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
necessarily prove them Three in Number as I have already shewn though the Divine Essence the res numerata is but One it being Communicated from Father to Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Ghost Whole of Whole which makes it perfectly one and the same Undivided Undiversified Essence Subsisting Distinctly but not Separately in Three That this is the true Notion both of the Fathers and Schools and all that the wisest Schoolmen meant by the Singularity of the Divine Essence and Nature which they acknowledged to subsist in Tribus Suppositis or Personis whole and entire in Three distinct Persons or Subjects may appear in due time when Men have recovered their Temper so far as to be capable of hearing Reason and of understanding plain Sense But my only design at present is to shew that these Relations in the Ever Blessed Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost Vindicate the Faith of the Trinity from the Imputation of Tritheism Three Gods must signifie Three Absolute Independent Self-originated Dâ—vinities Three such as we acknowledge the Person of the Father to be who is Infinitely Pâ—rfect and is of himself and all the Catholick Fathers acknowledge that Three Fathers would be Three Gods Three such Absolute Beings though equally Perfect and every way alike would be Three Divine Self-originated Natures or Three Individuals of the same specifick Nature that is Three Gods as Three Individuals of Human Nature are Three men But Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three Absolute Divine Natures nor Three Individuals of One specifick Nature but are Three Singulars of One Individual Nature Communicated whole and entire from Father to Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Ghost So that there is but one and the same Divine Nature in all Three and therefore but One Divinity and One God unless one and the same Divine Nature can be Three Gods To number Three each of whom is himself True and Perfect God does not prove Three Gods unless you can multiply and number Natures too for One Divine Nature is but One God but Three Gods must have Three Appropriate and Incommunicable Divine Natures which the very Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost deny in the Christian Trinity There is but One Self-originated Divinity in the Person of the Father and the very Name of Son proves that he is not of himself but has and is all that he has and is from the Father and is all that the Father is Hâ— iâ— Gâ—d â—f Gâ—d now God of God is Another and is True and Perfect God but is not Another God because he receives all from his Father has the same Divine Nature that his Father has has nothing but what his Father has and has all that his Father has Tâ—tus ex Toto Whole of Whole which is but One Undivided Undiversified One Numerical Whole One God This seems to be the true Reason why St. Austin and after him the Schoolmen lay such stress upon the Relations in the Trinity to salve the Unity of the Divine Nature For by Relations the Schools mean Relationes Subsistentes Subsisting Relations or Relatives not Relations without a Subject which St. Austin rejects as absurd For nothing can be Predicated Relatively which has not some Being and Substance of its own to be the foundation of that Relation A Man who is a Master a Man who is a Servant must be a Man or he could not be the Subject of any Relation either of Master or Servant and thus as he adds Father must signifie a positive Being something that he is himself or else there is nothing to sustain a Relation to another and the like must be said of the Son and Spirit Now these Relations in the Trinity of Father Son and Spirit though each of them have the whole Divine Nature and Substance do yet prove that there are not Three Absolute Independent Divinities but only One Divine Nature and Substance As St. Austin speaks of Father and Son utrunque Substantia utrunque Vna Substantia they are both of them Substance and both of them One Substance for the Son must receive his whole Being from his Father and therefore have the same One Nature and Substance that his Father has which proves that a Trinity of Relatives can be but One God because they can have but One Divine Nature in them all But this is beyond my present design Thus I have given a short view of the Catholick Faith of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity We are Bâ—ptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and if we are Christians we must Believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost and we need not believe nor understand any more than what these Names when applied to God do plainly and necessarily signify This I have explained as easily and familiarly as possibly I could that ordinary Christians who are not skilled in School Terms or Subtilties may know what they are to Believe and see the plain Reasons of it This is what all Christians who sincerely Believe a Trinity are agreed in That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature with himself That the Father is God God of himself The Son is God God of God True and Perfect God Begotten of his Father from all Eternity That the Holy Ghost is God True and Perfect God Eternally Proceeding from Father and Son That the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost Father or Son but they are Three truly and really distinct from each other But that Father Son and Holy Ghost have all the same One Divinity Communicated from the Father to the Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit and therefore are but One God All this as I have shewn is necessarily included in the Names and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost which if they be not empty Names but signify any thing real must signify all this And what is there unintelligible in all this Such a Distinction and such an Unity as is signified in the very Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove that God is Three and One If the Father is himself True and Perfect God the Son himself True and Perfect God the Holy Ghost himself True and Perfect God and the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son then there are Three each of whom is in himself True and perfect God and that is a Divine Trinity And if the Father communicates his whole Nature without division or separation to the Son and Father and Son communicate the same whole Nature to the Holy Spirit they are in the most perfect notion One there being one and the same whole entire perfect Divinity in all Three A Whole a Whole and a Whole are Three in number but are but one Identical Nature for a Whole of a
Whole must be the same Whole and in this Unity of Nature consists the Unity of the Godhead I grant a Whole of a Whole is very unconceivable to us and so is the Notion of an Eternal self-originated Being and of Creation to the full as unconceivable as the Eternal Generation of a Whole from a Whole But this is a difficulty in the Notion of an Eternal Generation not of a Trinity in Unity If God begets a Son as the Scripture assures us he has an only begotten Son he must communicate his own Nature to him and besides the Testimony of Scripture That all the Father has is the Son 's his whole Nature and Divinity Reason assures us that God being a pure simple Being without composition or parts if he communicate his Nature to his Son he must communicate it whole and entire without division or separation and if this be so it is certain that Father and Son he who begets and he who is begotten are Two and it is as certain that the same whole Divinity communicated by the Father to the Son is but the same One Divinity and One Divinity though actually subsisting in Three can be but One God not Three Gods It is certain this is the most perfect Unity that can be between Three who are truly and really the same and yet distinct for they can nâ—ver be more One than to be Three Same 's and Three Wholes for the Communication of a Whole may make a Number but cannot distinguish or multiply Nature SECT VI. Concerning the Unity of God BUT our Socinian Adversaries and some who would not be thought Socinians have espoused such a Notion of One God as makes the Faith of a Trinity absolutely irreconcilable with the Faith of One God By One God they mean One who is God but the Faith of the Trinity owns Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God and I grant it is as absolutely impossible to reconcile these two as it is to reconcile Contradictions for to say that there is but One who is God and to say that there are Three each of whom is God is a manifest Contradiction and yet without saying this last we must deny a Trinity It is in vain to think to solve this with Words without Sense If there is but One who is God we must either make Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Names or Modes or Manifestations of the same One Numerical Divine Person which was the ancient exploded anathematized Heresy of Noetus and Sabellius or we must make the Son and Holy Spirit to be mere Creatures if we allow any Personality to them as Arius Macedonius Paulus Samosatenus and such like Hereticks and our Modern Socinians do But we with the Scriptures and the Catholick Church reject this Notion of the Unity of God which is to assert the Unity but to deny a Trinity And because this seems to be so prevailing a Notion at this time I shall shelter my self as well as I can under the Authority of the Catholick Fathers and the Catholick Church That there is but One God was always the Faith of the Catholick Church as appears from all the Ancient Creeds but then they did not believe in One God as One God signifies One Divine Separate Person which is never expressed in any Christian Creed but in One God the Father who has an only begotten Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Unity of the same Godhead There is no Christian Creed which teaches the Belief of One God who is not a Father and if the One God be a Father he must have a Son of his own Nature and Substance and the Son of God consubstantial with God the Father must be God the Son This is what Tertullian tells us That there is One God with his Oeconomy that is with his only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit The Catholick Church so believed in One God as to acknowledge Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is truly and really God as they must necessarily do if they believed a Trinity And upon this account they were charged with Tritheism or with asserting Three Gods because they owned a Trinity of Divine Substantial Persons really distinct from each other each of which is truly and perfectly God So that this is no new Charge against the Asserters of a Real and Substantial Trinity and the Ancient Christians had no regard to it for Tritheism in this Objection signified no more than the Bâ—lief of the Trinity or of Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead which is the true Christian Faith As to shew this briefly In answer to this Objection against the belief of a Real Substantial Trinity from the Unity of God they tell us it is Judaism and Heresy to place the Unity of the Godhead in the Unity of a Person to teach that there is but One Divine Person as there is but One God We may find enough to this purpose in Tertullian against Praxeas and Athanasius against the Sabellians in St. Hilary St. Austin and many others Athanasius commends the Iews for opposing the Polytheism and Idolatry of the Gentiles But then he charges them with as great Impiety themselves in denying the Son of God by whom all things were made and in accusing those of Polytheism who worship the Father by the Son And he exhorts his Readers to separate themselves from those Iudaizers who corrupt Christianity with Iudaism who deny God of God and teach One God in the Iewish Notion of it In which he taxes the Sabellians who taught that the Word of God is like the Word and Wisdom of a Man within him in his Heart and Soul and therefore that God and his Word are but One Person St. Hilary frequently takes notice of this Corruption of the Evangelical Faith as he calls it under the Pious Profession of One God to deny the Only begotten God to deny Christ to be born God or to be True God but only a Powerful Creature thereby to preserve the Faith of One God which they think the Birth of God does overthrow In which he distinctly charges the Sabellians and Arians the first for making God but One Person for fear of introducing a Trinity of Gods with a Trinity of Persons the other for making Christ a mere Creature though the first and most powerful Creature for fear of making a Second God should they have owned him to be God of God of the same Substance with the Father In opposition to this he tells us what the true Faith is which they have learned from Divine Revelation Neither to preach Two Gods nor One Solitary Divine Person for so solus must signify in this place and undertakes to prove both from the Evangelists and Prophets That when we profess our Faith in God the Father and God the Son we must neither own God the Father and God the Son to be One Person as the
not only the Name and Title of God but the Divine Nature and Perfections to more Persons than One. And this is the only Answer that need be given and the best Answer that can be given to this Objection of Tritheism for God knows his own Nature and his own Unity best And it is enough for us to acknowledge God to be One as the Scripture teaches him to be One that is that there is but One God but that this One God has an Eternal only begotten Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Unity of the same Godhead This is the account Tertullian gives us of those Expressions when the Scripture asserts that there is but One God and that there is none besides him For without denying the Son we may truly affirm That there is but One only God whose Son he is For though he has a Son he does not lose his Name of the One and only God when he is named without his Sâ—n and so he is when what is said is appropriated to him as the first persâ—n for in the order of Nature aâ—â— of ouâ— Conceptions the Father is befoâ—â—â—he Son and therefore must be named bâ—â—ore him So that there is but One God the Father and besides him there is no other which does not deny the Son but another God which rejects the multitude of False Gods which the Heathens worshipped but the Son as being inseparably united to him is included in the Unity of the Father's Godhead though not named which as he well observes he could not be without making another God of him Had the Father said There is no other God besides me excepting my Son this had made the Son another God a new separate Divinity and would have been as improper as if the Sun should say There is no other Sun besides me excepting my Rays The Sum of which is this That the Title of the One and only God and besides him there is no other God does in a peculiar manner belong to the Father who is the One only God with his Son and Spirit but this does not exclude the Son or Spirit from being true and perfect God for they are not other Gods from the Father but have the same Divinity and are inseparably â—mited to the Father and therefore are included in the â—â—ity of the Godhead without being named whereas thâ—â—r being named would have excepted them out of the Unity of the Godhead and made other Gods of them And though the Son when he is named alâ—ne is called God this does not make Two Gods because he is God only by his Unity with his Father St. Hilary gives much the same account of it That when the Scripture teaches that there is One God and no other God besides him this does not exclude the Son of God from being true and perfect God because the Son is not another God He being of the same Substance with God the Father God of God and inseparably united to him Another God does not signify another Divine Person but another Divinity another separate and independent Principle and Fountain of Deity And besides this St. Hilary endeavours to prove at large from several Texts of the Old Testament that this very expression of one God and no other besides him is applied not only to the Father but to the Son and is very justly applicable to each of them because each of them have a Personal and Incommunicable Unity The Father is the One God and there is none besides him for he is the only Deus Innascibilis the only God who is God of himself without any Communication of the Divine Nature to him from any other Divine Person The Son is the One God and there is none besides him that is the Deus Vnigenitus the only begotten God and there is no other begotten God but he So that each of them is the One God For between One and One that is One of One there is no Second Nature of the Eternal Dâ—ity I shall not dispute these matters now which will be more proper in another place it is enough at present that we learn from them what Sense these Fathers had concerning the Unity of God viz. That it is not the Unity of a Sâ—ngle Person so as to exclude all other Persons from the Name and Nature of God but a Unity of Nature and Principle That there are not Two different Divinities nor Two Principles of Divinity which have no Communication with each other but that there is One Self-originated Being who communicates his own Nature without Division and Separation to his Eternal Son and by and with his Son to his Eternal Spirit Thus St. Hilary concludes this Dispute That to confess One God but not a solitary God that is not one single solitary Person is the Faith of the Church which confesses the Father in the Son But if out of ignorance of this Heavenly Mystery we pretend that One God signifies One single Divine Person we know not God as not owning the Faith of God in God This is plain sense which every Christian may understand and what every one must believe who wiâ—l be a Christian We must believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son and that each of these Three is in himself as distinguished from the other Two true and perfect God but though they are Three and each of them true and perfect God yet they are not Three Gods because there is but One and the same Divinity in them The same individual numerical Divine Nature being whole perfect undivided in them all originally in the Father by Generation in the Son and by Procession in the Holy Ghost as I have already explained it which is the most perfect Unity we can conceive between Three Wholes or Three each of which have the same whole undivided Nature distinctly in themselves If this will not be allowed to be such a Unity as is included in the Notion of One God that the natural Notion of One God is of One only who is God which is contradictory to the belief of Three each of whom is in himself true and perfect God the answer the Catholick Fathers give to this as I have now shewn ought to satisfy all Christians that this is not the Scripture-notion of One God That there is but One who is God because the same Holy Scriptures which teach us that there is but One God do also teach us that there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead That not only the Father is God as an Infinite Eternal Self-originated Being and upon this account in a peculiar manner called the One and only true God but the Son also is true God and the Holy Ghost true God by the Communication of the same Divine Nature to them Now God knows his own Nature and Unity best and if he declares himself to
fulâ— and adequate Idea of God but yet he knows which of those distinct Ideas he has in his mind are applicable to God and which are not But the present question does not conceâ—n the Idea of God which I hope we are all agreed in That God is a Being infinitely perfect But whether this Name God in the Question of the Trinity signifies only One who is God or One single Divine Person Or Whether this Name and the perfect Idea which belongs to it be applicable distinctly to Three to Father Son and Holy Ghost That each of them is True and Perfect God and neither of them is each other and all Three but One God This had been the true Explication of the Term God as applied to the Doctrine of the Trinity To have told us what is meant by God when this Name is peculiarly attributed to the Person of the Father when it is attributed to each Person distinctly and when it is jointly attributed to them all That Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God â—t is certain all this must be resolved into the same One Divinity which is perfectly in each of them and inseparaâ—ly and indivisibly in them all And the true stating of his matter had been very proper and would have saved all his other Labour And therefore to save me some labour I will briefly tell him how the Catholick Fathers understood it which is the only possible way I know of reconciling these different Expressions When they tell us That the Person of the Father is in an eminent and peculiar manner the One God by this they understand That the Father alone is self-originated and from himself That the Whole Divinity and Godhead is originally his own which he received from no other Which is the first and most natural notion we have of God and of One God When they say That though the Father in this sense be the One God yet the Son also is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost True and Perfect God they ascribe Divinity to the Son and Holy Ghost upon account of the Eternal and Perfect Communication of the Divine Nature to them For he who has the True Divine Nature is True and Perfect God And therefore the Son who is eternally begotten of his Father of the Substance of his Father and is Consubstantial with him is True and Perfect God but God of God and the like may be said of the Holy Spirit who eternally proceeds from Father and Son When they teach That the Trinity is One God they mean by it That the same One Divinity does subsist whole and entire indivisibly and inseparably but yet distinctly in them all as I have already explained it So that the Unity of the Godhead gives an account of all these Expressions Why the Father is said to be the One God and yet that the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God and Father Son and Holy Ghost but One God All this is taught in Scripture and is the Faith of the Catholick Church and I would never desire a better Proof of the Truth and Certainty of any Notion than that it takes in the whole Mystery and answers to every part of it which no other account I have ever yet met with can do SECT V. An Examination of his Notions and Ideas of Unity Distinction Person c. AND now the Sabellian Scene opens apace If the Heresy of Sabellius was That there is but One who is God but One Divine Intelligent Person as well as One Divine Nature this our Considerer expresly owns and does his Endeavour to prove it absolutely impossible that it should be otherwise that is That the Catholick Faith asserted and defended by the Catholick Church against Sabellius is absolutely impossible To explain the word Person he tells us It signifies one of these two things either a particular Intelligent Being or an Office Character or some such complex Notion applicable to such a Being If you would know in which of these senses we must understand the word Person when we say there are Three Persons in the Trinity he tells us plainly That the simple Idea of God can be applied but to One single Person in the first sense of the word Person as it signifies a particular Intelligent Being Nature or Principle And that all the Personal Distinction we can conceive in the Deity must be founded on some accessory Ideas extrinsecal to the Divine Nature a certain Combination of which Ideas makes up the second Notion signified by the word Person And for this he appeals to Natural Sentiments mistaking Heresy for Nature And if we fairly and impartially examine our own Thoughts upon this Subject we shall find That when we name God the Father we conceive the Idea of God so far as we are capable of conceiving it as acting so and so under such respects and relations and when we name God the Son we conceive nothing else but the same Idea of God over again under different relations and so likewise of the Holy Ghost Noetus Praxeas or Sabellius never taught their Heresy in more express words than these And what is to be done now Must we dispute this Point over again with the Considerer and confute a Heresy which has been so early so often and so constantly condemned by the Catholick Church For my part I can pretend to say nothing new which has not long since been much better said by the Catholick Fathers and therefore before we part I shall acquaint him with their Judgment in the Case and leave it to rest on their Authority and Reasons But it may not be amiss to mind this Considerer That he has all the Schoolmen as far as I have heard or had opportunity to consult them as well as the Catholick Fathers against him in his Notion of a Person for they all receive Boetius's Definition That a Person is an Individual Substance of a Rational Nature Or it may be the Authority of Melancthon may be more considerable with him who tells us That the Church in this Article of the Trinity understands by Person an Individual Intelligent Incommunicable Substance And adds That the Ancient Ecclesiastical Writers distinguish between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there is but One Essence or Nature and Three Hypostases that is Three really subsisting not commentitious vanishing confused but distinct particular Intelligent Persons And the Censure he passes upon Servetus upon this score is very remarkable That Fanatical Fellow Servetus plaid with the word Person and contended That in Latin it anciently signified a Dress or Habit or the distinction of an Office as Râ—scius is sometimes said to act the part of Achilles sometimes of Vlysses Or the Person of a Consul is one thing and the Person of a Slave is another as Cicero speaks that it is a great thing to maintain the Character of the Person of a Prince in the Commonwealth And
a Mistake only in Philosophy not in the Traditionary Faith of the Church for which only we alledge his Authority And the Conclusion of this Argument most fully acquaints us what he understood by a Person Whatever says he the Substance of the Word is that I call a Person and to that I give the Name of Son and by acknowledging him the Son I own him to be second to the Father Whoever reads this must confess That Tertullian did believe Father and Son to be Two distinct substantial Persons that though the Son be of the same Substance with the Father as begotten of his Father's Substance yet the Personal Substance of the Father was no more the Personal Substance of the Son than Father and Son were One Person Novatianus who was Cotemporary with St. Cyprian though a Schismatick was charged with no Heresy in this Article and he opposes the Sabellians with the same Arguments and almost in the same words that Tertullian and done before him And tells us particularly That this Divine Word which is the Son of God begotten and born of him is not a mere Sound or Voice like the Word of a Man but that substantial Virtue and Power which proceeds from God A Divine Substance whose Name is the Word Such a Word as is both the Son of God and God God proceeding from God and making a Second Person in the Godhead Epiphanius in opposition to the Heresies of Noetus and Sabellius who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but One Substantial Person affirms over and over That the Father is Substance the Son Substance and the Holy Ghost Substance that is each of them Substance by himself and as distinct in Substance as they are in Person Three Substantial Persons which are not one another nor all the same These Hereticks allowed the Father to be Substance the Son Substance the Holy Ghost Substance but denied them to be Three in Substance but taught that they were but One Substance as they were but One and the same Person Three Names or Three distinct Virtues and Powers of the same One Substance or Person And therefore when in opposition to these men Epiphanius asserts That the Father is Substance the Son Substance and the Holy Ghost Substance he can mean no less but that each of them is as distinctly Substance as he is a Person for to oppose One Substance and One substantial Person you must assert not Three diverse or different Substances but Three as distinct in Substance as they are in Person or Three distinct substantial Persons Epiphanius asserts against these Hereticks That the Son is not the Father but truly and properly a Son begotten of God the Father as to Substance Now a Son which is substantially begotten of the Father and is not the Father must in Substance be distinct from God the Father that is a distinct tho not separate Substance from God the Father Athanasius also is very positive in this That this Divine Word is a Perfect Son of a Perfect Father Being of Being the Image or Character of his Father's Substance not an insubstantial Word but a living Power and the Author of Life to all things not like the Power of a Man which denominates a Man powerful for the Power of Man is not his Offspring or Son whereas this Power of God is his Son that the Father is Perfect Power as the Father of Power and the Son Perfect Power as born of him It were endless to transcribe such Sayings as these out of the Fathers but I cannot miss Athanasius his Argument from those words of our Saviour I am in the Father and the Father in me Now says he the Father is not the Word in the Heart of the Son and therefore neither is the Son the Word in the Heart of the Father but the Living Word begotten eternally of the Living God the Father and being without beginning with the Father insomuch that we cannot conceive the Father ever to have been alone Which attributes as compleat and distinct Personal Subsistence to the Son as to the Father That if the Father who has the Son in himself be a real subsisting Infinite Person the Son who has the whole Father in himself must be as real subsisting Infinite a Person for there is the same reason of both The Answer Athanasius gives to a Sabellian Objection against the substantial Generation and Subsistence of the Word and Son of God is an unanswerable Proof what he thought of this matter The Objection is this That if the Word and Son be truly and substantially begotten this substantial Word must go out of the Father and subsist separately from him Whereas the Word which is in God must be inseparable from him and not appear out of him for how should he appear out of God when God fills all places even Heaven and Earth and therefore there is no place for the Word to subsist in where God is not In answer to this Athanasius first observes what this Objection is levelled against viz. To disprove the true and proper Generation of the Son his Eternal Procession from the Father and Subsistence with the Father that the Father does not compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself nor the Son compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself This is the Faith the Sabellians opposed and which Athanasius defended as the Argument it self will assure us which contradicts no other Notion of Generation or Subsistence but a substantial Generation and a compleat Personal Subsistence of the Word but they could not imagine how the Word should be substantially begotten and compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself in his own Person and Substance distinct from his Father's Subsistence and Person without going out of the Father and subsisting in a separate place from the Father as all Created Births do which opposes nothing but a real substantial Birth and a compleat distinct subsistence of the Word and therefore this is what the Sabellians took for the Catholick Faith and this is what Athanasius defends Who tells them that this is a very ignorant mistake to think that God is circumscribed by place and to conceive the Son in another place and to imagine that the Father and Son must be divided and separated one in this place and another in that if we acknowledge that the Son is begotten of the Father and does appear and subsist by himself distinct from the Father This he proves from Scripture That there is no place that can contain God and therefore we must have no imagination of Place when we think of God the Son and the Holy Spirit That these are false and Atheistical Reasonings That the Omnipresence of God is not a co-extension with all Creatures which is a bodily or kind of Corporeal Omnipresence but his Power holds and contains all things for Power is unbodied and invisible which neither encompasses other things nor is encompassed by them and therefore it is impious to
ask for or to conceive what is the Place of God of the Word or of the Holy Spirit And if a man will deny that the Son is or was begotten because he cannot conceive nor find out the place of his Essence or Substance for the same reason he may deny that there is a Father or that there is a God So that Athanasius acknowledges the Son to be as true and substantial a Son as the Father is a substantial Father and that he does as perfectly and compleatly subsist by himself as the Father does but denies that it hence follows as the Sabellians objected That the Son if he be a distinct substantial Person himself must be divided and parted from the Substance of his Father and that if he subsist distinctly by himself he must subsist in a separate place from his Father that this distinction of Persons and Subsistence cannot be conceived without a Local Separation For he tells them All these Mistakes are owing to Corporeal Imaginations that they conceive of God after the manner of Bodies that because Body cannot generate another without parting and dividing of Substance nor subsist without being in some place nor subsist distinctly without being in distinct and separate places therefore if God beget a Son and this Son subsist distinctly by himself this Son must go out of the Divine Substance and be locally separated from God the Father as a human Son is from his Father whereas the Divine Nature and Substance cannot be divided nor does God subsist in a place and therefore the Son may be substantially begotten of the Father and subsist distinctly by himself without any division of the Divine Substance or separation of place Let us now proceed to a Third sort of these Hereticks who did allow a real and substantial difference between Father Son and Holy Ghost but made God a compound Being but one Person as well as one God and that Father Son and Holy Ghost were the Three Parts of this One God This St. Austin calls Triformis Deus and tells us That these Hereticks did not allow the Father to be Perfect in himself nor the Son Perfect in himself nor the Holy Ghost Perfect in himself that neither of these considered by themselves were Perfect God but that all Three together made one Compleat and Perfect God This all the Catholick Fathers unanimously reject and for the same reasons because there can be no composition in the pure and simple Nature of God and it was the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church That each Person is by himself True and Perfect God not an incompleat Part of the Deity Thus Athanasius warns us against this Heresy which conceives the Trinity like Three Bodily Parts inseparably united to each other which he says is an ungodly reasoning contrary to the Nature of Perfect Unbodied Beings and therefore attributes the Perfection of the Godhead to each Person who are a real Trinity inseparably united in the same Form and Nature That the Father is Perfect Essence and Being without any defect the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit That the Son in the Fulness of the Deity is the Living Word and Perfect Offspring of the Father That the Spirit is the Fulness of the Son not Part of another Being but Whole and Entire in himself That we must conceive them inseparably united to each other but yet Three real subsisting Persons in the same Form and Species which is originally in the Father shines in the Son and is manifested by the Holy Spirit And therefore he adds That he did not compound the Trinity nor force it into a Monad or Unit that is One single Person to preserve the Unity of the Godhead nor conceive of God as of a Man who is compounded of Three Parts Spirit Soul and Body for such a composition cannot belong to a simple Nature This is the constant language of the ancient Writers That the Divine Nature is not compounded of Parts nor is God a compound Being that each Person in the Trinity is a complete and perfect Person and Three complete and perfect Persons cannot be One by Composition as Three incomplete Parts are that each Person by himself is perfect God and perfect Essence though when we unite them and number Three we acknowledge but One perfect God for the Deity is not compounded but in Three each of which is complete and perfect there is One perfect Being without Composition and without Parts that is the same One Divine Nature subsisting distinctly not by Parts or Composition but Whole and Entire in Three Let us now then consider the true state of the Question between these Sabellians and the Catholick Fathers These Hereticks owned at last Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three distinct Substances but not Three substantial Wholes but Three substantial Parts which by their Union and Composition made up One whole intire God The Catholick Fathers join with them so far as to own these Divine Persons to be Three substantial subsisting Persons but reject their Notion of a compounded God or Three Parts of the Deity with the utmost abhorrence and affirm that each Person is by himself entire and perfect God perfect and complete Divine Essence or Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen speaks and that they are not One God by Composition or as One Person is One God but as Three complete and perfect Persons each of which is perfect God can be One God Now I think after this we need not dispute what the Metaphysical Notions of Person and Personality are for a Person in this Sacred Mystery signifies One who is true and perfect God and therefore is whatever God is for the true and perfect definition of God must belong to every Person who is true and perfect God If then we acknowledge God to be Infinite Substance Mind Life Knowledge Power every Person who is God must be all this and if each Person be true and perfect God and yet no One Person is the other nor the Motion Affection or personal Power nor part of the other then each Person is distinctly and by himself complete and perfect God and therefore has distinctly in himself all those Attributes and Perfections which belong to the perfect Notion and Idea of God and to make any Person less than what God is is to make him no God But Athanasius has another Argument against the Sabellian compounded Deity which must put all Compositions of the Deity for ever out of countenance The Scripture assures us that God sends his Son and that the Son sends the Holy Ghost whereas were the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three inseparable Parts of one compounded Deity how could this One God Father Son and Holy Ghost send part of himself and one part of the same One God send another To send and to be sent necessarily supposes Persons really and substantially distinct such as can give and receive and execute Commands who
