Christ-Church It cannot be denied that could they but prevaricate they might pass for as Orthodox and as sound Trinitarians as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calumniators their Faith concerning God is the same both for Sense and Terms but the Professor though a real Unitarian and only a Nominal Trinitarian can asperse Socinus they on the contrary see no reason to disclaim their Friends and Partisans Other Nominals soar high they explain their Trinity after a very peculiar and surprizing manner The Father say they is the Fountain of the Deity the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons he is original Mind and Wisdom who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections and also Willed that is Loved himself in a most perfect manner No one will doubt say they that God always or from all Eternity perfectly understood himself and 't is Natural and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding to Will or Love himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings 't is the first Affection of such Beings and adheres inseparably to them But seeing whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood therefore the Father as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image because thus conceived and as it were generated by him is called the Son 't is also called the Wisdom of God his reflex Wisdom because 't is the Wisdom that resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections As God understandeth he Willeth also or Loveth himself this second Act or God's Loving himself is the Holy Spirit or third Person as understanding himself or the reflex Wisdom of original Mind and Wisdom was the second Person of the Trinity To understand one self and to love or will one self in created and finite Beings are but only Acts of the Vnderstanding and Will but in God we call them Persons Though nothing can be more ridiculous than this account of a Trinity yet to purchase their quiet the Socinians are content to wear a strange and odd Badg For Peace-sake they will say with our Holy Mother the Church Understanding or reflex Wisdom is a Person and Love another Person and these two with original Wisdom shall be called a Trinity Indeed we could wish that so grave a Matron as the Church would leave off Trifling but seeing for the main of it the thing is true for 't is true that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom and he Vnderstandeth and Willeth himself we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things The Church requires us to say Father Son and Spirit Trinity three Divine Persons but she declares at the same time that the meaning only is God or original Mind Vnderstandeth and Loveth himself it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother about a few uncouth or ill-chose Terms and Words on which she confessedly puts a sober meaning a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God or that there is in truth but one subsisting Divine Person Well here are two Explications of the Trinity by the Nominals The first saith the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation Redemption and Sanctification or God considered as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the World or of Mankind The other saith the second and third Persons of the Trinity are indeed three Acts of God but they are internal Acts even his Understanding and Loving himself So that the whole Trinity is original Mind or the subsisting Person of the Father Knowing and Willing himself so these two Parties But another Division of the Nominals tell us the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God whether External or Internal but they are three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power say they are that Trinity which the Church teaches and she teaches no other But then say I 't is evident again that the Church and the Socinians are well agreed for the latter no less than the former believe this Trinity and the only Hereticks in these Questions are the Real Trinitarians who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons three distinct Spirits three Almighty All-knowing Beings But they are not very many tho they are Learned Men that speak after these manners the School-men and the Divines that follow them and who more properly are the Nominal Party deliver themselves in other Terms though in the main in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians all the Divisions of them perfectly agree Because we litigate in the English Tongue and contest these Questions only with English Writers it will be fit to represent the Doctrine of the Schools or the Party which I said are more properly it may be the Nominal Trinitarians out of the late Books of Dr. S th against Dr. Sherlock They teach that God or the Trinity is one Numerical self-same Spiritual and Divine Substance one only Spirit one solitary Being And though he is three Persons by which what they mean we shall see presently there is in the whole Trinty but one infinite Vnderstanding one soveraign Will one almighty Energy or Power of Action in Number This one Divine inteltectual Substance or really subsisting Person is at it were distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation their Relation is not somewhat consequent upon or supervenient to their Subsistence as in created Persons but is one and the same with it These relative Modes being three in Number are the three Personalities of the Deity but the concrete and abstract Terms namely Personalities and Persons are but only different ways of expressing the same thing And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the Godhead by Relations relative Subsistences relative Modes relative Properties or such like So we say also that every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative that is that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person so that as we have but now said both Persons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations or relative Properties of the one self-same Divine Substance Being or Spirit These three relative Modes Relations or relative Properties in the Divine Substance or Godhead are Innascibility or Paternity passive Generation and passive Spiration in plainer English to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or be Breathed the first maketh the Person of the Father the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit This is the Sum of what Doctor S th saith in his last Book or Tritheism Charged pag. 156 157. Mr. Hooker Author of the
