word though so very variously significant is however used either absolutely as when it 's said God is a Spirit or Angels are ministring Spirits a Spirit hath not Flesh and Blood and other sayings of the same formal intention in the Word or else relatively and attributively to something whose Spirit it is or is called Of this latter form is the characteristick Title of the Spirit of God or Holy Spirit of God and Christ c. And the Word Spirit thus relatively attributed to Beings simply immaterial denotes an active Principle Power or Virtue in them and this either Potential or Moral Thus it is mentioned as a potential Principle Josh 5.1 Esa 19.3 Luk. 1.17 as a moral Principle Ezr. 1.1 5. Psal 32.2 and 34.18 and 51.10 17. Esa 57.15 Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26 Matth. 5.3 Luke 9.55 Joh. 4.23 24. Rom. 8.15 16. 1 Cor. 4.21 Eph. 4.23 1 pet 3 4. and so in infinite other places So likewise the Spirit of God seems oft to denote in him what we commonly call a Principle acting potentially but chiefly and most especially in the sanctifical Operations of all which the Holy Spirit is the proper and immediate Spring and Original Hence the Works of the Creation as attributed to the Spirit of God Job 26.13 and 33.4 where I see no reason to depart from the ordinary and canonical and characteristick sense of the Term. From which places in my opinion we may best interpret Gen. 1.2 where it is said that the Spirit of God moved or hovered upon the face of the Waters In this potential way of Operation the Spirit of God acted the Prophets Judges and other Worthies of Israel in their mighty Words and Works that exceeded the Power of Humane Nature as may be seen in very many Texts of Scripture Thus the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary and the Power of the most High did over-shadow her Luke 1.35 For I here preferr the Catholick Interpretation of the Creeds which teach this to be the supervention of the Holy Spirit from other like Texts and Universal Tradition before the sense of * Ad Autolyc p. 81. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Theophilus Antiochenus who applies them to the Logos as speaking by the Prophets though the †Symb. Constantinop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catholick Church hath determined the Divine Spirit that spake by them to be the third Person Which Spirit acting Elias was feared by Obadiah that it would carry the Prophet out of all discovery 1 King 18.12 And according to this potential notation we call all subtle and vigorous Powers in Nature Spirits as also the courage and activity of any animal I know the Rabbins Crellius and others make this potential Spirit to be a created effluent Virtue but the permanency of it in God with its other properties and descriptions every where exhibited in the Scriptures do evince the contrary reason it self also witnessing that God never was without an omnipotent Spirit of Holiness which may very properly consist in the essential Love of God than which what can be more vigorous active influential and productive We see how strong the Spring and Spirit of an ardent love is toward the most mighty adventures and how infinitely more must it be in the Divine Nature from which it gave Life and Spirit to universal Nature and blessed every thing according to its order and cherishes all things by a lively and penetrating Providence and drives on all the Motions and Springs of the whole Creation by a perpetual and constant impulse and at times exerted miraculous Operations to the manifestation of its transcendent Power Goodness and Holiness and thereby to the conversion of Men to the Living God But this Principle if I may so call it without offence as I design without error more exhibits its own appropriate celebrated Character of Holy to our Conceptions by actual Inspirations of Sanctity into all sanctified Minds And such is the sense of the Catholick Antiquity For being * Orig. Hom. 11. in Numer 18. de Princip l. 1. c. 8. Greg. Thaumat in Symbol Revelat. Athan con Arium Disp Dial. de Trinit Naz. de Heron Philosoph Basil con Eunom l. 5. de Sp. S. Episcop Philosopho in Concil Nicen. ap Socr. Eccl. Hist l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pseudo-Chrys in Matth. 7. Hom. 18. Aug. de verb. Dom. in Evan. Matth. c. 12. Ser. 11. Faustin ad Flaccil Imperat. de fide con Arian original Holiness it self it 's most connatural and consimilar Operation is the sanctifical for which cause it is signally called Holy as the substantial immediate Principle of all communications of Sanctity and Goodness to the Creatures And as a †Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christiani 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good and holy temper in the Soul of Man is called a good and holy Spirit which therefore acts accordingly and gives us thereby a Theory of the Holy Spirit of God So the essential Spirit of Holiness in God is if my infirmities may be permitted to speak my sense as it were the very temper of his Nature called often also his Heart and Soul under the same connotation which the impious Man is said to grieve Esa 63.10 Eph. 4.30 as being an internal and essential Principle offended by those Wits to which it bears an eternal and unalterable aversion which is also very strong and potential being †Ambr. de dignit hum condit c. 2. Greg. Nyssen de homin Opisic c. 5. Aug. in Ep. Job Tract 6. in Evang. Job c. 2. Tract 9. in c. 17. Tract 105. expresly called by some Fathers the substantial Love of God from the Authority of St. John From this property of Love Goodness and Holiness it is called by St. Paul the Spirit of Holiness Rom. 1.4 for I see no reason to recede from the canonical propriety and by Nehemias and David the good Spirit of God teaching and leading Men unto righteousness Neh. 19.20 Psal 143.10 And the Psalmist describes the Holy Spirit of God and a right Spirit in Man as consimilar Principles of moral Goodness the one as the temper of the Divine the other as the Temper of an Humane Mind Psal 51.10 11. which being by Sanctification likened to the Spirit of God is said to communicate of the Holy Spirit 2 Cor. 13.13 Philip. 2.1 whereby we are said to be one Spirit with God 1 Cor. 6.7 by being herein transformed into his Image 2 Cor. 3.18 and purified in obeying the Truth by the Spirit unto an unfeigned love of the Brethren 1 Pet. 1.22 And when St. Paul asserts the fruits of the Spirit to be Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Charity Righteousness and Truth Gal. 5.22 Eph. 5.9 by the Fruit he shews the nature of the Root and Principle viz. that the Spirit of God is by Nature Loving Good and Holy and by Grace endearing and sanctifical And this Character of
God-head before the Incarnation For this account will admit the Personality of Christ to be founded first †P. 32. in the Humane Nature according to some of his Lordship's Criticks which he dares not contradict who place the foundation of the Sonship in the lower Nature Yea this Description will admit the Patripassian Heresie of but one Person in the Deity For if the Eternal Word were no Person distinct from the Father the Union thereof with the Humanity constitutes the Father an incarnate Person or otherwise by this State of his Lordships Doctrine the Father Son and Holy Ghost may be conceived as one incarnate Person Whereas his Lordship well knows our Faith to be clear That the Eternal Word is personally distinct or a distinct Person from the Father and alone assumed the Humanity into a Personal Union with himself and so alone was the Person of Christ exceptively of the Father and the Holy Ghost from this Personality and Character § 5. Now if a Man would enquire into the Motives of this affected obscurity in his Lordship that leaves open a gap to so many Heresies his Lordship's Words would lead one to a conclusion or at least a fair jealousie that his Lordship does not believe any Distinction really Personal between the Father Word and Holy Spirit but that the true and real Personality of Christ is proper to the Humane Nature For he teacheth us that those whom the Church calleth Persons the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Where that artificial Word only derogates from the propriety and fitness of the term Person as if the Scripture terms did not come up to it nor justifie it And if his Lordship will stand by the †P. 45. plain intention of his Words elsewhere he places Christ's Personality only in his Manhood in these words That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word So that the Word must be different from the Person in whom it dwelt which must be the Heresie of Sabellius Maâ—… or Nestorius In short while he 〈◊〉 the Canonical term of Person to contain some notion in it not imported in the Scripture terms he seems for that cause to censure it for that the Scripture does not come up so far as to teach three Persons but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost But when he says this third Opinion is than by the Incarnation God and Man truly became one Person I would fain know whether the term Person be proper for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no If not the Doctrine is to be blamed that teaches him to be truly one Person since the truth of a Character is the greatest propriety and if it be not true the Doctrine that teaches it is to be cashiered But if to avoid this it be true then I would fain be instructed whether the Church does not use the term Person in the same formal intention concerning the Father Son and Holy Spirit when She calls them three Persons as She does when She calls Christ or the Son of God incarnate a Person For if She uses the term in the same formal intention then if the Christ be a proper Person so are the