dislikes those who are for reverencing the Mystery of the Trinity without ever looking into it at all who think it proposed to us only as a Trial and Exercise of our Faith and the more implicit that is the fuller do we express our Trust and Reliance upon God Now if by not looking into it at all he means not enquiring what they are to believe concerning the Trinity nor why they believe it this I acknowledge is a very odd sort of Faith but I believe he cannot name any such men whose avowed Principle this is An Implicit Faith is only meritorious in the Church of Rome but then an Implicit Faith is to believe without knowing what or why but these Ignoramus or Mystery-Trinitarians as some late Socinian Considerers have insolently and reproachfully called them and whom our Author ought not to have imitated never teach such an Implicit Faith as this much less admire the Triumph and Merit of Faith in believing Contradictions and the more the better Under all the appearance of Modesty and Temper these are very severe and scandalous Reflections upon some of the Wisest and Greatest Men amongst us and which this Considerer had little reason for as will soon appear The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the most Fundamental Article of the whole Christian Faith and therefore an explicite Knowledge and Belief of it is essential to the Christian Profession and thus all Protestant Divines teach and whatever Voluminous Disputes there may be about it the true Christian Faith of the Trinity is comprized in a few words and the Proofs of it are plain and easy For the Scriptures plainly and expresly teach us that there is but One God and that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son as I have already explained it This we all teach our people to believe upon the Authority of Scripture which is the only Authority we can have for matters of pure Revelation and expound those Texts to them which expresly contain this Faith and vindicate them from the Cavils and perverse Comments of Hereticks And this I think is not to reverence the Mystery without ever looking into it at all when we look as far as we can till Revelation bounds our prospect And this is to look into it as far as God would have us and as far as is necessary to all the purposes of Religion that is as far as the knowledge of this Mystery is of any use to us Now when this is done there are a great many wise men who think we ought to look into this Mystery no further and there seems to be a very good reason for it viz. because with all our looking we can see no further There are indeed some curious Questions started about reconciling the Unity of God with the belief of a Trinity in which there are Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God for if there be but One God how can there be Three each of whom is True God Now whatever Answer may be given to such kind of Objections and pretended Contradictions these Learned Men think there is no reason to clog the Christian Faith with them nor to disturb the minds of ordinary Christians with such Subtilties That the Authority of God who has revealed this and the acknowledged Incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is a sufficient Answer to all Objections and as ridiculously as a Witty Man may represent this That is the truest Faith not which can believe Contradictions but which can despise the pretence of Contradictions when opposed to a Divine Revelation for that resolves Faith wholly into Divine Authority which is the true Notion of a Divine Faith To say that this will not suppress any of our Doubts or Disputes in Religion is a manifest mistake for such a profound Veneration for the Authority of God would silence them all And whatever is the Natural Propension of the Soul to the search of Truth Natural Reason will tell us that there are a thousand things which we can know nothing of and that it is in vain to search after them but that the Divine Wisdom is unsearchable and therefore God is to be believed beyond our own knowledge or comprehension and when we are agreed about the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation that will silence all our Disputes about what is revealed and set bounds to our Enquiries And I never knew before the danger of submitting our Reason to Faith of a blind resignation of judgment as he is pleased to call it to a Divine Revelation for that is the matter in debate Blasphemies and Contradictions may and have been imposed upon mens Faith under the Venerable Name of Mysteries but such Blasphemies and Contradictions were never revealed in Scripture and therefore belong not to the present Enquiry which only concerns believing what we allow to be revealed without looking any farther into it We allow all men to examine the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation and to examine what is revealed but here we must stop and not pretend to judge of what is revealed by the measures of human Reason which is so inadequate a Rule for Divine and Supernatural Truths This is all very plain and if he will allow the Truth of this he must confess that what he has said upon this first Head is nothing to the purpose It is a very popular thing to decry Mysteries and to cry up Reason but to be very cautiously imitated because it is generally found that such men are either no great Believers or no very deep Reasoners 2. In the next place he tells us of a very strange sort of men who call the Doctrine of the Trinity an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet are at a great deal of pains to bring it down to a level with Human Vnderstanding and are all very earnest to have their own particular Explications acknowledged as necessary Articles of Faith An Incomprehensible Mystery is what Human Reason cannot comprehend to bring an Incomprehensible Mystery down to the level of Human Vnderstandings is to make it comprehensible by Reason and those are notable men indeed who undertake to make that comprehensible by Reason which at the same time they acknowledge to be incomprehensible It is to be hoped this Considerer does a little mistake them Men may be-believe the Trinity to be an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet speak of it in words which may be understood which does not pretend to make the Mystery comprehensible but to deliver it from Nonsense Jargon and Heresy that is not to explain the Mystery which is and will be a Mystery still but to secure the true Christian Doctrine of the Trinity which they desire may continue an Article of the Christian Faith still There are he tells us a third sort of men who are for no Mystery that is the
