please you by doing a thing in it self so inept and so insignificant to you I shall better do both if I shall offer any thing to you concerning this mentioned Subject your further consideration whereof may prove a further benefit to the World In what you have already said concerning it you have used that great Caution and so well guarded your self as not so far as I can apprehend to give an adversary in this single point the least advantage That which I would in the general humbly offer is whether you have said so much as with safety might be said and as the Case may require for the gaining of a just advantage to the common Christian Cause We design in fight not only to keep our selves safe but to overcome and not in praelio only but in bello In Wars indeed of this sort both our own safety and victory are less to be valued than truth Which being of a piece can be injured in no part without some dammage to the whole frame of congenerous Truth And as it is very possible while an Enemy is withstood attacking some one Fort a greater loss may not be provided against elsewhere it may so fall out in Affairs of this kind too that the Care of defending some one Truth may be accompany'd with a present not attending to the jeopardy of divers others The nearer we approach an Adversary within just limits in these rational decertations the less he can have to say against us But being well resolved our selves about the main point of disagreement we then take Care not to come so near as to fall in with him pass into his Tents and give away our main Cause I am worthiest Sir far from assuming so much to my self or detracting so much from you as to give a judgment that this really is done in your Discourses about the Trinity I only submit it to your own most penetrating judgment what may be further requisite and possible in this matter to take away any appearances hereof and prevent ill consequences that may too easily ensue I have for my own part long impos'd it upon my self to abstain from any positive Conceptions concerning the Godhead beyond what I find expresly contain'd in the divine revelation or what the reason of things either antecedently thereto or consequentially thereupon doth most evidently perswade and require and do greatly approve the same caution which I cannot but observe with you But desire it may be weigh'd whether such measures may not and must not lead us further As for the word person you prudently profess not to be fond of it the thing being agreed thô you also truly judge it a good word and sufficiently warranted For the Notion signify'd by it you all along seem to decline that of the Schools or the Metaphysical one which you know makes it to be a rational or intelligent suppositum and to take up with what I think I may wanting a fitter i. e. a more comprehensive word call the Civil Notion of it which will allow the same man to be capable of sustaining three or more persons supposing his circumstances or qualifications to be such or such as to that purpose you speak both in your Letters and Sermons Now whereas you have also told us Letter 1. that by personality you mean that distinction whatever it be by which the three persons are distinguished each from other that which with great submission and most profound respect to you I propose to your further Consideration will be capable of being resolved into these two Enquiries 1. Whether only such a distinction of the Divine Persons as this amounts to will be sufficient to found the several attributions which the Holy Scriptures give distinctly and severally to them and to preserve the Scheme of Christian Religion entire which is wont to be deduced from these Sacred Writings 2. Whether some further distinction may not be admitted as possible consistently with the salved unity of the Godhead As to the former 1. Whereas you think the word Person to be a good word and sufficiently warranted by Scripture Heb. 1. 3. where the Son is called the express Image of his Father's Person alledging that so we render the word Hypostasis which is there used and do mean by it what you think to be there meant I desire you would please to consider whether the word Hypostasis according to the common use of it will admit to be so taken as you explain your self to mean by the word Person For thô the Latine word persona as you say according to the true and ancient sense may well enough admit to be so taken as that the same Man might sustain three persons I offer it to your re-consideration whether ever you have observ'd the word Hypostasis in any sort of Authors when it signifies any Person at all for I know that it frequently signifies somewhat else than a Person to be taken in that sense And whether one Hypostasis so taken as it uses to be when it signifies a Person may not be capable of sustaining three of those Persons which you here describe And whether according to this sense you mean not God to be only one such Hypostasis 2. Be pleas'd further hereupon to consider how well it agrees with this supposition of God's Being but one Hypostasis or intelligent suppositum so frequently to speak as the Holy Scriptures do of the Father Son or Word the Spirit or Holy Ghost as three distinct I's or He 's The Lord possessed me as the Divine Word or Wisdom is brought in speaking in the beginning of his way I was set up from everlasting Prov. 8. 22 23. When he prepared the Heavens I was there vers 27. Then was I by him vers 30 c. The Word was with God Joh. 1. 