Unity of Will and Power and Operation from the indivisible Unity of Nature that they are but one Agent and produce but one and the same effect But still as for the main of the Charge That every distinct Person in the Trinity has a personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of his own which is not the personal Substance Life Will Understanding Power of either of the other Persons is what all who believe a Real Trinity do and must agree in whether they will agree to call these Three Substances Wills Understandings c. or not Nay this is all that those very Persons who assert Three Substances Three Minds and Spirits in the Trinity ever meant by it Own but each Person in his own proper Person to be infinite Substance Mind Spirit and that neither Person is each other and they will consent to any other form of words and not dispute the reason or propriety of them all that they contend for is a real Trinity of true real proper Persons and that they are certain cannot be unless each Person by himself as distinct from the other Persons be Substance Mind Spirit Will Understanding Power This is the only Trinity which Socinus Crellius Slichtingius and others of that Party have hitherto disputed against and therefore certainly they did apprehend that the Christians in their days even all the Divinity-Chairs of Europe did assert such a Trinity and those Learned Men who opposed them did believe so too or there must be very wise doings amongst them tho' our Modern Socinians have now made a discovery that these Realists are not the true Catholick Trinitarians but that the Nominalists are the Church and now they are grown Friends with the Church and Orthodox beyond their own hopes and their business is only to defend the Church against this new Sect of Real Trinitarians Let it be so but still they maintain the same Doctrine that Socinus did and dispute against the same Trinity which he disputed against and therefore these Real Trinitarians are no new upstart Sect but their old Adversaries who will never be cheated by new Names into an accommodation or comprehension with Socinians The plain state of the Case is this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Christian Trinity now the question is whether this be a Real Trinity or not that is whether the Father be an Eternal Infinite Living Omniscient Omnipotent subsisting Person and did truly beget of his own Nature and Substance a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Son and in like manner whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son a True Living Omnipotent Omniscient subsisting Spirit This is the Doctrine of those whom our Modern Socinians call Realists that is of True and Orthodox Trinitarians and without asserting this whatever they teach besides a Trinity is nothing but a name and therefore such men may properly be called Nominalists so that the Realists only are Trinitarians the meer Nominalists whatever they are else are no Trinitarians and this new contrivance of opposing these Real Trinitarians is neither better nor worse than opposing the Doctrine of the Trinity And let but our People understand this and we are where we were and then the Socinians may call themselves Nominalists or what they please To proceed He is as artificial and unsincere in his account of the Nominalists as of the Realists We must not conceive of the Divine Persons say the Nominalists as we do of created Persons Very right there is an unconceivable difference between them as all Realists acknowledge they are perfectly distinct but yet inseparably One they never did never can subsist apart the same One undivided Divinity subsists whole and perfect and yet distinctly in each of them and is as perfectly One in Three as any one thing is one with it self And thus we allow what he adds to be a very great Truth and wish he himself would consider better of it That the conception we ought to have of their Personalities or what they are as they are Persons is as different from the Personalities of any created Beings as the Perfections of the Divinity are paramount to Human or Angelical Perfections This we are sensible of and therefore do not presently cry out of Nonsense and Contradiction when we are forced by Scripture and Reason to attribute such things to the Divine Nature and Persons as we can find no Images or Idea's of in Created Nature for we know that Creatures cannot be perfectly like to God and consequently we ought not to oppose the Idea's of Nature to Revelation But the present question is not Whether Father Son and Holy Ghost are such Persons as created Persons as Angels or men are for it is certain there is an unconceivable difference between them but whether they may be called Persons in the true and proper Notion of the word Person for one who does really and substantially subsist live will understand act according to his Natural Powers And whether there be Three such subsisting living willing understanding Persons in the Godhead or only One Whether as the Father hath life in himself so the Son hath life in himself and as the Father knows the Son so the Son knows the Father and whether the Spirit of life and the Spirit of Holiness and Power and the Spirit that searcheth the deep things of God be not a subsisting living knowing working Spirit and this is the reason why the Church calls them Three Persons which the Scripture does not call them because the Holy Scripture distinctly Attributes life will knowledge power to these Three Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Notion all men have of a Person when applied to Creatures and to talk of Three Divine Persons who are not subsisting living knowing Persons destroys the only Reason for calling them Persons But he adds as the Doctrine of the Nominalists That God is but One Being but One Substance Mind or Spirit with One only will understanding energy or power of action But is not this in a true