge the Authority of St. Cyril who tells us of Christ That as he is Consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he Wills together with his Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gives this reason for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that one Nature has but one Will Now if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies one who Wills with another then there must be two who Will and if these two are One Will it cannot signify personally but essentially One And if they be Consubstantial have one Substance and one Will in the same Sense we know what this Council meant by One Substance no more one personal Substance than one personal Will His next Authority is the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III. and though the Christian World is not much beholden to that Council yet I cannot think as I find a great many Wise men do that they have made any alteration in the Substance of our Faith whatever they have done in the form of Expression That the Trinity is una summa res One Supream Being was the Doctrine of St. Austin from whom Peter Lombard had it and all the Catholick Fathers owned the Trinity to be a most simple Monad which is the same thing when at the same time they asserted against the Sabellians Three real subsisting distinct Persons each of which is the same whole undivided Divinity communicated whole and perfect from Father to Son and from Father and Son to
That all these Names of Father and Son begetting and being begotten c. respect the Oeconomy of the Covenant of Grace the manifestation of the Second Person in the Flesh as in the visible Image of God to execute the Mediatory Office for which purpose he was given by God the Father In which sense to beget is the same with to manifest and to be begotten to be manifested This he says is coincident with the Socinians and resolved into that Fundamental Error That the true and proper generation of the Son though acknowledged ineffable contradicts those natural Ideas which are imprinted in our minds by God and are the foundation of all Assent and all true and certain Knowledge And that we must not think that God has revealed any thing in his Word which cannot and ought not to be examined by men according to these Ideas or that God proposes nothing in his Word to be believed with a certain and firm assent which a man of a sound Reason cannot clearly and distinctly perceive according to these Ideas And now let our Author judge whose Character this is and on which side these Belgic Synods and Chairs have given Judgment SECT IV. The Arguments of the Nominals against a Real Trinity of proper subsisting Persons Examined And the Three First Arguments Answered SEcondly Let us now briefly examine his Reasons which he thinks so demonstrative that the so much talk'd of Mathematical certainty is not superior to them But I have heard some men brag much of Demonstration who have had nothing to say that would amount to a good Probability Now to make my Answer plain and easy I observe first That all his Arguments to prove the Realists to be guilty of Tritheism and to assert Three Gods are levelled against a Trinity of distinct real subsisting intelligent Persons as he himself owns for those invidious terms of Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits and Wills and Understandings signify no more than Three each of which in his own proper Person is Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding So that all these Arguments are against the Catholick Faith of a Real Trinity that is to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity to be Tritheism for that which is not a Real Trinity is no Trinity And therefore these Arguments do no more concern Dr. Sherlock and some few others whom this Author would fain single out from the Body of Catholick Believers by the Name of Realists than all other Christians who heartily Believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost and own Christ Jesus to be the Eternal Son of God and true and perfect God himself Secondly I observe That all these Arguments are no farther considerable than as they directly oppose the Catholick Faith in its full Latitude that is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity The Scripture assures us That there is but one God but teaches withall That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God We believe God concerning himself and his own Nature and Unity because he best knows himself and therefore we believe that there is but one God but not that there is but One Person who is God for there are Three in the Unity of the same Godhead and each of them true and perfect God so that it is not enough for these Demonstrators to prove That there is and can be but One Eternal Divinity or one God for we readily own it and as heartily Believe it as they do but we say withall that this one Divinity subsists distinctly and indivisibly whole and perfect in Three and that therefore there is a Trinity in Unity Nor is it sufficient to prove That in the Trinity of the Realists there are Three each of which is by himself true and perfect God and therefore that there are Three Gods for we own such Three but say that these Three are not Three Gods but subsist inseparably in one Undivided Divinity and therefore that there is a Vnity in Trinity But if they would consute either the Trinity or the Unity they must prove That there are not and cannot be Three real subsisting Persons in One insinite undivided Essence and then they will effectually Confute the Scripture and a Trinity with it or they must prove That though Three such Persons should subsist distinctly in one undivided Essence yet they are not one and the same Divinity or one God and then they will Confute not only Scripture but common Sense That Three which are One are not One or that One Divinity is not One God Having premised this let us now consider his Arguments 1. In the first place he says Three infinite Intellectual Substances or Three Eternal Omnipotent Minds or Spirits or which we have heard is the same thing Three infinite intelligent Persons can never be but One God because 't is evident nay confessed That One such Spirit Mind or Substance is One absolute and most perfect God If the Definition is multiplied the thing defined is also therewith multiplied Seeing then 't is the definition of One God that he is One infinite intellectual spiritual Substance One Eternal Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit or Mind Therefore if we multiply our definition by saying Three Infinite intellectual spiritual Substances c. we thereby multiply the thing we pretended to Define namely GOD which is to say we affirm more Geds as many Gods as such Substances and Spirits Here our Demonstrator stumbles at the very Threshold I grant That an infinite intellectual spiritual Substance an Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent Mind or Spirit is the Definition of One who is God or of a Divine Person but I absolutely deny That this is the Definition of One God that he is One Eternal Omniscient c. Personal Mind or Spirit as he fallaciously and absurdly represents it and in so doing instead of proving what he undertakes he very modestly and humbly begs the Question He is to prove That Three infinite Substances Minds or Spirits are Three Gods His Argument is Because One infinite Substance Mind or Spirit is the Definition of One God and if you multiply the Definition you multiply the thing defined and therefore Three infinite Substances and Minds must be Three Gods but how does he prove that One infinite Substance and Mind personally understood as we understand it is the Definition of One God for this is the thing in dispute which certainly no Trinitarian will grant him and therefore ought to be proved Those who Assert as all Trinitarians do That Three infinite intelligent Persons each of which is infinite Substance Mind or Spirit are but One God will not be so good-natur'd as to grant That One infinite Substance and Mind or One Divine Person is the definition of the One God this would not be to Dispute but to beg the Cause on one side and to give it away on the other But this may be thought perverseness to put men upon proving what is self-evident For Is not an infinite intelligent