1. He was in the World vers 10. We beheld his glory vers 14. And of the Spirit He dwelleth with you Joh. 14. 17. The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name He shall teach you all things vers 26. And whom I will send you from the Father he shall testifie of me Chap. 15. 26. And when he is come he will reprove the World Ch. 16. 8. And the observation seems to me as weighty as it is usual that in some of the mentioned Chapters the somewhat hard Synthesis of construing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not the nearer Suppositum but in one place a very remote one and one would think too remote to be referr'd to ch vers 13 14. is rather chosen to be used than that the Spirit should not be spoken of as a distinct he or rather than he should be called it which could not so fitly notifie a Person If the same man were a King a General and a Father I doubt whether that would give sufficient ground to his being called He and He and He. 2. But the distinct Predicates spoken
as one may with certainty pronounce there is nothing more impossible or unconceivable in it than we find is actually done then it is not intrinsecally impossible or objectively it is not impossible in it self No power can effect what is simply and in it self impossible There is therefore no contradiction no repugnancie or inconsistencie as to the thing nor consequently any shadow of absurdity in the conception hereof Whereupon VIII If such an union with such distinction be not impossible in it self so that by a competent power it is sufficiently possible to be effected or made we are to consider whether it will appear more impossible or whether I shall have a conception in my own mind any thing more incongruous if I conceive such an union with such distinction unmade or that is original and eternal in an unmade or uncreated being For we are first to consider the thing in it self abstractly from made or unmade created or uncreated being And if it pass clear of contradiction or absudity in its abstract notion we are so far safe and are not liable to be charged as having the conception in our minds of an impossible absur'd or self-repugnant thing So that clamour and cry of the Adversary must cease or be it self absurd and without pretence This now supposed Union with such distinction must if it be judg'd impossible as it is in our thoughts introduc'd into unmade being can no longer be judg'd impossible as it is an Union of distinct things but only as it is unmade or is supposed to have place in the unmade eternal Being IX This is that then we have further to consider whether supposing it possible that three spiritual beings might as well be made or created in a State of so near Union with continuing distinction as to admit of becoming one spiritual being to be called by some fit name which might easily be found out if the thing were produc'd as that a spiritual being and a corporeal being may be made or created in a state of so near union with continuing distinction as to become one spiritual-corporeal being called by the Name of Man I say whether supposing the former of these to be as possible to be done or created as the latter which we see done already we may not as well suppose somewhat like it but infinitely more perfect to be original and eternal in the uncreated Being If the first be possible the next actual what pretence is there to think the last impossible X. I might add as that which may be expected to be significant with such as do seriously believe the Doctrines both of the Incarnation and the Trinity tho' I know it will signifie nothing with them who with equal contempt reject both that the union of the two Natures the humane made up of an humane Body and an humane Soul which are two exceedingly different Natures with the divine which is a third and infinitely more different from both the other in one Person viz. of the Son of God cannot certainly appear to any considering Person more conceivable or possible than that which we now suppose but assert not of three distinct Essences united in the One Godhead upon any account but this only that this is supposed to be an unmade eternal union the other made and temporal which renders not the one less conceivable than the other as it is union but only as in the several terms of this union it is supposed eternally to have place in the Being of God whereas that other union in respect of one of its terms is acknowledg'd de novo to have place there In short here is a spiritual created being an humane Soul setting aside for the present the consideration of the humane body which united therewith made up the Man Christ confessed to be in hypostatical union with the uncreated spiritual being of God not as that being is in the Person of the Father nor as in the Person of the Holy Ghost for then they should have become Man too but as it was in the Person of the Son only why shall it be thought less possible that three uncreated spiritual beings may be in so near an union with each other as to be one God as that a created Spirit and Body too should be in so near union with one of the Persons in the Godhead only as therewith to be one Person will it not hereby be much more easily apprehensible how one of the Persons as the common way of speaking is should be incarnate and not the other two Will not the Notion of Person it self be much more unexceptionable when it shall be supposed to have its own individual Nature And why is a natural eternal union of uncreated Natures with continuing distinction