this Discovery is owing to the Sagacity and Dexterity of the English Vnitarians who having first distinguished those that pretend to be the Church into Nominal Trinitarians and Real Trinitarians or if you will into Trinitarians and Tritheists they next prove their Agreement with the former of these the Nominals and then that the Nominal Party is what ought to be called the Church That the Nominal Party is the Church is incontestably proved because their Doctrine or Explication of the Trinity has been directly and in Terms espoused by General Councils and the contrary the Explication or Doctrine of the Realists as expresly and directly censured and condemned by the same Authority The Realists believe that the Trinity is three distinct infinite Substances Minds and Spirits all of them co-eternal of like Dignity Power Wisdom and all other Divine Attributes And as to three such Persons being one God they say Because they immeate or are inseparably in one another therefore they are called one God tho each of them distinctly considered is perfect God Yet this Perichoresis Immeation or Inexistence is not such an In-being of these three Spirits or Substances in one another but that they really remain as distinct Substances Minds Spirits and Beings as three Angels or three Men are But the Nominals abhor this as perfect Tritheism they see plainly and proclaim it aloud to every body that three infinite Spirits tho as Spirits they may and as infinite Spirits they must be supposed to immeate or inexist in one another yet they are no more made to be one God by such alternate Penetration than if they were at never so great a Remotion from one another The Reason is because notwithstanding their mutual Inexistence neither their Understandings or Wills or other Powers nor their Substances become continuous or identified but remain truly distinct several and divers They are supposed indeed to be in one another but as distinctly and without Confusion either of their Substances or Powers as three Angels while they occupy the same Space and exclude not one another are Or to use another perhaps a better Comparison as these three Divine Spirits themselves are in all things in the whole Creation and the whole Creation in them Such an Inexistence as this every one sees is so far from making three eternal infinite Spirits to be one God that we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods For what is the Conception that any Man has or can have of three Gods but this viz. so many infinite Spirits which so pervade or inexist in one another that notwithstanding their Substances Faculties and Attributes remain distinct and divers This is such a Reason and so obvious that the Nominals utterly reject and with the greatest Abhorrence the Doctrine of three infinite Spirits and explain the Trinity or three Divine Persons in a metaphysical way They say we are not to conceive of the three Divine Persons as we do of created Persons the Conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of created Beings whether they be Angels or Men as the Perfections of the Divinity are superiour to Human or Angelical Perfections God is but one Being but one Substance Mind or Spirit with one only Will Understanding Energy or Power of Action nor are the Divine Attributes multiplied or repeated in the Deity for there is in God no more than one Omnipotence Omniscience or other Divine Perfection It is only God that physically and properly exists as a vital Being or a compleat Spirit and Mind the Persons are only the Substance of God his infinite spiritual and most perfect Substance or Nature with the three Properties to be of none to be begotten and to proceed Some are yet more particular in declaring or explaining what the Personalities and Persons are These consider in God first original Mind or original Wisdom this is the Person of the Father Then reflex Wisdom even the Logos or Wisdom that resulteth from God's contemplating or knowing his own Perfections or what is the same the perfect Image that is generated or begotten by God's knowing and understanding himself which is called the Son Lastly the immanent Act of LOVE by which God willeth or loveth himself his eternal Spiration or as it were Breathing of Love toward himself this is named the Holy Spirit In short the Trinity believed by the Realists is three distinct infinite and pre-eternal Spirits each of which is a perfect God and all of them but one God by their mutual Inexistence or that they are in one another but without Confusion or identifying their Substances or their Powers The Trinity believed by the Nominals is one living eternal infinite Spirit consider'd under this threefold Distinction Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding or Original Mind which is unbegotten reflex Wisdom which is generated and Divine Love which proceeds Original Mind being unbegotten is therefore named the Father reflex Wisdom being manifestly generated by original eternal Mind is called the Son the last being a Spiration of God has therefore the Appellation of Holy Spirit And tho the Nominals use sometimes other Terms in speaking of the Trinity such as Modes Relations relative Subsistences yet no more or other is meant by them than has been already said This Trinity of the Nominals is most directly as I said and explicitly affirmed by divers General Councils in whom only it is to declare the Faith and to pronounce what is to be deemed Heresy And this also is the Explication that has been followed without any Variation by all particular Writers whether Reformed or Roman Catholicks or of the Greek or Oriental Church since the Year 1215. But if this be the Catholick Faith as it certainly is the Unitarians are as sound Catholicks as any other Denomination of Christians whatsoever They believe the Trinity before-said even one infinite spiritual Substance with its three Properties Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding One eternal Spirit under the triple Distinction of Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love They approve of it that the first of these being unbegotten the second generated and the third a Spiration they be therefore called Father Son and Spirit Indeed the Terms Trinity and Person are unscriptural but we accept them according to the Explication by the Church that is as the Catholick Church has in the manner abovesaid explained her self concerning the three Persons of the Trinity We have therefore no Difference with the Church but only with the Realists who are a few English Writers that have departed from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church It was a strange Imputation on his Grace the late Archbishop that he was an Unitarian his Grace was a Realist He understood by Persons in the Deity not Persons in a metaphysical Sense as the Nominals do and as was before explained but Persons in a physical Sense of the Word or such Persons namely as vitally subsisting and as
