Christ-Church It cannot be denied that could they but prevaricate they might pass for as Orthodox and as sound Trinitarians as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calumniators their Faith concerning God is the same both for Sense and Terms but the Professor though a real Unitarian and only a Nominal Trinitarian can asperse Socinus they on the contrary see no reason to disclaim their Friends and Partisans Other Nominals soar high they explain their Trinity after a very peculiar and surprizing manner The Father say they is the Fountain of the Deity the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons he is original Mind and Wisdom who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections and also Willed that is Loved himself in a most perfect manner No one will doubt say they that God always or from all Eternity perfectly understood himself and 't is Natural and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding to Will or Love himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings 't is the first Affection of such Beings and adheres inseparably to them But seeing whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood therefore the Father as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image because thus conceived and as it were generated by him is called the Son 't is also called the Wisdom of God his reflex Wisdom because 't is the Wisdom that resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections As God understandeth he Willeth also or Loveth himself this second Act or God's Loving himself is the Holy Spirit or third Person as understanding himself or the reflex Wisdom of original Mind and Wisdom was the second Person of the Trinity To understand one self and to love or will one self in created and finite Beings are but only Acts of the Vnderstanding and Will but in God we call them Persons Though nothing can be more ridiculous than this account of a Trinity yet to purchase their quiet the Socinians are content to wear a strange and odd Badg For Peace-sake they will say with our Holy Mother the Church Understanding or reflex Wisdom is a Person and Love another Person and these two with original Wisdom shall be called a Trinity Indeed we could wish that so grave a Matron as the Church would leave off Trifling but seeing for the main of it the thing is true for 't is true that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom and he Vnderstandeth and Willeth himself we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things The Church requires us to say Father Son and Spirit Trinity three Divine Persons but she declares at the same time that the meaning only is God or original Mind Vnderstandeth and Loveth himself it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother about a few uncouth or ill-chose Terms and Words on which she confessedly puts a sober meaning a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God or that there is in truth but one subsisting Divine Person Well here are two Explications of the Trinity by the Nominals The first saith the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation Redemption and Sanctification or God considered as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the World or of Mankind The other saith the second and third Persons of the Trinity are indeed three Acts of God but they are internal Acts even his Understanding and Loving himself So that the whole Trinity is original Mind or the subsisting Person of the Father Knowing and Willing himself so these two Parties But another Division of the Nominals tell us the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God whether External or Internal but they are three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power say they are that Trinity which the Church teaches and she teaches no other But then say I 't is evident again that the Church and the Socinians are well agreed for the latter no less than the former believe this Trinity and the only Hereticks in these Questions are the Real Trinitarians who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons three distinct Spirits three Almighty All-knowing Beings But they are not very many tho they are Learned Men that speak after these manners the School-men and the Divines that follow them and who more properly are the Nominal Party deliver themselves in other Terms though in the main in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians all the Divisions of them perfectly agree Because we litigate in the English Tongue and contest these Questions only with English Writers it will be fit to represent the Doctrine of the Schools or the Party which I said are more properly it may be the Nominal Trinitarians out of the late Books of Dr. S th against Dr. Sherlock They teach that God or the Trinity is one Numerical self-same Spiritual and Divine Substance one only Spirit one solitary Being And though he is three Persons by which what they mean we shall see presently there is in the whole Trinty but one infinite Vnderstanding one soveraign Will one almighty Energy or Power of Action in Number This one Divine inteltectual Substance or really subsisting Person is at it were distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation their Relation is not somewhat consequent upon or supervenient to their Subsistence as in created Persons but is one