the Son though they have the very same Nature yet subsist in a very different manner the Father as Original Mind the Son as the perfect living substantial Image of the Father which is as different as the Subsistence of the Prototype and the Image and every one will grant that a Man and his Image though it were a living substantial Image have a very different Subsistence for the Image has its whole Subsistence in dependance on its Prototype the Man subsists by himself and gives Subsistence to his Image and the same we must conceive of the Subsistence of the Holy Spirit though we have not so apt a Similitude to represent it by And if we must call the Three in the Holy Trinity by any other Name than Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Subsistences is liable to the least Cavil and does most properly express their general Character for they are but One Divinity or One Divine Nature subsisting wholly and entirely Three times without multiplication as a Man is not multiplied but repeated in his Image All other Names in their proper and usual Sence signifie an absolute compleat independent Being such as Nature Essence Substance God And therefore though each Divine Person have a natural essential substantial Subsistence and be true and real God yet we must not say that there are Three Divine Natures Essences Substances or Three Gods because though the whole Divine Nature Essence subsists in Three yet it is but one and the same in all and tho' God be the most absolute compleat independant Being and the Son be God and the Holy Ghost God yet neither the Son nor the Holy Ghost can be said to be an absolute compleat independant God because Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One God neither of which subsist absolutely compleatly independently that is without each other which is all that is meant by an absolute compleat independent Subsistence that they can subsist apart without each other but the Father can no more subsist without the Son than the Son without the Father nor the Holy Spirit without Father and Son nor Father and Son without the Holy Spirit as a natural and necessary Image cannot subsist without its Prototype nor the Prototype without its Image which is essential to it so that they are but One absolute compleat independent Deity though the Three Divine Subsistences in the Godhead subsist in a mutual respect and a relative dependance on each other And this I suppose is what the Schools mean when they call the Three Divine Persons Three Relations or Three Relatives for there must be Three real subsisting Relatives if there be Three Relations for One Subsistence cannot be the Subject of Three Relations no more than one and the same Man can be related to himself as Father and Son But then the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are such Relations as there is no Example of in created Nature for their Relation to each other is not a meer external Respect and Denomination such as absolute independant Beings have to each other but their very Nature and Subsistence as Father Son and Holy Ghost is relative Though the Father be eternal original Mind yet it is essential to this eternal Mind to beget his own living substantial Image and therefore this eternal Mind is naturally and essentially related to his Image And I need not tell you that the very Nature and Subsistence of an Image is wholly relative a natural and essential Image subsists as necessarily as the Prototype but its Nature is wholly relative Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost have the same common Nature not common as a generical or specifick Nature which is only a logical Notion but as One individual Nature really and actually subsisting in each without any other difference than their different manner of Subsistence and their different Relations as a Man and his living Image have the same individual Nature common to both and differ only in their manner of Subsistence and Relations that is as the Prototype and its living Image differ And this I think gives us an intelligible account of a Trinity in Unity in the most Orthodox Language of Fathers and Schools This shews us that the Son and Holy Spirit are not Divine Emanations from the Father as is represented in the Platonick Triad For though the eternal Generation and Procession be such Mysteries as we cannot comprehend nor frame any Idea or Conception of yet we know that an Image is not an Emanation but a Reflextion and therefore is wholly and entirely the same with the Prototype which no Emanation can be for the whole cannot be an Emanation An Emanation indeed is of the same Substance and is specifically the same and in this Sence Homoousios but it multiplies Natures and Substances and is not individually and identically the same as the Prototype and its Image and therefore the Fathers declare That the eternal Generation of the Son is not by Abscission and Passion but think the aptest Representation of it in Nature though that is very different is by Splendor and Brightness or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the out-shining of the Deity and when they call the Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not in the Sence of Emanation but of the mysterious Procession This also shews us That this Holy Trinity is not Three Divine Attributes such as Wisdom Power and Goodness for they are all Three the very same with each other the same Wisdom Goodness and Power and therefore not Three Parts or Attributes of the same Deity but each is the whole as a Prototype and its living Image is And this shews That though the Son be true and perfect God as the Father is yet the Son can never be a Father because his Nature and Subsistence as a Son is wholly relative and a Son whose Nature and Subsistence is relative is necessarily and essentially a Son but can never be a Father no more than the Image can beget its Prototype And this gives a plain Account why our Saviour calls God not only his Father but his God and the only true God and acknowledges That he receives all from his Father and That his Father is greater than he is though he have the very same Nature and with respect to his Nature is equal in Power and Glory for this is the true difference between the Prototype and the Image though their Nature be the same Had a Man a living substantial Image perfectly the same with himself as God has the Image must thus speak of his Prototype as the Son of God speaks of his Father He must acknowledge that the Prototype is his Man for he is only the Image of the Man and were there only One Man in the World as there is but One God he must acknowledge the Prototype to be the only true Man for though the living Image would be a true Man also yet he is not originally Man but Man of Man a Man only by
were not unius Substantiae of one and the same Substance as St. Austin and all the Fathers assert because they are Two distinct Men and each of them has a distinct Nature of his own Or if he will call this a Difference as if to differ in number and in Substance or Nature were the same thing or as if to differ in number proved a diversity of Nature too It is a tedious thing to dispute with Men who must be taught to construe the Fathers and to understand common Sence But if Authority will not do this he is resolved Reason shall and he has as peculiar a Talent at Reason as he has at Authorities He proves That the Three Persons can't be Three distinct Minds because they are not Three distinct Substances Now the Dean may very safely deny this Consequence and try how the Animadverter will prove it That if Three Minds are Three intelligent Persons and a Mind is a Substance therefore Three distinct Minds or Persons are Three distinct Substances for Three distinct Minds may subsist distinctly and yet inseparably in One Eternal and infinite Substance as Three intelligent Persons do Though the true and short Answer is That the same Substance repeated in Three distinct Subsistences is not Three Substances but One as I have often observed in the Case of the Man and his Image But suppose Three Persons were Three distinct Substances inseparably united in One What then What then It is a Terrible then For then Two Substances will concur in and belong to each Person to wit that Substance which is the Divine Essence and so is communicable or common to all the Persons and the Substance which constitutes each Person and thereby is so peculiar to him as to distinguish him from the other and consequently to be incommunicable to any besides him to whom it belongs I am heartily ashamed and sorry to see such Stuff as must necessarily expose our Holy Faith to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels and that I may not contribute to it all this Nonsence shall escape the lash of my Pen. In short the Dean knows no Divine Substance or Essence distinct from the Three Divine Persons nor knows any distinction between the Divine Essence and a Divine Person but that the Essence makes the Person That the whole Divine Essence or Nature is originally in God the Father that this same whole Divine Nature and Essence was by eternal Generation communicated by the Father to the Son and subsists distinctly in him That this same whole Divine Nature by eternal Procession is communicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost and subsists distinctly in him and these Three Divine Persons by an inseparable Union dwelling in each other is that Supream and Sovereign Being who is the One God or a Trinity in Unity It is amazing to think what strange Conceits this Man must have of a Trinity of Persons and Unity of Essence or Substance For I am sure no Man has any Idea of an intelligent Nature and Essence distinguished from a Person or of Persons distinguished from a rational Nature of a Divine Essence and Substance which is no Person and of Divine Persons which are no Substances as it seems they cannot be in the Animadverter's way unless he also will compound every Person of Two Substances What is the Divine Essence and Substance but an infinite and eternal Mind And is not an infinite and eternal Mind a Person The Divine Essence then must be acknowledged to be a Person and to be a substantial Person or the Divine Substance so that there is a Person that is a Substance and if there be but One such single and solitary Divine Essence there can be but One such single and solitary Person Will he then make four Persons in the Godhead the Divine Essence which is a substantial Person and Three Persons which are no Substances Or will he own God to be what Pascentius objected to St. Austin and he rejected with Scorn Triformis Persona One Divine Person under Three Forms this or something more Senceless is the Truth of the Case as may appear more hereafter but I will now proceed 3. His third Argument is this If it be truly said that one and the same infinite Mind or Spirit is Father Son and Holy Ghost I mean all Three taken together and it cannot be truly said that one and the same infinite Mind or Spirit is Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits then it follows that Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits This Logick is a very troublesome thing when Men want Sence The whole of this Argument is this That One infinite