Latin Fathers nay to the Schoolmen themselves and must be owned by all Men of Sense that esse vivere intelligere sapere velle bonum esse magnum esse c. to be to live to understand to be wise to will to be good and to be great or whatever else we can attribute to the Divine Nature is but unum omnia all one and the same in God I say if it be Objected that the consequence of this is That to say that in this sense of Is the Father Is the Son Is the Holy Ghost Is is equivalent to asserting Three Distinct Substances Minds Spirits Lives Understandings Wills c. in the Trinity I cannot help it St. Austin was never yet charged with Tritheism Let them either deny what St. Austin and the rest of the Fathers teach about this matter and try if they can defend the absolute Sâ—mplicity of the Divine Nature without it or let them deny if they think good that the Father Is the Son Is and the Holy Ghost Is in this Notion of Perfect and Absolute Being or try if they can find such a medium between Perfect Is and is not as can belong to any Being which is True and Perfect God or allow which is the true solution of it that Is and Is and Is Essence and Essence and Essence are but One Eternal Is One Eternal Essence as they are but One God Of which more presently I always was of opinion that these Terms in the plural number ought not to be familiarly used because few Men can conceive of them as they are worthy of God and therefore the Fathers were vâ—ry cautious in using them which they very rarely did but when they were extorted from them by the perverse importunity of Hereticks but I cannot see how it is possible to deny three Selfs or three Is's in the Uâ—ity of the Godhead without denying a Trinity and if each of these Three be himself and not another and each of them Is and Is by himself this is the least we can say of the Ever Blessed Trinity and this is all with respect to their Distinction that we need say of them So that if Father Son and Holy Ghost be so in a true and proper Notion are in truth and reality what these Names of Father Son and Spirit signify That the Father is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a true proper natural Father the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a true proper genuine Son and the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a true proper sense the Spirit of the Father and the Son as the Catholick Fathers always Professed they must be as truly and perfectly Distinct as Father and Son are The only Question then is Whether these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost signify naturally and properly when spoken of the Holy Trinity or are only metaphorical and allusive Names though what they should be Metaphors of is not easy to conceive and as absurd to conceive that there should be any Metaphors in God who is all Perfect Essence and Being The Divine Nature and Perfections which we cannot conceive of as they are may be expressed by Metaphors taken from some thing which is analogous in Creatures upon which account we read of the Hands and Eyes and Ears and Bowels and Mouth of God Creatures may serve for Metaphors for Shadows and Images to represent something of God to us but the reality of all is in God So that we may allow Father and Son in some sense to be Metaphorical Names when applied to God not that God the Father is not in the highest and most perfect sense a Father and his Son a most proper natural genuine Son but because the Divine Generation is so perfect a Communication of the Divine Nature and Being from Father to Son that Human Generations Creature-Fathers and Sons are but obscure imperfect images and resemblances of it When any thing is spoken Metaphorically of God the Metaphor and Image is always in the Creatures the Truth Perfection and Reality of all in God And if this be a certain and universal rule then if God be a Father if he have a Son an only Bâ—gotten Son Begotten Eternally of himself not Made nor Created but Begotten though this Eternal Generation be infinitely above what we can conceive yet it is evident that God the Father is more Properly and Perfectly a Father and his Son more Properly and Perfectly a Son than any Creature-Fathers or Sons are But I think this will admit of no Dispute if we own that God has a Son who is himself True and Perfect God For a Son who is Perfect God is God of God That he is a Son proves that he receives his Nature from his Father for this is Essential to the Notion of a Son That he is Perfect God proves the Perfection of his Generation from the Perfection of his Nature For to be Perfect God of Perfect God is to receive the Whole Perfect Undivided Nature of his Father which is the most perfect Generation that is possible for a Whole to beget a Whole And if God the Father and his Son be Truly and Perfectly Father and Son they must be Truly and Perfectly Distinct That is they are in a proper sense Two and by the same reason Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three And we need no other proof of this but the very Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost if we understand them in a proper and natural