after all probably the Reformers would have come off no better than the Socinians have done that is with all the clear Truth they have of their side and all their Dexterity and Wit in managing it being over-powered by the numbers of the contrary Herd they should have been answered with Penal Laws and Sanguinary Prosecutions of the those Laws They took therefore a Course that would do their Business unperceived by the most and when perceived by some few it would not be hard to convict them of Tritheism and explode them as Tritheists and so de facto they served Abbat Joachim And then getting their Explication of the Trinity confirmed by the Council of Lateran they happily restored the publick Profession and Faith of the Unity of God by an Authority which none dares to contradict for a General Council as was before noted is the highest Court of the Church that last Tribunal on Earth from which there lies no Appeal Of the Noetians and Sabellians THERE is yet another Branch of Nominal Trinitarians more antient far than those yet mentioned for about the Year of Christ 200 the Noetians and but a little after them the Sabellians arose both these said there is but one Divine Substance Essence or Nature and as the Substance of the Father Son and Spiirt is numerically One so consequently said they there is but one Person of God Father Son and Spirit are but only three Names of God given to him in Scripture by occasion of so many several Dispensations towards the Creature For in regard of the Creation God is called the Father he is named the Son as he wrought Miracles and accomplished the whole Work of Man's Redemption by the Lord Christ in whom he dwelt after a peculiar and extraordinary manner and who indeed was the Son of God by miraculous Conception in the Womb of Holy Mary He has the Name of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit from his omnipotent Energy or Power by which he effecteth all things In a word the Noetians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without Him he may be called as the Modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons the one subsisting Person of God sustaineth the three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons or Persons in a Classical critical Sense And this too is the Explication of the Trinity by that Party in the first Nicene Council who contrived the word Homo-usios or Consubstantial by which they meant that the three Divine Persons have all the same Substance and this is the Party which after the breaking up of that famous Council and upon the sudden Prevalence of the Arian Faction were persecuted by the Arians and were considered by all others as the true Nicene Party till about the Year of Christ 380 the Realists obtained that it should be said that God is tres Hypostases three subsisting Persons Indeed there are several Comma's in the Nicene Creed very hardly reconcilable to the Sabellian Doctrine but as there were three powerful and almost equal Parties in the Nicene Council the Arian Party the Realists and the Sabellians the latter thought it enough if they could procure Homo-usios consubstantial to be inserted into the Creed For that ambiguous Word may be interpreted in favour of all those Parties It may be interpreted the same Substance the very same or same in Number and so it establishes the Sabellian Doctrine or the same in Kind and all Properties and so it countenances the Realists or it may be understood of like Substance and so it pleases the Ariani molles the moderate Arians tho the rigid Arians in the Council would by no means admit of it they rather chose to lose their Bishopricks But when the Council was broke up it was perceived by the other Parties that the zealous Assertors of Homo-usios of the same Substance were all of them Sabellians believed that God is but one subsisting Person and therefore destroyed the real Existence of the Son whom the Arians as well as the Realists took to be a subsisting Person not a relative Person a Respect or a Name only And as the Arians discovered that the Homo-usians were indeed Sabellians so these latter charged the Arians and Realists as guilty of a manifest Tritheism because they so interpreted Homo-usios as to make Father Son and Spirit to be distinct intellectual Substances or subsisting Persons Let us hear their own Historian Socrates L. 1. c. 23. After the Council the Bishops wrangled about the word Homo-usios Those that were for it were censured by the contrary Party as Sabellians and were called Impious because they destroyed the real Existence of the Son Those that were against it were condemned by such as were for it as reviving Gentilism or the belief of more Gods And this Truth that Sabellianism was then taken to be the Nicene Doctrine or the same with the Doctrine of Consubstantiality is owned by the Learned Critick H. Valesius in his Notes on Sacrates L. 