Peter Iames and Iohn is the very same and therefore there is a specifick Sameness and Unity of Nature between them The Divine Nature in Father Son and Holy Ghost is the same not merely in Notion and Idea but Substantially the same and therefore all the names of a Specifick Sameness and Unity do in a more perfect and excellent manner belong to the Sameness and Unity of the Divine Nature as Subsisting Perfectly Indivisibly and yet Distinctly in Father Son and Holy Ghost And when we speak of the Sameness of the Divine Nature as subsisting distinctly in Three Divine Persons we have no other words to express it by but such as signify a Specifick Unity and we must use such words as we have and qualifie their sense as well as we can As for instance Those words whereby we signify a common specifick Nature which is One and the Same in all the Individuals of the same Species are the best we have to express the Unity of the Divine Nature as common to Three Persons and thus the Catholick Fathers use them without scruple and speak of the Unity of the Divine Nature and of its being common to all the Three Divine Persons in the same Words and Phrases as they use concâ—rning a common specifick Nature Which leads some into a great mistake as if they meant no more by it but a specifick Sameness and Unity of the Divine Nature that Father Son and Holy Ghost have one Substance no otherwise than as Peter Iames and Iohn have one and the same Humane Nature For the Divine Nature is not One merely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in mere Notion and Idea but actually indivisibly inseparably One nor is it a common Nature merely as it has a common Name and Definition but by an actual Inexistence in Three For the same reason it is very difficult what Three to call Father Son and Holy Ghost so as to avoid the Heresies of both Extreams for there is no Example of such Three in Nature They are certainly Three for the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost nor the Son the Father or the Holy Ghost and each of the Three is perfect God and therefore an Infinite Mind an Infinite Spirit and the most Perfect Essence and Substance And that Substance which is the Person of the Son is not that Substance which is the Person of the Father no more than the Person of the Son is the Person of the Father or an unbegotten is a begotten Nature and Substance and therefore in opposition to Sabellius they asserted Three Substantial Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Hypostases or Personal Substances as Hypostasis signifies tria in substantia tres substantias tres res 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet at the same time did assert That there is but One Divine Nature and Substance which indivisibly and inseparably though distinctly subsists in all Three For the understanding of which we must observe That as the Divine Nature which is common to Three is not a mere Species but is really and actually One and the same in all so these Three Divine Persons which have one and the same common Nature are not in a strict and proper notion Individuals of the same common Nature Though we have no Names for these Three but such as signify Individuals as Persons Hypostases Subsistences c. and there being no Created Person Hypostasis or Subsistence but what is an Individual To shew you the difference with respect to the notion of an Individual between the Three Divine Persons and three individual Humane Persons I observe That every Humane Person is such an Individual as has a particular Humane Nature of his own which is not the particular Nature of any other Person the notion and definition of Humane Nature is the same in all men but the same Numerical Humane Nature does not subsist in all but every particular individual man has one particular individual Humane Nature appropriated to himself that is which is his particular Person and as many particular Persons as there are so many particular Humane Natures and particular men there are But now the Divine Persons are not Three such Individuals as these because they have not three individual Divine Natures but the same One Divine Nature common to them all originally in the Father and communicated whole and entire to the Son by an Eternal Generation and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit by an Eternal Procession How impossible soever it is for our finite Understandings to comprehend these Mysteries of the eternal Generation and Procession it is not so hard to conceive the difference between Three Persons who have One individual Nature common to them all but subsisting so distinctly in each of them as to make them Three distinct Persons and Three Persons who have Three Individual Natures of the same Kind and Species As for Instance Three Human Persons which have Three individual Human Natures are by the confession of all Mankind Three Men But could we conceive One individual Human Nature which originally constitutes but One Person to Communicate it self Whole and Entire without Division or Separation to Two other Persons we must acknowledge Three Human Persons each of which Persons is distinctly and by himself True and Perfect Man but not Three Men for Man is a name of Nature and if Persons can be multiplied without multiplying the Nature as we at present suppose there must be Three Human Persons in One individual Human Nature that is Three Persons and One Man but not Three Men no more than Three Human Natures Thus it is with respect to the Divine Nature Were there Three individual Divine Natures Self-originated and Independent on each other though perfectly the same in their Notion and Definition Three such Persons would be as Perfectly Three Gods as Three Human Persons that have Three individual Human Natures are Three Men. But whereas the Scripture teaches and the Catholick Church has always believed there is but One Infinite Self-originated Divine Nature Originally in the Father and by Communication in the Son and Holy Spirit these Three Divine Persons are each of them True and Perfect God but not Three Gods because they have not Three Individual Divine Natures but One Divine Nature subsisting distinctly but Whole and Perfect in them all This I think may give us some Notion of One Numerical Common Nature which is no Species and of Persons which are no Individuals St. Austin shews particularly how improper it is to call the One Divine Essence a Genus and the Three Divine Persons Species or to call the Divine Essence a Species and the Divine Persons Individuals for in both these cases we must multiply the name of Essence with the Species and Individuals as we not only say three Horses but three Animals and as Abraham Isaac and Iacob are three Individuals so they are three Men in consequence of which we must
a Confutation of the Charge of Polytheism against the Faith of the Trinity Gregory Nyssen and Damascen and many others having confuted the Pagan Polytheism or plurality of Gods from the Sameness and Identity of the Divine Nature which can admit of no change or diversity and therefore not of number they immediately proceed to consider the distinction of Persons and Hypostases in the perfect Unity and Simplicity of the Divine Nature in opposition to the Iewish Notion of One God for One Single and Solitary Divine Person And here they undertake to prove by Natural Arguments of which possibly more hereafter that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Divinity must have an Eternal Subsisting Word which is Life Wisdom Power all the same in his own Person that God is but yet another Person For the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divinity is not without its Coeternal Word and Coessential Reason and Wisdom and the same they teach and prove concerning the Eternal Spirit so that they make Father Son and Spirit to be essential to One Divinity not as parts but as perfectly whole and the same in Three distinct Hypostases which they think necessarily included in the Perfection of One Divinity as Reason and Word is essential to a Created Mind This is what they mean by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three Perfect Hypostases not that Three Hypostases are united as it were ex post facto into One Divinity but that One Divinity does subsist Eternally Essentially and Inseparably in Three Hypostases which are necessary to compleat the Notion and Definition of One Divinity Thus it is certain Melanchton understood it and therefore rejects the Definition which Plato gives of God That he is an Eternal Mind the Cause of all Good in the World for though he owns it to be True and Learned when rightly explained yet he says it is defective and must be supplied by the Gospel Revelation That God is a Spiritual Intelligent Essence Eternal True Good Iust Merciful most free of Infinite Power and Wisdom the Eternal Father who from Eternity begat a Son his own Image and the Son the Coeternal Image of the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeding from Father and Son So that the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity is but One Eternal Coessential Divinity that were there more Divinities than One there must of necessity be more Trinities also according to the Doctrine of these Fathers which is evidence enough that this Argument against a plurality of Divinities from the perfect Sameness and Identity of the Divine Nature which can't be multiplied can't concern a Trinity of Real Subsisting Persons in the same One Eternal Undivided Divinity For the same One Divinity is not multiplied by a Trinity of Persons Coeternal and Coessential if this be the Nature and Unity of the Deity to subsist whole and perfectly in Three which was the constant Doctrine of the Fathers and which this Argument don't oppose nay so far from it that it as evidently proves the Unity of the Godhead in a Trinity of Persons as it confutes a Plurality of Godheads and Divinities for if the Sameness and Identity of Nature will not admit of a Plurality of Divinities then if Three are perfectly One and the same in Nature they are but One Divinity One God Thus the Incircumscriptibility or Omnipresence of the Divine Nature is a good Argument against a Plurality of God's or Divinities which must be separated if they be more than One and therefore circumscribed or of a limited and confined presence but it is no Argument against a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of Essence which are all mutually in each other and therefore equally Unconfined and Omnipresent and perfectly One by an Essential and Inseparable Union And are not these Fathers now like to prove very notable Tritheites who prove the impossibility that there should be more Divinities than One and the perfect Unity of the Godhead in a Trinity of Divine Persons from that perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature which is between them But yet for all this Tritheites they are and must be if they acknowledge Father Son and Holy Ghost to be One God in no other sense than Peter Iames and Iohn are one Man that is because they agree in the same common Nature which has the same notion and definition and is upon that account One and the same in all This is what they are charged with and I should not have wondred at it had only some Careless and Unskilful Readers charged them with it for they do say something which at first view may look like it but then such Sayings as manifestly contradict their avowed Doctrine not only in other places of their Writings but in those very Places where these Sayings are found ought in all Reason and Justice to be expounded only by way of Analogy and accommodation as containing some imperfect Image and Resemblance of that which Nature has no proper and adequate Example of This must be allowed in all the Natural Representations which are made by the Catholick Fathers of the Unity and Distinction of the Ever-blessed Trinity or there is not one of them but what literally and Philosophically applied would furnish out some new Heresy This I have already shewn in the Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature which the Nicene Fathers did teach in a qualified Sense though it appears from all I have said in the last and this present Section how far they were from thinking the Divine Nature to be a meer Species or Logical Notion though it has this resemblance to a Species that it is One and Common but not merely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in meer Notion and Idea but by an actual Subsistence and Inexistence in all Three being as perfectly wholly indivisibly the same in all and in each of the Divine Persons as a Specifick Nature is Notionally and Ideally one and the same in every individual of the same kind which as I have made appear is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sameness and Identity of Nature wherein they place the Unity of the Godhead And yet this is the only foundation of the present Charge that they make Father Son and Holy Ghost to be One God only by a Specifick Unity as Three Individuals of the same kind and Species suppose Peter Iames and Iohn are one Man That all this is a mistake is evident because these Fathers do not resolve the Unity of the Godhead into a meer Specifick Unity of Nature and the occasion of this mistake is great Inadvertency as will appear in a very few words Gregory Nyssen is principally charged with this Paradox and in vindicating him I shall vindicate all the rest The Question which Ablabius desired him to resolve was this That since Peter Iames and Iohn though they have but one common Humanity are yet called three Men and no man denies
and the same Essence 3. A Property as when we distinguish the Persons by their Personal Properties Thomas Aquinas and generally the Schools receive and vindicate that Definition which Boetius gives of a Person That it is the Individual Substance of a Rational Nature as I have already observed whereby they expresly tell us that they understand Aristotle's Substantia Prima or a Subsisting Individual St. Austin thought that the Greeks might as well have used Prosopon as Hypostasis for what the Latins called Person and why they rather said Hypostasis he could not tell unless perhaps the Propriety of their Language required it and this was the truth of the Case for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a very ambiguous word taken originally from the Stage as Persona also was and signified that Vizor which was put over the Face to represent the Person whom they intended to act and so was used to signify a mere Appearance and Representation not a Real Subsisting Person and therefore St. Basil tells us That the Sabellians who owned but One Essence and Hypostasis in God yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Scripture represented God under different Personal Appearances sometimes as the Father sometimes as the Son or Holy Spirit and adds That therefore those who affirm that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One in Subject Hypostasis or Suppositum but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three perfect Persons or Prosopa or Appearances justify the Charge of Sabellianism imputed by the Arians to the Catholicks And in another place he tells us That those who say that Essence and Hypostasis are the same are forced to acknowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only different Prosopa oâ— Appearances and while they are afraid to own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Hypostases they relapse into the Sabellian Heresy And therefore Petavius truly observes That though the Catholick Fathers did not scruple the use of this term Prosopon yet they used it in the sense of Hypostasis and the Notion of Hypostasis joined with Prosopon makes up the true Catholick Notion of a Person as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as he says proves that these Persons have not one simple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Suppositum nor are merely different Functions and Energies of the same Individual Being but that the Diversity and Multiplicity is in the Subject it self and that there are Three truly and really distinct and that subsist distinctly This I hope is a sufficient Proof of the first thing proposed That a Divine Person is the Divine Essence and Substance but I added also That it is nothing else and I must speak something briefly to this The absolute Simplicity of the Divine Nature which admits of no kind of Composition neither of Parts nor of Substance and Accident nor of Nature and Suppositum that which has and that which is had is the universal Doctrine both of the Catholick Fathers and Schools as I need not prove and the necessary Consequence of this is That a Divine Person can be nothing else but the Divine Nature Essence and Substance for were a Divine Person the Divine Nature and something else there must be a Composition in the Divine Nature something superadded to it to make it a Person The Unity of the Divine Nature in a Trinity of Persons as I have shewn at large is resolved into the perfect invariable Sâ—meness and Identity of Nature the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Three and therefore each Divine Person must be the whole Divine Nature and Essence and nothing else for otherwise the Divine Essence could not be perfectly one and the same in Three but would be distinguished and multiplied by some new Accidents and Modifications as Human Nature is in distinct Human Persons A Trinity of Persons is a known Objection against the absolute Simplicity of the Divine Nature and the Answer to it is as well known That those Relations which distinguish Persons make no Composition in the Divine Nature and then a Person can be nothing else but the Divine Nature if there be no Composition to make a Person But of this more presently 2 dly The next thing I proposed was this That according to the Doctrine both of Fathers and Schools the Divine Essence and Substance as subsisting distinctly in Three is proper and peculiar to each and incommunicable to one another This is so universally acknowledged by all who own real and substantial Persons that I need say little of it I have produced several express Testimonies already out of the Fathers to this purpose and indeed to say That the Substance of each Person is proper and incommunicable is no more than to say that their Persons are incommunicable that the Father is not and never can be the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Spirit either Father or Son which is what they meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly and appropriately Father and Son that the Father never was nor can be a Son nor the Son a Father Thus their different Characters prove an incommunicable distinction between them The Son is the Image of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Living Substantial Image but the Image tho by an Identity of Nature it is the same with the Prototype yet it is not and never can be the Prototype not imaginale but imaginalis imago as Victorinus Afer speaks not the Person nor Personal Substance of the Father but the express Image of his Person and Substance In Boetius's Definition of a Person by individua substantia the Schools as far as I have observed universally understand incommunicabilis substantia an incommunicable Substance and therefore as I observed before though they assert the Divine Essence to be singularis yet it is singularis communicabilis a communicable Singular but a Person is substantia individua or singularis incommunicabilis a singular incommunicable Substance Now this started a great Difficulty How the Essence and Substance of the Father which is but One can be both communicable and incommunicable The Person of the Father which is his Divine Essence is incommunicable and yet the Father communicates his own Divine Nature and Essence to the Son and Holy Spirit without communicating his Person Of the same Nature is what the Schools teach concerning the Divine Generation and Procession They allow that the Father does truly and properly not metaphorically beget the Son and that the Son is truly and properly begotten and that the Father by Divine Generation communicates the Divine Essence to the Son and that the Son has all that he has from the Father and is all that the Father is excepting that he is not the Father but the Son And yet they will not allow that the Divine Essence either begets or is begotten or proceeds They have a great Authority against them in
in God yet when he begets a Son he neither begets his own Person nor Nature which would be to beget himself which St. Austin and the Schools after him reject as absurd for an Image of God is neither the Person nor the Personal Nature of God but of the same Nature with him and perfectly the same there being no other difference between them but that one is the Prototype the other the Image one the Father the other the Son So that when God of his own whole perfect Substance begets a whole perfect living substantial Image he does not beget himself but another he does not beget his own Nature nor another Nature like his own but his own Image of the same Nature with himself He begets another Person who is as truly and perfectly God as the true perfect living Image of God must be perfect God but he does not in an absolute sense beget God neither se Deum nor alium Deum as the Schools rightly determine neither himself God nor another God for he neither begets his own Essence and Divinity nor another Divinity but another who is the perfect Image of his own Divine Essence And what is here said of the Generation of the Son as the living subsisting Image of God must be applied to the Procession of the Holy Spirit who is the Eternal Spirit of God as the Son is his Image This is what the Catholick Fathers call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that One Divinity in which they place the Unity of God That there is but One Absolute Divinity or Divine Nature which is the Person of the Father who is therefore eminently acknowledged to be the One God as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Divinity that is of the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit which are not two other Absolute Divinities for then they would be two more Gods besides the Father but the Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit is the same One Divinity of the Father as an Eternal Perfect Begotten Living Image and an Eternal Proceeding Spirit each of which is in himself true and perfect God and all Three but One God or One Divinity not merely because they receive their Divinity from God by an Eternal Generation and Procession nor as they have a Divinity or Divine Nature specifically the same with the Father which alone can no more render them One God than Father and Son are One Man but as the singular individual Divinity of the Father is in the Son and Holy Spirit as it is manifest the singular individual Nature of the Prototype is and must be in its living substantial Image without which it is not a Natural Image though it may have a perfect likeness of Nature if it have an absolute Nature of its own This is what Tertullian tells us That there is unus Deus cum oeconomia One God with his Economy and what St. Hilary and others so often tell us That the Father does not cease to be the One God by having a Son since the Son is God by Nativity and Birth and Authoritate Paternoe Naturoe by having his Father's Nature who is the One God And this is all that the Schools mean by the Singularity of the Divine Nature and Essence and it is impossible they should mean any thing else when they teach that this singular Nature is communicable They allow as I have already shewn that Nature and Person is the same that each Person is Suppositum and Substance a singular incommunicable Substance and therefore that there were Three Suppositums and in that sense Three Substances in the Trinity but not Three Natures and Essences though each Person be distinctly by himself the Divine Nature and Essence Now since what is strictly singular is Numerically One and what is Numerically One and never can be more can't be multiplied as that seems to be which is communicated what sense can there possibly be in a singular communicable which seem to be contradictory Terms But this is very good sense and very Catholick Doctrine if we understand this Singular Communicable as the Schools did of One absolute Divinity or Divine Nature which is so singular that it can be but One as is demonstrable by Reason But yet may beget its own essential Image which is not another Divinity or another Nature but it s own singular Nature in its Image which is another Suppositum and Person but not another Nature That this is the Sense of the Schools and all that they meant by the Singularity of the Divine Essence is evident from the whole Doctrine of Relations A Trinity of Proper Real Persons each of which is Nature Essence and Substance was made an Argument against the perfect Unity as well as against the perfect Simplicity of the Divine Nature for Plurality and Unity are opposed to each other To this the Schools answer That a Plurality and Unity of the same kind are indeed opposite to each other and cannot be reconciled as a Plurality of Natures cannot be reconciled with the Unity of Nature nor a Plurality of Persons with the Unity of a Person but a Plurality of Persons and Unity of Nature may be reconciled and thus it is with the Trinity in Unity for though each Divine Person be the Divine Nature and Essence yet Three Divine Persons are not Three Absolute Natures and Essences but Three Relations in One Singular Absolute Nature SECT VIII Concerning the Divine Relations BUT it will be of great use more particularly to consider this Doctrine of Relations without which it is impossible rightly to understand what the Schools teach about a Trinity in Unity And to reduce it into as narrow a compass as I can I shall 1. shew What the Schools mean by Relations in the Divine Nature 2. Why they insist so much upon Relations 1. What they mean by Divine Relations Now they tells us That they are real Relations not made by the Mind from some external Respects and Habitudes which it observes between things but antecedent to all the Acts of Reason in the things themselves That they are not inherent Accidents but Substance and subsisting Relations not relative Names and Appellations but the Relatives themselves the Persons related being the Relations and the Relation the Person which are therefore by some called Substantiae Relativae and Entia Realia Relativa Relative Substances and Real Beings but Relative that is not Absolute Substances and Absolute Beings with a Relation as it is in Creatures where the Son is as Absolute a Man and as Absolute a Person as the Father is though they are related to each other as Father and Son but the very Substance and Person is the Relation Before I shew That this is the Doctrine of the Schools the better to understand what they say and the Reasons of it it will be necessary to give as plain and intelligible an Idea of this as I can especially
Consubstantial Son is a true and real Son for which reason as he observes the Arians would not allow the Son to be Consubstantial because they would not allow him to be a true genuine Son and for this very reason the Nicene Fathers inserted the Homoousion in their Creed But yet if we would rightly conceive of God of Father Son and Holy Ghost of the Unity and Distinction of the Ever Blessed Trinity we must not form our Notions by the Ideas of Substance and Consubstantiality which we have no distinct conceptions of but we must learn their Unity Distinction and Consubstantiality from those Characters the Scripture gives of Father Son and Holy Ghost This Rule St. Ambrose expressly gives us with reference to the Son and the Reason is the same as to the other Divine Persons If we would avoid Error says that Father let us attend to those Characters the Scripture gives us to help us to understand what and who the Son is He is called the Word the Son the Power of God the Wisdom of God all this we can understand and not only St. Ambrose but all the other Catholick Fathers as I have already shewn prove the Consubstantiality Coeternity Coequality Unity and Distinction of Father and Son from these Names and Characters which they understood in a true and proper sense for a Living Subsisting Son and Word and Power and Wisdom and there is no difficulty in conceiving all this if we contemplate it in these Characters nay it is impossible to conceive otherwise of it As impossible as it is to form any notion at all of those Philosophical Terms whereby this Mystery is commonly represented when we abstract them from those sensible Characters and Ideas which the Scripture has given us and begin our Inquiries with them It will be of great use to represent this matter plainly that every man may see what it is that obscures and perplexes the Doctrine of the Trinity and confounds mens notions about it to the great scandal of the Christian Religion and the disturbance of the Christian Church The great difficulty concerns the Unity and Distinction of the Ever Blessed Trinity that they are really and distinctly Three and essentially One And this is represented by One Nature Essence and Substance and Three Hypostases and yet Hypostasis signifies Substance and every Divine Hypostasis is the whole Divine Essence and Substance Now if we immediately contemplate this Mystery under the notion of Substance it is impossible for us to conceive One Substance and Three Hypostases that is in some sense Three Substances or which is all One as to the difficulty of conceiving it though the form of Expression is more Catholick Three each of which is the whole Essence and Substance and neither of them is each other we may turn over our Minds as long as we please and change Words and Phrases but we can find no Idea to answer these or any other words of this nature But now if instead of Essence and Hypostasis we put Mind and its Word we can form a very intelligible notion of this Unity and Distinction and prove that Unity of Substance and Distinction of Hypostases which we cannot immediately and directly form any notion of For Eternal Original Mind and its Living Subsisting Word are certainly Two and neither are nor can be each other the Mind cannot be its own Living Word nor the Word the Mind whose Word it is and yet we must all grant that Eternal Mind is the most Real Being Essence Substance and that a Living Subsisting Word is Life Being Substance and the very same Life and Substance that the Mind is and all that the Mind is for a perfect Living Word can have no other Life and Substance but that of the Mind and must be all the same that the Mind is The Eternal Generation of the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of the Father Life of Life Substance of Substance Whole of Whole is impossible to be conceived as immediately applied to the notion of Substance but the Generation of the Word Whole of Whole is very conceivable for the Mind must beget its own Word as we feel in our selves and a Mind which is perfect Life and Substance if it begets its Word must beget a Living Subsisting Substantial Word the perfect Image of its own Life and Substance And as impossible as it is to conceive much more to express in words this Mystery of the Eternal Generation yet the necessary relation between a Mind and its Word proves that thus it is we feel it in our selves though we are as perfectly ignorant how our Mind begets its dying vanishing Word as how the Eternal Mind begets an Eternal Living Subsisting Word And the Generation of the Word includes in it all the Properties of the Divine Generation that it is Eternal for an Eternal Mind can never be without its Word that it is without any Corporeal Passions or Esslux or Division begotten in the Mind and inseparable from it Now if we conceive after the same manner of the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit can any man deny this to be an Intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Unity though we can form no distinct Idea of One Essence and Substance and Three Hypostases For if we can conceive Father Son and Holy Ghost Eternal Original Mind its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit to be Essentially One and Three the Catholick Faith is secured though we do not so well understand the distinction between those Abstract Metaphysical Terms of Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis especially when applied to the Unity and Distinction of the Eternal Godhead which is above all Terms of Art The Catholick Faith is That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God but yet there are not Three Gods but One God and this the Doctrine of the Divine Relations gives us a very intelligible notion of for we cannot conceive otherwise of the Eternal Mind its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit but that each of them are True and Perfect God and yet a Mind its Word and Spirit can be but One and therefore but One God But One Substance and Three Hypostases is but a secondary notion of a Trinity in Unity to secure the Catholick Faith against the Sabellian and Arian Heresies Against the Sabellians the Catholick Fathers asserted Three Hypostases against the Arians One Substance and the Essential Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove both the One Substance and Three Hypostases but though One Substance and Three Hypostases be the Catholick Language yet those Men begin at the wrong end who think to form an intelligible notion of a Trinity in Unity from these abstract Metaphysical Terms This is not the Language of the Scripture nor have we any Idea to answer these Terms of One Substance in Three distinct Hypostases when we consider them by themselves without relation to the Divine Nature to which alone these