Sense SECT V. These Names Father Son and Holy Ghost prove the Unity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead III. THESE Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost as they signify and prove a real Distinction between these Three so they also signify and prove the Unity Sameness Identity of Nature and Godhead Which reconciles the Faith of the Trinity with the Faith of one God The same One Divine Essence and Godhead being and subsisting Whole Perfect and Entire in each of these Divine Three I shall Explain and Confirm this matter more at large hereafter and therefore at present shall only briefly represent this Notion and the reason of it One Eternal Self-Originated Divine Nature is One Divinity and One God and nothing can destroy the Unity of God but what destroys the Unity of the Divine Nature by Division or Multiplication And if this be the true Notion of the Unity of God and if it be not I would desire to know why this is not and what is then the Unity of God may be preserved in Three each of whom is True and Perfect God if the same One Divine Nature or Divinity subsists distinctly in them all And the very Characters and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost do necessarily infer and prove the same One Divinity in them all And therefore the Christian Trinity is so far from contradicting that it establishes the Faith of one God As to explain this in a few words All Christians agree That God whom we call the Father is an
Socinians and I was glad to find them censured and rejected but wonder'd how they came to be numbred among those men who have laboured in this good design of explaining the Trinity and reconciling the Disputes about it Well All these Methods have proved ineffectual let us then to omit other matters enquire what Course our Considerer took to make himself a fit and competent Judge of this Controversy Take the account of it in his own words I have endeavoured to deliver my self from Prejudice and Confusion of Terms and to speak justly and intelligibly And not being yet prepossess'd in favour of any particular Explication the better to preserve my freedom of examining the Subject in hand I have purposely forborn to search the Fathers Schoolmen or Fratres Poloni or read over any later Treatises concerning this Controversy while I was composing the present Essay resolving to consult nothing but Scripture and my own Natural Sentiments and draw all my Reflections from thence taking only such which easily and without constraint offered themselves Thus Des Cartes made a New Philosophy and this is the best way that can be thought of to make a New Faith This has an appearance of great Indifferency and Impartiality but it is a great mistake when men boast in this as a virtue and attainment and an excellent disposition of mind for the Examination of Matters of Faith I never in my life yet saw any one example to the contrary but that when men who had been educated in the Christian Faith and tolerably instructed in the meaning and the reasons of it could persuade themselves to be thus perfectly indifferent whether it were true or false but this indifference was owing to a secret byass and inclination to Infidelity or Heresy It is in vain to pretend such an absolute freedom of Judgment without being perfectly indifferent which side is true or false For if we wish and desire to find one side of the question true and the other false this is a Byass and our Judgment is not equally poiz'd And certainly in matters of such vast consequence as the Christian Faith and especially that great Fundamental Article of the Holy Trinity such an Indifferency as this is can never recommend either an Author or his Writings to sober Christians Will this Considerer then own that it was indifferent to him when he undertook this design whether the Doctrine of the Trinity should upon Examination appear true or false If it were not the Socinians will tell him that he had not preserved a Freedom of Judgment and then he did well in not consulting the Fratres Poloni for he had condemn'd them without hearing or if he were persuaded concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity Was it indifferent to him whether the Sabellian or Arian or True Catholick Notion of a Trinity contained in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds were the True Faith That is Was it indifferent to him whether the Ancient Heresies condemn'd by the Catholick Church or that Faith which the Catholick Church has always own'd and professed be the True Faith For my part I confess I am not thus indifferent I will never shut my eyes against plain Conviction which is all the Freedom of judging which is allowable but my Prejudices are and I hope always will be on the side of the Catholick Faith No wise man can be thus indifferent And we shall find this Considerer was not so very indifferent for the main Principles he reasons on are some Popular Mistakes and Prejudices which he seems to have espoused without due Consideration But let us allow him to be as free and unprejudic'd as he pleases I cannot think that he took a good method to understand this Sacred Mystery He laid aside Fathers Schoolmen and other later Treatises concerning this Controversy and consulted nothing but Scripture and his own natural Sentiments To consult Scripture is indeed a very good way and absolutely necessary in matters of pure Revelation which can be certainly known no other way but the Fathers at least are very good Guides and have very great Authority in expounding Scripture and our Natural Sentiments otherwise called Natural Reason is a very bad a very dangerous Expositor of Scripture in such Supernatural Mysteries and has no Authority in these mattters and how our Considerer has been misled by his Natural Sentiments will soon appear A few words might serve for an Answer to the Considerer but since