tho' one would wonder how Original Mind and Wisdom should be Wise by reflex Wisdom which is but a secondary Wisdom which supposes a first and therefore as one would guess could not make the first wise but Cabassutius only says that the Father is not actually wise without the Son that is as he explains it without begetting that Eternal Word and Wisdom which is the Person of the Son I shall make no Remarks on this let the World judge of the skill or the honesty of this Author What he adds about Emanations is just to the same Tune The Eternal Generation of the Substance of the Father was by the Nicene Council represented by Light of Light and the Co-eternity of the Son with the Father by the Co-existence of Emanatory Causes and their Effects as of the Sun and its Rays which are as old as the Sun The Author like other Socinians thinking of nothing but Body and bodily and corporeal Emanations falls presently a demonstrating Let A. B. C. be three infinite Substances if B. and C. infinite Substances emane from A. an infinite Substance also it is self-evident that the two infinite Substances must exhaust and thereby in the end annihilate one infinite Substance This is a notable Demonstration as to corporeal Substances for if the whole flow out of it self it is certain it must cease to be what it was and become another Whole if it be not a Contradiction that the same Whole should flow out of it self and become another Whole which in Bodies could make no other Change in a Whole but a Change of Place for let a Whole emane if that be not Nonsense for a corporeal Whole to emane and go where it will it is it self and the same Whole still And I think it is no better Sense to talk of exhausting an infinite Substance for nothing can be exhausted but what is finite unless what is infinite can have an end and an exhausting Emanation of an infinite Substance is no better Sense than the rest for it necessarily supposes an infinite Substance with divisible Parts which may be separated from it self and from each other which I take to be a Contradiction to the very Notion of Infinity It is certain that such Emanations as exhaust their Subject can be only bodily Emanations for Bodies only have divisible and separable Parts that I defie the most absurd self-contradicting Trinitarian in the World to put so many Absurdities and Contradictions into one Sentence as he has done in this One infinite Substance whether corporeal or incorporeal can never eternally supply two infinite Substances the two infinite Substances by continual Emanations must needs dry up the One that was their Fountain To talk of an infinite corporeal Substance which he here supposes is absurd and unphilosophical for nothing can be infinite which has Parts for what is infinite by Nature can never be finite and yet if such a supposed infinite Body were divided in the middle as all Bodies may be divided this infinite corporeal Substance would prove two finite Substances for each of them would have one End where their Substance was divided to talk of such Emanations from incorporeal Substances which have no divisible Parts as can dry up an infinite Fountain which must be by a Partition and Division of Substances is another Contradiction and to dry up an infinite Fountain as I observed before is another and to supply infinite Substances by such Emanations which cannot be infinite if they want any supply is a fourth very good one But allowing this Author to rejoice in such refined Speculations I would desire to know who those are who attribute the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit to such eternal corporeal Effluxes and Emanations as will endanger the exhausting and drying up the infinite Fountain of the Deity If there be any such Men they are arrant Hereticks I assure him for the Catholick Fathers abhorred the thoughts of all such Emanations They did not indeed scruple the use of such Words as Emanation Probole Exition and the like whereby they signified that the Son was truly and in a proper sense of his Father's Substance and a real distinct Person from the Person of the Father but they expresly rejected all corporeal Effluxes all Division and Separation of the Father's Substance and taught that the Son is begotten whole of whole perfect God of perfect God by a real Communication but not a Transfusion of Substance not ad extra without as Creature-Generations are but within his Father as the Word is inseparable from the Mind whose Word it is So that our Author disputes here without any other Adversary but his own gross Imaginations and he may triumph securely and demonstrate these corporeal exhausting dying Emanations out of Countenance and the Realists no farther concerned than to look on and see the Event of the Combate or to wish him better employed If he would have effectually baffled these Realists he should have proved that God could not communicate his own Nature and Substance to the Son Whole of Whole without such an Emanation of his Substance as divides it from it self and separates one part of it from another as it is in bodily Exhalations This would effectually have confuted a substantial Generation for all Men grant that the Divine Substance can't be divided and this was the Objection of the Arians against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Son 's being begotten of the Substance of the Father but the Catholick Fathers asserted a real substantial Generation without a Division of Substance and taught them to distinguish between the Generation of Body and Spirit And whoever considers how a finite created Mind can communicate its Thoughts to another which when perfectly communicated are perfectly the same whole and entire in both and but one and the same Thought though in two Minds may conceive that an infinite Mind which is a pure and simple Act infinitely more simple and indivisible than Thought it self may be able to communicate its self more perfectly than a finite Mind can communicate its Thoughts and if it can it must communicate it self whole and entire and as indivisibly as a Thought and subsist distinctly perfectly One and the same in Two SECT V. The Fourth and Fifth Arguments against a Real Trinity Answered IV. TO proceed his next Argument against the Realists is this That all Explications by which 't is endeavour'd to shew how three infinite intellectual Substances three Almighty Spirits and Minds may be one God are manifestly Deficient Now suppose this true that no Man can give a perfect Account of the Unity of the Divine Nature in Three Distinct Infinite Divine Persons must we therefore deny either the Trinity or Unity both which we say are expresly taught in Scripture because we cannot fully comprehend so Sublime and Venerable a Mystery They pay greater Deference than this to the Evidence of Sense they will believe