and Son to the Eternal Spirit and all Three are Infinite in Wisdom Power and Goodness and all other Divine Perfections This is but One Divinity One Godhead for there is not a Second and Third Divinity in the Son and in the Holy Spirit but the One Divinity of the Father But yet we must confess that here is Number Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three and how can that Divinity which is perfectly and distinctly in Three be One Individual Nature One Numerically One as Human Nature in every particular Man is One Now this must be resolved into the second Notion of Essential for Essential Productions for all Essential Productions in the Unity of Nature though they may be distinguished and numbred among themselves are but One Individual Nature It will be in vain to seek for an Example of this in Created Nature and I believe the reason of it will be evident without it An Eternal Self-originated Mind is True and Perfect God the First Supreme Cause of all things and has all the Perfections of the Divinity wholly in it self is the One and only True God But if it be essential to an Eternal Mind to have an Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Spirit by an Eternal Generation and Procession then this Eternal Word and Spirit are essential to an Eternal Mind not as Essential Perfections or Essential Parts but as Essential Productions or Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature Thus the Scripture represents this Mystery That there is One God who has an Eternal Word and an Eternal Spirit and the Catholick Fathers as I have already observed insist on this as a natural Demonstration of a Trinity That the Eternal Mind must have its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit Now if the Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit are essential to the Eternal Mind it is certain that Father Son and Holy Ghost the Eternal Mind its Word and Spirit are but One Individual Divinity every thing that is essential is included in the Notion of an Individual Nature for that is not a Compleat and Perfect Nature nor an adequate notion of Nature that wants any thing that is essential Now though we may have a general Notion and Idea of a God That he is an Absolutely Perfect Being which Includes all the Divine Attributes and Perfections without knowing any thing of the Son or Holy Ghost yet if we consider this Absolutely Perfect Being as Eternal Self-originated Mind with its Eternal Word and Spirit as essential Productions or Processions we can consider them no otherwise but as One Individual Divinity this Eternal Word and Spirit being essential Processions of the Eternal Mind which can never be separated from it For such essential Processions are not only coeval and consubstantial with the Nature from whence they proceed as the Sun its Light and Heat by which Argument the Catholick Fathers proved the Coeternity and Consubstantiality of the Son and Holy Spirit with the Eternal Father but whatever distinction there is between them they are One Individual Nature if all that be One Individual Nature which is essential to such a Being and such all essential Processions are as well as essential Perfections These are two very different Questions and of a very different consideration What God is and Who this God is In an answer to the first we form the Idea and Notion of all Divine Perfections or of an absolutely Perfect Being which is the true notion of the Divinity and whoever has all these Divine Perfections is True and Perfect God and this is our natural notion of God as that signifies the Divinity which gives no notice of any distinction in the Divinity for there can be no diversity in Absolute Perfections and therefore no distinction or number according to the Philosophy of the Fathers But when we consider who God is or what is the Subject of all these Divine Perfections we can form no other Idea of it but an Eternal Infinite Self originated Mind this the Wisest Philosophers as well as Christians are agreed in That God is an Infinite Mind and this rightly explained may teach us some distinction in the Divinity for all Men must grant what they feel in themselves that every Mind has its Word and Spirit and cannot be conceived without them and therefore the Eternal Mind must have its Eternal word and Spirit too and the reason why this did not lead all Mankind into the natural belief of a Trinity of Persons Mind Word and Spirit in the Unity of the Godhead was plainly this Because they found that their own Word and Spirit were not permanent subsisting Persons but were the perishing Creatures of the Mind which were no sooner produced but died and vanished as our Thoughts do and thus they conceived it was with the Divine Mind which is one kind of Sabellianism as I observed above But yet the Catholick Fathers thought this natural belief That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Divinity or Divine Mind is not without its Word a very proper Medium to prove a real subsisting Word in the Divinity for an Infinite Perfect Mind which is all Life Being Substance if it begets its own Word as every Mind does must beget a Living Substantial Subsisting Word the perfect Image and Character of its own Life and Infinite Being However thus much I think we must own That since every Mind must have its Word and Spirit in the Individual Unity of its own Nature and the Holy Scripture assures us that God who is the most perfect Mind has his Word and Spirit and that this Divine Word and Spirit is an Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Spirit this is a very good foundation for the belief of a Real Trinity both from Reason and Scripture The natural Notion and Idea of a Mind teaches us this distinction in the Divinity and Natural Reason strongly infers from the perfect Productions of an infinitely perfect Mind that the Divine Word and Spirit must be an Eternal Living Infinite Word and Spirit and the Holy Scripture confirms all this And therefore Scripture and Reason are so far from contradicting each other in this Article that the Belief of the Trinity though it be ultimately resolved into the Authority of Revelation yet has Reason on its side as far as it can judge of such matters Which proves a considerable Authority when the obscure and imperfect Conjectures of Reason are explained and confirmed by Revelation For though the Notion of an absolutely perfect Being which is the Natural Idea of the Divinity teaches no such distinction yet the Idea of an Infinitely Perfect and Self-originated Mind which is as natural a Notion of God does Thus Damascen teaches us to distinguish between the Divinity and in what the Divinity is or to speak more accurately what is the Divinity and that which proceeds eternally from this First Cause that is the Hypostases of the Son and Holy Spirit the first teaches us
and thus a Man begets a Man in his own Nature and Likeness and the Son which is begotten is upon all accounts as much a Man as he who begets and Father and Son are two Men And to beget and to be begotten tho they prove their Persons to be distinct yet are but External Relations not different manners of subsistence in the same Nature And thus God does not beget a Son which would be to beget a Second God For to beget and to be begotten when he who begets begets in an absolute sense all the same that he is himself makes two of the same kind And therefore we must observe That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Personal Character and Property of the Father does not only signify that he has no cause of his Being and Nature but that what he is he is absolutely in himself has an Absolute not a Relative Nature and Subsistence and so consequently the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Personal Property of the Son signifies that his Being and Nature is Relative not only that he receives his Being and Nature from his Father but that he so receives it as to be a Relative Subsistence in his Father's Nature and the like may be said of the Procession of the Holy Ghost As to shew this more particularly God begets a Son his own perfect Image and Likeness but he does not beget his own Absolute Nature in his Son as Man does though he begets his Son of his own Nature and Substance as for instance God is Perfect Absolute Original Mind not only as Original is opposed to what has a Cause and a Beginning but as opposed to an Image but God does not beget an Absolute Original Mind in his Son but only his own Eternal Essential Word which is the Perfect Living Image of Eternal Self-originated Mind and is it self Eternal Infinite Mind in the Eternal Word but is in its own proper Character the Eternal Word of the Eternal Mind not originally an Eternal Mind it self It has all the Perfections of an Eternal Mind as a Perfect Word must of necessity have which is the perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature but it has all these Perfections not as Original Mind but as a Begotten Word which is a different Mode of Subsistence and a sensible distinction between the Eternal Mind and its Word in the perfect Identity of Nature This I take to be a True and Intelligible Account of these different manners of Subsistence which distinguish the Divine Persons in the perfect Unity of Nature that they have all the same Nature and same Perfections but after a different manner which can never be understood in Absolute Natures and Persons for three Men though Father Son and Grandson have all of them Human Nature after the very same manner but in an Absolute Nature and Relative Essential Processions this is to be understood and proves a real distinction and perfect Unity It is evident to all Men that the Mind and its Word are Two and it is as evident that Life Wisdom Knowledge are in Absolute Original Mind after another manner than they are in its Word and yet the very Notion of a Mind and its Word and that Essential Relation that is between them makes it a contradiction to say that any other Life Wisdom Knowledge can be in the Word than what is in the Mind which would be to say That the Word is not the Word of the Mind if it have any thing that is not in the Mind For a Natural Word can have nothing but what is in the Mind and is no farther a Word than it is the Natural Image of the Mind And the like may be said concerning the Holy Spirit which hath all the same Divine Perfections but in a different manner from Original Mind and its Word as eternally proceeding from both This is the Account which the Catholick Fathers give of the Unity of Nature and Distinction of Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity which answers the Objections of our Sabellian Arian and Socinian Adversaries and vindicates those Catholick Forms of Speech which they charge with Tritheism Contradiction and Nonsense As to shew this briefly in one view for each part of it has been sufficiently confirmed already The Catholick Faith teaches us That there is but One God and this is demonstrable from the Doctrine of these Fathers For in this Account I have now given there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Absolute Divinity One Divine Nature and therefore but One God But say our Adversaries One God in Natural Religion and according to the general Sense of Mankind signifies One Person who is God And this also in some sense has always been owned by the Catholick Church That as there is but One Absolute Divinity so the Person of the Father who is this One Absolute Divinity is this One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is but One Person who is God in this Absolute Sense because there is but One Father who as they often speak is the Fountain of the Deity that is of the Divine Processions of the Son and Holy Spirit He is the Whole Absolute Divinity himself and whatever is Divine Eternally and Essentially proceeds from him in the Unity of his own Nature But at this rate what Divinity do we leave for the Son and the Holy Spirit Truly the very same by Eternal Generation and Procession which is originally and absolutely in the Father For it is the Nature of the Father and the Divinity of the Father which is in the Son and Holy Spirit as the Fathers constantly own and as of necessity it must be because there is no other This Eternal Generation and Procession has always been owned as an ineffable Mystery which we must believe upon the Authority of the Scriptures without pretending to know how God begets an Eternal Son or how the Eternal Spirit proceeds from Father and Son which we confess we have no Notion of but we know likewise That this is no reason to reject this Faith no more than it is a reason to reject the belief of an Eternal Self-originated Being because though it be demonstrable That there must be an Eternal First Cause of all things which has no Cause of its own Being but an Eternal necessary Nature yet we can no more conceive this than we can an Eternal Generation and Procession Supposing therefore without disputing that matter at present that God has an Eternal Son that Eternal Self-originated Mind has an Eternal Subsisting Word and an Eternal Spirit it is evident that this Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit must have all the same Perfections of the Eternal Mind must be all that the Eternal Mind is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excepting its being an Absolute Self-originated Mind Now if he be God who has the whole Divine Nature and Perfections then the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God who by Eternal Generation and Procession have that same
own Nature and Godhead each of which is True and Perfect God but not a Second and Third God but the Son of God and the Spirit of God Divine Subsisting Relations in the One Absolute Godhead of the Father which does not multiply the Name nor Nature of God This is the Account the Catholick Fathers give of the Unity of God in a Trinity of Persons and therefore this must be the Catholick Sense of this Proposition And here it will be proper to observe That in the Account they give of the Unity of God that is the Unity in Trinity they indifferently assign One Divinity and One Father as the Reason of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is One God because there is One Divinity and there is One God because there is One Father which are not two different Reasons but one and the same from whence it necessarily follows That this One Divinity is the Divinity of the Father and that this One God in Trinity is the Father for One God must necessarily signify One Person when the Father is the One God So that the Father who is the One Absolute Divinity is the One God who ceases not to be the One God as St. Hilary and others constantly teach by having a Son and Holy Spirit who receive all from him live and subsist in him and are eternally and inseparably One with him Thus we are taught in the Athanasian Creed to worship One God in Trinity that is the Eternal Father who is the One God with his Son and Holy Spirit and the Trinity in Vnity that is Father Son and Holy Ghost not Three Gods but One in the Unity of the Father's Godhead For the Godhead of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one the Glory equal the Majesty Coeternal There is but One Godhead One Glory One Majesty and that is the Godhead Glory and Majesty of the Father and the Son and Spirit are in the Godhead Glory Majesty of the Father as Internal Processions Living Subsisting Relations in the Father's Godhead This Account which I confess is the only Account of this Matter that I can understand whatever other Faults it may have which I do not yet see I 'm sure is perfectly Orthodox is neither Tritheism Sabellianism Arianism nor Socinianism but the True Catholick Faith of a Trinity in Unity Here is but One Absolute Divinity but One Father with his Eternal Son and Spirit in the Unity of his own Nature and Godhead and therefore but One God For Three Gods must be Three Absolute Divinities without any Internal Relation or dependence on each other Internal Relations though Real Subsisting Relations can't multiply Nature and therefore can't multiply Gods Here are Three Real Proper Living Intelligent Substantial Divine Persons and therefore no Sabellianism not One Personal God with three Names Offices Manifestations Modes Powers Parts Here are Three truly Divine Persons each of which is by himself or in his own Person True and Perfect God The Father God of himself Unbegottan Self-originated God the Fountain of the Deity to the Son and Holy Spirit The Son the Son of God and True and Perfect God as the Son of God The Spirit the Spirit of the Father and the Son and True and Perfect God as the Spirit of God So that here is neither Arianism Macedonianism nor Socinianism no Made or Created Nature no Creature in the Ever Blessed Trinity No say our Arian and Socinian Adversaries neither the Son nor the Holy Ghost according to this Hypothesis are True and Perfect God as the Father is Neither of them have Self-existence or a Fecundity of Nature which are thought great Perfections in the Father but the Son is not of himself but begotten of his Father nor is the Spirit of himself but proceeds from Father and Son and neither of them have a Son or Spirit of their own as the Father has All this I readily grant for it is the Catholick Faith that the Father is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so a Father that he never was a Son and the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so a Son that he never was nor can be a Father and so of the Holy Spirit That there is but One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts as the Athanasian Creed teaches This proves indeed as we all own that neither the Son nor Spirit are absolutely God an Absolute Divinity as the Father is but only Divine Processions an Absolute Divinity has a Fecundity of Nature Absolute Original Mind according to this Hypothesis must have its Word and Spirit in the Unity of its Nature but the Word being no Absolute Nature can't beget another Word nor the Spirit another Spirit So that this Objection only delivers us from the Charge of Tritheism by proving Father Son and Holy Ghost to be but One Divinity One God For if the Son were as absolutely God as the Father is there is no account to be given why he should not beget a Son as his Father did him as we see it is among Men where the Son begets a Son and becomes a Father and thus there could be no possible end of Divine Generations but these are Generations ad extra which give as compleat and absolute a Nature and absolute Subsistence to the Son as the Father has but Internal Essential Relations are in the Individual Unity of Nature and therefore cannot multiply when Nature has all that is essential to it So that Self-existence and Generation do not belong to the Character of a Son and with the Catholick Church we teach That the Son of God is God only as the Son and it would be Heresy to ascribe the peculiar Prerogatives of the Father to him And then it can be no Objection against the Divinity of the Son that he has not what is peculiar and proper only to the Person of the Father as Self-existence and Generation is Self-existence Self-origination to have no cause of his Being I grant is essential to the Idea of a God And Eternal and Necessary Existence to the Notion of any Person who is in any sense God for he who ever began to be and subsists precariously can in no sense be God But then though Self-existence be essential to the Notion of an Absolute Divinity yet a Person who is a Son and therefore not Self-originated but eternally begotten of a Self-originated Father and subsists eternally and necessarily as an Essential Procession and Relation in a Self-originated Nature must be the Son of God and God the Son True and Perfect God as the Eternal Necessary Essential Procession of a Self-originated Divinity For what is internally and essentially related to a Self-existent Nature can be no Creature and therefore must be True and Perfect God Thus to proceed The same Rule of speaking if Men be peaceably and charitably disposed to understand one another will easily reconcile that
23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 165. l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 188. l. 16. marg r. ex iâ—demutabilis p. 208. l. 24. Identity p. 216. l. 5. â— Man's r. Man p. 225. l. 34. marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 230. l. 2. r. Identity p. 236. l. 14. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 245. l. 10. r. an Angel p. 304. l. 2. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 12. de Trin. l. 2. marg l. 15. de Trin. l. 7. l. 32 videri p. 347. l. 14. r. his p. 349. l. 12 13. r. where-ever p 350 marg l. 8. r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Curious Reader may observe â—ome other Mistakes which I hope will not disturb the Sense THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SOCINIAN Controversy CHAP. I. SECT I. The Present State of the Socinian Controversy the unreasonableness of it and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question THE Faith of the Holy Trinity is so fundamental to the Christian Religion that if Christianity be worth contending for That is For if God have not an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ and of our Sanctification by the Spirit which in its Consequences is the whole of the Gospel and distinguishes it from all other Religions is utterly lost Those various Heresies relating to the Divinity Person and Offices of Christ and the Holy Spirit which began to appear even in the Apostolick Age and have ever since under several forms and disguises disturbed the Peace of the Church is proof enough how much the great Enemy of Mankind thinks himself concerned by all possible means to corrupt this Faith and that great unwearied unconquerable Zeal wherewith the Catholick Fathers have always defended this Faith shews of what importance they thought it and therefore it is no wonder and ought to give no scandal to Christians that these Disputes are again revived among us with as much fury and insolence as ever for there never was a more unhappy Season for the Enemy to sow his Tares But that which is most to be lamented is That the lukewarmness of some and the intemperate Zeal of others have given greater scandal to the World and more shaken the Faith of Christians than all the Opposition of our Adversaries could have done I need say no more the Case is too well known and the Evil Effects too visible among us I will make no new Quarrels if I can help it but sincerely endeavour to prevent the Mischiefs of what has already happened as far as is necâ—ssary to secure the Faith of Christians and to wrest those Weapons out of our Enemies hands which some professed Friends have unwarily furnished them with To do this I shall endeavour in the first place to restore this Controversie to its original state and take off those Vizards which make it appear very frightful to ordinary Christians This Dispute about the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity has of late been dressed up anew with some old School-Terms which how proper soever they may be to give Learned Men a more distinct Idea and Conception of that Adorable Mystery only amuse common Christians and confound them instead of teaching them better This as it was at first occasioned by Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Christian Faith which forced the Catholick Fathers to use some unscriptural Termâ— which by degrees improved into great Subtilties and disturbed the Church with very nice and wrangling Disputes so our Modern Socinians at this day place the main strength of their Cause in these Disputes and think it a sufficient Confutation of the Faith of the Ever Blessed Trinity that the Trinitarians themselves cannot agree about the Sense of Person Hypostasis Substance Nature Essence nor in what Sense God is One and Three but advance very different and as they think contrary Hypotheses to reconcile the Unity of God with the distinction of Three Persons in the Godhead As if there were no difference between what is fundamental in this Faith and such Metaphysical Speculations As if no man could believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost without determining all the Disputes of the Schools Learned men may dispute these matters and things may so happen as to make such Disputes necessary but the Faith of Christians may be secured and Heresies may be confuted without them The Faith is plain and certain even all that is necessary to the purposes of Religion but men may leap out of their depths where they can find no footing and when such Questions are asked as no man can certainly answer it is very likely that they will be answered very different ways and upon very different Hypotheses and there is no great hurt in this neither while these different Hypotheses are neither made new Articles of Faith nor new Heresies but serve only for Hypotheses to give a probable Answer to such Questions as ought never to have been asked and to stop the mouths of Hereticks when they charge the Catholick Faith with Nonsense and Contradiction To distinguish rightly between these two will set this Controversy upon its true ancient bottom which will spoil the Triumph of our Adversaries and possibly may rectify the Mistakes and allay and qualify the intemperate Heats and Animosities of those whom a common Faith ought to make Friends SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture Terms THE Catholick Fathers have always appealed to the Form of Baptism as the Rule and Standard of Faith that as we are baptized so we must believe In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is a plain simple Faith which every Christian may understand and which every Christian must profess That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature and inseparably united to himself and that this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the joint Object of the Christian Faith and Worship This is the true Christian Faith and this is all that we are concerned to defend against our Adversaries and would men stick to this without engaging in Philosophical Disputes which we know little or nothing of and which the Scripture takes no notice of we should soon find how weak and impotent all the Attempts of Hereticks would prove Whatever Disputes there are about the signification of those words Nature Essence Substance Person Hypostasis Subsistences Relations c. there is no Dispute about the signification of Father Son and Holy Spirit we have natural Idea's belong to these words when applied to Creatures and when God is pleased in Scripture to represent himself to us under thâ—se Characters if we must understand any thing by them we can understand nothing else but what the words signify all the World over only allowing for that infinite distance there is between God and Creatures which requires us to abstract from all material and creature imperfections We
and Institution as far as relates to this Mystery These words Person and Hypostasis were very anciently used without any Definition to determine their Signification till they became matter of dispute Boetius has given us a definition of Person which has been generally allowed of ever since that a Person is an individual Substance of a rational Nature Let us then examine whether this definition can belong to a Divine Person to one who is True and Perfect God As for Substance Boetius tells us That it is essential to the Notion of Person for a Person cannot subsist in Accidents much less in Modes which are less than Accidents and it is certain no other Notion of Person can belong to one who is God For a Person who is God must be Substance in the most Perfect and Absolute sense that is as I have already explained it Perfect Being and Essence As St. Austin expresly tells us That in God to Be and to be a Person is the same thing and that when we say the Person of the Father we mean nothing else but the Substance of the Father and thus it is with respect to the whole Trinity It is certain St. Austin never dream'd of defining a Person much less a Divine Person by a Mode For to make a Person who is God and therefore the most Perfect Being a Mode which if it be any thing is next to nothing no Substance but a meer Modification of Substance is both new Divinity and new Philosophy unknown either to Fathers or Schoolmen But meer Substance can't make a Person unless it be a Living Understanding Substance the Substance of a rational Nature And this must be the Notion of a Person when applied to God for God is Pure Infinite Mind and Intellect the First and Supreme Life and Intellect in whom to Live to Understand and to Be is the same thing as I observed before from St. Austin and if a Divine Person signifies One who is God every Person in the Godhead is Supreme Absolute Life and Intellect And this is what we must understand by a Person when we say That the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person for no other Notion of a Person can belong to any one who is True and Perfect God There is another Term of great consideration in this definition which still remains to be Explained and that is Individual That a Person is an Individual Substance of a Rational Nature which Boetius opposes to Vniversal Substances which are nothing else but the abstracted Notions of generical or specifick Substances which have no real and actual Subsistence and therefore are not properly Substances but only the Ideas of Substances and therefore are not Persons neither for Substance and Person are only in Singulars and Individuals which Subsist by themselves Thus Human Nature considered in general as common to all Mankind has no actual Subsistence and therefore is not a Human Person but it subsists only in particular Men and that makes every particular Man a Human Person for the Person of the Man is nothing but the Man himself And so St. Austin tells us it is in the Holy Trinity the Person of the Father is the Father himself and the Person of the Son is the Son himself and if Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three they must be Three Persons for each of them is himself and not the other and Three Selfs are Three Persons I and Thou and He are Personal Pronouns I my self Thou thy self He himself by which Argument the Catholick Fathers prove against the Sabellians that Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Persons by these Personal Pronouns which the Scripture applies to them as our Sâ—viour speaks of himself in the first Person I and my Father of his Father in the Second Person I thank Thee O Father of the Holy Ghost in the Third Person when He the Spirit of truth shall come Now I and Thou and He must signifie Three distinct Persons or Three Selfs Person indeed as St. Austin observes is not a Relative Term but is spoken ad se of the thing it self For if Person were a Relative then as we say The Father is the Father of his Son so we must say The Person of the Father is the Person of the Son which is absurd but yet Person must be praedicated Plurally according to the number of Selfs for as many Selfs as there are so many Persons are there for Selfs make numbers because one self is not another Three singular intelligent Selfs singulares intelligentes as Melancton calls them is the proper Notion of Three Persons and in this sense Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Persons if each of them be True and Perfect God For God is certainly himself If the Father be God the Father himself is God if the Son be God the Son himself is God if the Holy Ghost be God the Holy Ghost himself is God This is the plain express Doctrine of Scripture and what every man may understand and what every one who believes a Trinity must profess and no man needs believe more SECT IV. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the real Distinction of Persons in the Trinity II. THESE Names Father Son and Holy Ghost especially when the Name GOD is Attributed to each of them That the Father is God the Son God the Holy Ghost God proves a real and substantial distinction between them for these are opposite Relations which cannot meet in the same Subject For a Father cannot be Father to himself but to his Son nor can a Son be Son to himself but to his Father nor can the Holy Ghost Proceed from himself nor in this sense be his own Spirit but the Spirit of the Father and Son from whom he Proceeds And therefore the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit nor the Son the Father or Holy Spirit nor the Holy Spirit either Father or Son And yet if each of them be God each of them Perfectly is or is Perfect Being and therefore are as Perfectly Distinct as three which perfectly are and are not one another To talk of Three Distinct Beings Substances Minds or Spirits may be Misrepresented by perverse Wits to the prejudice of the Divine Unity though the Catholick Fathers besides Hypostasis did not scruple to use the same or other equivalent Expressions concerning the Holy Trinity when they disputed against the Sabellians yet if we believe a Trinity whether we will or no we must acknowledge Three each of which Perfectly Is or is Perfect Being and no one is the other For if we deny this we must either deny that the Father Is or that the Son Is or that the Holy Ghost Is and to deny either of these is to deny a Trinity And if it be Objected against this That according to St. Austin's Notion though it was not peculiarly his but common to all the Greek and
Latin Fathers nay to the Schoolmen themselves and must be owned by all Men of Sense that esse vivere intelligere sapere velle bonum esse magnum esse c. to be to live to understand to be wise to will to be good and to be great or whatever else we can attribute to the Divine Nature is but unum omnia all one and the same in God I say if it be Objected that the consequence of this is That to say that in this sense of Is the Father Is the Son Is the Holy Ghost Is is equivalent to asserting Three Distinct Substances Minds Spirits Lives Understandings Wills c. in the Trinity I cannot help it St. Austin was never yet charged with Tritheism Let them either deny what St. Austin and the rest of the Fathers teach about this matter and try if they can defend the absolute Sâ—mplicity of the Divine Nature without it or let them deny if they think good that the Father Is the Son Is and the Holy Ghost Is in this Notion of Perfect and Absolute Being or try if they can find such a medium between Perfect Is and is not as can belong to any Being which is True and Perfect God or allow which is the true solution of it that Is and Is and Is Essence and Essence and Essence are but One Eternal Is One Eternal Essence as they are but One God Of which more presently I always was of opinion that these Terms in the plural number ought not to be familiarly used because few Men can conceive of them as they are worthy of God and therefore the Fathers were vâ—ry cautious in using them which they very rarely did but when they were extorted from them by the perverse importunity of Hereticks but I cannot see how it is possible to deny three Selfs or three Is's in the Uâ—ity of the Godhead without denying a Trinity and if each of these Three be himself and not another and each of them Is and Is by himself this is the least we can say of the Ever Blessed Trinity and this is all with respect to their Distinction that we need say of them So that if Father Son and Holy Ghost be so in a true and proper Notion are in truth and reality what these Names of Father Son and Spirit signify That the Father is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a true proper natural Father the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a true proper genuine Son and the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a true proper sense the Spirit of the Father and the Son as the Catholick Fathers always Professed they must be as truly and perfectly Distinct as Father and Son are The only Question then is Whether these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost signify naturally and properly when spoken of the Holy Trinity or are only metaphorical and allusive Names though what they should be Metaphors of is not easy to conceive and as absurd to conceive that there should be any Metaphors in God who is all Perfect Essence and Being The Divine Nature and Perfections which we cannot conceive of as they are may be expressed by Metaphors taken from some thing which is analogous in Creatures upon which account we read of the Hands and Eyes and Ears and Bowels and Mouth of God Creatures may serve for Metaphors for Shadows and Images to represent something of God to us but the reality of all is in God So that we may allow Father and Son in some sense to be Metaphorical Names when applied to God not that God the Father is not in the highest and most perfect sense a Father and his Son a most proper natural genuine Son but because the Divine Generation is so perfect a Communication of the Divine Nature and Being from Father to Son that Human Generations Creature-Fathers and Sons are but obscure imperfect images and resemblances of it When any thing is spoken Metaphorically of God the Metaphor and Image is always in the Creatures the Truth Perfection and Reality of all in God And if this be a certain and universal rule then if God be a Father if he have a Son an only Bâ—gotten Son Begotten Eternally of himself not Made nor Created but Begotten though this Eternal Generation be infinitely above what we can conceive yet it is evident that God the Father is more Properly and Perfectly a Father and his Son more Properly and Perfectly a Son than any Creature-Fathers or Sons are But I think this will admit of no Dispute if we own that God has a Son who is himself True and Perfect God For a Son who is Perfect God is God of God That he is a Son proves that he receives his Nature from his Father for this is Essential to the Notion of a Son That he is Perfect God proves the Perfection of his Generation from the Perfection of his Nature For to be Perfect God of Perfect God is to receive the Whole Perfect Undivided Nature of his Father which is the most perfect Generation that is possible for a Whole to beget a Whole And if God the Father and his Son be Truly and Perfectly Father and Son they must be Truly and Perfectly Distinct That is they are in a proper sense Two and by the same reason Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three And we need no other proof of this but the very Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost if we understand them in a proper and natural Sense SECT V. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the Unity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead III. THESE Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost as they signify and prove a real Distinction between these Three so they also signify and prove the Unity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead Which reconciles the Faith of the Trinity with the Faith of one God The same One Divine Essence and Godhead being and subsisting Whole Perfect and Entire in each of these Divine Three I shall Explain and Confirm this matter more at large hereafter and therefore at present shall only briefly represent this Notion and the reason of it One Eternal Self-Originated Divine Nature is One Divinity and One God and nothing can destroy the Unity of God but what destroys the Unity of the Divine Nature by Division or Multiplication And if this be the true Notion of the Unity of God and if it be not I would desire to know why this is not and what is then the Unity of God may be preserved in Three each of whom is True and Perfect God if the same One Divine Nature or Divinity subsists distinctly in them all And the very Characters and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost do necessarily infer and prove the same One Divinity in them all And therefore the Christian Trinity is so far from contradicting that it establishes the Faith of one God As to explain this in a few words All Christians agree That God whom we call the Father is an
