the Son to be a distinct Substantial Person this Dispute we hear nothing of but the only Dispute was concerning the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and that proves that they did own the Son to be a Substantial Person for were he not in a true proper sense a Person and a Substantial Person he could not be Consubstantial with the Father Nay St Austin expresly tells us That Arius agreed with the Catholicks against the Sabellians in making the Son a distinct Person from the Father and if so the Catholicks taught That the Son was as distinct a Person as Arius did though not a Separate and Created Person as he did Now when Arius would have reduced Christ into the number of Creatures though he made him the first and most excellent Creature created before the World and God's Minister in making the World as like to God as a Creature can possibly be but not of the same Nature with God the Catholick Church would not bear this but in a most Venerable Synod collected from most parts of the Christian World condemn this as contrary to the Faith always received and owned in their several Churches Thus far at least the Tradition of the Church was Sacred and Venerable and the concurrent Testimony of all these several Churches was a more certain Proof of the Apostolick Faith than all the Wit and Subtilty of Arius For Wit may patronize New Errors but cannot prove That to be the Ancient Apostolick Faith which the Church had never received from the Apostles nor ever heard of before This I take to be a very sensible Proof what the Faith of the Christian Church was from the Times of the Apostles till the Council of Nice and consequently what that Faith was which the Church received from the Apostles And this abundantly satisfies me That whatever loose Expressions we may meet with in some of the Fathers before the Arian Controversy was started and managed with great Art and Subtilty though I know of none but what are capable of a very Orthodox Sense it is certain that they were not Arians nor intended any such thing in what they said For had Arianism been the Traditionary Faith of the Church it must have been known to be so and then how came the Church to be so strangely alarm'd at the first news of it Or what shall we think of those Venerable Fathers and Confessors in that Great Council who either did not know the Faith of the Church or did so horribly prevaricate in the Condemnation of Arius when they had no other apparent Interest or Temptation to do so but a Warm and Hearty Zeal for the Truly Ancient and Apostolick Faith It is certain Arius never pretended Catholick Tradition for his Opinion but undertook to reform the Catholick Faith by the Principles of Philosophy and to reconcile it to Scripture by new-coin'd Interpretations though in this he fail'd and found the Great Athanasius an over-match for him It is not with Faith as it is with Arts and Sciences of Human Invention which may be improved in every Age by greater Wits or new Observations but Faith depends upon Revelation not Invention and we can no more make a New Catholick Faith by the power of Wit and Reason than we can write a True History of what the Apostles did and taught out of our own Invention without the Authority of any Ancient Records Men may do such things if they please but one will be Heresy and the other a Romance And yet this is the bold and brave Attempt of Secinus and his Disciples They are so modest indeed as not to pretend Antiquity to be on their side they can find no other Antiquity for themselves but in Cerinthus and Ebion who separated from the Catholick Church and were rejected by them and it does not seem very modest to set up such men as these against the Universal Consent of the first and purest Ages of the Church The Socinians who know very well what the Charge of Novelty signifies in matters of Religion That a New Faith is but another Name for New Heresies Though they reject the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Catholick Tradition of the Faith from the Apostolick Age yet they appeal to Scripture and Natural Sentiments as the greatest and best Antiquity in opposition to Apostolick Tradition This is our Considerer's way which he prefers before a Traditionary Faith and by the same reason the Socinians may oppose it to a Traditionary Faith And if we must always expound Scripture by our Natural Sentiments this Author had best consider whether he can prove a Trinity by Natural Reason or fairly reconcile the Natural Notion of One God with the Catholick Faith of the Trinity or of Three each of whom is True and Pâ—rfect God from the mere Principles of Natural Reason for if he can't he must not in his way find a Trinity in Scripture But of this more hereafter 3. Let us now in opposition to this pretence consider of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture The Holy Scripture at least in pretence is allowed on all hands to be a Compleat and Authentick Rule of Faith but the question is since men differ so much in expounding Scripture What is the safest Rule to expound Scripture by whether the Traditionary Faith of the Church or our Natural Sentiments or Natural Reason I do not mean that we must learn the Critical Sense of every Text from Catholick Tradition for we have not in all points such a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture though even in this respect we shall find that the Catholick Fathers have unanimously agreed in the Interpretation of the most material Texts relating to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ. They sometimes indeed alledge such Texts especially out of the Old Testament as our Modern Criticks will not allow to be proper and