this is the great Pretence of Socinians and other Hereticks to set up Scripture and Natural Reason against Scripture and the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church and our Considerer and some other unwary Writers chime in with them it will be very necessary to shew how this betrays the Catholick Faith and makes Reason and Criticism the Supreme Judge of Controversy and then men may dispute on without end and believe at last as they please The Considerer tells us I take it for granted in a Protestant Countrey that Scripture is the only Standard of all necessâ—ry Revealed Truths Neither in the present Case is there any room for a Traditionary Faith For besides that all the Fathers and Ancient Writers ground their Exposition of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture I cannot conceive that the Subject is capable of a plainer Revelation as I shall endeavour to shew more fully in the following Discourse What this last Clause means we shall understand better hereafter but his denying a Traditionary Faith is very extraordinary for if we can prove from the most Authentick Records what the constant belief of the Catholick Chuâ—ch has been especially in the first and purest Ages of it This I take to be a Traditionary Faith nor is it the less Traditionary because the Fathers and Ancient Writers sound their Expositions of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture For if this be true then we have a Traditionary Faith of the Trinity and a Traditionary Exposition of the Scripture for the Reason and Proof of that Faith both in one which I take to be a greater Authority and safer Guide than mere Scripture and our Natural Sentiments And though Protestants allow Scripture to be the only Standard of Faith yet he might have remembred that the Church of England requires us to expound Scripture as the Ancient Fathers expound it But this Wholly is a Mistake for the Primitive Fathers pleaded Tradition as well as Scripture against the Ancient Hereticks as two distinct but agreeing Testimonies as this Author might have known would he have been pleased to have consulted Irenaeus and Tertullian de praescriptionibus with divers others What he means by a plainer Revelation I cannot tell it makes it somewhat plainer to know what the Catholick Faith has always been and what the Catholick Interpretation of Scripture has always been which is the plainest and strongest Answer to Wit and Criticism and Natural Sentiments when they contradict this Traditionary Faith But to discourse this matter more particularly I shall
several Individuals we form a Notion of one common Nature which belongs to them all as the Notion of Humanity or Human Nature which belongs to all men and affords a common Name and a common definition to them But this is only the work of the mind for there is no such one common Human Nature actually existing in all Mankind but every man is a man by himself and has a particular Human Nature as he has a Soul and Body of his own which is not the Soul and Body of any other man in the world And thus Damascen owns it is with all Creatures of the same kind who in truth and reality are distinct separate Beings who subsist apart by themselves as Peter and Paul and all other men do and are united only in a common Notion not in a common subsisting Nature which is one and the same in all But then he tells us that it is quite otherwise in the Divine Nature which is a common Nature and yet but One not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not meerly in our notion and conception but in truth and reality the same One Divine Nature without the least diversity or separation actually and distinctly subsisting in Father Son and Holy Ghost which being perfectly the same is but One and really and substantially subsisting in Three is a common Nature which is equally and perfectly in them all Thus Damascen has declared his Opinion fully against the notional and specifick Unity of the Divine Nature that the Divine Nature is One only as Human Nature is One because it has one common Name and Definition which belongs to all of the same kind whereas there is no one common Human Nature in Subsistence but only in Notion But the same One Divine Nature actually subsists in Three and is the same One Divinity in Three And that this was the true Sense of all the Catholick Fathers will appear from considering some Notions which were common to them all 1. They all agree That there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but One Divinity and One God and One God because but One Divinity and for this very reason nothing is more familiar with them than to call the Holy Trinity One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three perfect Hypostates Now will any man say That the One Divinity or One Divine Nature and One God is a meer Notion Is not the Unity of God the fundamental Article of Natural Religion And if this One Divinity does really immutably inseparably subsist in Three Divine Persons as it must do if these Three Divine Persons with respect to this One Divinity are naturally and inseparably One God Can this One common subsisting Divinity be a meer Notion which has no Hypostatical Subsistence but only subsists in Thought Can the Specifick Notional Unity of Human Nature make three men one man as the One common Divine Nature makes Three Persons One God If the Unity of the Divine Nature be but a Notion the Unity of God the Unity of the Trinity which is this One God must be a meer Notion also And so in truth and reality there is no more One God than there is but one man I readily grant That the Father may be and often is in a peculiar manner called God and the One God as distinguished from the Person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit but I deny that he is called the One God as considered without them or so much as in thought separated from