Catholick Sense the Doctrine of the Realists also as I observed before But this is what this disinterested Person would be at to distinguish the Realists and Nominalists by Three Substances and One Substance of the Divinity And were this the whole Truth the Realists would certainly be Hereticks and the Nominalists might be the Orthodox Church Whereas the Realists as they own Three real subsisting living Persons so they as constantly profess the Homoousion or One undivided Substance and Nature subsisting and acting distinctly but indivisibly and inseparably in Three which is a real perfect subsisting Trinity in perfect Unity But the Nominalists truly so called as they own but One Substance in the Divinity so but One single Person which is their One God and can find a Trinity only in a Trinity of Names or Properties or meer immanent Acts. That there are many such Nominalists among us I fear is too true but I must say again that the
Person Substance Mind Spirit true and perfect God Yes most certainly but it is not the Definition of the One God but only of a Divine Person and the Christian Faith teaches us That Three such Divine Persons are but One God The Catholick Fathers have given us another Notion of One God That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One God is One Divinity that is an Eternal Immutable Indivisible Omnipotent Omniscient Life Being Essence Nature and the Essential Undivided Unity Sameness Identity of the Godhead in Father Son and Holy Ghost is the Unity of God For I take it to be more like a Demonstration than any I expect to meet with in this Author That where there is but One Essential undivided Divinity there is but One God Now this I think may vindicate those obnoxious Expressions as some think them of Three infinite Substances Minds and Spirits from the Charge of Tritheism for since infinite Substance Mind and Spirit is not the definition of One God but only of a Divine Person to say Three infinite Substances Minds and Spirits does not multiply Gods but only Divine Persons 2. His second Argument is against Three Wills Three Vnderstandings Three Energies or Principles or Powers of Action in One God This he represents as monstrously absurd when as in truth if it be absurd the only absurdity is That there should be Three Divine Persons that is Three who have a Personal Will Understanding Power of their own in the Unity of the same Godhead Now the absurdity of this I cannot see nor has he made the least offer to prove it But the secret of all these monstrous Absurdities is this He represents One God to signifie only One single Person who is God and then indeed Three Wills Three Understandings Three Lives of one single Person is as Absurd and Monstrous as one would wish but before he had charged the Doctrine of a Real Trinity with such Absurdities he should first have proved That One God signifies but One single Person and have exposed the monstrous Absurdities of Three Persons and One God and then we would have given him leave to have represented Three Personal Wills Understandings and Lives as absurd as he pleases but if it be not absurd to own Three Persons I 'm sure it is very absurd to deny that there are Three who Live and Will and Understand that is in his Language Three Wills Understandings and Lives in One God 3. His Third Argument comes nearer the Business for he undertakes to prove That the Second and Third Persons in the Trinity the Son and the Holy Ghost are not Substance and Spirit but only Properties or immanent Acts or relative Subsistences in the Notion of the Nominals And his Argument is made up partly of Authority and partly of his own Reasoning upon it His Authority is the Council of Lyons in the year 1274. which Condemns those who presume to deny That the Holy Spirit does eternally proceed from the Father and the Son He adds 'T is evident at first sight to any Learned man who is conversant in these Questions and in the Writers who in several Ages have managed 'em what the Fathers of this Council meant and what they aimed at in this Decree or Canon For because they believed that the Divine Persons are not Minds and Spirits but relative Subsistences or what is the same immanent Acts Therefore they could not but believe and define That the Second Person is eternally generated and therefore called the Son That the Third is an Eternal Spiration and therefore called Spirit I can't think what to call this and therefore shall say nothing of it but only beg my Reader 's Pardon for giving it an Answer In the first place this Council says nothing of the Eternal Generation of the Son and therefore this could not be what they aimed at as he pretends In the next place The Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost was not the thing in question but his Eternal Procession from Father and Son which the Latin Church professed and therefore added the Filioque to their Creed but the Greek Church had disputed and condemned it and that was one great design of this Council to bring the Greeks to consent to this addition so that it was not the Aeternaliter but the Filioque which the Council had principal regard to in this Decree not the Eternal Procession but the Procession from the Father and the Son so little did they think of what our Author makes their chief design But there is another Clause in this Decree which he has concealed which proves that they thought quite otherwise for they do not only condemn those who deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds Eternally from Father and Son but those also who teach that he proceeds from Father and Son as from two Principles and by two Spirations and not as from one Principle by one Spiration Now had they believed the Son to be a meer immanent Act such an unsubsisting Reason and Wisdom as is in Man had not this been a very wise Dispute Whether this immanent Act were a Principle of Spiration either together with the Father or distinct