of our Saviour or the Incarnation We have no Contest with the Catholick Church concerning either of these we do not indeed approve the Churches Language or Terms because they are unscriptural and liable to Heretical Interpretations but we embrace her whole Meaning and Sense 1. The Church says and we assent to it that there is one only eternal infinite and all powerful Spirit or Mind and this Mind or Spirit is what we call God or the Divinity 2. But whereas in God the Church owns also a threefold distinction which she calls three Persons or more explicitly original unbegotten Wisdom the Logos or begotten reflex Wisdom the Procession or Spiration of Divine Love and these for the Reasons above-mentioned are also named Father Son and Spirit three Relations three Properties Modes and divers the like We cry remove your Jargon and give us only the Words of Scripture The Church answers No you shall submit to these Terms because as much as they seem improper being now out of common Use they were once as proper and apposite because in common Use and you admit the whole that we intend by these antiquated Words and Phrases We submit 3. Then as to the Incarnation or that the Lord Christ is God and Creator is to be invocated and worshipt the Church professes that this is said or required only in respect of God in him How in him is the infinite God commensurate to a finite Manhood No but in respect of God in him that is Illuminating Conducting Actuating and as much as Infinite can inhabit Finite dwelling in Him as intimately immediately and powerfully as the Soul the Body Nay exerting in him the Divine Attributes Omniscience or the Knowledg of the Future and of the Thoughts and Omnipotence or Miraculous Actions If the Angel that only represented God and the Cloud illuminated by that Angel have all that often said of 'em in Holy Scripture that is wont to be said of or to God how much more when 't is for Peace and with Liberty of declaring your Meaning may you call the Lord Christ whatsoever they are called Here again we would willingly demur as Nestorius did but Charity and Peace are two such great Goods that we will not Non-conform for the sake of dangerous Terms honestly explained It is by this Declaration of our Meaning that all our Books past or to come are to be interpreted We never intend to oppose any Body in the Article of the Trinity but the Tritheists or Realists who are Hereticks to the Church as well as to us nor in the Article of the Divinity of our Saviour but the Eutychians who make the Communication of Idioms to be Real and not only Verbal which is an Heterodoxy condemned in divers General Councils When we oppose the Doctrine of the Trinity 't is only the Chimerical Trinity of three Infinite All-perfect Spirits when we deny the Lord Christ is God the Creator may be invocated or worshipt we mean not this of the Divinity in him but of the Humanity The inhabiting Divinity or Christ in respect of God in him is God over all all things were made by him and God is undoubtedly to be worshipt and invocated If his Lordship assents not to these things he contravenes the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and espouses Philoponus Joachim Gentilis and Eutychius but we do not in the least suspect that this Learned Prelate will disown the Catholick Doctrine or be of Party to Hereticks that have been condemned by so many General Councils If any object to us that as much as we now claim to be Catholicks and profess to assent to the Churches Doctrine tho we wish she would discharge her humanly-invented Terms and Phrases yet we have been always disowned and opposed nay persecuted by the Church and by that very Party of Nominals whom we pretend to be the Catholick Church I answer there has been an unhappy Misunderstanding between the genuine Members of the Catholick Party The Vnitaries who dislike nothing but the Liberty that is taken to use any other but Scripture-words and Language in declaring the Faith and the Nominals who also wish that all would return to and content themselves with the Simplicity of Scripture have pelted one another as Enemies but upon such a gross Mistake as the two German Cavaliers are noted for in the beginning of the Reformation who quarrelled and challenged one another upon difference of Religion one of them being a Martinist and the other a Lutheran I doubt not that the Author of the Discourse concerning the Nominals and Realists has convinced all Learned and Ingenuous Men that Dr. S th for instance and Dr. Wallis and other Nominals had no more Reason to fall foul on the Unitarians than the Lutheran on the Martinist and the Misunderstanding between them being discovered to proceed from a Mistake of one anothers true Opinions they ought now to own each other as Brethren If the Nominals are shy of closing with us and owning us for Orthodox we seek not their Patronage and the common Opposers of both the Realists will always tell 'em that the Nominals and Unitarians differ just as the Martinists and the Lutherans On the rest of his Lordship's Book and an Application of what hath been said FOR the rest of his Lordship's Book one great part of the first Section is imployed in finding out Answers to the Arguments of some of the antient Unitarians who pretended to prove that St. John was not the Author of the Gospel or the Revelation which now bear his Name The Remainder of the Section is an Endeavour to wire-draw the first Verses of that Gospel to a purpose in my Judgment very contrary to the true Intention of the Evangelist and to impress some other Texts into the Service of the Realists The present Unitarians whether in England or elsewhere receive the Gospel of St. John as his But as Faith has degrees or is not always such a Plerophory of Assent as to be without all Alloy of doubt so we wish this Gospel had never been questioned and that the Reasons of the Alogians who imputed this Gospel and the Revelation to Cerinthus were incontestably satisfied We cannot take his Lordship's Answers or Arguments as at all satisfactory because his Reasonings are oftentimes very Inaccurate and because as often they are contrary to notorious Matter of Fact For instance who can bear it when he says Cerinthus taught that Christ was a mere and a late-born Man but St. John tells us the WORD always was and came down from Heaven and was made Flesh Therefore Cerinthus could not be Author of the Gospel of St. John without most plainly contradicting himself For it is certain on the contrary that Cerinthus never said that Christ was a mere and late-born Man but an eternal and impassible Spirit In the Person of our Saviour Cerinthus distinguish'd Jesus and Christ he called the Humanity by the Name of Jesus but Christ or the WORD according to
Cerinthus was a certain Divine and Impassible Spirit which descending on Jesus at his Baptism dwelt in him and forsook him not till the very moment of his Death when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Iren. Lib. 1. c. 25. I do not see how this Account contradicts any thing in St. John whose Gospel the Alogians said was written by Cerinthus But I will not dispute with his Lordship about this matter for as I said the Unitarians do receive that Gospel and the Revelation as St. John's as they receive the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of St. James the Second of St. Peter the Second and Third of St. John all which were sometime doubted of nay rejected by divers Catholick Writers and Churches but have at length been owned by the whole Church Tho the Catholick Church now owns these Epistles and some Chapters and Sections in the Gospels as written by the Apostles whose Names they bear yet not with the degree of Assurance that she receives those Parts of Scripture that were never controverted The Assurance cannot be equal where the Grounds of Assent are unequal but the Grounds of Assent to the Writings