upon it More admirable Divine Patience spares us He hath only let us know that this is the State of his Essence whereof we should have been otherwise ignorant This is its constitution q. d. ita se habet comparatam thus it is in and of it self that there are three in it to be conceived under the distinct Notions of Father Son and Spirit without telling us expresly how far they are distinct in terms of Art or in Scholastick Forms of Speech But he considered us as Men reasonable Creatures and that when he tells us there are three existing in his being of each of which some things are said that must not be understood spoken of the other and yet that there is but one God We are not uncapable of understanding that these three must agree in Godhead and yet that they must be sufficiently distinct unto this purpose that we may distinctly conceive of apply our selves to and expect from the one and the other of them And the frame of our Religion is therefore ordered for us accordingly i. e. for us to whom he hath revealed so much Others to whom such Notices are not given he expects should deport themselves towards him according to the light which they have not which they have not XVII But an Hypothesis in this Affair which leaves out the very Nexus that natural eternal union or leaves it out of its proper place and insists upon mutual consciousness which at the most is but a consequence thereof wants the principal thing requisite to the salving the unity of the Godhead If two or three created Spirits had never so perfect a mutual Perspection of one another that would not constitute them one thing tho' it probably argue them to be so and but probably for God might no doubt give them a mutual insight into one another without making them one but if he should create them in as near an union as our Soul and Body are in vvith one another and it is very apprehensible they might be created in a much nearer and more permanent one both being of the same Nature and neither Subject to decay they vvould as truly admit to be called one something as such a Creature might vvell enough be called till a fitter name were found out notvvithstanding their supposed continuing distinction as fitly as our Soul and Body united are notvvithstanding their continuing distinction called one Man And I do sincerely profess such an union vvith perpetual distinction seems to me every vvhit as conceivable being supposed unmade uncreated and eternal as any union is among Creatures that must therefore be a made thing or a temporal production And vvhereas necessity of existence most unquestionably of an intellectual Being is a most certain and fundamental attribute of Deity The Father Son and Spirit being supposed necessarily existent in this united state they cannot but be God and the Godhead by reason of this necessary union cannot but be One yet so as that when you predicate Godhead or the name of God of any one of them you herein express a true but an inadequate conception of God i. e. the Father is God not excluding the Son and H. Ghost the Son is God not excluding the Father and the H. Ghost the H. Ghost is God not excluding the Father and the Son As our body is the man not excluding the soul our soul is the man not excluding the body Therefore their Union in Godhead being so strict and close notwithstanding their distinction to say that any one of them is God in exclusion of the other two would not be a true predication 'T is indeed said the Father is the only true God but that neither excludes the Son nor the H. Ghost from being the true God also each of them communicating in that Godhead which only is true It had been quite another thing if it had been said Thou Father only art the true God XVIII The order moreover is this way also very clearly preserved and fitly comply'd with of priority and posteriority not of time as every one sees but nature which the names Father Son and Spirit do more than intimate For the Father usually called by Divines the Fons Trinitatis being by this appellation plainly signify'd to be First in this sacred Triad the Son as that title imports to be of the Father and the Spirit to be of or from both the other Let these two latter be considered as being of or from the First not by any intervening act of will by which it might have been possible they should not have been so but by natural necessary eternal promanation so as that necessity of existence is hereby made as truly to agree to them as to the First which is acknowledged the most fundamental attribute of Deity This promanation is hereby sufficiently distinguisht from creation and these two set infinitely above all Creatures or the whole Universe of created beings Nor is there hereby any place left for that unapt application of a Son and Grandson deriving themselves from the Grandfather or two Brothers from one Father And altho' it be also true and readily acknowledged that there are numerous Instances of involuntary productions among the Creatures and which are therefore to be deemed a sort of natural and necessary productions yet that necessity not being absolute but ex hypothesi only i. e. upon supposition of their productive Causes and all things requisite to those productions being so and so aptly posited in order thereto all which depended upon one Sovereign will at first so that all might have been otherwise this signifies nothing to exempt them out of the state and rank of Creatures or invalidate this most unalterable distinction between created being and uncreated XIX But