from him But nothing is to be wondered at in an Author who will venture to say That Eternal Generation and Eternal Procession is not reconcileable with the real personal subsistence of the Son and Holy Spirit but proves them to be meer immanent Acts and that those who own such an Eternal Generation and Procession must consequently believe so for this is the only Argument he has to prove the Fathers of this Council to have believ'd the Son and Spirit to be meer immanent Acts because they assert the Eternal Generation and Procession whereas on the contrary it is evident that all the Catholick Fathers who asserted the Eternal Generation and Procession did as strenuously assert against the Noetians and Sabellians the true and proper Personality of the Son and Spirit But let us hear how he proves That if the Son and Spirit The Second and Third Persons be distinct Substances and Spirits from the First that is if the Son in his own Person as distinct from the Person of the Father be Substance and Spirit and so of the Holy Ghost it were heinous Nonsense to say they were Eternally generated or Eternally proceed His Argument is this If the Persons are Substances and Spirits it must be said that the Second was compleatly and finally generated from all Eternity the like also of the Third Person else they should be incompleat Substances unfinisht Spirits If they are Spirits or Substances it can never be said that one is Eternally generated the other does Eternally proceed but the former was generated from all Eternity and the other actually and compleatly proceeded from all Eternity Now supposing the Reason of this to be unanswerable All that it amounts to is no more but this That the Catholick Fathers who attested the
their Senses where their Reason and Philosophy is at a loss nay in such Matters as if they did not see them they think they could demonstrate absolutely contradictious and impossible and did Men heartily believe the Scriptures why should they not as absolutely submit their Reason to the Authority of God as to the Evidence of Sense But let them answer for this But the whole Strength of this Argument which he manages with great Triumph and Scorn dwindles into the old Socinian Sophism that one God signifies but one only Person who is God and that whatever other Unity you ascribe to three Persons each of which is by himself true and perfect God still they are three Gods for since each of these Spirits or Persons each of which is an infinite Mind or Spirit are said to be infinite all-perfect they must be said to be Gods mutually Conscious mutually inexisting and the rest but no more one God than they are one Spirit and therefore the Realists may as well pretend that by these Devices of theirs they have contrived three infinite Spirits into one Person or into one Spirit as into one God And that a disinterested Person I suppose he means such as himself and Philosophers and Jews and Pagans he might have added Sabellians and Socinians and Mahumatans will call these three Gods Now it is no wonder that this disinterested Person thinks all our Explications of the Unity of God insufficient when we so vastly differ about the Notion of one God That we are so far from proving three Divine Persons to be one God in his Sense that we reject his Notion of one God as Judaism and Heresie and herein we have the Authority of the Catholick Church on our side And here I would desire the Reader to observe that this Argument is not meerly against that Phrase of three Minds and Spirits and Substances but against three Persons each of which is in his own proper Person Mind and Spirit and Substance for three such Persons by this Authors Argument are three Gods and can no more be contrived as he prophanely speaks into one God than into one Personal Spirit But yet since he graciously owns that one infinite Almighty Spirit is one God what if we should prove these three Infinite Persons each of which is Mind and Spirit to be one and the same Infinite Eternal Spirit And yet this has always been the Faith of the Catholick Church St. Austin is express in it The Father is Spirit and the Son Spirit and the Holy Ghost Spirit but not three Spirits but one Spirit that is not Personally but Essentially One they are three Persons but one Essence essentially one Spirit And if God be perfect pure simple Essence the Unity of Essence is the Unity of God This was the Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers and this we must insist on till our Modern Demonstrators speak more home to this Point that one Divine Essence one Self-originated Divinity though subsisting in three distinct Persons is but one God I can't discourse this at large now that may be done if there be Occasion for it another time but at present I shall only give a brief Account of the Doctrine of the Fathers as to this Point They tell us that there is but one self-originated Divinity but one Father and therefore but one God that this Eternal Unbegotten Father begets an Eternal Son of his own Nature and Substance and in like Manner that is in the same Nature and Substance the Holy Spirit Eternally proceeds from Father and Son So that there being but one Nature one Divinity communicated whole and entire and perfectly the same without Division of Substance there is but one Divine Nature but one Divinity distinctly in three not one meerly as a Species is one though they often allude also to a Specific Unity but one as one Individual though not one Singular Nature is one as one which subsists wholly indivisibly and perfectly in three is one which is one and one and one by a perfect Sameness and Identity of Nature and Substance but not three That these three are inseparable from each other never did subsist a part never can but are in each other which they call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Circumincession which makes the Divinity one simple indivisible Monad And here we may allow