1. c. 24. For whereas the Historian saith That Cyrus Bishop of Berea was deposed for holding the Sabellian Doctrine Valesius notes hereupon in these words that is for the Doctrine of the Consubstantiality or the Doctrine of the Nicene Council which Council brought in the Homo-usiotes or Consubstantiality The Sum of what has been said concerning the Nominals THESE at length are the Divisions of the Nominals They all agree that the three Persons of God are not subsisting Persons they are not so many distinct Lives Understandings Wills or Energies which together with a particular Substance make a subsisting Person and if they are more than one they make so many physical real or subsisting Persons no they are Persons in a quite different Sense from that vulgar acceptation of the word Persons They are either three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power Or three external Acts Creation Redemption and Sanctification Or two internal Acts of the subsisting Person of the Father that is to say the Father Vnderstanding and Willing himself and his own Perfections Or three internal Relations that is three Relations of God to himself namely the Divine Substance or Godhead considered as Unbegotten and Proceeding Or three Names of God ascribed to him by the Holy Scriptures because he is the Father of all things by Creation and because he did Inhabit and Operate after an extraordinary and miraculous manner in the Person of the Man Christ Jesus who was verily the Son of God by his wonderful manner of Conception and last of all because he effecteth all things more especially our Sanctification by his Spirit which is to say his Energy or Power Every one sees these are very crude Conceits to be dignified with the Name of Mysteries but withal the Reader is to know that the Mystery is still behind For the Mystery lies not here that one subsisting Person is
related it is such pitious Trifling as utterly destroys the Patience of the Realists that hear it while others think that the Philosopher who is said never to have laughed but once might even have done it a second Time on this ocasion In very Deed our Brother S th has need of all his Talents and Helps his Leisure Learning Wit Courage the Council of Lateran and all the Moderns to defend him against the insults of the Realists who have here so manifest an Advantage and are for the most part Men so able to take and manage it that he will find at length he has no way to rescue his Explication or himself but by Recriminating that is by shewing the as great Absurdity and plain Impossibility of the Explication of the Trinity b the Realists It may be worth while to inquire here whether the Nominals do not know or are not aware that in very deed they are Unitarians or as some call us Socinians I am of Opinion they are sensible of it and I ground my self on the express words of some of them and those too the most esteemed For example Dr. J. Wallis and Dr. S th intimate plainly enough that the Socinian Doctrine and theirs is the same Dr. Wallis answering to a Socinian in his 3d Letter or Vindication of the Athanasian Creed p. 62 63. has these words That which makes these Expressions he means the Terms used by Trinitarians especially this God is three Persons or three Persons are one God seem harsh to the Socinians is because they have used themselves to fancy that Notion only of the word Person according to which three Men are accounted to be three Persons and these three Persons to be three Men. But they may consider there is another Nation of the word Person and in common use too wherein the same Man may be said to sustain divers Persons and those Persons to be the same Man that is the same Man sustaining divers Capacities And then it will seem no more harsh to say the three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God than to say God the Creator God the Redeemer and God the Sanctifier is one God which I suppose even to this Answerer he means the Socinian to whom he is there answering would not seem harsh or be thought nonsense Here he saith these two things 1. That three Persons when affirmed of God are not to be taken as when we say three Men are three Persons but in that sense wherein the same Man is commonly he means by Grammarians and Classical Authors called three Persons because he hath three Capacities as suppose of a King an Husband and a Father This is the Sense in which God is said to be a Trinity or three Persons he hath these three Capacities of Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and in that regard or sense is said to be three Persons 2. That to a Socinian this account not only will not be Non-sense but not so much as harsh or uncouth No one can deny that the Doctor well perceived that the Socinian Doctrine and his were indeed the same a Sicinian he says would not be offended at this Explication of a Trinity of Persons Person here not being intended for a subsisting Person as a particular Man is but for a Capacity only of a really subsisting Person And whereas the Socinian Author of the Considerations on the Explications of the Trinity had said if Dr. S th and the Nominal Party believe but one Divine Substance in Number which hath one only Understanding one Will one Energy or power of Action in Number he is a Socinian or Unitarian for in very Deed this is but one really subsisting Person Dr. S th nothing abash'd with his usual dexterity and presence of Mind answers to this effect That so he believes and so the Church believes and that 't is a good hearing that the Socinians are come over to him and to the Church or fal in with him and the Church I cannot at present find the particular page of Tritheism charged where this is said not having made a mark