to the Papists themselves as to us of the Reformation their Memory is glorious and ought to be precious also among us But we say also that the Augéan Stable was too foul to be absolutely cleansed at once even by Hercules and his Companions Dr. Luther did a great deal the Labours of his Companions and Seconds were very laudable but much Filth is still left behind We desire to be fairly and candidly heard concerning some corruptions in the Faith and some abuses in the Morality still taught and particularly which is the Subject of these present Papers concerning the Object of our Faith and Worship Almighty GOD. We see we own that the Doctrine of the Church meaning by the Church the Nominal Trinitarians is sound as to the Sense and Intention of it but we humbly offer that the Terms in which 't is expressed are Vnscriptural and very Dangerous The words Trinity Incarnation Hypostatical Vnion are never used in Scripture nor is God ever there called Persons but Person And 't is evident that by occasion of these Terms the Vulgar have such a conception of the Trinity as is certain Tritheism When the People hear of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost they know not that thereby are meant only so many Relations of God either internal Relations to himself or external Relations to the Creature but they conceive in their Minds such a Father Son and Spirit distinct from both as are so many several subsisting Spirits so many distinct All-perfect Beings in very Deed so many Living Gods and not one God under three several Conceptions For tho they are taught to say three Divine Persons and but one God and that God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost tho each of them is God yet all of them are but one God this last all of them but one God because they know not how 't is to be conceived with the other namely that each of them is God and one of them is God the Father another God the Son they utterly lose the Conception of one God and retain only what is intelligible to them namely three Divine Persons each of them a God We think that the Church having gained her Point against the Fathers and Realists in the Lateran Council and having been in Possession of the Truth for near 500 Years together she may now fling off the Disguise hitherto used the dangerous Tritheistick terms Trinity Persons and the rest she may now begin to declare the Truth she owns in Terms and Words that are proper for it Why does she frown upon those nay persecute them that believe the Unity of God in the Sense that she holds it only because they would cast out the Terms that so plainly favour the Tritheists that is the Realists What has the Church to fear has not the Lateran Council and all Writers ever since declared the Realists to be Hereticks therefore what need is there to retain their Terms when we have discharged the Notions intended by them 'T is true we can say as the Church does three Divine Persons the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God taking these words in the Church's Sense not for subsisting Persons that is to say Living Spirits but for Relations Properties Modes or such like We can say God was Incarnate meaning he did inhabit the Lord Christ after an ineffable manner and without Measure which is really as much as the Church intends by the word Incarnation We own the eternal Generation of the Son or Word and Procession of the Spirit by and from the Father explaining our selves with the School-Divines the Church and divers Fathers thus that God or the Father or original Wisdom conceived a most perfect Image of himself by understanding and considering his own Perfections and that he loveth or willeth as well as understandeth himself We can even say three Divine subsisting Persons intending with Dr. S th the Schools the Lateran Council and the Church Relative Subsistences whose Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation Which are Dr. S th's express words Tritheism charged p. 156. I cannot but ask it again why does the Church keep or impose on us such Words and Terms as in their present Signification destroy the Faith we both imbrace the Faith of the real Vnity of God We can say as the Church says we can use her Terms because we know her meaning but we cannot but say of them as Mr. Calvin did when ask'd his Opinion of the English Common-Prayers Tolerabiles Ineptiae For in very Deed 't is meer Trifling and something worse when the signification of these Terms and Words is wholly altered from what it antiently was yet still to retain them while the Church knows at the same Time that they give wrong Notions to the Vulgar making all our People Tritheists and serve also to animate and harden the Realists in their Heresy But I must do the Church this right to confess that most of her greatest Men particularly the first Reformers have publish'd to all the World their hearty desire that all these terms of the Realists were abolish'd and all were obliged to use the Scripture-Language and Words only which would heal all our Breaches and perfectly restore our Peace not only in this but in almost all other Questions and Strifes Let us hear of so many as might be alledged Dr. M. Luther and Mr. J. Calvin M. Luther complains The word Trinity sounds odly it were better to call Almighty God God than Trinity Postil major Dominic Mr. Calvin is yet less pleased with these kind of Terms he says I like not this Prayer O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity It savours of Barbarity the word Trinity is barbarous insipid profane an human Invention grounded on no Testimony of God's Word the Popish God unknown to the Prophets and Apostles Admon 1. ad Polon Decemb. 17. 1695. FINIS