Mind can't be Three infinite Minds nor Three infinite Minds One infinite Mind and that Three Persons who are One infinite Mind can't be Three infinite Minds that is That Three can't be One nor One Three which if it be universally true there is an end of a Trinity in Unity if it be not universally true that is if Three may be One and One Three the meer opposition between Three and One which is the whole force of his Argument is childish Sophistry For if they be Three and One in different Respects this is no Contradiction Every Divine Person is an infinite Mind and as distinctly so as he is a distinct Person and yet by their essential and inseparable Union to each other all Three are but One eternal infinite Mind as they are but One God But when these Three Divine Persons are said to be Three and to be One eternal and infinite Mind they are Three and One Mind upon different Respects every Person by himself as a distinct Person is an eternal infinite Mind that is is a knowing intelligent Being and has all the Perfections of an infinite Understanding distinguished from the other Persons by Self-consciousness and all Three Persons by their inseparable Union to each other are but One eternal infinite Mind as having each other in themselves by Mutual-consciousness and let the Animadverter shew where the Contradiction is That there should be Three Self-conscious infinite Minds as there are Three infinite Persons united into One mutualconscious Mind as Three distinct Persons are united in the Unity of the Godhead especially when this One eternal Mind is entirely and perfectly repeated without the least change in Three eternal intelligent Subsistences each of which is distinctly an eternal Mind but the same One individual eternal Mind 4. His fourth and last Argument is this Whatsoever Attribute may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in the Athanasian Form so belongs to them all in common that it can belong to none of them under any Term of distinction from the rest But the attribute infinite Mind or Spirit may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in and according to the Athanasian Form And therefore it can belong to none of them under any Term
Existence but in an absolutely perfect and infinite Nature but if there be Three Parts in the Deity Three Spiritual Beings of distinst and different Natures neither of them can be absolutely perfect and infinite though we could suppose their Union to make such a perfect Being because they are not the same and neither of them is the whole and therefore they cannot necessarily Exist and yet a Deity which consists of Parts cannot necessarily Exist unless its Parts necessarily Exist for a Compounded Being can Exist no otherwise than its Parts Exist But there is something in this which seems to have a very ill Aspect upon the Trinity it self as well as on the Unity and Simplicity of the Divine Nature He Professes indeed not to Iudge that we are under the precise Notions of Power Wisdom and Goodness to conceive of the Father Son and Holy Ghost though he has been for several Pages together Vindicating such a representation of the Trinity and teaching us thus to conceive of Father Son and Holy Ghost and thinks That this gives ease to our Minds by their being disentangled from any apprehended necessity of thinking these Power Wisdom and Goodness to be the very same things and if they be not the same thing but Three really distinct Spiritual Beings we must thus conceive of Father Son and Holy Ghost and then the difficulty is in a Compounded Deity by what name to call the Three Parts of the Composition Father Son and Holy Ghost whether as we are taught in the Athanasian Creed we must own each of them by himself to be God and Lord For if all Three by this Composition are but One God neither of them by himself is true and perfect God no more than a Part can be the Whole This might be thought a very invidious consequence had not he himself expresly owned it The Father Son and Spirit being supposed necessarily existent in this united State they cannot but be God and the Godhead by reason of this necessary Union cannot but be One. Yet so As that when you predicate Godhead or the name of God of any one of them you herein express a true but inadaequate conception of God i. e. The Father is God not excluding the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is God not excluding the Father and the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost is God not excluding the Father and the Son As our Body is the Man not excluding the Soul our Soul is the Man not excluding the Body This Comparison of the Soul and Body which are the Parts of a Man and whose Union makes a compleat and perfect Man explains what he means by the inadaequate Conception of God when we apply the Name God distinctly to Father Son and Holy Ghost and in what Sence he says the Father is God but not so as to exclude the Son c. All Orthodox Christians own That the Father is God not excluding the Son and the Holy Ghost and that the Son is God not excluding the Father and the Holy Ghost c. but then by this they mean That the Father is true and perfect God has the whole entire Divinity in himself but yet the same whole entire Divinity distinctly and inseparably subsists in the Person of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that the same whole undivided Divine Nature subsists entirely in Three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore each of them by himself in the most proper and adaequate Conception is true and perfect God tho' all Three are but one and the same God But the Inquirers Notion of God as applied to each Person is a very inadaequate Notion for it signifies only a part of the Deity That the Father is God because he is a part of the Godhead and the Son and the Holy Ghost God as parts also of the same One Godhead as the Soul is the Man because part of the Man and the Body also the Man as part of the Man and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them God but so as not to exclude each other as no One essential Part can exclude the rest This is such a Notion of the Unity of the Godhead as neither the Scriptures nor the ancient Church knew any thing of and I think there is little need to confute it In short as it makes a compounded Deity so it makes but One compounded Person for if the Godhead be but One by Composition as the Man is by the Union of Soul and Body if God be a Person he can be but One For if you call the Three Parts of the Godhead Three Persons yet neither of them is God but in a very improper and figurative Sence as a Part is called by the Name of the whole so that either there is no Person in the Godhead who is true and perfect God or there must be but One compounded Person as there is One compounded Godhead and there is an end of the Christian Trinity Some late Socinian Writers have been willing to compound this Dispute of a Tinity of Divine Persons for the Three Attributes of Power Wisdom and Goodness and if you have a mind to call these Three Spiritual Beings I believe they will not contend much about it for they are not so much afraid of Three Parts of a Deity as of Three Divine Persons each of which is true and perfect God This also necessarily destroys the Homoousion or Sameness of Nature which the ancient Church asserted in the Persons of the Holy Trinity for Three Spiritual Beings which are the Parts of this compounded Deity cannot be the same no more than Soul and Body are for the Parts of a compound how closely soever they are united cannot be the same for Three Same 's are not Three Parts but Three Wholes As to take his own Representation of it If Power Wisdom and Goodness be Father Son and Holy Ghost it is certain and he owâ—â— that Power is not the same with Wisdom and Goodness nor Wisdom the same with Power and Goodness and therefore the Son is not of the same Nature with his Father Which is another thing to be considered in the Enquirer's Notion that it destroys the Relations of the Ever-blessed Trinity for if Father Son and Holy Ghost be Three Parts of a compounded Deity though we should grant that their Union might make One God yet these Parts could neither beget nor be begotten nor proceed from each other and therefore could not be related to each other as Father and Son and Spirit but only as Three parts of the same Compositum If Power be the Father and Wisdom the Son how comes Wisdom to be the Son of Power and not to be Power as the Father is since a Father begets his own Likeness This destroys the natural Order and Subordination of the Persons in the Trinity if Power Wisdom and Goodness be Three real distinct things and Three Spiritual Beings which compleatly constitute the Godhead let any Man tell me which of these Three in order of Nature is the first second or third why one is the Father the other the Son and the third the Holy Ghost This makes me wonder to hear him talk of Promanations for an Emanative Cause never produces any thing but of its own Nature as Light naturally flows from the Sun But I will not 〈◊〉 this Postscript into another long Letter this is sufficient to my present Design to give you a 〈◊〉 and plain Representation of the 〈…〉 and leave you â—o judge of 〈◊〉 SIR Yours FINIS ADVERTISEMENT A Commentary on the Five Books of Moses With a Dissertation concerning the Author or Writer of the said Books and a general Argument to each of them By the Right Reverend Father in God Richard Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells In Two Volumes Octavo Reason and Religion In some useful Reflections on the most Eminent Hypothesis concerning the first Principles and Nature of things with Advice suitable to the Subject and seasonable for these times Twelves A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for writing against the Socinians in answer to the Antapologist Quarto Printed for William Rogers Greg. Naz. Orat. 36. Hil. l. 11. de Trinit Damasc. l. 1. deimaginibus * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyss. contra Eunom Orat. 12. p. 345. Petav. de Trin. p. 342. alibi Ambr. l. 3. de fide c. 7. Facundus pro defensione trium capit c. 1. p 19. Hil. l. de Synod Vindic. of Trin. p. 49. Vindic. p. 130 131 c. P. 122 123 c. P. 81. P. 83. Animad c. 3. Pag. 70. Vindic. p. 48. Page 71. Vindic. p. 268. Anim. p. 73 Anim. p. 74. Animad p. 75. Animad p. 76. Animad p. 48. Pag. 79. Pag. 80. Anim. Chap. 4. p. 90. Pag. 94. Pag. 101. Pag. 104. Pag. 107. Vindic. p. 8. Pag. 100. Anim. Chap. 5. p. 118. Vindic. p. 66. Pag. 119. * Ideo Ipsa mirabilis simplicitas commendatur quia non ibi in Trinitate aliud est esse aliud intelligere vel siquid aliud de dei natura dicitur Anima verò quia est etiam dum non intelligit aliud est quidem esse aliud est quod intelligit Aug. Evod. Ep. 102. Proinde in unum Deum Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum credamus ita ut nec filius credatur esse qui pater est nec pater qui filius est nec pater nec filius qui utriusque spiritus est Sed haec tria aequalia esse coaeterna omnino esse una natura Ibid. †Deinde quis audeat dicere patrem non intelligere per semetipsum sed per filium Ibid. Pag. 123. Ep. 176 177. Calm Discourse p. 19 20 21. Pag. 23. Pag. 25. Pag. 40. Pag. 45. Pag. 28 c. Pag. 31. Pag. 34. Pag. 37. Pag. 47.
