after all probably the Reformers would have come off no better than the Socinians have done that is with all the clear Truth they have of their side and all their Dexterity and Wit in managing it being over-powered by the numbers of the contrary Herd they should have been answered with Penal Laws and Sanguinary Prosecutions of the those Laws They took therefore a Course that would do their Business unperceived by the most and when perceived by some few it would not be hard to convict them of Tritheism and explode them as Tritheists and so de facto they served Abbat Joachim And then getting their Explication of the Trinity confirmed by the Council of Lateran they happily restored the publick Profession and Faith of the Unity of God by an Authority which none dares to contradict for a General Council as was before noted is the highest Court of the Church that last Tribunal on Earth from which there lies no Appeal Of the Noetians and Sabellians THERE is yet another Branch of Nominal Trinitarians more antient far than those yet mentioned for about the Year of Christ 200 the Noetians and but a little after them the Sabellians arose both these said there is but one Divine Substance Essence or Nature and as the Substance of the Father Son and Spiirt is numerically One so consequently said they there is but one Person of God Father Son and Spirit are but only three Names of God given to him in Scripture by occasion of so many several Dispensations towards the Creature For in regard of the Creation God is called the Father he is named the Son as he wrought Miracles and accomplished the whole Work of Man's Redemption by the Lord Christ in whom he dwelt after a peculiar and extraordinary manner and who indeed was the Son of God by miraculous Conception in the Womb of Holy Mary He has the Name of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit from his omnipotent Energy or Power by which he effecteth all things In a word the Noetians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without Him he may be called as the Modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons the one subsisting Person of God sustaineth the three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons or Persons in a Classical critical Sense And this too is the Explication of the Trinity by that Party in the first Nicene Council who contrived the word Homo-usios or Consubstantial by which they meant that the three Divine Persons have all the same Substance and this is the Party which after the breaking up of that famous Council and upon the sudden Prevalence of the Arian Faction were persecuted by the Arians and were considered by all others as the true Nicene Party till about the Year of Christ 380 the Realists obtained that it should be said that God is tres Hypostases three subsisting Persons Indeed there are several Comma's in the Nicene Creed very hardly reconcilable to the Sabellian Doctrine but as there were three powerful and almost equal Parties in the Nicene Council the Arian Party the Realists and the Sabellians the latter thought it enough if they could procure Homo-usios consubstantial to be inserted into the Creed For that ambiguous Word may be interpreted in favour of all those Parties It may be interpreted the same Substance the very same or same in Number and so it establishes the Sabellian Doctrine or the same in Kind and all Properties and so it countenances the Realists or it may be understood of like Substance and so it pleases the Ariani molles the moderate Arians tho the rigid Arians in the Council would by no means admit of it they rather chose to lose their Bishopricks But when the Council was broke up it was perceived by the other Parties that the zealous Assertors of Homo-usios of the same Substance were all of them Sabellians believed that God is but one subsisting Person and therefore destroyed the real Existence of the Son whom the Arians as well as the Realists took to be a subsisting Person not a relative Person a Respect or a Name only And as the Arians discovered that the Homo-usians were indeed Sabellians so these latter charged the Arians and Realists as guilty of a manifest Tritheism because they so interpreted Homo-usios as to make Father Son and Spirit to be distinct intellectual Substances or subsisting Persons Let us hear their own Historian Socrates L. 1. c. 23. After the Council the Bishops wrangled about the word Homo-usios Those that were for it were censured by the contrary Party as Sabellians and were called Impious because they destroyed the real Existence of the Son Those that were against it were condemned by such as were for it as reviving Gentilism or the belief of more Gods And this Truth that Sabellianism was then taken to be the Nicene Doctrine or the same with the Doctrine of Consubstantiality is owned by the Learned Critick H. Valesius in his Notes on Sacrates L. 1. c. 24. For whereas the Historian saith That Cyrus Bishop of Berea was deposed for holding the Sabellian Doctrine Valesius notes hereupon in these words that is for the Doctrine of the Consubstantiality or the Doctrine of the Nicene Council which Council brought in the Homo-usiotes or Consubstantiality The Sum of what has been said concerning the Nominals THESE at length are the Divisions of the Nominals They all agree that the three Persons of God are not subsisting Persons they are not so many distinct Lives Understandings Wills or Energies which together with a particular Substance make a subsisting Person and if they are more than one they make so many physical real or subsisting Persons no they are Persons in a quite different Sense from that vulgar acceptation of the word Persons They are either three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power Or three external Acts Creation Redemption and Sanctification Or two internal Acts of the subsisting Person of the Father that is to say the Father Vnderstanding and Willing himself and his own Perfections Or three internal Relations that is three Relations of God to himself namely the Divine Substance or Godhead considered as Unbegotten and Proceeding Or three Names of God ascribed to him by the Holy Scriptures because he is the Father of all things by Creation and because he did Inhabit and Operate after an extraordinary and miraculous manner in the Person of the Man Christ Jesus who was verily the Son of God by his wonderful manner of Conception and last of all because he effecteth all things more especially our Sanctification by his Spirit which is to say his Energy or Power Every one sees these are very crude Conceits to be dignified with the Name of Mysteries but withal the Reader is to know that the Mystery is still behind For the Mystery lies not here that one subsisting Person is