and the same with it These relative Modes being three in Number are the three Personalities of the Deity but the concrete and abstract Terms namely Personalities and Persons are but only different ways of expressing the same thing And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the Godhead by Relations relative Subsistences relative Modes relative Properties or such like So we say also that every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative that is that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person so that as we have but now said both Persons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations or relative Properties of the one self-same Divine Substance Being or Spirit These three relative Modes Relations or relative Properties in the Divine Substance or Godhead are Innascibility or Paternity passive Generation and passive Spiration in plainer English to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or be Breathed the first maketh the Person of the Father the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit This is the Sum of what Doctor S th saith in his last Book or Tritheism Charged pag. 156 157. Mr. Hooker Author of the
Ecclesiastical Policy expresses this Doctrine though not so fully yet more intelligibly to the Unlearned in these words The Substance of God with this property to be of none doth make the Person of the Father the very self-same Substance in Number with this property to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son the same Substance having added to it the property of proceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God which is one and also that Property which causeth the same Person that is to say the Divine Substance with one of the three Properties before said as suppose the Property to be of none really and truly to differ from the other two That is to differ from the Divine Substance considered under the Properties to be of the Father and to proceed from the Father and Son Mr. Hooker then as well as Dr. S th understood the Doctrine of the Schools and Church concerning the Trinity to be this That there is but one infinite intellectual Divine Substance in Number which Substance is the Subject if we may so speak of sundry Divine Attributes such as Omnipotence perfect Goodness consummate Holiness and the rest none of which Attributes is more than once in the Divine Substance or Godhead there is in God but one Omniscience one Omnipotence one Holiness one Goodness in number as the Nature or Substance is but one in number so each Attribute is but once not thrice in the Nature or Godhead But then besides these Attributes there are also three Persons in God not subsisting Persons for that would plainly make three Beings three Spirits and three Gods but three such Persons as in very Deed are but so many Properties or Modes or if you will give them any the like Name Such Properties as Grammarians and Classical Authors and after them Metaphysicians call Persons for according to them a Father is a Person a Son is a Person a Sanctifier is a Person and whosoever sustains these three Relations or any other the like is by them called three Persons Thus for example M. Tullius acknowledges in every Man no less than four Persons namely first The rational Nature by which we differ from Brutes next the particular Properties of Body and Mind which distinguish one rational Nature or Man from another thirdly the circumstance or manner of Life of each Man as that he is a Rich Man or a Poor lastly The Profession that any one takes up as to be a Civilian a Professor in Philosophy a Pleader a Poet or Writer to the Stage De Officiis l. 2. c. 30 32. A Person then in grammatical critical speaking is not a subsisting Being but some either characterizing Property or some Relation or State of a subsisting intellectual Being and it is of Persons critically so called that the Church would be understood when she says there are three Persons in God she doth not mean three subsisting Persons or Persons who are called Persons because they are so many intellectual Beings Dr. S th very well understood the Doctrine of the Schools when he notes that the three Divine Persons are three relative Subsistences but so saith he that their Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation that is they are meer States Modes or Relations which in a sense subsist in the Divine Substance Nature or Godhead Which indeed is to say God is three Persons as any particular Man may be three Persons for the same Man may be a Father a Son and may proceed from two others namely from Father and Mother And though this is not the very manner of God's being three Persons yet the ternary Personality in God is sounded on the same Notion and Conception of the word Persons and that Conception no more destroys his real Unity whether as a Being as a Spirit or as God than that three-fold Personality in a Man makes him to be more than one Man or than one subsisting Person The short is according to these Gentlemen God is but one subsisting or real Person but this one physical Person having three internal Relations is thereby three relative Persons three such Persons as one Man or one Angel who happens to have three Relations is The three relative Persons no more contradict the Unity of God than the theeefold Relation of Solomon namely as Son of David as Father