apposite but even this shews what their Faith was and yet these very Expositions which have been so anciently and unanimously received though they may appear at this distance of time too forc'd and mystical have too Sacred and Venerable an Authority to be wantonly rejected We may learn from Christ and his Apostles what mysterious and hidden Senses were contain'd in the Writings of the Old Testament such as it is very probable we should never have found in them had not Christ and his Apostles explained their meaning And the nearer any Writers were to the Apostolick Age the more they were addicted to these Mystical Interpretations which is a good reason to believe that they learnt it from the Apostles themselves But this is not what I now intend my present Argument reaches no farther than this That if we can learn what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ has always been Then 1. It is very reasonable to conclude That they
must not think that God begets a Son as men do by corporeal passions or division of his substance or that he begets a Son without himself or separate from himself or that because a Creature-father is always older than his Son therefore God can't beget a Son coâ—ternal with himself for all these Circumstances do not belong to the essential Notion of a Father but of a Creature-father But then it is essential to the Notion both of Father and Son that the Father communicates his own Nature to the Son and that the Son receives his Nature and Being from his Father that Father and Son do truly and really subsist by themselves though they may be and when we speak of God the Father and his Son are inseparably united to each other that the Son with respect to his Nature is perfectly the same that his Father is the son of a man as true and perfect Man as his Father is and therefore the Son of God as true and perfect God By these Arguments the Catholick Fathers confuted both the Sabellians who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three Names and the Arians who denied the Consubstantiality of the Son or that he had the same Nature with his Father For both these Heresies destroy'd the essential Notion and Idea of Father and Son which includes in it both a real distinction and sameness of Nature that they are as really Two but infinitely more one and the same than any other Father and Son in Nature are Now I cannot see but that as these Names and Characters are better understood and liable to less dispute so they convey to our Minds a more distinct conception of God the Father and his Eternal Son than any other artificial Terms Were there no Controversy about Nature Essence Person Substance Hypostasis yet they immediately convey no Idea of God the Father and his Eternal Son to my mind much less give me a more distinct Conception than these Terms Father and Son do For they neither acquaint me what God is nor what Father and Son is and as the Schools themselves assert cannot be Univocally or in the same sense spoken of Creatures and of God who is Super-Essential above all Praedicaments and Terms of Art that is Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Person do not and cannot signify the same thing when spoken of God as when applied to Creatures And this has occasioned all those Disputes concerning the Use and Signification of these words when applied to God which indeed is no reason for wholly discarding these Terms which the Perverseness and Importunity of Hereticks has forced the Church to use and which have now been so long used that the Ecclesiastical Sense of these Words is very well known to Learned men if they would be contented to use them in that Received Ecclesiastical Sense in which the Catholick Fathers have always used them but yet it is a reason not to clog the Faith of ordinary Christians with them who are not skilled in Metaphysical and Abstracted Notions and it is a reason to reduce the Controversy as much as possibly we can to Scripture Terms when these Artificial and Metaphysical Terms divide even the Professors of the Catholick Faith and give too just occasion to the vain Boasts and Triumphs of Hereticks To represent this matter plainly I observe That all all those Unscriptural Terms which the Catholick Fathers made use of for the Explication of this Adorable Mystery were intended for no other purpose but to give us some distinct Ideas and Conceptions of what the Scripture teaches concerning the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost by using such Terms as signify something in Creatures which bears some though a very imperfect anology and resemblance to what we are to conceive of God And therefore the Fathers justifie the use of such words by shewing That all they mean by them is contained in Scripture and reject any Words and any such Sense of Artificial Words as cannot be justified by Scripture Which by the way is a more infallible Rule than all Metaphysical Subtleties to find out in what sense the Fathers used such Words by observing to what Scripture-Notions they apply them and how they justifie their use from Scripture when they are Disputed If this be the truth of the Case as it certainly is then the Catholick Faith does not depend upon the use of these Terms for it was before them for they were intended only to explain and illustrate the Catholick Faith and to comprise Scripture-Notions in Terms of Art which must be acknowledged to be of great use and was by experience found to be so in the Disputes with ancient Hereticks while the Fathers agreed in the sense of these Terms But when these Terms themselves are become the great matter of Dispute and men who as is to be hoped agree in the Catholick Faith cannot