except Innascibility or the property of being unbegotten which notifies not a difference of Essence or a different essential Dignity but a personal Property even as Adam being unbegotten for he was immediately formed by God and Seth begotten for he was the Son of Adam and Eve proceeding out of the side of Adam for she was not begotten differ not in Nature for they are all Men or human Persons but in a distinct personal Property These words need no Comment Seth's Birth and Eve's Procession of the Rib of Adam are not their Personalities not their Modes of Subsistence but their personal Properties not that which constituted them Persons but that which distinguished them in our Conception one from another that which constituted them distinct Persons one from another Besides the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not of it self capable of any other Interpretation to be unbegotten a negation See Ch. 2. n. 10. can never be the Father's Mode of Subsistence his Personality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Animadverter is a term not importing in it any positive Relation but only a meer Negation of all Producibility by any superior Principle Anim. c. p. 248. This term therefore cannot signifie causally and consequently not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here stiled contrary to the Animadverter's Observation I acknowledge to the Animadverter that every Person Ibid p. 250 251. and consequently the Divine Persons are formally constituted such by a Mode of Subsistence or what we are obliged to conceive of as a Mode of Subsistence that is each distinct Person has a distinct Mode of Subsistence and the three Divine Persons have in our Conception three distinct Modes of Subsistence Nay I will add further that I believe that no Man who understands the meaning of the term Hypostasis and uses it without Aequivocation will or can deny any part of this The Reverend Dean expresly acknowledges this truth A Beast is a Suppositum Vind. of the Trinity p. 262. that is a distinct living subsisting Being by it self But I do here deny to the Animadverter that the Ancient Fathers did ever assert that the Divine Relations were in this proper formal Sense Modes of Subsistence or that That Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to the Divine Relations and much more when applied to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was by them understood in the proper formal Sense of which we are now enquiring Secondly If the Animadverter could get over the first Difficulty Anim. c. p. 120. he would find a second behind how one simple Being which is the Animadverter's Hypothesis of the Trinity can have three Modes of Subsistence The whole School of the Thomists and Scotists assert an absolute essential Subsistence and consequently one Subsistence of the whole Trinity they esteem the three Divine Persons to be unum subsistens unum suppositum aut personam incompletam says Cajetan one of the most famous Commentators upon Aquinas to which Suarez only replies Suarez de incar q 3. Act. 1. disp 11. S. 5. p. 285. Cavendus est hic loquendi modus utpote alienus à modo loquendi conciliorum Patrum Theologorum that is have a care lest Hereticks hear us and take advantage at such a novel Expression otherwise Suarez finds no fault with the Doctrine and indeed to say That Existence or Subsistence by it self is Relative is a contradiction to the very Phrase Subsistence by it self denies all relation to any other So that according to the Thomists and Scotists the three Personalities are not three Modes of Subsistence not three Subsistences but one essential absolute Subsistence with three Relations or three relative Modes or three Modes of Incommunicability But of this I have already spoke Chap. 1. n. 11 12 13. Thirdly To allot three Subsistences to the God-head is to contradict the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Properties are not Names of the Essence of the God-head but of the Persons The God head does not properly subsist but the Divine Persons subsist Cajetan may inform the Animadverter what is the consequence of ascribing Subsistence to the God-head even the same with calling it a suppositum or incompleat Person where the term incompleat is only added to avoid the grossness of the Phrase otherwise they ascribe all the Divine Acts to this unum subsistens unum suppositum and call them essential Acts whereas the Notion of Philosophers is that actiones non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attribuuntur that Actions ought not to be attributed to the Nature but to the Person endowed with such Nature The Person is the principium quod Nature only the principium quo the power by which the Person acteth The School-men retain in words the personal Acts of the Divine Persons that Generation is the