of Rehoboam and as proceeding from David and Bathsheba contradicts his being but one Man or one subsisting and physical Person It is well known what Judgment the Real Vnitarians make of this Explication of the Trinity Mr. How because he delights to be civil contents himself to say the Real Trinitarians will judg it is not Sense View of the Considerations pag. 50. The Bishop of Gloc. thinks it can have little better Success than only to make sport for the Socinians so he concludes his 28 Propositions in his 2d Defence of them But Dr. Cudworth cries 't is the Philosophy of Gotham Nay Mr. How himself though out of regard to so great a Party as the Nominal Trinitarians are he will only say of their Explication 't is not Sense yet he reckons P. Lombard the supposed Parent of this Explication of the Trinity one of the four Evangelists of Anti-Christ Dr. Bull also and the Learned Author Mr. J. B. of the Answer to Dr. S th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock say a great many bitter things of the Divines of the Schools by occasion of this senseless Explication of the Trinity These Gentlemen cannot bear it that the same intellectual Substance in number which is but only to say the same numerical Person should be made to be three Persons because of three pretended internal Relations or a threefold Relation to himself which he is absurdly feigned to sustain They confess that the same intellectual Substance or subsisting Person may be a Father and Son and may proceed from another or others but then these must be external not internal Relations that is he cannot be Father and Son to himself as is implied in the Scholastick Explication because it supposes this Father Son and Proceeder are really but one subsisting or physical Person though they are three and may be 300 Critical or Metaphysical Persons If the Schools and Nominals said God is three Persons because of three external Relations that is three Relations to his Creatures this might be understood because the same Man may have three Relations to others and is on that account called by Classical Writers three Persons though now and in the English Tongue that Sense of the word Persons is quite out of Use But to talk of three internal Relations or that the same intellectual Substance which is to say the same subsisting or physical Person is Unbegotten and Begotten is of none and yet proceeds from two to make him a Father and a Son when there is none but himself to whom he is either way so
after all probably the Reformers would have come off no better than the Socinians have done that is with all the clear Truth they have of their side and all their Dexterity and Wit in managing it being over-powered by the numbers of the contrary Herd they should have been answered with Penal Laws and Sanguinary Prosecutions of the those Laws They took therefore a Course that would do their Business unperceived by the most and when perceived by some few it would not be hard to convict them of Tritheism and explode them as Tritheists and so de facto they served Abbat Joachim And then getting their Explication of the Trinity confirmed by the Council of Lateran they happily restored the publick Profession and Faith of the Unity of God by an Authority which none dares to contradict for a General Council as was before noted is the highest Court of the Church that last Tribunal on Earth from which there lies no Appeal Of the Noetians and Sabellians THERE is yet another Branch of Nominal Trinitarians more antient far than those yet mentioned for about the Year of Christ 200 the Noetians and but a little after them the Sabellians arose both these said there is but one Divine Substance Essence or Nature and as the Substance of the Father Son and Spiirt is numerically One so consequently said they there is but one Person of God Father Son and Spirit are but only three Names of God given to him in Scripture by occasion of so many several Dispensations towards the Creature For in regard of the Creation God is called the Father he is named the Son as he wrought Miracles and accomplished the whole Work of Man's Redemption by the Lord Christ in whom he dwelt after a peculiar and extraordinary manner and who indeed was the Son of God by miraculous Conception in the Womb of Holy Mary He has the Name of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit from his omnipotent Energy or Power by which he effecteth all things In a word the Noetians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without Him he may be called as the Modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons the one subsisting Person of God sustaineth the three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons or Persons in a Classical critical Sense And this too is the Explication of the Trinity by that Party in the first Nicene Council who contrived the word Homo-usios or Consubstantial by which they meant that the three Divine Persons have all the same Substance and this is the Party which after the breaking up of that famous Council and upon the sudden Prevalence of the Arian Faction were persecuted by the Arians and were considered by all others as the true Nicene Party till about the Year of Christ 380 the Realists obtained that it should be said that God is tres Hypostases three subsisting Persons Indeed there are several Comma's in the Nicene Creed very hardly