them If we do not include the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead we must deny their Godhead also unless we will say that there is One God and besides him two Divine Persons each of which is God but not the One God Which must introduce a Plurality of separate Gods For if they be not One they are more than One and if One Person be the One God without the other they cannot be One God This shews what necessity there is of owning the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity to be the One God and One Divinity naturally and essentially One and then the necessary Consequence is That this One Divine Nature which actually and substantially subsists in Three distinct Divine Persons who for that reason are naturally and essentially One God cannot be a mere Common Specifick Nature but One Common Subsisting Nature But what possible Sense can we make of this One Common Subsisting Nature which is really actually indivisibly One and yet is Common that is does really and distinctly subsist in more than one To be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Common and to be One not in Notion as a Species is common to all the Individuals but in the truth and reality of Nature sounds very like a Contradiction When we say the Divine Nature is common to Three Persons and subsists distinctly in three we deny it to be One singular solitary Nature which can subsist but in one and constitute but One Person which was the Sabellian Notion of the Divine Unity which the Catholick Church condemned as destroying a Real Trinity as I have shewn at large But how then can this Common Nature which is not singular but subsists perfectly and distinctly in Three be actually and essentially One for a Natural Unity is a Numerical Unity is one in number which one would think should signify a singular Nature for so it does in all Creatures And when we speak of the Unity of the Divine Nature it cannot be one by composition which the absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature cannot admit This is the great difficulty which we must not expect perfectly to understand because a Finite Mind can never comprehend that is can never have an adequate notion of what is infinite But I shall give some account what the Catholick Fathers have said of this matter which will satisfy us that it is a natural not a mere Specifick Unity which they intended and will give us such a notion of this Venerable Mystery as will deliver it from all inconsistency and contradiction 2. I observe therefore That the Catholick Fathers lay the foundation of this Sameness and Homoousiotes of Nature in the Eternal Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Nicene Creed is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Son is not of nothing as all Creatures are but receives his whole Substance of the Substance of his Father St. Basil in express words makes Generation essential to the notion of the Homoousion For such Beings as upon account of likeness of Nature may be call'd Brothers to each other are not therefore Homoousious but when the Cause and that which actually subsists from or out of that Cause have the same Nature then they are Homoousious to each other And in opposition to that Perverse and Heretical Sense which some affixed to the word Homoousion that
same whole And yet if he be so of the Father as not to be the Father but the Son he must be distinct in substance from the Father He is true and perfect God but he receives his Divinity by his Birth he is God of God not God who begets but God who is begotten not of nothing but of his Father's substance who is unbegotten And therefore though St. Hilary and all the Catholick Fathers with him reject all Corporeal Passions in the Divine Generation all Corporeal Desection Division Efflux or Emanation of the Divine Substance which is incorporeal and indivisible yet they all assert a true and proper generation of the Son and an impassible production and prolation of him whole of whole And St. Hilary tells us that for this reason the Arians under a specious Pretence of condemning Valentinus his Emanations and Aeons denied the prolation of the Son from the Father only to deny his generation whereas some kind of prolation is essential to the very Notion of a Birth which cannot be conceived without it and therefore we must not wholly reject all Prolation and Production of the Son from the Father but only reject all Corporeal Emanations which are very imperfect Images of Divine Mysteries and have nothing like the eternal generation of the Son but only that the Son is truly begotten of his Father's Substance This is that adorable and unsearchable Mystery of the Divine Generation The Son is truly and properly begotten receives his whole Being and Nature from his Father is substance of his Father's substance whole of whole and therefore one and the same substance with the Father not that substance which is the Person of the Father nor a new or another separate substance as it is in human generations but the nature and substance of the Father born and repeated in the Nativity of the Son as St. Hilary speaks The Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Divinity One Infinite Eternal nature and substance but they are thrice this One substance and as perfectly and distinctly Three in this One substance as any other Three are Three substances St. Austin was certainly in the right when he asserted That the Divine Nature and Essence must not be considered either as a Genus or Species nor the Divine Persons as Individuals and shews particularly the impropriety of each though he knows not under what Notion to conceive them but inclines most to some common matter or substance which is the same in all as carrying the nearest resemblance and analogy in it though this he does not very well like neither of which more presently It will be of great use briefly