agree about the Propriety and Signification of such Terms nor how they are to be applied and used whether in the singular or plural Number whether substantively or adjectively in recto or obliquo and our Adversaries abuse such Disputes to the Reproach of the Catholick Faith as a perplex'd uncertain contradictious Riddle and Mystery which men can know nothing of or can never agree in it becomes absolutely necessary at present to take this Controversy out of Terms of Art and to let our Adversaries see That our Controversy with them is not concerned in these Disputes That it is not about the Signification and Use of such words as Essence Nature Substance Person c. but Whether the Supreme Eternal Self-originated Father have not an Eternal Son eternally begotten of himself and an Eternal Spirit the Spirit of the Father and of the Son eternally proceeding from them And whether this Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit are not True and Perfect God In this all sincere Trinitarians do heartily agree with each other and are ready to join issue upon this State of the Controversy with all their Adversaries of what denomination soever And if we can prove from Scripture That God has an Eternal Son begotten of himself and that this Eternal Son is True and Perfect God as the Father is and that the Father and Son have an Eternal Spirit who is True and Perfect God as Father and Son is I hope this is a sufficient Confutation of Socinianism and yet all this may be proved without concerning our selves in any Metaphysical Disputes And therefore such Disputes as these though they give opportunity to our Adversaries to make some Flourishes and to cast Mists before peoples eyes are not of that moment as they would represent them they neither prove Socinianism to be true nor the Catholick Faith of the Trinity to be false or uncertain I do not intend at present to dispute this Point with the Socinians Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit for there is no dispute about the Father be not each of them True and Perfect God This has been proved
Father is though not the same Person as truly a Person as God would be were there but One Person in the Godhead as these Hereticks affirmed For according to all the Rules of Disputation we must take Words in the sense of those whom we oppose for otherwise it is a mere wrangle about Words without opposing one another And therefore since the Sabellians by Person understood such a Person as every single Person is for they made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three different Names of the same single individual Person nothing could oppose or confute them but to prove That Father and Son and Holy Ghost are Three distinct Persons in the same Notion of a Person which belongs to every single individual Person as far as mere Personality is concerned For to prove them Three in any other sense whether Three Modes or Three Powers or Three Parts of the same One single Person is what they would have and allow them to be but One Person and they will dispute no further nay will give you leave to call Three Modes or Three Names or Three Parts of the same One Person Three Persons if you please But for the clearer understanding of this matter we must consider by what Arguments the Ancient Writers opposed this Heresy Tertullian in opposition to Praxeas reduces this to a short Question Whether God have any Son and who he is and how he is his Son For if God have a Son the Son must be as true and real a Person as the Father and Father and Son must be Two distinct Persons for the same Person can't be both Father and Son to himself the very Names of Father and Son signify that one is of the other and we must understand things to be what they are called whether Father or Son which can no more be the same than Night and Day with respect to these different Relations The Father makes the Son and the Son makes the Father and those who receive these Relations from each other can never be these Relations to themselves that the Father should make himself a Son to himself or the Son make himself a Father to himself This Order God has instituted in all other Beings and he observes it himself A Father must of necessity have a Son to be a Father and a Son must have a Father that he may be a Son but to have and to be are two things as for instance for a man to be a Husband signifies that he has a Wife not that he is a Wife to himself and thus to be a Father signifies to have a Son not to be a Son to himself in such Relations we must be one and have another that to be both is to be neither because we can have neither If I be Father and Son to my self I am no Father because I have no Son who makes a Father but am Son my self and I am no Son because I have no Father who makes the Son but am Son my self and thus while they make Father and Son one and the same Person they destroy the Notion both of Father and Son Now would any man have argued at this rate who did not believe Father and Son to be real and Substantial Persons and as distinct from each other as a human Father and Son are for if they be not all this reasoning from the distinct Relations of Father and Son which require a real distinction of Persons is quite lost And whether this Argument be good or no which is not the present Enquiry it is certain that whoever uses it if he understands himself must believe That Father and Son signify as true and real Relations and as real and distinct Persons in the Godhead as they do in human Nature The like may be said of that other Argument against the Father and the Son being One and the same Person That then the same Person must in order of Nature be both before and