reconcilable to the Sabellian Doctrine but as there were three powerful and almost equal Parties in the Nicene Council the Arian Party the Realists and the Sabellians the latter thought it enough if they could procure Homo-usios consubstantial to be inserted into the Creed For that ambiguous Word may be interpreted in favour of all those Parties It may be interpreted the same Substance the very same or same in Number and so it establishes the Sabellian Doctrine or the same in Kind and all Properties and so it countenances the Realists or it may be understood of like Substance and so it pleases the Ariani molles the moderate Arians tho the rigid Arians in the Council would by no means admit of it they rather chose to lose their Bishopricks But when the Council was broke up it was perceived by the other Parties that the zealous Assertors of Homo-usios of the same Substance were all of them Sabellians believed that God is but one subsisting Person and therefore destroyed the real Existence of the Son whom the Arians as well as the Realists took to be a subsisting Person not a relative Person a Respect or a Name only And as the Arians discovered that the Homo-usians were indeed Sabellians so these latter charged the Arians and Realists as guilty of a manifest Tritheism because they so interpreted Homo-usios as to make Father Son and Spirit to be distinct intellectual Substances or subsisting Persons Let us hear their own Historian Socrates L. 1. c. 23. After the Council the Bishops wrangled about the word Homo-usios Those that were for it were censured by the contrary Party as Sabellians and were called Impious because they destroyed the real Existence of the Son Those that were against it were condemned by such as were for it as reviving Gentilism or the belief of more Gods And this Truth that Sabellianism was then taken to be the Nicene Doctrine or the same with the Doctrine of Consubstantiality is owned by the Learned Critick H. Valesius in his Notes on Sacrates L. 1. c. 24. For whereas the Historian saith That Cyrus Bishop of Berea was deposed for holding the Sabellian Doctrine Valesius notes hereupon in these words that is for the Doctrine of the Consubstantiality or the Doctrine of the Nicene Council which Council brought in the Homo-usiotes or Consubstantiality The Sum of what has been said concerning the Nominals THESE at length are the Divisions of the Nominals They all agree that the three Persons of God are not subsisting Persons they are not so many distinct Lives Understandings Wills or Energies which together with a particular Substance make a subsisting Person and if they are more than one they make so many physical real or subsisting Persons no they are Persons in a quite different Sense from that vulgar acceptation of the word Persons They are either three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power Or three external Acts Creation Redemption and Sanctification Or two internal Acts of the subsisting Person of the Father that is to say the Father Vnderstanding and Willing himself and his own Perfections Or three internal Relations that is three Relations of God to himself namely the Divine Substance or Godhead considered as Unbegotten and Proceeding Or three Names of God ascribed to him by the Holy Scriptures because he is the Father of all things by Creation and because he did Inhabit and Operate after an extraordinary and miraculous manner in the Person of the Man Christ Jesus who was verily the Son of God by his wonderful manner of Conception and last of all because he effecteth all things more especially our Sanctification by his Spirit which is to say his Energy or Power Every one sees these are very crude Conceits to be dignified with the Name of Mysteries but withal the Reader is to know that the Mystery is still behind For the Mystery lies not here that one subsisting Person is
made to be three Relative Persons or three Names or three Attributes or that God is called Father because he Created all things Son because he Inhabited and Operated in the Son our Lord Christ or Spirit because he is that Almighty Energy which effected all things for all this though very harsh and improper is yet intelligible and the manner of speaking in Antient Times did warrant such ways of expressing themselves as may be seen in the Classical Authors both Romans and Greeks But it is Mystery because or as when you apply any of these Explications of the Trinity to the Incarnation the Hypostatical Union or the Satisfaction 't is next to impossible to make any degree of Sense of it for how can we say that an Attribute or a Property or a Name or to be Begotten or any such like was Incarnate or Satisfied for Sin as also because the Terms Generation and Procession cannot without most remote and ridiculous Subtleties be applied to three Attributes or to Understanding and Willing ones self or to the same Unbegotten and unproceeding Substance or to Creation and Redemption and Sanctification In short our poor Brethren the Nominals are here purely constrained and forced to call their Doctrine Mystery because 't is so hard to find a way to reconcile it to the ordinary Forms of speaking that is to common Sense Therefore here the Realists glory over them here they have an ample Field for Wit and Sarcasm to parade in here they ask the Nominals an hundred malevolent pleasant Questions to