will afford us any Conception of it Now suppose That after all these fair Appearances a spiteful Wit could start some difficulties in this Notion as it is not to be expected that in a matter of so high a Nature we should have such a perfect comprehension of it as to leave no difficulties unexplained ought not the Dean to have met with as fair Quarter as other Writers have done in the same cause Has he not given us as intelligible a representation and it is intended for no more of a Trinity in Unity as the Sun its Light and Splendor a Tree and its Branches a Fountain and its Streams or a Mathematical Cube Are not all these Accounts much more chargeable with Tritheism or Sabellianism are not the Sun its Light and Splendor as much Three but not so much One as Three Conscious Minds Can there be a Trinity in Unity unless there be a real and substantial Trinity What work could our Animadverter have made with the Ancient Fathers and some late Writers had he thought fit to have treated them as he has done Dr. Sherlock But it is in vain to expostulate when the Man not his Notions is in Fault and the only Comfort in such cases is That Malice is as blind as Love and so it has happened to the Animadverter as I shall make appear But before I particularly answer the Animadverter's Arguments against Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness and Three eternal Minds it will be necessary to Discourse something in general concerning a Trinity in Unity and the words whereby to express it For a Trinity in Unity is such a distinction and such an Union as is peculiar to the Godhead and though there are some faint resemblances of it in Nature yet Nature has nothing like it and then it is impossible we should have any words that can adaequately express it It may help to allay the heat and virulence of Disputation among those who heartily believe a Trinity in Unity as I hope the Animadverter does to discourse this matter plainly and briefly The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament every where assure us That there is but One GOD and not to take notice now of the more obscure intimations of a Trinity in the Old Testament Christ in his Gospel and his Apostles after him have ascribed the Name and Character and incommunicable Attributes of GOD to Three Father Son and Holy Ghost we are by the Command of Christ Baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and we are blessed in their Name The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen Christ declares himself to be the Son of GOD and to be One with his Father and St. Iohn tells us That he is that Word which was in the beginning and was with God and was God That by him all things were made and without him was not any thing made that was made And the like Divine Attributes are ascribed to the Holy Spirit and therefore though there be One GOD we must acknowledge if we believe the Gospel that there are Three Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead This is the true simplicity of the Christian Faith to believe Father Son and Holy Ghost to be One GOD that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost that the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Ghost that the Holy Ghost is not the Father nor the Son but that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and all Three but One God Now one would have thought that the Authority of Christ and his Apostles had been a sufficient Foundation for this Faith without any farther enquiries but the Devil very well knew That the whole Oeconomy of our Salvation by Christ and consequently the whole Christian Religion depended on this Faith and that the curiosity of Mankind the weakness of their Understandings and their vain presumption in measuring GOD himself by their narrow Conceits might easily be managed to unsettle these Foundations and therefore here he made some of his earliest Attempts The ancient Christians before this was made a matter of Dispute contented themselves with professing their Faith in One God Father Son and Holy Ghost but when Heresies in several Ages of the Church were broached and some to secure the Unity of the Godhead made Father Son and Holy Ghost no more than Three different Names belonging to Three different Appearances and Manifestations of the same One God others if they were not misunderstood or misrepresented did not only distinguish but separate Father Son and Holy Ghost and made Three absolute independent Gods of them and others denied the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which preserved the Unity of the Godhead by reducing the only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit of God into the rank of Creatures This forced the Orthodox Fathers into a Dispute where they wanted Words adaequately to express their Sence The Doctrine which they constantly affirmed and defended against Hereticks of all sorts was this That Father Son and Holy Ghost were Three as really distinct from one another as Three humane Persons are and that each of them is true and perfect God and has all Divine Perfections in himself and yet that all Three are essentially One and the same eternal and infinite God But when they came to say what these Three are and how they are One by what Name to call this wonderful distinction and Unity here Words failed them as of necessity they must because there is no such Distinction and Unity in Nature and therefore no Name for it For the Names of distinction in ordinary use do not only distinguish but divide and separate their Subjects and the Names of Unity signifie singularity also which admits no number And this has occasioned most of our cavilling Disputes and raised all the noise and clamour about Absurdities and Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity and there is no help for this if Men will ask such Questions as the proper and natural signification of Words cannot reach the Mystery of and not allow such a Theological use of Words as a little alters their natural Signification to accommodate them to represent some divine and supernatural Mysteries Thus for Example A Person signifies a reasonable understanding Being which actually subsists and is distinguished from all other Beings of the same kind but then it signifies more than this not only a distinct but a separate Subsistence for so all created Persons are not only distinct but separate Beings who have a compleat absolute independant Subsistence of their own But when we use this Word Person in a Theological Sense as applied to Father Son and Holy Ghost in the ever-blessed Trinity we only use it in the sense of distinction not of separation to signifie that each of these Holy Three has
own Nature But yet we must not say nor did they intend it so That the Unity of Nature between Father and Son and Holy Spirit is a meer specifick Sameness For we must not make the Divine Nature a Species which is common to more Individuals for then the Unity of the Divine Nature is no more than a Logical Notion which is the only Unity of a Specifick Nature whereas God is essentially and numerically one The Three Divine Persons are not individuals of the same Nature for then they must have Three individual subsisting Divine Natures which would as much make Three Gods as Three individual subsisting Humane Natures make Three Men The Divine Nature would then be communicated by Multiplication as Humane Nature is which must multiply Gods as well as Men. Is this Sameness of Nature then one single or singular Nature which has but one single Subsistence This the Fathers utterly deny as being the Heresie of Sabellius and leaving no other Trinity of Persons in the Godhead but a Trinity of Names The Divine Nature is One Individual Nature as you shall hear presently but not One Single Nature for one Single Nature can be but One Person whether in God or Man I shall not dispute this at large now I may find a properer place for it but I shall only observe at present That if there be but One only single Nature in God the whole Trinity must be Incarnate in the Incarnation of Christ as Sabellius asserted For the Divine Nature was Incarnate in Christ he was perfect God and perfect Man and if there was but one single subsisting Nature in all Three Persons this one single Divine Nature was Incarnate and therefore the Father and the Holy Ghost who are this one single Divine Nature as well as the Son must be as much Incarnate as the Son was for though it were possible to conceive Three Divine Persons in One single Divine Nature yet it is absolutely impossible that this One single Nature should be incarnate and not the Divine Nature of all the Three Persons be incarnate when it is but One single Nature in all And it is absurd to say that the One Divine Nature of Father Son and Holy Ghost is incarnate and yet none but the Son incarnate This is what Victorinus Afer teaches Non oportet dicere nec fas est dicere unam esse Substantiam tres esse Personas si enim ista ipsa Substantia egit omnia passa est patripassiani nos absit Bibl. Patr. Tom. 4. We ought not says he to say nor is it lawful to say that there is but One Substance that is One single subsisting Nature and Three Persons for if this same Substance did and suffered all we also must be Patripassians which God forbid That is we must say That the Father suffered as well as the Son as Sabellius taught It is such Animadversions and such unintelligible Notions which make the Christian Faith ridiculed by Atheists and Hereticks But the great difficulty is how to conceive One Individual Nature which is numerically One but is not One single Nature And yet thus it must be if there be a Trinity in Unity Three real Hypostases and Subsistences in One Divine Nature which the Counterfeit Areopagite but an ancient and learned Writer calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Monad or Unite which thrice subsists or has Three Subsistences whereas it is demonstrable That