Father and Holy Spirit two other Persons properly and truly distinct in the sense of the Church but if the Church has one intention in the Term when applied to Christ 〈◊〉 God-man and another when applied to the Eternal Trinity let this be made out by just Authority and I have done § 6. But the Order of his Lordship's Discourse obliges me to break off a little from this Disquisition till the next Section where we must resume it For he tells us if we will believe him that the term Person by those of our Perswasion came to be applied to the three to discover those who thought that these three were different names of the same thing which were for the most part and were generally called Patripassians and were expelled as Hereticks from the Church Now wherein lay their Heresie Why in this That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were not three co-essential Persons really distinct which was the Catholick Faith instead of which they coined this pretence That those Names had not three distinct subjects of which they were predicates or denominations but only were three titles of God the Father who became incarnate and suffered for us Now hence it appears that their Heresie consisted in the denial of what was ever before received in the Church That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were three Persons And if so then is his Lordship's insinuation false and injurious that the term Person had its rise and occasion from Patripassianism and consequently is of a later Date that by this fraudulent Hypochronism the term and the sense of it may be taken for not Primitive and Traditional but a mere later and artificial invention Now to prove what I say to be true I am to produce authentick Testimonies Now in the Latin World the first I ever have read of that taught Patripassianism was Praxeas against whose Heresie herein Tertullian wrote and charged in for denying the Eternal Word to be a * Tert. ad Praxeam Non vis enim eum substantiâ—um habere in re per substantiae proprietatem ut res persona quaedam videri possit substantial and real Person which Tertullian though then a Montanist then asserted with the Church though his †Tert. ibid. Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam Personam conditam Sic Filius in suâ personâ profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae Novatian de Trinit secundam Personam efficiens terms and senses were sometimes very singularly odd concerning the production of the second Person In the Eastern Church several lapsed into the like Error the most famous of which was Sabellius from whom the Heresie was entitled Sabellianism which denied what that Church also had ever asserted That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were three Persons instead whereof they asserted them to be but one Person For the truth hereof I shall recite the Words †Athan. con Sabell Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of St. Athanasius as beyond all Exception valid From whence it appears that the Sabellians asserted but one Person against that Plurality of Persons fore-acknowledged in the Church And now I leave it to his Lordship to explain how the denial of three Persons could be Apostasie as this Father calls it had not the Faith of them been before expresly avowed and received For Heresie is an opposition of true received Faith and Apostasie must be from an antecedent Profession So that the Doctrine of a Personal Trinity was not later than Patripassianism but the Original Faith Nor does his Lordship seem candid in concealing this which was the substance of that Heresie while he mentions only their teaching three Names of one thing or Person which was a Conâ—ectary or at least a Colour added to
their Heresie against the Trinity of real Persons 'T is true a Man may innocently say That the term Person was used against Patripassians while he contends for the proper truth of their Personality as the Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity †P. 25. Ubi citatur Facund pro defensione triâ—â— capit c. 1. p. 19. cites Facundus's Saying that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie but to throw out such Expressions with a Design to deny the Primitive Antiquity of this Faith of Three proper Persons or Personalities is extremely perfidious of which this is a certain Sign when Men avoid the use of these Terms as a stock of Offence as his Lordship appears industriously to do in his State of the Doctrine I have not Facundus by me and so cannot so well judge of the convenience of his Words But as to the Term Hypostasis or Subsistence tho' it was in use long before Sabellianism and used of the Person of the Father * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1.2 yet was that use promiscuous for Essence and Subsistence long after Sabellianism and the determinate use thereof for the distinct Persons was later than the Sardican Council and was indeed at last so fixed to denote their substantial Personality or personal Subsistence against the Sabellians who asserted the Word and Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-subsistent that is not distinctly subsistent from the Person of the Father in the Unity of Essence but the Term Person both in the Eastern and Western Churches was ever received from the beginning without any variety or ambiguity § 7. Now that my Surmises against his Lordship's Integrity herein are well grounded will appear from his Lordship's explanation of this Term which tho' it be received in the third Party yet he dares not make his own nor allow for proper By Person saith he is only meant that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other Two Here it is plain that by using the Term Three so often without adding Person he shuns the Word as much as he dares at present to do and assigns a distinction which is not any way personal For it being only such a diversity that one is not the other it will as well agree to two or three Tobaco pipes for these are truly different from each other I would therefore ask his Lordship Does the Name of Father as distinct from the Son import no more than that one is not the other or does it import a Personality really Paternal If he will grant only the former part of the disjunction as he grants no more in his Discourse then there really was no God the Father from Eternity till the Creation of Christ which was the first Article of Arianism nor was he who is by all called God the Father even a true Person which yet however all have ever acknowledged But if he ever was a true Person and Father then first as to him the Term is elder than Patripassianism and I demand a good reason why the Eternal Word is not as much and as true a Person also especially if he be the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father For otherwise the Father and the Son will be of Dignities specifically different if one be of a personal and the other of impersonal Character tho' how a real Son can be a thing really impersonal I cannot conceive and then be that allows no more distinction but only this that one is not the other tacitly denying the relative distinction between Father and the Son doth really deny both the Father and the Son When these Words were orally delivered at Warmister I observed them to my self but looked on it as a slip only of an extemporary speaking but when I see it also after the last concoction delivered from the Press I suspect somewhat more than should be I am sure the Dictate is rotten and tacitly imports a renunciation of our Christianity § 8. And yet after all so great is the force of Truth that it will maintain its Evidence even in the Tongues and Pens of its Adversaries For though some part of his Lordship's Doctrines denies the Personality yet others unwittingly concede it For first of all when he calls the Trinity the Blessed Three not daring to say Persons the Character of Blessed doth import a Peal Personality For whether it be taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of God's essential Happiness or in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the objects of our religious Praises yet if the Three are either or both ways Blessed they must be Persons For among created Beings none are internally or effectually blessed but what are Personal but if any Man will cavil and say that God in the Creation blessed things Impersonal and promised such Blessings also in the Mosaical Covenants it is enough to reply That these Blessed Three are uncapable of those lower forms of Benediction and must have a Divine Blessedness if they are of a Divine Nature Now his Lordship will not say that these are Three Distinct Blessed Essences and he says they are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes so that he cannot with consistence call them three Blessed Names Oeconomies or Modes and then what can he or any one else conceive by Three Blessed but Three Blessed Persons For though it may be truly said that the highest Blessedness is that of Essence yet none but a Person or Persons can be essentially Blessed So that his Lordship asserting a Blessed Three must against his will yield them to be three Persons really distinct though not divide And so when he says that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself this Pronoun himself is expresly Personal and so either the Personality is Real or his Lordship very unaccurate in attributing a Personal Pronoun to every one of the Three and so is at his choice either unaccurate or self-contradictory or heretical or for the sake of a blessed Comprehension all together § 9. Let us now consider his Lordship's proper Tradition of this third Opinion or perhaps his own under the Colour of that for 't is not easie to find him This saith he is in general the Sum of the Received Doctrine that in God's undivided Essence there are Three really different from each other that are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes But here is not one word of Persons though asserted by the whole Catholick Church by our own Articles and Liturgies which his Lordship has sworn his unfeigned Assent and Consent to and is by his Station bound to defend and for which he has the great example of his late Metropolitan What latent Ulcer is the Cause of this tergiversation I cannot exactly tell but something there must be at the bottom But since this being matter