which they answer by objecting Profaness to the Questionists and by the serious word Mystery Moreover they the Nominals comfort themselves that the whole Mystery or Absurdity of their Doctrine consists only in the Terms Trinity c. which they are forced to retain to preserve the Church's Peace not in the Sense or thing intended for the meaning and Sum of their Doctrine as they explain it is there is but one Divine subsisting Person not more such Persons for that were to say more Gods Besides after all the dry Bobs of the Realists on the Nominals themselves must take their turn of being jeered For when their Explications come to be examined and their Contradictions to and Comdemnations of one another as Tritheists are considered the Nominals will seem to be profound Philosophers deep Sages in comparison with these their Opposers and these Opposers the Realists such awkward uncouth Rusticks that a great deal of Charity or Discretion must be used within ones self to be civil to them But I shall not consider their Persons or Doctrine as the Nominals do neither with Railery nor Anger as the manner now is but only as desirous to convince them that they have as causlesly departed from the Doctrine of the Church as dangerously Of the Realists that they are divided into two Factions which comdemn each the other of manifest Tritheism THE first Observation to be made on the Real Trinitarians is not only that as has been said they stand Condemned and Anathematiz'd as Hereticks by a General Council and by all the Moderns who are more and more Learned than the Fathers or that they are every day challeng'd and impeached of Tritheism by Learned Men of the Nominal Party and Appeals made to Universities and the Divinity-Chairs against them But they themselves being divided among themselves censure one another as manifest Tritheists They are divided into many Parties but all those Parties are again bandied into two principal Factions that can never be reconciled to one another One of these Factions saith that the three Divine Persons are every way equal namely Co-eternal alike Omnipotent Omniscient and Omnipresent Most of the Fathers after the Year 380 were of this Perswasion because they plainly saw that to ascribe any Perfection or degree of that Perfection to the Father more than to the Son or Spirit is to say in effect that the Father only is true God not the Son or Spirit because whosoever hath not omnimodous Perfection cannot be God And for this reason they affirm and earnestly contend That any one of the three Divine Persons is equal to all the Three the whole Trinity is not greater or more perfectly God than any one of the Trinity is Surely a strange Paradox that one Third should be Equal or Equivalent to the Whole Yet the Modern Realists the most hold this Opinion as well as th Antients did But the more Learned and Ablest of the Moderns detest so much as the Mention of three Equal Divine Persons for what are three Gods say they of three equally Supereminent and All-sufficient subsisting Persons are not three Gods If they are Equal in Dignity and Power as wel as Co-eternal we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods but three such Persons Therefore these Gentlemen suppose that the Son and Spirit are inferiour to the Father in all things but only this that they are Co-eternal with him they are Subordinate to him Dependent on him and are Omnipotent and the rest of the Divine Attributes not ad intra or of themselves but only as he concurs with them to all their Actions Episcopius Instit l. 4. c. 32. and Dr. Cudworth Intellec System pag. 603 604. largely defend this Opinion and condemn those of undeniable Tritheism who make the Son and Spirit to be equal to the Father But to know the Writers who believe the equality of the Son and Spirit with the Father from those that deny it this Rule most commonly will serve They that say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of himself and Independent generally hold the absolute Equality of all the three Persons and that one Person of the Trinity is equal to the whole Trinity for if he were not they plainly see he could not be perfect God for something would be wanting to him that is found in the whole Trinity But those that deny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more commonly make the Son and Spirit subordinate to the Father not only in Dignity but in all other Respects but these though they ground themselves on the Authority of the Nicene Creed which in direct opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God of himself affirms the Son is God of God that is God of or from the Father seldom care to speak plain that they may avoid giving Offence Let us consider the Arguments with which these two Factions of Realists attack one another and what effectual use the Nominals make of those very Arguments to ridicule and destroy both Parties and their common Principle or Foundation namely this that the Divine Persons are subsisting Persons not Persons but only critically so called By what Arguments the Parties of Realists attack and oppose each the other and what effectual Vse the Nominals make of this Contention FIRST say they who affirm the Equality if the Son and Spirit are Subordinate in Dignity and Authority and inferior in Power and other Divine Attributes it
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