One single Nature can subsist but once or have but One Subsistence And therefore the ancient Fathers owned that Father and Son is alius alius and that God is solus but non solitarius That I may be the better understood and give you some imperfect Conception of this great and venerable Mystery let us contemplate this individual Identity and Sameness of Nature in a Man and his Image A Man sees his own Image in a Glass the exact Proportion of his Body all the Lines and Features in his Face all his own Motions and Postures whether he smiles or cries sits or stands Now suppose this were a real living Image as exactly himself both in Body and Mind as the Image in the Glass represents his external Shape and Features That this living Image was coeval with himself and did subsist as necessarily as he did and yet as much depend upon him as the Image in the Glass does on his Face and Presence That this Living Image did understand and will in the same Act with himself and repeat all his Motions and Passions and Sensations as his Face in the Glass does That this living Image knew himself to be but an Image distinct from the Original but the same with him and that the Man whose Image it is knew himself to be distinct from his Image but yet the same and that the Man and his living Image felt each other and all that is in each other in themselves Now I desire to know by what Name you would call such a living Image You cannot deny him to be a Man because he has Humane Nature in himself and distinctly in himself as compleatly and perfectly as the Man has whose Image he is or else he were not a compleat and perfect Image And yet you cannot say that he is a distinct Man or another Man a Second Man for he is but an Image and the very same with the Original and therefore they are both but One Man naturally One not as Two other Men are who may be morally One by a Consent and Agreement of Understanding and Will but by an individual Unity and Sameness of Nature and Will And yet you must confess them to be Two though not Two Men not Two Humane Natures for the Man is not his Image nor the Image the Man whose Image he is But if you will call the Man a Person as certainly every Man is a Person then his Image which is the same with himself must be a Person too and not the same Person So that here are Two distinct Persons subsisting in One Individual Nature not multiplied but repeated in its Image There is indeed no such living Image as this in created Nature but yet this is the true Nature of any Image and gives us an intelligible Conception of the Unity of Nature in a plurality of Persons And this is the plain account of the essential Unity between God the Father and God the Son Christ is expresly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of God 2 Cor. 4. 4. and Col. 1. 15. and said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Form of God Phil. 2. 6. and to be the brightness of his Glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the express Character and Image of his Person And because there are several sorts of Images the ancient Fathers declare what kind of Image Christ is of God the Father That he is not a dead Picture nor a meer Reflection in a Glass but is a living Image of the living God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
intelligent Subsistences without Mutual-consciousness and there can be no Mutual-consciousness but in the same individual Nature but yet if we must distinguish as far as we can apprehend these matters Mutual-consciousness is much more essential to the Unity of Three intelligent Subsistences than any other Notion of Unity For I cannot see but that if it were possible That three created Spirits who are not only Three distinct Subsistences but have Three particular separate Natures should be thus united by Mutual-consciousness it would destroy the individuation of their Natures though the individuation of their Subsistences or Persons would be preserved by Self-consciousness And were it possible the same individual Nature should be repeated in its Image without this Mutual-consciousness it would divide this One Nature and make the Man and his living Image as much Two Men as any Two Men in the World But then the Image would cease to be an Image how exact soever upon other Accounts the Likeness or Sameness were for the Image does not only represent and resemble the Prototype but moves and acts with it And this is that very Mutual-consciousness wherein the Dean places the essential and numerical Unity of the Holy Trinity such a Mutual-consciousness as must be between the Prototype and its living Image I shall not trouble you with transcribing out of the Vindication but referr you to some places to consult at your leisure He always represents the Son as the living Substantial Image of God the Father and the eternal Generation by God's reflex Knowledge of himself and in this places the numerical Identity and Sameness of Nature between Father and Son as there is between the Prototype and its Image and the Holy Spirit whom the Fathers represent as God's eternal Love of himself in his own Image has all the same Divine Perfections repeated in eternal and substanstial Love That yet this numerical Identity and Unity of Nature cannot be understood without this Mutual-consciousness which makes them One Energy and Power and is their mutual In-being in each other That this Mutual-consciousness proves the perfect equality of all Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead as having the very same Perfections without destroying the Prerogative of the Father or the Subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit As a living Image is in Nature equal with the Prototype but Subordinate That this gives an Account of the Modi subsistendi or of the real and actual Subsistence of the same individual numerical Nature in Three but in a different manner had these things been duly considered and compared we should not have heard so much noise and clamour about Mutual-consciousness as if it made Three absolute compleat independent Gods when it is impossible to conceive a more close and intimate Union in Nature But there is one formidable Objection against all this or rather against the Dean for it that he pretends by this means to make the Notion of a Trinity in Unity as intelligible as the Notion of God which is intolerable Vanity and Presumption to pretend to explain Mysteries But does the Dean pretend That his Explication leaves nothing Mysterious in the Doctrine of the Trinity in Unity Nothing which we cannot comprehend That as the Ancients used to speak this is no longer a wonderful distinction and a wonderful Union This I confess had been very vain and presumptuous But are there no Mysteries in the Divine Nature because the Notion of One God is an intelligible Notion If there be there may be Mysteries very incomprehensible Mysteries in the Trinity still how intelligible soever the Notion be The intelligibleness of any Notion whether it be true or false consists in the terms in which it is conceived that they convey a distinct Idea to our Minds of something possible not which we can fully comprehend but which we can understand without confusion or contradiction and this does great Service to Religion to deliver Mysteries from absurdity and contradiction though they are very incomprehensible still The Notion of Eternity for Example is very Intelligible to be without any Cause without Beginning and without End there is no contradiction in this and it is demonstrable that something must be Eternal and yet nothing can be more incomprehensible than Eternity Our Thoughts are presently lost when we endeavour to conceive an eternal Being And thus an eternal Image of an eternal Being begotten without Beginning is as intelligible as an eternal Being is for if it be necessary and essential to an eternal Being to have a living substantial Image thought can't divide their Existence and it is as certain if there be such an eternal living Image that this eternal Being and his eternal Image are Two as the Prototype and the Image and yet as essentially One and as intimately conscious to each other as you have heard they must necessarily be this is intelligible but yet a very incomprehensible Mystery for who can conceive an eternal Generation which has no beginning the Divine Nature repeated in its Image without multiplication a Distinction without Separation and an Unity without Singularity and without Confusion If these be not Mysteries enow for the Animadverter though the Dean's intelligible Notion were admitted he is as much too fond of Mysteries as other Men are too much afraid of them for whether he knows it or no there is a very great difference between a Mystery and Contradiction or Nonsence I believe by this time you are less Fond than you were of an Answer to the Animadverter's Arguments which some Men who have despised his Wit and Railery have yet thought unanswerable but I will be as good as my Word especially since a short Answer will serve In his third Chapter he Attacks the Dean's Notion of Self-consciousness but he stumbles at the Threshold and runs on furiously as a Man does who runs headlong and is never able to recover himself He says It is evident the Dean assigns Self-consciousness as the formal reason of Personality in all Persons universally whether Finite or Infinite Create or uncreate and therefore he undertakes to prove That Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality either in Finite or Infinite Persons The Dean says not one word about the formal Reason of Personality nor is at all concern'd what it is He only says That the Unity of a Spirit with it self and its distinct and separate Subsistence from all oher created Spirits consists in Self-consciousness So that if that be one distinct separate Mind which is conscious only to it self which feels all that is in it self and nothing else and those be two distinct separate Minds each of which is thus conscious to it self but not to each other the Dean has gained his Point and the Animadverter has lost all his Arguments and Wit whatever becomes of the formal Reason of Personality The Dean did not enquire what makes a Mind or Spirit or if you please a Person