to the Papists themselves as to us of the Reformation their Memory is glorious and ought to be precious also among us But we say also that the Augéan Stable was too foul to be absolutely cleansed at once even by Hercules and his Companions Dr. Luther did a great deal the Labours of his Companions and Seconds were very laudable but much Filth is still left behind We desire to be fairly and candidly heard concerning some corruptions in the Faith and some abuses in the Morality still taught and particularly which is the Subject of these present Papers concerning the Object of our Faith and Worship Almighty GOD. We see we own that the Doctrine of the Church meaning by the Church the Nominal Trinitarians is sound as to the Sense and Intention of it but we humbly offer that the Terms in which 't is expressed are Vnscriptural and very Dangerous The words Trinity Incarnation Hypostatical Vnion are never used in Scripture nor is God ever there called Persons but Person And 't is evident that by occasion of these Terms the Vulgar have such a conception of the Trinity as is certain Tritheism When the People hear of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost they know not that thereby are meant only so many Relations of God either internal Relations to himself or external Relations to the Creature but they conceive in their Minds such a Father Son and Spirit distinct from both as are so many several subsisting Spirits so many distinct All-perfect Beings in very Deed so many Living Gods and not one God under three several Conceptions For tho they are taught to say three Divine Persons and but one God and that God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost tho each of them is God yet all of them are but one God this last all of them but one God because they know not how 't is to be conceived with the other namely that each of them is God and one of them is God the Father another God the Son they utterly lose the Conception of one God and retain only what is intelligible to them namely three Divine Persons each of them a God We think that the Church having gained her Point against the Fathers and Realists in the Lateran Council and having been in Possession of the Truth for near 500 Years together she may now fling off the Disguise hitherto used the dangerous Tritheistick terms Trinity Persons and the rest she may now begin to declare the Truth she owns in Terms and Words that are proper for it Why does she frown upon those nay persecute them that believe the Unity of God in the Sense that she holds it only because they would cast out the Terms that so plainly favour the Tritheists that is the Realists What has the Church to fear has not the Lateran Council and all Writers ever since declared the Realists to be Hereticks therefore what need is there to retain their Terms when we have discharged the Notions intended by them 'T is true we can say as the Church does three Divine Persons the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God taking these words in the Church's Sense not for subsisting Persons that is to say Living Spirits but for Relations Properties Modes or such like We can say God was Incarnate meaning he did inhabit the Lord Christ after an ineffable manner and without Measure which is really as much as the Church intends by the word Incarnation We own the eternal Generation of the Son or Word and Procession of the Spirit by and from the Father explaining our selves with the School-Divines the Church and divers Fathers thus that God or the Father or original Wisdom conceived a most perfect Image of himself by understanding and considering his own Perfections and that he loveth or willeth as well as understandeth himself We can even say three Divine subsisting Persons intending with Dr. S th the Schools the Lateran Council and the Church Relative Subsistences whose Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation Which are Dr. S th's express words Tritheism charged p. 156. I cannot but ask it again why does the Church keep or impose on us such Words and Terms as in their present Signification destroy the Faith we both imbrace the Faith of the real Vnity of God We can say as the Church says we can use her Terms because we know her meaning but we cannot but say of them as Mr. Calvin did when ask'd his Opinion of the English Common-Prayers Tolerabiles Ineptiae For in very Deed 't is meer Trifling and something worse when the signification of these Terms and Words is wholly altered from what it antiently was yet still to retain them while the Church knows at the same Time that they give wrong Notions to the Vulgar making all our People Tritheists and serve also to animate and harden the Realists in their Heresy But I must do the Church this right to confess that most of her greatest Men particularly the first Reformers have publish'd to all the World their hearty desire that all these terms of the Realists were abolish'd and all were obliged to use the Scripture-Language and Words only which would heal all our Breaches and perfectly restore our Peace not only in this but in almost all other Questions and Strifes Let us hear of so many as might be alledged Dr. M. Luther and Mr. J. Calvin M. Luther complains The word Trinity sounds odly it were better to call Almighty God God than Trinity Postil major Dominic Mr. Calvin is yet less pleased with these kind of Terms he says I like not this Prayer O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity It savours of Barbarity the word Trinity is barbarous insipid profane an human Invention grounded on no Testimony of God's Word the Popish God unknown to the Prophets and Apostles Admon 1. ad Polon Decemb. 17. 1695. FINIS