after himself for he who begets must always in order of Nature though not of Time in an Eternal Generation be before him who is begotten by him That as Father he is before himself as Son as Son he is after himself as Father which had been Iudicrous trifling if they had not believed a real substantial Generation of the Person and consequently that the Son is a real substantial Person For this Argument will not hold in the Generation of Modes and Postures or in one part of the Deity generating another Thus to prove the distinction of Persons between Father and Son they urge all those Texts in which the Father speaks to or of the Son and the Son speaks to or of the Father which are so many and so well known that I need not transcribe them And Tertullian lays it down as a certain Rule That he who speaks and he to whom he speaks and he who is spoken of cannot be one and the same Person for this is such perverseness and deceit as does not become God that when he himself is the Person to whom he speaks he should speak in such a manner as if he directed his speech to another and did not speak to himself And therefore when the Father says Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased When Christ tells us That God is his Father That he came forth from the Father and came into the world and again leaves the world and goes to the Father When he says I and my Father and I will pray the Father and he shall send you Another Comforter I and He and Another must signify Three as Real and Distinct Persons as these words signify in common speech Thus they prove the distinction of Persons between Father and Son from those Texts which tell us That the Father sends the Son and the Son is sent That the Father anoints and the Son is anointed That the Father gives Commands and the Son receives them and doth the Will of his Father That the Father knows the Son and the Son the Father That he sees all that the Father doth and can do all that he sees the Father do For there must be distinct Subjects for such different Acts the same Person with respect to himself can't with any propriety of speech be said to send and to be sent to anoint and to be anointed to command and to obey to come forth from himself and to come into the world and to leave the world and go to himself And therefore he who sends and he who is sent c. must be Two Nay it is well observed by these Fathers That Christ himself expresly teaches us that He and his Father with respect to the distinction of Persons are Two so Two as to make a Legal Testimony of Two Witnesses 8. Iohn 13 18. When the Pharisees objected against him That he bore Record of himself and therefore his Record was not true He answers And
Persons but attribute true and perfect Divinity only to the Father and make the Son a Creature though the most excellent Creature made before the World and as like to God as any Creature can be and the Minister of God in making the World This Heresy was condemned by the first general Council assembled at Nice and if we would understand the Nicene Creed we must expound it in opposition to the Arian Heresy without running into the other Extreme of Sabellianism And therefore when we are taught to believe in One Lord Iesus Christ the Only begotten Son of God begotten of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of very God begotten not made being of One Substance with the Father by whom all things were made Wemust understand a Son who is a distinct Person from his Father as the Arians allowed him to be but not a made or created Son as they taught but a Son by Nature begotten of his Father's substance and that not in Time but from all Eternity and therefore not a Creature but God by Nature true and perfect God as God of God begotten of God and therefore of One Substance with the Father not in the Sabellian sense as One Substance is One Person but as One Substance signifies the same Nature in opposition to the Arians who made him not only a distinct Person but of a different Nature like his Father but not the same not of the substance of his Father but a new created Substance made out of nothing as all other Creatures are The opposition of this Creed to the Arian Heresy is certainly the best way of expounding it and then we find nothing in it but the true ancient Catholick Faith of the real distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence But the present Inquiry is What is the true Notion of the Homousion or One Substance of Father and Son and besides that positive account the Fathers give us of it we may learn this from those false Glosses and Interpretations which they reject and those Rules they give for the expounding these words SECT I. The true Sense of the Homoousion from those Misrepresentations which were made of it and the Answers which were given by the Nicene Fathers to such Objections 1. FIrst then Let us consider what Misrepresentations were made of this disputed word Consubstantial by the Enemies of the Catholick Faith and what Answers the Fathers gave to such Objections St. Hilary mentions three in the beginning of his 4 th Book of the Trinity and I shall consider them in the Order in which he sets them down 1. The first is that this word Homoousion or Consubstantial is no better than Sabellianism that it makes the Father and the Son to be but One by One singular Substance which being Infinite extended it self into the Virgin 's Womb and taking a Body of her in that Body took the Name of Son and thus they say some former Bishops understood it and is therefore to be rejected as Heretical which as he adds is the first misrepresentation of the Homoousion Thus he observes in his Book de Synodis that the Fathers in