or without confusion sufficient unto the Unity of the Godhead less supposable than a temporal contracted union with created Natures without confusion too that shall be sufficient to the Unity of a Person will it be any thing more contrary to such simplicity of the Divine Nature as is necessarily to be ascribed thereto or will it be Tritheism and inconsistent with the acknowledged inviolable Unity of the Godhead XI That we may proceed to speak to both let these things be consider'd with seriousness and sobriety of mind as to our selves with all possible reverence towards the blessed God and with just candour and equanimity towards other Men. And first we must leave it to any ones future representation not being hitherto able to discern any thing what there is in all this that is here supposed any way repugnant to such simplicity as God any where claims to his own being or that plain reason will constrain us to ascribe to him or that is really in it self any Perfection We are sure God hath not by his Word taught us to ascribe to him universal absolute simplicity or suggested to us any such Notices as directly and evidently infer it to belong to him Nor hath seem'd at all intent upon cautioning of us lest we should not ascribe it The word we find not among his Attributes mentioned in the Holy Scriptures The thing so far as it signifiies any general perfection we are sure belongs to him but the Scriptures are not Written with visible design to obviate any danger of our misconceiving his Nature by not apprehending it to be in every respect most absolutely simple It doth teach us to conceive of him as most powerful most wise most gracious and doth not teach us to conceive all these in the abstract viz. Power Wisdom and Goodness to be the same thing Yet we easily apprehend by reflecting upon our selves that without multiplying the subject these may all reside together in the same man But our difficulty is greater to conceive what is commonly taught that these without real distinction or with formal only as contradistinguished to the difference of thing from thing are in the abstract affirmable of God that he is Power Wisdom Goodness That
delicious if he had some one to whom to express his sense of the whole We are not I say strictly to measure God by our selves in this further than as he himself prompts and leads us But if we so form our Conception of Divine Bliss as not to exclude from it somewhat whereof that Delight in Society which we find in our selves may be an imperfect faint resemblance it seems not altogether disagreeable to what the Scriptures also teach us to conceive concerning him when it brings in the eternal Wisdom saying as one distinct from the prime Author and Parent of all things then was I by him as one brought up with him and daily his delight XXIII However let the whole of what hath been hitherto proposed be taken together and to me it appears our conception of the sacred Trinunity will be so remote from any shadow of inconsistency or repugnancy that no necessity can remain upon us of torturing Wit and racking Invention to the uttermost to do a laboured and artificial violence by I know not what skrews and engines to so numerous plain Texts of Scripture only to undeify our glorious Redeemer and do the utmost despite to the Spirit of grace We may be content to let the word of God or what we pretend to own for a divine revelation stand as it is and undistorted speak its own sense And when we find the Former of all things speaking as WE or US When we find another I possessed by the Lord in the beginning of his way before his works of old so as that he says of himself as distinct from the other I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was And when he prepared the Heavens I was there c. When we find the Child born for us the Son given to us called also the mighty God and as in reference to us he fitly might the Everlasting Father When we are told of the Ruler that was to come out of Bethlehem-Ephrata that his goings forth were from everlasting That the Word was in the beginning with God and was God That all things were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made That this Word was made flesh That His glory was beheld as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth Even that same he that above was said to have been in the beginning with God and to be God That when he who was said to have come down from Heaven was even while he was on Earth at that time said to be in Heaven That we are told by himself he and his Father are one thing That he is not only said to know the heart but to know all things That even he who according to the flesh came of the Israelites is yet expresly said to be over all God blessed for ever That when he was in the form of God he humbled himself to the taking on him the form of a servant and to be found in fashion as a man That 't is said all things were created by him that are in heaven and on earth visible and invisible thrones dominions principalities powers and that all things were created by him and for him than which nothing could have been said more peculiar or appropriate to Deity That even of the Son of God it is said he is the true God and eternal Life That we are so plainly told he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last he that was and is and is to come The Lord Almighty the beginning of the creation of The searcher of hearts That the Spirit of God is said to search all things even the deep things of God That