against those Lines but I remember well that I report rightly the Sense of the Passage His words need no Comment they are a plain acknowledgment that by that way of expressing themselves the Socinians fall in with the Church and with him But whereas he saith they fall in with the Church as the Socinians are content that in Honour to the Church it be so said so the English Vnitarians or as they call us Socinians claim it as their right to be owned the first Discoveres that all the Heats between the Church and the Socinians have arose from this only this they mistook one anothers true meaning by occasion of the canting un-scriptural Terms Trinity Persons and such like used by the Church For it is most true that tho for Peace-sake we submit to the Language of the Church as 't is interpreted bby the Nominals yet the Church's Terms are very improper for the same single numerical subsisting Person as the Church and the Socinians believe God to be is not now in any Language called three Persons by occasion of three Relations Modes or Properties adhering to him tho 't is confessed the Roman Classical Authors so spake But whereas the Nominals or the Church since the Council of Lateran that they may seem not to have departed from the Fathers still talk of Trinity Paternity Generation Procession Hypostatical Union Father Son and Spirit on which as we have seen they put such a meaning even those of them that speak most Harshly and Improperly as no ways destroys the Unity of God or that he is but one physical and subsisting Person and hereupon the Realists insult them as People that know not or at best heed not what they say the Socinians think 't is even necessary nay a due Justice to have more regard and respect for these their weak Brethren First We consider that after all the improper Terms impertinent Language and unsignificant and sometimes dangerous Words used by the Nominals all the Denominations of them agree at length in this Sound and Orthodox Explication and Conclusion that there is but one Divine intellectual Substance but one infinite Spirit but one subsisting Person of God Secondly The Nominals choose indeed to speak almost a Realist would say altogether Nonsensically and to retain the dangerous Tritheistical Terms of the Fathers Trinity c. but this was that they might restore the true Faith and genuine Christianity without Noise and Tumult the School-Divines and Council at Lateran reformed the corrupted Doctrine of the Church by only interpreting soberly and dextrously the Language and Terms which their Tritheistick Predecessors had brought into the Church into her very Liturgies and Creeds So many Councils so many Fathers and from them so many Nations had affirmed a Trinity of Divine Persons that to oppose this Doctrine would have begot endless Strises bitter Contentions and Persecutions and
made to be three Relative Persons or three Names or three Attributes or that God is called Father because he Created all things Son because he Inhabited and Operated in the Son our Lord Christ or Spirit because he is that Almighty Energy which effected all things for all this though very harsh and improper is yet intelligible and the manner of speaking in Antient Times did warrant such ways of expressing themselves as may be seen in the Classical Authors both Romans and Greeks But it is Mystery because or as when you apply any of these Explications of the Trinity to the Incarnation the Hypostatical Union or the Satisfaction 't is next to impossible to make any degree of Sense of it for how can we say that an Attribute or a Property or a Name or to be Begotten or any such like was Incarnate or Satisfied for Sin as also because the Terms Generation and Procession cannot without most remote and ridiculous Subtleties be applied to three Attributes or to Understanding and Willing ones self or to the same Unbegotten and unproceeding Substance or to Creation and Redemption and Sanctification In short our poor Brethren the Nominals are here purely constrained and forced to call their Doctrine Mystery because 't is so hard to find a way to reconcile it to the ordinary Forms of speaking that is to common Sense Therefore here the Realists glory over them here they have an ample Field for Wit and Sarcasm to parade in here they ask the Nominals an hundred malevolent pleasant Questions to which they answer by objecting Profaness to the Questionists and by the serious word Mystery Moreover they the Nominals comfort themselves that the whole Mystery or Absurdity of their Doctrine consists only in the Terms Trinity c. which they are forced to retain to preserve the Church's Peace not in the Sense or thing intended for the meaning and Sum of their Doctrine as they explain it is there is but one Divine subsisting Person not more such Persons for that were to say more Gods Besides after all the dry Bobs of the Realists on the Nominals themselves must take their turn of being jeered For when their Explications come to be examined and their Contradictions to and Comdemnations of one another as Tritheists are considered the Nominals will seem to be profound Philosophers deep Sages in comparison with these their Opposers and these Opposers the Realists such awkward uncouth Rusticks that a great deal of Charity or Discretion must be used within ones self to be civil to them But I shall not consider their Persons or Doctrine as the Nominals do neither with Railery nor Anger as the manner now is but only as desirous to convince them that they have as causlesly departed from the Doctrine of the Church as dangerously Of the Realists that they are divided into two Factions which comdemn each the other of manifest Tritheism THE first Observation to be made on the