this Compound which the Soul is essentially related to not the Body I hope for the Body is no more the Compound than the Soul Is it then the Man and where is this Man that the Soul is essentially related to Does he then mean that it is essential to the Soul to live in an earthly Body Then it cannot live in a State of Separation If it be of the Essence of the Soul to live in the Body it is evident That it can never live out of it and if it be not essential then the Soul may be a whole entire Person when it subsists separate from the Body But the Soul by its original Designation is related to the Body What so that it cannot live without it and never should live without it if not this original Designation does not prove an essential Relation But it has a natural Aptitude to be an Ingredient in the Constitution of a Compound What does he mean by the Soul 's being an Ingredient in a Compound Is the Soul and Body mixed and blended together to make a Man Is it the same thing to be a part of the whole and to be an Ingredient in a Compound Well but the Soul has a natural Aptitude to live in a Body and so it has to live out of the Body and what then then the Soul which is the same Person still is naturally fitted to live in different States and then its Relation to an earthly Body is not essential to it whatever strong Appetite and Inclination as he says it retains to return and be re-united to the Body which whoever says it no Man can know and if it be true of sensual Souls who were wholly immersed in Sense is demonstratively false of all holy and pure Spirits who are in a great measure weaned from this Body while they live in it and rejoyce at their Deliverance when they escape safe out of it who with St. Paul desire to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Holy Souls indeed in a State of Separation do earnestly desire the Completion of their Happiness in the Resurrection of their Bodies but not to be re-united to these vile earthly corruptible Bodies but to glorified immortal incorruptible Bodies when Christ shall at his Appearance change our vile Bodies and make them like to his own most glorious Body which though they had every individual Atome which belonged to them before are yet in their Nature and Constitution no more the same Bodies than Earth and Heaven are the same But the Spirits of just Men made perfect are in a more perfect State of Life and Happiness out of these Bodies than they enjoyed in them and therefore are more perfect Persons too are more perfectly themselves and enjoy themselves more perfectly and therefore are in a State more agreeable to the Perfection of their Natures and that I take to be a natural State than living in these Bodies The Animadverter will not allow this to be a natural but Supernatural Perfection which relates only to the Consummation of their Graces and not to the manner of their Subsistence But is not the Perfection of our Graces the Perfection of Humane Nature And is not the Perfection of Nature a natural Perfection And if the Soul be more perfect in a State of Separation is not this a more perfect manner of Subsistence This might have shamed the Animadverter had he had a little more Consideration and less Confidence to deny the Personality of the Soul which can subsist and act and be more perfect and happy out of the Body which shews that to be in the Body or out of it does not concern the Personality but the different States wherein the same Person lives To proceed The Dean had upon another occasion said That all the Sufferings and Actions of the Body are attributed to the Man though the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour and Governing Power and constitutes the Person This I should have thought very true and safe but the Animadverter has made very tragical Work with it He says That this proves the quite contrary That the Man himself to whom these personal Acts are ascribed must indeed be the Person and that for the same Reason also the Soul cannot be so But does the Dean any where deny That the Man as consisting of Soul and Body is a Humane Person or when united to a Body affirm that the Soul is the whole Person He says indeed That the Soul is the seat of Personality the only Principle of Reason Sensation and a Conscious life which consequently in a State of Separation is the Person and when united to the Body constitutes the Person and therefore may both be the Person and constitute the Person When a Body is vitally united to a Soul Soul and Body are but One Person because they are but One voluntary Agent and have but One Conscious Life but it is the Soul constitutes the Person as being the Principle of all personal Acts Sensations and Passions which the Body is only the Instrument of but being a vital Instrument is united to the Person and becomes One Person with the Soul for the Person reaches as far as the same Conscious Life does but it is only this vital Union to the Soul which receives the Body into the Unity of the same Person not as part of the Person but as an animated Instrument of Life and Action which as it were cements Soul and Body into One Person A Soul vitally united to a Body is an embodied Person in a State of Separation it is the same Person still but without a Body which makes a great change in its Sensations and manner of acting but no more changes the Person than the Man would be changed cloathed or uncloathed were his Cloths as vitally united to his Body as his Body is to his Soul This is plain Sence and if the Animadverter knows not how to reduce it to Terms of Art I cannot help it The Soul I grant as he wisely observes Cannot constitute the Person efficiently by Creation or Generation nor formally as a constituent part for the Soul is not properly part of the Person but the Soul constitutes an embodied Person by living and acting in the Body which unites Soul and Body into one Life and that makes one embodied Person or Soul and Body one Man And now as for those Questions which with so much Triumph and Scorn he asks the Dean I leave to himself to Answer them and to you to laugh at them The rest of this Chapter is nothing but Ignorance and Raving and has been answered already If you will Pardon this long excursion about the Personality of the Soul which is nothing at all to the present Controversie having given you this one sufficient taste of the Wit and Philosophy of the Animadverter and his great exactness in speaking and reasoning I promise you to let pass an hundred other
One infinite Essence or One Supream God but the Question still remains what these Three Persons are into which this One Being or Essence is distinguished by these Three distinct Relations Three Relatives are not Three Relations but Three things related to each other What then are these Three Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence Three Relations Three Modes Three Respects without some Being which tho' essentially One is really and substantially Three is Nonsence in Logick for there must be as many real substantial Relatives and Correlates as there are Relations unless the Relation between Father and Son can subsist without a real Father and Son The Person then of the Father the Person of the Son and the Person of the Holy Ghost are not the Relations between Father Son and Holy Ghost but real substantial Persons thus related to each other And if these are Three intelligent Persons let him make if he can Three Gods of Three Minds and excuse Three real intelligent Persons from the same Charge But the Truth is to prevent the Charge of making Three Gods he distinguishes the Three Divine Persons into Three Logical Relations or Modes of Subsistence and if we will be contented with a Trinity of Modes he is for us but this looks very like renouncing a Trinity of Persons to secure the Unity of the Godhead and I fear will prove no better when thoroughly examined In what Sence the Three Divine Persons are Three Relatives or Three Relations I have explained above their Nature is compleat and absolute if the Divine Nature be so but their Subsistence is Relative as it must of Necessity be when the same individual Nature is repeated and subsists distinctly in Three If it be essential to the Father to be a Father he subsists with a necessary Relation to his Son if it be essential to the Son to be a Son the perfect living Image of the Father his Subsistence is wholly Relative as the Subsistence of an Image is which depends upon the Prototype And therefore though each Divine Person be eternal and infinite Mind and with respect to their Three real Subsistences may be called Three infinite eternal Minds as the Dean ventured to call them yet these Three are not Three absolute simple Beings or Essences which stand distinguished from one another by their whole Beings or Natures but One absolute eternal Mind repeated in Three Relative Subsistences without multiplication As a Man and his living Image though each of them have distinctly Humane Nature and upon that account might be called Two Men yet they have but One compleat absolute Humane Nature though it be repeated in the Image and are but One Man in Two Persons or Two Humane Subsistences Had the Dean indeed made Three compleat absolute eternal Minds he had been justly chargeable with making Three Gods but the same eternal and infinite Mind repeated in Three Subsistences necessarily and essentially related to each other are but One eternal God 2. His second Argument is this Three distinct Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Substances But the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances And therefore they are not Three distinct