lying to him is said to be lying to God That the great Christian Solemnity Baptism is directed to be in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That it is so distinctly said there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and that these three are one thing I cannot imagine what should oblige us so studiously to wiredraw all this to quite other meanings XXIV And for the leaving out of this last mentioned text in some copies what hath been said not to mention divers others by the famously learned Dr. Hammond upon that place is so reasonable so moderate so charitable to the opposite party and so apt to satisfie impartial and unprejudic'd minds that one would scarce think after the reading of it any real doubt can remain concerning the authentickness of that 7 th verse in 1 Joh. 5. Wherefore now taking all these texts together with many more that might have been mentioned I must indeed profess to wonder that with men of so good sense as our Socinian Adversaries are accounted this consideration should not have more place and weight viz. That it being so obvious to any Reader of the Scriptures to apprehend from so numerous Texts that Deity must belong to the Son of God and that there wants not Sufficient inducement to conceive so of the Holy Ghost also there should be no more caution given in the Scriptures themselves to prevent mistake if there were any in apprehending the matter accordingly And to obviate the unspeakable consequent danger of erring in a case of so vast importance How unagreeable it is to all our notions of God and to his usual procedure in cases of less consequence How little doth it consist with his being so wise and so compassionate a Lover of the souls of men to let them be so fatally expos'd unto so inevitable and so destructive a delusion That the whole Christian Church should thorough so many Centuries of years be even trained into so horrid and continued Idolatry by himself who so severely forbids it I cannot allow my self to think men of that perswasion insincere in their professing to believe the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures when the Leader and Head of their Party writ a book that is not without nerves in defence of it But I confess I cannot devise with what design they can think those Scriptures were written Or why they should count it a thing worthy of infinite wisdom to vouchsafe such a revelation to men allowing them to treat and use it as they do And that till some great Socinian wits should arise 1500 years after to rectify their notions in these things men should generally be in so great hazzard of being deceived into damnation by those very Scriptures which were professedly writ to make them wise to Salvation XXV Nor is it of so weighty importance in this controversie to cast the ballance the other way that a noted Critick upon what introducement needs not be determined chang'd his judgment or that his Posthumous interpretations of some texts if they were his interpretations carry an appearance of his having changed it because he thought such texts might
intended to be of no small importance in our Religion and specially to the Doctrine of Redemption and of our Redeemer XXVIII But I reckon they that go the more Metaphysical way and content themselves with the modal distinction of three Persons in the Godhead say nothing herein that can be proved absurd or contradictious As to what is commonly urged that if there be three Persons in the Deity each Person must have its distinct individual Essence as well as its distinct personality I would deny the consequence and say that tho' this be true in created Persons taking Person in the strict Metaphysical sense it is not necessary to be so in uncreated That the reason is not the same betvveen finite things and infinite and would put them to prove if they can that the same infinite Essence cannot be whole and undivided in three several Persons knowing there can be nothing more difficult urged in the Case than may against the Divine Omnipresence which irrefragable reasons as well as the plainest testimony of Scripture will oblige us to acknowledge But I think tho' this Hypothesis abstractly considered and by it self is not indefensible it doth not altogether so well square with the Christian Oeconomy nor so easily allow that distinction to the Father Son and Holy Spirit which seems requisite to found the distinct attributions that are severally given them in the Holy Scriptures XXIX To conclude I only wish these things might be considered and discoursed with less confidence and peremptory determination with a greater awe of what is divine and sacred and that we may more confine our selves to the plain words of Scripture in this matter and be content therewith I generally blame it in the Socinians who appear otherwise rational and considering men that they seem to have formed their belief of things not possible to be known but by the Scriptures without them and then think they are by all imaginable Arts and they care not what violence as Socinus himself hath in effect confessed to mold and form them according to their preconceived sense Common Modesty and Civility one would have thought should have made Schlictingius abstain from prefixing and continuing that as a running Title to a long Chapter Articulus Evangelicorum de Trinitate cum sensu communi pugnat engrossing common sense to himself and his Party and reproaching the generality of Christians as not understanding common sense They