personal Act of the Father Incarnation the personal Act of the Son Sanctification the personal Act of the Holy Spirit Active Spiration the personal Act of the Father and Son But these are meer words Generation according to the School-men is the reflex Act of the Divine Understanding whereby it knows it self and this singular individual Act they ascribe in common to Father Son and Holy Ghost So every thing that is an Act in Incarnation is according to them the Act of the whole Trinity they pretend indeed that the same singular reflex Act of the Divine Understanding only generates as it proceeds from the Person of the Father and that the Incarnation is only terminated upon the Person of the Son But what Pretence to invent for Sanctification I do not find that they are yet agreed The sacred Scriptures give Sanctification for the distinguishing Character of the third Person he is so called in the very Form of Baptism to deny this distinguishing Character was Sabellianism to the Ancients Yet this the School-men have undeniably done in the Act of Sanctification The Maxim of the Ancients was that Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa They have not only misconstrued indivisa for confusa but in reality left out the Exception ad extra and confounded the Actions ad intra as well as those ad extra So Spiration to the School-men is that Act of the Divine Will whereby it loves it self and this singular individual Act they also ascribe to the Holy Spirit equally with the Father and the Son Only say they The Divine Will 's loving it self is not Spiration in the Person of the Holy Ghost but only in the Person of the Father and Son How much better is it with the Ancient Fathers to confess these to be inscrutable Mysteries than to expose the sacred Article by such bold and abstruse Definitions and yet these are the Gentlemen whom the Animadverter commends for venturing little for preceding upon the surest grounds of Reason and Scripture Again Sanctification which the divinely inspired Writings give us as the peculiar
THE DOCTRINE OF THE Fathers and Schools CONSIDER'D Concerning the ARTICLES of A TRINITY of Divine Persons AND The UNITY of GOD. In ANSWER to the Animadversions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY IN Defence of those Sacred ARTICLES Against the Objections of the SOCINIANS and the Misrepresentations of the ANIMADVERTER PART the First By J. B. A. M. Presbyter of the Church of England LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet M.DC.XCV A Preface to the READER Concerning TRITHEISM Charg'd c. HAsty Births commonly are imperfect If so I have reason to fear the Imperfections of the following Papers which come out without the Second and most Essential Part concerning the Vnity of God My distance from the Press denies me the Priviledge of Correcting one single Sheet with my own Eyes or indeed of comparing them since their Printing with my own Copy Since the Printing of more than half the following Papers a Second Part of the Animadversions came to my hands under this Title viz. Tritheism charged upon Dr. Sherlock 's New Notion of the Trinity c. By the Contents I presently saw that the Animadverter had resumed the Debate I first consulted those Places which I judged most nearly to concern me and since read over the whole I was sorrowful that the Press was so far gone and in so much haste to finish by the end of this Term that I could not add an Appendix to those few things which the Animadverter has added However I was on the other hand pleased that as yet I found no reason to recant one sentence of what I had advanced in my Answer to the Animadversions The Debate betwixt the Reverend Dean and the Animadverter as the Animadverter often states it is concerning the Truth of these Three Articles 1st Whether Self-Consciousness be the formal reason of Personality in Finite and Infinite Persons 2dly Whether Mutual-Consciousness be the formal reason of Vnity of Nature in the Divine Persons 3dly Whether the Three Divine Persons may in an Orthodox Sense be stiled Three Infinite Minds The Animadverter resolves these Three Enquiries in the Negative and charges the Affirmative upon the Reverend Dean I agree with the Animadverter that the two former ought to be resolved Negatively I further declare my opinion That the Reverend Dean never intended the Affirmative Solution of those Questions in a strict and rigorous sense of the Terms so that I am not directly concerned in that part of the Dispute Though in my Passage I could not forbear noting 1st That this Assertion of the Animadverter's See chap. 3. n. 2. viz. That Self-Consciousness is a Personal Act does in its just consequence infer That the Divine Persons are Three Absolute Persons Three Absolute Beings nay according to his Principles that they have Three Absolute Omnisciencies