Minds or Spirits The Dean does not pretend to know any thing of the Substance of a Mind much less of God who is an infinite Mind He is contented to know That a Mind is a thinking and understanding Being and though Understanding and Being and Nature or Substance may be distinguished in finite created Minds yet St. Austin has taught him that in God to be is not One thing and to understand another or whatever else can be said of the Divine Nature and therefore not Substance neither So that if in the Unity of the Godhead there be but Three such distinct Understandings or Minds or intelligent Persons who are not each other and do not understand by each other but distinctly by themselves as St. Austin expresly observes That no man will say That the Father does not understand by himself but by his Son he is not concerned about distinct Substances which are the same with to be and to understand in God But his Proofs of both Propositions are entertaining His Major That Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances he proves from the Definition of a Mind or Spirit that it is Substantia incorporea intelligens an intelligent incorporeal or immaterial Substance and therefore Three distinct Minds or Spirits must be Three such distinct Substances Now if a Man should deny his Definition and say That a Mind is res cogitans a thinking Being he would be undone for want of his Substances but I shall only cap Definitions with him at present That a Person is Substantia individua naturae rationabilis the individual Substance of a Rational Nature And therefore if there be Three distinct Persons there are Three such distinct Substances in the Godhead and let us see how he will bring off Three Persons from being Three distinct Substances and I will undertake the Dean shall do as much and do it as well for Three Minds But if a Mind were not a Substance what could it be else Let us know first what Substance is and then we 'll tell him Not quod substat accidentibus I hope for then he immediately proves That God is no Substance because no accident can be in God nor need he fear that the Dean will make a Mind a Mode of Subsistence in his Sence of it but a true and real Mind which does really and actually subsist though these Three eternal Minds are but Three eternal Subsistences of the same One individual eternal Mind As for the Minor viz. That the Three Divine Persons in the blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances he proves first from Authority and he is as dangerous a Man at Authorities as ever I met with He cites Tertullian St. Ierom St. Austin and some others and he might have produced the Authority of all the ancient Fathers to prove that there is but One Substance in God but this is nothing to his purpose for by One Substance they plainly meant the Homoousion that Father Son and Holy Ghost were of the same Nature and by denying Three Substances they principally rejected Three divers Natures of different Kinds and Species in opposition to Arianism which denied the Son to be of the same Nature with his Father this he might have learnt from what he cites from his Orthodox Father Bellarmine That to assert that the Father and the Son differ in Substance is Arianism for the difference the Arians made and the Catholicks opposed was not in the real distinction of their Persons but in the diversity of their Natures and the Reason he adds will not help it out And yet he adds if they were Two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible as if to be distinct and to differ in Substance were the same thing As if Two Men
and silenced all his Adversaries then that he heard no more of that till the Animadverter revived the Quarrel who could have given you the Dean's Answers to his own Objections if he had so pleased for they are not new but borrowed from such Wits as Mr. Alsop without any new strength given to them Where the Animadverter charges the Dean with Absurdities and Contradictions turn to the place and read it with it s context and tell me what you can't Answer and I will But if you or any body else can be perswaded by the Animadverter That the Dean understands neither English Latin nor Greek neither Logicks Metaphysicks or Common Sence I need wish you no other Punishment than when ever you Write to fall into the hands of such an Adversary for I believe there are very few Writers but might be exposed in the same manner by a spiteful Critick not the Animadverter himself excepted who begins his Animadversions with a notorious Blunder in deriving a Mystery from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas a Mystery does not signifie in English the word Mystery but the thing signified by that word and therefore though the word Mystery may be derived a Mystery is derived from no Word and to Talk of deriving a Mystery is neither English nor Sence But though it were Justice to return some of his Complements to the Dean upon himself yet his Example is too scandalous to be imitated and there is no need to expose him more than his own Pen has done I am SIR Your very Faithful Friend A POST-SCRIPT Concerning the Calm-Discourse of the Trinity in the Godhead SIR SInce my writing this Letter I have met with a Book Entituled A Calm and Sober Enquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead Written as is said by a Man of great Reputation among the Dissenters I do not intend to examine the Book nor to approve or disapprove it though there seem to be very obnoxious Passages in it should he fall into such hands as our Animadverter He has taken great care That no Man should suspect that he favours the Dean in his Notions and I believe the Dean will thank him for that for if I understand him he would never have said and would be as unwilling that any Man should think he has said what the Enquirer has But all I design by this Post-script is only this to let you see that though the Enquirer does not in every particular say what the Dean says yet he says what will justifie the Dean against the heaviest Charge the Animadverter himself could frame against his Hypothesis and that is Tritheism The pretence of this is what the Dean says concerning Three distinct eternal infinite Minds and the Objections and Answers you have already heard and if I can understand the Enquirer he says this as plainly and in more obnoxious Terms than the Dean has done To prove the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead he argues from the possibility of God's uniting two Spirits by as close an Union as he has united Spirit and Body which make One Man and if it were possible to him God to unite Two would it not be as possible to unite Three So that he represents the Trinity in Unity by the Union of Three Spirits which are distinguished by their own individual Essences and remain distinct by their singular Essences so as to be everlastingly united but not Identified and by Vertue of that Union be some one thing as much and as truly as our Soul and Body united do constitute One Man Now from the possibility of such an Union with such a distinction in created Spirits he concludes the possibility of such an Union unmade or that is original and eternal in an unmade or uncreated Being that is That Three eternal unmade uncreated Spirits may be thus united in One Godhead that is That there are or may be for whatever he thinks which may be easily guessed at he will not positively assert it Three eternal uncreated Minds in the Unity of the Godhead This he proves from the Incarnation That the Union of the Two Natures the Humane made up of an Humane Body and 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 And that Father Son and Holy Ghost have their distinct Essences he proves also from the Doctrine of the Incarnation since the Man Christ is 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 should it be thought less possible That Three uncreated Spiritual Beings which the Animadverter will no more allow of them of Three eternal Minds 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 an Union with One of the Persons in the Godhead only as therewith to be One Person Will it not hereby be much more 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 Will it be Tritheism and inconsistent with the acknowledged invioluble Unity of the Godhead A great deal more to this purpose you may find in his first Letter to Dr. Wallis p. 100 c. and whether this be Tritheism or not he had best ask the Animadverter who charged the Dean's Hypothesis with Tritheism with much less Reason And I confess I am amazed that after all this he should so industriously Vindicate himself from Dr. Sherlock's Notion of Three infinite Minds or Spirits for Three distinct Substances the Dean does not assert and if the Enquirer has not all this while been proving Three Spirits Three distinct Essences Three individual Natures in the Godhead no Man living can guess what he means for my part I cannot tell where the difference is unless it be in the Term of infinite for his Three Spirits and Essences and individual Natures which make up his Unity of the Godhead as he has represented it do not seem to be infinite But he shelters himself from the Animadverter whom he seems to be terribly afraid of in Academick uncertainty and thinks he may safely dispute as he pleases and all on one side so long as he asserts nothing though I cannot see how the Dean was more dogmatical than the Enquirer who proposed his