Real Trinitarians is not only that as has been said they stand Condemned and Anathematiz'd as Hereticks by a General Council and by all the Moderns who are more and more Learned than the Fathers or that they are every day challeng'd and impeached of Tritheism by Learned Men of the Nominal Party and Appeals made to Universities and the Divinity-Chairs against them But they themselves being divided among themselves censure one another as manifest Tritheists They are divided into many Parties but all those Parties are again bandied into two principal Factions that can never be reconciled to one another One of these Factions saith that the three Divine Persons are every way equal namely Co-eternal alike Omnipotent Omniscient and Omnipresent Most of the Fathers after the Year 380 were of this Perswasion because they plainly saw that to ascribe any Perfection or degree of that Perfection to the Father more than to the Son or Spirit is to say in effect that the Father only is true God not the Son or Spirit because whosoever hath not omnimodous Perfection cannot be God And for this reason they affirm and earnestly contend That any one of the three Divine Persons is equal to all the Three the whole Trinity is not greater or more perfectly God than any one of the Trinity is Surely a strange Paradox that one Third should be Equal or Equivalent to the Whole Yet the Modern Realists the most hold this Opinion as well as th Antients did But the more Learned and Ablest of the Moderns detest so much as the Mention of three Equal Divine Persons for what are three Gods say they of three equally Supereminent and All-sufficient subsisting Persons are not three Gods If they are Equal in Dignity and Power as wel as Co-eternal we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods but three such Persons Therefore these Gentlemen suppose that the Son and Spirit are inferiour to the Father in all things but only this that they are Co-eternal with him they are Subordinate to him Dependent on him and are Omnipotent and the rest of the Divine Attributes not ad intra or of themselves but only as he concurs with them to all their Actions Episcopius Instit l. 4. c. 32. and Dr. Cudworth Intellec System pag. 603 604. largely defend this Opinion and condemn those of undeniable Tritheism who make the Son and Spirit to be equal to the Father But to know the Writers who believe the equality of the Son and Spirit with the Father from those that deny it this Rule most commonly will serve They that say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of himself and Independent generally hold the absolute Equality of all the three Persons and that one Person of the Trinity is equal to the whole Trinity for if he were not they plainly see he could not be perfect God for something would be wanting to him that is found in the whole Trinity But those that deny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more commonly make the Son and Spirit subordinate to the Father not only in Dignity but in all other Respects but these though they ground themselves on the Authority of the Nicene Creed which in direct opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God of himself affirms the Son is God of God that is God of or from the Father seldom care to speak plain that they may avoid giving Offence Let us consider the Arguments with which these two Factions of Realists attack one another and what effectual use the Nominals make of those very Arguments to ridicule and destroy both Parties and their common Principle or Foundation namely this that the Divine Persons are subsisting Persons not Persons but only critically so called By what Arguments the Parties of Realists attack and oppose each the other and what effectual Vse the Nominals make of this Contention FIRST say they who affirm the Equality if the Son and Spirit are Subordinate in Dignity and Authority and inferior in Power and other Divine Attributes it
thinking that the Son is Almighty that he every where denies that he may be Prayed to except only as to a Mediator who saith he is to Pray with us and for us Origen's first and 2d Books concerning Prayer have so many Arguments directed against Praying to any but the Father and particularly that we should not Pray to the Son he calls them Fools that do that it well appears indeed he held Father and Son to be subsisting Persons as the Realists do and that he durst say there are two Gods a first and a second God but yet that in Truth the Supream Divinity or true Divinity is in the Father only Which also is the Opinion of all the Ante-Nicens and was the Doctrine that Arius afterwards maintained with whom those Modern Realists who hold the Inequality do almost wholly symbolize it may be said that most of those who hold the Inequality of the supposed three Divine subsisting Persons perfectly agree with the Ariani molles the moderate Arians But here comes one that will make all the World to know the inmost thoughts of the Realists he perfectly and in terms discovers their Secret 'T is St. Basil called by his Party of Realists who hold the Inequality Basilius Magnus Basil the Great To those saith this bold Man who accuse us as holding three Gods we answer God is not one in Number but only in Nature He means as the Nature of Man namely the common Humanity is one but there are many particular Men Peter James John c. So the Nature of God or the common Divinity is one but there are as truly more Gods in number or more particular Gods as there are more particular Men Father Son and Spirit are each of them as truly a God as Peter James and John are each of them a particular Man This famous Passage is to be found in Basil's 141st Epistle ad Caesarienses Again Adv. Eunom In