should take upon them less and not vaunt as if they were the Men and Wisdom must dye with them For this Author I Congratulate his nearer approach to us from those who were formerly Leaders of his Party in the Doctrines of Gods Omnipresence and the perceptiveness and activity of separate Souls He writes with sprightliness and vigour And I doubt not believes really what he writes with so little seeming doubt And because his Spirit appears to be of a more generous exalted pitch than to comport with any thing against his Judgment for secular interest and advantage I reckon it the greater pity it should want the addition of what would be very ornamental to it and which he wishes to two of the Persons to whom he makes himself an Antagonist more of the tenderness and Catholick Charity of genuine Christianity p. 19. col 2. to accompany those his abilities and learning which would not thereby be the lesser as he speaks nor the less conspicuous I believe few would have thought him to see the less clearly if he had been content to see for himself not for mankind And if he had not talkt at that rate as if he carried the Eyes of all the World in his Pocket they would have been less apt to think he carried his own there Nor had his Performance in this Writing of his lost any thing of real value if in a Discourse upon so grave a subject some lepidities had been left out as that of Dulcinea del Toboso c. And to allude to what he says of Dr. Cudworth his displeasure will not hurt so rough an Author as Arnobius so many Ages after he is dead if he should happen to offend him by having once said Dissoluti est pectoris in rebus serijs quaerere voluptatem c. But for all of us I hope we may say without offence to any common humane frailty should be more considered and that we know but in part and in how small a part We should hereupon be more equal to one another And when it is obvious to every one how we are straitned in this matter and that we ought to suppose one another intently aiming to reconcile the Scripture-discovery with natural Sentiments should not uncharitably censure or labour to expose one another that any seem more satisfi'd with their own Method than with ours What an odd and almost ludicrous Spectacle do we give to the blessed Angels that supervise us if their benignity did not more prompt them to compassion when they behold us fighting in the dark about things we so little understand or when we all labour under a gradual blindness objecting it to one another and one accusing another that he abandons not his own too weak sight to see only by his perhaps blinder Eye Thus Sir you have my sense what I think safe and enough to be said in this weighty matter To you these thoughts are not new with whom they have been communicated and discoursed heretofore long ago And I believe you may so far recollect your self as to remember the principal ground was suggested to you upon which this Discourse now rests viz. necessity of Existence and Contingencie emanations absolutely independent upon any will at all and the arbitrary productions of the Divine Will as the sufficient and most fundamental difference between what is uncreated and what is created and upon this very account as that which might give scope and room to our thoughts to conceive the Doctrine of the Trinity consistently with the Unity of the Godhead and so as that the Son tho truly from the Father and the Holy Ghost tho' truly from both shall yet appear infinitely distinguished from all created Beings whatsoever So much you know was under consideration with us above twenty years ago and was afterwards imparted to many more long before there was any mention or forethought within our notice of such a revival of former controversies upon this Subject as we have lately seen This occasion now given hath put me upon revolving anew these former thoughts and upon digesting them into some order such as it is for publick view If they shall prove to be of any use it appears they will not be out of season and it will he gratefull to me to be any way serviceable to so worthy a Cause If they shall be found altogether useless being evicted either of impertinency or untruth it shall not be ungratefull For I thank God I find not a disposition in my mind to be fond of any Notions of mine as they are
similitude viz. a natural union of these supposed distinct essences without which they are not under the greatest union possible and which being supposed necessary and eternal cannot admit these should be more than one God 2. I note that what he opposes to it so defectively represented is as defective that the Christian Trinity doth not use to be represented thus c. What hurt is there in it if it can be more intelligibly represented than hath been used But his gentle treatment of this hypothesis which he thought as he represents it not altogether unintelligible and which with some help may be more intelligible became one enquiring what might most safely and with least torture to our own minds be said or thought in so awful a Mystery It however seems not proper to call this an hypostatical union much less to say it amounts to no more It amounts not to so much For an hypostatical or personal union would make the terms united the unita the things or somewhats under this union become by it one hypostasis or person whereas this union must leave them distinct persons or hypostases but makes them one God In the use of the Phrase hypostatical or personal union the denomination is not taken