their Senses where their Reason and Philosophy is at a loss nay in such Matters as if they did not see them they think they could demonstrate absolutely contradictious and impossible and did Men heartily believe the Scriptures why should they not as absolutely submit their Reason to the Authority of God as to the Evidence of Sense But let them answer for this But the whole Strength of this Argument which he manages with great Triumph and Scorn dwindles into the old Socinian Sophism that one God signifies but one only Person who is God and that whatever other Unity you ascribe to three Persons each of which is by himself true and perfect God still they are three Gods for since each of these Spirits or Persons each of which is an infinite Mind or Spirit are said to be infinite all-perfect they must be said to be Gods mutually Conscious mutually inexisting and the rest but no more one God than they are one Spirit and therefore the Realists may as well pretend that by these Devices of theirs they have contrived three infinite Spirits into one Person or into one Spirit as into one God And that a disinterested Person I suppose he means such as himself and Philosophers and Jews and Pagans he might have added Sabellians and Socinians and Mahumatans will call these three Gods Now it is no wonder that this disinterested Person thinks all our Explications of the Unity of God insufficient when we so vastly differ about the Notion of one God That we are so far from proving three Divine Persons to be one God in his Sense that we reject his Notion of one God as Judaism and Heresie and herein we have the Authority of the Catholick Church on our side And here I would desire the Reader to observe that this Argument is not meerly against that Phrase of three Minds and Spirits and Substances but against three Persons each of which is in his own proper Person Mind and Spirit and Substance for three such Persons by this Authors Argument are three Gods and can no more be contrived as he prophanely speaks into one God than into one Personal Spirit But yet since he graciously owns that one infinite Almighty Spirit is one God what if we should prove these three Infinite Persons each of which is Mind and Spirit to be one and the same Infinite Eternal Spirit And yet this has always been the Faith of the Catholick Church St. Austin is express in it The Father is Spirit and the Son Spirit and the Holy Ghost Spirit but not three Spirits but one Spirit that is not Personally but Essentially One they are three Persons but one Essence essentially one Spirit And if God be perfect pure simple Essence the Unity of Essence is the Unity of God This was the Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers and this we must insist on till our Modern Demonstrators speak more home to this Point that one Divine Essence one Self-originated Divinity though subsisting in three distinct Persons is but one God I can't discourse this at large now that may be done if there be Occasion for it another time but at present I shall only give a brief Account of the Doctrine of the Fathers as to this Point They tell us that there is but one self-originated Divinity but one Father and therefore but one God that this Eternal Unbegotten Father begets an Eternal Son of his own Nature and Substance and in like Manner that is in the same Nature and Substance the Holy Spirit Eternally proceeds from Father and Son So that there being but one Nature one Divinity communicated whole and entire and perfectly the same without Division of Substance there is but one Divine Nature but one Divinity distinctly in three not one meerly as a Species is one though they often allude also to a Specific Unity but one as one Individual though not one Singular Nature is one as one which subsists wholly indivisibly and perfectly in three is one which is one and one and one by a perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature and Substance but not three That these three are inseparable from each other never did subsist a part never can but are in each other which they call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Circumincession which makes the Divinity one simple indivisible Monad And here we may allow a Place and he never intended any other Place for it to what Dr. Sherlock calls mutual Consciousness which is the proper and natural In-being of three each of which is Mind and Spirit which is not barely a knowing each other by an external Communication of Thoughts and Counsels which is far from being an essential natural Unity but such an inward vital Sensation as each Person has of himself which after all the Noise and Clamour about it seems to be a very sensible Representation of the natural In-being and Circumincession of the Divine Persons and as natural a Demonstration of the Unity of the Divine Essence as self-consciousness must be acknowledged to be of the Unity of a Person It is certain without this they cannot be one Energy and Power wherein the Fathers also place the Unity of the God-Head one Agent one Creator and Governour But where there is such an inseparable Union such a mutual conscious Sensation there can be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Greg. Nyssen speaks One Motion of the Divine Will though distinctly and without Confusion in three And this makes them one Agent one Essential Will one Essential Wisdom one Essential Power so that here is in the properest Sence but one Omniscience one Omnipotence one Will c. and therefore but one God though Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them in their own Persons Omnipotent Omniscient and whatever belongs to the Idea of God All this indeed does not make these three Divine Persons one Person and therefore not one God in the Socinian Sense of one God which is the only Deficiency this Author charges this Account of the Divine Unity with and is wisely done of him because he knows we reject this Notion of the Divine Unity and therefore here he is safe we assert that the Unity of God is not the Unity of a Person but the Unity of Nature and Essence and to confute this he gravely proves that three Persons are not and cannot be one Person But if he would have opposed us he should either have shewn First That the Account the Catholick Fathers give for for we pretend to give no other of the Unity of God does not prove the perfect Unity of the Divine Essence in three Persons or Secondly that one undivided Divinity is not one God or Thirdly that the same Eternal Essence cannot subsist whole and perfect distinctly and indivisibly in Three that is that God cannot communicate his own Nature and Substance without Division and Separation to his Son and Spirit or that God cannot have an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit if
he can do either of these we will very tamely and humbly follow his Chariot in the mean time for I believe this will take up some time I will shew him the Difference between three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God and three Gods 1. First then one God in the Socinian Notion is one infinite Mind and Spirit one Eternal Divinity in one only Person So one Person and one Divinity that no other Person communicates with it in the same Divinity in the same one eternal Essence and Substance Now according to this Notion of one God three Gods are three such eternal Minds Substances Divinities each of which in his own Person has a whole perfect undivided Essence and Divinity which is not common to any other Person So that three Gods are three absolute Substances Essences Divinities which have no Essential Relation to or Communication with each other There can be no other Notion of three Gods if as this Author and all the Anti-Trinitarians assert One God is One absolute Divinity in One Person for then three Gods must be three absolute Divinities in three Persons Now every one sees what a vast difference there is between three such Gods and the Catholick Faith of a Trinity of Person in the Unity of the Divine Essence Why you 'll say is not every Person in the Trinity by himself in his own Person true and perfect God Yes most certainly but he is not one absolute separate Divinity he has not a Divinity so peculiarly his own that no other Person communicates in it there is but One undivided Divinity in all