of which we are speaking cannot be said to be equal because in Matters whether of Record or Fact what was always allowed and granted by all is more authentick and credible than what has been questioned and even rejected by divers of the Antients Writers and Churches who were Catholicks In short concerning all Books and Sections of Books of the New Testament sometime doubted of by some of the Antients the Unitarians acquiesce in the Judgment of the Catholick Church and for the Reasons given by the Church As first because tho they were questioned and even rejected by some Writers and Churches yet it appears they were approved by many more by so considerable a Majority that in a short time they were admitted by all We see in Epiphanius that even Paulus Samosatenus and Photinus received the Gospel of St. John Secondly because not only they contain nothing that is certainly contrary to the unquestioned Parts of Scripture but they are written with the same kind of Spirit that the undoubted Portions of Scripture are there is a Likeness in the Thoughts Expressions and whatsoever else recommends to us the other Books of Scripture as written by Apostles and Apostolical Men. These are sufficient Motives of Assent and ought to prevail with us tho there are some Difficulties not easy to be removed we submit to the weight of these Arguments tho we confess that what has been alledged by the Alogians and others is not despicable or ridiculous To conclude we receive with the Catholick Church the controverted Books without censuring in the mean time much less condemning those Antients or Moderns who were or are of another Mind What remains of his Lordship's first Section is a Scuffle with the Considerer on behalf of the Arch-Bishop's Explication of the first Verses of St. John's Gospel and of some other Texts alledged by his Grace to confirm his said Explication To all which I answer There is no Form of Words that were not conceived designedly to preclude all Exception but is liable to cavil nay our Lawyers scarce obtain their purpose when in Deeds and Conveyances they imploy the whole Art of Grammar to ascertain the Meaning and Intent of the Conveyance or Deed it is not therefore to be wondred at that Persons highly interested by their Education Honour and Parties can and with some colour interpret obscure or ambiguous Texts to a Sense not intended by the Original Author If People are not disposed to be ingenuous a little Wit some Learning and a long Practice in the Polemics will enable 'em to maintain a Squable till Doomsday about the Sense of any ordinary and familiar Context I do not think therefore that the Contention between the Unitarians and the Realists will ever be healed by that Pretence of either Party that theirs is the only Interpretation or Sense of which the litigated Texts are capable in the Court of Grammar and Criticism But towards a Coalition it will be necessary to agree in some common Principles confessed to be clearly asserted in Scripture by Consonancy to which Principles all otherwise doubtful Texts and Contexts of Scripture and their Interpretations shall be judged of This Rule of interpreting is very certain none can distrust it without supposing either that the Sacred Scripture contradicts it self or that the human Understanding is not capable of judging the Agreement or the Dissonance of Scripture with it self No Body I believe will say the former that the Scripture contradicts it self and if any say the other that we cannot judg of the Dissonance or Agreement of Scripture with it self or of particular Interpretations with Principles that are yielded to be found in Scripture all Disputation is at an end on both sides But if the Rule be allowed that some common agreed Principles are to be establisht by which all obscure that is all controverted Texts must be interpreted the Questions and Interpretations debated between us being thus brought before the Bar of Reason and common Sense will soon be judged of Is there but one only God Or if this be a Principle of too much Latitude and capable of more Senses Is there more than one numerical or self-same eternal and infinite Spirit meaning by one eternal and infinite Spirit one eternal and spiritual Substance with one only Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action If it be agreed as a Principle manifestly laid down in Scripture as well as certain in Reason that there is but one such Spirit either we shall all presently accord in interpreting this famous Context of St. John and other obscure and doubtful Passages of Scripture or our difference in interpreting it or them will no way affect any Article of our Creed so that there will be no real Controversy left The Unitarians are far from denying the Trinity of Divine Persons the Incarnation of God the Divinity or Satisfaction of our Saviour provided that those Doctrines be interpreted to a Consistency with this Principle of Holy Scripture and of the Catholick Church that there is but one infinite Spiritual Substance with one only infinite Understanding Will and Energy Or more briefly thus but one infinite and eternal Spirit Either his Lordship says there is but one such Spirit and therefore interprets the Term Persons and the Words Father Son and Holy Spirit not to be so many distinct Spirits but one Spirit distinguished by three Relative Properties in explaining the Nature of which the Church has always indulged some Variety and Latitude and if so we have no controversy with him nor he with us and he may for us interpret the first of St. John and the other Texts on which he insists as himself shall please Or he saith there are three eternal and infinite Spirits and that the Divine Persons are so many spiritual Substances Minds
one Divine Person they mean but one intelligent Being But when his Lordship adds the Divine Persons are not distinct Beings nor such Persons as we commonly mean when we use the word Persons it is evident that his writing against the Unitarians was a mere Act of Zeal He is now got considerably into the Interests of the Church and that it may appear to the Men of little Faith that he is a Bishop in Heart as well as in Name therefore he attacks in one Book all the Church's Enemies without staying to be informed whether they are Enemies indeed either to the Church or to himself Let us take another Paragraph out of the before-cited Discourse to the Clergy which will farther evince his Lordship's Syncretism with the Unitarians Pag. 98 99. The Fathers in divers Places so express themselves concerning the same Substance or Essence as if they meant the same Being in a general Sense even as all human Souls are of the same Substance that is are the same Order or sort of Creatures And they the Fathers seem to intitle the Divine Persons to different Operations not only in the Oeconomical way but so that one of them does that which the other does not This indeed was easily apprehended but it seemed directly to assert three Gods which is very contrary to the most express Declarations of the Old and New Testaments in which the Unity of God is so often held forth that others took another way of explaining the Trinity viz. by making their Foundation that the Deity is one numerical Being These latter observed that the Sun besides his own Globe had an Emanation of Heat and another of Light which have different Operations and all from the same Essence Also that the Soul of Man