but only in the Humanity if one could see his inside since he * 45. That Divine Person in whom dwelt the Eternal Word c. makes the Manhood it self a Person distinct from the Eternal Word that dwelt therein and instead of confuting †P. 32. helps those Criticks that place their first Conceptions of the Sonship in the Humanity and as to the Union he is so ambiguous that he tells us not whether the Father and the Holy Spirit came into this resulting Personality or no only saying without any peculiar restriction that God and Man became one Person thus leaving a latitude for various Heresies in this Mystery § 11. So much then for the Personality Advance we next to the Deity of the Messias * P. 40. We believe saith he that Christ was God by vertue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him The Jews could make no Objection to this who knew that their Fathers had worshipped the Cloud of Glory because of God's resting upon it And this he lays as a foundation on which he may properly Deifie Christ's Humane Nature But this Jewish Doctrine is absolutely false and is but either an heedless or willfull Depravation of the Learned Dr. Whithy's chast and accurate * Tractat. de ver Jes Christ Deitat p. Theories herein To make which appear in its proper visage let us consider what Worship is in the sense of his Lordship with whom it imports †Lord of Sarum P. 38. not only Incurvation of Body which may be paid to Creatures but Acts of Faith and Trust Prayers and Praises c. Now will his Lordship stare me or any Man in the face and say that the Jews did thus Worship the Cloud of Glory This I think will be routed by one Syllogism whatsoever the Jews worshipped according to the Law was God The Cloud of Glory was not God Ergo the Jews did not Worship the Gloud of Glory I take it for granted that this Syllogism is impenetrable and let his Lordship try his skill upon it if he please It is indeed agrecable to truth and learned Men teach that Isreal worshipped God in the Cloud over the Ark in the Temple as in all the Symbols and Places of his especial Presence but the Symbols or Places themselves were not the Objects of the Jewish Adoration though Papists bend this to the Adoration of the Host And as simple as the Fathers are they can inform his Lordship †Just Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. ad ista Psalm 24. Quis est Rex Gloriae Dominus Exercitumm c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that every Man whatsoever will own that in Psalm 24. neither Solomon nor the Tabernacle or Ark of the Testimony was the King of Glory which they adored Yet that his Lordship's Concelts may have fair usage I am content to lay together all that he has said to this purpose to try whether they are in truth sound or adulterated or whether they can bear a fair Tryal He therefore teaches †P. 36. that 't is evident from several forms of expressing that Cloud of Glory that a constant and immediate visible Indwelling of the Jehovah was according to Scripture Phrase said to be Jehova which was applied to nothing else This the Greek render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Term the Apostles universally applying to our Saviour could mean no other but that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect dwelling of the Deity in him c. Now here are two great Absurdities first that the visible Indwelling of the Jehovah is in Scripture phrase called Jehova and secondly that this Name was applied to nothing else For first 't is he that dwelt between the Cherubims in a symbol of Glory over the Ark first in the Tabernacle after in the Temple is called Jehovah not his very Habitation 'T is the Title of the Resident not the Residence and so his Lordship himself applies it also in contradiction either to himself or the Scripture if he expounds it rightly That which perhaps led his Lordship into this fancy is that Shechinah Grammatically signifies Habitation and is thence taken by the Rabbins in a sense peculiarly sacred for the Majestick Presence of God between the Cherubims c. and that he takes to be called Jehova But his Lordship was not at leisure to apprehend that the Rahbinick use has turned the Grammatical notation of Habitation that is but an accident and made it to import that substantial Light and Glory the Symbol of the Divine Presence the Scripture word Glory and the Rabbinick Term Shechinah being equivalent For the Rabbins by Shechinah mean not mere presence but that Lucid Glory by which God presentiated himself But if his Lordship will excuse this unacouracy and say That This Glory is called Jehova in the Scripture yet this is also false and will not serve his turn For this Shechinah is called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Glory of Jehovah and God is called †Psal 24. the King and * Act. 7.2 God of Glory with relation to the Shechinah yet no Man will change the terms Glory of Jehovah thus The Jehovah of Jehovah or the God or King of Glory into this form The God or King of Jehovah which yet might be done if Jehova were the name of that Glory When Moses asked Jehovah to see a greater and more Majestatick Glory of the Divine Presence and that Jehovah made his Glory to pass by Exod. 33.18 21 22. The Glory is plainly distinguished from the Jehovah For Moses would not pray thus O Jehovah shew me thy Jehovah nor would the Jehovah say my Jehovah shall pass by Jehovah therefore was not the mere Shechinah either God's Habitation or the Cloud of Glory but he that presentlated himself therein And hence the ritual Worship of Israel though performed toward that Cloud was yet performed not to it but to him whose Majesty so appeared in or by it Nor does this Symbol adequately come up to the Mystery of the personal Union for God's inhabiting in a Cloud of Glory did not make a personal Union between God and the Cloud as the in habitation of God in Christ Humane Nature being of an higher and more intimate and unitive Connexion did which yet however doth not really turn our Nature in Christ into Deity except we will go over to Eutychianism and a confusion of Substance nor do we adore his Humanity as so Deified but we Worship the Eternal Son of God united to and mediating for us in our Nature § 12. But whereas his Lordship has out-pitched all Mortals in saying That in Scripture Phrase Jehova never imports any thing else but a constant and visible immediate Inhabitation which has been sufficiently baffled in the precedent Section I will adventure to advance and say that in the Scripture the word Jehovah is used for God without any imaginable respect to such a Shechinah In the Book of Job it is
a Creature St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expresly written and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors So that his Lordship's Observation though never so well intended is however partly false and partly impertinent And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it it will amount to no more than this That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature because he whom the Christians worshipp'd in our flesh was by them owned to be the Eternal God Yet no doubt the Jews ever did and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature who really as they think had no Deity in him else had they also thought him to be God they had been ipso facto converted to us the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine So unlucky is his Lordship even in the fairest part of this Discourse as if God had laid this Curse on him that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum c. PART II. § 1. I Have now I think performed my first undertaking that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith A truth so evident to his own Clergy even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities that they ascribe all or seem willing so to do to haste inconsideration and want of judgment not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse I cannot tell but at the best they are but Fig-leaves For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor first uttered to a learned Body and after exposed to the Censure of the World in a matter most fundamental in Christianity most liable to prejudices and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith with their unaccuracies and impertinencies and this not in their particular and private conceptions which the Church hath not authorized but in their most Catholick and established Theories Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men and not to have needed the Candor of a Reader § 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality that 't is not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character The Fathers it is true were Men and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these not with a design to blacken their memory but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions he had dealt very commendably But it falls out quite otherwise For he Taxes them for no real obliquities but their Catholick Principles fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamed of and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them he gives them not so much