a Place and he never intended any other Place for it to what Dr. Sherlock calls mutual Consciousness which is the proper and natural In-being of three each of which is Mind and Spirit which is not barely a knowing each other by an external Communication of Thoughts and Counsels which is far from being an essential natural Unity but such an inward vital Sensation as each Person has of himself which after all the Noise and Clamour about it seems to be a very sensible Representation of the natural In-being and Circumincession of the Divine Persons and as natural a Demonstration of the Unity of the Divine Essence as self-consciousness must be acknowledged to be of the Unity of a Person It is certain without this they cannot be one Energy and Power wherein the Fathers also place the Unity of the God-Head one Agent one Creator and Governour But where there is such an inseparable Union such a mutual conscious Sensation there can be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Greg. Nyssen speaks One Motion of the Divine Will though distinctly and without Confusion in three And this makes them one Agent one Essential Will one Essential Wisdom one Essential Power so that here is in the properest Sence but one Omniscience one Omnipotence one Will c. and therefore but one God though Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them in their own Persons Omnipotent Omniscient and whatever belongs to the Idea of God All this indeed does not make these three Divine Persons one Person and therefore not one God in the Socinian Sense of one God which is the only Deficiency this Author charges this Account of the Divine Unity with and is wisely done of him because he knows we reject this Notion of the Divine Unity and therefore here he is safe we assert that the Unity of God is not the Unity of a Person but the Unity of Nature and Essence and to confute this he gravely proves that three Persons are not and cannot be one Person But if he would have opposed us he should either have shewn First That the Account the Catholick Fathers give for for we pretend to give no other of the Unity of God does not prove the perfect Unity of the Divine Essence in three Persons or Secondly that one undivided Divinity is not one God or Thirdly that the same Eternal Essence cannot subsist whole and perfect distinctly and indivisibly in Three that is that God cannot communicate his own Nature and Substance without Division and Separation to his Son and Spirit or that God cannot have an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit if
he can do either of these we will very tamely and humbly follow his Chariot in the mean time for I believe this will take up some time I will shew him the Difference between three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God and three Gods 1. First then one God in the Socinian Notion is one infinite Mind and Spirit one Eternal Divinity in one only Person So one Person and one Divinity that no other Person communicates with it in the same Divinity in the same one eternal Essence and Substance Now according to this Notion of one God three Gods are three such eternal Minds Substances Divinities each of which in his own Person has a whole perfect undivided Essence and Divinity which is not common to any other Person So that three Gods are three absolute Substances Essences Divinities which have no Essential Relation to or Communication with each other There can be no other Notion of three Gods if as this Author and all the Anti-Trinitarians assert One God is One absolute Divinity in One Person for then three Gods must be three absolute Divinities in three Persons Now every one sees what a vast difference there is between three such Gods and the Catholick Faith of a Trinity of Person in the Unity of the Divine Essence Why you 'll say is not every Person in the Trinity by himself in his own Person true and perfect God Yes most certainly but he is not one absolute separate Divinity he has not a Divinity so peculiarly his own that no other Person communicates in it there is but One undivided Divinity in all Three and therefore there is a Trinity in Unity But is not each Person in the Trinity infinite Mind Spirit Substance Nay do not some Realists venture to call them three Minds Spirits Substances and what are such Three but three Gods if One infinite Mind and Spirit be one God I answer An infinite Mind and Spirit is certainly true and perfect God but one Personal infinite Mind and Spirit is not the One God so as to exclude all other Persons unless he have one absolute separate Divinity also so proper and peculiar to himself that no other Person does or can communicate in it for if more Persons than One can perfectly communicate in the same One Divinity there must be more Divine Persons than One and each of them perfect God but neither of them the One God in Exclusion of the other Persons but all of them the One God as the One Divinity This I think the Socinians will grant That One Divinity is but One God and that One God is One absolute Divinity and the Reason why they assert the One God to be but One Person is because they think it impossible that the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly and perfectly in Three but then before they had charged the Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism they should have remembred that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their One Person is whom they call the One God and therefore though three such Persons three such Minds and Substances as their One Person and One Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to One single Person would be Three Gods this does not prove that Three such Persons as the Catholick Church owns in the Ever-blessed Trinity who are all of the same One Substance and but One Divinity must therefore be three Gods also 2. Three such Persons as these who are three Gods our Author and every one else who