was still constant to his Doctrine he persevered in his former I am sure that I am in the right Shortly after came forth the judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy between Dr. S TH and Dr. SHERLOCK This Author states the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation or Divinity of our Saviour as they have been for many Ages held in the Catholic Church and proves his explication of them by a great number of incontestable Authorities especially of General Councils He evinces by divers clear both Theological and Philosophical Reasons that three infinite spiritual Substances three eternal all-perfect Beings Minds or Spirits are most certainly three Gods He concludes that Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads are undoubtedly in the right in censuring the Doctrine of three infinite all-perfect spiritual Substances Spirits Minds or Beings as Tritheism yet that Dr. Sherlock had no ill meaning for he only proposed to himself to defend the received Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation tho he unhappily mistook in the explication of those Doctrines One may say this Book is perfectly well written the Catholic Doctrine is truly stated and asserted by the very Authorities and Reasons on which it has been so long and so generally received and tho the Author is constrained by the evidence of the proofs which he alledges to assent to the Oxford-Heads and to Dr. S th yet he always speaks of Dr. Sherlock not only with much tenderness but with a great deal of respect and deference Dr. Sherlock on the contrary answers with so much virulence as if the Author had done to him some personal irreparable or even mortal Injury and with so much self-conceit and confidence as if himself had obtained the monopolies of Learning and good sense He intitles his answer to the disinterested The Doctrine of a real Trinity vindicated in answer to a Socinian Pamphlet As if it were Socinianism to oppose Tritheism He begins his Book with these words This Author calls himself a Presbyter of the Church of England I pray God to preserve the Church from such Presbyters who eat her Bread and betray her Faith His other Sippets are Socinian Heretic bantering Socinian and such like Sweets with which this Doctor 's dishes are always enchaced But to let those matters pass in this Answer he recites the Authorities and Reasons urged by the disinterested and in a Paragraph or two bestowed on each of them he triumphs at last gloriously over all of them But what is very surprizing tho he confutes all the Reasons and baffles all the Authorities in the whole Book yet 't is in this very Answer that he begins to bethink him and retracts all his Heterodoxies nay becomes altogether of the same mind with the Author against whom he writes Let us hear what he says Pag. 12. The Nominals i. e. Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads and the Socinians differ in some forms of Speech but there is no considerable difference in their Faith P. 6. These Phrases three Minds three Spirits three Substances ought to be used very cautiously and not without great necessity P. 14. They are Expressions liable to a very heretical sense to Arianism and Tritheism P. 30. In the common acceptation of the word the Divine Persons are not three Substances but one Substance actually and really subsisting thrice He meant to say three manner of ways subsisting thrice is nonsense P. 35. The Trinity is one supream Being this is the Doctrine of St. Austin the Schools and Fathers Can any one say Dr. Sherlock hath not given satisfaction to the Oxford-Heads and Dr. S th Were F. Socinus Smalcius Crellius and Ruarus to judg of this Doctrine they would be content it should be inserted into their Racovian Catechism they would embrace the Author as an absolute Unitarian P. 36. Father Son and Spirit are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same Substance they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unity of Sameness or Identity This is true Catholick Doctrine and the Language of the Nicene Fathers And of all the Socinians from F. Sacinus to Mr. T. F. But we shall hear by and by he will confess that also P. 61. Three infinite Persons each of which is Mind and Spirit are but one and the same infinite and eternal Spirit Catholick again and Unitarian all over For when the Church says each Divine Person is Mind and Spirit the meaning is the Divine Persons are internal relative Properties of the same infinite Mind and Spirit and being so each of them indeed is Mind and Spirit but not a Mind or a Spirit Had Dr. Sherlock but known this in time he had never wrote against the Unitarians nor fallen under the Oxford-Censure P. 65. The Socinians will grant that one Divinity is but one God and the reason why they assert that one God is but one Person is because they think it impossible the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly in three Persons But then before they had charged the