or Divine Natures and consequently are Three Infinite Spirits in an higher sense than ever the Reverend Dean intended and this Consequence I still challenge him to clear that Assertion from if he can See chap. 3. n. 3 4. Secondly That the same Argument which himself calls a Demonstration against what he supposed the Reverend Dean's Assertion viz. That Self-Consciousness could not be the formal reason of Personality because it was a Personal Act was equally strong against his own Hypothesis viz. That Generation was the formal reason of Personality in the Person of the Father and this still stands unanswered and upon the Animadverter's Principles is I am satisfied unanswerable See chap. 2. n. 4 c. Thirdly I discuss at large that Philosophical Question Whether the Soul is a Person which I affirm and leave him at his leisure to overthrow if he can As for that weak Objection Tritheism c. p. 150. That then the Soul may be said to be Incarnate let me tell him that this is an Heretical Arian Sense of this Term Incarnate as if the WORD assumed only a Body and not a Human Soul this Term Incarnate signifies both Fourthly Ibid. chap. 2. n. 4 c. I vindicate the Sacred Article of the Incarnation from the Socinian Objections of the Animadverter which in terminis he brings against the Personality of the Soul only but in reality overthrow the Personality of the WORD had they been of any force Fifthly I explain that Subtilty of the Schools See chap. 3. n. 3 4. concerning the Relativeness of the Divine Persons and shew the Animadverter's Mistakes in this Article the Novelty of this Opinion not asserted as I verily believe by any one single Ecclesiastical Writer for more than a Thousand Years after Christ and give as I am fully satisfied unanswerable Arguments against the Truth of it Sixthly I enquire into that Question See chap. 3. n. 5. Why the Divine Persons are Three and no more and give a just Solution of it from Revelation Seventhly See chap. 3. n. 6. c. I discuss that Important and Fundamental Enquiry in this Mystery viz. What it is which determines the Singularity or Plurality of the Predication of any Attribute concerning the Divine Persons Where I first give the Predications themselves which are to be solved A very necessary matter to be known by all who pretend to give us an Hypothesis to solve the Sacred Mystery of the Trinity To do otherwise is to make a Key for a Lock by the Key-hole only Such a Key is a mere shew 't is Ten thousand to one that it never fits the Wards Secondly I consider the Answers of the Schools and shew their Insufficiency Lastly I endeavour to give the true Solution my self It is very weak to make an Outcry about a single Phrase how unusual soever to charge it in the Title of a Book with the odious name of Tritheism and in a Preface to the Two Vniversities with Paganism with being a New Christianity Determine the General Question first and this latter concerning the Phrase of Three Infinite Minds will be solved of course Chap. 3. n. 2. See chap. 6. n. 20. If Self-Consciousness be a Personal Act if the Term Deus be a terminus communis Both which the Animadverter has affirmed in express Terms then I do here aver and engage to make good against the Animadverter that according to his own Principles he cannot avoid the Charge of Tritheism but he must at the same time clear that expression of the Reverend Dean of Three Infinite Minds from the same severe and unjust Charge For so I am not afraid to call it The Three Divine Persons may be orthodoxly stiled Three Infinite Minds or Spirits I plead not for the Use but the Orthodoxness of the Phrase and this I prove Chap. 4. n. 4. First From the Adjective Form allowed by the Schools viz. Tres Infinitam Spiritualem naturam habentes Ibid. Secondly From the Authority of the Learned Genebrard to whom this Proposition Tres sunt
one Divine Person as Generation is a Personal Act proper and peculiar to the Person of the Father and distinguishes the Father from the Son and Holy Spirit Now Self-consciousness is an Absolute Attribute and upon that account cannot be esteemed Personal by the Schoolmen Self-consciousness is but one conception of Omniscience and will the Animadverter say That the Father has a distinct Personal Omniscience If he does he multiplies Omniscience with the Persons that is he multiplies the Divine Nature in such Person Self-consciousness as well as Mutual Consciousness to the Schoolmen is an Essential Act Father Son and Holy Ghost according to the Schoolmen as they have but one singular Divine Nature so they have but one singular Omniscience but one singular Self-consciousness and one singular Mutual Consciousness Every Act proceeds not only from some Agent but by vertue of some power to produce that Act Therefore a Personal Act must have a Personal Power a Personal principium quo