the Council of Antioch which condemned Paulus Samosatenus did also reject the Homoousion because Paulus thereby understood the singularity of the Divine Nature and Substance which destroys the real personal distinction between Father and Son and adds that the Church though it retained the word Homoousion still rejects that sense of it as profane The Learned Dr. Bull notwithstanding St. Hilary's Authority can't believe that either Paulus or Sabellius did upon choice own the Homoousion but only put a forced and unnatural sense of it to favour their Heresies and seems to have very good reason on his side but that is not the present question How perversly soever Hereticks understood this word the Nicene Fathers rejected this sense as profane and heretical Now if One Substance does not signify One singular Substance in the Sabellian Notion of it which leaves only a Trinity of Names or Modes instead of a Trinity of Persons then Three consubstantial Persons must signisy Three substantial Persons who have the same Nature and Essence but not the same singular Substance And St. Basil tells us that this is the proper acceptation of the word Homoousion which is directly opposed to the Sabellian as well as to the Arian Heresy as it destroys the Identity of Hypostasis and gives us a complete and perfect Notion of distinct Persons for the same thing is not consubstantial to it self but to another that there must be another and another to make two that are consubstantial Another Objection against the Homoousion was this That to be consubstantial or of One Substance signifies the communion of Two in some other thing which is in order of Nature before them both as if there were some prior Substance or Matter of which they both did partake so as to have the whole Substance between them which makes them consubstantial or of one Substance both partaking of the same Being Nature or Substance which was before them both and therefore they rejected the Homoousion because it did not preserve the relation between the Son and the Father and made the Father later than that Substance or Matter which is common to him with the Son This also St. Hilary tells us the Church rejects and abominates for nothing can so much as in thought be before the Substance of the Father and the relation between Father and Son signifies to beget and to be begotten not to be both made of the same Substance A third Reason they assigned against this word Homoousion was this That to be Consubstantial or of One Substance in the strict and proper acceptation of these words signifies that the generation of the Son is by the division of the Father's Substance as if he were cut out of him and One Substance divided into Two Persons and so Father and Son are of One Substance as a part cut out of the whole is of the same nature with that from whence it is taken This was objected against the Homoousion in the time of the Nicene Council while this word was under debate which Socrates gives a more particular account of The reason those Bishops who refused to subscribe to the Nicene Faith gave against the Homoousion was this That that only can be said to be Consubstantial which is of another either by division or by efflux and emanation or by prolation or eruption by eruption as the branches sprout out of the root by efflux according to the manner of human generations by division as the same mass of Gold may be divided into two or three golden Cups but the Son is of the Father neither of these ways and therefore they rejected this Faith and ridiculed the Homoousion For this very reason Eusebius of Caesarea was for some time in suspense about the
Homoousion which he afterwards readily received when the Council had declared in what sense they understood it and rejected all corporeal passions all division and partition change and diminution of the Divine Essence which pure simple unbodied eternal unchangeable Mind is not capable of Now all that I shall observe at present is That this very Objection which was thought so formidable necessarily supposes that both they who made it and they who were so much concerned to answer it did acknowledge a substantial generation of the Son for this whole Dispute is downright Nonsense without it If God the Father in begetting his Son does not so communicate his own Nature and Substance to him as to make him a true substantial Son of the same Substance indeed but yet as distinct in Substance from the Father as he is in Person How ridiculous is all this Dispute how the Father communicates his own Nature to his Son for according to these men he does not communicate or propagate his own Nature and Substance at all there being but one singular solitary Divine Nature and Substance with a Trinity of Names Modes or Offices and therefore no danger of any division or partition of the Divine Substance The Dispute between the Catholicks and the Arians about the generation of the Son was this They both owned against the Sabellians that the Son is a real substantial subsisting Person but the Question was whence he had his Nature whether he was created out of Nothing and consequently had a beginning of Being as the Arians affirmed or was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of his Father and so coeternal with his Father as the Nicene Council affirmed That the Substance of the Son was of the Substance of the Father God of God Light of Light Against this the Arians objected That the Son could not be of the Substance of the Father without the division of the Father's Substance which is impossible in an infinite uncreated Spirit as God is which Argument is only against a substantial generation The Nicene Fathers allow this