to consider this matter for the difficulty consists more in want of words to express this Unity and Distinction by than in the Notion it self The singularity of the Divine Essence and Substance in the Sabellian Notion of One Substance the Nicene Fathers universally rejected as irreconcilable with a real distinction of Persons which destroys the Faith of a Real Trinity A mere specifick Unity of Nature and Substance which is a meer Logical Notion falls short of the Natural and Essential Unity of the Godhead and yet we have no word to serve as a middle Term between the Unity of singularity and a Specifick Unity of Nature For there is no such Unity as this in Created Nature and therefore no name for it and yet the Unity of the Divine Nature in a Trinity of Persons is neither of these but bears some resemblance and Analogy to both As to shew this briefly The Unity of the Divine Nature is not a meer Specifick Unity A Species is only an Idea or Pattern of Nature according to which particular Creatures are formed and such Creatures as are made according to the same Pattern are specifically the same and as far as we can observe this Correspondence and Ideal Sameness of Nature so we rank them under the same Species So that there can be no Species but among created Beings for they must be all made and made according to the same Original Pattern But an Eternal and Necessary Nature was not made and therefore not made according to any Pattern nor can any other be made according to its Pattern for what is made cannot be Necessary and Eternal So that the Divine Nature can be but One and One Numerical Nature is no Species it can communicate its own Substance by an Eternal Generation and Procession but it can't be a Pattern and Idea for any other Beings of the same kind which are not its own Substance For this reason St. Austin rejects this specifick Unity he distinguishes between saying That the Divine Persons are Vna Essentia Vnius Essentiae One Essence or Substance and that they are ex Vna Essentia of One Essence The first may signify a natural Unity and must do so when applied to the Trinity The second signifies only a common specifick Nature and Unity When we speak of men we may use either expression that they are One Essence or that they are of One Essence because in both Cases when applied to Creatures One Essence signifies specifically as a common pattern of Nature according to which not only Three but many Threes may be made But the whole Divine Essence is in the Trinity and cannot subsist in any other Person and therefore is not a common specifick Nature But then there is something in the Divine Nature as substantially communicated to the Son and to the Holy Spirit which bears some analogy to a Species and to a Specifick Unity and for this reason the Catholick Fathers in their Disputes both with the Sabellians and Arians frequently express the Unity of the Nature as subsisting in Three Distinct Persons by a Specifick Unity The Notion and Idea of a Common Nature which subsists in many Individuals is called a Species the same common notion and definition belonging to all the Individuals of the same kind Now if we believe the Doctrine of a Real Trinity we must acknowledge That the same One Divine Nature which is originally in the Father is communicated to the Son and Holy Spirit and does subsist distinctly and substantially in all Three and therefore has this resemblance to a Species that it is a common Nature which has the same Notion and Definition and is the same in Three but not meerly by a Notional Identity and Sameness but by the Real Identity of Substance there being but One Divine Substance unmade uncreated unbegotten but communicated whole and entire to the Son by an eternal generation and to the Holy Spirit by an eternal Procession so that the Divine Nature is so far a Species as by its actual communication to the Son and Holy Spirit and its distinct subsistence in Father Son and Holy Ghost it is in truth and reality a common Nature and Substance which a Species is only in Notion and Idea The Notion and Definition of human Nature in
proper speaking with reference to this Sameness of Nature any more say that there are Three Men than that there are Three Humanities when a Man is nothing else but the subsisting Idea of Humanity Would not as far as this Sameness and Identity reaches Human Nature be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not merely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both One and a Common Nature not merely by a Logical and Notional Unity and Community but by an actual Subsistence in all without the least difference or diversity As the Idea of Human Nature is both One and Common to the whole Kind This indeed is but an imaginary Case as to Finite Creatures who never were and never can be so perfectly One and the same as their Idea is but yet it is the properest and most sensible representation we can make of the Sameness and Identity of the Divine Nature which has really and actually all that Sameness and Identity which we only suppose in Creatures to help our Conceptions of the Divine Unity how different Hypostases may be One in Nature by this Sameness and Identy of Nature The Divine Nature and Essence is more perfectly simple and uncompounded than any Notion and Idea which we can frame of it and therefore must subsist as simply as the simplest Idea and consequently must be as perfectly one and the same in all Three Persons of the Trinity as the same Idea is one and the same with it self And though this be not the whole notion of the Sameness and Identity of Nature which requires not only two perfect Same 's but that one be of the other without division or Separation yet this is essential to this Notion and there can be no Identity of Nature without it This is what the Catholick Fathers intended in many Passages which some Modern Writers have so