Three and therefore there is a Trinity in Unity But is not each Person in the Trinity infinite Mind Spirit Substance Nay do not some Realists venture to call them three Minds Spirits Substances and what are such Three but three Gods if One infinite Mind and Spirit be one God I answer An infinite Mind and Spirit is certainly true and perfect God but one Personal infinite Mind and Spirit is not the One God so as to exclude all other Persons unless he have one absolute separate Divinity also so proper and peculiar to himself that no other Person does or can communicate in it for if more Persons than One can perfectly communicate in the same One Divinity there must be more Divine Persons than One and each of them perfect God but neither of them the One God in Exclusion of the other Persons but all of them the One God as the One Divinity This I think the Socinians will grant That One Divinity is but One God and that One God is One absolute Divinity and the Reason why they assert the One God to be but One Person is because they think it impossible that the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly and perfectly in Three but then before they had charged the Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism they should have remembred that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their One Person is whom they call the One God and therefore though three such Persons three such Minds and Substances as their One Person and One Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to One single Person would be Three Gods this does not prove that Three such Persons as the Catholick Church owns in the Ever-blessed Trinity who are all of the same One Substance and but One Divinity must therefore be three Gods also 2. Three such Persons as these who are three Gods our Author and every one else who understands any thing of these Matters must acknowledge to be three self-originated Persons for God in the full and adequate Notion of one God is a self-originated Being and those who assert that the One God is but One Person make him a self-originated Person now it is evident that in this Sense the three Persons in the Christian Trinity are not three God's for they are not three self-originated Persons The Father alone is un-begotten or self-originated but the Son is begotten of his Father's Substance and the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from Father and Son so that here is but one self-originated Person with his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit And let this Author try to make three Gods of three two of which are not self-originated Persons They might more plausibly dispute against the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit from this Topick that they are not self-originated Persons than prove them to be a second and third God by their perfect Communication in a self-originated Nature which is the Person of the Father For though a perfect Communication of the Divine Nature makes a true Divine Person who is true and perfect God yet no Person can be the One God who is not self-originated and a self-originated Person who is a Father cannot be the One God so as to exclude his Son who is of the same Nature and Substance with him nor the Holy Spirit who by an Eternal Procession from Father and Son perfectly communicates in the same Eternal Nature 3. Three such Persons as in a strict and proper Notion are three Gods must be three separate Persons who have not only distinct but separate Natures and Substances and have no internal Union or Communication with each other and therefore are in a proper Notion three Principles three Agents three Wills three Lives three Omnipotents c. who always act a-part and can never concur as one Agent in any one Action cannot make and govern the same World have no Relation to each other no Order no Union as it is impossible three absolute independent Divinities should But the Catholick Faith concerning the three Divine Persons in the Trinity is directly contrary to this that as Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Substance One Divinity so they are so perfectly in each other that they have but one Essential Will Omnipotence Omniscience are but one Agent one Creatour and Governour of the World Let this Author or any other Adversaries talk what they please of the Absurdity Nonsence Contradiction of all this which is not our present dispute I stand to it that they can never make Tritheism of it for the three Divine Persons in the Trinity though each of them be by himself true and perfect God yet as they are owned by the Catholick Church and as we have now explain'd it are not three such Persons as they themselves must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods What I have now discoursed will help us to give a plain and short Answer to those Fallacies whereby such disinterested Persons as this Authour charge the Catholick Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism for they manifestly equivocate both in the Notion of one God and of one Person By One God they understand one who is true and perfect God and every one who is true and perfect God is one and now instead of all other Demonstrations they only desire you to number the Persons of
the Holy Ghost without any division or partition of Substance And this is the Doctrine of the Lateran Council That this One supream Thing is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 veraciter truly and really Father Son and Holy Ghost Three United Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tres simul Personae and each of them distinct from the others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ac singulatim quaelibet earum And therefore there is only a Trinity not a Quaternity in God as Abbot Joachim had objected And that each of these Divine Persons is this Divine Substance Essence and Nature All this Athanasius himself would have subscribed who yet with the other Catholick Fathers rejected the Notion of a singular and solitary Divinity They add That this one supreme Nature Substance Essence which is Father Son and Holy Ghost neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds Nor did ever any Man in his Wits assert That the Divine Nature and Essence as common to Father Son and Holy Ghost that is That the whole Trinity did either Beget or was Begotten or did Proceed This belongs to Persons not to Nature formally considered as they expresly teach That the Father Begets the Son is Begotten and the Holy Ghost Proceeds so that there is a distinction of Persons and Unity of Nature That the Father is alius another the Son another the Holy Ghost another but not aliud another thing but what the Father is and what the Son is and what the Holy Ghost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are all perfectly the same that according to the Catholick Faith we may acknowledge them to be Consubstantial for the Father from Eternity Begetting the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave his own Substance to him as he himself witnesses The Father who gave them me is greater than all Nor can it be said that the Father gave part of his Substance to his Son and retained another part himself for the Hypostasis or Substance of the Father is indivisible as being perfectly simple Nor can we say That when the Father Begat the Son he so communicated his own Substance to him as not to have it himself for then he must cease to be an Hypostasis Substance and a substantial Person himself So that it is evident That the Son when Begotten received the Father's Substance without any diminution of the Father and thus Father and Son have the same Substance and Father and Son and Holy Ghost are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same supreme Nature and