Objection to be good as to corporeal generations but deny that it is thus as to the Eternal Generation of the Son of God for an Eternal Uncreated Immutable Mind if it can communicate its own Nature at all and we learn from Scripture that God has a Son must do it without division of parts for the Divine Nature and Substance has no parts and is capable of no division And it is very absurd to reason from corporeal Passions to the Affections and Operations of Spirits much more of an infinite eternal Spirit Had not the Arians understood the Catholick Fathers of the substantial Generation of the Son they had more wit than to urge an Argument to no purpose for where there is no communication of Substance it is certain there can be no division of it And had not the Catholick Fathers owned this substantial Generation they would have rejected the Argument with scorn as nothing to the purpose and not have distinguished between corporeal generations and the Generation of Eternal and Infinite Mind That though Bodies cannot communicate their own Nature and Substance without division yet an Eternal Mind can so that from these perverse Interpretations of the Homoousion which the Catholick Fathers rejected we may learn what they meant by it for if Father and Son are not Consubstantial in the sense of the Sabellians and Modalists that is that Father and Son are not One Person with Two Names nor One singular solitary Substance common to them both then the Father must be a substantial Father and the Son a substantial Son and these Two substantial Persons are Consubstantial as having the same One Divine Nature and Substance intirely perfectly and distinctly in themselves without any division diminution or separation of Substance by a complete and perfect Generation whereby the Father communicates his whole intire Nature to the Son without any change or alteration in himself SECT II. Some Rules for expounding the Homoousion and in what Sense the Fathers understood it SEcondly Let us now examine what account the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers give of the Homoousion and in what sense they understood it But before I tell you what they expresly say of this matter I shall observe by the way two or three Rules they give us for expounding the Homoousion which are of great use in this Enquiry 1. The first is To give the Homoousion the right place in our Creed as the Nicene Fathers have done They do not tell us abruptly in the first place That the Son is consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father They first tell us That Jesus Christ our Lord is the only-begotten Son of God begotten of his Father that is of the Substance of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God Begotten not made and then they add Of One Substance with the Father This St. Hilary lays great stress on and his Reason is very considerable because if in the first place we say Father and Son are consubstantial or of One Substance this is capable of an Heretical as well as Orthodox Sense as we have already heard for they may be One Substance in the Sabellian Notion as that signifies One Person or One by the Division or Partition of the same Substance of which each has a part for all these perverse Senses may be affix'd to it when this word Consubstantial or One Substance stands singly by it self or is put in the first place without any thing to limit or determine its signification And therefore a true Catholick Christian must not begin his Creed with saying That Father and Son are of One Substance but then he may safely say One Substance when he has first said The Father is unbegotten the Son is born and subsists of his Father like to his Father in all Perfections Honour and Nature not of nothing but born not unborn but coaeval not the Father but the Son of the Father not a Part of the Father but All that the Father is not the Author but the Image the Image of God begotten of God and born God not a Creature but God not Another God of a different Kind and Substance but One God as having the same Essence and Nature which differs in nothing from the Substance of the Father that God is One not in Person but Nature Father and Son having nothing unlike or of a different kind in them And after this we may safely add That Father and Son are One Substance and cannot deny it without Sin This is as plain as words can make it and needs no Comment but fixes and determines the Catholick Sense of the Homoousion For if we must acknowledge the Son to be consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father in no other sense than as a True and Real Son is consubstantial a Son not created out of Nothing but
begotten of his Fathers Substance the Son of God who in his own proper Person is true and perfect God not a part of God but all that God is not One God as One Person with the Father but as having the true Divine Nature distinctly in his own Person This is a Demonstration that the Nicene Consubstantiality is the Consubstantiality of Two real substantial Persons who have the same Nature distinctly subsisting in each of them 2 Another Rule for expounding the Homoousion is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are equipollent terms that to be of one Substance and to be in all things alike to each other signify the same thing I know the Fathers condemned the Arian Homoiousion for they asserted That the Son was like the Father in opposition to his being of the same Nature with the Father and therefore this was an imperfect likeness and resemblance or indeed no likeness at all for a created and uncreated Nature are at such an infinite distance as to have no true and real likeness to each other to be sure