be but One God but yet requires us to believe his Eternal Son to be true and perfect God and his Eternal Spirit to be true and perfect God it is certain that the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is very reconcilable with the Unity of God For as far as Revelation must decide this Dispute we are as much obliged to believe That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God as we are to believe That there is but One God Those who will not acquiesce in this must appeal from Scripture to Natural Reason which is a very absurd and impudent Appeal for the plain sense of it is this That they will believe their own Reason before the Scriptures in matters relating to the Divine Nature and Unity which all wise men acknowledge to be so much above human comprehension That is That they know the Unity of God better than God himself does or which is the same thing That they will never believe any Revelation to come from God or any thing how express soever the words are to be the meaning of the Revelation any farther than their own Reason approves it Of which more elsewhere And yet I dare appeal to any man of a free and unbiass'd Reason in this Cause What is that Natural Notion we have of One God Is it any thing more than that there is and can be but One Eternal Self-originated Being who is the Principle or Cause of all other Beings And does not the Scripture do not all Trinitarians with the whole Catholick Church own this Do not all the Christian Creeds teach us to profess our Faith in One God the Father from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their Godhead Thus far then Scripture and Reason and the Catholick Faith agree Does Reason then deny that God can beget of himself an Eternal Son his own perfect Image and Likeness If it does then indeed Scripture and Reason contradict each other But I believe these men will not pretend to prove from Reason That God could not beget an Eternal Son and if this cannot be proved by Reason as I am certain it never can then Reason does not contradict Scripture which teaches us that God has an only begotten Son And if God have an only begotten Son Reason will teach us that the Son of God must be True and Perfect God and yet not another God because he has one and the same Nature with his Father This is all that any Christian need to believe concerning this matter and all this every Christian may understand and all this every one who sincerely believes the Faith of the Holy Trinity does and must agree in Those who do not I will at any time undertake to prove to be secret Hereticks and Enemies to the Christian Faith and as for those who do I will never dispute with them about some Terms of Art and the Propriety of Words in a matter which is so much above all words and forms of speech And here I leave this matter upon a sure Bottom and here we are ready to join Issue with our Socinian Adversaries Our only Controversy as to the Doctrine of the Trinity with them is Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit each of them be True and Perfect God If we can prove this which has been the Faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages we need dispute no other matters with them nor can any Disputes among our selves give any Support to their Cause A Dispute about Words may look like a difference in Faith when both contending Parties may mean the same thing as those must do who sincerely own and believe That the Son is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost is True and Perfect God and that neither of them are the Father nor each other And therefore those different Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity which the Socinians of late have so much triumphed in and made more and greater than really they are and more sensless too by their false Representations can do them no real service among Wise Men tho it may help to amuse the Ignorant If any men have subtilly distinguished away the Catholick Faith they may take them to themselves and increase their Party by them But if this were the Case as I hope it is not it is no Objection against the Catholick Faith that some men openly oppose it and others at least in some mens opinions do secretly undermine it There is reason to guard the Christian Faith against all inconvenient or dangerous Explications which seem to approach near Heresy if this be done with due Christian Temper and Moderation but I hope the Disputes of the Trinitarians are not so irreconcilable but that they will all unite against a Pestilent and Insolent Heresy which now promises it self glorious Successes only from their private Quarrels CHAP. II. An Examination of Some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy BEfore I put an end to this Discourse it will contribute very much to the better understanding of what I have said and give a clearer Notion of the Use of it to apply these Principles to the Examination of a late Treatise entituled Some Considerations concerning the Trinity The Author I know not he writes with Temper and though he takes the liberty to find fault he does it Civilly and therefore he ought to meet with Civil Usage and so he shall from me as far as the bare Censure of his Principles will admit I was I confess startled at the first entrance to find him own the Vncertainty of our Faith in these Points concerning the Trinity for if after the most perfect Revelation of the Gospel that we must ever expect and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for above Sixteen Hundred years this Faith is still uncertain it is time to leave off all Enquiries about it As for the many absurd and blasphemous Expositions that have been made of this Doctrine if by them he means the Ancient Heresies which infested the Church they are so far from rendring our Faith uncertain that as I shall shew him anon the very Condemnation of those Heresies by the Catholick Church gives us a more certain account what the true Catholick Faith was I agree with him that the warm and indiscreet Management of contrary Parties has been to the Prejudice of Religion among unthinking people who hence conclude the uncertainty of our Faith and it concerns good men to remove this Prejudice by distinguishing the Catholick Faith from the Disputes about Ecclesiastical Words and the Catholick Sense of them and I hope I have made it appear this may be done and then the Faith is secure notwithstanding these Disputes and as for any other Offence or Scandal let those look to it who either give or take it This Considerer dislikes all the Ways and Methods which have hitherto been taken to compose these Disputes 1. He
but yet that Jesus Christ was a Divine and Human Person though Christ was one Person and Jesus another And therefore as the Nicene Creed which we find also in the Ancient Oriental Creeds teaches us to believe in One God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible not to exclude Christ from being the Maker of the World but in opposition to those Hereticks who would not allow the Supreme God who is the Father of Christ to be the Maker of the World but attributed the Creation of this World to one or more Inferior Angels So they add And in One Lord Iesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in opposition to those who made Christ and Jesus Two Persons And yet in this very Heresy we may see what the Ancient Catholick Faith was That Jesus Christ was God and Man as Cerinthus himself owned though he would not unite Christ and Jesus into One Person nor make the Union inseparable The Valentinian Heresy though dressed up after the mode of the Pagan Theology was a manifest Corruption of the Christian Faith under a Pretence of a more perfect knowledge of Divine Mysteries and we may still see the broken Remains of the Catholick Tradition of the Trinity among them Their Pleroma by which they seem to understand the Fulness of the Deity as St. Paul uses that Phrase 2 Col. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily I say this Pleroma consisted of several Aeons or Divine Persons which were propagated from the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father in gradual Descents and all together made up the Compleat and Perfect Deity which were more or fewer according to the various Fancies of Hereticks Now from these wild Conceits we may in some measure learn what the Catholick Faith was That the Godhead was not confined to one Single and Solitary Person but that there is such a Foecundity in the Divine Nature as communicates it self to more Persons than one For had it been the known and received Faith of the Christian Church That there is but One Person in the Godhead as well as but One God there had been no pretence for these Hereticks who called themselves Christians and boasted of a more perfect knowledge of the Christian Faith to have invented such a number of Aeons which they included within their Pleroma as the several Emanations of their Deity And we may observe that most of the Names which they gave to their several Aeons are Scripture-Names and Titles which the Pagan Theology knew nothing of and which they could learn no where but from the Christian Church Basilides I think was one of the first who gave us any distinct account of these Aeons which was new modell'd by Valentinus and other succeeding Hereticks and his first and Supreme Aeon as Epiphanius tells us was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Unbegotten One who only is the Father of all and by others is called the Propater and the Unknown Invisible Incomprehensible Father Now though the Heathens very familiarly call their Supreme God the Father of Gods and Men with respect to his Creating Power yet as the Notion of Father is founded in a substantial Generation as these Hereticks plainly understood it so it is the peculiar Character of God under the Gospel who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son It is certain the first Person in the Godhead was never called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One that is unbegotten but to distinguish him from One who is begotten the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten who is God also but God oâ— God And it is observable what Tertullian tells us of Heracleon That he made his first Aeâ—n to be illud quod pronunciat which some Criticks not understanding think to be a defect in the Copy but the sense is plain that his first Aeon is he that pronounceth or speaketh by which he represented the Eternal Generation of the Word So that his first Aeon is the Pronouncer or Speaker that is the Father of the Eternal Word which St. Iohn tells us was in the beginning was with God and was God Which shews that this is nothing else but a disguized Corruption of the Catholick Faith concerning the Eternal Generation of the Word from the Eternal Unbegotten Father To confirm this I observe farther That most of the Names which they give to their other Aeons are such Names Titles or Characters as the Scripture gives to Christ or the Holy Spirit which they have multiplied into so many distinct Persons or Aeons such as the Mind Word Prudence Power and Wisdom Truth Life Light the Only begotten the Paraclete and the like Valentinus indeed as Epiphanius observes did model his Thirty Aeons according to Hesiod's Genealogy and Number of Gods and with some manifest allusions to them but yet he retained as many Scripture-Names as he could the better to reconcile unwary people to his fabulous Genealogiâ—s as the hidden and mysterious sense of Scripture And it is impossible such Fables should ever have obtained any Credit had they not been grafted on the Catholick Faith and pretended to improve it with new degrees of Light and Knowledge When these Heresies were pretty well silenced up start Noetus and Sabellius who ran into the other Extreme The Valentinians had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity by multiplying Three Divine Persons into Thirty Aeons besides all their other Pagan and Fabulous Conceits about them This offended these men as downright Polytheism as indeed it was no better and to avoid this they reject a Trinity of Real and Substantial Persons for a Trinity of Names that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names of the same Person who is sometimes called the Father at other times the Son or the Holy Ghost with respect to his different Appearances or Operations Or they made the Son and Holy Ghost not Two Persons but Two Personal Attributes in God his Wisdom or Power Or they made the Trinity but Three Parts of One Compounded God as a Man consists of Body Soul and Spirit which of late have been revived among us under different Names After these men arose Arius and his Followers who out of great Zeal also for the Unity of God framed a New and more Subtile Heresy They were sensible that Father and Son were not Two Names but Two Real Distinct Persons and therefore they attributed the whole entire Divinity to the Father and made the Son not to be God by Nature but the most Perfect and Excellent Creature as Perfect an Image of God as any Creature can be but not Consubstantial with God nor Coequal and Coeternal with him All these Heresies were rejected and condemned by the Catholick Church in their several Ages as soon as they appeared and were taken notice of And this is one very good way to learn what the Catholick Faith was from its Opposition to
had already demonstrated this That One God signifies One single Person he only proves That the Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost belong to God and therefore That these Terms must all be so understood as to include the same God the One single Divine Person in their Signification The first I think he proves well enough That these Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost belong to God and this vindicates him from being a Socinian But when he applies all these Titles and Characters to One and the same God that is in his sense to One and the same single Person this proves him to be a Sabellian for this was the Doctrine of Noetus and Sabellius That these different Titles and Characters did belong but to One single Person who is God He proves That these Titles and Characters Father Son and Holy Ghost do signify God from the forms of Baptism Salutation and Blessing Go teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all From whence as he adds I infer That all these terms Father Son and Holy Ghost signify God because I cannot possibly conceive 't is agreeable to the nature of the Christian Religion that the Ministers of it should teach baptize or bless the people in any other name but God's I like this Argument very well but if it proves any thing it proves more than he would have it That Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself true and perfect God and not all Three One single Person for it seems altogether as absurd to teach baptize or bless in Three Names and Titles when there is but One single Person signified by those Three Names And therefore his Inference is not very plain That if any One of these Terms signify God they must all Three signify God and if all Three signify God they must all Three signify One and the same God for God is One. This is very artificial but not plain The consequence is plain That if Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Names of God they must all signify One God by the Unity and sameness of Nature because there is but One God but not by the Vnity of Person because the Scripture mentions Three each of whom is God Which proves That God is One in Nature but Three in Persons as the Catholick Church has always believed As for what he adds That the One Supreme God the Lord and Maker of all things is here meant by the word Father is a thing not questioned and therefore Sâ—n and Holy Ghost are terms expressive of the same Divine Nature may in some sense be allowed if he will distinguish between Nature and Person but according to the sense of Scripture and the belief of the Catholick Church Father Son and Hâ—ly Ghost are the names of Three Real Distinct Divine Persons not of One Divine Nature in the sense of One Persâ—n But though we allow this with the Catholick Church That the Father is the One Supreme God we have no reason to allow this to the Considerer who will not allow Father Son or Holy Ghost to be Names of Divine Persons or to be Names or Relations of the Divine Nature considered as the Divine Nature for he says they are extrinsecal that is â—xtra-essential Ideas Titles Characters Respects Relations and therefore Father according to this Hypothesis is not the essential Name of the One Supreme God but given to him for some extrinsical and extra-essential reasons is his Name not by Nature but by Institution and then must be proved to be his Name which the mere form of Baptism cannot do for the Name God is not expressed in it much less does it prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are One and the same God or One single Person It is evident indeed from other Texts That Father is the Name of God but then it is the Name of God the Father and the Son is the Son of God and the Holy Ghost the Spirit of God the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and this does prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost have the same One Divinity the same One Divine Nature as the very Names and Relations of Father and Son and Spirit prove But surely this does not prove That God the Father and his Son are the same One single Person as well as One God for Father and Son all the world over signify Two distinct Persons for no One Person can be Father and Son to himself nor can the Eternal subsisting Spirit of God be the same Person with that God whose Spirit he is Unless he allows that Father in the form of Baptism is the Name of a Person he can prove nothing from it and if Father be the Name of a Person Son and Holy Ghâ—st must be the Names of Persons also and then the Names and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove That they are not One single Person but Three Persons Thus he proves the Son to be God from that Religious Worship which is paid to him which does indeed prove him to be God but not the same One Person with the Father Our Considerer is much mistaken if he thinks it sufficient to prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Titles and Characters of the same One single Person who is the One God if he can prove that each of these Names signify One who is God And the truth is if these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost do not signify Persons they cannot signify God for then they are not Names of Nature but something extrinsecal and accessory to the Divine Nature and therefore they may be the external Denominations of him who is God but not the Names of God considered as God and therefore cannot signify God because they do not signify the Divine Nature in the Persons of Father Son and Holy Ghost but something extrinsical and accessory that is something which is not essential and therefore which the Divine Nature might be without I hope the Considerer did not think of this Consequence That it is possible that God might neither have been Father Son nor Holy Ghost which yet must be allowed possible if these be mere extrinsecal and accessory Titles and Characters Nay this must be allowed unless we will grant that these Names signify Three Real Subsisting Intelligent Coeternal Persons in the Vnity of the same Godhead But these Three Persons do somewhat puzzle him That God should be called Father Son and Holy Ghost is as easily to be believed as that he should be called Adonai Elohim and Jehovah That the same thing should be signified and expressed by several Names is no such incredible Mystery Which still shews us what it is he believes and would prove in all this That
Person signifies an Intelligent Being but he has secured himself against this Imputation by an artificial addition some Intelligent Being acting in such or such a manner He will not allow Person to signify absolutely an Intelligent Being but an Intelligent Being with respect to some peculiar manner of acting and thus One single Person in the proper Notion of Person for an Intelligent Being may sustain Three Persons or Personal Characters with reâ—pect to extrinsecal Relations and the different manner of acting The whole Mystery and Sophistry of this is That God who is One single Person is upon different accounts sometimes called the Father sometimes the Sâ—n and sometimes the Holy Ghost and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost have a Personal signification each of these Names signify Person in a proper sense that is the Person of God but all of them separately and together signify but One and the same single Person for they are all of them attributed to God and God is but One or One Person though this One proper Person may sustain Three figurative Persons or Personal Characters This is plain dealing and this is his Answer to his first Hard Saying That God is One and Three the same God but Three different Hypostases or Persons That God is One and the same single Person under Three Personal Characters which may be called Three Persons because each of them signifies the True and Proper Person of God And here we see in what sense these Gentlemen allow That each Person is Substance is Mind and Spirit and yet that God is but One Substance One Mind and Spirit viz. in the very same sense that this Author affirms that God is but One single Person and yet that the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and for the same reason that they decry and abhor Three Substances Three distinct Minds and Spirits in the Godhead though affirmed to be indivisibly and inseparably One Infinite Substance Mind and Spirit for the same reason they reject Three Intelligent Substantial Persons though our Modern Sabellians have been more cautious generally than this Considerer not to own it in express words Now as for these Terms of Three Substances and Three Minds there may be good reason to let them alone tho when rightly explained no reason to condemn them of Heresy but we must insist on Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Substantial Persons Each of which is Mind and Substance and One is not the Other If they disown this as the Considerer does they are downright Sabellians if they own it we have no farther Dispute about this matter Let us now consider his other Hard Saying That One of these Three Hypâ—stases or Persâ—ns should be both God and Man Now the Hardness of this Saying is not That it is hard to prove from Scripture that so it is or that it is hard to conceive how God and Man can be united which is all that he touches on But it is and always will be a Hard Saying to the Considerer upon another account that is To reconcile it with a Trinity of One proper single Person and Three Personal Characters The Doctrine of the Incarnation is this That the Eternal Son of God became True and Perfect Man by taking the Human Nature into a Personal Union to himself That the Son only became Man not the Father nor the Holy Ghost That two perfect distinct Natures the Divine and Human Nature were without Confusion united in the One Person of Christ and that this One Person is the Eternal Word and Son of God Now if there be but One single Person in the Godhead and Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names or Personal Characters of this One single Person How can the Son be Incarnate and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost It is only a Person that can be Incarnate for a Personal Character can't be Incarnate without the Person and if there be but One single Person and this same One Person is Father Son and Holy Ghost it is impossible that that Person who is the Son should be Incarnate but the Person who is the Father and the Holy Ghost must be Incarnate also because the same Person who is the Son is the Father and the Holy Ghost The short Question is this Whether a True Proper Divine Person was Incarnate in the Incarnation of Christ If not then Christ was not a Divine Person how Divine soever he might be upon other accounts the Divine Nature did not persâ—nally subsist in him he was not personally True and Perfect God and then the Person of Christ was no more than a Man whatever Divine Influences he might receive from God But if the Divine Nature were truly and properly Incarnate in the Person of Christ then if there be but One single Divine Person in the Godhead but One Divine Nature in the sense of One single Person then the whole Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost which are but One True and Proper Person was Incarnate in Christ. This is the true difficulty and he is so wise as to take no notice of it It does not appear to me that he believes one word concerning the Incarnation of God or of a True Divine Person he says He that is in Scripture called the Son of God did appear in the likeness of men He certainly was a True Man but that is not our present dispute Was he in his own Person True and Perfect God Was he a Human Person or the Person of the Son of God appearing in Human Nature He was he says in the Form of God before he took the Nature of Man upon him This sounds well but why does he not speak out and tell us what this Form of God is Whether the True Divine Nature subsisting in him a True Divine Person Well But God did suffer himself to be worshipped and adored in and by the Man Christ Iesus the least that can be inferred from which is That God was more immediately and peculiarly present in Christ than ever he was said to have been any where else as in the Heavens the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims in Prophets and Holy Men who spake as they were moved by the Spirit Now all this might have been spared would he but have said That the Person Iesus Christ was worshipped with Divine Honours as being in his own Person True and Perfect God as well as Man and without saying this he says nothing to prove that Christ is the Son of God Incarnate To say That God did suffer himself to be worshipped in and by the Man Christ Iesus as he was worshipped in the Heavens in the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims for that must be the force of the Comparison does no more prove Christ to be God than it proves the Heavens the Iewish Temple and the Cherubims to be God It may prove a more perfect symbolical Presence of God in Christ which he calls the Fulness
yet if I judge my judgment is true for I am not alone but I and my Father which sent me It is also written in your law That the testimony of two men is true I am one that bear witness of my self and my Father that sent me beareth witness of me This is as express as words can make it If Father and Son were but Oâ—e single Person Christ could not have said I am not alone but I and my Father which sent me for one single Person is in this sense alone how many Names soever he has and if he and his Father are not Two distinct Persons they are not Two Legal Witnesses as Two distinct men are These and such like Arguments we may find in all the Ancient Writers who have engaged in this Controversy and from hence we learn not only what they thought of the distinction of Persons between Father and Son but what kind of Person they believed the Son to be such a Person as has a Personal Knowledge and Will and Power who is capable of being sent of receiving and executing Commands and has all this as distinctly in himself as he is a distinct Person The Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father but each of them know by their own Personal Knowledge the Father wills and the Son wills and wills all the same with the Father but each of them wills by his own Personal Will the Father works and the Son works and they inseparably do the same things but each of them work by their own Personal Power Knowledge and Will and Power of acting is essential to the Notion of a Person and therefore every distinct Person must have a distinct Personal Knowledge and Will and Power and those must acknowledge this who prove the distinction of Persons from distinct Personal Acts as all these Fathers did This is all we ask when we assert a distinction of Persons in the Trinity and this we must insist on or deny a Trinity for if there are not Three who have all the same distinct Personal Acts there cannot be Three distinct compleat Persons for Personal Acts shew a Person and distinct Personal Acts prove distinct Persons and in this sense as all these Arguments prove the Ancient Fathers owned a distinction of Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead Their distinction between Deus invisibilis and Deus visibilis the invisible and visible God whereby they proved the real distinction between God the Father and God the Son is an undeniable Proof of their Opinion in this matter for I urge it no farther It was the received Opinion as far as I can find of all the Ancient Fathers till St. Austin That God the Father never appeared in any visible Representation of himself for he tells Moses No man can see my face and live And St. Iohn assures us No man hath seen God at any time but the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him And yet in the Old Testament we frequently read of God's appearing to men which they therefore expound of God the Son and that his Appearance in a visible Form was a Preludium to his Incarnation This we may see largely proved by Tertullian and St. Hilary and observed by St. Athanasius and the plain consequence they draw from it is That this invisible and visible God cannot be one and the same Person and the consequence is so selâ—-evident that it needs no Proof but it evidently proves what a real substantial as well as distinct Person they thought the Son who could visibly appear while the Father remained invisible for as a visible and invisible God can't be the same Person so a visible God must be a real substantial Person And though St. Austin was of opinion That those Three Men which appeared to Abraham were the Three Persons of the Sacred Trinity and thereby rejected the distinction of the invisible and visible God by attributing a visible Appearance to God the Father which none of the Ancients had done before him yet by these Three distinct Appearances he confirmed the real distinction of the Divine Persons who were as distinct Persons as they appeared to be and therefore as distinct as Three Human Persons for they appeared as Three distinct men And therefore he observes That whereas Two of these Three went to Lot in Sodom Lot speaks to them as to One 19. Gen. 18. And Lot said unto them Oh not so my Lord And justifies Lot in this That though they were two yet they were equal and he would not divide the Father and Son and urges this against the Sabellians who made Father and Son One Person I do not justify St. Austin in this because I doubt whether the Argument be good but by this we may understand St. Austin's Judgment of the real distinction of Persons And to the same purpose the Voice from Heaven at our Saviour's Baptism This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and the Descent of the Holy Spirit like a Dove and lighting upon him is urged by the Ancient Fathers to prove a real Trinity of Divine Persons The Voice from the Father in Heaven the Son on earth and the Holy Ghost descending like a Dove which being Three distinct Manifestations and all at a time must represent the Father who spoke from Heaven the Son who was on Earth and the Holy Ghost who descended like a Dove to be Three distinct Persons not One single Person which cannot speak of himself in the Third Person nor descend on himself in a distinct visible Appearance The Sabellians being unable to maintain this Point which is so manifestly absurd and so irreconcilable with all the forms of speech used in Scripture concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost found it necessary to allow some distinction between them but yet were so afraid of Tritheism that they kept religiously to their main Point that One God was but One Person and therefore would admit of no other distinction but what was reconcilable with the Unity of a Person 2. Hence secondly some of them taught That the Son is distinguished from the Father not as one Person is distinguished from another but as a man's Word or Wisdom which is in his Heart and Soul may be distinguished from himself that is That the Son is not a living substantial subsisting Word no more than the Word of a Man which is only the motion of a living subsisting heart but does not live and subsist it self but being spoke it vanishes and being often repeated never continues and therefore is not another Man nor Man of Man nor with Man as the Divine Word is true and perfect God God of God and God with God and therefore they make God and his Word but One Person as Man and his Word is One Man In answer to this St. Athanasius urges all those Texts which prove Christ and God the Father to be Two