understands any thing of these Matters must acknowledge to be three self-originated Persons for God in the full and adequate Notion of one God is a self-originated Being and those who assert that the One God is but One Person make him a self-originated Person now it is evident that in this Sense the three Persons in the Christian Trinity are not three God's for they are not three self-originated Persons The Father alone is un-begotten or self-originated but the Son is begotten of his Father's Substance and the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from Father and Son so that here is but one self-originated Person with his Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit And let this Author try to make three Gods of three two of which are not self-originated Persons They might more plausibly dispute against the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit from this Topick that they are not self-originated Persons than prove them to be a second and third God by their perfect Communication in a self-originated Nature which is the Person of the Father For though a perfect Communication of the Divine Nature makes a true Divine Person who is true and perfect God yet no Person can be the One God who is not self-originated and a self-originated Person who is a Father cannot be the One God so as to exclude his Son who is of the same Nature and Substance with him nor the Holy Spirit who by an Eternal Procession from Father and Son perfectly communicates in the same Eternal Nature 3. Three such Persons as in a strict and proper Notion are three Gods must be three separate Persons who have not only distinct but separate Natures and Substances and have no internal Union or Communication with each other and therefore are in a proper Notion three Principles three Agents three Wills three Lives three Omnipotents c. who always act a-part and can never concur as one Agent in any one Action cannot make and govern the same World have no Relation to each other no Order no Union as it is impossible three absolute independent Divinities should But the Catholick Faith concerning the three Divine Persons in the Trinity is directly contrary to this that as Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Substance One Divinity so they are so perfectly in each other that they have but one Essential Will Omnipotence Omniscience are but one Agent one Creatour and Governour of the World Let this Author or any other Adversaries talk what they please of the Absurdity Nonsence Contradiction of all this which is not our present dispute I stand to it that they can never make Tritheism of it for the three Divine Persons in the Trinity though each of them be by himself true and perfect God yet as they are owned by the Catholick Church and as we have now explain'd it are not three such Persons as they themselves must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods What I have now discoursed will help us to give a plain and short Answer to those Fallacies whereby such disinterested Persons as this Authour charge the Catholick Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism for they manifestly equivocate both in the Notion of one God and of one Person By One God they understand one who is true and perfect God and every one who is true and perfect God is one and now instead of all other Demonstrations they only desire you to number the Persons of
Three in Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is an all-perfect and all-sufficient Spirit and yet but one whole undivided Divinity one all-perfect all-sufficient Being these Three are not more than enough not redundant and superfluous in the Divinity and therefore he should have proved that by the same Reason that three absolute independent self-originated Divinities are superfluous and needless three Divine Persons of the same one undivided Divinity are superfluous too Three Divinities three separate self-originated Divine Essences and Natures are superfluous but I hope one Divinity one Divine Nature and Essence is not and if three Divine Persons are Essential to one undivided and inseparable Divinity I hope they are not superfluous neither and this is the Catholick Faith not three Gods or three Divinities but three Persons in one infinite undivided Nature and Essence Three which never did subsist never did never can act a-part and therefore though three are but one all-wise omnipotent Agent and one omnipotent is not more than enough But none of these Imperfections which are the Reasons why Beings of the same Kind are multiplied are found in any one of these all-perfect all-sufficient Spirits Very true but the same one whole perfect Divinity is found in them all and therefore though they are three the Divinity is not multiplied but they are One God and this is all we are to account for those who believe but one God I hope need not give a Reason whether final or declaratory why there are more but if he expects a Reason why there are three living subsisting omniscient omnipotent Persons in this one undivided God-head a final Reason I can give none for I have learnt to give no such Reasons of a necessary and eternal Nature a declaratory Reason as he aclls it I can give because our Saviour has assured us that so it is and has given Command to his Ministers to baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Thirdly And this answers his third Argument that the Works of Creation though they prove the Being of a God yet give us not the least Intimation of more Gods than One We own the Argument against a Plurality of Gods but now for the Application He says this is as direct a Proof against our professing more Infinite and Almighty mighty Spirits Of one such Mind or Spirit the Works of Creation are a clear Demonstration but they shew us not the least Foot-steps or Track of more such Spirits and Minds Or of three such Divine Almighty Person and I know not how they should