all the Perfections of infinite Mind and Understanding distinctly as other Persons have but not separately as created Persons have And since there are Three in the Unity of the Godhead thus really distinguished from each other without a separation I know no reason why we may not use this Word Person in this limited Sence to signifie Three who are as really distinct from each other but not separated as other Persons are For when it is known in what sence we use the Word when applied to the Trinity it is trifling to dispute against Three Persons in the Godhead from the signification of the Word Person when applied to Creatures and yet this is the Sum total of all the Socinian Arguments against Three Persons and One God and of all the Contradictions they pretend to find in it Three Divine Persons they say must be Three absolute compleat independent Gods because Three Humane Persons are Three compleat absolute Men who subsist independently on each other and therefore it is as manifest a Contradiction That Three Divine Persons should be but One God as it is that Three Humane Persons should be but One Man which signifies nothing if we do not use the Word Person in the same Sense and all the World knows we do not when applied to the Holy Trinity as when applied to Men For it is meer trifling to dispute against us from such a Sense of the Word as we reject and declare to all Men that we do reject The most that can be made of this is that we use an improper Word and ought not to call Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons because that is to make Three Gods of them as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men But when the importunity of Hereticks forces us to find Names for that which nothing in created Nature can answer if they will not give us leave we must take leave to use the properest Names we can find though not every way proper and such the Name of Person is when applied to the Persons of the Trinity For all that this Word Person signifies except a separate Subsistence belongs to the Persons of the Holy Trinity An intelligent Nature and all personal Acts of Understanding Volition c. do as distinctly belong to each Person as to any Humane Persons and it is this makes a Person not a separate Subsistence which belongs only to finite and created not to infinite and eternal Persons And therefore the Word Person is properly enough applied to the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost because all that is essential to the Notion of a Person belongs to each of them though they do not subsist separately as Humane Persons do But yet Men are very apt to judge of the Divine Persons by what they see in Humane Persons and to fancy these Three Persons in the Deity to be like Three Men who have the same Humane Nature but subsist and act separately and are One only by a moral Consent and Unity And therefore to prevent this Imagination which betrays Men to down right Tritheism others without rejecting the Name Person have thought fit more expresly to signifie what kind of Persons they are by calling them Three Subsistences that is Three who have all the Perfections of the Godhead and do really and distinctly subsist for else they could not be Three Subsistences but yet do not subsist as separate Persons but are essentially One God For Subsistence does not necessarily infer Separation for Three may distinctly subsist though essentially and inseparably united And this is the difference between Person and Subsistence that according to the most usual acceptation of the Word Person which it is hard to correct for that Idea which in common use belongs to a Word is apt to stick close to it Three Persons signifie Three who subsist apart and as separately as Three Men do But Three Subsistences are Three Persons who subsist distinctly without Separation For Subsistence necessarily signifies a distinct and real but not a separate Subsistence for if Three really subsist without a Separation they are Three real Subsistences and therefore it is in vain for the Socinians to dispute against Three Persons that they must be Three separate Persons unless they can prove that they cannot really subsist without a Separation which none of them ever yet undertook and yet all their Talk of Contradictions and Three Gods vanishes without it What I have said of the Word Person is with equal reason applicable to the Word Mind The Animadverter objects against the Dean That a Mind or Spirit is an absolute Being Nature or Substance and I grant it is so in the common use of the Word as apapplied to created Minds and Spirits but so is Person also as much as Mind and if we allow of a Theological use of the Word Person why not of Mind too to signifie an intelligent Subsistence which is a Mind too but not a separate Mind and therefore not such an absolute Being Nature and Substance as a created Mind is And when the Dean speaks of Three distinct infinite Minds which are essentially and inseparably One he could mean nothing more than three distinct intelligent but not separate Subsistences And he needs ask no other Pardon but for the use of a Word which the Schools have not consecrated But there is greater want of Words to express the Unity and Oneness of the Divine Nature and Essence than the distinction of Persons The Nicene Fathers in their Controversie with Arius of which if there be occasion more hereafter who denied the Divinity of Christ and made him no more than a Creature though as perfect and as like to God as a Creature could be used the Word Homoousion which was not first invented by them to serve that turn but was used either in Words or Sence by the Anti-Nicene Fathers as the learned Dr. Bull has proved But what is this Homoousion or Sameness of Nature This is the difficulty for there is not any one Word to explain it by which adequately answers the full Notion of the Divine Unity and that is no great wonder because there is no perfect Example in Nature of any such Unity They very often explain this by Examples of a Specifick Unity That the Father and Son have the same Nature as Abraham and Isaac have and therefore they call Men who have the same Specifick Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so they do the Sun its Light and Splendor the Tree and its Branches c. And this is in part a true representation of the Homoousiotes or Sameness of Nature in the Persons of the Holy Trinity for if there be not that which perfectly Answers though it much out-does also a specifick Sameness and Unity their Nature cannot be the same and accordingly they prove against the Arians that Christ cannot be the Son of God if he be not Homoousios to his Father because every Father begets a Son in his
Being and feeling himself and other Persons in himself This is sufficient to justifie the Dean's Notion of Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness and a little more fully to explain it which it seems he thought that every one who was acquainted with the workings of his own Mind must have understood without a Comment And I hope if the Animadverter think fit to try his skill again we shall hear no more of his formal Reasons of Personality and Union but that he will be pleased to speak to the true point whether a Self-conscious Person be not one with himself and distinguished from all other Persons and whether he does not feel himself to be thus One and thus distinguished by Self-consciousness and whether Three Divine Persons who are thus Mutually-conscious to each other be not naturally and essentially United into One Supream Being or One God All other Disputes are beside the Question for if this hold true then we have a natural Distinction and a natural Unity between these Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and that is a natural Trinity in Unity without the least appearance of Absurdity or Contradiction or impossibility in its Notion Hitherto though the Assault has been furious and insulting we have met with no heavier Charge excepting some usual Complements than Ignorance in Philosophy and Metaphysicks and Scholastick Terms and where that Charge falls I will now leave you to judge but this is but the beginning of Sorrow Tritheism follows next which is a terrible Accusation though I do heartily thank the Animadverter that he has been so civil to the Dean as not to charge this upon him as his Opinion but as the consequence of his Principles which I believe will prove no more than the Animadverter's Ignorance not the Dean's Heresie Before I Answer his Arguments it will be necessary briefly to state this Matter in Controversie for the Sting of all his Arguments consists in forcing such a Sence on the Dean's Words as he never intended The only thing that needs any Excuse or Apology is the Phrase of Three eternal and infinite Minds the Fault of which is That it is an unusual way of Speaking and gives advantage to an ignorant or cavilling Adversary to affix some uncouth and Heretical Sence on it What led the Dean to this I observed before viz. His explication of the distinction of the Three Divine Persons by Self-consciousness and of their essential Unity by Mutual-consciousness now since Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness can be in nothing but Minds he thought the fairest and easiest representation of this Matter was to consider them under the Notion and Character of Minds for every Man can feel in himself that a Mind is distinguished from all other Minds by Self-consciousness and if there may be and is such a Mutual-consciousness between Three as the Dean describes they must be as naturally and essentially One as Three can be One and we must seek for no other Unity in Trinity than what is reconcilable with a real Trinity or a real distinction between Three But had the Dean been aware what kind of Men he should have had to do with such as have no regard to the plain and manifest Sence of an Author if they can but pick a Quarrel with his words he might easily have prevented all this without having injured his main Argument If instead of Three eternal and infinite Minds he had but said Three eternal infinite knowing intelligent Persons he had kept the Orthodox Language and yet expressed all that he intended by Three Minds for a knowing intelligent Person is a Mind if Knowledge can be only in a Mind and then Three such intelligent Persons may be distinguished from each other by Self-consciousness and united in One Godhead by Mutual-consciousness