have distinct Understandings Wills and Powers of Action for no other Beings are capable of sending or being sent and Three such distinct Persons each of which is complete and perfect God is the Trinity asserted by the Catholick Fathers in contradiction to the Heresy of Sabellius But there is one very good Rule of Athanasius which is worth observing in this Controversy That we must not imagine to find the Unity of the Godhead by denying Three but we must find this Unity or Monade in Three The Sabellians took the first way to secure the Catholick Faith of One God they denied Three real distinct substantial Persons in the Godhead but the Catholick Faith owns Three real distinct substantial divine Persons and teaches that these Three are One God not with such an Unity as belongs to One Person but as Three Persons are One God which should be a warning to some late Writers who think they cannot sufficiently defend the Unity of God without opposing a real and substantial Trinity which is to oppose the ancient Catholick Faith To conclude this Chapter the result of the whole in short is this That in opposition to the Noetians who made Father Son and Holy Ghost to be only Three Names of the same One Divine Person whom we call God the Catholick Fathers asserted that they were Three distinct Persons not the same Person under Three Names or Three Appearances in opposition to those Sabellians who denied the Substantiality of the Son and of the Holy Ghost but made the Son like the Word in the mind or heart of man which had no substantial permanent Subsistence of its own and the Holy Ghost in like manner to be a transient efflux of Power from God so that God the Father was the only subsisting Person and the One God but the Son and the Holy Ghost the insubstantial transient Word and Power of God These ancient Fathers in like manner asserted the Substantiality of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that they were real distinct subsisting Persons as true and perfect Persons as the Father himself is in opposition to those Sabellians who asserted a compound Deity and made a Trinity of Parts instead of a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead they unanimously rejected all composition in the Deity and asserted each Person distinctly by himself not to be a part of God but true and perfect God Now had these Fathers asserted nothing positively concerning the Three Divine Persons but only rejected these Noetian and Sabellian Heresies it had been evidence enough what their Faith was concerning the Ever-blessed Trinity for remove these Heresies and all such as are manifestly the same however they may differ in words and there is nothing left for any man to believe concerning a Divine Trinity but the true Catholick Faith of Three real distinct substantial Divine Persons each of which is distinctly and by himself complete entire perfect God For if Father Son and Holy Ghost are not one and the same Person distinguisht only by Three Names according to their different Appearances and Operations nor one single Person with two personal Vertues and Powers called the Son and the Spirit like the word and emotion in a man's heart which is no person and has no subsistence of its own nor three parts of one compounded Deity as a man is compounded of Body Soul and Spirit then of necessity Father Son and Holy Ghost must be Three complete substantial subsisting Persons Thrâ—â— such Persons as the Sabellians would allow but One fâ—â—â—f they â—e not the same nor affections and motions of the â—ame nor parts of the same there is nothing left but to own them Three completely and perfectly subsisting Person If God be One not in the Sabellian â—otion of Singularity as One God signifies One single Person but Oâ—e in Three without parts or composition as the Father asserted against Sabellius then each Person must be by himself complete and perfect God for God cannot be One in Three Persons unless each Person be perfect God for unless this One God be perfect God in each Person he cannot be perfectly One in Three If the Unity of God be not the Unity of a Person it must be the Unity and Sameness of Nature and the inseparable Union of Persons and this is the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity which the Catholick Fathers taught and which is the only thing they could reasonably teach when they had rejected the Sabellian Unity There is no medium that I know of in this Controversy concerning the Unity of God between the Unity of One single Person and that Oneness which results from the Unity and the Consubstantiality of Nature and inseparable Union of Persons and therefore if the first be Heresy the second must be the Catholick Faith and whatever Notions men advance against this is Sabellianism in its Principle and last result for if the Unity of God be not the Union of Three complete Divine Persons each of which is distinctly by himself perfect God it must be the Unity of One Divine Person which is the Sabellian Unity CHAP. IV. Concerning the Homoousion or One Substance of Father Son and Holy Ghost IN the last Chapter I have plainly shewn what Sabellianism is and by what Arguments the Catholick Fathers opposed and confuted it which is proof enough what they meant by Person when in opposition to Sabellius they taught that there were Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead not Three personal Characters and Relations which Sabellius owned but Three true and proper Persons each of whom is by himself true and perfect God But yet the Nicene Faith of the Homocusion or One Substance of Father and Son is so expounded by some as to countenance the Sabellian Heresy which all the Nicene Fathers condemned though one would think that should be an unanswerable Objection against it this has made it so absolutely necessary to the Vindication of the Catholick Faith and to compose some warm Disputes rightly to understand this matter that I shall carefully inquire what the Nicene Fathers meant by these terms of the Homoousion and One Substance which they have put into their Creed as the most express opposition to the Arian Heresy And we cannot long doubt of this if we consider the true state of the Arian Controversy There was no Dispute between the Arians and Catholicks concerning the Personality of the Son they both condemned Sabellius and therefore One Substance when opposed to the Arians can't signify a Sabellian Unity The Arians and Sabellians both agreed in this That One God is but One Divine Person who is truly and properly God and that to assert Three Persons each of which is true and perfect God is to make Three Gods The Sabellians to avoid this Tritheism make Father Son and Holy Ghost but One Divine Person and in that sense but One God The Arians on the other hand allow Father and Son to be two real distinct
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
the number of Creatures and deny him to be a Creature 5. When they ascribe such things to the Son as are proper and peculiar only to the True God 6. When they affirm the Son of God not only to be God but expresly own him to be true God God by Nature and One God with the Father This is the true Notion of the Homoousion and now let any man judge Whether a Consubstantial Trinity be a Trinity of Personal Characters Relations or Names or of Real Substantial Subsisting Persons If we will allow either the Nicene Fathers or the Arian Bishops to be well in their wits can we think that there would have been any such Disputes between them as whether the Son be Coeternal with the Father or had a Beginning whether there were any time the least conceivable moment before the Son was whether he was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 created out of nothing as all other Creatures are or begotten of the Substance of the Father and is the true genuine natural Son of God or a Son only by Adoption whether he be true perfect God in opposition to the most perfect created Nature or be only a made and Creature-God whether he be Consubstantial with the Father or have only a Nature like the Fathers but not the same and whether he be like his Father in all things in Substance and Essence or only in Will and Affection I say Could any men in their wits dispute such matters as these unless both sides were agreed that the Son is a Real Substantial Son as human Sons are who are begotten of the Substance of their Parents that he has a Subsistence of his own distinct from his Father's Subsistence that he has a Substance of his own eternally begotten of his Father's Substance and therefore the same but proper and peculiar to his own Person which makes him the Son and not the Father For till these things are agreed there is no foundation for the other Disputes for if the Son have no real Subsistence of his own who would dispute whether he began to subsist in time or did subsist from all Eternity If he have no Substance of his own is it not ludicrous to dispute whether he be of the Father that is have his Substance of his Father's Substance or be a new created Substance as like his Father's Substance as a created Substance can be but not the same For if he have no distinct Substance of his own neither of these can be true To what purpose is it to dispute whether he be a begotten or created God if he be not as true and perfect a Person and as true and perfect God upon the Catholick Hypothesis in his own Person as the Father himself is In short to conclude this Argument If the Homoousion signifies that the Son of God who is Consubstantial to his Father is no Creature was not made out of Nothing had no Beginning of Being is of his Father's Substance begotten of his Substance from all Eternity a true and perfect Son of a true and perfect Father and upon all accounts the very same that the Father is excepting that he is the Son and not the Father it is impossible the Nicene Fathers should have been either Sabellians or Modalists SECT IV. A more particular Inquiry into the full Signification of the Homoousion with respect to the Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature THAT the Nicene Fathers did by the Homoousion or One Substance of the Godhead understand something like what we call a Specifick Sameness and Vnity of Nature might be proved by numerous Quotations had it not been sufficiently done already by Petavius Curcelloeus Dr. Cudworth and others whoever will be pleased to read the Testimonies they produce in this Cause will never be able to make any other tolerable Sense of them They apply this word Homoousion to things which are specifically One or which have the same Specifick Nature as a Tree and its Branches a Fountain and River as they call God the Father the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Root and Fountain of the Son and Holy Spirit the Sun and its Rays and Splendor as Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brightness and refulgency of his Father's Glory They prove that Christ has the same Nature with his Father because all true natural genuine Sons have so and therefore if he be as truly and properly the Son of God as Isaac was the son of Abraham he must be Consubstantial to God the Father as Isaac was to Abraham which we know is a Specifick Vnity of Nature And the Council of Chalcedon expresly affirms That Christ is Consubstantial to his Father as to his Godhead or Divine Nature and Consubstantial to us as to his Manhood or Human Nature and if the Homoousion signifies the same or something analogous in both we know what this sameness of Nature means for it is impossible to reconcile this to one singular Nature and Unity Christ is not Consubstantial to us upon account of the same singular human Nature in him and in all Mankind for every Man has a particular human Nature of his own and so had Christ but the Nature is specifically the same in Christ and in us that is it is a true human Nature and this makes Christ and us Consubstantial And if there be any thing like this though in a more perfect degree in the Consubstantiality of Father and Son it must signify not one singular Nature which cannot be said to be Consubstantial to it self but the Consubstantiality of Two Persons really and substantially distinct but united in the same common Nature or the same Divinity And therefore nothing is more common than to render the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unius generis and by such like words as every one knows signify a Specifick Vnity That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One Divinity and One Divine Essence is a common Nature the same in all Three Persons communicated by the Father to the Son and by Father and Son to the Holy Spirit is so universally acknowledged that it needs no proof the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently occur in the writings of the Nicene Fathers which signify the One Divinity to be a common Nature to the Three Divine Persons This is the very account St. Basil gives of the difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence and Person that Essence signifies a common Nature which is in more than One and may be spoken of more than One as a species is predicated of its Individuals Man is a common Name for all Men because Humanity is a common Nature which is alike in Peter and Iohn and Iames and all the Men in the World But Hypostasis or Person though it signifies the Nature also yet not in that general Notion as common to all of the same
a great and unconceivable Mystery and has always been owned to be so by the Catholick Church we have no Notion or Idea of it but no more have we of the Eternal Existence of the Divine Nature it self without any Cause or Beginning or of the Creation of all things out of nothing or of the Natural Production and Propagation of Created Beings our present Inquiry is not concerning the Mystery of the Eternal Generation but concerning the Unity of the Divine Nature in Father and Son in what sense they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Substance and that the Eternal Generation gives an account of For if the Father communicate his whole Nature and Substance to the Son without division and separation which is the Catholick Faith the Son must of necessity have the same one Substance with the Father for a whole same of a whole same cannot be another and therefore must be the same One Substance whole of whole St. Athanasius reasons very subtilly against the Arians upon this Point They taught that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made of nothing as other Creatures are Then says he he must be the Son of God by participation what is it then he partakes of Other Creatures are the Sons of God by the participation of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit is given by the Son not the Son as the Eternal Son of God sanctified by the Spirit for the Spirit receives all from Father and Son not the Son from the Spirit He must then partake of the Father But what is that and whence is it If that he partakes of be something Extra-essential to the Father which is not the Father's Nature and Essence then he does not partake of the Father but of that Extra-essential Being whatever it is and then he is not second to the Father that whereof he partakes being before him nor is he the Son of the Father but of that Extra-essential Being or Nature by the participation of which he obtains the Title and Character of Son and God But this is very absurd since the Father calls him his Beloved Son and the Son calls God his own Father and therefore is not a Son by Extra-essential Participations but Son is the name of him who participates in the Nature and Substance of the Father But then again If that which is participated of the Father be not the Nature and Essence of the Son the same Absurdity returns there being some middle Term between these two To be of the Father and the Nature of the Son whatever that Nature be which proves that the Nature of the Son is not of the Father and therefore he is not the Son of the Father for Nature makes a Son All this being so absurd it is necessary to own That the true genuine Son of God is all that He is of the Essence and Substance of the Father For when God is thus wholly and perfectly participated it is the same thing as to say that God begets and to beget signifies that he begets a Son And therefore though all things by the Grace of God partake of the Son he will not allow us to say That the Son partakes of any thing which implies that the Son is one thing and that which he partakes of is another But that which is the participation of the Father that is the Son This is the most Natural and Essential Unity that is possible to be conceived That the whole Son is nothing else but the whole entire immediate participation of the Father's Substance and therefore must be as perfectly One with the Father as the Father is One for there is but one and the same Substance which is the Substance of the Father and by an Eternal and Ineffable Generation the Substance also of the Son Though Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Real distinct Persons and each of them have the whole entire Divine Nature in himself yet there is but One Divine Nature One Divinity in them all and therefore they are but One God This is the Account St. Hilary gives why we may say God is One and One and One but not Three Gods Because the Divine Nature is not multiplied with the Persons Thus speaking of the Father and Son he tells us That the Son is One of One and therefore they are both One For between One and One that is One of One there is no Sâ—cond Nature of the Eternal Divinity For as he adds elsewhere The Nature of the Father is born in the Nativity of the Son and for this Reason the Father and Son are One God because the Son is God of the Nature of God But their being thus One does not destroy the subsisting Nature of the Son but in God and God preserves the Nature of One God And therefore the true absolute and perfect Profession of our Faith is To confess God of God and God in God not after the manner of Bodies but by Divine Powers not by transfusion of Nature into Nature but by the Mystery and Power of the Divine Nature For God is of God not by dissection protension or derivation but by the Power of the Divine Nature subsists by his Birth in the same Nature Not so the same Nature that he who is born is he himself who begets for how is that possible since he is begotten but he who is begotten subsists in the same whole entire Nature which is his whole entire Nature who begets And this Perfect Unity Sameness Identity of Nature he resolves into the Mystery of the Divine Generation Virtute Naturoe Mysterio potestate Naturoe for since he is not begotten of any other Substance or Nature but of his Father's Substance and that not after the manner of Bodies by dissection protension or derivation but by the Mysterious Power of the Divinity which communicates it self whole and perfect there must be the same One Divinity in both And he appeals to every man's Understanding what the natural Interpretation of these words are That the Son is of the Father for can of the Father signify that he is of any other than the Father or that he is of nothing or that he is the Father himself He is not of another because he is of the Father for a Son cannot be God if he have any other Father but God and therefore is God of God He cannot be of nothing because he is of the Father and whoever is begotten must be begotten of the Nature of him who begets He is not the Father himself because he is of the Father and the Birth of the Son speaks a necessary relation to the Father Now a Son who is so of the substance of the Father as to be nothing but what he is from the Father and to be all that the Father is whole of whole must have the same One Nature Substance and Divinity with the Father for whole of whole must be the
same whole And yet if he be so of the Father as not to be the Father but the Son he must be distinct in substance from the Father He is true and perfect God but he receives his Divinity by his Birth he is God of God not God who begets but God who is begotten not of nothing but of his Father's substance who is unbegotten And therefore though St. Hilary and all the Catholick Fathers with him reject all Corporeal Passions in the Divine Generation all Corporeal Desection Division Efflux or Emanation of the Divine Substance which is incorporeal and indivisible yet they all assert a true and proper generation of the Son and an impassible production and prolation of him whole of whole And St. Hilary tells us that for this reason the Arians under a specious Pretence of condemning Valentinus his Emanations and Aeons denied the prolation of the Son from the Father only to deny his generation whereas some kind of prolation is essential to the very Notion of a Birth which cannot be conceived without it and therefore we must not wholly reject all Prolation and Production of the Son from the Father but only reject all Corporeal Emanations which are very imperfect Images of Divine Mysteries and have nothing like the eternal generation of the Son but only that the Son is truly begotten of his Father's Substance This is that adorable and unsearchable Mystery of the Divine Generation The Son is truly and properly begotten receives his whole Being and Nature from his Father is substance of his Father's substance whole of whole and therefore one and the same substance with the Father not that substance which is the Person of the Father nor a new or another separate substance as it is in human generations but the nature and substance of the Father born and repeated in the Nativity of the Son as St. Hilary speaks The Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Divinity One Infinite Eternal nature and substance but they are thrice this One substance and as perfectly and distinctly Three in this One substance as any other Three are Three substances St. Austin was certainly in the right when he asserted That the Divine Nature and Essence must not be considered either as a Genus or Species nor the Divine Persons as Individuals and shews particularly the impropriety of each though he knows not under what Notion to conceive them but inclines most to some common matter or substance which is the same in all as carrying the nearest resemblance and analogy in it though this he does not very well like neither of which more presently It will be of great use briefly to consider this matter for the difficulty consists more in want of words to express this Unity and Distinction by than in the Notion it self The singularity of the Divine Essence and Substance in the Sabellian Notion of One Substance the Nicene Fathers universally rejected as irreconcilable with a real distinction of Persons which destroys the Faith of a Real Trinity A mere specifick Unity of Nature and Substance which is a meer Logical Notion falls short of the Natural and Essential Unity of the Godhead and yet we have no word to serve as a middle Term between the Unity of singularity and a Specifick Unity of Nature For there is no such Unity as this in Created Nature and therefore no name for it and yet the Unity of the Divine Nature in a Trinity of Persons is neither of these but bears some resemblance and Analogy to both As to shew this briefly The Unity of the Divine Nature is not a meer Specifick Unity A Species is only an Idea or Pattern of Nature according to which particular Creatures are formed and such Creatures as are made according to the same Pattern are specifically the same and as far as we can observe this Correspondence and Ideal Sameness of Nature so we rank them under the same Species So that there can be no Species but among created Beings for they must be all made and made according to the same Original Pattern But an Eternal and Necessary Nature was not made and therefore not made according to any Pattern nor can any other be made according to its Pattern for what is made cannot be Necessary and Eternal So that the Divine Nature can be but One and One Numerical Nature is no Species it can communicate its own Substance by an Eternal Generation and Procession but it can't be a Pattern and Idea for any other Beings of the same kind which are not its own Substance For this reason St. Austin rejects this specifick Unity he distinguishes between saying That the Divine Persons are Vna Essentia Vnius Essentiae One Essence or Substance and that they are ex Vna Essentia of One Essence The first may signify a natural Unity and must do so when applied to the Trinity The second signifies only a common specifick Nature and Unity When we speak of men we may use either expression that they are One Essence or that they are of One Essence because in both Cases when applied to Creatures One Essence signifies specifically as a common pattern of Nature according to which not only Three but many Threes may be made But the whole Divine Essence is in the Trinity and cannot subsist in any other Person and therefore is not a common specifick Nature But then there is something in the Divine Nature as substantially communicated to the Son and to the Holy Spirit which bears some analogy to a Species and to a Specifick Unity and for this reason the Catholick Fathers in their Disputes both with the Sabellians and Arians frequently express the Unity of the Nature as subsisting in Three Distinct Persons by a Specifick Unity The Notion and Idea of a Common Nature which subsists in many Individuals is called a Species the same common notion and definition belonging to all the Individuals of the same kind Now if we believe the Doctrine of a Real Trinity we must acknowledge That the same One Divine Nature which is originally in the Father is communicated to the Son and Holy Spirit and does subsist distinctly and substantially in all Three and therefore has this resemblance to a Species that it is a common Nature which has the same Notion and Definition and is the same in Three but not meerly by a Notional Identity and Sameness but by the Real Identity of Substance there being but One Divine Substance unmade uncreated unbegotten but communicated whole and entire to the Son by an eternal generation and to the Holy Spirit by an eternal Procession so that the Divine Nature is so far a Species as by its actual communication to the Son and Holy Spirit and its distinct subsistence in Father Son and Holy Ghost it is in truth and reality a common Nature and Substance which a Species is only in Notion and Idea The Notion and Definition of human Nature in
not only say Three Divine Persons but Three Divine Essences not One Essence But besides this One Essence can't be a Genus because what is but One can have no Species nor can it for the same reason be a Species because what is One can't be subdivided into Individuals as though Man considered as a Species is divided into Abraham Isaac and Iacob yet One Man can't be subdivided into Three Men for One Man is One single Man Why then do we say One Essence and Three Substances or Persons which are St. Austin's words who always renders the Greek Hypostases by Substances and makes Substances and Persons equivalent for if Essence be a Species as Man is there can be but One Essence in the Sense and Notion of One Man which by the way he objects as a great Absurdity for it is the Sabellian Heresy Thus far St. Austin was certainly in the right but here I think with all submission this great Man missed the true Notion which he had so happily started One Essence can't be a Species because what is but One can have no proper Individuals under it as One Man can't be subdivided into Three Men But then he might have applied Individual to Essence which One Essence naturally led to and have found Three Persons in One Individual Essence which would not indeed be Three Individuals of One Species but Three Singulars of One Individual Nature And though One Man who is but One Individual of Human Nature can't be subdivided into Three proper Individuals yet to conceive One Individual Human Nature to be communicated whole and entire without division or separation to Two others is the truest Image of Three distinct Persons in One Individual Essence and the only possible Explication of totus ex toto whole of whole which is the true Catholick Faith Such an One Essence is no Species but yet is a common Nature and such Persons are not what we call Individuals as not having each of them a particular individual Nature to himself but yet they have a particular singular Subsistence as other Individuals have and are each of them by himself as true and perfect God though all but One God as every individual Man is true and perfect Man It seems plain to me that this is the very Notion St. Austin intended in what he immediately adds the communis eademque materia that One common Matter which he prefers before either a generical or specifick Unity That the same One Divine Essence is common to Father Son and Holy Ghost not as if Father Son and Holy Ghost had their Subsistence out of the same common Essence as three golden Statues are made of the same Gold this perverse Exposition of the Homoousion was rejected with abhorrence by the Catholick Fathers as I shewed before and St. Austin expresly rejects it here and therefore though these Three Persons are One Essence una essentia unius essentiae he will not allow us to say that they are ex una essentia out of One Essence as golden Statues are of or cut out of the same Gold nay nor as Three Men are of the same Nature that is which is specifically not identically the same as I observed a little above Now remove these two Notions of One common Essence and there remains only a third which is that very Notion I now insist on One and the same Essence common to Three by a perfect communication of the same One whole undivided Essence And this answers exactly to that Notion of St. Austin which he could find no Image of in Nature that the Essence of Father Son and Holy Ghost is not more or greater all together than the Father alone or the Son alone but these Three Substances or Persons if they may be so called all together are equal to each single Person which a carnal Man cannot apprehend But now if we believe a whole of a whole we must confess that it is impossible it should be otherwise for if the Son have the same whole Essence with the Father if the Father be the whole Divine Essence if the Son be the same whole Divine Essence and so the Holy Ghost the same whole though subsisting distinctly in Three can never be greater nor less than it self Three Persons are more in number than One but One and the same whole undivided Essence can be but one whole This is the true Notion and there can be no other Catholick Sense made of it of what the Fathers so universally teach That there is in the Trinity Vna Substantia but not unus subsistens One Substance but not one only who subsists when yet at the same time they as universally acknowledge That the Father is Substance the Son Substance the Holy Ghost Substance and neither of them each other That the Person of the Father is the Essence and Substance of the Father the Person of the Son the Substance of the Son that the Person is not one thing and the Essence and Substance another as St. Austin upon all occasions teaches Now that there should be but One Substance and Three substantial Subsisting Persons can never be reconciled any other way than by the perfect Communication of the same whole undivided Essence and Substance of the Father to the Son and Holy Spirit For the same reason they tells us That the Father is Wisdom the Son Wisdom of Wisdom and yet but One Wisdom the Father is Spirit the Son Spirit and the Holy Ghost Spirit and yet not Three Spirits but One Spirit and the Father is God the Son God the Holy Ghost God yet there are not Three Gods but One God For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One God is the One Divine Essence and One Divine Essence though distinctly subsisting in Three is but One God though every Divine Person having the whole Divine Essence in himself is True and Perfect God Three Divine Natures though specifically the same and perfectly alike would unavoidably be Three Gods as three particular Humane Natures are three men but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thrice subsisting Monade as Dyonisius the Areopagite calls the Divine Essence is but One in Three and therefore but One God in Three because but one Divine Essence In this Sense we are so often told That in the Trinity there is alius alius another and another that is distinct Subsisting Persons who are not each other but not aliud in the Neuter Gender not another Essence or Nature not only not specifically another as the Arians asserted but not another Nature though of the same Species but the same One Individual Nature communicated whole and undivided to more than One. Upon the same account the Father is acknowledged by all Catholick Writers to be the One only God and they answer the Objection of Tritheism by this very Principle That they own but One Eternal Self-originated Unbegotten Father and therefore but One God They grant That Three Fathers would
be Three Gods but when there is but One Eternal Father though he have an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit there can be but One God Now what is the meaning of this Is it because none is or can be God True and Perfect God but he who is God of himself Self-originated and Unbegotten This would destroy the Perfect Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and answer the Objection of Tritheism by denying the Trinity And it is certain this could not be their meaning because they owned the Sameness and Equality of Nature of Majesty and Glory of Wisdom and Power in Father Son and Holy Ghost only allowed the Prerogative of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the name and relation of Father And when the Arians woul◠prove the diversity of Nature between Father and Son by this Argument That the Father is unbegotten and the Son begotten they denied that this inferred the least difference or inequality of Nature Now if the Divine Essence be God and there be a perfect equality of Nature between Father Son and Holy Ghost though the Father be unbegotten the Son begotten and the Holy Ghost proceeds from both I desire to know Why Three Persons each of which is True and Perfect God though one be unbegotten another begotten and a third proceeds be not as much Three Gods as Three that are unbegotten are Three Gods The natural Notion of God is an Eternal Unmade Uncreated Essence which gives being to all Creatures but neither Begotten nor Unbegotten belongs to the natural Notion of God but is matter of pure Revelation and therefore Three that are Eternal as to the natural Notion of God are as much Three Gods as Three that are Unbegotten The true Account of it then is this That One Father who is unbegotten himself but begets a Son is but One eternal Divine Essence which he eternally communicates whole and undivided to the Son and therefore is but One Divine Essence still and therefore but One God whereas Three Unbegottens who do not communicate in each other and neither give to nor receive from any other must be Three absolute independent Divine Essences and therefore Three Gods And therefore they do not call the Father the One God merely because he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unbegotten but as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Deity who communicates his own whole Divine Nature and Essence to the Son and Holy Spirit For this reason Athanasius condemns Sabellius for saying that there is but One only God in the Iewish Notion of One God not meaning thereby that there is but One only who is unbegotten and who only is the Fountain of the Deity but that there is but One God as having no Son nor living Word or true Wisdom It were easy to enlarge here and to improve this Observation for the Explication of several difficult Passages in the Fathers but this may satisfy us that the Catholick Fathers by One Substance did not mean a meer specifick but a natural and essential Unity SECT VI. A more particular Inquiry what the Catholick Fathers meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness and Identity of Substance in the Holy Trinity WHat I have discoursed in the last Section concerning the Homoousion and One Substance of the Godhead will receive a new Light if we consider what the Catholick Fathers meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness Identity and Inseparability of Essence and Substance whereby they explain the Unity of the Divine Substance and the Unity of the Godhead The Learned Jesuit Petavius has two large Chapters to prove that both the Greek and Latin Fathers did assert the Singularity and Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature and Substance And I freely grant That as Singularity is opposed to a mere specifick Unity he has unanswerably proved it but why he or the Schools should chuse a word to represent the Sense of the Catholick Fathers by concerning the Unity of the Divine Substance which they themselves rejected as Sabellianism I can't account for for singularis solitarius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Singularity of Nature and Substance were rejected as suspected terms at least though they allowed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness and Identity of Nature the Vnitas but not Vnio the Unity but not Union which St. Hilary so often calls impia Vnio a wicked Union as destroying the real distinction of Persons and consequently the true Faith of Father Son and Holy Ghost And to do Petavius right he rejects such a notion of singularity as denies the Divinity to be a Common Nature as if it could subsist only in One Person or Hypostasis which he owns to be Sabellianism and that for this reason some of the Fathers he might have said most if not all the Ancient Fathers did reject the use of such words and taught That the Divine Nature is One as any other Nature is which is common to more than one And acknowledges that St. Hilary St. Ambrose St. Austin and others do expresly deny that God is a singular Being and reject the Notion of singularity from the Divine Essence Now such a singularity as this as admits of a real and substantial Communication of the Divine Nature whole of whole to the Son and Holy Spirit is certainly the Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers and what they meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sameness or Identity of Nature in Father Son and Holy Ghost in which they placed the Unity of the Godhead That there must be this Sameness and Identy of Nature in all Three Divine Persons is evident from the last Section for a whole of a whole must be identically the same Whole not so the same as one singular Whole is the same with it self but as the same Whole which thrice subsists without the least conceivable difference is the same with it self in Three And that this is what the Fathers meant by that Sameness of Nature wherein they placed the Unity of the Godhead it were easy to prove by numerous Authorities but some few may serve in so plain a Case One St. Hilary will furnish us with Testimonies enow of this nature He places the Sameness of Nature between Father and Son in this That the Son has by his Eternal Nativity the Nature of the Father without the least dissimilitude or diversity indifferens indissimilis indiscreta Natura and this makes the Father and Son One God But then at the same time he carefully and expresly rejects the Notion of Singularity Solitude and Union Petavius quotes several Passages out of St. Hilary to prove this Singularity of the Divine Essence but all that they amount to and all that he pretends to prove by them is That the Unity between Father and Son is greater than a Specifick Unity or a Communion in the same Specifick Nature