as one good word but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Bablers which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresie I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England Sure I am as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith so modesty ought to have repressed it if for no other consideration yet for this one reason That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers § 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies which he introduces thus by telling his Clergy that †P. 31. he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood and in what respect these Persons which he calls so according to custom not his own sense are believed to be one and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any other Account of it is to take away its mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible Now what doth this prima facie intimate but that it is not laid down in the Scripture in what respect the Persons are one nor in what respect they are Three But first in the Doctrine of Unity I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence notwithstanding all the wriggles of Hereticks not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7 which his Lordship has exposed * Letter I from Zurich for doubted but in many others And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity I will adventure the proof of it But if his Lordship be not so hardy then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip not a designed Artifice Let it be so yet is it a dangerous one and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction to the service of heretical Comprehensions The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One. This saith he is Scripture * Antap. p. 5. but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not What is this fetch for but that we may not press the Heretick's to own an essential Unity but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith But secondly his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three according to the Scriptures which do instruct us herein with certain notions and respects by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence For are not Father and Son Personal Characters and founded on a substantial generation the Father being the Person Generant as such and the Son the Person generated as such And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind and as such distinguished from its Parent The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and
of fire generating fire in it self brought by †Hilar. De Trinit l. 7. Affert autem pro parte sidei hujus signisicationem ignis in se ignem habens in igne iguis manens Nam cum sit in eo splendor luminis naturae calor virtus urendi mobilitas aestuandi totum tamenignis est haec universa una natura est Quaero itaque nunc utrum divisio ac separatio cum ignis ex igne est Aut nunquid abscinditur natura ne maneat aut non sequitur ne insit cum accenso Lumine ex Lumine per quendam quasi Nativitatis profectum naturae nulla defectio sit tamen sit lumen ex lumine Aut nunquid hoc non manet in eo quod ex sese sine defectione subsistit Aut hoc non inest in eo unde non recisum est sed cum unitate substantiae naturalis exivit Et quaero an non unum sint cum lumen ex lumine nec divisione separabile sit nec genere naturae Et haec ut dixi ad intelligentiam sidei tantum comparata sunt non etiam ad Dei dignitatem Sed quia simpliciorum fidem furor haereticus turbaret ut id de Deo credi non oporteret quod difficile nisi per corpoream comparationem possit intelligi St. Hilary to illustrate the Homoousion with an excuse for its singularity and indignity to which he was forced hereby to succour the Faith of the plainer and simpler sort of People against the tricks of the Hereticks who endeavoured to shake their Faith by objecting to them the difficulty of its conception which he thought fit to be helped by corporeal comparisons But note he is so far from the Simile of two separate Candles or Fires or Lights that his Discourse runs altogether against them and so in his judgment these separate Lights are no proper or safe or congruous representations or originals for the received Light of Light § 7. But here it is absolutely necessary that I examine what his Lordship ordered to be sent me for his Defence in this particular This was a passage in Tertullian's Apologetick ch 21. Ita de Spiritu Spiritus de Deo Deus ut Lumen de Lumine accensum Manet integra indefecta materiae radix so I suppose his Lordship read out of Dr. Whitby etsi plures inde traduces qualitatum mutuens In this imperfect Segment I will only translate what is intended for this purpose of his Lordship viz. So is Christ or the Verbum Spirit of Spirit and God of God as Light kindled from Light Now supposing this place exactly full to his Lordship's design I ask is this Doctrine true or false good or bad If true and good why is Tertullian said among many other Fathers to have fallen into this Conceit To fall into conceits is an expression for giddiness and error not for Judgment and the discerning of great and true Mysteries How has Tertullian gone beyond due bounds if this be canonical Theology But if this Doctrine be false and bad let his Lordship anathematize it and the Catholick Church together that ever owned it But further supposing this still to be the Simile of two Candles whether good or bad yet this is but one Author not a Father not every where sound or constant to himself in these Theories and this is but one place which if a reproachful one yet ought not to affect the reputation of many Fathers as frequently guilty of the same except those other many Fathers and their frequent use thereof be produced against them Again supposing still this to be a Simile of fire yet how can his Lordship prove that it intends two separate fires why not fire or flame or light in and from the same original fire without division or separation like the late adduced Simile of St. Hilary Since what went before and shall be by and by inserted brings the inseparability of the Logos under the representation of this Simile But after all this is not a Simile of Candles or common separate fires but only of the Sun and its Ray. For thus runs the whole Simile Etiam cum Radius ex Sole porrigitur portio ex summâ sed Sol erit in Radio quia solis est Radius nec separatur substantia sed extenditur Ita de Spiritu Spiritus de Deo Deus sicut lumen de lumine accensum Manet integra indefecta Materiae Matrix etsi plures inde traduces qualitatum mutuer is Ita quod de Deo profectum est Deus est Dei Filius unus ambo Ita de Spiritu Spiritus de Deo Deus modulo alterum non numero gradu non statu fecit à matrice non recessit sed excessit iste igitur Dei Radius ut retro semper praedicabatur delapsus in virginem quandam c. Which I will endeavour to translate to the taste of the Reader Even when the Ray is dilated from the Sun it is a portion taken from the Principal but the Sun will still be in or within the Ray because it is the Ray of the Sun neither is his Substance separated by the Ray but only extended So the Word is Spirit of Spirit and God of God like Light kindled from Light The Original of the Substance or Matter remains entire and unimpaired though you receive from it many derivations of qualities So also that which proceeded from God is God and the Son of God and both are One. So also he that is Spirit of Spirit and God of God is another from his Original by Mode not by Number by Order not by Nature and he departed not away from his Original but only proceeded Wherefore this Ray of God as he was ever in past Ages preached descending into a certain Virgin c. Here the beginning enters and the end concludes with that Simile of the Ray which title of the Logos was ever before acknowledged and there is no other The substance of the Simile and Similatum are both in themselves undivided and so parallel the first Ita joyns the immediate consequents to the Simile of Sun and Ray immediately foregoing and repeated in the Lumen de Lumine accensum within the same period as it is or should be pointed And all the other Ita's coming after with vehement elegancy look back to this Simile with which at last the whole Theory is concluded in these words Iste igitur Dei Radius This I think as clear as if written with the very Sun-beams Ay! but if this Lumen de Lumine be not Candle of Candle how comes accensum to be used which does not agree to the Emission of the Sun Rays No What not by a Metaphor or a light and acute Catachresis May not a Man say Radii de Sole accensi as well as Lumen de Lumine accensum Rays kindled from the Sun as Light kindled from Light