if here it shall be urged to me that one individual necessarily existent spiritnal Being alone is God and is all that is signifyed by the Name of God and therefore that three distinct individual necessarily existent spiritual Beings must unavoidably be three distinct Gods I would say if by one individual necessarily existent spiritual Being you mean one such Being comprehending Father Son and Holy Ghost taken together I grant it But if by one individual necessarily existent spiritual Being you mean either the Father Son or Holy Ghost taken sejunctly I deny it for hoth the other are truly signify'd by the Name of God too as well as that One. I therefore say the term individual must in this case now supposed as possible not as certain admit of a twofold application either to the distinct essence of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Ghost or to the entire essence of the Godhead in which these three do concur Each of these conceived by it self are according to this supposition individual essences but conceived together they are the entire individual essence of God For there is but one such essence and no more and it can never be multiplyed nor divided into more
delicious if he had some one to whom to express his sense of the whole We are not I say strictly to measure God by our selves in this further than as he himself prompts and leads us But if we so form our Conception of Divine Bliss as not to exclude from it somewhat whereof that Delight in Society which we find in our selves may be an imperfect faint resemblance it seems not altogether disagreeable to what the Scriptures also teach us to conceive concerning him when it brings in the eternal Wisdom saying as one distinct from the prime Author and Parent of all things then was I by him as one brought up with him and daily his delight XXIII However let the whole of what hath been hitherto proposed be taken together and to me it appears our conception of the sacred Trinunity will be so remote from any shadow of inconsistency or repugnancy that no necessity can remain upon us of torturing Wit and racking Invention to the uttermost to do a laboured and artificial violence by I know not what skrews and engines to so numerous plain Texts of Scripture only to undeify our glorious Redeemer and do the utmost despite to the Spirit of grace We may be content to let the word of God or what we pretend to own for a divine revelation stand as it is and undistorted speak its own sense And when we find the Former of all things speaking as WE or US When we find another I possessed by the Lord in the beginning of his way before his works of old so as that he says of himself as distinct from the other I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was And when he prepared the Heavens I was there c. When we find the Child born for us the Son given to us called also the mighty God and as in reference to us he fitly might the Everlasting Father When we are told of the Ruler that was to come out of Bethlehem-Ephrata that his goings forth were from everlasting That the Word was in the beginning with God and was God That all things were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made That this Word was made flesh That His glory was beheld as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth Even that same he that above was said to have been in the beginning with God and to be God That when he who was said to have come down from Heaven was even while he was on Earth at that time said to be in Heaven That we are told by himself he and his Father are one thing That he is not only said to know the heart but to know all things That even he who according to the flesh came of the Israelites is yet expresly said to be over all God blessed for ever That when he was in the form of God he humbled himself to the taking on him the form of a servant and to be found in fashion as a man That 't is said all things were created by him that are in heaven and on earth visible and invisible thrones dominions principalities powers and that all things were created by him and for him than which nothing could have been said more peculiar or appropriate to Deity That even of the Son of God it is said he is the true God and eternal Life That we are so plainly told he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last he that was and is and is to come The Lord Almighty the beginning of the creation of The searcher of hearts That the Spirit of God is said to search all things even the deep things of God That lying to him is said to be lying to God That the great Christian Solemnity Baptism is directed to be in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That it is so distinctly said there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and that these three are one thing I cannot imagine what should oblige us so studiously to wiredraw all this to quite other meanings XXIV And for the leaving out of this last mentioned text in some copies what hath been said not to mention divers others by the famously learned Dr. Hammond upon that place is so reasonable so moderate so charitable to the opposite party and so apt to satisfie impartial and unprejudic'd minds that one would scarce think after the reading of it any real doubt can remain concerning the authentickness of that 7 th verse in 1 Joh. 5. Wherefore now taking all these texts together with many more that might have been mentioned I must indeed profess to wonder that with men of so good sense as our Socinian Adversaries are