Substance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Unity of Sameness and Identity This is true Catholick Doctrine and the very Language of the Nicene Fathers And if Joachim rejected this Essential Unity of the Trinity and asserted a meer collective Unity as many Christians are one Church as the Council affirms he did he was very justly Condemned and the Nicene Fathers themselves would have Condemned him The only thing which looks like an Innovation in this Decree is That whereas the Catholick Fathers allowed of those Expressions A Begotten Nature Begotten Substance Begotten Wisdom Begotten God and that Substance begets Substance and Wisdom begets Wisdom c. This Council denies That this One supream Divine Essence Nature or Substance which is the Blessed Trinity does either Beget or is Begotten or Proceeds which some Schoolmen think absolutely condemns those Expressions That Substance begets Substance and Wisdom Wisdom That the Son is Deus Genitus and Natura Genita Begotten God and Begotten Nature and Begotten Wisdom which is to condemn all the Catholick Fathers who used these Expressions without any scruple nay who thought that the Mystery of the Divine Generation could not be secured without them But I confes I am of Petavius his mind though I find the Learned Doctor Bull dissent from him that this Council never intended absolutely to condemn all such Expressions when Personally used For though the Divine Nature in a general Notion as common to all Three Persons neither begets nor is begotten yet the Father begets the Son by a true and proper Generation and a true and proper Son and therefore that Learned Jesuit tells us That the Lateran Council considered the Divine Nature absolutely and in it self and as abstracted from the Three Persons not as subsisting distinctly in each Person for so it is very Catholick to say That the Divine Nature in the Person of the Father begets the Divine Nature in the Person of the Son For we cannot understand what a Person is without its Essence and Nature and it is absurd to say That the Son receives his Person from the Father without receiving that without which he cannot be a Person And the reason he gives why they rather chose to say that the Father begets the Son than that Essence begets Essence was to avoid the ambiguity of that Expression which might signify the production of another Essence as well as the generation of another Person whereas this Divine Generation is the communication of the same Eternal Essence which is in the Father to the Son which gives existence to a second Person not to a second Nature This is indeed very subtil but there is some sense in it and while they acknowledge that the Son by an Eternal Generation receives a true Divine Nature from the Father and is in his own Person true God but yet not the Father this is the Old Catholick Faith how new soever the Expressions may be Thus I have done with his General Councils and I hope every one sees how well he understands Councils or how honestly he deals with them What concerns the Church of England needs no answer after what I have already said and the Story of Valentinus Gentilis is much to the same purpose for he was so far from being a Realist that he was a down-right Arian But that he may not think himself and his Nominalists so secure of all the Divinity-Chairs in Europe I will refer him to the Learned Spanhemius to learn how it lately fared with some of them in the United Provinces who were censured and condemned by various Synods and by the publick Judgment and Authority of several Universities The first Proposition condemned was concerning the name of Son and his Eternal Generation of the Father that this is not to be understood properly of a true and proper Generation as if the Father who begets were a true and proper Father and the Son who is begotten a true and proper Son but that these Terms in Scripture only signify 1. That the Second Person has the same Nature and Essence with the First Person and did coexist with him from Eternity Denying the manner of his having the same Nature by an ineffable Generation and the Personal Subsistence of the Father who begets and the Son who is begotten and consequently that true relation between Father and Son which the Scripture constantly teaches which gave just suspicion either of Sabellianism or Tritheism 2.
Question has been very warmly debated whether the Son is that Wisdom wherewith the Father is Wise. Those Fathers who affirm this Question usually alledge these two Arguments that the Eternity of the Son cannot be otherwise proved but by this That he is the Eternal Wisdom of the Father and that otherwise we must suppose Two Wisdoms in God which is so absurd to a late learned Ecclesiastical Historian that he concludes his Dissertation concerning this Question with these Words The Father neither is nor can be actually Wise but by the Word or Son I. Cabassutius Notit Eccl. p. 120. correct 119. let the Reader now judge of all the rest by this That this Question was disputed I own But he has assign'd a very false and a very absurd Occasion for it for had this been the received Faith of the Catholick Church that the Son is only the immanent Act of reflex Wisdom in God what Occasion had there been for this Dispute whether the Son is that Wisdom by which the Father is Wise that is the personal Wisdom of the Father for who ever disputed whether immanent Acts were Personal or no And therefore this very Dispute proves that they did not believe the Son to be a meer immanent Act. But though they did dispute among themselves in what Sence Christ is called the Wisdom of God and the Power of God and whether Christ be that Wisdom wherewith the Father is Wise and in what Sence the Father may be said to beget his own Wisdom and how the Son can be said to be sapientia de sapientia Wisdom of Wisdom if the Father in his proper Person be not Wisdom but only the Begetter of Wisdom with many other Questions as we see in St. Austin lib. VI. de Trin. Yet they never divided upon this Point but did universally agree that the Father in his own proper Person is Original Mind and Wisdom and that the Son in his own proper Person is begotten Wisdom even the Essential Wisdom of God not that personal Wisdom wherewith the Father is Wise but Wisdom truly and properly begotten of Original Wisdom Living Subsisting Wisdom distinct in Person from the Father who is Original Wisdom but perfectly the same one undivided Essence and therefore not Essentially Two but One and the same Wisdom which is the Wisdom of the Father So that though there was some Dispute about the true Signification of such Expressions yet here was no Division among the Catholicks who all agreed on that Side of the Question which directly contradicts this Author's Catholick Faith of immanent Acts. The true Occasion of this Dispute as St. Austin tells us in the same Place was this that some of the Fathers I think he might have said all the Nicene Fathers in their Disputes with the Arians and Eunomians about the Eternal Generation of the Son or Word used this Argument that God was never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without his Word or Wisdom not that they had no other Argument to prove the Eternity of the Son as this Author represents it but that they thought this a very good one Now the Force of this Argument seemed to be this that God is always Wise and therefore that Person who is the Word and Wisdom of God must have always been with him as Eternal as God is And to make this a good Argument the necessary Consequence seemed to be That the Person of the Son who is the begotten Word and Wisdom of the Father is the personal Wisdom of the Father that Wisdom wherewith the Father is Wise And the Difficulty of this was how this begotten Wisdom which is a distinct Person from the Person of