necessary that they should be but two Modes of thinking This being premised our cogitations and reasonings are acts of a free Principle but our animal Operations are necessary But what is this to the Theory of the Divine Nature For these contrarieties of Operations proceed from the composition of contrary Substances Soul and Body whereas the Deity is most simple and uncompounded and consequently cannot be represented by any compositum whatsoever especially a compound of contraries Well! but necessary Operations of the animal Life seem to be from some Emanations from our Souls Very well and do these seeming Emanations represent an Idea of the Emanations of the second and third Person I doubt not for those in the Deity are but two but these of our Souls on our Bodies if they were Emanations as they are not are very manifold But if they be representative Emanations why then his Lordship here goes beyond due bounds in being pleased with the Notions and Similes of Emanations or else these Notions are regular and then why are the Fathers taxed for exorbitancy in them But if these Emanations of the animal life are not representative why are they brought in here under the term of Emanations to make us believe them representative of the Divine Emanations So much then for a Dyad representative Now a Kingdom for a third Well then we have in acts of Memory Imagination and Discourse a mixture of both Principles i. e. free and necessary or a third that results out of them As for his mixtures I leave them purely to himself but for his third resulting Principle I am to seek For it must be a Principle that is neither free nor necessary and such a one is hard to be got for love or money but however that a Principle neither free nor necessary should result from two whereof one is free and the other necessary will I doubt bring his Lordship of mere necessity to the terms of a contradiction how uncontradicted soever he affects to be § 19. Advance we now from the old Similes of the Fathers to the Theology it self represented by them Now it is not a novel Observation or Fancy as his Lordship snearingly suggests but the ancient internal Catholick and substantial Wisdom of the Faith that the * Iren. l. 2. c 47. Deus enim cum sit totus Mens totus Ratio totus Spiritus operans c. Octav. ap Minuc Foelic Quid aliud à nobis Deus quam Mens Ratio Spiritus praedicatur Greg. Naz. ad Patr. cum Eccl. Naz. ipsi permisit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil lablorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Graec. Inlid Ser. 2. de Principio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three adorable Persons in the Godhead are an Eternal and Substantial Mind Reason and Holy Spirit Now to avoid all cavil and equivocation it is not unnecessary that I state the exactest Notions of the Fathers in these Terms of their Theology For that the words being of very various and involved significations in common use will be liable to easie mistakes in this profound and critical Theory especially when Readers shall discover sometimes the same terms to be promiscuously used for different Persons § 20. I begin therefore with that of Mind This most properly and primitively signifies the noetick or intellectual Principle in all rational Beings the Spring the Fountain the Original of those intellectual Graces and Perfections that are found in such Spiritual Natures But by an easie Trope it is also very commonly used in all sorts of Writings for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Conceptions Counsels Sentiments Propensions and Resolves of the Mind as were it necessary might be shewn in infinite instances But thirdly there hath been a Philosophick and Artificial Sense of the word of a more late invention setting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Minds for single Spirits Now the exact Notion of Mind as the first Principle in the Deity is the first of these the proper and the Primitive as it is the Original of God's Essential Reason and Holy Spirit Now according to this exact and canonical Notation the term Mind is not only an Essential but a Paternal and Producent Character so that speaking with canonick accuracy we cannot say that there are three Minds for this is directly to assert three Fathers and by consequence three Sons or Logoi and so likewise three Holy Spirits since every such Mind must have its Reason and Spirit of which it is and must be a natural and necessary original To assert three Minds in the sense of Spirits is directly to assert three Gods it being the same thing and as irregular to say there are in the Deity three Spirits as three Gods But if we will take the term equivocally in different Senses then we find some Fathers calling not only * Athenag Leg. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at prius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil quod dixerat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic forte intelligendum illud p. 110. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. ad Autolyc p. 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Protrep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Strom. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de codem Logo the Father the Mind in distinction from the Logos but the Logos also tropically by the name of Mind as being the essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Reason of the Father of the same Essence and therefore in respect of that Essence loosly called by the same name according perhaps to the Pattern and Language of Plato the Philosophick Ancients using this homonymy according to the tast of the Platonick Philosophers which were of so great credit among the Greeks whom our Worthies cited as of Authority with the Gentiles in their Apologeticks in order to their more easie conversion And yet neither in this laxer acception or comprehensiveness have I ever read among our Ancients the assertion of three Minds For using the term mind in an essential Notion only not a paternal the assertion of three Minds would have looked like three Essences § 21. But though we have sufficiently proved our Doctrine not to be a novel whimsie but a Primitive and Catholick Tradition yet will I prove its foundations to be really Divine For the Son of God is so called with relation to a Father from whom he derives his proper Subsistence and Character And this Son of God the Father is he whom St. John calls the Logos according to the old Jewish Theology God of God the internal substantial Reason of God the Father in whom or who is the Image of his Father by whom the Father made and governs all things And from hence this hath ever been the avowed Faith of all the * Iren. l. 1 c. 1. l. 2. c. 55. l. 3. c. 18. l. 4. c. 14. c. 28. c. 37. c. 75. l. 5. c. 6 Just Martyr Apol. 2. Dial.
cum Tryph. Clem. Alex. Protrep Tertull Praesc adv Jud. con Marcion l. 2. con Prax. Novatian de Trinit Euseb Praep. Ev. l. 7. c. 15. con Marcell l. 2.17 Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 2. Panegyrista Paulini ap Eus Eccl. Hist l. 10. Constant ad Sanctor Caetum ap Euseb c. 9. Pastor Hermae l. 3. Similit 9. Athenag Legat. Theoph. ad Autolyc Orig. con Cels l. 1. l. 2. l. 3. l. 4. l. 5. l. 6. l. 7. de Princip l. c. 2. Cypr. de Idol Vanit Basil con Eunom l. 5. Serm. in Princip Naz. de sacr Pasch Prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Roman Martyr in Apotheof Greg. Thaumat ad Origen Athan. ubique Pseudo-Ambros de fide con Arian Aug. con 5. Haeres in Evan. Joh. c. 1. Tract 1 2. de Tempor Ser. 190. infinities plura reperies ejusdem generis apud omnes Primitive as well as suceeding Ages to be sealed with their Blood and Sufferings and was not a mere upstart project to supply the former Tritheism taught in the more ancient Church Now if according to the common and universal Senses and Notions of all Men the Mind is the Parent and Original of all actual Reason in it then if the Divine Reason be the truest and most Essential Reason the Parent Principle thereof must be the truest and most Essential Mind which Principle of this Reason the Scripture having owned Paternal it follows that God the Father is an Eternal Mind having a coessential Reason for its coessential Issue the perfect Image and Character of its Parent § 22. In the next place let us see whether the Character of the Holy Spirit agrees well to the Substantial Love of God according to the Doctrine of the traduced Ancients Let it then be noted that that Mind in which a vital and consubstantial reason perfectly subsists doth by that reason in one clear intuitive luminous and Archetypal Idea discern all possible Forms Essences Habitudes Powers and Reasons of things and therefore very particularly all the distinctive forms and differences of good and evil From whence there must proceed in such a Mind and Reason a vital and essential Spirit which we in our Language would perhaps call a Principle of Holiness to wit an essential Love of all the Forms and Reasons of Good and therein an essential aversation of all the kinds and degrees of Evil this being but one and the same Spirit having different aspects on different objects Now without such a Spirit of Love and Holiness no being can be perfectly good or happy since perfect goodness as well as happiness consists essentially in love and purity Now the goodness of things must be the proper object of such Love and must be discerned by that actual Reason that contains in it the Idea's of all things possible Whence this Love is as essential to the Deity as Reason and thereupon the Apostle faith †1 Joh. 4.8 that God is Love the suum of which truth is nobly celebrated * Const ad Sanct. Caet ap Eus c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the great Constantine as the Doctrine which he had been taught by the Christian Fathers herein according with the perpetual Theology of God's People who ever acknowledge this Holiness of the Divine Wisdom and Spirit from its constant indication For * Sap. Sal. 1 3 4 5. froward thoughts separate from God and into a malicious Soul Wisdom will not enter nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will fly deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in for Wisdom is a loving Spirit c. § 23. But here again a fresh difficulty arises from the homonymy of terms For St. Paul calling our Lord †1 Cor. 1.24 the Wisdom of God the generality and the exactest of the Fathers follow him in that style and make the Wisdom and Logos to be the same subsistence distinct from the Holy Spirit Some of the Ancients as great as any speaking distinctly * Iren. Theoph. Antiochen p. 81. c. 108.114 distinguish the Logos from the Sophia and make the Sophia the Person of the Holy Spirit and yet again at other times †Theoph. Antioch p. 81. confound the Logos and Sophia for the same second Person the Son * Theoph. p. 81. Tertull