seems self-evident that either the Father only must be said to the truly God because he only hath omnimodous Perfection and in the highest Degree or that there is one Great God and two Inferior or lesser ones To this they that maintain the Inequality of the three Persons answer by retorting the Argument thus If the Divine Persons are equal then there are three Omnipotents and three Omniscients which is the very Notion of three Gods and is denied in terminis or expresly by the Athanasian Creed which saith not three Almighties but one Almighty c. But was it ever heard since the Creation of things say the common Enemy to both the Nominals that two contending erroneous Parties did more effectually ruin one another's common Mistake For as 't is self-evident on the one Hand that it being the very Definition of God the Notion that all Men have of him that he is a Being Omnimodously or absolutely Perfect therefore if the Son or Spirit want some Perfections or some degree of Perfection neither of them can be God but the Father only So on the other hand 't is noless incontestable that three Distinct and really subsisting Persons each of which possesses all Perfections and every degree of those Perfections must of necessity be three Gods Why do not these unhappy Men say the Nominals see that three Almighties and three Omniscients are most certainly three Gods and that on the contrary if only one of them is internally and verily Almighty as well as Superiour in Dignity to the other two he only is true God they are Gods only by Courtesy and Civility of Speech Do not the two contrary Arguments of these unlucky Reasoners make a Dilemma that overthrows their common Foundation even this that the Persons of the Trinity are subsisting Persons Have they not shown us how to argue succesfully against them both for we learn from themselves to say either the imagined subsisting Persons of their Trinity are equal or not equal if equal they must be three Gods because nothing is wanting to any of them toward making him a perfect God if unequal only one of them is properly and truly God the other two by Civility and Courtesy only they may be Gods to those that have a mind to compliment but wanting some Perfections or some Degrees of Perfection neither of them can be God in a Theological or Philosophical Sense But the Pleasure and Sport of the Nominals increases when the Realists seek to extricate themselves from these Noozes For example The Realists that are for the Equality say Father Son and Spirit though omnimodously Perfect and subsisting Persons are one God by their mutual Concord and Agreement So also Origen and other Antenicenes make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons tho they did not believe the Equality To this the Nominals answer the supposed Divine subsisting Persons are hereby loving Friends which is a good Hearing for should three Almighties fall out what would the World do but if they are not only distinct but subsisting Persons they are as much three Gods in a proper and natural Sense as if they were never so much at odds Concord doth not make a Real or Physical Unity which is the Unity of God but only a Moral Vnity or such as is between Friends or Allies Other Realists almost all the Moderns see and confess this therefore they say their Gods are one because they are in one another But say the Nominals God is in his Creatures more especially in the Faithful and they in him as our Saviour himself witnesses are they thereby all but one God is the Creature deified by being in God and he in us No no say others but the Divine Persons who are thus in one another have like Substances Natures and Properties which cannot be said of God and the Creatures Admirable again cry the Nominals but remove this one Scruple If these resembling Gods are so united in their Substances or so in one another that their Substances are continuous like the Parts of the same Angel or like the assignable Parts of the same Divine Person 't is plain that by such an Union or mutual Immeation of their Parts they are become but one subsisting Person in number which is what the Nominals and Socinians contend for but if they are only so united or so in one another that their Parts are only Contiguous like Wine and Oil shook together and yet never incorporating this is but only Contact and Juxta-position and doth not make the three Persons to be one much less one God any more than all the Men in a close Croud are one Man or than the Wine and Oil before-said are one Substance In a word say the Nominals who sees not that the three Divine subsisting Persons having