hath Intellection and Love which flow from its Essence So they conceived that the primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom by which it saw all things and in which as in an inward WORD it designed all things this they thought might be called the Son as being the Generation of the eternal Mind While from that Fountain-Principle eternal Mind together with this inward WORD or Wisdom there did arise a Love that was to issue forth and was to be the Soul of the Creation but more especially to animate the Church This was rested on and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark Nicety by the Schools nay it grew to be the universally-received Opinion Is this he that writes against the Unitarians and has no better Compliments for 'em but irreligious profligate Villains The World knows what the Doctrine of the Unitarians is namely that the Deity is one numerical Being one Substance not as some of the Fathers who are therefore blamed by his Lordship said one Substance only in a general Sense but in Number with one only Understanding Will and Power of Action and this is what they call one Person they deny the Deity to be three Persons in no other Sense but of three numerical intelligent Substances What now does his Lordship say Why that some of the Fathers indeed thought otherwise they took the Deity to be three such Persons that they are three spiritual intelligent Substances not indeed for sort or kind but in Number three distinct Beings that have different Operations but saith his Lordship 't is contrary to the most express Declarations of the Old and New Testaments Again he saith the universally received Explanation of the Trinity and which is the Explication of the Divines of the Schools is that from eternal Mind as a Fountain-Principle have proceeded Wisdom and Love Wisdom is the first Act of Mind and being as it were generated by Mind is therefore called the Son So that eternal original Mind the immanent Act of Wisdom generated thereby and the issuing forth or Spiration of Divine Love are by his Lordship's express Confession what the Divines of the Schools after St. Austin and other Fathers have called the Trinity of Divine Persons or Father Son and Holy Spirit Nay this is the universally-received Explication of the Trinity But did the irreligious Villains ever oppose this Trinity universally as his Lordship says received Do they deny eternal original Mind the everlasting immanent Act of Wisdom generated by it or the perpetual Spiration of Divine Love proceeding from original Mind and the inward Logos or Wisdom He knows the contrary he knows we are Brethren for I hope that himself believes the universally-received Explication But then why are we out of his Favour why irreligious Villains against whom and their Doctrine 't is so necessary to caution and instruct the poor ignorant Clergy of the Diocess of Salisbury The Question I doubt cannot be answered but by saying here his fresh Episcopal Zeal for Holy Mother Church in the Interests of which he is got to be a considerable Part was by much too forward As Dr. Wallis who is a Socinian and an half could publish I know not how many Letters and Sermons against the Socinians aspersing also in the most bitter and false manner the very Person of his Patriarch Socinus So his Lordship not expecting to be rightly informed of their Doctrine and Opinions calls those irreligious Villains who hold and maintain the universally-received Explication and professes to take it as the very heaviest of all Imputations when the Considerer said in Terms of Respect the Vnitarians submit to his Lordship's Doctrine Methinks no Man ever had less Occasion given him to answer so unhandsomly I had almost said inhumanly as his Lordship has done It is easy to see in the Air and Spirit of his Writing that the Considerer had he not affected the contrary could have chose such Expressions and Terms concerning his Lordship's Doctrine as should have wakened and drawn down upon him all the Enemies he has in the World The least of those many things that a Person so well versed in these Questions as the Considerer appears to be could have said the least and softest of his Imputations might have been this that his Lordship is not so Catholick or Orthodox in any of these depending Questions as the Unitarians are But let us go on On the Account given in the Letter of the Incarnation and Divinity of our Saviour COncerning the Trinity of Divine Persons his Lordship we have seen believes they are not compleat nor distinct Beings nor such Persons as are commonly meant when we use the term Persons we were best he saith to call them in general terms the three or the blessed three and thereby silence all Opposition and Dispute And for the term Son he intimates at p. 99. it doth not belong at all to any of the three but only to our Saviour as he was the Messias That is as he was the Man Jesus And hereby he says again all the Speculations concerning an eternal Generation are cut off This he says at p. 100. Agreeably to this as I said more than Vnitarian Doctrine for the Unitarians
The Pains therefore he has taken in this long sixth Chapter which was designed for the Strength of his whole Book are lost and he has all things to begin anew You will say Have we done then with our explaining and vindicating the Trinity No Sir When his Lordship had wrote his Book and upon a Review of it perceived that he had not sufficiently no nor tolerably explained his Notion of the Trinity nor yet what is meant either by Persons or Personalities which must be explained and distinguished or we shall dispute about we know not what and with we know not whom I say his Lordship perceiving his Oversight wrote a Preface of 62 Pages chiefly to declare himself upon and to clear these Matters I will lay together what he hath said up and down in his Preface which I may rightly call his Book upon second Thoughts The Trinity in Unity is one individual Substance under three different Modes of Subsistence p. 13. Or 't is three peculiar Properties in one and the same Divine Nature p. 14. But more particularly as to Personality and Person A Personality is no more but a different Mode of Subsistence in the same common Nature p. 14. In created Beings every Personality doth suppose a distinct Substance But not from the Nature of Personality but from the Condition of the Subject or Substance in which it is p. 15. But I do not advise him to explain too particularly the latter part of this Theorem lest the Realists should turn it into Ridicule 't is a very obnoxious Proposition But when we come to consider a Divine Essence there can be no way of Distinction conceived in it but by different Modes of Subsistence or what is the same relative Properties in the same Divine Essence p. 16. In short then a Personality is only a particular Mode of Subsistence and in the Divine Nature Essence or Substance 't is most properly called a relative Property For instance Paternity or active Generation Filiation or passive Generation or begotten So much for Madam PERSONALITY now for Sir PERSON The Notion of a Person besides the relative Property comprizes the Divine Nature together with it p. 17. And again in his Book at p. 119. They agreed in the name Persons to express their Meaning which was That there are three which have distinct Subsistences and incommunicable Properties but one and the same Divine Essence You are to wot here Sir