whom also they call the Spirit of God the Father Wherefore 't is necessary to our Theory that we remove this Cloud And here we are to distinguish Wisdom into speculative and practical for which distinction there is apparent authority in the Scripture and ground in our own inner Experience Now the Reason of any Spiritual Nature is its formal proper speculative Wisdom but an Holy Spirit and temper of Mind is the practical In this latter sense the forequoted place out of the Apochryphal Wisdom calls the loving Spirit of God or his Spirit of Discipline Wisdom but †Sap. Sal. 7.22 c. elsewhere the same Author Preaches that in Wisdom which is the Artificer of all things there is a Spirit which among other attributes is Holy and loves the thing that is good and is Almighty where the in-existence of the Holy Spirit of Love in that Wisdom the Artificer of all things puts a distinction between this Spirit and Wisdom and so hereby Wisdom in this place as well as by its Character must be the Archetypal Logos or Architectonick Reason of God the Father And hence these ambiguous Fathers seem to have copied their Theories and Language sometimes calling the Logos Wisdom to wit the intuitive sometime the Holy Spirit as the practical Wisdom of God the Father And so there are learned Men that ground the alledged homonymy of the Word Spirit in some forms of Scripture But I that think the Scripture as a Rule for Canonick Theology thinking it unsafe to fix any exorbitant Senses on the Terms expressive of the Trinity without absolute necessity am apt to think those Fathers called the Logos the Spirit of God sometimes through some Scriptures by them so mistaken or appearing in that sense to them under a loose and general Notion that whatsoever issues from the Essence of God the Father so issues by a Spiritual Efflux or else is of a Spiritual Substance as the Father is and so as Tertullian calls the Logos Spirit of Spirit and God of God But since all these Fathers expresly own a Trinity of Persons the third of which is signally characterized by the appropriate Title of Holy Spirit there can be no doubt of the consonancy of their Faith to the Catholick Doctrine and to this Theory of it in the Holy Spirit which to serve his Lordship I am here to illustrate § 24. These Bars being thus removed we shall proceed to examine on what ground this Substantial Love of God is called by the name of Spirit Now this
the Spirit of God does also illustrate the potential Notion for the more pure and unmixt any Powers are the more quick and spirituous are their Faculties and Operations from which invigorating influences of God's Holy Spirit we are not only sanctified but made fervent in Spirit Rom. 12.11 and strengthened in our inner Man Eph. 3.16 and armed against the Powers of Evil Eph. 6.17 to mortifie the deeds of the Body Rom. 8.13 and to abound in hope through the Power of the Holy Ghost Rom. 15.13 This is the mighty Spirit that acted Elias this was that Spirit that made Jeremy a defenced City and an Iron Pillar and brazen Walls against the whole Land c. Jer. 1.18 19. and supported all the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs against all the Powers of Hell and this World And yet by what influence but that of the Divine Holiness and Love by which they were not only inspired but inspirited with such holy ardours and rapturous affections of God as made them to despise and triumph over all Oppositions and to tread upon the Adder and Scorpion and all the Power of the Enemy Now if this be nor true Doctrine I desire his Lordship to refute it if it be let him forbear to flout the Ancients that taught the Holy Spirit to be Love § 25. But as I have here given a consuetudinary and canonical account of this Title from common and sacred Language so will I endeavour to add an Etymological The Word Spirit then in all our learned Languages is derived from Verbs of breathing or blowing and so primitively signifies a Breath or Gale of Air which seeming to common apprehensions the most subtil agil and penetrating of all sublunary Elements its name was therefore for want of another more suitable applied to immaterial Substances Principles and active Powers especially plastick and animant by way of eminent distinction from gross matter and passive dulness Now such immaterial and subtil Powers exert their Operation by at least a seeming spiration of influences And the moral Principles of the Mind proceed internally from it * Athan. ad Serap Sp. S. non esse Creatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were by an odorous form of Spiration grateful unto it self and God the Author when good and inspired from above for a sweet savour And such a Notion the Apochryphal Wisdom of Solomon gives us of the Divine Wisdom as including in it the †Ch. 7. v. 25. Spirit of God For it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the breath of the Power of God and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Efflux of the glory of the Almighty And Job's Friend Elihu seems to have taken the Spirit of God as a Virtue or Principle in the Deity that gave him and all Men life by a spirant Operation the Spirit of God hath made me and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Breath of the Almighty hath given me life Job 33.4 referring to the Tradition thus recorded in Gen. 2.7 that God breathed into Man the Breath of Life of which * Symbol Constantinop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we own his Spirit to be Lord and Giver But as to sanctifical Operations on created Spirits and Minds it is universally acknowledged that the Spirit of God exerts them by a Divine manner of Inspiration So that I conclude that Etymologically the Spirit of God is so called as being derived from the Father and the Son by an unconceivable manner of internal Spiration of Love essential and as inspiring into all Beings their proper Virtues and Powers by an invigorating stream of influences especially in the sanctifying Operations on our Minds by which new and holy Spirits are created in us § 26. Now lest this Spirit of Love and Holiness in the Divine Nature should be reputed Personal from its Personal Descriptions in Holy Writ some have fansied it to be a mere unsubstantial and impersonal Quality in God the Father only personated only by Trope and Figure But against these it is to be noted that he is the Spirit of the Son also and so for that cause even upon this Hypothesis the Son must be God with the Father But further there being no possible imperfection in the Deity it can admit of no unsubstantial Qualities for as they are imperfections in themselves so do they suppose an imperfection in their Subjects whether adorned or vilified by them If therefore there be a permanent Spirit of Holiness in the Deity it must be perfect and for that cause substantial And this Substantiality is the ground of that Personality which we attribute to the Father Son and Holy Spirit according to the order and measure of our Conceptions without the help of any Socinian Metonymy or Prosopopaeia according to †Aug. in Ev. Joh. c. 17. Tract 105. Spiritus est Patris Filii tanquam charitas substantialis consubstantialis amborum the Catholick and Primitive Theology asserted by St. Austin § 27. But to evade this Truth there were * See Didym de Sp. S. Hereticks of old as well as of late that fell in with the Rabbins and made the Holy Spirit a mere Operation or an effluent Virtue not in God but without and from the Deity terminated in us which †See his Book de Spirit Sancto Crellius every where calls a middle quality between the essential Power of God and its more manifest effects to which middle quality he much like his Master Socinus says Personal Attributes are given by a Metonymy or a Prosopopaeia arising sometimes from a Metonymy of the effect which is this Spirit for the efficient which is God whose Person this effected Spirit or middle Quality figuratively bears or from a Metonymy of the Adjunct which is this effected Spirit for its divinely inspired Subject whose Person also this Spirit in like manner sometimes doth sustain For the Confirmation whereof he quotes Exod. 31.3 and 35.31 comparing therewith Exod. 28.3 and 35.35 Numb 24.2 and 27.18 Deut. 34.9 Judg. 3.10 and 6.34 and 11.29 and 13 25. and 14.19 and 15.14 1 Sam. 10.6 10. and 11.6 and 16.13 14 c. and 18.10 and 19.9 20 23. 1 King 18.12 and 22.24 1 Chr. 12.18 and 28.12 2 Chron. 15. 1. Job 33.4 Psal 51.11 12. Esa 44.3 and 63.11 proofs enough one would think in all Conscience § 28. But supposing that all these Texts had denoted a Principle created or instilled into us yet here is no Personal Representation thereof whereas it was to be proved that the Spirit of God in those Texts that Characterize him Personally is a mere created Quality in us and that it is no where otherwise never any virtue essential to God For we need not deny that the Holy Spirits and Principles inspired by and from the Substantial Spirit of God into us may sometimes derive the Name as well as the Nature of that their Original and the most Catholick Divines concede it but where the Original Spirit of God