like Substances or Properties or what is all one like Natures are but only Gods resembling one another and whether they be in at out of one another likes are never the same 'T is well but it may be they have better luck who say the Divine Persons are not equal but the Second and Third are subordinate in Authority and inferiour in their Perfections The Objection against them is that hereby either the second and third Persons are neither of them God but only the First or here is one great God and two lesser They reply that as a Father and his two Sons are one Master of the Family though the Authority and Power is in the Father and only secondarily derivatively and less absolutely in the Sons So Father Son and H. Spirit are one God because the two latter though subject and inferior to the former have like Authority and Power with him for that he always concurs with them But the Nominals cry this is not one God in a Physical or Natural Sense but only in a Political and that the supposed Father of the Family and his two Sons may as well be said to be one Man as one Master For in very Deed only the Father is Master though he delegates Authority and Power to his Children during his Pleasue or if Power and Authority is absolutely and irrevocably conferred on them they are as much Masters as he and there is no longer one Master but three Secondly Another Argument of those that contend for the Equality is if the Son and Spirit are unequal to the Father and he only hath omnifarious Perfection with all degrees of those Perfections then the two former are very unnecessarily superadded to the latter he is perfect God without them they add nothing to him we can understand them but only as Foils to set off and to recommend his Perfections This Reasoning also is retorted by them that hold the inequality of the Persons in the supposed Trinity for they reply if there are three equally perfect Divine subsisting Persons two of them are redundant or more than needs If we suppose them say these Gentlemen unequal we leave but one God because the
thinking that the Son is Almighty that he every where denies that he may be Prayed to except only as to a Mediator who saith he is to Pray with us and for us Origen's first and 2d Books concerning Prayer have so many Arguments directed against Praying to any but the Father and particularly that we should not Pray to the Son he calls them Fools that do that it well appears indeed he held Father and Son to be subsisting Persons as the Realists do and that he durst say there are two Gods a first and a second God but yet that in Truth the Supream Divinity or true Divinity is in the Father only Which also is the Opinion of all the Ante-Nicens and was the Doctrine that Arius afterwards maintained with whom those Modern Realists who hold the Inequality do almost wholly symbolize it may be said that most of those who hold the Inequality of the supposed three Divine subsisting Persons perfectly agree with the Ariani molles the moderate Arians But here comes one that will make all the World to know the inmost thoughts of the Realists he perfectly and in terms discovers their Secret 'T is St. Basil called by his Party of Realists who hold the Inequality Basilius Magnus Basil the Great To those saith this bold Man who accuse us as holding three Gods we answer God is not one in Number but only in Nature He means as the Nature of Man namely the common Humanity is one but there are many particular Men Peter James John c. So the Nature of God or the common Divinity is one but there are as truly more Gods in number or more particular Gods as there are more particular Men Father Son and Spirit are each of them as truly a God as Peter James and John are each of them a particular Man This famous Passage is to be found in Basil's 141st Epistle ad Caesarienses Again Adv. Eunom In the Number and in the Properties there is a Diversity or Multiplicity in the Properties by which each Divine Person is characteriz'd we believe a Diversity and an Vnity only in what makes the Deity i.e. In the Divine Attributes that are common to all the three Divine Persons for each Person has Omniscience Omnipotence and Omnipresence perfect Goodness which Attributes make the Deity as Rationality and Risibility make the Humanity Basil then held that to this Question how many Gods it must be answered three Gods in Number or three Personal Gods and one in Nature or Divine Properties Which is to say in very Deed three Gods but yet Gods so resembling one another that from the sameness of their Attributes or Essential not Personal Properties they may be called one God even as all Men or Mankind from the sameness of their Nature namely the Rational are in common speech often times called Man Which Comparison or Explication of their Meaning and Doctrine is often used by St. Basil and St. Gregory Nyssen the Patriarchs and Founders of those Realists who affirm the Equality of the supposed Divine subsisting Persons As for the Modern Realists they are only some late Writers of our own Nation the first and chief is Dr. Cudworth after him followed Dr. Bull then Dr. Sherlock my Lord the Bishop of Glocester