when as the Realists themselves profess these three are but one essential Wisdom Power and Goodness and therefore but one Maker and Governour of the World But he thinks that if there were more than One such Mind or Spirit or as we say infinite Person who is an infinite and all-mighty Mind that also would have been made known to us either by the Works of Creation or Providence that are visible to all because all are concerned to know it But though there were as we profess to believe three such Divine Persons in the Unity of the God-head yet he knows according to our Principles the Works of Creation could give no such Notice of any distinction of Persons in the God-head because the Father makes all Things by his Word and Spirit by an undivided and undistinguished Wisdom and Power and when these Divine Persons have not distinct and separate Parts in the Creation it is impossible that this visible Frame of Nature should distinguish them and therefore this Distinction cannot be learnt but by Revelation Nor consequently were all Men concerned to know this till God thought fit to reveal it It was sufficient in a meer State of Nature to worship the Maker of the World with an undistinguisht Devotion but the Redemption of Mankind by the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God and by the Sanctification of the Spirit made the Revelation of this Mystery necessary and though the Works of Creation did not visibly distinguish the Divine Persons yet the Work of Redemption does Father Son and Holy Ghost have their distinct Parts and Offices in this Glorious Work and such as prove each of them to be a distinct Person and each Person to be true and perfect God but this Author will not stand the Trial of Revelation for he tells us plainly that the Doctrine of the Trinity for that is all he means by three Minds and Spirits is a Point of so much Importance and so general Concernment that were it true it must have been found where all other necessary Parts of Religion are registered in the Works of Creation or the Methods of Providence or the congenit Notions which are inseparable from our rational Natures Here he speakes out and we thank him for it he hath done with all Revelation excepting where there is the least need of it viz. such Matters as may be known without a Revelation and now he has pulled off his Disguise it is time for all Christians to have done with him He has hitherto concealed himself under the Character of a Nominalist and according to his own Rule he ought to shew us this nominal Trinity registered in the Works of Creation or the Methods of Providence or those congenite Notions which are inseparable from our rational Natures and when he has done this we will shew him a Trinity of real proper subsisting Persons As for what he adds that our Saviour tells us God is not three Spirits but a Spirit it is like all the rest Spirit there as in many other Places signifies the Nature not the Person and therefore these are not contradictory Propositions God is a Spirit and there are Three in the Unity of the God-head each of which is infinite Mind and Spirit SECT VI. The Defence this Author makes for the Nominalists against the Objections of the Realists THis Author having as he thinks sufficiently exposed the Tritheistick Trinity of the Realists proceeds to vindicate the Nominalists from those Exceptions which are made against them I need say little more to this than to explain that Defence he makes for them and leave the Persons concerned to vindicate themselves from his Vindication which seems to me a very scandalous one 1. The first Objection is That the Explication of the Nominalists is a bare-fac'd yielding the long-controverted Question of the Trinity to the Sabellians and Samosatenians and consequently to the Socinians who differ in nothing from Noetus Sabellius and Paul of Samosata they are near of Kin indeed but there is some difference between them The God of the Sabellians and Socinians and the God or pretended Verbal Trinity of the Nominals is perfectly the same the latter have explained away the Trinity to the former The three Divine Persons of the Nominals do all make but one Divine Person of the Socinians and Sabellians This is certainly true as he explains the
true and proper Personality of the Son and Holy Spirit were very absurd and guilty of Heinous Nonsense in saying That the Son is Eternally generated and the Spirit Eternally proceeds These are Nice Speculations which the Arian Controversy engaged them in but the Nicene Fathers contented themselves to affirm no more concerning the Eternal Generation than that the Son was begotten of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God And this Notion of an Eternal Generation our Author has no Objection against and we do not think our selves bound to answer for all the Subtilties either of the Fathers or Schools nor to determine every Curious Question which Perverse and Heretical Wits can start concerning the Divine Generation and Procession which is above the Comprehension of Angelical Minds and which we know no more of but that the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds And yet this Reasoning is very absurd when applied to an Eternal and immutable Nature Things which have a beginning which are made which are successively and gradually perfected by Art are incompleat and unfinish'd while they are a-making and if they are always a-making or always incompleat but a Generation or Procession without a Beginning and without Succession must always be perfect and always the same if it be at all here is no new Production no making any thing no transient Action in which sence the Catholick Fathers denied the Divine Generation to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Action but only an Essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitude relation between Father and Son who both perfectly and eternally subsist and co-exist