that by the Divine Nature or Divine Essence they mean the Deity it self that is the Divine Substance with its several Attributes Omniscience Omnipotence infinite Justice and Goodness and the rest These namely the Divine Substance and Attributes are called the Divine Nature or Essence and because herein are three relative Properties unbegotten begotten a proceeding therefore each of these Properties when consider'd with the Divine Essence and Attributes is called a Person But here his Lordship is in bodily Fear lest this Explication of the Trinity or three Divine Persons should be taken for Sabellianism and therefore be understood to be an entire yielding the Cause to the Unitarians The Men from whom he fears this Imputation are the Realist Party chiefly Dr. Cudworth who saith of this Explication that it is the Philosophy of Gotham a nominal Trinity and three such Persons as cannot be in Nature But see now how dexterously his Lordship comes off It is not Sabellianism to teach that every Divine Person is a Person as he hath the Divine Nature Essence or Substance belonging to him For Sabellianism is the asserting such relative Persons as have no Essence at all p. 18 19. So that if the Unitarians do but confess that the three Properties unbegotten begotten and proceeding which are here called RELATIVE PERSONS subsist or are in the Divine Essence or Nature they are not Sabellians but Catholicks they should be Sabellians if they said these Properties are in no Essence at all But I think they must be called Fools as well as Sabellians if they asserted relative Properties or any Properties that were in no Essence I perceive his Lordship and we shall agree But let us hear also how he goes on Farthermore it is to be noted that there is a Communication of the Divine Essence to each Divine Person p. 19. For each Divine Person has an absolute Nature distinctly belonging to him tho not a distinct absolute Nature p. 9. The eternal Father is and subsists as a Father by having a Son and by communicating his Essence to another The Relation between Father and Son is founded on that eternal Act by which the Father communicates his Divine Nature Essence or Substance to the Son p. 10. Lastly he adds at p. 112. of his Book The Divine Persons are distinct as to personal Properties he means the Father is unbegotten the Son begotten the Holy Spirit neither begetting nor begotten but proceeding but they are not distinct as to essential Attributes i. e. they have not distinct Omnisciencies or Omnipotencies they have but one Intellect and one Energy You will say Sir this last is very sound that unbegotten begotten and proceeding are distinct Properties in the Divine Essence and that there is but one Omniscience and Omnipotence but one Omniscient and Omnipotent not three Omniscients or three Omnipotents But may there not be a Snake in the Grass in what is said that there is a Communication of the Divine Essence and that the Father by an immanent and eternal Act communicates his Divine Nature to the Son By no Means for you shall hear from the Bishop of Sarum and the Divines of the Schools nay for greater Surety and Caution from Dean Sherlock and the Fathers what that eternal Act is by which the Father communicates the Divine Essence to the Son and both of them to the Spirit as also what is meant by Father Son and Spirit nothing I assure you that any Unitarian ever questioned but what we believe as sincerely as Bishops and Deans do I pray Sir observe we are inquiring what is the eternal Act by which the Divine Essence is communicated to the Divine Persons and what those Persons are Let us first hear Dr. Sherlock who saith he hath all the Fathers of his side He affirms 1. It is essential to an eternal Mind to know it self and to love it self 2. Original Mind or Wisdom or Knowledg of it self and Love of it self and of its own Image are distinct Acts and can never be one Act. 3. These three Acts being so distinct that they can never be the same must be three substantial Acts in God that is the three Divine subsisting Persons 4. These then are the true and proper Characters of the distinct Persons in the Trinity the Father is Original Mind or Wisdom The Son is the reflex Knowledg of himself namely of Original Mind or the perfect Image of his own Wisdom that is of the Wisdom of Original Mind The Holy Spirit is that Divine Love which Father and Son have for
really distinct as three Angels or three Men are According to the Modes of Speaking now in use only compleat Beings not Properties or Faculties or immanent Acts are called Persons and his Grace expresly declares that he means by Persons such Persons as we usually intend when in common Discourse we speak of so many Persons or such and such Persons But let us for avoiding Cavils take his Sense in his own Words he saith p. 120. Here I fix that there are three Differences in the Deity of which the Scriptures speak by the Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost and farther speak also every where of them as we use to do of three distinct Persons Therefore I see no Reason to abstain from the word Persons tho I remember St. Jerom desires somewhere to be excused from it It is certain that in common Discourse or as his Grace speaks usually we mean by three or more Persons so many compleat Beings and if those Beings are spiritual we always mean so many Spirits As for Properties immanent Acts mere relative Subsistences Modes tho formerly and properly they were yet now they are not called Persons but are consider'd and spoke of as only the Affections of Persons It cannot therefore be denied to his Grace that he was a Realist the three Divine Persons or the Trinity according to him are three such kind of Persons as are usually meant in common Discourse namely so many compleat Beings and because these Beings are infinite and spiritual therefore three several infinite Spirits My Lord of Chichester having undertaken to write a Defence of his Grace's Sermons 't were not unreasonable to suppose that he espouses also the Archbishop's Notion of the Trinity But however that be we must put it to him either to profess the Archbishop's Explication which would commit him with the Oxford-Heads of Colleges who have decreed it to be Heresy or to say that by Persons in the Deity he understands only three Properties or relative Subsistences considered with the Substance in which they are and particularly unbegotten Mind reflex Wisdom and Divine Love and then we desire much to know why he hath written against the Unitarians who believe that Trinity as much as other Catholicks do I know not whether it be necessary to take notice of my Lord of Sarum's unlucky Trimming between the two Parties of the Nominals and Realists He represents it as a very inconsiderable Difference that some Trinitarians in their Explications of these Mysteries so much adhere to the Vnity of the Deity that their Trinity seems unconceivable while others assert such a Trinity as seems inconsistent with the Vnity By the former of these he means the Nominals by the other the Realists He declares that as different as their Explications are their Religion is the same Just says he as some Protestants believe the Consubstantiation others a real Presence and others only a figurative one or as some believe that the Decrees of God are grounded on his Prescience of future Events while others think that the Decrees of God are the fixed Causes