Mr. How Mr. Milbourn Mr. J.B. in his late Learned and Bitter Answer to Dr. S th Some of these are for the absolute Equality of the Divine Persons in all Essential Attributes such as Power Wisdom Omnipresence but some as Dr. Cudworth especially will allow the Son and Spirit to be equal in nothing to the Father but only that they are Coeternal and by this he thinks he sufficiently acquits himself of Arianism But both Parties most openly avow their Tritheism and that many ways By saying there are three infinite Spirits three Omniscient Minds three Divine intellectual Substances three Divine Persons as really Subsisting and as truly Distinct and divers as three Angels or three Men are Again by their Explication of the Possibility and the Manner of an Unity in Trinity Some of them saving three subsisting Divine Persons are one God by a certain most close Unition of their Substances Others by mutual Consciousness of one another's Thoughts and Actions or because besides their having like Substances and Properties they are also in one another They see nor what 't is marvellous Men of their Sense should not see that several subsisting Persons each of which is a perfect God three Almighties three Omniscients whether Conscious or not Conscious to one another whether in or out of one another whether agreeing or at odds none of these Foreign Considerations can so alter the Case but that all Three must as truly be three perfect Gods as each of them is confessed to be one perfect God But let us hear Mr. J. S. in his late Answer to Dr. S th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock For as this Gentleman is well skilled in these Questions so he delivers his Mind without much Reserve he seems not to be afraid to say what he thinks because 't is so certain that the Fathers after the Year 380. were in the very same Sentiments concerning the Trinity namely that the Persons of the Trinity arc really distinct and subsisting Persons and equally have all Divine Perfections in the highest Degree He faith pag. 141. Each distinct Divine Person is as compleatly and perfectly God as each distinct Angdical Person is a compleat perfect Angel He demands at pag. 75. Will the Animadverter Dr. S th deny that one Divine Person is one God I will answer for Dr. S th 'T is Heresy to say that the Persons of the Trinity are as distinct as three Angelical Persons for Angels or Angelical Persons are distinguished in their Substances and have so many several Understandings Wills and Energies but in all these Respects the Persons of the Trinity are not distinct but are Identically the same Nor is one Person of the Trinity as compleatly and perfectly God as an Angelical Person is compleatly and perfectly an Angel for one Angelical Person is a compleat and perfect Angel but all three Persons of the Trinity and not one only are necessary to compleat the Notion and due Conception of one God Therefore to his Question Is not one Divine Person one God I answer no three Divine Persons are one God that is to say taking the word Persons in the Sense that the Church intends it namely for Relative Persons or the threefold Relation of the Deity But taking a Divine Person as this Author and his Fellow-Realists do for a subsisting Person a distinct intellectual Being and Infinite Mind and Spirit I answer and the Church also so answers that indeed every such Person is one God and three such are three Gods Page 85. When God is said to be three Persons the term God is taken in a Logical Sense and is equivalent to a terminus Communis or a Species As who should say there are truly three Gods in
or of any others But then say I the Realists would cover such flat Impossibilities such gross Contradictions to common Sense in a Word such Monstrosities under the cloak of Mystery that they have infinitely more need of that wretched Blind than the Nominals who only by explaining their Terms which Custom and Law have imposed on them go a great way in fairly satissying all Difficulties and when they cannot perfectly account for them they make some small use of Mystery To understand this we must take a short view of the polite happy Things said by them both The Nominals teach there is but one numerical God or one God in Number who yet is three Persons That the Father is God the Son is God the H. Ghost is God yet all three are but one God one God in Number one self-same God They are perfectly aware this were equally Impossible and Ridiculous if 't were not dextrously interpreted and explained it would not be Mystery or Mysterious Truth but notorious Falshood and Absurdity they well know if wholly left in these Terms without an Explication Therefore they declare that by the term Persons and the words Father Son and Spirit they mean not with the Vulgar several subsisting Persons that is to say So many intellectual Substances with each his own particular Life Understanding Will and power of Action for they confess there is in God but one Substance Life Understanding Will Energy in number but three Persons in God are so many States or Respects or Properties or Relations or something equivalent to these of the same ore Divine intellectual