the Father should be that Wisdom whereby the Person of the Father is Wise how they justified this Argument and yet avoided such Absurdities is too long now to account for those who please may consult St. Austin for it but I hope every one sees that both the Reason of this Question the Nature of those Difficulties it was incumbered with and their Determination of the Point are all direct Contradictions to what this Author alledged it for And now let us hear what our Author 's learned Cabassutius says but what the World will say of him when they hear what Cabassutius says let other guess This learned Historian takes Notice of this Dispute and gives the same Account of it which I have now done and vindicates that Argument of the Catholick Fathers for the Eternity of the Son because he is the Wisdom of the Father that were he not Eternal the Father could not be always Wise from the Exception of St. Austin This he does by a Distinction borrowed from Aquinas that those who taught the Son to be the Wisdom of the Father are to be understood not in a formal but causal and illative Sence For though the Son as a Son is not that Wisdom wherewith the Father is Wise let out Author first observe that yet he is necessarily united with it and arises from it So that the Son is not the personal Wisdom of the Father but is begotten of his Father's Wisdom and inseparably united to it and therefore is the Wisdom of God Wisdom of the Father's Wisdom and inseparable from it which are Two One of One and indivisibly and inseparably One. But let us hear his Reason for this For the Wisdom which is in the Father is not a Habit or Faculty or Power as it is in created Beings but a pure and simple Act. What is now become of his immanent Act by which he tells us Original Mind must be Wise for if he believes his learned Historian Original Mind is a pure simple Act it self and therefore not Wise by immanent Acts of reflex Wisdom which suppose Habits and Faculties and Powers and have no Place in a pure simple Act that if the Son be only an Immanent Act of reflex Wisdom he will never find his second Person in a pure and simple Act. The Historian proceeds Every Act of Wisdom and Understanding necessarily includes its Terminus or Effect and that is what we call Word or in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which St. Cyril very well understood where he tells us that Mind is never without its Word and St. Thomas saies that tho' commonly things receive their Denomination from their Forms as White from Whiteness Man from Humanity yet sometimes they are denominated from their Effects as a Tree is called Florid from the Flowers it produces though that be not the Form of it and thus the Fathers rightly concluded against Arius that the Father neither was nor could be actually Wise without his Word and only begotten Son Our Author renders it but by the Word or Son directly Contradictory both to the Argument and Words of Cabassutius for by signifies the formal Cause and is so intended by him that the Father is Wise by the Son by that immanent Act of reflex Wisdom which he calls the Son
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN Real and Nominal TRINITARIANS EXAMINED And the Doctrine of a Real Trinity Vindicated from the Charge of Tritheism In ANSWER To a late Socinian Pamphlet ENTITULED The Judgment of a Disinterested Person concerning the Controversie about the Blessed Trinity depending between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1696. THE CONTENTS SECT I. Concerning Real and Nominal Trinitarians Page 1 The late Arch-Bishop Tillotson and Dr. Bull owned by him to be Real Trinitarians p. 3 Dr. Bull 's Learned Defence of the Nicene Faith asserts and proves a Real Trinity p. 4 SECT II. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists concerning the Holy Trinity p. 10 The occasion of this Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians and the Use the Socinians make of it ibid. This Author's Account of the Doctrine of the Realists p. 13 That there are three Minds Spirits Substances in the Trinity not the Language of all Realists nor own'd by any of them in his Sense p. 14. c. The Difference between an individual and singular Substance p. 16 His Representation of the Doctrine of the Nominalists p. 19 The only Difference between them and the Realists not in Three Substances and One Substance p. 21 SECT III. The Authorities as â—he calls them of the Nominals against a Real Trinity examined p. 22 What the Nicene Council meant by the Homoousion or One Substance of Father and Son p. 24 Socrates's Account of the Dispute concerning the Word Homoousios p. 25 This Author's Mistake in making the Arian Homoiousios signifie the same Substance in Sort or Kind or Properties p. 32 The third Council of Constantinople concerning Two Natural Wills and Two Operations in Christ ibid. In what Sense this Council owned but one Will in the Trinity p. 33 The Doctrine of the Council of Lateran concerning the Trinity p. 34 In what Sense they teach that the Divine Essence neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds p. 37 Spanhemius's Account of some late Disputes about the Trinity and the Judgment of the Belgick Synods p. 38 SECT IV. His three first Arguments against a Real Trinity p. 41 All his Arguments oppose a Trinity of subsisting Persons ibid. One Personal infinite Mind or Spirit not the Definition of the One God p. 43 Concerning three Wills Understandings c. in One God p. 45 His Argument to prove that the Second and Third Persons in the Trinity are not Substance and Spirit but only Properties or Immanent Acts ibid. His Argument from the Council of Lyons answered p. 46 Concerning the Eternal Generation and Procession p. 48 In what Sense the Son is the Wisdom of the Father p. 52 What the Fathers meant by that Argument for the Eternity of the Son that God was never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without his Word p. 53 The Judgment of Cabassutius about this Argument p. 54 Concerning Emanatory Causes and Effects p. 56 SECT V. The Fourth and Fifth Argument against a Real Trinity answered p. 59 The Difference between three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God and three Gods p. 63 The Charge of Tritheism founded on an Equivocal use of those Terms One God and One Person p. 67 Whether the Arguments for the Unity of God prove that there is but one Person who is God p. 69 SECT VI. The Defence this Author makes for the Nominals against the Objections of the Realists p. 78 The End of the CONTENTS ERRATA PAge 15. Marg. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 49. l. 6. for or r. are p. 63. l. 12. dele for p. 75. l. 25. for aclls r. calls THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REAL and NOMINAL TRINITARIANS CONSIDERED SECT I. Concerning Real and Nominal Trinitarians THIS Author calls himself a Presbyter of the Church of England and by what I have heard I fear it is too true I pray God preserve the Church from such Presbyters who Eat her Bread and Betray her Faith His pretence for Writing this Pamphlet is The Controversy between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock about the B. Trinity I will say nothing of that matter let the Animadverter Answer it to God and his own Conscience This Author has said enough about it and I wish he had but used the same Candour throughout and then there would have been no need of this Answer but tho' it seems he was Disinterested as to the contending Doctors he was deeply Interested as to the Cause of Socinianism to which he promised no small Advantage from this Dispute And indeed it is too evident what advantage our Socinian Adversaries have made and hope still to make of this Controversy This has occasioned that scandalous Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians which is such an open abuse upon the Nominalists that were I one of those whom he Reproaches with that Title I could not bear it For the plain English of it is no more but this those who believe a Trinity and those who believe no Trinity for Nominal Trinitarians as opposed to Real Trinitarians can signifie nothing more And could this Author and his Friends persuade the World That the greatest part of our Clergy nay the Church of England it self as he pretends are but Nominal Trinitarians their Work were done for a Socinian is a much more honourable Name and when Men agree in the Faith it is a vain thing to dispute about Words And therefore this Author is equally zealous to oppose the Realists that is to overthrow the Doctrine of a Real Trinity and to persuade the Nominalists that tho' they differ in some peculiar forms of Speech yet there is no reason they should Quarrel for their Faith is the same And this I thought a sufficient Reason to judge over again the Iudgment of this Disinterested Person I shall pass over the Account he gives of the History of this Dispute only observing that Dr. Sherlock did not begin it He wrote against the Socinians without suspecting that he should meet with such furious and bitter Assaults from another Quarter and yet after such great Provocations as might move a very tame man he has made no return which unbecomes a true Christian Spirit in such Cases But there is one thing wherein this Author has done the Dean right by acquainting the world That he has not been the first Broacher of this Heresy as they call it of Three Distinct Infinite Minds and Spirits in the Vnity of the Godhead He reckons up several others of the same mind some who appeared before and some since his Vindication as Dr. Cudworth Dr. Bull the late Archbishop Tillotson the present Bishop of Glocester Mr. How Mr. I. B. Mr. Bingham And I could tell him of many more as many as do sincerely believe That God is a Father and has a True Real Subsisting Son and Holy Spirit But yet he himself is sensible and his Socinian Friends
Unity of Will and Power and Operation from the indivisible Unity of Nature that they are but one Agent and produce but one and the same effect But still as for the main of the Charge That every distinct Person in the Trinity has a personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of his own which is not the personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of either of the other Persons is what all who believe a Real Trinity do and must agree in whether they will agree to call these Three Substances Wills Understandings c. or not Nay this is all that those very Persons who assert Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits in the Trinity ever meant by it Own but each Person in his own proper Person to be infinite Substance Mind Spirit and that neither Person is each other and they will consent to any other form of words and not dispute the reason or propriety of them all that they contend for is a real Trinity of true real proper Persons and that they are certain cannot be unless each Person by himself as distinct from the other Persons be Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding Power This is the only Trinity which Socinus Crellius Slichtingius and others of that Party have hitherto disputed against and therefore certainly they did apprehend that the Christians in their days even all the Divinity-Chairs of Europe did assert such a Trinity and those Learned Men who opposed them did believe so too or there must be very wise doings amongst them tho' our Modern Socinians have now made a discovery that these Realists are not the true Catholick Trinitarians but that the Nominalists are the Church and now they are grown Friends with the Church and Orthodox beyond their own hopes and their business is only to defend the Church against this new Sect of Real Trinitarians Let it be so but still they maintain the same Doctrine that Socinus did and dispute against the same Trinity which he disputed against and therefore these Real Trinitarians are no new upstart Sect but their old Adversaries who will never be cheated by new Names into an accommodation or comprehension with Socinians The plain state of the Case is this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Christian Trinity now the question is whether this be a Real Trinity or not that is whether the Father be an Eternal Infinite Living Omniscient Omnipotent subsisting Person and did truly beget of his own Nature and Substance a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Son and in like manner whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Spirit This is the Doctrine of those whom our Modern Socinians call Realists that is of True and Orthodox Trinitarians and without asserting this whatever they teach besides a Trinity is nothing but a name and therefore such men may properly be called Nominalists so that the Realists only are Trinitarians the meer Nominalists whatever they are else are no Trinitarians and this new contrivance of opposing these Real Trinitarians is neither better nor worse than opposing the Doctrine of the Trinity And let but our People understand this and we are where we were and then the Socinians may call themselves Nominalists or what they please To proceed He is as artificial and unsincere in his account of the Nominalists as of the Realists We must not conceive of the Divine Persons say the Nominalists as we do of created Persons Very right there is an unconceivable difference between them as all Realists acknowledge they are perfectly distinct but yet inseparably One they never did never can subsist apart the same One undivided Divinity subsists whole and perfect and yet distinctly in each of them and is as perfectly One in Three as any one thing is one with it self And thus we allow what he adds to be a very great Truth and wish he himself would consider better of it That the conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of any created Beings as the Perfections of the Divinity are paramount to Human or Angelical Perfections This we are sensible of and therefore do not presently cry out of Nonsense and Contradiction when we are forced by Scripture and Reason to attribute such things to the Divine Nature and Persons as we can find no Images or Idea's of in Created Nature for we know that Creatures cannot be perfectly like to God and consequently we ought not to oppose the Idea's of Nature to Revelation But the present question is not Whether Father Son and Holy Ghost are such Persons as created Persons as Angels or men are for it is certain there is an unconceivable difference between them but whether they may be called Persons in the true and proper Notion of the word Person for one who does really and substantially subsist live will understand act according to his Natural Powers And whether there be Three such subsisting living willing understanding Persons in the Godhead or only One Whether as the Father hath life in himself so the Son hath life in himself and as the Father knows the Son so the Son knows the Father and whether the Spirit of life and the Spirit of Holiness and Power and the Spirit that searcheth the deep things of God be not a subsisting living knowing working Spirit and this is the reason why the Church calls them Three Persons which the Scripture does not call them because the Holy Scripture distinctly Attributes life will knowledge power to these Three Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Notion all men have of a Person when applied to Creatures and to talk of Three Divine Persons who are not subsisting living knowing Persons destroys the only Reason for calling them Persons But he adds as the Doctrine of the Nominalists That God is but One Being but One Substance Mind or Spirit with One only will understanding energy or power of action But is not this in a true Catholick Sense the Doctrine of the Realists also as I observed before But this is what this disinterested Person would be at to distinguish the Realists and Nominalists by Three Substances and One Substance of the Divinity And were this the whole Truth the Realists would certainly be Hereticks and the Nominalists might be the Orthodox Church Whereas the Realists as they own Three real subsisting living Persons so they as constantly profess the Homoousion or One undivided Substance and Nature subsisting and acting distinctly but indivisibly and inseparably in Three which is a real perfect subsisting Trinity in perfect Unity But the Nominalists truly so called as they own but One Substance in the Divinity so but One single Person which is their One God and can find a Trinity only in a Trinity of Names or Properties or meer immanent Acts. That there are many such Nominalists among us I fear is too true but I must say again that the