The Personal Act of Generation by the Father supposes a Personal Power to generate peculiar to the Father A Personal Act of Self-consciousness therefore will imply a Personal Power to exert such Act that is a Personal Omniscience or a Personal Divine Nature Not therefore the Phrase of Three Infinite Minds but the asserting that Self-consciousness is a Personal Act does in the Judgment of the Schoolmen unavoidably infer Three Gods The Personality of every One of the Divine Persons is purely and perfectly Relative P. 98. lin 12. N. 3. and therefore nothing Absolute as Self-consciousness is can be the Formal constituent reason of their Personality The Conclusion and Consequence are granted to the Animadverter The Antecedent viz. That the Personality of every one of the Divine Persons is purely and perfectly Relative is also the General Assertion of the Schoolmen as Petavius observes Lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 10. sect 6. Paucissimi quidem è Schola Theologi vel opinati sunt vel probabile judicant personales proprietatès absolutum non-nihil habere à quibus meritò dissentiunt coeteri How universally soever this Conclusion is embraced by the Schoolmen and from them by the Animadverter I can scarce persuade my self that the Animadverter understood the meaning of the very Conclusion this I am sure of That his pretended Arguments to prove this Conclusion are the greatest Objections against the truth of it and that he all along betrays the grossest Ignorance of the Schoolmens meaning I will give the Reader his own words and then examine them And that the Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative to one another and consequently that their Personalities are so many Relations is no less evident from this that two of them relate to one another as Father and Son and the third to both as proceeding from both and it is impossible for one thing to proceed from another especially by a continual act of Procession without importing a relation to that from which it so proceeds so that the very Personal Subsistence implies and carries in it a formal Relation For the Father subsists Personally as a Father by that Eternal Communication of his Nature to his Son which Act as proceeding from him is called Generation and renders him formally a Father and as terminated in the Son is called Filiation and constitutes him formally a Son and in like manner the Holy Ghost subsists personally by that Act of Procession by which he proceeds from and relates to both the Father and the Son So that that proper Mode of Subsistence by which in conjunction with the Divine Essence always included in it each of them is rendred a Person is wholly Relative and so belongs to one of them that it also bears a necessary reference to another From all which it undeniably follows that the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are in the formal Constitution of them Relative to one another and consequently that the Three Personalities by which they become formally Three Persons and are so denominated are Three Eternal Relations The Ancient Fathers confess That the Divine Relations constitute each of them a distinct Person that they enable us to conceive them distinct this therefore is not the question The question is Whether the Relations constitute each of them a Person indefinitely Spiration is a Relative Attribute in the Father relates the Father to the Holy Spirit but yet Spiration is not properly a Personality not properly the subsistential Form but a subsistential or personal Property A little to examine the Animadverter's proofs First The Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative This is too much more than ever any asserted before him A Person in the Blessed Trinity is God an infinite Mind but to be God to be an infinite Mind are confessedly absolute Attributes The Schoolmen say That the Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative in their Personalities that is purely Relative secundum quid or in one Respect The Animadverter turns the Proposition into a simple Affirmation that they are in all Respects purely Relative Secondly The Divine Persons are purely Relative because two of them relate to one another as Father and Son and the third to both The Animadverter knows not the difference betwixt a Relative Person and a Person who sustains a Relation Adam is related to God to Eve to Seth yet none ever stiled Adam a Relative Person The Personality of Adam is not a Relation but a proper Mode of Subsistence which can never be conceived otherwise than Absolute Thirdly The Father subsists personally as a Father This is the question it self and by the Rules of Logick ought to have been proved and not supposed The sole Enquiry is Whether to be a Father and to be a Person or subsist personally be formally the same Paternitas