with each other but so that the Son is of the Father and the Holy Spirit of Father and Son Thus they were without any Beginning and thus they always are and this is all they meant by an Eternal Generation and Procession and this the Immutability of the Divine Nature forc'd them to own for though external Acts and Relations make no Change in the Divine Nature yet what is ad intrà does and therefore could we conceive any distinguishable moments in Eternal Duration when God was no Father when he begot a Son and when he ceased to beget this would make an internal Change in the Divine Nature it self which is inconsistent with perfect Immutability But the Son always was and is of the Father and this is his Eternal Generation and the Holy Spirit always was and is of Father and Son and this is his Eternal Procession and thus the Divine Essence always was and is the same a Trinity in Unity and this is the perfect Immutability of God And yet his Philosophy is very absurd when he argues from an Eternal Generation and Procession that therefore the Son and Holy Spirit must be incompleat and unfinish'd for this will not be granted him even in created Nature much less in the Divinity They are no mean Philosophers who tell us that the World may very properly be said to be perpetually created that what we call Preservation or upholding all things in being is the very same Act and Power which at first gave Being to them and such a permanent Act is Creation still though no new Production of any thing But these Men would scorn any one who should hence conclude that there is no compleat or finish'd Substance no really subsisting substantial World Much more absurd is it to conclude this of an Eternal Generation which produces nothing new nothing that ever began to be and is the same that ever it was without any Succession And he defends the Nominalists just as wisely and philosophically as he opposes the Realists as if his only design were to expose both He says this Eternal Generation proves the Son and Holy Spirit to be only immanent Acts in God reflex Wisdom or the Wisdom that resulteth from Original Minds Eternal Contemplation and Knowledge of the Divine Nature and Perfections and the everlasting Spiration of Love that must proceed from the Original and reflex Wisdom of the Deity And here we have just such a Trinity in the God-head as there is in every particular Man his Mind and the immanent Acts of Wisdom or Reason and Love which all Learned Men know to be one kind of Sabellianism That the Son is the Wisdom and Power of God and that the peculiar Character of the Holy Spirit is Love is the language both of Scripture and Fathers but not as immanent Acts but the living subsisting Wisdom of the Father and living subsisting Love eternal and infinite Persons co-eternal and co-equal with the Father But it is a new Language unknown to Scriptures and Fathers to call an immanent Act of Wisdom a Son and the Minds producing such an Act its generating or begetting a Son and to call such an immanent Act in God the Son of God and God by which Rule every Thought or Act of Reason in any Man is Man and the Son of that Man whose Thought and Act it is And it as new Philosophy to talk of immanent Acts in God for there can be no immanent Acts but where there are Powers and Faculties which is the Imperfection of the Creature-State not incident to the perfect Simplicity of the Divine Nature But besides this what does he mean by the Eternal Generation and Spiration of an immanent Act an immanent Act according to all the Accounts I ever met with of it and as every Man may feel in himself is not an abiding as he calls it but a transient Act it has no permanent stable Nature no Subsistence of its own but vanishes and dies assoon as generated to speak in his language which is a necessary Reason to remove all such immanent Acts from God in whom there is nothing vanishing nothing successive but if Men will attribute immanent Acts to God reflex Wisdom as opposed to a living subsisting personal Wisdom they must speak of them according to the known Nature of such Acts and then an Eternal Generation of such an immanent Act which vanishes assoon as generated can signifie no more than an eternal successive Repetition which is a Contradiction of the Acts of reflex Wisdom that as one vanishes another succeeds that though God has always this reflex Wisdom yet he has not always the same Act of reflex Wisdom but produces it a-new every moment which he calls an Eternal Generation just as it is with Men who may have the same Thought for kind some time together but yet every moment it is new produced To talk of such an Eternal Son as this and such an Eternal Generation is Heresie in Philosophy and in common sense as well as in Christianity and it would be loss of time to expose it I must no more omit than he another surprizing Argument whereby he proves that the Catholick Church did believe that the second Person is the reflex Wisdom of God and the Third Divine Love because for this reason as he tells us this
tho' one would wonder how Original Mind and Wisdom should be Wise by reflex Wisdom which is but a secondary Wisdom which supposes a first and therefore as one would guess could not make the first wise but Cabassutius only says that the Father is not actually wise without the Son that is as he explains it without begetting that Eternal Word and Wisdom which is the Person of the Son I shall make no Remarks on this let the World judge of the skill or the honesty of this Author What he adds about Emanations is just to the same Tune The Eternal Generation of the Substance of the Father was by the Nicene Council represented by Light of Light and the Co-eternity of the Son with the Father by the Co-existence of Emanatory Causes and their Effects as of the Sun and its Rays which are as old as the Sun The Author like other Socinians thinking of nothing but Body and bodily and corporeal Emanations