bare dispute concerning the use of those words Three eternal infinite Minds and Spirits for Three eternal infinite intelligent Persons no more proves those who reject such expressions while they own each Person by himself to be infinite Mind and Spirit to be meer Nominalists than the use of such expressions in a qualified Catholick Sense as the Catholick Fathers have formerly used them or other Terms equivalent to them proves those who use them to be Tritheists And yet this is all our Author pretends to justifie this distinction between Realists and Nominalists viz. The Controversy depending between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock But I cannot pass on without making one Remark on this That Dr. S th and those who have espoused that side of the Question are as much concerned to vindicate themselves from the imputation which this Author has fixed on them of being meer Nominalists or Sabellians as Dr. Sherlock and his Friends are to vindicate themselves from Tritheism and I confess I think a great deal more because in the heat of Dispute or through Inadvertency if it be not their settled Principle and Judgment they have given more just occasion for such a Charge When One and the same Person with Three substantial Deaneries shall be very gravely alledged as a proper Representation of a Trinity in Unity when a meer mode of subsistence shall be given as a proper and adequate Definition of a Person as applied to the Trinity when a large Book shall be writ on purpose to demonstrate That there is and can be but One Person in the Trinity in the true proper Notion as it signifies an intelligent Person what can the most equal and impartial Judge make of this but downright Sabellianism For whether it be allowable to say Three Minds and Spirits or not I 'm sure without owning Three proper subsisting intelligent Persons each of whom is in his own Person infinite Mind and Spirit there can be no Real Trinity If their Sense be more Orthodox than their Words I do heartily beg of them for God's sake and the sake of our common Faith so to explain their Words as to remove this scandal as Dr. Sherlock has done and not to Charge a Trinity of real subsisting intelligent Persons which is all he professes to own or ever to have intended with Tritheism till they can give us something in the room of it more Orthodox than a Sabellian Trinity which the Catholick Church has always rejected with Abhorrence SECT III. The Authorities of the Nominalists against a Real Trinity briefly Examined THis Socinian having given such an account as it is of the Doctrine of the Realists and Nominalists as disinterested as he pretends to be he professedly Espouses the side of the Nominalists against the Realists that is under a new Name he follows his old Trade of Disputing against the Trinity only with this advantage that he now pleads the Cause of the Church of his beloved Church of Nominalists against these Tritheistick Hereticks the Realists But when men consider who this Advocate is it will do the Nominalists no Credit nor any Service to the Cause For a Socinian tho' he change his Name will be a Socinian still that is a professed Enemy to the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and to the Eternal God head and Incarnation of our Saviour Christ and there is very good Reason to believe that what he opposes is the True Catholick Faith and what he vindicates and defends is Heresy What Agreement there is between the Nominalists and Socinians and what an easie accommodation may be made between them we shall hear towards the Conclusion but this will not satisfie our Author that the present Orthodox Church which to the reproach of the Church and to the advantage of his own Cause he will have to be all Nominalists which is such an abuse as concerned Persons ought to resent I say not satisfied that the present Church is on his side nothing will serve him less than to prove that this was always the Faith of the Catholick Church A brave and bold Undertaking but what his wiser Predecessors Socinus Crellius c. would have laught at and which I doubt not but he Laughs at himself and will have cause to Laugh if he can meet with any Persons soft and easy enough to believe him He well and truly observes that this Question What has been the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this point must be decided by Authorities or Witnesses and therefore he appeals to Authorities and those I grant the most venerable Authorities and Witnesses that can be had even General Councils I wish he would continue in this good humour and then I should not doubt but he would quickly change his side But this is contemptible Hypocrisy in a man who despises all Authorities not only human but sacred when they contradict his own private Reasonings to appeal to Authority I can easily bear with men of weak Understandings but I hate Knavery for Truth needs no Tricks and how much Socinians value Fathers and Councils is sufficiently known He begins with the Nicene Council which brought into the Church the term Homoousios by which is meant that the Divine Persons have the same Substance or are of One Substance But then he says it is disputed between the Nominalists and Realists in what Sense the Council understood this One Substance Whether the same Substance in number the self-same Substance so that there is indeed but One Divine Substance Or the same Substance for kind sort or nature namely the same in all Essential Properties So that in Truth there are Three distinct or numerically different Substances which are the same only in nature and kind This he makes the Controversy between the Church that is his Nominalists and the Realists but this is far from being the true state of the Controversy All whom he calls Realists own that Father and Son are but One and the self-same Substance communicated whole and undivided from Father to Son so that the Father is Substance the Son Substance in his own Person and both the same Substance And the like of the Holy Spirit that as Marius Victorinus says They are ter una Substantia Thrice One and the same Substance and this is all that those mean who venture to say they are Three Substances for the Dispute between those Realists who say there is but one Substance of the Divine Persons and those who own Three is not whether the Son be true and real Substance in his own Person as distinct from the Person of the Father for all but Sabellians agree in this but whether considering the perfect Unity and Identity of Nature and Substance in Three it be Orthodox to say Three Substances and not rather One Substance and Three who subsist which is a more Orthodox form of speech and less liable to exception And thus we allow That the Nicene Fathers by the Homoousion did mean One and the