sc Divina rationem fundandi non postulat ut in rerum natura sit nam si aliquam talem fundandi rationem haberet maximè generationem activam Illam autem non respicit ut rationem sui esse sed potius est in suo genere ratio cur ipsa sit In quo etiam Paternitas illa aeterna antecellit omnem aliam Paternitatem quae in coelo in terra nominatur Omnis enim alius Pater ideo est Pater quia generat Pater autem aeternus ideo generat quia per Paternitatem est constitutus in suo esse Personali Suarez lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 8. N. 8. p. 437. Fourthly The Father subsists Personally by an Act of Generation How can a Personal Act which supposes the Person already constituted be the formal Cause of Personality in the same Person The Schoolmen were wiser in their Generation they confess that if the Father is denominated a Father from his Act of Generation it is impossible that the Father's Paternity should be his Mode of Subsistence since it is impossible not to suppose a Person subsisting before we can conceive of him acting The first Person of
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Ghost relating to the Creatures to a temporal Act can never be the Personality of the Holy Ghost but only a personal Property of the third Person of the Blessed Trinity The School-men take shelter in the Term Spirit which of it self is common to the whole Trinity and call the Procession of the Holy Ghost by the Term Spiration But the whole Greek Church believe the Holy Ghost the Spirit of the Son and yet denies the Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and whatever may be said for the pious Credibility of this Article in the Sense of the Western Church yet I find that our greatest Divines Laud Stillingfleet Chillingworth c. have deny'd that this is an Article of Faith or that the Greek Church is guilty of Heresy in denying of it Further from St. Augustin we learn that this Sense of this Term Spiration was unknown to the Latin Church in his time Lib 5. de Tr. cap 11. Ille spiritus sanctus qui non Trinitas sed in Trinitate intelligitur in eo quod propriè dicitur spiritus sanctus relativè dicitur cum ad patrem filium refertur quia spiritus sanctus patris filii spiritus est sed ipsa relatio non apparet in hoc nomine Nor has the Mission of the Divine Persons which to the Ancients was a sacred proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Blessed Trinity fared better in the Exposition of the Schoolmen than the internal personal Acts. According to their Master they affirm that the Son was sent not only by the Father and the Holy Spirit Lib. 1. Sent. Dist 15. which last may be allowed in an improper Sense but also by himself So true is that ancient Observation of Athanasius Athan. graecolat apud comel Tom. 1. p. 516. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They who assert the Trinity to be a Monad with the Animadverter a simple Being will find themselves obliged to adulterate the Divine Mission and Generation The Personalities by which the Deity stands diversify'd into three distinct Persons P. 241. l. ult n. 3. are by the Generality of Divines both Ancient and Modern called and accounted Modes or at least something Analogous to them since no one thing can agree both to God and the Creatures by a perfect Univocation I intreat the Animadverter to inform me where he learnt that new Phrase of a Deity diversified Many have scrupled the Phrase concerning the Divine Persons are afraid of asserting that the Divine Persons differ or are diverse Himself tells us Anim. c. p. 175. that they are distinguished from one another and no more But to tell us of a singular Deity diversify'd which is the Animadverter's Hypothesis is to me new Divinity Secondly The Personalities are called and accounted Modes c. Does the Animadverter know no difference betwixt these two in our treating of God or a Divine Person The former I allow the latter I as positively deny and I find the Animadverter's heart failed him Modes or at least something analogous to Modes I desire the Reader to compare these words with what he lays down p 285. l. 13. That it is equally absurd to deny Modes of Being to belong to God where equally absurd from the foregoing Line is the same with grosly absurd and this explained p. 284. To be a gross Absurdity and no small proof of Ignorance Now this gross Absurdity this no small proof of Ignorance was the Assertion of the Reverend Dean That there are no Accidents or Modes in God Himself allows no Accidents nor do the Reverend Dean's Words in the least deny a Distinction of Modes and Accidents but rather confirm it As to the Animadverter's Distinction of them I have already spoken to it Chap. 1. n. 2 5 c. and shall only repeat that all the new Philosophers despise it and leave him to harangue by himself P. 284. that none of