since I find some Learned Men boggle very much at the Notion of Relative Substances which are not merely the Subjects of Relations but the Relations themselves What their Objection is against this I can't tell unless they think that a Relative Substance is not True and Perfect Substance which is very far from the Notion of the Schools who attribute compleat and perfect Subsistence to these Divine Relations or Persons not as Accidents in their Subjects nor as Parts in a Whole which is their Notion of Substance and compleat Subsistence but a Relative Substance only signifies such a Substance as is not the Original but is all that it is from another which they call the Relatio Originis not merely such a Relation as is between the Cause and the Effect which is seldom a substantial subsisting Relation but the Relation between Substance and Substance when one Substance in the notion of Suppositum is wholly and perfectly derived and expressed from the other The easiest Representation of this is the relation between the Prototype or Original and its Image which is not a mere Relation of Likeness and Similitude but of Origination that the Image is taken from the Original which is the foundation of the Relation Though Two Eggs were never so perfectly alike yet One is not the Image of the Other because it is not of the Other nor its natural Representation though perfectly like it but the Image is that which results from the Object like a Face in the Glass or the Impression of a Seal and the whole Essence of such an Image as an Image is relative And it is the same case as to a living substantial Image of that Life and Substance from whence it proceeds it is as perfect Life and Substance it self as its Original or else it could not be a natural Image of Life and Substance but yet it is Relative Life and Substance Life of Life the Prototype begetting its own Image in a perfect Identity and Sameness of Nature Whole of Whole And this is the Notion of the Schools concerning Relative Substances which is intelligible enough And that this is what they mean by Relations in the Godhead or Divine Nature is as plain The Master of the Sentences tells us That these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost signify the Properties of Paternity Filiation and Procession for they are Relatives which speak a mutual respect and denote Relations which are not Accidents in God but immutably in the Persons themselves so that they are not mere relative Appellations but are Relations or Notions in the things themselves that is in the Persons And by this Argument Tho. Aquinas proves That these are real Relations and are really in God because the Father is so called from the Relation of Paternity and the Son from Filiation that were not Paternity and Filiation realiter in Deo real subsisting Relations in the Divinity it would follow That God is not really Father or Son but only according to different Conceptions which is the Sabellian Heresy And proves That these Relations in God are real because they are Divine Processions in the Identity of Nature that is the Son who proceeds from the Father in the Identity of the same Nature and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Father and Son in the Identity of the same Nature For they called both the Generation of the Son and the Spiration of the Holy Ghost Processions as the Greeks did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one processio intellectus the other amoris Now these real Processions are Respects in the nature of things and such Respects are real Relations for when any thing proceeds from a Principle of the same Nature both that which proceeds and that from which it proceeds must necessarily be of the same Order and therefore have a real respect to each other Divine Processions in the Identity of Nature must be related to each other in the Unity of the same Nature and must be substantial subsisting Relations for they are no other than the Persons themselves who thus proceed It is a received Conclusion in the Schools That a Relation in God is the same with the Divine Essence That Personal Relations are not reipsa distinguished either from the Persons or the Essence And Gilbertus Porretanus who taught the contrary was forced to recant in the Council of Rhemes The real Distinction of these Relations in the Unity of the Divine Nature is another avowed Doctrine of the Schools and by a real Distinction they mean a Distinction in re in the Subject and Suppositum And this they prove from the real Distinction of Persons which are distinguished only by Relations From a real Trinity which is One in Substance but multiplied by Relations relatio multiplicat Trinitatem and therefore unless these Relations be really distinguished from each other there can't be a Real but only a Notional Trinity which is Sabellianism That these Relations which constitute the Trinity are opposite Relations which require distinct Subjects as Paternity and Filiation for no man can be Father and Son to himself That these Divine Relations are real Relations and therefore must be really distinct or else they are not all real unless they be really opposed to each other which makes a real distinction and therefore there must be a real distinction in God not as to any thing absolute secundum rem absolutam which is the Divine Essence which has the most perfect and simple Unity but secundum rem relativam with respect to a Relative Being and Subsistence So that these Relations are Relative Beings Relative Subsistences and as they are sometimes called Relative Substances which are really distinct though not in Nature yet in their Suppositums not as Tâ—ree Absolute Beings which makes a distinction in Nature but as Three Real Subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Nature But not â—o multiply words in so plain a Case I shall observe buâ— one thing more to this purpose and that concerns the Dispute concâ—â—ning the Number of the Divine Persons The Catholick Faith owns a Trinity or only Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead Father Son and Holy 〈◊〉 and it is the known Doctrine of the Schools That the Relation is the Person How comes it to pass then that when there are Four Relations in the Godhead Paternity Filiation Active Spiration and Procession there should be but Three Persons Now the Answer which Aquinas and others give to this Difficulty is this That it is not every Relation but only opposite Relations which constitute and distinguish Persons for more Persâ—ns are more subsisting Relations really distinct from each other but there can be no real distinction between the Divine Relations but upon account of their relative opposition And therefore two opposite Relations must belong to two Persons but such Relations as are not opposite to each other must belong to the same Person and therefore Paternity and
that the other is and yet not Three Minds but One Mind This shews the diffâ—rence between Absolute and Relative Substances Three Absolute Substances are always distinctly and separately Three and can never be any otherwise than specifically One but Relative Substances may be essentially One in the same One Individual Nature and this is the Account both the Fathers and Schools give of a Trinity in Unity Three Relations or Three Relative Substances or Subsistencies essentially related to each other in the Unity of the same One Individual Essence St. Gregory Nyssen has given the most particular Account of this matter in his Catechetical Oration To convince the Heathens of the Eternal Subsistence of the Divine Word in the Unity of the same Godhead he lays the foundation of all in that universally received Principle That the Divinity is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I translate not irrational without Reason or Understanding but not without its Word which is not the Personal Wisdom of the Father whereby the Father is wise as I have already shewn Chap. 3. but a Personal Living Subsisting Word Which answers to that Word which we feel in our own Minds and which is essential to all Minds that no Mind can be without its Word but is not a vanishing Notion and Idea or a transient sound as Human words but answers to the perfection of the Divine Nature And therefore as our Mortal Nature has a Vanishing Perishing Word so the Incorruptible and Eternally Permanent Immutable Nature has an Eternal Subsisting Word And as he proceeds if this Divine Word subsists it lives for it does not subsist like stupid inanimate Stones but as Mind and Spirit which must live if it subsists and if it lives the absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature which admits of no composition proves that he lives not by a participation of Life but as Life it self And if the Word lives as being Life it self it must have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power to do what it freely wills and chuses For that which cannot will and chuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not live and an Impotent Will is a contradiction to the Nature of God and therefore its Power must be equal to its Will But this Divine Word can will nothing but what is good and wills whatever is good and being able to effect whatever it wills is not unactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without doing any thing but does the good it wills And since we must acknowledge the World and all things in it which are wisely and artificially made to be good all things are the Works of this Living Subsisting Word This is his Proof That God has a Subsisting Living Almighty Creating Word which is another distinct Person from him whose Word he is For the Word is a Relative Term and signifies a Relative Subsistence and necessarily supposes the Father for he is not the Word but with relation to him whose Word he is And by this means he tells us we may escape both the Polytheism of the Gentiles and the Singularity of the Iews by acknowledging the Living Energetical Operative Word which the Iews deny and the Unity and Identity of Nature between the Word and Him whose Word he is For as our Word proceeds out of our Mind and is neither every way the same with the Mind nor yet upon all accounts another For that it is of the Mind proves that is is another and not the Mind it self but as it perfectly expresses and represents the Mind it cannot be another Nature but one and the same Nature though a kind of different subsistence So the Word of God by a distinct subsistence of its own is distinguished from him from whom he receives his Subsistence and Hypostasis but inasmuch as he is all and the same that God is he is perfectly one and the same in Nature This is the Doctrine of all the other Catholick Fathers as well as of Gregory Nyssen who resolve the Unity of the Godhead in a Trinity of Persons into Relative Subsistencies in the same Individual Nature which no more multiplies Natures and Divinities to make Two or Three Gods than the Mind its Word and Love make Three Minds This is the true and compleat notion of the Homoousion which as I have already shewn does not signify a meer Specifick Unity but the Unity of One Individual not Singular Nature in Three that Three Real Distinct Subsisting Persons are as intimately and essentially related to each other in the same Individual Nature as a Human Mind and its Word are which are not and never can be two Minds but one Mind Two compleat and perfect Minds can never in a proper notion be Consubstantial or one Substance though they have the same specifick Nature for their Substance is not one and the same but naturally two and naturally separable how closely soever they may be united but Three Divine Persons who are essentially related to each other in the same Divinity as the Mind and its Word are are in the strictest notion Consubstantial or One Substance being essentially related to each other in the same One Individual Nature and Essence And here I must take notice of a great mistake which some Learned Men run into concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 singular and particular Natures Substances and Essences by which they understand what some others call Personal Substances and conclude That since Philoponus and others who asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three particular Natures and Essences or Substances in the Godhead were charged with Tritheism as they deserved if their Opinions be truly represented those who assert Three Substantial Persons or Three distinct Personal Subsistencies or Substances are liable also to the same Charge This is a material Objection and a fair Answer to it will set this whole matter in a clear light Now the Answer in short is this That those who rejected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and charged it with Tritheism did not thereby understand particular personal relative Subsistencies or Substances but compleat absolute particular Natures and Substances not Three Real Substantial Subsisting Relations in One Individual Nature as a Mind its Internal Essential Word and Spirit as Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three but Three absolute particular Natures as Three Men each of whom has a compleat absolute personal Nature of his own are Three Now if this be the true Account every one sees the difference between Three personal relative Substances or Subsistencies of the same Nature and Three absolute particular Natures the first is a real Substantial Trinity Three Subsisting Infinite Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead Three Persons and One God the other is down-right Tritheism And that this is all they meant by particular Individual Natures I have many Arguments to prove For 1st Had they herein condemned distinct personal relative Substances they had condemned the Faith of the Catholick Church and relapsed into Sabellianism as
Singularity of the Divine Essence for it proves quite the contrary it is the Unity of Three which is a Trinity in Unity not the Unity of One which is Singularity and Solitude In the next place I observe That by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Catholick Fathers understand in this Mystery the inseparable Union of Relatives in the same Individual Nature not the Union of compleat absolute Natures how close and inseparable soever it may be There is by Nature no Inseparable Union but in the same Individual Nature Three compleat Individuals though of the same Kind and Species how closely and intimately soever they be united are not by Nature inseparable nor essentially One for they may be parted by that Power which united them and when they are parted can subsist apart as Three compleat Minds how intimately soever they should be united by God yet can never be essentially and inseparably One for they are not essential to each other they might have subsisted apart and may be parted again and an External Union cannot so make them One as to be naturally inseparable Which I think is a Demonstration that a Natural Inseparability which is an Essential Unity can be only in One Individual Nature between such Relatives as are Essential to each other and can neither be nor be conceived divided or separated And therefore the Catholick Fathers represented the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Examples of Natural Unions between things Essentially related to each other in One Individual Nature which either cannot be conceived or at least cannot subsist apart Of this last Kind are a Fountain and its Streams a Tree and its Branches whereby they not only represent the Homoousion but the Inseparable Union of the Divine Persons as every one knows for there cannot be a Fountain but its Waters must flow out nor Streams without a Fountain from whence they flow and though Branches may be separated from the Tree yet they live no longer than they are united and are Branches of that Tree no longer But these are very imperfect Images and without great caution will corrupt our Ideas of the Divine Unity Of all Corporeal Unions the nearest resemblance we have of this and which the Fathers most insist on is the Sun and its natural Splendor for we cannot conceive the Sun without its Splendor nor the Splendor without the Sun they never were never can be parted and therefore though two are essentially one This Representation the Scripture makes of it which calls the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Brightness of his Father's Glory and in this Sense they teach that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Light of Light as it is in the Nicene Creed whereby they do not mean two distinct independent Lights which either are or may be parted though one be lighted at the other this was the Heresy of Hierachas as St. Hilary tells us who represented this Mystery by two Candles one of which is lighted at the other or by one and the same Lamp which is divided and burns in two Sockets but that Light and Splendor which is essential to the same Sun and can never be divided from it as Athanasius teaches But the truest Images we have of this in Nature is the Inseparable Union which is between a Mind and its own Internal Word which are so essentially related to each other in the same Individual Nature that they can never be parted nor conceived apart the Mind can never be without its Word nor the Word subsist but in the Mind It is evident That two compleat absolute Minds can never be thus united for they are not Essential to each other not naturally one and therefore not naturally inseparable but a Mind and its Word though two are essentially One and therefore can never be parted but must subsist together and these are the Characters the Scripture gives us of God the Father and his Son the Father Infinite Eternal Self-originated Mind the Son his Eternal Infinite Living Subsisting Word And if Father and Son this Eternal Mind and Eternal Word be as essentially One as a mans Mind and his Word are One this is a Demonstration of their Inseparable Union and gives us a sensible Notion and Idea of it This is the account Athanasius every where gives of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Father and Son are inseparably One the Father being in the Son and the Son in the Father as the Word is in the Mind and the Light in the Sun To separate the Divine Persons so as not to be in each other whatever other Union we own between them Dionysius of Alexandria charges with Tritheism for the Divine Word must of necessity be one with God and the Holy Spirit be and subsist in him And this Athanasius resolves into such a Sameness and Unity of Nature as must be between two Relative Subsistencies in the same Individual Nature That the Son is in the Father as the Word is in the Mind and the Splendor in the Sun that he is a genuine proper natural Son in the Father's Essence and Substance not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not subsisting out of his Father's Substance as other Creature Sons do That the true Notion of the Sons being in the Father is that the whole Being of a Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Genuine Natural Birth of the Father's Substance the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Splendor is of the Sun That the very Being of the Son is the Form of Species and Divinity of the Father That as the Sun and its Splendor are two but not two Lights but one Light from the Sun enlightening all things with its Splendor and Brightness so the Divinity of the Son is the Divinity of the Father and therefore inseparable and thus there is but one God and none else besides him All this plainly refers to the Inseparable Union and Inbeing of Relatives of the same Individual Substance which are really distinct but essentially in each other as the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word that Thought it self cannot part them which is such an Union as can never be between compleat absolute Substances which are not naturally Inseparable nor essentially One. Herein Athanasius places the adequate Notion of the Homoousion the Sameness Identity and Unity of Nature He tells us That for this reason the Nicene Fathers taught the Homoousion or that the Son is Consubstantial or of one Substance with the Father to signify that the Son is not only like the Father but to be so of the Father as to be the same in likeness not after the manner of Bodies which are like each other but subsist apart by themselves as Human Sons subsist separately from their Parents but the Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father is of a different Kind and Nature from Human Generations for he is not only like but inseparable from his Father's Substance
He and the Father are One as he himself says The Word is always in the Father and the Father in the Word as it is with Light and its Splendor and this is what the Homoousion signifies and in like manner he resolves the Sameness Identity and Unity of Nature into this Internal Inseparable Union and Inbeing of Three essentially related to each other in One Individual Divinity 4 thly That Mutual Inbeing of the Divine Persons which is their Inseparable and Essential Union that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latins Circumincessio can be understood only between the Relatives of the same Individual Essence and Substance The true compleat Notion of this Inbeing or Perichoresis is not merely a Mutual Presence or the same Vbi that where-ever one is there the other is or a kind of Immeation and Penetration of each other which is a Corporeal Notion and rejected as such by the Catholick Fathers when they speak of this Divine Inbeing as St. Hilary expressly does inesse autem non aliud in alio ut corpus in corpore that they are not in each other as one Body is in another Body And when the Arians objected against our Saviour's saying I am in the Father and the Father in me How can this be in that and that in this Or how can the Father who is greater be at all in the Son who is less Or what wonder is it that the Son should be in the Father when it is written of us all That in him we live and move and have our being Athanasius answers That this is all owing to Corporeal Conceits as if they apprehended God to be a Body not considering the Nature of the True Father and true Son the Invisible and Eternal Light and its Invisible Splendor an Invisible Substance and its unbodied Character and Image But the true Notion of this Inbeing and Pericharesis is the Perfect Unity of the same Individual Nature in Three That the Nature and Essence of the Father is in the Son that the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Character Image Mind Divinity of the Father Here as Athanasius observes our Saviour himself lays the Reason and Foundation of this Mutual Inbeing He first tells us I and my Father are One and then adds I am in the Father and the Father in me that he might shew the Sameness and Identity of the Godhead and the Unity of Essence For they are One not One divided into two Parts and nothing more than One for they are Two the Father is the Father and not the Son and the Son is the Son and not the Father but there is but One Nature for he that is begotten is not unlike in Nature to him that begets but is his Image and all that the Father hath is the Sons There is no need to multiply Quotations to this purpose which may be met with every where The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father as the Nature of the Father is lives and subsists in the Son not a Nature like the Fathers but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father 's own proper Nature and Essence they are in each other as being essentially One not One merely as being in each other as it is possible Three may be and yet not be essentially One but Three as Three compleat absolute Minds would be Three still though they should perfectly penetrate each other Or as Three Candles in the same Room are Three Lights though they are perfectly united in One But Original Mind its Word and Spirit are and must be in each other as being Three in One Individual Essence for the same undivided Essence can't be whole and entire in Three but those Three must be in each other If the Divinity of the Father is in the Son the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father the Mind is in its Word and the Word in the Mind The Son is in the Father as eternally begotten in the Substance of the Father whole of whole and essentially one and the same as the Word is in the Mind not by such an Union and Penetration as we may suppose between two Minds but as conceived in the Mind and essentially one and the same with it Now according to this Representation which all the Catholick Fathers make of this Mystery we must of necessity acknowledge Number without Multiplication Distinction without Division or Separation a perfect Trinity in perfect Unity Three Persons each of which is by himself True and Perfect God but not Three Gods but One God A Mind and its Word are two and a living subsisting Word is true and perfect Mind Mind of Mind and yet not two Minds but one Mind for the Mind and its Word are essentially One as all Men must confess the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word and therefore identically one and the same for which reason the Fathers acknowledge that the Father is Spirit the Son Spirit and the Holy Ghost Spirit and these are Three but not Three Spirits as essentially related to each other in the same individual Essence essentially the same and essentially in each other And thus Will of Will Wisdom of Wisdom Life of Life Power of Power though they multiply and distinguish Persons do not multiply Wills Wisdoms Lives Powers which are essentially One as the Mind its Word and Spirit are One They are not One Life One Will One Understanding One Power in the Sense of but One who Lives who Wills who Understands and has Power but as the same identically the same Life and Will c. is in each of them and indivisibly and inseparably in them all And this gives an account of the Unity of Operation wherein the Catholick Fathers unanimously place the Unity of God for One Almighty Agent is but One God and One Essential Will Wisdom and Power can be but One Agent and Infinite Original Mind and its Eternal subsisting Word can have but One Will and Wisdom and Power for the Will and Wisdom of the Mind is in its Word the same not merely specifically the same or the same by consent as it may be between Two Minds which Will perfectly the same thing but the same One Individual Will the Father Wills and the Son Wills and they both Will distinctly but with one Individual Will as it is impossible that the Word should Will with any other Will but the Will of that Mind whose Word it is And therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost though Three Eternal Infinite Living Intelligent Willing Persons which Subsist and Act distinctly yet being that to each other in a more perfect and excellent manner that Mind its Word and Spirit are in Men they must be as perfectly One Almighty Agent as a created Mind is which Wills and Acts in its Word and Spirit The Distinction and Unity of
Operation necessarily proves the Distinction and Unity of Essence it being in our way of conceiving things a necessary effect of it there must be some real Distinction in the same Nature and Essence in which there are Three who Act distinctly and there must be an Individual Unity of Essence when in Three there is but One Individual Operation and though these things may be distinguished in Creatures where we distinguish the Suppositum and the Powers and give a priority of Nature to the Suppositum yet Essence and Energy being the same in God who is a pure simple Act there can be no priority nor posteriority between them but the Demonstration proceeds equally upon Nature or Operation but that is the best which is the most intelligible Representation of this Distinction and Unity For this reason the Fathers chose to explain the Distinction and Unity of the Godhead by the Distinction and Unity of Operation which I need not prove at large as being universally owned and therefore I shall only observe how St. Gregory Nyssen represents this matter In his Answer to Ablabius that there are not Three Gods he tells us That the best way to form the clearest and most perspicuous Notion of this is to examine what this Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Godhead signifies Now whereas some think this a proper Name to signify the Divine Nature and Essence he asserts with the Scriptures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Divine Nature and Essence is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a Name and can't be signified by words and that every Name which is given to God signifies something essential to him but not his Nature and Essence it self This he shews particularly in some Names given to God and affirms That thus it is in all other Divine Names that either they remove all Imperfections or attribute all Divine Perfections to him but do not declare his Nature And thus he adds it is in the Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is God is a Sâ—er an Inspector who beholds all things Now if God signifies him who sees and knows all things we must inquire whether this All-seeing Power belongs only to one of the Divine Persons of the Trinity or to all Three For if this be the true interpretation of the Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is an All-seeing Power and that He that sees all is God we cannot reasonably deny this to any Person in the Holy Trinity since the Scripture does equally attribute this Omniscience to Father Son and Holy Ghost Well! suppose this as he adds it does not remove but encrease the difficulty for though God be not a Name of Nature but of Energy and Power if the Name God signifies a Seer and Inspector and there be Three who thus see all things Three must be Three Gods as we number Persons of the same Profession who all do the very same things as well as those who have the same Nature as we say many Orators Mathematicians and the lâ—ke as well as many Mâ—n Now this he answers by the Unity of Energy and Power which is in each of them but is but One indivisible inseparable Power not as it is in Men who each of them acts separately by himself and though they do the same thing for kind yet what each of them does is properly his own doing and not anothers They act separately and produce distinct and separate Effects and therefore are many Agents But it is quite otherwise as to the Divine Nature The Father does nothing by himself without the Son nor the Son without the Holy Ghost but each Divine Operation proceeds originally from the Father is continued by the Son and perfected in the Holy Spirit and therefore the name of Energy is not divided into a number of Agents because neither of them acts separately by himself And this he proves from the Unity of the Effect that whatever good thing we receive from God as suppose Life is attributed to Father Son and Holy Ghost but though it be given by Three that which is given or done for us is not Three we do not receive three Lives one from each Person of the Trinity but we have but one Life which we receive from them all Now where there is but One Undivided Effect there can be but One Natural Agent for separate Agents will produce separate Effects and therefore there can be but one motion of the Divine Will from the Father by the Son to the Holy Spirit and that without distance and Succession Now it is plain that all this does not signify a mere Unity of Consent as may be between Three Distinct and Separate Minds but the Unity of Principle which acts distinctly but uniformly and inseparably in Three the same Divine Will which is originally in the Father acting in the same manner and with one indivisible motion as they speak in the Son and Holy Spirit which Unity of Operation though it admits of distinct Acts and consequently a real distinction of Persons yet proves the individual Unity of Essence for there can be no Unity of Principle or Operation but in the same Individual Essence where Three Persons are united in the same Individual Essence as the Mind its Word and Spirit are in Man And here had there not been enough already said about it is a proper Place to vindicate that late Representation which has been made of the Distinction and Unity of the Godhead by the self-consciousness and mutual consciousness of the Divine Persons I have met with no body yet so hardy as to deny that Self-consciousness is essential to the natural Unity of a Person and that Three Persons cannot be naturally and essentially One without mutual Consciousness But the great Objection against this Notion and which I am amazed to find some Learned Men insist on is the order of Nature which requires that a Person should be One by an Unity of Nature before it can be self-conscious and that Three Persons must be One by the Unity of Nature before they can be mutually conscious For the Unity of Nature and the Union of Persons in the same Nature must be before all Acts of Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness And that which in the order of Nature comes after such a Distinction and Union cannot be the cause of it But who ever thought of causes of Distinction and Unity in an Eternal Nature which has no cause Did the Fathers philosophize thus concerning Priority and Posteriority in the Divine Nature when they placed the Unity of the Godhead in the Unity of Energy and Operation For does not the same Objection lie against the Unity of Energy and Operation that does â—gainst mutual consciousness which is essential to this Unity of Energy that the Divine Persons must first be One before they