accounted this consideration should not have more place and weight viz. That it being so obvious to any Reader of the Scriptures to apprehend from so numerous Texts that Deity must belong to the Son of God and that there wants not Sufficient inducement to conceive so of the Holy Ghost also there should be no more caution given in the Scriptures themselves to prevent mistake if there were any in apprehending the matter accordingly And to obviate the unspeakable consequent danger of erring in a case of so vast importance How unagreeable it is to all our notions of God and to his usual procedure in cases of less consequence How little doth it consist with his being so wise and so compassionate a Lover of the souls of men to let them be so fatally expos'd unto so inevitable and so destructive a delusion That the whole Christian Church should thorough so many Centuries of years be even trained into so horrid and continued Idolatry by himself who so severely forbids it I cannot allow my self to think men of that perswasion insincere in their professing to believe the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures when the Leader and Head of their Party writ a book that is not without nerves in defence of it But I confess I cannot devise with what design they can think those Scriptures were written Or why they should count it a thing worthy of infinite wisdom to vouchsafe such a revelation to men allowing them to treat and use it as they do And that till some great Socinian wits should arise 1500 years after to rectify their notions in these things men should generally be in so great hazzard of being deceived into damnation by those very Scriptures which were professedly writ to make them wise to Salvation XXV Nor is it of so weighty importance in this controversie to cast the ballance the other way that a noted Critick upon what introducement needs not be determined chang'd his judgment or that his Posthumous interpretations of some texts if they were his interpretations carry an appearance of his having changed it because he thought such texts might
these is God and the other God I know a formal distinction is commonly admitted i. e. that the conception of the one is not included in the conception of the other But are these different conceptions true or false If false why are they admitted if true there must be somewhat in the Nature of the thing corresponding to them But if we say they are distinct but most intimately and eternally united in the Divine Being by a necessary natural Union or that it is not impossible so to be what we say will I think agree with it self and not disagree with any other conception we are obliged to have concerning the blessed God In the mean time I profess not to judge we are under the precise Notions of Power Wisdom and Goodness to conceive of the Father Son and Holy Ghost nor that the Notions we have of those or any other divine Perfections do exactly correspond to vvhat in God is signify'd by these Names but I reckon that vvhat relief and ease is given our minds by their being disentangled from any apprehended necessity of thinking these to be the very same things may facilitate to us our apprehending the Father Son and Spirit to be sufficiently distinct for our affirming or under standing the affirmation of some things concerning some one without including the other of them XIV But some perhaps will say while we thus amplify the distinction of these glorious three we shall seem to have too friendly a look towards or shall say in effect what Dr. Sherlock is so highly blam'd for saying and make three Gods I answer that if with sincere minds we enquire after truth for its own sake we shall little regard the friendship or enmity honour or dishonour of this or that man If this were indeed so doth what was true become false because such a man hath said it But it is remote from being so There is no more here positively asserted than generally so much distinction betweeen the Father Son and Spirit as is in it self necessary to the founding the distinct attributions which in the Scriptures are severally given them that when the word or wisdom was said to be with God understanding it as the case requires with God the Father in the creation of all things we may not think nothing more is said than that he was with himself that when the Word is said to be made flesh 't is equally said the Father was made flesh or the Holy Ghost that when the Holy Ghost is said to have proceeded from or have been sent by the Father or the Son he is said to have proceeded from himself or have sent himself But in the mean time this is offered without determining precisely how great distinction is necessary to this purpose It is not here positively said these three are three distinct substances three infinite minds or spirits We again and again insist and inculcate how becoming and necessary it is to abstain from over-bold enquiries or positive determinations concerning the limits or the extent of this distinction beyond what the Scriptures have in general made necessary to the mentioned purpose that we may not throw our selves into guilt nor cast our minds into unnecessary straits by affirming this or that to be necessary or impossible in these matters XV. The case is only thus that since we are plainly led by the express revelation God hath made of himself to us in his Word to admit a trinal conception of him or to conceive this threefold distinction in his Being of Father Son and Spirit since we have so much to greaten