the Number and in the Properties there is a Diversity or Multiplicity in the Properties by which each Divine Person is characteriz'd we believe a Diversity and an Vnity only in what makes the Deity i.e. In the Divine Attributes that are common to all the three Divine Persons for each Person has Omniscience Omnipotence and Omnipresence perfect Goodness which Attributes make the Deity as Rationality and Risibility make the Humanity Basil then held that to this Question how many Gods it must be answered three Gods in Number or three Personal Gods and one in Nature or Divine Properties Which is to say in very Deed three Gods but yet Gods so resembling one another that from the sameness of their Attributes or Essential not Personal Properties they may be called one God even as all Men or Mankind from the sameness of their Nature namely the Rational are in common speech often times called Man Which Comparison or Explication of their Meaning and Doctrine is often used by St. Basil and St. Gregory Nyssen the Patriarchs and Founders of those Realists who affirm the Equality of the supposed Divine subsisting Persons As for the Modern Realists they are only some late Writers of our own Nation the first and chief is Dr. Cudworth after him followed Dr. Bull then Dr. Sherlock my Lord the Bishop of Glocester Mr. How Mr. Milbourn Mr. J.B. in his late Learned and Bitter Answer to Dr. S th Some of these are for the absolute Equality of the Divine Persons in all Essential Attributes such as Power Wisdom Omnipresence but some as Dr. Cudworth especially will allow the Son and Spirit to be equal in nothing to the Father but only that they are Coeternal and by this he thinks he sufficiently acquits himself of Arianism But both Parties most openly avow their Tritheism and that many ways By saying there are three infinite Spirits three Omniscient Minds three Divine intellectual Substances three Divine Persons as really Subsisting and as truly Distinct and divers as three Angels or three Men are Again by their Explication of the Possibility and the Manner of an Unity in Trinity Some of them saving three subsisting Divine Persons are one God by a certain most close Unition of their Substances Others by mutual Consciousness of one another's Thoughts and Actions or because besides their having like Substances and Properties they are also in one another They see nor what 't is marvellous Men of their Sense should not see that several subsisting Persons each of which is a perfect God three Almighties three Omniscients whether Conscious or not Conscious to one another whether in or out of one another whether agreeing or at odds none of these Foreign Considerations can so alter the Case but that all Three must as truly be three perfect Gods as each of them is confessed to be one perfect God But let us hear Mr. J. S. in his late Answer to Dr. S th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock For as this Gentleman is well skilled in these Questions so he delivers his Mind without much Reserve he seems not to be afraid to say what he thinks because 't is so certain that the Fathers after the Year 380. were in the very same Sentiments concerning the Trinity namely that the Persons of the Trinity arc really distinct and subsisting Persons and equally have all Divine Perfections in the highest Degree He faith pag. 141. Each distinct Divine Person is as compleatly and perfectly God as each distinct Angdical Person is a compleat perfect Angel He demands at pag. 75. Will the Animadverter Dr. S th deny that one Divine Person is one God I will answer for Dr. S th 'T is Heresy to say that the Persons of the Trinity are as distinct as three Angelical Persons for Angels or Angelical Persons are distinguished in their Substances and have so many several Understandings Wills and Energies but in all these Respects the Persons of the Trinity are not distinct but are Identically the same Nor is one Person of the Trinity as compleatly and perfectly God as an Angelical Person is compleatly and perfectly an Angel for one Angelical Person is a compleat and perfect Angel but all three Persons of the Trinity and not one only are necessary to compleat the Notion and due Conception of one God Therefore to his Question Is not one Divine Person one God I answer no three Divine Persons are one God that is to say taking the word Persons in the Sense that the Church intends it namely for Relative Persons or the threefold Relation of the Deity But taking a Divine Person as this Author and his Fellow-Realists do for a subsisting Person a distinct intellectual Being and Infinite Mind and Spirit I answer and the Church also so answers that indeed every such Person is one God and three such are three Gods Page 85. When God is said to be three Persons the term God is taken in a Logical Sense and is equivalent to a terminus Communis or a Species As who should say there are truly three Gods in