falls presently a demonstrating Let A. B. C. be three infinite Substances if B. and C. infinite Substances emane from A. an infinite Substance also it is self-evident that the two infinite Substances must exhaust and thereby in the end annihilate one infinite Substance This is a notable Demonstration as to corporeal Substances for if the whole flow out of it self it is certain it must cease to be what it was and become another Whole if it be not a Contradiction that the same Whole should flow out of it self and become another Whole which in Bodies could make no other Change in a Whole but a Change of Place for let a Whole emane if that be not Nonsense for a corporeal Whole to emane and go where it will it is it self and the same Whole still And I think it is no better Sense to talk of exhausting an infinite Substance for nothing can be exhausted but what is finite unless what is infinite can have an end and an exhausting Emanation of an infinite Substance is no better Sense than the rest for it necessarily supposes an infinite Substance with divisible Parts which may be separated from it self and from each other which I take to be a Contradiction to the very Notion of Infinity It is certain that such Emanations as exhaust their Subject can be only bodily Emanations for Bodies only have divisible and separable Parts that I defie the most absurd self-contradicting Trinitarian in the World to put so many Absurdities and Contradictions into one Sentence as he has done in this One infinite Substance whether corporeal or incorporeal can never eternally supply two infinite Substances the two infinite Substances by continual Emanations must needs dry up the One that was their Fountain To talk of an infinite corporeal Substance which he here supposes is absurd and unphilosophical for nothing can be infinite which has Parts for what is infinite by Nature can never be finite and yet if such a supposed infinite Body were divided in the middle as all Bodies may be divided this infinite corporeal Substance would prove two finite Substances for each of them would have one End where their Substance was divided to talk of such Emanations from incorporeal Substances which have no divisible Parts as can dry up an infinite Fountain which must be by a Partition and Division of Substances is another Contradiction and to dry up an infinite Fountain as I observed before is another and to supply infinite Substances by such Emanations which cannot be infinite if they want any supply is a fourth very good one But allowing this Author to rejoice in such refined Speculations I would desire to know who those are who attribute the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit to such eternal corporeal Effluxes and Emanations as will endanger the exhausting and drying up the infinite Fountain of the Deity If there be any such Men they are arrant Hereticks I assure him for the Catholick Fathers abhorred the thoughts of all such Emanations They did not indeed scruple the use of such Words as Emanation Probole Exition and the like whereby they signified that the Son was truly and in a proper sense of his Father's Substance and a real distinct Person from the Person of the Father but they expresly rejected all corporeal Effluxes all Division and Separation of the Father's Substance and taught that the Son is begotten whole of whole perfect God of perfect God by a real Communication but not a Transfusion of Substance not ad extra without as Creature-Generations are but within his Father as the Word is inseparable from the Mind whose Word it is So that our Author disputes here without any other Adversary but his own gross Imaginations and he may triumph securely and demonstrate these corporeal exhausting dying Emanations out of Countenance and the Realists no farther concerned than to look on and see the Event of the Combate or to wish him better employed If he would have effectually baffled these Realists he should have proved that God could not communicate his own Nature and Substance to the Son Whole of Whole without such an Emanation of his Substance as divides it from it self and separates one part of it from another as it is in bodily Exhalations This would effectually have confuted a substantial Generation for all Men grant that the Divine Substance can't be divided and this was the Objection of the Arians against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Son 's being begotten of the Substance of the Father but the Catholick Fathers asserted a real substantial Generation without a Division of Substance and taught them to distinguish between the Generation of Body and Spirit And whoever considers how a finite created Mind can communicate its Thoughts to another which when perfectly communicated are perfectly the same whole and entire in both and but one and the same Thought though in two Minds may conceive that an infinite Mind which is a pure and simple Act infinitely more simple and indivisible than Thought it self may be able to communicate its self more perfectly than a finite Mind can communicate its Thoughts and if it can it must communicate it self whole and entire and as indivisibly as a Thought and subsist distinctly perfectly One and the same in Two SECT V. The Fourth and Fifth Arguments against a Real Trinity Answered IV. TO proceed his next Argument against the Realists is this That all Explications by which 't is endeavour'd to shew how three infinite intellectual Substances three Almighty Spirits and Minds may be one God are manifestly Deficient Now suppose this true that no Man can give a perfect Account of the Unity of the Divine Nature in Three Distinct Infinite Divine Persons must we therefore deny either the Trinity or Unity both which we say are expresly taught in Scripture because we cannot fully comprehend so Sublime and Venerable a Mystery They pay greater Deference than this to the Evidence of Sense they will believe