that distinction divers things being said of each of these that must not be understood of either of the other since we have nothing to limit it on the other hand but the Unity of the Godhead which we are sure can be but One both from the plain Word of God and the nature of the thing it self since we are assured both these may consist viz. this Trinity and this Unity by being told there are three and these three i. e. plainly continuing three are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing which one thing can mean nothing else but Godhead as is also said concerning two of them elsewhere there being no occasion then to mention the third I and my Father are one thing We are hereupon unavoidably put upon it to cast in our own minds and are concerned to do it with the most religious reverence and profoundest humility what sort of thing this most sacred Godhead may be unto which this Oneness is ascribed with threefold distinction And manifestly finding there are in the Creation made Unions with sufficient remaining distinction particularly in our selves that vve are a soul and a body things of so very different natures that often the Soul is called the Man not excluding the Body and the body or our flesh called the Man not excluding the Soul we are plainly led to apprehend that it is rather more easily possible there might be two Spirits so much more agreeing in nature so united as to be one thing and yet continuing distinct and if two there might as well be three if the Creator pleased And hence are led further to apprehend that if such a made Union with continuing distinction be possible in created being it is for ought we know not impossible in the uncreated that there may be such an eternal unmade union with continuing distinction And all this being only represented as possible to be thus without concluding that thus it certainly is sufficiently serves our purpose that no pretence might remain of excluding the eternal Word and the eternal Spirit the Godhead as if a Trinity therein were contradictious and impossible repugnant to reason and common sense Where novv is the coincidency XVI Nor is there hereupon so great a remaining difficulty to salve the Unity of the Godhead when the supposition is taken in of the natural eternal necessary Union of these three that hath been mentioned And it shall be considered that the Godhead is not supposed more necessarily to exist than these three are to coexist in the nearest and most intimate union with each other therein That Spiritual Being which exists necessarily and is every way absolutely perfect whether it consist of three in one or of only one is God We could never have known 't is true that there are such three coexisting in this one God if he himself had not told us What Man knoweth the things of a Man but the Spirit of a Man that is in him even so the things of God none knoweth but the Spirit of God In telling us this he hath told us no impossible no unconceivable thing It is absurd and very irreligious presumption to say this cannot be If a Worm were so far capable of thought as to determine this or that concerning our Nature and that such a thing were impossible to belong to it which we find to be in it we should trample
of the three Sacred Persons in the Godhead seem much more to challenge a greater distinction of the Persons than your Notion of a Person doth seem to admit That of sending and being sent spoken so often of the first in reference to the second and of the first and second in reference to the third as not to need the quoting of places If the same man were a King a General and a Judge methinks it would not well square with the usual forms of speaking among Men and God speaks to Men as Men to say that as the first he sends the two latter that is himself And one would think our being required to be Baptized in the distinct Names of the Father Son and Holy Ghost should signifie some greater distinction As also that three are said to bear witness in Heaven I doubt that in a Cause wherein our Law requires two or more Witnesses the same Man that should be a Father a Brother and a Son would scarce thereupon be admitted for three Witnesses And how the Incarnation of the Son can be understood according to your Notion of Person without the Fathers and Holy Ghosts Incarnation also I confess I cannot apprehend Your Notion of a Person contradistinct to the Scholastick Notion as was said before seems to leave the Godhead to be but one hypostasis or Person in the latter sense How then are we to conceive of the hypostatical union The assumed Nature will be as much hypostatically united with the Father or the Spirit as with the Son 3. And doth not this civil or meerly respective Notion of a Person the other being left fall in with the Antitrinitarian Will it not make us Unitarians only as they affect to call themselves Would any of them who as you are pleas'd to take notice Letter 6. p. 1 2. say none but a Mad-man would deny there may be three Persons in God have been so mad not yet professing themselves Converts as to say so if they had not suppos'd their Cause not hurt by this Notion of a Person For as you well say Letter 1. we need not be fond of words so the thing be agreed so have they equal reason to say we need not be afraid of words if in the sense you agree with us And with one sort of them I only desire you to consider how great an appearance the asserting only of three Persons in the one sense quitting the other will carry off an agreement And have they not