Substance or Nature And in this Sense also according to the Nominals the words Father Son and Spirit when used of God are to be understood namely as Relations or States all of them sustained by one and the same subsisting Person or intellectual Substance not as in so many Subjects or as denominating variously three distinct Beings They show that so the Classical Authors both Greek and Latin spoke and as their Language was adopted by the Church in speaking of God with great Propriety so in process of Time the use of Words being much altered occasion was given to introduce the Heresy of the Realists who unlearnedly understanding the old Words in a novel Sense have brought into the Church three Gods instead of one Again they the Nominals say the second Person of the Trinity or of God was Incarnate in the Man Christ Jesus in such manner that thereby the Lord Christ is God as well as Man This also is called by that Mystical Name the Hypostatical or personal Union But they mean no more by it than this that God was as much and truly united to the Humanity as the Human Nature is capable of that is to say in a most extraordinary marvellous and to us unaccountable Manner When they say O God the Father have Mercy on us O God the Son O God the Holy Ghost have Mercy on us they intend not hereby three Objects of Worship or so many several Patrons and Helpers but only as these are so many Relations and Respects of the Deity either to himself or to us so they invocate him by these Distinctions or in these several Properties and Relations In short the whole Mystery consists in the Terms they use and scarce at all if at all in the Sense or things intended by those Terms which things or sense are received and imbraced by us the Unitarians for we admit the whole Doctrine as here declared and explained But 't is quite otherwise with the Realists their Non-sense is in the thing meant not in the Words or Terms They say there are three Divine subsisting Persons three infinite Spirits three omniscient Minds three distinct Almighties as distinct as so many Angels or Men each of them as truly properly adequately and perfectly God as each Man is a Man and each Angel an Angel and yet all of them are but one God This we confess is Mystery with a Witness the Mystery every one sees lies not in the Words and Terms but the thing it self is absurd and impossible to cry Mystery here is to profess that by Mystery we mean Contradiction and Impossibilities The Excuses they make for this Mystery are as mysterious or more mysterious than the Mystery for which they would apologize For to say these three most perfect Gods become one God by their mutual Accord and Love is as if you should pretend that by Love and Accord three Men are one Man And when they say they are one God by likeness or sameness of Nature and Properties and by being in one another they might equally say that two or more Angels because they have the same Nature and Properties and being Spiritual do immeate or are in one another are thereby one Angel These Explications of their Mystery are assuredly as great Mysteries as direct Contradictions to Reason and common Experience as the Doctrine it self of one God and three Divine subsisting Persons But why do the Realists expect that Mankind will be perswaded to accept such palpable abnegations of all consistent Sense for Mystery words that are hardly Sense or of either ambiguous or obscure meaning may be put off with some or other who care not for the Trouble of considering for Mystery but gross Contradictions obvious and notorious Non-sense will never be mistaken for Mystery 'T is true People may be constrained to profess it or to subscribe to it but they never believe it no not when through a long habit of Submission to the Commands of others they seem to themselves to believe it I doubt not that the Doctors of the Church of Rome seem to themselves to believe the Transubstantiation because having accustom'd themselves to submit to the Declarations of the Church they have never suffered any reluctance to arise in their Minds against any of those Declarations notwithstanding I am perswaded not a Man of them truly believes that Mystery were all Fears and Hopes and other blassing Interests removed they would presently perceive that in very Deed they believe it not their Reasons never assented to an impossible Proportion nor could assent but only as I said through a long habit of Submission they did not discern that they assented not to the Church's Declarations And this I believe is true also of all who pretend or seem to believe any other inconsistent or impossible Doctrines The Tritheism of the Realists not grounded on the H. Scripture BUT this once more 't is not on a probable or prudent Ground that the Realists sometimes pretend that the Tritheism they impose has such a Foundation in Holy Scripture that as on the one side to believe the Trinity in their Notion of it is a violence done to Reason so not to own and profess it would oblige them to as great a Violence and Disobedience to Holy Scripture I confess I have often wondred that Men so Learned and Discerning as very many of the Realists are