of all Events and yet this Dissent notwithstanding the Litigants on both sides truly have the same Religion Bishop of Sarum 's Letter to Dr. Williams p. 85 86. I observe that some Men overflow with Charity and have a Catholick and boundless Latitude in their Principles but then they dispense both the one and the other wholly by Motives of Policy Sometimes namely when both Parties are powerful they will comprehend the Pharisees with the Sadduces otherwhile the Breadth of a Philactery shall be an intolerable Dissent but the one and the other as the Maxims of secular Policy and the Air of Popularity shall invite His Lordship could afford to write a Pastoral Letter to his Clergy against the Unitarians as Hereticks whose Principles are destructive of the common Christianity but the Nominal Trinitarians who hold neither more nor less than the Unitarians differ so little he saith from the other Trinitarians that they not only have the same Religion but they ought not to be at all offended at one another p. 86. But the Parties concerned are of a very contrary Judgment to his Lordship The Oxford-Heads declare that the Doctrine of three infinite Spirits Minds or Substances is Impiety and Heresy Dr. Sherlock and his Fellow-Realist answer that What the Oxford-Heads have condemned as Heretical and Impious is the very Catholick Faith and that this Decree or Declaration censures the Nicene Faith and the Faith of the Church of England as Heresy and exposes both to the Scorn and Triumph of the Socinians Examination of the Oxford Decree pag. 46. And who indeed but he that wilfully shuts his Eyes can avoid seeing it that to affirm but one infinite Mind and Spirit and to say there are three such Minds and Spirits is a Difference as weighty as 't is unreconcileable They who say the former and they who contend for the latter can no more be said to be of the same Religion than Paganism and Polytheism can be pretended to be the same with Judaism or Christianity But what I chiefly insist on is this that his Lordship being so indifferent whether we hold one or three eternal and infinite Spirits yet he publishes his Invectives against the Unitarians as undermining he saith and ruining the main Articles of Christianity while the whole that can be objected to 'em is that they believe with all the Nominal Party but one infinite and eternal Spirit The Archbishop was of Opinion that the Trinity is three such Persons as we usually intend when in common Discourse we speak of Persons Namely compleat intelligent Beings distinct from every other Being not Properties Relations or other Affections of Beings My Lord of Sarum on the contrary says expresly by a Person in the Trinity is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word namely a compleat intelligent Being but only that every one of the blessed Three has a peculiar Distinction by which he is different from the other two The Bishop contradicting in Terms the Doctrine of the Archbishop the latter believing three such Persons of the Deity as we usually mean by Persons in common Discourse the other denying expresly that there are any such Persons in the Godhead as we commonly understand by the word Persons and particularly not three distinct compleat Beings it was very expedient a necessary piece of Prudence that the Bishop in the Letters he directs to his Clergy should endeavour to possess 'em that his Difference with his Metropolitan is a mere Trifle and that it matters not whether we hold three distinct compleat infinite Beings and Spirits or one such Being only I am perswaded however that there are great Numbers in the Salisbury-Diocess that cannot be so imposed on they will see that their Diocesan in pursuit of the Principles laid down in his Letters to them should have cautioned them against the Archbishop's Sermons not against the Unitarians
each other All Men who know the Fathers know that this is their constant Language Vindic. of the Trin. p. 130. To make this Testimony the more considerable the Author intimates in the last Paragraph but one of his Preface that in writing this Book he must thankfully own he was divinely assisted If you will not take the Word of Dr. Sherlock and the constant Language of the Fathers then hear the Bishop of Sarum with all the School-Divines and the universal Church They conceived that the primary Act of the Divine Essence is its Wisdom this they thought might be called the Son as being the Generation of eternal Mind From this Fountain-Principle eternal Mind and the inward WORD or Logos or Wisdom a Love did issue forth which was to be the Soul of the Creation and more particularly of the Church This was rested on and became the universally-received Explication of the Trinity and was dressed up by the Schools with a great deal of dark Nicety Discourse to Clergy p. 99. Now Sir lay your hand on your Heart and answer like a true Unitarian Do you your self or know you any of the Denomination that question this Trinity the Trinity our very Opposers say of the Schools the Fathers and the universal Church Namely 1. One Divine Nature Essence or Substance with one only Omniscience and Omnipotence and consequently with one only Intellect and Power of Action 2. Three Properties called by the Bp. of Worcester RELATIVE PERSONS viz. Vnbegotten eternal Mind Reflex or begotten Knowledg or Wisdom and Divine Love proceeding from both This from themselves is what they mean by Persons in the Trinity and Communication of the Divine Nature without Division or Separation by immanent and Eternal Acts. I confess I fear much that were Dr. Cudworth alive that great Divine and Philosopher would either reason or laugh us out of this Gibberish he would constrain us to return to the Language of Scripture about these Matters And it is most true that these Terms are not to be found either in Holy Scripture or in the Creeds or received General Councils of the Catholick Church They were first advanced by some particular Fathers especially St. Austin in his 15 Books de Trinitate were taken up from them by the Divines of the Schools that is of the middle Ages and have been confirmed by the constant Use of the Moderns or Divines of the two last Ages We declare openly and therein consists our whole Heresy that we like 'em not not only as they are unscriptural which in matter of Faith is a most just Exception for divers very weighty Reasons but because by their dangerous Ambiguity they give occasion to Heresy not only among the People but even among Learned Men. These are the Terms that have occasioned the Heresy of the Realists or Tritheists maintained at this time by divers Learned Men among us Yet for Peace sake we admit the Terms interpreted in the known Sense of the Church which Sense we acknowledg the Bps. of Worcester and Sarum Dr. S th and the Oxford-Heads have as we have seen already rightly understood and especially Dr. S th in his Latin Letters under the Name of a Transmarine Divine dextrously declared I may pass I think to the last thing to be considered The Conciliation of Dr. S th and Dean Sherlock DR Sherlock in his Books against the Unitarians had taken this for his Ground and Foundation that the three Divine Persons are three eternal infinite Spirits each of them a God but the three Gods are made up again into one God by being internally conscious to one anothers Thoughts and Operations Dr. S th in two English Books by him written and in three Latin Letters excepts against this Explication of the Trinity as false heretical and directly introducing three Gods He saith as we do that the Deity is one numerical individual Nature Substance Mind Spirit with one only Understanding Will and Energy As to the Divine Persons they are the one individual Nature or Essence of God with three Relative Properties each Property consider'd with the Divine Essence is called a Person What these Properties and Persons are hath been said already The Bp. of Worcester seeing in what danger an old Friend is undertakes first to excuse Dr. Sherlock from the Imputation of Heresy and then to reconcile him to Dr. S th and the Nominals He inlarges himself on these three Points 1. That Dr. Sherlock's Explication not only will do no manner of Service towards clearing the Difficulties in the Doctrine of the Trinity but that it introduces a specifick Divine Nature which is inconsistent with the Divine Perfections Pref. p. 29. He adds at p. 30. 