Faith of the Trinity with Tritheism they should have remembred that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their one Person is whom they call one God and therefore tho three such Persons three such Minds Spirits and Substances as their one Person and one Spirit is who is the whole Divinity confined to one single Person would indeed be three Gods yet three such Persons as the Catholic Church owns who are all the same One Substance are not three Gods The short of this is the Church doth not mean by three Persons what the Socinians mean if she did they would rightly accuse her of Tritheism three such Persons as the Socinians oppose are indeed three Gods He repeats the same thing p. 67 in these words The three Divine Persons as we have now explained them are not three such Persons as the Socinians must confess three Persons must be who are three Gods Right for you have now acknowledged that what you call three Persons is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one self-same spiritual Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Vnity of Indentity one supream Being one and the same infinite and eternal Spirit which in all your former Books was Nonsense and Heresy and not greater Nonsense than Heresy as they who please may see in the places I have quoted and in above forty other places of your Writings I shall tell you not only the Oxford-Heads or Dr. S th but F. Socinus or T. F. would never have required you to say more than you now say it was not the Trinity held by the Catholic Church that Socinus or T. F. rejected but only a Trinity of such Divine Persons as are distinct Substances Spirits and Minds which at length you also expresly disown but which too many in the Church misled by the dangerous unscriptural terms now so much contended for did and do hold There can never be a sincere Peace till those terms are discarded For tho after eight
Testaments and the reason that they were given by God was to regain Mankind to the belief and acknowledgment of but one God to destroy Polytheism of all sorts Mr. Firmin intended to recommend it to the Unitarian Congregations as the very reason of their distinct assembling to be particularly mindful of and zealous for the Article of the Unity to cause it to be so explained in their Assemblies Catechisms and Books without denying or so much as suppressing the Catholick Doctrine of the Trinity that all men might easily and readily know in what sense the Vnity of God is to be believed and the Mystery of a Trinity of Divine Persons each of them God is to be interpreted Mr. Firmin feared that without such Assemblies the continual use of terms which in their ordinary signification are confessed by all to imply three Gods would paganize in some time the whole Christian Church which is Heathen already in the majority of its Members by occasion of those terms and that no sufficient care is taken to interpret them to the people I though to have ended here but the Dean of St. Pauls having published a large Book in Quarto to which he gives the title of the present state of the Socinian Controversy I think my self obliged to take notice of it and make a fit Answer to it In order whereunto it will be even necessary to consider also briefly his former Books indeed my Answer will be little more than a comparing the Doctrine of these Books with this last in which as to his Notions tho propos'd commonly in somewhat improper unconvenient and dangerous expressions he has given satisfaction to Dr. S th and the Oxford Heads in other words he is become truly Catholic and perfectly Unitarian Mr. Firmin had caused to be written a brief History of the Vnitarians and brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius in the years 1689 and 1690. Dr. Sherlock was then more at leisure than he desired so he answered in a wrathful Book entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the H. Trinity In this Vindication he lays about him for that sort of Trinity that had been oppos'd in the aforesaid History and Notes a Trinity of Infinite Eternal All-perfect Minds Beings and Spirits The Doctrine of his Book may be summ'd into this following short Abstract The H. Trinity is three such Persons as are substantially distinct or are three distinct Spiritual Substances Being distinct Persons they must needs be distinct Substances Persons and intelligent Substances being reciprocal terms or signifying the same thing The Divine Persons are three Beings three Spirits three Minds as distinct as three human Persons as distinct as Peter James and John Each of these Minds or Spirits has a distinct Vnderstanding Wisdom and Will of his own a distinct absolutely-perfect Wisdom Goodness and Power for these perfections may be and are in more than one And as each of them is an all-perfect Spirit each of them also is a God Yet are they not three Gods because being internally conscious to each others thoughts and actions by means of this mutual consciousness