from the subject of the union as if the design were to signifie that to be divers hypostases or persons but from the effect or result of the mentioned union to signifie that which results to be one person or hypostasis As the matter is plain in the instance wherein it is of most noted use the case of the two Natures united in the one Person of the Son of God where the things united are not supposed to be two Persons but two Natures so conjoyn'd as yet to make but one person which therefore is the Negative result or effect of the union viz. that the person is not multiply'd by the accession of another Nature but remains still only one But this were an union quite of another kind viz. of the three hypostases still remaining distinct and concurring in one Godhead And may not this be supposed without prejudice to its Perfection For the Schools themselves suppose themselves not to admit a composition prejudicial to the Perfection of the Godhead when they admit three modes of subsistence which are distinct from one another and from the Godhead which they must admit For if each of them were the very Godhead each of them as is urged against us by you know who must have three Persons belonging to it as the Godhead hath And your self acknowledge three somewhats in the Godhead distinct or else they could not be three I will not here urge that if they be three somewhats they must be three things not three nothings for however uneasie it is to assign a Medium between something and nothing I shall wave that Metaphysical contest But yet collect that simplicity in the very strictest sense that can be conceiv'd is not in your account to be ascribed to God either according to his own word or the reason of things It may here be urged how can we conceive this Natural Union as I have adventur'd to Phrase it of the three Persons supposing them distinct things substances or Spirits Is such an Union conceivable as shall make them be but one God and not be such as shall make them cease to be three distinct things substances or Spirits We find indeed the mentioned unions of Soul and Body in our selves and of the two Natures in Christ consistent enough with manifest distinction but then the things united are in themselves of most different Natures But if things of so congenerous a Nature be united will not their distinction be lost in their union I answer 1. That a Spirit and a Spirit are numerically as distinct as a Body and a Spirit And 2. That we may certainly conceive it as possible to God to have united two or three created Spirits and by as strict union as is between our Souls and Bodies without confounding them and I reckon the union between our Souls and Bodies much more wonderful than that would have been Why then is an unmade uncreated union of three Spirits less conceivable as that which is to be presupposed to their mutual consciousness I shall not move or meddle with any Controversie about the Infinity of these three supposed Substances or Spirits it being acknowledged on all hands that Contemplations of that kind cannot but be above our measure And well knowing how much easier it is to puzzle oneself upon that Question An possit dari infinitum infinito infinitius than to speak satisfyingly and unexceptionably about it to another And tho' I will not use the expressions as signifying my formed judgment that there are three things substances or Spirits in the Godhead as you that there are three somewhats yet as I have many Years thought I do still think that what the learned W. J. doth but more lightly touch of the Son and the Holy Ghost being produced which term I use but reciting it as he doth not by a voluntary external but by an internal necessary and emanative Act hath great weight in it In short my sense hath long lain thus and I submit it to your searching and candid Judgment viz. That tho' we need not have determinate thoughts how far the Father Son and Holy Ghost are distinguished yet we must conceive them in the general to be so far distinguished as is really necessary to the founding the distinct attributions which the Scriptures do distinctly give them And that whatever distinction is truly necessary to that purpose will yet not hinder the two latters participation with the first in the Godhead which can be but one because that tho' we are led by plain Scripture and the very import of that word to conceive of the Father as the Fountain yet the Son being from him and the Holy Ghost from them both not contingently or dependently on will and pleasure but by eternal natural necessary promanation these two latter are infinitely distinguisht from the whole Creation Inasmuch as all Creatures are contingent beings or dependent upon will and pleasure as the Character is given us of created things Rev. 4. 11. Thou hast made all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created But that whatever is what it is necessarily is God For I have no doubt but the Dreams of some more anciently and of late concerning necessary matter and the Sophisms of Spinosa and some others tending to prove the necessity and identity of all substance are with what they aim to evince demonstrably false The Summe of all will be this 1. That we can be more certain of nothing than that there is but one God 2. We are most sure the Father Son and Holy Ghost are sufficiently distinguished to give a just ground to the distinct attributions which are in Scripture severally given to them 3. We are not sure what that sufficient distinction is