is distinguished from and asserted the Author of those Operations and Graces there the Spirit cannot be those very Operations or Graces produced by them as those middle Virtues and Qualities must be See 1 Cor. 12.1 to 12. 2 Thess 2.13 1 Pet. 1.2 Gal. 5.22 Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. 1 Joh. 5.7 In which last the Holy Spirit is said to be in Heaven and consequently can be no middle Quality in us and yet in Heaven personally distinct from the Father and the Word which I take to be a good Argument from a good Authority in despite of Hereticks and defective Libraries to which I could add very many more were it necessary But the truth is the Texts alledged by Crellius do not all manifestly denote by the Spirit of God a mere created Virtue or Quality but may except some few to be by and by considered denote the essential Spirit of God supervening upon Men and creating in them the Spirits of Wisdom Vigour Prophecy Life c. And particularly where Elihu Job 33.4 saith the spirit of God hath made me he implies the prae-existence of that Spirit before himself and so not after effected in him being indeed a Virtue operant not operated but a precedent cause of the Operation it self And though according to the literal form of the Hebrew the evil Spirit that troubled Saul is called the Lords evil Spirit 1 Sam. 16.15 16 23. and 18.10 and 19.9 yet this may denote not a divine Operation surely which is not evil but a wicked infernal Personal Spirit the Lictor or Carnifex which God sent to punish him But if we keep to Crellius's Notion and let the evil Spirit here be a Quality effected in Saul it must be from some inspiring Agent which the Quality being evil cannot be God and so must be an evil Spirit of darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 16.14 sent from the Lord. And if so how can it be evinced that the Term evil Spirit does not denote the Person of the Evil Angel but only the effect of his infernal Operation And as to the Spirit of Wisdom with which God had filled some Persons for making the Priests habits c. Exod. 28.3 it appears not to be that effected Wisdom it self but the Divine Principle efficient thereof from Exod. 31.1 Where God says he had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God in Wisdom and Understanding c. where the filling Power i. e. the Spirit of God is distinguished from its effect i. e. that Wisdom and Understanding inspired by the Spirit of God into him And that Spirit of God producent of that Wisdom Exod. 31.3 might well be called the Spirit of that Wisdom which it produced as likewise Esa 11.2 So that in all these places I am verily perswaded that the Spirit of God signifies not a mere Divine Operation nor a mere Virtue divinely operated but a Principle and Substantial Power operant But that the Term Spirit of God may be sometimes put for the Grace effected thereby nay and that actions of Subjects are many times elegantly attributed to their Adjuncts as it may also happen to the effect for the efficient I shall not gainsay but such mere Metonymies do not presently exhibit a formal Prosopopoecia of those Adjuncts or Effects without other technical Schemes such as usually appear in Poetick or Dramatick fancies not in serious Prose plain Discourse didactick Institutions especially in the Simple Catechetical and Inartificial Rules of Faith delivered by Christ and his Apostles Besides with Poets and other Painters personated Qualities put on the feminine Veil Face and Sex but Christ describes his Holy Spirit * Joh. 14.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 16.13 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita 15.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as a Masculine Person when he calls him Paraclete with a Personal Pronoun He to shew him as it were exactly both in Nature and Person Where as Bishop Pearson well observes on Joh. 16.13 14 c. upon the Article of the Holy Ghost those personal Attributes of the Spirit can be by no means applied to God the Father nor to the Apostles by any Metonymy whatsoever according to the Socinian pretention But further that supreme Spirit of God is only one which yet by manifold Operations creates many kinds of Virtues which therefore are plurally called Spirits 1 Cor. 12.10 1 Cor. 14.32 § 29. Now to break off this blow Crellius coins a double sort of Unity for the Holy Spirit One generical consisting in this that all such Spirits how numerous and various soever are yet of one Genus of Spirit as all individual Bodies and sorts of Bodies are included in one Genus of Body But such Unity is but merely notional and uncapable of individual Acts and Offices which yet are ascribed to the one Holy Spirit For when †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the self same Spirit is said to distribute all gifts according as he will it is manifest that many single and many sorts of Graces are given by the will of one only Spirit individually One. For individual and actually existent effects must be the products of individual and actually existing Cause or Causes not from mere Genus and Species which are not the subjects of Historical Relations For it cannot be said of Substance or Body in general that one and the self same Substance or Body produces all Physical effects in the material World nor of Man in Specie that one and the self same Man performs all the Acts and Offices that are done by all and every single Man Nor is Genus and Species capable of Personal Unities and Distinctions But now the Apostle distinguishes both the Operations and Effects of one and the self same Spirit both from themselves and that Spirit not only numerically but specifically and yet asserts them the products * 1 Cor. 12. of one and the self same Spirit one and the self same Lord one and the self same God shewing at least the Unity of the Spirit to be such and the same as is the Unity of the Lord and God which must be therefore most perfectly Individual But if each particular Divine Inspiration or it s produced Graces had been so many distinct Holy Spirits of God in themselves since there are such multitudes and multiplicities of them there was no reason why in the same breath he should assert them many and manifold and yet but one operant Spirit only which therefore must be distinct from them as the Cause from the effect as the Author from the product and as the Donor from the gift § 30. His second sort of Unity is that of Origine by which he pretends the Spirit to be called One because though infinitely manifold or divisible in it self yet it proceeds from one God and in this respect may be called One But neither will this last fit For the Terms one and the self same are too narrow and express a closer
Unity and cannot be applied to innumerable particulars that are only of one Original For all particular Men cannot be said to be one and the self same Man which performs all humane actions that are because all Men originally descend from one Father Adam Nor can all the Israelites be said to be one and the self same Israelite that destroyed the Canaanites because they all descended from one Father Israel Nor can all the Socinians be called one and the self same Socinian that wriggles himself into a thousand tricks and turnings because they all descended from one Doctor or Father Faustus for I will not meddle with Laelius But in truth if there had been a vast number of the Holy Spirits of God and these but mere Qualities to which Personal Names Pronouns and Predicates are so often attributed in the singular number of one Holy Spirit on the score of a mere generical or originary Unity why do we never plurally read of many such Holy Spirits of God so personated according to this invention with an open acknowledgment of their Plurality and sometimes of their Impersonality but only of one such Holy Spirit under such Personal Titles and Descriptions Or why had not the Article of the Holy Spirit in the Greeds been always taught and professed according to this pretty novel interpretation Since the Church ought to have been taught and dealt with plainly and not tricked into mazes or impieties by Figures Fetches and Sophistries more ambiguous and involved than the Devil's Oracles Nor will the seven Spirits of God in the Revelation help for they are waiting Ministers at the Throne of God not Qualities inspired into us and they are but seven neither a number far too small for the kinds or numbers of inspired Graces We see then that the Wit of Man cannot bear up against the Truth and Wisdom of God And herein our Country-man Biddle was so convinced of * Bid. of the Holy Spirit the errors of his Socinian Fathers that he even scouts them and roundly falls off to the Elder Enemies of the Holy Spirit with whom he passed for a created Person § 31. Hoping then that this may help to convince his Lordship of the Personality of the Holy Spirit of Divine Love I will a little for the sake of others endeavour also to prove the Holy Spirit not to be a created Person This will appear first from all those places in which he is said †Didym de Sp. S. l. 1. ex version Hieron Ipsum quoque Effusionis nomen increatam Spiritus Sancti substantiam probat Neque enim Deus cum Angelum mittit aut aliam creaturam effundam dicit de Angelo meo aut throno aut dominatione to be put or poured out upon Men which is no where spoken of Angels which yet are Spirits ministring to the Heirs of Salvation which argument convinced the Socinians of the Macedonian Error But a Divine Virtue though in its Energies it recede not from God yet because of those influences is it self said and in a manner seems to be poured out upon and communicated to divinely-inspired Souls into which a connatural congenial or consimilar Virtue is thereby infused So the Spirit of God poured out upon all Flesh Joel 2.28 29. is a Virtue substantially intrinsical to the Deity which yet St. Peter testifies to be the same Spirit which acted the Apostles at the Feast of Pentecost Act. 2. and which is celebrated with Personal Titles Pronouns and Attributes Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. And herein also is asserted his omnipresence as also by the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon ch 1. v. 7. The Spirit of the Lord filleth the World and by the Psalmist Psal 139.7 Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence Here the Spirit of God cannot be a middle Virtue inspiring David