in him are â—quivalent Expressions in Scripture 1 John 18. No man hath seen Gâ—d at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Where to see God and to be in the Bosom of the Father must signify the same thing for to be in the Bosom of the Father is put in the place of seeing God that is to see him within to see him in his Bosom as the Word sees the Mind and this is to be in his Bosom and thus the Son is in the Father The same Account we have of the Holy Spirits being in God 1 Cor. 2.11 For what man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of man which is in him even so the things of Gâ—d knoweth no man but the Spirit of God that is the Spirit of God is in God as the Spirit of a Man is in Man and therefore by this In-being the Spirit of God knows all the Things of God by such an Internal Conscious Sensation as the Spirit of Man knows what is in Man Thus what is the Unity of Energy and Operation but the same Conscious Will and Power acting distinctly but inseparably in Three for without this Internal Consciousnâ—ss they must be Three separate Wills and separate Powers and produce distinct and separate Effects but when God his Word and Spirit are in each other and see and know and feel each other in themselves as a Man's Mind his Word and Spirit do though in a more perfect and excellent manner there can be but One undivided Motion of the Divine Will as there is but One Conscious Life in Three the Son lives subsists wills understands and acts in and with the Father and therefore is but One Eternal Life One Almighty Will and Power Now as Novel as some Men think this Notion of the Vnity of Mutual Consciousness to be we meet with it more than once in express words in Sâ— Hilary whose Authority I hope is sufficient to vindicate it from the charge of Novelty Thus with reference to what our Saviour says No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him 11. Matth. 27. St. Hilary observes Hilar. de Trin. c. 2 Illis scientia mutua est illis vicissim câ—gnitio perfecta That Father and Son have a mutual perfect Knowledge of each other And this he asserts to be a Conscious Knowledge connate with him a Conscious Sensation of his Father's Nature in himself which our Sâ—viour himself signifies by his Unity of Nature and Operation with the Father as the Reader may see in the Margin Thus Tertullian long before describ'd this mutual Consciousness between God and his Eternal Word and Wisdom by what we feel in our selves when we silently muse alone our Word does as it were talk with us and return our Thoughts to us is present with us in every Turn and Motion and Pulse of Thought and internal Sensation as conscious to all within us Thus he tells us That the Son alone knows the Father and does not his own but his Father's Will which he knows de proximo imo de initio that is by an immediate Intuitive Knowledge not by External Communication but by Internal Sensation Thus the Son does nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do in sensu scilicet facientem in his own Mind and Will Pater enim sensu agit the Father does all things by disposing and ordering all things in his own Mind and Will Filius vero qui in sensu Patris est videns perficit The Son who is in the Mind and Sense and Will of the Father sees the Father's Will and does it Now let any Man tell me what else can be meant by the Sons being in sensu Patris videns in sensu Patris but this Internal Conscious Sensation St. Cyril of Alexandria calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Son Wills together with the Father and with the same Will Dionysius the Areopagite says This Union does not only exceed all bodily Unions but the Unions also of Souls and Minds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Fulgentius tells us The Word was with God sicut in mente verbum sicut in câ—rde consilium as the Word is in the Mind and Counsel in the Heart Marius Victorinus Afer tells us to the same purpose That the Son being in the Bosom of the Father signifies that he is God that he is in the Bosom and Womb of his Substance and therefore they are Consubstantial each of them being in each other and knowing each other But not to multiply Quotations all those Catholick Fathers and Doctors who placed the Unity of the Godhead in Consent and none of them rejected this in a Catholick Sense could understand nothing less by it than this mutual natural Consciousness for any other Consent was down right Arianism as St. Hilary witnesses and yâ—t thus the famous Lucian whom the Arians would have challenged as theirs but whom the Catholick Church always owned expresses it in his Creed and thus per substantiam tria per consonantiam verò unum Three in Substance but in Consent and Agreement One is justified by St. Hilary Hilar. de Synod as very Catholick but then he refers this to the Holy Spirit who is the substantial Bond and Cement of this Union and Consent But Gregory Nyssen who allows of this Unity of Consent more intelligibly represents it by the Consent and Uniformity of all the Motions between the Prototype and its Image or a Man's Face in a Glass which moves and acts with it Thus Christ is the Image of the Invisible God and is immediately and instantly affected together with his Father Does the Father Will any thing The Son also who is in the Father knows the Fathers Will or rather is the Father 's Will. But this I think is sufficient to be said about mutual Consciousness which is so manifestly the Doctrine of the Fathers of some in express Terms and of all according to the true Interpretation of what they taught that I cannot imagine the meaning of this furious Zeal against it but a Sabellian Zeal against Three Conscious Persons for one single Self-conscious Nature As St. Hilary observes in the Dispute between the Sabellians and Arians The Arians allowed Father and Son to be Two Distinct Persons but denied their Consubstantiality or Unity and Sameness of Nature The Sabellians who denied the distinction of Persons but asserted the Sameness Unity and Singularity of Nature which they thought sufficiently proved One Person as well as One Nature as no doubt but it does confuted the Arian Dissimilitude of Nature by what our Saviour says I and my Father are one which they said could be the Language of none but of a Nature conscious to it self of its own Identity and Sameness which
Terms can belong for there is no such thing in created Nature and therefore we can have no Idea of it It is abundantly sufficient in this Case that we have a clear and distinct Notion of One Substance and Three Hypostases in the Essential Unity and Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost Three subsisting Relations in One Individual Essence and Substance though when we abstractedly consider these Terms of One Substance and Three Hypostases we can form no consistent Notion or Idea of it And now let our Socinian Adversaries who talk so loud of Absurdities Contradictions Nonsense false Counting and Tritheism try their skill to make good these Charges against the Divine subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Individual Essence SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity BUT since one Nature and Essence and Three Hypostases or Persons is the Catholick Language and necessary to guard the Faith from those Two Extremes of Sabellianism and Arianism it will be necessary to consider how to apply these Ecclesiastical Terms to the Three and One in the ever Blessed Trinity And here were I so disposed I might enter into a very large and perplext Dispute but my design as far as possibly I can attain it is only to explain what the Catholick Fathers meant by these Terms and to give a plain and sensible Notion of them And after what I have already so largely discoursed concerning Nature and Hypostasis I have little more to do than to compare them together and to shew in what the Catholick Fathers placed this Distinction And as nothing is of greater consequence than rightly to understand this matter so nothing requires greater Caution nor greater Application of Mind Whosoever is conversant in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers must acknowledge it not only reasonable but necessary to distinguish between their Faith and their Philosophy Their Faith which they received srom the Scriptures and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church is plain and simple and the same in all That there is but One God who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself True and Perfect God and all but One God which is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that they are in a true and proper Sense Three and One This is the Catholick Faith wherein they all agree but then those Philosophical Terms which the importunities of Hereticks who corrupted either the Faith of the Unity or Trinity forced them to use in the Explication of this Mystery are of a different Consideration These have not always been the same nor have all agreed in them and the wisest Men have owned great Improprieties in them all when applied to this Sacred Mystery and indeed it is impossible to be otherwise for that infinite Difference and Diversity there is between the Divine and Humane Nature nay all created Nature can never admit of any Common Terms proper to express both The most perfect Creatures bear only some imperfect Analogy and Resemblance to what we conceive of God and therefore when we apply such Words and Terms to the Divine Naturâ— as are borrowed from Creatures and we have no other we must understand them only by way of Analogy and Accommodation and when we expound such Terms as are used by the Catholick Fathers in such an accommodated Sense we must apply them no further than that particular Matter they intended to represent by them I have already shâ—wn this in several particular Passages relating to the Homoousion but now I am more particularly to consider the difference between Essence and Hypostasis and I shall only shew how the matter of fact stands what has occasioned this difficulty what the true state of the Controversy is and how we may form some sensible notion of this Distinction and if I should mistake in so nice a Point as this I hope it will be a pardonable Mistake while I make no change in the Catholick Faith and intend it only as an Essay if it be possible to silence or qualify the Dispute about words The Greek Fathers attribute all the Heresies relating to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to this one Mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same for then if there be but One Essence in the Blessed Trinity there must consequently be but One Hypostasis which is Sabellianism or if there be Three Hypostases there must be Three Natures and Essences either in the Arian or Tritheistick Notion Thus with reference to the Incarnation two Natures must be two Persons or Hypostases as Nestorius taught or One Person must be but One mixt and compounded Nature too which was the Heresy of Eutyches This some Fathers thought a fundamental Error in Philosophy introduced by Aristotle who makes the first Substance which is the only true and proper Substance to be that which is predicated of no Subject nor is in any Subject that is what we call a Subsisting Individual as this Man or this Horse And therefore Theorianus observes That the Catholick Fathers understood Essence and Hypostasis in a very different sense from the Greek Philosophers that is by Essence and Substance they did not mean one singular Individuum or singular Nature and Substance as Aristotle did but a common Nature not a common Notion as Genus or Species which are Aristotle's second Substances but a common Subsisting Nature which is one and the same whole and perfect in every Individual of the same kind And what Aristotle call'd his first Substance a singular Subsisting Nature that they called Hypostasis a common Subsisting Nature with its individuating Characters and Properties It is evident some Ages past before these words Essence and Hypostasis were thus nicely distinguished or at least before this Distinction was so unanimously received for as I have already observed these Words were used very promiscuously which occasioned the Alexandrian Schism and it does not appear to me that this Distinction was setled by Athanasius and the Bishops with him in that Synod as some seem to think though soon after it generally prevailed as we may learn from St. Basil Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril of Alexandria Damascen Leontius Theorianus Theodorus Abucara Ignatius Sinaita and generally all the Catholick Writers of the Eutychian and Severian Age who universally agree in this That Essence and Hypostasis differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that which is Universal differs from what is Proper and Singular Now so far these Fathers were certainly in the right That if they must apply Philosophical Terms to Divine Mysteries which the Cavilling Objections of Hereticks made necessary there was an absolute necessity for them to change their signification for as there is nothing common to
that there is but One Divinity the second shews the distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Nature But then which is what I intended in all this this very distinction proves one individual Divinity because it is in the individual Unity of the same Numerical not Specifick Nature for all essential Processions as the Eternal Word and Spirit are which cannot so much as in Thought be separated from Original Mind must continue in the Unity of the same individual Nature This is what the Fathers meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One common Divinity which is individually One in Three perfect Hypostases Father Son and Holy Ghost The Divinity of the Father of Eternal Self-originated Mind is the common Divinity communicated to the Eternal Word and Spirit in the individual Unity of Nature 2. Now this will give us some Notion of the distinction of Nature and Persons in the Eternal Godhead I say Persons not Person which I take to be the fundamental Mistake which has obscured and perplex'd this Mystery Men have rack'd their Inventions to find out some distinction between Nature and Person in every single Person in the Godhead which it is certain these Fathers never thought of though their Attempt to distinguish between Nature and Person in every Man gave some occasion to this Mistake But I have already proved both from Fathers and Schoolmen That when they spoke distinctly of each particular Person they made Person and Nature the same That the Person of the Father is the Nature of the Father and the Person of the Son the Nature of the Son Nor indeed had they any occasion to distinguish between Nature and Person in each single Person which could do no service in this Mystery For the true reason and occasion for this distinction was to reconcile the Individual Unity of the Divine Nature with a Trinity of real Hypostases or Persons how One Nature can subsist in Three distinct Hypostases and continue One Individual Nature Which had been no difficulty at all were not each Divine Person by himself the Divine Nature But how the Divine Nature should subsist whole and perfect in Three distinct Persons and not be Three distinct Natures but One Nature and One Divinity not specifically but individually and numerically One This was the difficulty they were concerned to answer which the distinction between Nature and Person in each single Person could not answer For let us suppose such a distinction as this whatever it be if the Divine Nature subsist whole and perfect in each distinct Person the difficulty still remains how the Persons are distinct and the Nature individually One As to put the Case in Human Nature whatever distinction we allow between Nature and Person in every particular Man if we allow that every Man has Human Nature as distinctly in himself as he is a distinct Person the distinction between Nature and Person can never prove the Individual Numerical Unity of Human Nature in Three Men. The Question then is Not how Nature and Person is distinguish'd in each single Person much less how Three Persons in One singular Nature are distinguished from that singular Nature which unavoidably reduces a Trinity of Persons to an unintelligible Trinity of Modes but How the Three Persons in the Ever-blessed Trinity which are Three in number and each of them the Divine Nature are distinguished from that One Individual Divinity which is in them all or rather which they all are Now what I have already said seems to me to give a very intelligible Notion of this viz. That the Divine Nature which is but One is the Eternal Self-originated Divinity with its Eternal Essential Processions or Productions which as I have already shewn are but One not Singular but Individual Nature and Individual Divinity But then this One Self-originated Divinity is most certainly an Infinite Eternal Self-originated Person if Infinite Eternal Self-originated Mind be a Person and these Eternal Essential Processions are Persons also if an Eternal Living Subsisting Word be a Person and an Eternal Living Subsisting Spirit be a Person and then it is evident that there are Three Eternal Subsisting Persons in the Individual Unity of Nature These Divine Processions do not multiply nor divide the Divine Nature because they are essential to an Infinite Mind and are Processions ad intra in the perfect Identity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Individual Unity of Nature but they are distinct Persons as being Eternal Subsisting Living Intelligent Processions which is all that we mean by Persons in this Mystery with reference to the Eternal Word and Spirit For these Three Divine Persons have their different Characters and Order whereby they are distinguished from each other which the Fathers call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they meant their different manner of subsisting in the Individual Unity of the Divine Nature that though they have all the same Divinity as that signifies all Divine Perfections yet they have it after a different manner that is as they constantly explain it Vnbegotten Begotten and Proceeding as the Athanasian Creed teaches us to believe The Father is made of none neither created nor begotten The Son is of the Father alone not made nor created but begotten The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding This is the only distinction which the Catholick Fathers allow between the Three Divine Persons and let us consider the nature of it Now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies actual Existence and that which does actually exist and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify that there are Three that do actually exist but after a different manner That is That the Father is Unbegotten Self-originated Divinity is God of himself without any other cause of his Being and this Self-originated Unbegotten Divinity is the Person of the Father and in the highest and most absolute sense the One God The Son is Eternally begotten of his Father's Substance and lives and subsists in him and so the Holy Ghost Eternally proceeds from Father and Son That is There is One Eternal Self-originated Divinity with its two Eternal Processions in the perfect Unity and Identity of the same Nature The Father's manner of subsistence is easily understood and secures to him the Prerogative of the One True God but we must shew this a little more plainly with reference to the Son and Holy Spirit each of which is by himself True and Perfect God but not a Second and Third God The right understanding of which depends upon the true stating of their different manners of subsistence And here I need only refer to what I have already discoursed concerning the difference between an Absolute Nature and Relative Subsistencies in the same Nature An Absolute Nature is a whole Compleat Nature with all that essentially belongs to such a Nature as every perfect Man has all that belongs essentially to the Nature of Man
Divinity which is absolutely and originally in the Father Well then Here is One Divine Person viz. the Eternal Father who is absolutely and originally God and Two more the Son and Holy Ghost who are each of them in his own Person true and perfect God by having all the Divine Perfections But are not these Three then Three Gods the Unbegotten God who is originally and absolutely God the Begotten God and the Proceeding God No it is the constant Doctrine of the Catholick Fathers that the Trinity is but One Divinity and One God una Summa res One Supreme Being as St. Austin taught and from him Peter Lombard and was confirmed by the Council of Lateran in the Condemnation of Abbot Ioachim For Father Son and Holy Ghost though they are Three true and proper Persons are but One Individual Nature for it is Essential to the Eternal Mind to have its Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit and the Eternal Word and Spirit live and subsist in the Mind and though living subsisting Persons yet are as individually One with the Mind as a Created Mind its Word and Spirit are One. Whatever is Essential to Nature is in the Individual Unity of it and that is but One Individual Nature which has nothing but what is Essential to it and therefore if as I have already observed and as the Catholick Faith teaches the Son and Spirit the Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit are Essential Processions of Eternal Original Mind and essentially indivisibly and inseparably in it Father Son and Holy Ghost are as essentially and inseparably One Individual Divinity as any One Nature is One with it self But is not this a kind of Sabellian Composition of a God A whole Divinity made up of Three partial and incomplete Divinities Which St. Austin calls a Triformis Deus By no means What is compounded is made up of Parts which make a compound Nature but perfect Hypostases however united can make no Composition However you unite Iames and Iohn you can never make a compound Man of them because each of them have a perfect Human Nature and as Damascen observes we do not say That the Nature or Species is made up of the Hypostases but is in the Hypostases So that each Divine Person being a complete and perfect Hypostasis having the whole Divine Nature in himself as being True and Perfect God their Union in the same Individual Nature though it makes them One Essential Divinity yet it cannot make a Compound God for however their Persons are united the Divinity or Divine Nature is not compounded each of them being True and Perfect God and not One God by Composition but by an Individual Unity of Nature in Three For every Divine Person is not God in the same sense that every Human Person is a Man as having an Absolute Individual Nature of his own for in this sense the Father only is God as being Absolute Original Divinity an Eternal Self-originated Mind and Three such Persons must be acknowledged to be Three Gods but as I have been forced often to repeat it the Son and Holy Spirit are Divine Persons as they are Eternal Living Subsisting Processions in the Divine Nature which proves them to have the very same Divinity and to be but One Individual Divinity but not One Compound God For One Individual Nature in Three though distinguisht into Distinct Subsisting Persons makes such a natural inseparable Unity of Will Energy and Power that they are as perfectly One Almighty Agent as every single Person is One Agent as I have shewn above It is thought by some a manifest Contradiction to say as the Athanasian Creed teaches us The Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet there are not Three Gods but One God But whoever carefully considers what I have now said must own that this is the only true and proper way of speaking in this Mystery If there be but One Absolute Divinity there can be but One God for the Divine Processions in the Unity and Identity of the same Individual Nature cannot multiply the Divinity nor multiply the Name and Title of God for the Name God does not originally absolutely and immediately belong to them but only relatively The proper immediate Character of the Second Person in the Trinity is not God but the Son of God and the Word of God and so the Third is the Spirit of God And though we must necessarily own that the Son of God and the Spirit of God are each of them True and Perfect God equal in all Divine Perfections to the Father as being all the same that the Father is excepting his being a Father yet they are not Three Gods for this is not their immediate Original Character but there is One God the Father his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit This is what I have above observed from Tertullian That there is One God with his Oeconomy that is his Son and Spirit and that Christ is called God when he is spoken of by himself but when he is named together with the Father he must have his own proper Title which is the Son of God and the Reason is the same as to the Holy Spirit by which Rule we can never say That Father Son and Holy Ghost though each of them be God are Three Gods but there are Three God the Father his Son and Holy Spirit The Father God of himself the Son and Spirit Eternal Processions and Divine Subsisting Relations in the Unity and Identity of the Father's Godhead They have all the same Divinity their Glory equal their Majesty coeternal but their different manner of having it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishes their Names and Characters The Father is God absolutely God an Unbegotten Self-originated Being so God that there is no other God besides him The Son is not absolutely God but the Son of God and when he is called God in Scripture it is in no other sense but as the Son of God for the Son of God must be God the Son Nor is the Holy Spirit absolutely God but the Spirit of God which is all we mean when we call him God for the Spirit of God must be God the Holy Ghost This is the Catholick Faith and let any Man try if he can find Three Gods in it For when we number Father Son and Holy Ghost we must not number them by the common Name of Nature which is One Undivided Divinity in them all but by their Relative Names and Characters which do not only distinguish their Persons but signify their Unity Order and Relations in the same Nature We must not call them Three Gods because God is not the original Name of the Son or Spirit and therefore they are not Three Gods but there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead The One God the Father the Son of God and the Spirit of God so that there is but One God in the Christian Faith if the Son of God be
the Son of this One God the Father and the Spirit of God be the Spirit of this same One God And though the Son of God be God and the Spirit of God be God that is the Name of their Nature not of their Persons and therefore can no more be multiplied with the Persons than the Divine Nature is The Son of God is God but it is Authoritate Paternae Naturae as St. Hilary speaks not by any Absolute Godhead of his own but in right of his Father's Nature and Divinity which he received by an Eternal Generation Thus it must be where there is but One Absolute Nature with its Internal Processions Let us put the Case in a Human Mind and suppose That its Word and Spirit were Distinct Living Intelligent Hypostases in the Mind Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature perfectly the same with the Mind but distinct Hypostases but would any one for this Reason call these Three Three Men or Three Minds And yet such a Living Subsisting Word and a Living Subsisting Spirit would as perfectly have the Nature of the Mind as the Mind it self but neither of them would be an absolute Mind but one the Word of the Mind and the other the Spirit of the Mind not Three Minds but One Mind with its Essential Word and Spirit This though an Imaginary Case gives us a sensible representation of the difference between the Eternal Mind and its Eternal Word and Spirit which I freely acknowledge cannot properly be called Three Infinite Minds and Spirits for though the Eternal Subsisting Word is an Infinite Mind and so the Eternal Subsisting Spirit yet Mind as well as God is the Name of their Nature not of their Persons which is Identically one and the same in all This as I take it is what some Learned and truly Catholick Writers mean in distinguishing the several Acceptations of this Name God That sometimes it signifies the Divine Nature and Essence in general as when we say The Trinity is One God that is One Divinity that there is but One Divine Nature and Essence in all the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity Sometimes it signifies Personally as when we say The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that is the Person of the Father the Person of the Son and the Person of the Holy Ghost is God But then they are still forced to acknowledge that the Name God is not predicated Vnivocally of all Three Persons but that the Father is God in a more excellent and eminent Sense than the Son is God or the Holy Ghost God as being God of himself an Unbegotten Self-originated God the Fountain of the Deity to the Son and Holy Spirit Upon which account he is so often by the Catholick Fathers called the One God and the only True God Now all this is very True and very Catholick but with all submission it seems to me to be an inconvenient way of speaking which perplexes the Article with different Senses and is liable to great Cavils and Misconstructions as the Examples of Dr. Payn and the Author of the 28 Propositions witness and when most dexterously managed will sooner silence than convince an Adversary The Divine Essence must be considered only as in the Divine Persons when we say That the Trinity is One God the true meaning is That Three Persons are One God and the general abstract Notion of the Unity of Essence does not account for this but the Unity of the Divine Essence in Three Thus to say That the Father is God in the highest sense of that Name God and that He alone strictly speaking is a Being absolutely perfect because he alone is Self-existent and all other Beings even the Son and Holy Ghost are from him may be expounded to a very Catholick Sense and was certainly so meant but is liable to great Cavils when Men take more pains to pick Quarrels with Words than to understand an Author An Absolutely Perfect God and a God that wants any Perfection sounds not only like Two Gods but like Gods of different Kinds for every diversity of Nature alters the Species All that is meant by this is certainly True and Catholick and taught in express words by the Primitive Fathers That the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father that the Son is all that the Father is excepting his being the Father and unbegotten that is excepting Paternity and Self-existence or Self-origination and that upon this Account the Father is eminently called the One God the Son God of God that is God as the Son of God What I have now discoursed seems to me to give the fairest Account of this Matter I take the Name God always to signify a Person in whom the Divine Nature is not the Divinity in the Abstract and then the Name God must belong to any Person after the same manner as the Divine Nature is his that is he must be called God in no other sense than as he is God Now as I have already shewn there is but One Absolute Divinity with Two Internal Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature And if we make this our Rule of Speaking as we must do if this be the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and we will fit our words to the nature of things then it is very plain That the Name God absolutely belongs only to him who is this Absolute Divinity that is the Person of the Father that no other Person is God in recto absolutely and simply God but only he that he is the One God the only True God as both the Scripture and Fathers own But what becomes then of the Son and Holy Ghost Is not the Son God and the Spirit God Yes the Name and Title of God belongs to them as the Divine Nature does that is not absolutely as to the Absolute Divinity but as to Divine Processions to Divine Subsisting Relations in the Unity of the Godhead that is the Second Person in the Trinity is God but not in recto as God signifies that Person who is the Divinity but as the Son of God as habens Deitatem having the Divinity not absolutely and originally but by Communication by Eternal Generation And so the Holy Spirit is not absolutely God but the Spirit of God and God only as the Spirit of God as an Internal Procession in the Divine Nature But in what sense then can we say That the Trinity is One God or that Three Persons are One God Must we not necessarily own that God in these Propositions is taken Essentially for the Deity in the abstract and not as considered in any One Person For will we say That the Trinity or Three Persons are but One Person No! and yet in this Proposition The Trinity is One God by One God I understand One who is absolutely God One Absolute Divinity which is the Father who has indeed a Son and Spirit in the Unity of his
Disputes amongst themselves which their common Adversaries are so apt to improve into Scepticism Infidelity or Heresy And therefore for a Conclusion I shall only take a brief Review of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article of a Trinity in Unity and apply it in a few words to our Socinian Adversaries The Faith of the Catholick Church taught by Christ and his Apostles is that there is but One God but this One God is a Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Essential Unity of the same Undivided and Undiversified Godhead And this is the Faith which all the Catholick Fathers have owned and taught in their several Ages The whole Christian Church Baptizes as our Saviour commanded in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and this is the Rule of their Faith to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost A plain simple Faith could Men have been contented to believe God concerning himself Let our Socinian Adversaries tell us what there is absurd impossible or contradictious in this Faith Will they venture to say That it is absurd or contradictious that God should have a Son No! in some sense they will allow this true they themselves believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost they acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God as he is frequently called in Scripture and that in a higher sense than any other Man is the Son of God but that he is but a Man after all though advanced by God to Divine Honours above all Principalities and Powers and made the Judge both of the Quick and of the Dead and this they affirm to be all that the Scripture means in calling Christ the Son of God But this is not the present Dispute They know that the Catholick Church believed otherwise that Christ is the Eternal Son of God begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God very God of very God and they know also that thus the Catholick Fathers expounded those Texts which concern the Sonship and Divinity of our Saviour and they cannot but confess That they are very capable of such an Exposition nay that it is very difficult to put any other sense upon many Texts and the only reason why they reject these Catholick Expositions is the pretended Absurdity and Contradiction of the Catholick Faith Here then we join issue with them and desire them to shew us what is impossible or contradictious in this Faith That there is something incomprehensible in this Mystery that is something which we have no Natural adequate Ideas of we readily acknowledge with the whole Catholick Church and some of our Adversaries grant That it is possible for a thing to be whereof we have no Idea and then it seems to me very unreasonable to add but we are no ways concerned nor can we Reason or Discourse about those things whereof we have no Ideas For the direct contrary seems to be the more natural consequence that if God thinks fit to reveal such things to us of which we have no Ideas we are concerned and obliged to believe them for if they may be true they are the proper Objects of Faith though they want the Evidence of Natural Ideas But I do not intend to dispute this now but refer them to the Bishop of Worcester ' s Answer to Mr. Lock ' s Second Letter and to a late Sermon and its Vindication Concerning the Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy What I have now to say is of another Nature viz. That we have an Idea of a Trinity in Unity and such an Idea as contains nothing absurd impossible or contradictious in it That very Idea which I have so largely explained One Absolute Divinity with Two Eternal Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature The Eternal Father Eternal Self-originated Mind with his Eternal Word his Eternal Son and the Eternal Spirit of Father and Son This is that Idea which the Scripture gives us of it and which the Catholick Church hath always taught Every Man may understand what is meant by it and therefore it is not Jargon and Nonsense and I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from Tritheism and Contradiction and have no more to say of that nature till I hear what they have to object against what is already said and when they come to consider this Matter again as Men that shall certainly be called to an Account for it in this World as well as in the next I hope they will see reason to grow out of conceit with their own Philosophy about Emanations and Processions a Priority of Time and Priority of Nature Self-Existence and Necessary Existence and such like Arian Objections which were made and answered many Ages since and which they may find sufficiently answered in this Treatise This brings back the Dispute to Scripture where the last Appeal must lie in all such Matters without appealing for the Sense of Scripture to Natural Ideas and Philosophy And if the Interpretations of the Catholick Fathers were of any Authority with these Men I have already shewn how they expounded Scripture which will always be a venerable Authority to modest Men and sober Christians how much soever it be despised by Hereticks But it is time to put an end to this Treatise we may consider their Expositions of Scripture some other time THE END DR Sherloc◠Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Third Edition Quarto Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A Sermon Quarto A Vindication of the Sermon in Answer to some Socinian Remarks An Answer to the Animad versions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Trinity By I. B. A. M. Quarto A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet Quarto All Printed for William Rogers Quâ nec dicuntur ut cogitantur nec cogitantur ut sunt Aug. de Trinit l. 5. c. 3. Cùm ergo quaeritur quid tria vel quid tres conferimus nos ad inventendum aliquod speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 3. Ad se quippe Pater dicitur Persona non ad Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 6. Cur ergo non haec tria simul unam Personam dicimus sicut unam Essentiam Deum sed tres dicimus Personas cùm tres Deos aut tres essentias non dicamus nisi quia volumus vel unum aliquod vocabulum servire huic significationi quâ intelligitur Trinitas ne emnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cùm tres esse fateremur Ibid.