This is the Account the Dean himself gives what he means by a Mind That a Mind is an intelligent Person and that every intelligent Person is a Mind and therefore thought it as innocent in this Sence to say That there are Three eternal and infinite Minds as to say That there are Three eternal and infinite Persons and I believe it will appear That excepting the unusualness of the Expression the objection of Tritheism will equally lie against both with this difference That it is more easily Answered by considering the Powers and Properties of a Mind And in this Sence only he affirms That to say they are Three Persons and not Three distinct infinite Minds that is not Three distinct intelligent Persons is both Heresie and Nonsence it is Nonsence to Talk of a Person who is not an intelligent Person that is as he explains it a Mind which contradicts the Notion both of a Person and Mind and to say That there are Three Persons but not Three intelligent Persons is Heresie even the Heresie of Sabellius for there is no Medium between a Trinity of intelligent Persons and a Trinity of Names for Powers and Faculties and Modes will prove no more when distinguished from intelligent Persons And it is evident That this is all he intended by it by the opposition he makes between Three Minds and Three intelligent Persons and Three Powers and Faculties of the same Being for Faculties are not Persons no more than Memory Will and Understanding are Three Persons in One Man And he proves That the received Catholick Notion of a Person is such a Being as has Understanding and Will and Power of Action from the Arguments universally urged against the Socinians to prove the Holy Ghost to be a Person and not meerly a Divine Power because all the Properties of a Person belong to him such as Understanding Will Affections and Actions So that the Dean does not charge those with Heresie and Nonsence who barely refuse to use these Terms of Three eternal and infinite Minds which it may be no body ever so expresly used before him and which he will not contend about but the Heresie and Nonsence is to assert Three distinct Divine Persons who are not Three distinct eternal infinite intelligent Persons and he has Authority and Reason enough to call this both Heresie and Nonsence This is a sufficient Answer to that Charge the Animadverter draws up against the Dean That he calls the Three Divine Persons Three eternal and infinite Minds by which he understands no more than Three intelligent Persons and if He thinks an intelligent Person to be a Mind let the Animadverter confute him if he can and if he means no more by Three Minds than Three intelligent Persons as it is evident he could mean no more how inconvenient soever this expression may be thought let the Animadverter try his Skill to make Tritheism of Three Minds and excuse Three intelligent Persons from the same Charge And now let us consider his Arguments which he shews with great Pomp in Mode and Figure Arg. 1. Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods But the Three Persons of the Blessed
Trinity are not Three distinct Gods And therefore the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits Now let us but change the Term of Minds into Intelligent Persons and it is the very Argument the Socinians urge to confute the Doctrine of Three Divine Persons or to charge it with Tritheism and runs thus Three distinct infinite intelligent Persons are Three distinct Gods But there are not Three distinct Gods And therefore there are not Three distinct infinite intelligent Persons in the Godhead and consequently to assert Three such distinct Persons is to assert Three Gods His proof of the Major Proposition will serve as well for an eternal infinite intelligent Person as for an eternal infinite Mind For God and eternal infinite intelligent Person are Terms as equipollent and convertible as God and infinite Mind or Spirit God being as truly and properly an infinite intelligent Person as an infinite Mind or Spirit and an infinite intelligent Person being as truly and properly God as an infinite Mind If the Animadverter think fit to Answer That One God and One infinite Mind are convertible Terms but One God and One infinite intelligent Person are not convertible Terms because there are Three such infinite Persons in the Godhead and but One infinite Mind the reply is easie That the bare Terms from which he argues do not prove this distinction For though in the Doctrine of the Trinity custom has more reconciled us to the Term Person than Mind yet setting aside this Dispute all Mankind understand the same thing by an infinite Mind and an infinite intelligent Person it is plain the Socinians do and hence conclude That there is but One Person in the Godhead because God is but One infinite Mind Whether there be One or Three infinite Minds or infinite intelligent Persons in the Unity of the Godhead is a Dispute of a higher Nature and can't be determined by Convertible Terms for though the ancient Philosophers and Poets as he Learnedly proves what every School-Boy knows did acknolwedge God to be a Mind or Spirit that is an understanding intelligent immaterial Being yet most of them by Mind understood no more than One single Mind or One single Intelligent Person and he might have known that Plato to whom he appeals though he acknowledged God to be a Mind yet he owned Three such Minds in the Unity of the Godhead And therefore could not think That One God and One infinite Mind were equipollent and convertible Terms because he asserted Three infinite Minds to be but One God But since the Animadverter has only made God and infinite Mind or Spirit equipollent and convertible Terms we may allow him this and still deny his Major Proposition that therefore Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods for though God is an infinite Mind and an infinite Mind is God it does not follow that Three infinite Minds are Three distinct Gods no more than Three infinite intelligent Persons are Three distinct Gods but only as it is expressed in the Athanasian Creed That we are compelled by the Christian Verity to acknowledge every Person by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 singly distinctly to be God and Lord and yet are forbidden by the Catholick Religion to say there be Three Gods or Three Lords If God be an infinite Mind and there be Three infinite Minds it must follow That each of these Three infinite Minds distinctly and by himself considered is God not that these Three are Three distinct Gods but One God Indeed the Animadverter's Argument from Convertibility and Commensuration that whatsoever may be affirmed or denied of the One may with equal Truth and Propriety be affirmed and denied of the other proves all that the Dean would desire viz. that every distinct Person in the Godhead is distinctly by himself an infinite Mind because he is distinctly by himself God and God is infinite Mind and therefore every Person who is God is infinite Mind for no Person can by himself be God who has not by himself all the Perfections that belong to the Idea of God So that here are Three Persons in the Godhead each of which by himself is infinite Mind And therefore though it may be improper in an absolute Sence to say there are Three eternal and infinite Minds when we acknowledge this infinite Mind is and eternally was essentially and inseparably One yet we must say that this One infinite Mind is essentially distinguished into Three infinite intelligent Persons whom in any other case we should call Three Minds and are as much Three as is consistent with the essential Unity of the Godhead and this is reason enough to consider the distinction of Persons and the Unity of the Godhead as we would the Distinction and Unity of Three Minds and then this One eternal infinite Mind may be distinguished into Three intelligent Persons by Three Self consciousnesses and be essentially One by a natural Mutual-consciousness which is all the Dean intended or had occasion to assert And if this be all he means by the Godhead and infinite Mind which is common to all Three Persons the Dean readily agrees with him and in this Sence will no more say that there are Three infinite Minds than that there are Three Gods The Animadverter was aware of this That the same Objection of Three Gods would as well lie against Three Persons as against Three Minds and let us consider how he avoids the blow The difference he makes between them is this That Three infinite Minds or Spirits are Three absolute simple Beings or Essences and so stand distinguished from one another by their whole Beings or Natures The Sum of which is no more but this That Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Gods because they are distinguished but if notwithstanding their distinction they are essentially and inseparably One they are not Three distinct Gods but a real Trinity of Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead which all Men must own who believe a Trinity in Unity But are not Three infinite intelligent Persons as much Three absolute simple Beings and Essences as Three Minds No! by no means The Divine Persons are Three Relatives or One simple Being or Essence under Three distinct Relations and consequently differ from one another not wholly and by all that is in them but only by some Mode or Respect peculiar to each and upon that account causing their Destinction This is perfect Gibberish which I am certain he understands not one Word of himself But let us examine it The Divine Persons he says are Three Relatives very right for Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three and are related to each other But what are Three Relatives that comes in by way of Parenthesis One simple Being or Essence under Three distinct Relations That these Three Persons thus related to each other are One simple Being or Essence we readily grant for they were from eternity inseparably united in