'T is impossible to conceive that the same individual Substance should be in three Persons as the Catholick Church teaches if those Persons have peculiar Substances of their own as Dr. Sherlock affirms and contends Immediately he cites an excellent Reasoning of Maimonides by which to know when Men affirm three Gods and concludes that Dr. Sherlock's Explication differs not from what Maimonides proves to be an introducing more Gods p. 30. He forbears not to own at p. 31. that he thinks it impossible to reconcile Dr. Sherlock's three individual Essences or Substances with the Catholick Churches one individual Divine Essence and that the former looks too like asserting three Gods and yet but one 2. But now how to save his Friend from the secular Arm He says in short Dr. Sherlock holds the Article of the Trinity and only mistakes in the Explication of it but it is not Heresy he saith when a Man assents to a Fundamental Article and only mistakes in the Explication Interpretation or Sense of it Pref. p. 22 23. But I fear our Brother S th is too quick-sighted to let this pass he will assuredly say that an Article whether fundamental or not fundamental and the Explication or Sense of such Article are the very same thing and that an Article falsly interpreted or explained is by no means the Article but a Contradiction to the Article He will certainly laugh out that his Antagonists can be no way excused from Heresy but by giving up at once the whole Doctrine of the Catholick Church For the Doctrine of the Church is most certainly yielded up if once it be granted that a Man believes her Articles while he expounds or takes them in a wrong Sense of them At this rate will he say Philoponus Joachim and Gentilis were good Catholicks for what makes a Catholick is not holding the Article in the true Meaning of it but in any Meaning in a false Meaning or a contrary Meaning I shall leave Dr. S th to argue it out with the Bp. and pass to the next 3. He alledges last of all that tho Dr. Sherlock affirms three individual Essences three eternal Minds three infinite Spirits which is Heresy yet he also says the Father communicated his Divine Nature or Essence wholly and intirely to the Son
whose Doctrine perfectly agrees with his own Saving that with the Oxford-Heads we believe it to be Heresy to profess the Faith of more than one infinite Being which is a compleat Being distinct from all other Beings but his Lordship holds it to be indifferent whether we affirm or deny three infinite Beings and Spirits His Lordship proposed to write with that Caution and Guard that no Body should be able to attack him and by Trimming between the Nominals and Realists to set up for a Healer of the Breaches a Mediator of Peace But the Event wholly fails him He utterly disobliges the Realists by denying in Terms what the Archbishop with all other Realists had affirmed in Terms and the whole Realist Party look upon as a Fundamental Article The Nominals are as much displeased with him because he sets no Value on the Catholick Faith but represents it as a very indifferent Truth that may be as orthodoxly denied as affirmed The Unitarians complain of him as having pretended to Principles of Latitude and a true Catholick Charity but using neither but perhaps as the turns of Popularity and Rules of secular Policy ingage him But this was a Digression Let us take up our Point again that the Unitarians hold the Faith of the Catholick Church or Nominal Party that is they believe but one eternal and infinite Spirit and as to three Divine Persons they admit the Church's Doctrine viz. that they are relative Subsistences Properties of the Divine Substance concerning them They agree that there are three Distinctions in God which may be fitly called Original Mind Reflex Wisdom and Divine Love the first unbegotten and Generating and therefore named the Father the other Generated and therefore in the Language of Men called the Son the third a Spiration and therefore stiled the Holy Spirit Whether you call these Properties Modes Relations Persons relative Subsistences or ought the like we will not contend with the Church for it being agreed that they are not distinct Beings divers Spirits and Minds several Substances but one infinite Substance Mind Spirit and Being with one only Understanding Will and Energy it is plain that the Unity of God is preserved and that the Terms used are only obsolete and odd but imply no Falshood nor any real Innovation in Religion And I say hereupon that unless my Lord of Chichester will profess three Divine Beings Spirits Substances and Minds contrary to the Decisions of divers General Councils the Consent of Writers since the Determination in the Council of Lateran Anno 1215. and the late Decree of the University of Oxford I say if he will not contravene all these neither ought he to have defended the Archbishop's Sermons nor could he oppose the Considerations that were not for all that I see written against the Doctrine of the Church but the Error of the Realists As we accord with the Catholick Church in the Article of the Trinity so also in that of the Incarnation or the Divinity of our Saviour For when the Church says the Lord Christ is God when she worships him invocates him imputes to him the Creation of all things and for all this alledges Authorities and Examples out of Holy Scripture nothing of all this is intended of his Humanity or to his Humanity but to the indwelling Divinity In short she means that as the Cloud of Glory in the Times of the Old Testament was called God and was worshipped because God dwelt in it after an especial manner so and much more may we call the Lord Christ God and Creator and the rest because of the Godhead dwelling in him after an ineffable unexplicable manner and without measure but whatsoever of Divine is said of him is said merely in respect of the inhabiting Divinity and not of the Humanity The Communication of Idioms as Divines speak is merely verbal not real Christ is God and the Creator is worshipped and invocated because of the Deity in him for tho these things are said of the Man Christ Jesus they are said only in respect of the Divinity and are intended only of that If any say no Indwelling or as the Church speaks Incarnation in what soever manner or measure can give to such Person the Name of God much less of Creator So indeed Nestorius thought and therefore refused to call our Saviour God or to ascribe to him either the Works or Attributes