Sabellians did nor Two different Substances as the Arians did For when God is born of God this Divine Nativity will neither admit a Unity of Person nor a Diversity of Nature For Father and Son he who begets and he who is begotten must be Two Persons and the Son who is begotten of the Substance of his Father must be consubstantial with him It were easy to multiply Quotations to this purpose both out of these and numerous other Ancient Writers but this is Proof enough that the Primitive Fathers would not be frighted out of the true Catholick Faith of a Real and Substantial Trinity by the loud Clamours of Tritheism but rejected such a Notion of One God as confined the Godhead to One Single Solitary Person as Iudaism and an Anti-trinitarian Heresy For we know in what sense the Iews owned but One God viz. in the very sense that the Socinians and all Anti-trinitarians do that is That there is but One who is God but One Divine Person and in this sense these Ancient Fathers rejected it But besides these general Sayings they industriously confute this Notion of the Unity of the Godhead which confines it to one single Person that the One God is so One that there is and can be but One Divine Person who is true and perfect God The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament do expresly teach that there is but one God This the Ancient Hereticks perpetually objected against the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity And St. Hilary observes what danger there is in answering this Objection if it be not done with great caution For it may be equally impious to deny or to affirm it For the True Catholick Faith of One God lies between two such contrary Heresies as are ready to take advantage one way or other whatever Answer you give If you own that there is but One God without taking notice that this One God has an only begotten Son who is True and Perfect God the Arians take advantage of this against the Eternal Godhead of the Son If you say That the Father is God and the Son God and yet there is but One God the Sabellians hence conclude That Father and Son are but One Person as they are One God But in opposition to both these Heresies he tells us That though the Catholick Church did not deny One God yet they taught God and God and denied the Unity of the Godhead both in the Arian and Sabellian Notion of One God And consequently That they professed to believe God and God and God though not Three Gods but One God yet in that very sense which both Ancient and Modern Hereticks call Tritheism There is no dispute but the Scripture does very fully and expresly teach us That there is but One God Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord 6. Deut. 4. which our Saviour himself approves 12. Mark 29. and the Scribe expounds 32. Well master Thou hast said the truth for there is One God and there is none other but He And this is often confirmed both in the Old and New Testament But then the Fathers think that they have an unanswerable Argument to prove That by One God is not meant that there is but One who is God because the same Holy Scriptures which teach us that there is but One God do attribute the Name and Dignity and Power and all the Natural Perfections of God to more than One. St. Hilary explains this Argument at large the sum of which in short is this That we must learn the knowledge of God from Divine Revelation for Humane Understandings which are accustomed to Corporeal and Bodily Images are too weak of themselves to discern and contemplate Divine things nor is there any thing in our selves or in Created Nature that can give us an adequate notion and conception of the Nature and Unity of God We must believe God concerning himself and his own Nature and yield a ready assent to what he reveals to us For we must either deny him to be God as the Heathens do if we reject his Testimony or if we believe him to be God we must conceive no otherwise of him than as he himself hath taught us This is very reasonable if we believe upon God's Authority To believe all that God reveals and to expound the Revelation by it self not to put such a sense upon one part of the Revelation as shall contradict another but to put such a sense upon the words as makes the whole consistent with it self As in the present Dispute concerning the Unity of God The Scripture assures us that there is but One God and we believe that there is but One God Excepting the Valentinians and such kind of Hereticks all Christians both Catholicks and Hereticks agree in this Profession But the Question is In what sense the Scripture teaches that there is but One God Whether this One God signifies One single Divine Person or One God with his Only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit who have the same Nature and Divinity The Arians and Socinians embrace the first Sense of the words That One God is One Divine Person and for this reason will not own Christ or the Holy Spirit to be True and Perfect God because there is but One God and Three Divine Persons they say are Three Gods Now unless we will pretend to understand the Divine Nature and the Divine Unity better than God himself does we must refer this Dispute to Scripture and if we have the same Authority to believe more Divine Persons than One that we have to believe but One God then the Unity of God in the Scripture-notion of it is no Tritheism nor any objection against the belief of a Trinity for there may be but One only God and yet Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead This is St. Hilary's Argument and it is a very good one That Moses himself who has taught us that there is but One God has taught us to confess God and God that we have the same Authority to believe the Son of God to be God that we have to believe One God And therefore though we do and must believe One God we must not so believe One God as to deny the Son of God to be God for this is to contradict Moses and the Prophets This Argument he prosecutes at large throughout the IV th and V th Books of the Trinity and alledges all those Old Testament Proofs for the plurality of Divine Persons and for the Divinity of Christ which whatever opinion some Modern Wits and Criticks have of them have been applied to that purpose by all Christian Writers from the beginning of Christianity and were that my present Business might be easily vindicated from the Cavils and Exceptions of Hereticks St. Paul tells us That there is One God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and One Iesus Christ
by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8.6 St. Hilary finds this God of whom are all things and this Lord by whom are all things in the Mosaical History of the Creation And God said Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and God made the firmament and divided the waters c. 1. Gen. 6 7. Where as he applies it the Father commands and the Son his Almighty Word makes all things So the Psalmist tells us of the Father He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast 33. Psal. 9. Or as it is in the 148 th Psal. 5. He commanded and they were created And by whom they were created St. Iohn tells us In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made 1 Joh. 1 2. This he thinks proves a plain distinction of jubentis Dei facientis Dei God that commands and God that does for common sense will not allow that they should be one single Solitary Person much more reason have we to distinguish them when both the Old and New Testament distinguish them But whatever dispute this may admit that Account Moses gives of the Creation of Man he takes to be an unexceptionable Proof of a Plurality of Divine Persons And God said Let us make man in our image after our likeness So God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him 1. Gen. 26.27 Now if we understand these words as spoken by God in the same sense as we should and ought to understand them had they been spoken by men which St. Hilary lays down as a Principle That God speaks to us as we speak to one another and expects to be understood by us according to the common use and acceptation of such forms of speech then let Vs make man in Our Image after Our Likeness cannot signify a singular and solitary Person for such a form of speech naturally imports a Plurality of Persons and a common Nature and Likeness No single solitary Person speaks to himself to do any thing but only wills and chuses what to do and execâ—â—es his own purposes much less does he speak to himself in the Plural Number which in common use signifies some Companions and Partners in the work Let Vs make cannot signify One single Person nor can Our Image admit Two Persons of an unlike and different Nature when the Image is but one and the same and therefore this must prove that there are more Divine Persons than One and that they have all the same Divine Nature Were God but one single and solitary Person this would be a most unaccountable form of speech and there can be no pretence to put such a harsh sense on the words unless we certainly knew that there was no other Divine Person but he who spoke but then if instead of knowing this we certainly know the contrary that when God made the World he was not alone but had his Eternal Substantial Wisdom the Person of the Eternal Word with him by whom he made the world this puts the matter out of doubt And this St. Hilary proves frâ—m that account which Solomon gives of Wisdom 8 Prov. 22 c. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was Then I was by him as one brought up with him rejoicing always before him And therefore the Father was not alone and did not speak to himself when he made the world his own Wisdom a Divine Eternal Person co-operating with him and rejoicing in the Perfection of his Works But besides this he proves at large that the Angel which so often appeared to Abraham Hagar Iacob to Moses in a Burning Bush and is in express terms called God the Judge of the world the God of Abraham and Isaac and Iacob was not a Created Angel nor God the Father and yet was True and Perfect God even the Son of God who in the fulness of time became Man and adds several Passages in the Psalms and Prophets which plainly own a Divine Person distinct from God the Father to be True and Perfect God I need not tell those who are acquainted with the Writings of the Ancient Fathers that they all insist on the same Arguments to prove the same thing that there is not in any one point a more universal Consent amongst them which is too Venerable an Authority to be over-ruled by Criticism it being no less than a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture from the Apostolick Age. But I am no further concerned in this at present than to shew what Notion the Catholick Fathers had about the Unity of God These Fathers did not fence against the Objection of Tritheism by distinguishing away the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit by making the Son God ex accidenti secundum quid for they knew nothing of an accidental or secundum quid God which I must own sounds to me very like Blasphemy and Contradiction that when this Name God signifies the most necessary and absolutely Perfect Being any Person to whom this Name does naturally and essentially belong should be God by Accident or only in a limited and qualified sense But without fearing the Charge of Tritheism they with Moses and the Prophets own another Divine Person distinct from the Father but as Real and Substantial a Person and as truly and perfectly God as the Father is Insomuch that Tertullian when he had alledgâ—d that Tâ—xt 45. Psal. 6 7. which the Apostle to the Hebrews applies to Christ 1. Heb. Thy throne O Gâ—d is for ever and ever the scepter of thy Kingdom is a right scepter Therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows was not aâ—raid to add Ecce Duos Deos Behold Two Gods That is Two Divine Pâ—rsons each of whom is by himself truly and essentially God for notwithstanding this he would not say there are Two or Three Gods and gives his reason for it He owned a Plurality of Gods even Tritheism it self in that sense of the word Tritheism which the Arians and Sabellians objected against the Faith of the Trinity as Three Gods signify no more than Three Divine Substantial Persons each of whom is truly and perfectly God as having distinctly in himself the whole and perfect Divine Nature but this he and the other Fathers deny to be Tritheism they are God and God and God but not Three Gods And they think it a sufficient proof as any man would who believes the Scripture that this is not the Scripture-Notion of Tritheism because the same Scripture which teaches us that there is but One God attributes
the Apostles to be the only Infallible Rule of Faith This is the Argument from Prescription which Tertullian insists so largely on and is frequently urged by Irenaeus and other Catholick Writers which is not as some mistake it an Argument merely from Antiquity for though the true Faith was ancienter than any Heresies yet some Heresies had Antiquity enough to make them venerable if that alone would do it but the Argument was from the Tradition of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and had preserved an uninterrupted Succession from them and all the world over taught the same Faith without any material change or variation Whereas none of these Heresies how Ancient soever they might be could pretend to such an Original were never taught by the Apostles or any Apostolical men nor were received or owned by any Churches planted by them And this is an unanswerable Argument as long as we can reasonably suppose the Tradition of the Catholick Faith and the Communion of the Church was preserved entire which it visibly was at least till the first Nicene Council and during all this Period had we no other ways to know it we might learn the Faith of the Catholick Church by its opposition to those Heresies which it condemned 2 dly And this is the only Evidence which I shall at present insist on for the Catholick Tradition of the Faith of the Holy and Ever blessed Trinity for we may see the plain Footsteps of the Ancient Catholick Tradition concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost in those Ancient Heresies Simon Magus was the first Heretick we read of and may be very justly accounted the Father of many of the Ancient Heresies having led the way and sown the Seeds and Principles of them Now if we believe that Account which Epiphanius gives of him this wicked Impostor pretended himself to be God both Father and Son and affirmed that his Lewd Woman who was called sometimes Helena sometimes Selene was the Holy Ghost These Names and Distinctions of Father Son and Holy Ghost he could not possibly learn from any persons but only from the Christian Church in which he was baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And therefore we may observe that before his Baptism he only pretended to be some Great One and the deluded people thought him to be the great power of God 8. Acts 9 10. But when he was baptized and soon aâ—ter apostatized from the Christian Faith the Devil whose great Power he was set him up for the God of the Christians both Father and Son And though he blasphemously attributed these Titles of God the Father and Son to himself and wickedly corrupted this Faith by making the Father and Son but one Person under different appearances that he appeared to his Countreymen the Samaritans as God the Father and to the Iews as the Son yet there had been no pretence for this had not the Christian Church owned Jesus Christ the Son of God to be true and perfect God For had the Father been God and the Son a mere Man it is certain Father and Son could never be the same Person And besides the Wickedness and Impudence of the Impostor in pretending himself to be Father and Son it had been ridiculous to pretend this to Christians had he not known that the Catholick Faith taught the Son to be True and Real God as well as the Father and then if he could persuade them that he was God the Father he might with the same ease persuade them that he was God the Son too under a different appearance Thus when he pretends that his wicked Strumpet was the Holy Ghost by whom he created the Angels which created the World the very Prophanation of this Holy Mystery shews what the Faith of the Church in that Age was concerning the Divinity of the Holy Ghost for he could have no other Inducement to make his Woman whom he calls the Holy Ghost such a Divine Power but because he knew the Christian Church believed the Holy Ghost to be God and the Spirit of God as he made her to be his Divine Creating Intelligence Another Heresy concerning the Person of Christ attributed Divinity to him owned him to be the Son of God though not of the Maker of the world who they said was but an Inferior Angel but of the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father and that he appeared indeed in the world like a Man but was no true and real Man Now what should put such a wild Conceit as this into their heads had they not known this to be the Catholick Faith That Jesus Christ was the Son of God Their eyes could not see him to be God but they saw him to be a Man and yet they deny him to be a Man and teach that he was the Son of God in the form and apparition of a Man Which is a plain indication what the Catholick Faith was That Christ was both God and Man This they could not believe that the Son of God would so unite himself to Human Nature as to become true and real man and yet they thought it so evident that he was the Son of God or at least saw that this Faith was accounted so sacred that they would not venture to deny that and therefore chose to deny his Humanity and make a mere Apparition of him But then on the other hand Cerinthus and Ebion thought it too evident to be denied That he was a true and real Man and therefore they taught That Iesus was a Man and no more than a Man born as other Men are of Ioseph and Mary But then it is worth considering how they came to make this the distinguishing Doctrine of their Sect That Christ was but a mere Man if the Apostolick Churches whom they opposed and from whom they separated had not taught That he was more than a Man That he was God as well as Man Was there ever any Dispute either before or since concerning any other Man in the world who was owned to be a Man Whether he were a mere Man or not When one sort of Hereticks deny Christ to be a Man and another deny him to be God and both of them in contradiction to the Apostolick Faith it is a very strong presumption at least what the True Catholick Apostolick Faith was That Christ was both God and Man And yet Cerinthus himself though he makes Jesus to be a mere Man owns Christ to be a Divine Person and that this Christ descended on Jesus at his Baptism in the form of a Dove and rested on him or dwelt in him and wrought Miracles by him but left him at his Crucifixion and flew up again to Heaven So that according to Cerinthus from the time that Jesus was baptized till he was crucified the Divinity was very nearly and intimately united to him not that he was God and Man in one Person as the Catholick Faith teaches
several Individuals we form a Notion of one common Nature which belongs to them all as the Notion of Humanity or Human Nature which belongs to all men and affords a common Name and a common definition to them But this is only the work of the mind for there is no such one common Human Nature actually existing in all Mankind but every man is a man by himself and has a particular Human Nature as he has a Soul and Body of his own which is not the Soul and Body of any other man in the world And thus Damascen owns it is with all Creatures of the same kind who in truth and reality are distinct separate Beings who subsist apart by themselves as Peter and Paul and all other men do and are united only in a common Notion not in a common subsisting Nature which is one and the same in all But then he tells us that it is quite otherwise in the Divine Nature which is a common Nature and yet but One not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not meerly in our notion and conception but in truth and reality the same One Divine Nature without the least diversity or separation actually and distinctly subsisting in Father Son and Holy Ghost which being perfectly the same is but One and really and substantially subsisting in Three is a common Nature which is equally and perfectly in them all Thus Damascen has declared his Opinion fully against the notional and specifick Unity of the Divine Nature that the Divine Nature is One only as Human Nature is One because it has one common Name and Definition which belongs to all of the same kind whereas there is no one common Human Nature in Subsistence but only in Notion But the same One Divine Nature actually subsists in Three and is the same One Divinity in Three And that this was the true Sense of all the Catholick Fathers will appear from considering some Notions which were common to them all 1. They all agree That there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but One Divinity and One God and One God because but One Divinity and for this very reason nothing is more familiar with them than to call the Holy Trinity One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three perfect Hypostates Now will any man say That the One Divinity or One Divine Nature and One God is a meer Notion Is not the Unity of God the fundamental Article of Natural Religion And if this One Divinity does really immutably inseparably subsist in Three Divine Persons as it must do if these Three Divine Persons with respect to this One Divinity are naturally and inseparably One God Can this One common subsisting Divinity be a meer Notion which has no Hypostatical Subsistence but only subsists in Thought Can the Specifick Notional Unity of Human Nature make three men one man as the One common Divine Nature makes Three Persons One God If the Unity of the Divine Nature be but a Notion the Unity of God the Unity of the Trinity which is this One God must be a meer Notion also And so in truth and reality there is no more One God than there is but one man I readily grant That the Father may be and often is in a peculiar manner called God and the One God as distinguished from the Person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit but I deny that he is called the One God as considered without them or so much as in thought separated from them If we do not include the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead we must deny their Godhead also unless we will say that there is One God and besides him two Divine Persons each of which is God but not the One God Which must introduce a Plurality of separate Gods For if they be not One they are more than One and if One Person be the One God without the other they cannot be One God This shews what necessity there is of owning the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity to be the One God and One Divinity naturally and essentially One and then the necessary Consequence is That this One Divine Nature which actually and substantially subsists in Three distinct Divine Persons who for that reason are naturally and essentially One God cannot be a mere Common Specifick Nature but One Common Subsisting Nature But what possible Sense can we make of this One Common Subsisting Nature which is really actually indivisibly One and yet is Common that is does really and distinctly subsist in more than one To be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Common and to be One not in Notion as a Species is common to all the Individuals but in the truth and reality of Nature sounds very like a Contradiction When we say the Divine Nature is common to Three Persons and subsists distinctly in three we deny it to be One singular solitary Nature which can subsist but in one and constitute but One Person which was the Sabellian Notion of the Divine Unity which the Catholick Church condemned as destroying a Real Trinity as I have shewn at large But how then can this Common Nature which is not singular but subsists perfectly and distinctly in Three be actually and essentially One for a Natural Unity is a Numerical Unity is one in number which one would think should signify a singular Nature for so it does in all Creatures And when we speak of the Unity of the Divine Nature it cannot be one by composition which the absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature cannot admit This is the great difficulty which we must not expect perfectly to understand because a Finite Mind can never comprehend that is can never have an adequate notion of what is infinite But I shall give some account what the Catholick Fathers have said of this matter which will satisfy us that it is a natural not a mere Specifick Unity which they intended and will give us such a notion of this Venerable Mystery as will deliver it from all inconsistency and contradiction 2. I observe therefore That the Catholick Fathers lay the foundation of this Sameness and Homoousiotes of Nature in the Eternal Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Nicene Creed is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Son is not of nothing as all Creatures are but receives his whole Substance of the Substance of his Father St. Basil in express words makes Generation essential to the notion of the Homoousion For such Beings as upon account of likeness of Nature may be call'd Brothers to each other are not therefore Homoousious but when the Cause and that which actually subsists from or out of that Cause have the same Nature then they are Homoousious to each other And in opposition to that Perverse and Heretical Sense which some affixed to the word Homoousion that