Christ-Church It cannot be denied that could they but prevaricate they might pass for as Orthodox and as sound Trinitarians as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calumniators their Faith concerning God is the same both for Sense and Terms but the Professor though a real Unitarian and only a Nominal Trinitarian can asperse Socinus they on the contrary see no reason to disclaim their Friends and Partisans Other Nominals soar high they explain their Trinity after a very peculiar and surprizing manner The Father say they is the Fountain of the Deity the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons he is original Mind and Wisdom who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections and also Willed that is Loved himself in a most perfect manner No one will doubt say they that God always or from all Eternity perfectly understood himself and 't is Natural and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding to Will or Love himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings 't is the first Affection of such Beings and adheres inseparably to them But seeing whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood therefore the Father as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image because thus conceived and as it were generated by him is called the Son 't is also called the Wisdom of God his reflex Wisdom because 't is the Wisdom that resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections As God understandeth he Willeth also or Loveth himself this second Act or God's Loving himself is the Holy Spirit or third Person as understanding himself or the reflex Wisdom of original Mind and Wisdom was the second Person of the Trinity To understand one self and to love or will one self in created and finite Beings are but only Acts of the Vnderstanding and Will but in God we call them Persons Though nothing can be more ridiculous than this account of a Trinity yet to purchase their quiet the Socinians are content to wear a strange and odd Badg For Peace-sake they will say with our Holy Mother the Church Understanding or reflex Wisdom is a Person and Love another Person and these two with original Wisdom shall be called a Trinity Indeed we could wish that so grave a Matron as the Church would leave off Trifling but seeing for the main of it the thing is true for 't is true that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom and he Vnderstandeth and Willeth himself we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things The Church requires us to say Father Son and Spirit Trinity three Divine Persons but she declares at the same time that the meaning only is God or original Mind Vnderstandeth and Loveth himself it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother about a few uncouth or ill-chose Terms and Words on which she confessedly puts a sober meaning a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God or that there is in truth but one subsisting Divine Person Well here are two Explications of the Trinity by the Nominals The first saith the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation Redemption and Sanctification or God considered as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the World or of Mankind The other saith the second and third Persons of the Trinity are indeed three Acts of God but they are internal Acts even his Understanding and Loving himself So that the whole Trinity is original Mind or the subsisting Person of the Father Knowing and Willing himself so these two Parties But another Division of the Nominals tell us the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God whether External or Internal but they are three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power say they are that Trinity which the Church teaches and she teaches no other But then say I 't is evident again that the Church and the Socinians are well agreed for the latter no less than the former believe this Trinity and the only Hereticks in these Questions are the Real Trinitarians who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons three distinct Spirits three Almighty All-knowing Beings But they are not very many tho they are Learned Men that speak after these manners the School-men and the Divines that follow them and who more properly are the Nominal Party deliver themselves in other Terms though in the main in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians all the Divisions of them perfectly agree Because we litigate in the English Tongue and contest these Questions only with English Writers it will be fit to represent the Doctrine of the Schools or the Party which I said are more properly it may be the Nominal Trinitarians out of the late Books of Dr. S th against Dr. Sherlock They teach that God or the Trinity is one Numerical self-same Spiritual and Divine Substance one only Spirit one solitary Being And though he is three Persons by which what they mean we shall see presently there is in the whole Trinty but one infinite Vnderstanding one soveraign Will one almighty Energy or Power of Action in Number This one Divine inteltectual Substance or really subsisting Person is at it were distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation their Relation is not somewhat consequent upon or supervenient to their Subsistence as in created Persons but is one and the same with it These relative Modes being three in Number are the three Personalities of the Deity but the concrete and abstract Terms namely Personalities and Persons are but only different ways of expressing the same thing And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the Godhead by Relations relative Subsistences relative Modes relative Properties or such like So we say also that every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative that is that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person so that as we have but now said both Persons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations or relative Properties of the one self-same Divine Substance Being or Spirit These three relative Modes Relations or relative Properties in the Divine Substance or Godhead are Innascibility or Paternity passive Generation and passive Spiration in plainer English to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or be Breathed the first maketh the Person of the Father the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit This is the Sum of what Doctor S th saith in his last Book or Tritheism Charged pag. 156 157. Mr. Hooker Author of the