miserably mistaken and misrepresented as to charge those Wise men and Learned Philosophers with the most wild and absurd Conceits and those great Advocates of the Catholick Faith with the worst of Heresies even Tritheism it self I can't do right to my Cause without doing right to these great Lights of the Church in giving a plain account of this matter And to explain what they meant by this Sameness and Identity of Nature and to shew how groundless this Imputation of Tritheism is I shall begin with their natural Proof and Demonstration of the Unity of God against the Pagan Polytheism which they unanimously resolve into this Sameness and Identity of Nature They prove that there can be but One God and One Divinity because the Divine Nature is not capable of the least conceivable change and diversity which is necessary to make a Number For what is and always must be the same with it self cannot be another or a Second Nature and One Divinity is but One God This they prove from all the Notions which we have of God especially that comprehensive One of an Absolute and Perfect Being for Absolute Perfection is and can be but One without any possibility of change for all change and diversity must be either for the better or for the worse and Absolute Perfection can admit of neither and without diversity and alterity there can be but One. An Infinite Nature which nothing can distinguish from it self can be but One and could we imagine any thing to be added to or taken from it to make this distinction it would destroy not only its Unity but it s Infinity too it would indeed make a Number but not of absolute perfect Beings If we consider the Divine Perfections by themselves it is impossible to conceive any difference or diversity and consequently any number in them Is not Eternal Truth and Infinite Wisdom and Omnipotent Power always one and the same Can Eternal Truth and Infinite Wisdom in any thing vary from it self to make two Eternal Truths and Infinite Wisdoms Now remove all possible diversity and you necessarily destroy a plurality of Gods for a Perfect Sameness and Identity must reduce us to the belief of One God For what is perfectly the same is not many but one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Well! But can't there be more than one of these Eternal infinitely Wise infinitely Good and Omnipotent Natures No For if this Nature must of necessity be always the same and is unmade and self-originated it can be but one For though in Created Natures several of the same kind may be made according to the same Pattern there being nothing in the Idea of any Created Nature which hinders the multiplication of its Individuals yet a Nature which subsists of it self and is absolutely uncapable of any diversity and consequently of number can be but One for a Self-subsisting Nature must subsist according to its own Essential Idea that is according to its own Nature and that is but One for as far as we can judge of these Matters what we cannot possibly conceive should ever be Two we must conclude to be One. But besides this these Fathers observed That if there were more than one Self-originated Divinity or more Divine Natures than one they must be divided and separated from each other for if to the Sameness and Identity of Nature you add an inseparable and indivisible Union too it is impossible they should be more than One. And yet two or more such divided and separated Natures are inconsistent with the Notion of a Divine Nature and Essence which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Uncircumscribed and Omnipresent whereas two Divided and Separated Natures which are not where each other is must be Circumscribed and not Omnipresent and this destroys the absolute Perfection of both for a confined and limited Presence as it is an imperfection it self so confines and limits all other Perfections as it confines Wisdom Power and Goodness within a certain limited Sphere of Action And now it may be some may think that these Arguments conclude as strongly against a Trinity of Divine Persons each of which is by himself True and Perfect God as against a plurality of Divided and Separate Divinities and upon second thoughts I suspect this may be what our Considerer intended in those surprizing Arguments of the Unity of Idea and the Unity of Position and Place to prove that there can be but one single Person in the true and proper notion of a Person for an Intelligent Person in the Trinity this to be sure is the Argument which a Socinian Writer alledges with so much triumph out of Athenagoras to disprove the Trinity though that very Ancient and Learned Writer understood very well the difference between Polytheism and the Trinity and at the same time confutes the one and professes the other which might have made that Author suspect that he did not understand the true force of this Argument since not only Athenagoras but all the other Fathers thought it a good Argument against Polytheism and at the same time
this as they all own for the Fathers made no scruple to say That God begat God Essence Essence Wisdom Wisdom Life Life and that the Son is begotten and only begotten God God of God Light of Light Wisdom of Wisdom and begotten Wisdom Upon these Authorities Richardus Victorinus contends earnestly that we ought in plain terms to own That Substance begets Substance and that those who deny it reject the Doctrine of all the Catholick Fathers But Peter Lombard and most other Schoolmen especially since the Council of Lateran justify themselves in this matter by saying That the Fathers intended no more in such expressions than what they themselves own though they reject that way of speaking When the Fathers taught That God begat God Essence Essence Substance Substance Wisdom Wisdom Life Life they meant no more than that the Father who is God Essence Substance Wisdom Life begat his Son who is also truly