a proper physical and natural Sense of the word God for the words God and Man are specifical Terms the former implies divers personal Gods as the other implies many personal and individual Men. He is so far from being ashamed of all this that he adds again Page 85. The Fathers of the Nicene Council nay the whole Eastern Church did appropriate a the title one God to the Father and God of God to the Son The Fathers meant thereby the Son is God not of or from himself but from or by or of the Father See what use Mr. J. B. makes of this at pag. 91. The Phrase God of God does necessarily imply a Multiplication of the term God in some Sense or other And one and the same numerical God in concreto can never be God of God and not God of God these two cannot be verified of the same Subject of one and the same God in concreto or in Person 'T is Heresy in excelsis and the last words in Person designed only to blind his true meaning or to mollifie it to those that happen to understand him do but increase the grossness of his Tritheism He hath said in those words in effect the Nicene Creed and Oriental Church acknowledging one who is God of God this God who is God of or from God cannot be the same God with him from or of whom he is God namely with God the Father these two must be several Subjects different Gods This avowed Tritheism I say is neither hid nor sofmed by adding different Gods in concreto or in Person for it was never said or so much as thought before that the multiplication of Persons in the Godhead or these expressions God the Father God the Son God the H. Spirit would warrant any one to say several Gods or that God of God is not the same both Subject and God with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit In short that which this Author and his Party of Realists intend and say though somewhat Covertly and Artificially is that as all the Men in the World in concreto are notwithstanding sometimes expressed by the general abstract word Man So the three Gods in concreto three Personal really subsisting Gods may also be expressed but they care not how seldom the seldomer the better by that scurvy Socinian abstract word God I have not made these short remarks on Mr. J. B. with a malevotent Intention to create Envy or to raise up Enemies to him I shall confess that as broadly as he has spoke St. Sasil Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers after the Year 380 so Taught and so Spoke and I have before given some instances of it as I shall give more in the Continuation of my Answer to Dr. BuII's Defence of the Nicene Faith and Judgment of the Catholick Church But all that I design is only to appeal to the World whether the Realists have not notoriously owned and professed their Tritheism with which they are charged not only by the Socinians but by the Nominals which is to say by the Church Dr. S th is but one Man he is only a private Doctor but he has rightly understood the Doctrine of the Church if a General Council were again to assemble they would certainly espouse his two Books he hath said neither more nor less nor otherwise than the Catholick Church since the Council of Lateran has constantly taught Mr. J. B. is a Learned and very discerning Person so are other Realists of this Nation I must not say of the English or of the Catholick Church for they are departed from both who have lately written against the Socinians but they have opposed to ours such an Explication of the words God Persons Trinity as Dr. S th hath deservedly called a Trinity of Gods nor will they be ever able to wipe off the Imputation Mr. J.B. must not think he has answered Dr. S th he hath only sometimes mistaken him sometimes misreported or perverted his plain and obvious Meaning or quarrelled with the Doctrine of the Schools and of the Lateran Council which is to say of the Catholick Church to make room for the exploded Tritheism of St. Basil and some other Fathers The Doctrine of the Catholick Church Mr. J.B. knows well can be fetched only from General Councils the Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council particular Fathers are but only particular Doctors they are not the Church how many soever they are Therefore I desire Mr. J. B. to tell me what Council ever used his Language that one Divine Person is one God as perfectly one God as one Angelical Person is one perfect Angel In what Council shall we find that the word God is equivalent to a Species which is to say the Divinity no less than the Humanity or the Manhood comprehends several Individuals of the same both Nature and Denomination as there are many Men in concreto so there are divers Gods also in concreto Can he direct us to that Council which teaches that God of God and God not of God that is Father and Son are not the same God or that the term God implies any Multiplication Did ever any Council so far apostatize from Christianity as to deny that there is but one numerical God and call that Doctrine the Faith of Jews Mahometans and Heathens But this is Mr. J. B's Language and the Doctrine of all the Realists they all intend as he has said nor will any of them censure his Book but applaud it as a great and extraordinary Performance I do not regard the Impertinences of Mr. Tho. Holdsworth of North-Stoneham near Southampton in his late Impar Conatui which he hath opposed to Mr. J. B. This Orlando has vomited up his Crudities on a Person too much above him to take notice of him and all that I shall trouble my self to say of him is that if as he has been careful to tell us the Place of his Residence and of his Vicinage so he had also told us his Age we might have guessed with more certainty than now we well can whether he raves or dotes The Realists speak much more Mystically or Absurdly than the Nominals I Must make another Remark on the Realists namely That the absurd contradictory and impossible Things partly expresty said by 'em partly implied in their Doctrine are far less tolerable or accountable than the forced Improprieties in the use of Words and Terms by the Nominals are I confess both Parties so often depart from the common use of Terms and Words that one as well as the other is frequently forced to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Mystery when they cannot assoil the Difficulties objected to themselves by each other or by the Socinians to both when they find that the use of Words and the nature of Things are both against them they cry Mystery their Doctrine then they confess though a Truth is however a Mystery above the Capacity whether of themselves