not such a likeness as there must be between a Son and a Father Nay sometimes they would not allow that likeness can be properly applied to two individual Natures of the same species as to two individual human Natures which are not like to each other but are the same But yet whether it was proper or improper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be upon all accounts and every way perfectly alike was allowed to be very Orthodox and therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis approves several Oriental Creeds as very Orthodox though they left out the Homoousion because they in the most express terms confessed the perfect likeness and similitude of Nature between Father and Son which they guarded with the utmost Caution against the perverse Interpretations both of the Sabellian and Arian Hereticks And he disputes at large That perfect similitude is a sameness and equality of Nature and calls God to witness that before he ever heard of those words Homoousion and Homoiousion he always thought that what is signified by both these words is the same that perfect likeness of Nature is the sameness of Nature for nothing can be perfectly alike which has not the same Nature And this he says he learnt from the Evangelists and Apostles before ever he heard of the Nicene Faith which he had not heard of till a little before he was banished for that Faith This observation is of great use as St. Hilary notes to confute Sabellianism and to fix the true sense of the Homoousion for if to be Consubstantial or of one Nature signifies a perfect likeness similitude and equality of Nature Consubstantiality must at least signify Two who are thus consubstantial as likeness similitude and equality does and these Two must have One and the same Nature not in the sense of Singularity and Sabellian Unity but of likeness and similitude that Father and Son are One Substance not as One Person is One with himself but as Two Persons are One by a perfect likeness and similitude of Nature which must be the true meaning of Consubstantial if Consubstantiality and likeness of Nature be the same 3. I observe farther That the Catholick Fathers did not make the Homoousion the Rule of Faith that whatever sense some critical Wits can put on it must therefore be owned for the Catholick Faith but they chose it as the most comprehensive word to comprize the true Catholick Faith and to detect the Frauds of Hereticks They taught no new Faith by this word but what the Catholick Church had always taught but secured the Faith by it against the shifts and evasions of Hâ—reticks This is the defence they made to the Arian Objection That it was an unscriptural word they confessed the word Homoousios was not to be found in Scripture but the Faith expressed by that word was Thus St. Austin answers Pascentius and tells us That Christ himself has taught us the Homoousion where he says I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and my Father are One and expounds this of the Unity Dignity and Equality of Nature And adds That it is not the word but the thing signified by that word which is so terrible to Hereticks and if they would dispute to purpose they must not reject the word but the doctrine it contains And thus Laurentius who presided in that Dispute gives judgment in this Controversy That the Homoousion was not the Name of the Christian Faith but signified the Equality of the Trinity and that though this word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by it is true and we must believe honourably of the Unity lest we injure the Trinity We may find enough to this purpose in Athanasius De Decret Syn. Nic. and elsewhere of which more presently And therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis which he wrote to some Catholick Bishops who were very Orthodox in the Faith and yet doubted of this word Homoousion tells them That they are to consider what the Synod intended by that word and not reject the word unless they rejected the Faith taught by it and would profess those Arian Doctrines which the Council condemned in it This is the constant language of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers when the Dispute is concerning the use of this word which gives us this certain Rule for expounding the Homoousion that we must understand it in no other sense than what the Nicene Fathers intended by it for if we do we may acknowledge the Homoousion and yet deny the Nicene Faith What they taught by this word that we must own and what they rejected by it we must reject And though we may fancy that this word signifies more than what the Nicene Fathers understood by it as we have heard what perverse Senses the Hereticks fixt on it yet it being not a Scriptural but an Ecclesiastical word it must be expounded to that Sense and no other which placed it in the Creed SECT III What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion AND this brings me to a more particular Account of the Homoousion and what the Nicene Fathers understood by it Eusebius Pamphili who at first doubted about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ was of the substance of the Father and consubstantial or of One Substance with him gives an account to his Coesareans of the Reasons which moved him afterwards to subscribe to that Form of Faith as appears by his Letter to them recorded in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History He tells them That he did not admit these words without due examination but when he found there was nothing meant by them but what was truly Catholick and Orthodox he complied for Peace sake For by the Son 's being of his Father's Substance they meant no more than