of God and many learned Men have contended that Nestorius was as rashly condemned as he was afterwards barbarously used Yet upon serious weighing the matter it appears not necessary to litigate about Terms and Words on which the Authority that imposes them puts an honest Sense and Meaning The Church would never have obliged Nestorius to call the Man Christ Jesus God and Creator but declaring at the same time that tho it is the Man that is called God he is so called only in respect of the Indwelling of God in him which Indwelling is after a manner so extraordinary so abundant or rather so ineffable that Christians may with greater Right call him God than the Cloud of Glory is so named because of the Angel in it who represented God or than any other Appearance of God whatsoever or in what manner soever mentioned in the Old Testament The Brightness of the Cloud of Glory was only from the Power of the inhabiting Angel yet because the Angel represented God the bright Appearance between the Cherubims was named Jehovah and God How much more may the Lord Christ be so called in whom the Divinity it self did dwell not as a Man in his House but as the Soul in the Body that is to say constantly illuminating conducting and actuating him nay and exerting in him the most glorious Effects of Omniscience and Omnipotence the principal Attributes of the Divinity 2 Kings 19.15 Hezekiah prayed and said O Lord God of Israel which dwellest between the Cherubims thou art God even thou alone 1 Chron. 13.6 David went up and all Israel to Baalah to fetch thence the Ark of GOD JEHOVAH that dwelleth between the Cherubims whose Name is called on it It cannot I think be denied that here the bright Appearance between the Cherubims because God was in it tho only by his Angel not by the Exertion of any miraculous Acts by no Acts of Omniscience or other Divine Attribute is named Jehovah God and only God or alone God The Church never required of Nestorius to say the Lord Christ is Creator or God without this Explication in respect of God in him which seeing Nestorius owned and having the Precedent of the Jewish Church and Writers of the Old Testament who called the Appearance between the Cherubims by all the Names and Titles of God he needed not to have contended but should have consulted the Churches Peace for no words are to be refused when the Authority that imposes 'em interprets 'em to a sound Sense This is what the Unitarians believe concerning the Trinity and concerning the Divinity
and Spirit without Division or Separation which is Orthodoxy We ought therefore to say Dr. Sherlock has only contradicted himself but is not a Heretick He holds what indeed is Heresy three Substances three Minds and three Spirits but he holds also the Truth one individual Substance one Deity His Lordship touches upon this divers times as well in his Book as in his Preface nay he is so satisfied with it that at p. 107. he cannot he saith now see what is the difference between Dr. S th and his Nominals and Dr. Sherlock and the Realists The short of this Defence is that if one part of a Contradiction is true and orthodox the other false and heretical the Person affirming it shall be denominated not from his Heresy but from the orthodox Part of his Contradiction For my part I very readily agree to this charitable way of bringing off the Dr. but then let the Charity be truly Catholick let us extend it to others as well as to him and else it is not Charity but Partiality A Motley of Heresy and Orthodoxy his Lordship says is to be named a parte potiori from the sound part without reckning at all of the unsound but then I pray let Philoponus Joachim and Gentilis be judged by the same Law For they said as the Doctor does three infinite Substances three eternal Minds and Spirits and they asserted also as he does one Deity one Essence and one Substance by the mutual Inexistence of the Persons the Subordination of the second and third to the first and the concurrence of all of them to the Making and Government of the World while Dr. Sherlock resolves the whole Unity of the Deity and of the Divine Substance into only the mutual Consciousness of the three Personal Gods And this not only in all his former Books but in his last Pamphlet or the Distinction between Nominal and Real Trinitarians examined in Answer to the Disinterested A Book so monstrously erroneous that if it escapes all other hands I think verily his Second against the Jesuit Sabrand would take up Arms against him the Foot-boy would detect and expose his gross Heterodoxies We have heard his Lordship's way of ending all Controversies concerning the Blessed Trinity that is to say among Friends Persons of the same Church and Communion namely if they will but say what all have always said even Arius Philoponus Dr. Sherlock and Socinus that there is but one Deity and one Divine Substance let 'em contradict this as much as they will provided they do not absolutely and in Terms renounce it they shall be Catholicks Dr. Pain in his Letter to my Lord the Bp. of R. has much the same Salvo For after he had said Postscr p. 25. that God or the Trinity is an Original Eternal Mind with an Eternal Logos Wisdom or Substantial Ennoia or Knowledg and an Eternal Divine Spirit proceeding from both He concludes p. 26. that whosoever believes this Trinity whether with or without Explications whether with right or with wrong Explications he is undoubtedly Orthodox And at p. 11. he commends the wise Bishops of the Roman Church who tho they have Plenitude of Ecclesiastical Authority suffer the Jesuits and other Learned Men to vent their different Sentiments in these high Questions without interposing much less censuring either Party so long as they subscribe and consent to the general Doctrine of the Church They allow their Writers to say there are three Gods in a Personal Sense or three Personal Gods and to profess three Eternals and three Omnipotents But then he saith this Favour is extended only to Friends to one another to Sons of the Church for if Men of another Communion make the least Trip in explaining what is above all Explication nay is incomprehensible and unintelligible immediately they shall be charged with Blasphemy and Atheism He not obscurely intimates that the like Christian Charity Love and good Will so he speaks p. 13. should be used among Protestants especially among Clergy-men who are of the same Faith If our Friend S th accords to this so will we for we are of the same Faith with the English Church for the Church of England never believed or taught three Eternal All-perfect Minds and Spirits the denial of which is the only Heresy of which we are guilty we submit to all other Explications of the Trinity tho as we have said we utterly dislike some Words and Ways of expressing them His Lordship has also reprinted his Book concerning the Satisfaction with a new Preface to it What he hath affirmed there concerning that Point more than has been granted and assented to in these and 20 more publick Papers is not the Doctrine either of the Catholick Church or of the Church of England 't is only the unauthorised Opinion and Fancy of particular Writers who are as various about those Matters as they are about most others My Conclusion Sir seeing we have been so roughly as well as unjustly treated by these Antagonists shall be only to your self That I am With much Respect and Affection Yours March 10. 1696. FINIS