to the Papists themselves as to us of the Reformation their Memory is glorious and ought to be precious also among us But we say also that the Augéan Stable was too foul to be absolutely cleansed at once even by Hercules and his Companions Dr. Luther did a great deal the Labours of his Companions and Seconds were very laudable but much Filth is still left behind We desire to be fairly and candidly heard concerning some corruptions in the Faith and some abuses in the Morality still taught and particularly which is the Subject of these present Papers concerning the Object of our Faith and Worship Almighty GOD. We see we own that the Doctrine of the Church meaning by the Church the Nominal Trinitarians is sound as to the Sense and Intention of it but we humbly offer that the Terms in which 't is expressed are Vnscriptural and very Dangerous The words Trinity Incarnation Hypostatical Vnion are never used in Scripture nor is God ever there called Persons but Person And 't is evident that by occasion of these Terms the Vulgar have such a conception of the Trinity as is certain Tritheism When the People hear of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost they know not that thereby are meant only so many Relations of God either internal Relations to himself or external Relations to the Creature but they conceive in their Minds such a Father Son and Spirit distinct from both as are so many several subsisting Spirits so many distinct All-perfect Beings in very Deed so many Living Gods and not one God under three several Conceptions For tho they are taught to say three Divine Persons and but one God and that God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost tho each of them is God yet all of them are but one God this last all of them but one God because they know not how 't is to be conceived with the other namely that each of them is God and one of them is God the Father another God the Son they utterly lose the Conception of one God and retain only what is intelligible to them namely three Divine Persons each of them a God We think that the Church having gained her Point against the Fathers and Realists in the Lateran Council and having been in Possession of the Truth for near 500 Years together she may now fling off the Disguise hitherto used the dangerous Tritheistick terms Trinity Persons and the rest she may now begin to declare the Truth she owns in Terms and Words that are proper for it Why does she frown upon those nay persecute them that believe the Unity of God in the Sense that she holds it only because they would cast out the Terms that so plainly favour the Tritheists that is the Realists What has the Church to fear has not the Lateran Council and all Writers ever since declared the Realists to be Hereticks therefore what need is there to retain their Terms when we have discharged the Notions intended by them 'T is true we can say as the Church does three Divine Persons the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God taking these words in the Church's Sense not for subsisting Persons that is to say Living Spirits but for Relations Properties Modes or such like We can say God was Incarnate meaning he did inhabit the Lord Christ after an ineffable manner and without Measure which is really as much as the Church intends by the word Incarnation We own the eternal Generation of the Son or Word and Procession of the Spirit by and from the Father explaining our selves with the School-Divines the Church and divers Fathers thus that God or the Father or original Wisdom conceived a most perfect Image of himself by understanding and considering his own Perfections and that he loveth or willeth as well as understandeth himself We can even say three Divine subsisting Persons intending with Dr. S th the Schools the Lateran Council and the Church Relative Subsistences whose Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation Which are Dr. S th's express words Tritheism charged p. 156. I cannot but ask it again why does the Church keep or impose on us such Words and Terms as in their present Signification destroy the Faith we both imbrace the Faith of the real Vnity of God We can say as the Church says we can use her Terms because we know her meaning but we cannot but say of them as Mr. Calvin did when ask'd his Opinion of the English Common-Prayers Tolerabiles Ineptiae For in very Deed 't is meer Trifling and something worse when the signification of these Terms and Words is wholly altered from what it antiently was yet still to retain them while the Church knows at the same Time that they give wrong Notions to the Vulgar making all our People Tritheists and serve also to animate and harden the Realists in their Heresy But I must do the Church this right to confess that most of her greatest Men particularly the first Reformers have publish'd to all the World their hearty desire that all these terms of the Realists were abolish'd and all were obliged to use the Scripture-Language and Words only which would heal all our Breaches and perfectly restore our Peace not only in this but in almost all other Questions and Strifes Let us hear of so many as might be alledged Dr. M. Luther and Mr. J. Calvin M. Luther complains The word Trinity sounds odly it were better to call Almighty God God than Trinity Postil major Dominic Mr. Calvin is yet less pleased with these kind of Terms he says I like not this Prayer O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity It savours of Barbarity the word Trinity is barbarous insipid profane an human Invention grounded on no Testimony of God's Word the Popish God unknown to the Prophets and Apostles Admon 1. ad Polon Decemb. 17. 1695. FINIS