all the advantage left them which they seek in arguing against the satisfaction made by our Saviour from the necessity of an alterity that in the business of making satisfaction there must be alter atque alter One who satisfies and another who is satisfy'd I do very well know what Instances are brought of humane Rulers making satisfaction for Delinquents but there is no parity in the Cases They being themselves Debtors to the governed Community as God is not who hath with most undoubted righteousness made all things for himself 4. And consider whether by your Notion of a Person you forsake not the generality of them who have gone as to this point under the repute of Orthodox Who no doubt have understood by three Persons three intelligent Hypostases tho' they have differ'd in thinking some of them that only a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the genitum or spiratum as to the two latter a notion that is either too fine or too little solid for some Minds to grasp or take any hold of Others that the divine Nature might it self be some way said to be communicated to them But I pass to the II d Enquiry Whether some further distinction may not be admitted as possible The only thing that straitens us here is the most unquestionable unity or unicity as we may call it of the Godhead Which if it cannot be otherwise defended I must yet for my part notwithstanding these hardships and I know no man with whom I could do it with more inclination fall in with you But I must crave it of you so far to fall in with you know not who as to apply your clearer mind as I do my more cloudy one to consider whether it can or no You will here say further than what and what would I have further To the former of these I only say further than the asserting in very deed but one Hypostasis in the Godhead distinguished no otherwise into three than by certain relative capacities like those which may among men be sustain'd by one and the same man and which distinction as you after add is analogous to what in created beings is called distinctio modalis To the latter I desire you to observe what I generally propose not that we may positively assert any further determinate distinction as certain and known but only whether we may not admit some further distinction to be possible in consistency with the Unity of the Godhead I do equally detest and dread to speak with rash and peremptory confidence about things both so Mysterious and so Sacred But may we not modestly say that if to that Oeconomy which God hath represented himself in his Word to bear and keep afoot towards his Creatures any further distinction than hath been assigned is necessary it is also possible and may be for ought we know if indeed we know nothing to the contrary What is impossible we are sure cannot be necessary But God himself best and only knows his own nature and what his own meaning is in the representation he hath made to us If we sincerely aim to understand his meaning that we may bear our selves towards him accordingly he will vvith mercifull indulgence consider our shortor mis-apprehensions But vve need not say there is not this or that distinction if really vve do not knovv there is not While vve knovv so little of natures inferiour to our ovvn and even of our ovvn nature and hovv things are distinguished that belong to our selves vve have little reason to be shy of confessing ignorance about the Nature of God Therefore I most intirely agree to the tvvo Conclusions of the Ingenious W. J. vvherevvith he concludes his Letter But in the mean time and pursuantly enough thereto cannot but doubt the concludingness of his very acute reasonings against at least some of the expressions of that learned Person Dr. Sherl vvhich he animadverts upon as I perceive you also do p. 16. of your 7 th Letter And even W. J. himself for vvith a pious modesty he tells us concerning infinite Natures he presumes not to determine Letter p. 8. What he objects against that Authors having said the divine Persons are three beings really distinct vvherein I instance not intending to run thorough that elaborate Letter that then there must be three distinct Essences seems to me a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I doubt not the Author vvill easily admit it But what will be the consequence That therefore there are three Deities
similitude viz. a natural union of these supposed distinct essences without which they are not under the greatest union possible and which being supposed necessary and eternal cannot admit these should be more than one God 2. I note that what he opposes to it so defectively represented is as defective that the Christian Trinity doth not use to be represented thus c. What hurt is there in it if it can be more intelligibly represented than hath been used But his gentle treatment of this hypothesis which he thought as he represents it not altogether unintelligible and which with some help may be more intelligible became one enquiring what might most safely and with least torture to our own minds be said or thought in so awful a Mystery It however seems not proper to call this an hypostatical union much less to say it amounts to no more It amounts not to so much For an hypostatical or personal union would make the terms united the unita the things or somewhats under this union become by it one hypostasis or person whereas this union must leave them distinct persons or hypostases but makes them one God In the use of the Phrase hypostatical or personal union the