them have any skill in Logicks or Metaphysicks that they are grosly absurd Philosophers and have given no small proof of their Ignorance by such their opinion The same Absurdity the Animadverter lays to the charge of this other Assertion That there are no Modes in God and this the Animadverter will prove both from the manifest Reason of the thing P. 285. and from unquestionable Authority Ibid. n. 4. First for the reason of the thing If Modes of Being should not be allowed in God then I affirm it to be impossible for any distinction and consequently for any Person to be in God This Argument as he has framed it is built upon a mistake in Divinity If we take this term God in a Concrete Sense for habens Deitatem in the singular number there is no Distinction nor any Persons in habente Deitatem See Chap. 4. n. 2. The Argument ought therefore to run thus If Modes of Being should not be allowed in the Trinity then I affirm it to be impossible for any Distinction and consequently for any Persons to be in the Trinity and even thus framed I take it to be the boldest Assertion I ever met with in Divinity Another Person would certainly have worded the Argument thus Then I conceive it to be impossible or it seems to be impossible but this pleases not our positive Animadverter he affirms the thing to be impossible I deny the consequence which the Animadverter proves thus If there be any Distinction in God or the Deity or the Trinity it must be either from some distinct Substance or some Accident or some Mode of Being For I desire Him or any Mortal breathing to assign a fourth thing beside these But it cannot be from any distinct Substance for that would make a manifest Composition in the Divine Nature or Trinity nor yet from any Accident for that would make a worse Composition and therefore it follows That this Distinction must unavoidably proceed from one or more distinct Modes of Being To which I answer briefly That three distinct Substances make no Composition in the Trinity Three distinct Substances make no Composition in a Trinity of Angels Every Plurality is not a Composition but when the Plurality is by way of component Parts But the Father a Divine Person is not a part of God that is the Heresy of Sabellius The Father a Divine Person is perfectly compleatly God An Accident would make a Composition in God because it is impossible that a Divine Person should solely consist of an Accident A Divine Person is certainly a Substance if therefore we add an Accident we compound a Divine Person of Substance and Accident By the same Argument a Mode of Being inferrs a Composition A Divine Person the Father can never be solely a Mode but must consist of Substance and Mode See cap. 1. n. 14. and become a modal compositum as Substance and Accident inferr an accidental compositum Secondly A Mode is in its own Nature
denominates him the particular Person of the Father This last Question is what the Fathers were chiefly concerned in The Noetianists the Patri-Passianists rarely disputed the Personality of Father Son and Holy-Ghost None who understand the meaning of the Term can deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them a proper Person if he acknowledges that each of them is properly God None can imagine that that Being which is God is either an Accident a Part or to please the Animadverter an Adjunct to any other Being Those only deny the Personality who esteem the Son and Holy Spirit that is each of them not properly God but something in God the Personal Word or Wisdom of God the Father or his Personal Power This was the great Controverted Debate Whether the Father Son and Holy Ghost that is whether Each of them was a Distinct Person and consequently whether they were Three Persons Now Paternity say the Ancient Fathers in this sense constituted the Father a distinct Divine Person The Schoolmen change the Question and say That it constituted him a Person In the same sense Filiation according to the Ancients constituted the Son a distinct Person and Procession Sanctification constituted the Holy Spirit a distinct Person from Father and Son This Observation will be of great use to any one who shall read the Ancients concerning the Personality of Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. III. P. 93. N. 1. COnsideration 5. When the terms Cause formal Reason constituent or productive Principle and the like are used about the Divine Nature and Persons they are not to be understood as applicable to them in the strict and proper signification of the said Terms but only by way of Analogy as really meaning no more than a causal or necessary dependance of one Notion or Conceptus Objectivus upon another so that it is impossible for the Mind to conceive distinctly of the one but as depending upon or proceeding from the other Compare this with his first