a proper physical and natural Sense of the word God for the words God and Man are specifical Terms the former implies divers personal Gods as the other implies many personal and individual Men. He is so far from being ashamed of all this that he adds again Page 85. The Fathers of the Nicene Council nay the whole Eastern Church did appropriate a the title one God to the Father and God of God to the Son The Fathers meant thereby the Son is God not of or from himself but from or by or of the Father See what use Mr. J. B. makes of this at pag. 91. The Phrase God of God does necessarily imply a Multiplication of the term God in some Sense or other And one and the same numerical God in concreto can never be God of God and not God of God these two cannot be verified of the same Subject of one and the same God in concreto or in Person 'T is Heresy in excelsis and the last words in Person designed only to blind his true meaning or to mollifie it to those that happen to understand him do but increase the grossness of his Tritheism He hath said in those words in effect the Nicene Creed and Oriental Church acknowledging one who is God of God this God who is God of or from God cannot be the same God with him from or of whom he is God namely with God the Father these two must be several Subjects different Gods This avowed Tritheism I say is neither hid nor sofmed by adding different Gods in concreto or in Person for it was never said or so much as thought before that the multiplication of Persons in the Godhead or these expressions God the Father God the Son God the H. Spirit would warrant any one to say several Gods or that God of God is not the same both Subject and God with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit In short that which this Author and his Party of Realists intend and say though somewhat Covertly and Artificially is that as all the Men in the World in concreto are notwithstanding sometimes expressed by the general abstract word Man So the three Gods in concreto three Personal really subsisting Gods may also be expressed but they care not how seldom the seldomer the better by that scurvy Socinian abstract word God I have not made these short remarks on Mr. J. B. with a malevotent Intention to create Envy or to raise up Enemies to him I shall confess that as broadly as he has spoke St. Sasil Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers after the Year 380 so Taught and so Spoke and I have before given some instances of it as I shall give more in the Continuation of my Answer to Dr. BuII's Defence of the Nicene Faith and Judgment of the Catholick Church But all that I design is only to appeal to the World whether the Realists have not notoriously owned and professed their Tritheism with which they are charged not only by the Socinians but by the Nominals which is to say by the Church Dr. S th is but one Man he is only a private Doctor but he has rightly understood the Doctrine of the Church if a General Council were again to assemble they would certainly espouse his two Books he hath said neither more nor less nor otherwise than the Catholick Church since the Council of Lateran has constantly taught Mr. J. B. is a Learned and very discerning Person so are other Realists of this Nation I must not say of the English or of the Catholick Church for they are departed from both who have lately written against the Socinians but they have opposed to ours such an Explication of the words God Persons Trinity as Dr. S th hath deservedly called a Trinity of Gods nor will they be ever able to wipe off the Imputation Mr. J.B. must not think he has answered Dr. S th he hath only sometimes mistaken him sometimes misreported or perverted his plain and obvious Meaning or quarrelled with the Doctrine of the Schools and of the Lateran Council which is to say of the Catholick Church to make room for the exploded Tritheism of St. Basil and some other Fathers The Doctrine of the Catholick Church Mr. J.B. knows well can be fetched only from General Councils the Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council particular Fathers are but only particular Doctors they are not the Church how many soever they are Therefore I desire Mr. J. B. to tell me what Council ever used his Language that one Divine Person is one God as perfectly one God as one Angelical Person is one perfect Angel In what Council shall we find that the word God is equivalent to a Species which is to say the Divinity no less than the Humanity or the Manhood comprehends several Individuals of the same both Nature and Denomination as there are many Men in concreto so there are divers Gods also in concreto Can he direct us to that Council which teaches that God of God and God not of God that is Father and Son are not the same God or that the term God implies any Multiplication Did ever any Council so far apostatize from Christianity as to deny that there is but one numerical God and call that Doctrine the Faith of Jews Mahometans and Heathens But this is Mr. J. B's Language and the Doctrine of all the Realists they all intend as he has said nor will any of them censure his Book but applaud it as a great and extraordinary Performance I do not regard the Impertinences of Mr. Tho. Holdsworth of North-Stoneham near Southampton in his late Impar Conatui which he hath opposed to Mr. J. B. This Orlando has vomited up his Crudities on a Person too much above him to take notice of him and all that I shall trouble my self to say of him is that if as he has been careful to tell us the Place of his Residence and of his Vicinage so he had also told us his Age we might have guessed with more certainty than now we well can whether he raves or dotes The Realists speak much more Mystically or Absurdly than the Nominals I Must make another Remark on the Realists namely That the absurd contradictory and impossible Things partly expresty said by 'em partly implied in their Doctrine are far less tolerable or accountable than the forced Improprieties in the use of Words and Terms by the Nominals are I confess both Parties so often depart from the common use of Terms and Words that one as well as the other is frequently forced to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Mystery when they cannot assoil the Difficulties objected to themselves by each other or by the Socinians to both when they find that the use of Words and the nature of Things are both against them they cry Mystery their Doctrine then they confess though a Truth is however a Mystery above the Capacity whether of themselves