and really God Essence Substance Wisdom Life and the reason why they rather chose to say That the Father who is God and Essence and Wisdom begets the Son who is God and Essence and Wisdom c. than to say That God begets God Essence Essence Wisdom Wisdom is this Because God and Essence and Wisdom c. signify absolutely and so may multiply Gods Essences Wisdoms as when we say Man begets a Man the begotten Man is as absolutely a Man as he who begets and he who begets and he who is begotten notwithstanding their relation are two absolute Men And therefore to prevent all such mistakes and to secure the Catholick Faith of the Real Distinction of Persons and Suppositums in perfect Unity without the least diversity or multiplication of Essence they attributed Active Generation to the Person of the Father and Passive Generation to the Person of the Son which proves a Real Distinction of Persons and Suppositums for he who begets cannot be he who is begotten and yet preserves the Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature But how can this be if Person and Essence Suppositum and Nature be the same as it is in God For then if the Person be begotten the Essence which is that Person must be begotten also and if the Person begets the Essence must beget Now this is in some sense true and therefore the Catholick Fathers promiscuously used these terms That the Father begets a Son or God begets God or Essence begets Essence and the Schools themselves own That the Father who is God begets the Son deitatem habentem who has the Divinity the Divine Nature and Essence and has it by his Generation and Birth which in reality is the same though they thought the expression less liable to mistake For the truth of the Case is this The Schools that asserted the perfect Singularity of the Divine Essence fenced against all Expressions of an absolute signification which multiplied Natures for Two absolute Natures cannot be singularly One and therefore would not say that Nature and Essence begets or is begotten for in these Propositions the terms Nature and Essence unless qualified and restrained signify absolutely and so infer Two absolute Natures and Essences that which begets and that which is begotten and therefore they rather call this a Communication than a Generation of Nature because this last signifies relatively That which is communicated may be a Singular Nature which subsists distinctly in more than one but with a necessary relation to its Original and such a Communication does not multiply Natures but only Essential Relations And this is the difference they made between Deus Deitatem habens God and one who has the Divinity that God signifies absolutely an Absolute Independent Divinity which has no relation or communication with any other but One who has the Divinity may signify One who has it not originally and absolutely but by communication from another and in an Essential Relation to him as the Son and the Holy Spirit have which is the same Divinity in Three and but One in Three And therefore I think the Schools were very much in the right for rejecting Tres Dii Three Gods when at the same time they owned Tres Deitatem habentes Three who have the Divinity for these do not signify the same thing The first unless qualified is Polytheism the second the Christian Trinity in Unity though I confess I should not chuse to call the Father One who has the Divinity but simply God because he is absolutely and originally so and not by communication and for that reason is both in Scripture and in the Fathers eminently callâ—d God and the One God whereas the other Divine Perâ—â—â—s are the Son of God and the Spirit of God and as Teâ—â—â—â—â—ian observes never called God when joined with the Father though they are when spoken of distinctly by themselves For the same Reason the Schools forbid the use of Abstract or Subâ—tantive Terms in the Plural Number when we speak of the Dâ—vine Persons but allow of Plural Adjectives because Substantives signify absolutely and multiply Natures as well as Persons or Suppositums but Adjectives may signify relatively and multiply Persons without multiplying Natures as Three Eternals Three Omnipotents Three Infinites in a Substantive sense signify Three Eternal Omnipotent Infinite Natures as well as Persons but Three who are Eternal Omnipotent Infinite signify a Trinity of Eternal Omnipotent Infinite Persons but do not necessarily signify a Trinity of Natures since these Three may subsist in the same Eternal Omnipotent Infinite Nature and each of them have this Eternal Infinite Nature and all the same But still the difficulty remains if Person or Suppositum and Nature be perfectly the same How the Father can communicate his Nature and not his Person How there can be Three Incommunicable Persons and Suppositums and but One Nature and that communicable to more than One That thus it is and how it may be is better explained by an Example than by any words without it And I shall instance in a living substantial Image This is the true Character of the Second Person of the Trinity that he is so the Son as to be the Living Perfect Image of God as has been explained at large elsewhere as you may find in the Margin Now every man must confess that the Prototype and the Image are two distinct Incommunicable Suppositums the Prototype is not the Image nor the Image the Prototype and yet we must confess that there is and must be but one and the same Nature in both not Specifically but Identically the same for a perfect Image is and can be nothing but the same that the Prototype is the same Eternity the same Life the same Wisdom Power and Goodness but all this not Personally the same for their Persons are not and cannot be the same but identically and invariably the same or else it can't be a true and perfect Image And this makes it evident that though Person and Nature be perfectly the same