Consideration P. 92. That the natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the universal Reason of things according to which the Conception of one thing presupposes and depends upon the Conception of another makes no Prius or Posterius and yet is by no means to be contradicted or confounded in our discoursing of God This the Animadverter lays down as a Rule to guide our Discourses concerning the Divine Persons To which I answer First That these Considerations contain a direct Heresy the express Heresy of Sabellius Secondly That the Animadverter himself notoriously breaks these Rules even where he ought to have kept them First It is the direct Heresy of Sabellius to assert That there is no Prius and Posterius between the Divine Persons The Compiler of the Athanasian Creed denies a Prius or Posterius in the Trinity in reference to Duration or Time they are all three Co-eternal But to deny a Prius and Posterius in Original is to deny that there is a Father and Son in the Trinity Again it is very pleasant for the Animadverter to tell us That this Prius and Posterius is founded in the Vniversal Reason of things and yet denies it in the Divine Nature As if Universal Reason did not reach infinite as well as finite Nature I suppose he means That there is a natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the particular reason of finite Natures which makes no Prius or Posterius in the infinite Divine Nature And it is as pleasant to hear him telling us That this natural Order of Prius and Posterius must not be contradicted in our discoursing of God when in the very immediate preceding words himself had contradicted it and affirmed that there was no Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature Secondly Himself most shamefully confounds this Natural Order of Prius and Posterius when he asserts p. 98. That the Father is formally constituted a Person by his own personal Act of Generation P. 249. That personal Properties are properly Personalities P. 250. That the Relation and Mode of Subsistence make but one single indivisible Mode of Being Yet says the Animadverter in the next immediate words according to the Natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence as precedent to the Relation For as much as Human Reason considers things simply as subsisting before it can consider them as related to one another The meaning of all this is That these are Rules when he hopes that he can confute the Dean of St. Paul's Self-Consciousness cannot be Subsistence because according to the natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence before the Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal Reason of Personality for as much as it is a Personal Act one property of the Person already constituted These are Demonstrations against the Dean of St. Paul's What pity was it that the Dean of St. Paul's never asserted this once in all his Book for then it would have been allowed the Animadverter that in one single Article he had been too hard for the Dean But why are not these Rules to himself Is not Generation as much a personal Act as Self-Consciousness Is not the Attribute of being a Father one property of a Person already constituted Is not this Relation founded upon and posterior to a personal Act of Generation Can any thing according to human Reason be related before it is I believe the Animadverter in this point must borrow his own words and tell us That his Thoughts and Words can reach no higher Lastly The Animadverter denies a Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature to purpose when he tells us That even Productive Principles when used in reference to the Divine Persons that is Father and Son are not applicable to them in the strict and proper Signification of the said term With his leave the Father is strictly and properly the productive Principle of his Son or else he cannot be strictly and properly the Father of his Son or else he did never strictly and properly beget his Son The Arians deny a proper Generation and assert That the Father is an Adoptive Creative and not Generative Father of his Son The Sabellians on the other hand adulterate both the Divine Generation and Mission and expound them in a figurative improper Sense Against both these Heresies the Church has ever professed a true and proper Generation amongst the Divine Persons P. 94. lin 25. N. 2. Self-Consciousness is a personal Act and therefore Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is and to whom it personally belongs The Consequence I allow the Animadverter I only enquire Why it concludes not against Generation which is as confessedly a Personal Act as Self-consciousness Secondly To affirm that Self-consciousness is a Personal Act is the greatest Heresie to the Schoolmen A Personal Act is an Act proper and peculiar to some