denomination is not taken from the subject of the union as if the design were to signifie that to be divers hypostases or persons but from the effect or result of the mentioned union to signifie that which results to be one person or hypostasis As the matter is plain in the instance wherein it is of most noted use the case of the two Natures united in the one Person of the Son of God where the things united are not supposed to be two Persons but two Natures so conjoyn'd as yet to make but one person which therefore is the Negative result or effect of the union viz. that the person is not multiply'd by the accession of another Nature but remains still only one But this were an union quite of another kind viz. of the three hypostases still remaining distinct and concurring in one Godhead And may not this be supposed without prejudice to its Perfection For the Schools themselves suppose themselves not to admit a composition prejudicial to the Perfection of the Godhead when they admit three modes of subsistence which are distinct from one another and from the Godhead which they must admit For if each of them were the very Godhead each of them as is urged against us by you know who must have three Persons belonging to it as the Godhead hath And your self acknowledge three somewhats in the Godhead distinct or else they could not be three I will not here urge that if they be three somewhats they must be three things not three nothings for however uneasie it is to assign a Medium between something and nothing I shall wave that Metaphysical contest But yet collect that simplicity in the very strictest sense that can be conceiv'd is not in your account to be ascribed to God either according to his own word or the reason of things It may here be urged how can we conceive this Natural Union as I have adventur'd to Phrase it of the three Persons supposing them distinct things substances or Spirits Is such an Union conceivable as shall make them be but one God and not be such as shall make them cease to be three distinct things substances or Spirits We find indeed the mentioned unions of Soul and Body in our selves and of the two Natures in Christ consistent enough with manifest distinction but then the things united are in themselves of most different Natures But if things of so congenerous a Nature be united will not their distinction be lost in their union I answer 1. That a Spirit and a Spirit are numerically as distinct as a Body and a Spirit And 2. That we may certainly conceive it as possible to God to have united two or three created Spirits and by as strict union as is between our Souls and Bodies without confounding them and I reckon the union between our Souls and Bodies much more wonderful than that would have been Why then is an unmade uncreated union of three Spirits less conceivable as that which is to be presupposed to their mutual consciousness I shall not move or meddle with any Controversie about the Infinity of these three supposed Substances or Spirits it being acknowledged on all hands that Contemplations of that kind cannot but be above our measure And well knowing how much easier it is to puzzle oneself upon that Question An possit dari infinitum infinito infinitius than to speak satisfyingly and unexceptionably about it to another And tho' I will not use the expressions as signifying my formed judgment that there are three things substances or Spirits in the Godhead as you that there are three somewhats yet as I have many Years thought I do still think that what the learned W. J. doth but more lightly touch of the Son and the Holy Ghost being produced which term I use but reciting it as he doth not by a voluntary external but by an internal necessary and emanative Act hath great weight in it In short my sense hath long lain thus and I submit it to your searching and candid Judgment viz. That tho' we need not have determinate thoughts how far the Father Son and Holy Ghost are distinguished yet we must conceive them in the general to be so far distinguished as is really necessary to the founding the distinct attributions which the Scriptures do distinctly give them And that whatever distinction is truly necessary to that purpose will yet not hinder the two latters participation with the first in the Godhead which can be but one because that tho' we are led by plain Scripture and the very import of that word to conceive of the Father as the Fountain yet the Son being from him and the Holy Ghost from them both not contingently or dependently on will and pleasure but by eternal natural necessary promanation these two latter are infinitely distinguisht from the whole Creation Inasmuch as all Creatures are contingent beings or dependent upon will and pleasure as the Character is given us of created things Rev. 4. 11. Thou hast made all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created But that whatever is what it is necessarily is God For I have no doubt but the Dreams of some more anciently and of late concerning necessary matter and the Sophisms of Spinosa and some others tending to prove the necessity and identity of all substance are with what they aim to evince demonstrably false The Summe of all will be this 1. That we can be more certain of nothing than that there is but one God 2. We are most sure the Father Son and Holy Ghost are sufficiently distinguished to give a just ground to the distinct attributions which are in Scripture severally given to them 3. We are not sure what that sufficient distinction is