since this he had no reason to dread or shun and yet all Men by sinning especially by knavery and doubling shun and fly from this Grace too easily Nor are the acts of Divine Vengeance ever called the Spirit of God in the Patient Neither is this Spirit of God here a created Spirit whose Presence cannot be escaped since the Psalmist here only speaks of God's Presence and Power See onward to v. 17. And further * Didym de Sp. S. l. 1. Demonstratur Angelica Virtus ab hoc prorfus aliena Angelus quippe qui aderat verbi gratia Apostolo in Asia oranti non poterat simul eodem tempore adesse aliis in caeteris partibus constitutis Vid. praeced seq praed Athanas omnino Disp con Arium though one created Angel can follow one single or more sociated Men wheresoever we can suppose one way for their flight yet one single Angel cannot at once follow or be present to all Men in all their Dispersions which omnipresence however all Men ought to own in the Spirit of God Now if any Man shall urge that the Words thy Spirit are put for thee as my Spirit for I Gen. 6.3 The same Psalmist's same words in a full literal intention Psal 51.11 Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me must interpret our present Text without a circumlocution as many others will that of Gen. 6.3 And yet admitting a Figure or Trope it represents the Spirit of God as God which is what I contend for as being internal to the Divine Mind Esa 40.13 14. With this Omnipresence he hath also a Divine Empire by which he distributes all the Divine Graces to whom and as he will every where 1 Cor. 12.11 All which put together doth more fully set forth the Singularity Omnipresence and Supremacy of the Holy Spirit than those mere forms of Speech which as they are attributed to the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of God are also attributed to the Prince of Devils in the Kingdom of Darkness which is Biddle's grand Evasion from our Arguments taken from such sayings that the Spirit dwells in us teaches us c. for these and such like expressions are uttered of the Devil that he deceives the World blinds the Souls of Unbelievers Captivates Impenitents takes away the Word out of the hearts of the Hearers became a lying Spirit in Four Hundred Prophets c. which sayings do not indeed denote the Devil 's Personal Omnipresence to all at once but only that he thus reacheth Men by his Ministers which Biddle would perswade us of the Holy Spirit also but they had certainly denoted a terrestrial Omnipresence if it had been added that there is but one only Evil Spirit and that he alone by his own Personal Operations had thus acted on all wicked Men and that no mortal Man can avoid his Presence and Power none of which is expressed of the Devil and yet if it had his exclusion out of Heaven is asserted also where yet the Holy Spirit of God dwells and shines in essential Glory not to
mention also that the Devil who long time universally tyrannized is yet never said to be poured out upon all Flesh But now the aforesaid Attributes given to the Prince of Devils manifestly set forth his Supremacy in the Kingdom of Darkness and therefore in the Kingdom of God the like Phrases of the Holy Spirit of God must denote his Supremacy therein and by consequence his Deity since God alone is the one Supreme King of that Kingdom and thus our Faith is established firmly against the Macedonians also § 32. Now of what hath been said thus much I believe would be granted by all the Anti-personists that there is in God the Father an essential Reason and Spirit of Sanctity though not personally subsistent For a Person being with them a complete suppositum rationale and intellectual Subject or Being separate and standing single from all others they hold it a contradiction to hold three Persons in one individual Deity § 33. To this I hope to give so just and candid an answer as may embolden his Lordship to joyn in the Litany heartier and to speak clearer next time in his Theological Essays The name Person or whatsoever answers thereto in the learned Languages first of all signifies a Man's Face natural and artificial and thence the whole single Man hence after were the Gods in profane and intellectual Spirits in sacred Writings represented personally and so now the Term Person agrees to all single intelligent Beings by common and inartificial use But we that have no natural Idea of the Modes of Subsistence peculiar to Father Son and Holy Spirit without Divine Revelation cannot without it conceive the form of their Personality So for this we must rest wholly on Divine Revelation And accordingly I would describe a Person for a Theological Term thus whatsoever hath Personal Titles and Characters properly attributed to it by God's Word the same is a Person though we cannot frame an Idea of the form of its Personality And then I can add but the Divine Mind Reason and Holy Spirit have three properly distinguishing Personal Characteristick Titles Father Son and Paraclete to be owned in our avowed Faith and Baptism therefore these three are three distinct Persons though we cannot form a natural Idea of the Mode of their Personality * Aug. de Tempor Ser 189 Ego Personas in Patre Filio Spiritu Sancto non dico quasi personas hominum Personam Patris dico quod Pater est Filii quod Filius est Spiritus Sancti quod Spiritus Sanctus est dividuntur enim proprietatibus sed naturâ sociantur and though yet we are sure they are not separate and disjoyned like three Humane Persons In this mystery therefore the sense of this term is not vulgar nor of common Notion but peculiarly and necessarily Technical For since God hath revealed that in the Unity of his Nature there is one first Principle with two other co-eternally emanant or descendent from him and subsisting individually in him by which he created and governs all things and this under the Personal and Distinctive Characters of Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete and many other Personal Attributes distinctive of their proper Subsistences in the Essential Unity of the Godhead the Term Person fell unavoidably into Canonical use though under a strict care against the vulgar notion of Humane or such like separate Persons and restrained only to the revealed Theories of the Mystery And under this regular limitation I challenge the Art of the World to sind out any one Characteristick Term so fit proper and congruous to denote their formal Personalities ascribed to them in the Scripture as this of Person in which the whole Catholick Church of old unanimously agreed antecedently to any Conciliar Definitions and is therefore of greater Antiquity and Authority than the Greek Hypostasis which though well founded in * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. yet was a while of ambiguous use and interpretation till it was by the help of Athanasius and others canonically adjusted and fixed according to the sense of our Term Person And yet supposing a sensible defect in these Terms Person and Subsistence what modest Man would upbraid the whole Church of God for such an insuperable impotency in Humane Nature which all wise Men perceive and own in their speaking of God after its utmost endeavours cares and consultations upon cogent necessities to fix the terms of our Faith and Doctrine in the best manner possible while yet the Revilers can produce nothing better or equal 'T is certainly an intollerable indecency against the Gravity Duty Care and Right ' of Men that are in Authority of proscribing Doctrines in any Profession what soever for to such certainly it belongs to fit Terms of Art to their Theories as reason shall require as well as they can without the merit or hazard of malevolence and detraction § 34. But because I would fill the thirsty and candid Soul with a satisfying Theory herein I will dig deeper into the grounds of these Personal Characters in the Scriptures and the Traditional Term of Person thence Canonically used First then Personality is a Character only of what is substantial and intellectual as are the Father Son and Holy Spirit the Paraclete who therefore have a good ground of bearing those Personal Titles But tho' these peculiar Titles have this common Basis yet have they their peculiar and formal reasons of Distinction The first Principle of all being called Father from his Eternal generation of the Logos which is called Son from being so eternally generated of the Father's Substance without division or partition thereof And * Con. Arian Orat. 2. here the Father being ever Father never Son and the Logos ever Son never Father St. Athanasius justly as well as sagaciously appropriates these Titles to these Persons in a primary Right and peculiar Excellency above all others since earthly Persons change their Character being one while Sons other while Fathers and Sons other while Fathers only and other while neither The Personal Distinctives of the Holy Spirit are taken from his connatural Operations and Offices which are Personal and the Titles therefore apposite Now that the essential Reason and Spirit of God the Father should each be as equally Personal as the Socinians themselves confess the Father to be will hence appear rational for that they are consubstantial with him and as substantially Divine as that Eternal Mind from and in which they are and live without any inequality in their Nature Perfection or essential Dignity And therefore if one be distinctly Personal so must the others also And therefore the Pronoun He first belonging to God original i. e. the Father as the first Person is properly also communicable to the other Persons each of them deriving their Deity and Personal subsistence from him with peculiar reasons of their proper Personal Characters and Distinctions And hence it was necessary to a just