tho they are three all-perfect Spirits and each of them a God they are but one God If we will say truth Dr. Sherlock was no more overseen in this explication of the Trinity than the principal Divines and Preachers at London and both Universities To my knowledg they upbraided Mr. Firmin with this Book of Dr. Sherlock's and some of them told him If Dr. Sherlock's Book did not reclame him from his Heresy it would rise up in Judgment against him It came forth cum licentiâ superiorum and shortly after the Doctor was restored to all his Preferments which he had forfeited by refusing the Oaths to the Government with the addition of the Deanary of St. Pauls But neither the Canonical License nor the new and great Preferment nor the approbations and applauses from so many and so considerable Fautors could prevent a most terrible after-clap For to say nothing of the Answer first by the Socinians and then by Dr. S th the Heads of Colleges at Oxford Nov. 25. 1695 made and ordered the publication of this Censure and Decree These words there are three distinct Minds and Substances in the Trinity and these words the three Persons in the Trinity are three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits and three individual Substances are Erroneous Heretical and Impious And we require all persons who are committed to our institution or care that they affirm no such Doctrine either by preaching or otherwise When this Decree came abroad Dr. Sherlock's former Abettors deserted him in whole troops and now they said Universities speak but seldom and by way of Authority without giving the reasons of their Decrees but as they interpose but rarely and in important Cases 't is always with certainty In short from this time Doctor Sherlock was left almost alone That I know of the same Doctors Dignitaries Deans Bishops who had boasted of his Book not only as orthodox but as unanswerable now tackt about and as much approved the Oxford-Decree The most now said it was even necessary to make and publish the Decree Tritheism being so much worse than Sabellianism or Socinianism as Paganism or Heathenism is worse than mere Judaism there is no body but will prefer the faith of the Jews tho' so unperfect before the many Gods of the Heathens Dr. Sherlock was often told of these murmurs and that they were grown general his answer was that he was sure that he was in the right And accordingly he shortly published his Examination of the Oxford Decree In this Examination he often repeats his former doctrine He says for instance P. 46. These Decreeing and Heresy-making Heads of Colleges have condemned the true Catholic Faith the Nicene Faith and the Faith of the Church of England He adds in the same page Three Divine Persons who are not three distinct Minds and Substances is not greater Heresy than 't is Nonsense P. 31. The present dispute is about three distinct infinite Minds and Substances in the Trinity whether this be Catholic doctrine and Catholic language If it appears that they the Fathers owned three distinct Substances both name and thing there can be no dispute about three Minds P. 23. If God begets no substance he begets nothing that is real And then neither is God a real Father nor the Son a real Son P. 22. If a Divine Person as a Person and as a distinct Person from the other two Persons be not an infinite Mind there is an end of the Christian Trinity P. 18. The three Persons must be as distinct Minds Spirits and Substances as they are distinct Persons Every body disliked this Answer to the Oxford Heads it was owned to be Heresy in excelsis Dr. Sherlock's more warm Opposers call'd out for the sitting of a Convocation to censure such a manifest subversion of the Catholic Faith in the first and chief Article of it The Doctor however
all our Misfortunes the book is wrote in a reasonable and pacific manner the only book of a great many so written by this Author I will present the Reader with the Doctrine of this remarkable and useful Book under distinct heads that every one may see he hath entirely chang'd his opinions that were censured by the Oxford Heads and refuted by the Vnitarians First concerning God what is the definition of God and of what sort is the Divine Vnity He answers P. 25. This is the notion that all mankind have of one God one infinite eternal Being or Nature P. 35. God is an eternal infinite Mind So all as well Christians as Philosophers hold P. 49. What is the natural Notion we have of God But one eternal Being the cause of all other Beings P. 309. They the Divine Persons are as perfectly One as a created Mind is P. 319. A Perichoresis Vnion or mutual Inbeing of minds can never make three compleat absolute Minds to be essentially one P. 343. Three absolute whole individual Divine Natures is Tritheism P. 371. The Divine Persons cannot properly be called three infinite Minds or Spirits For Mind as well as God is not the name of their persons but of their nature which is identically the same in all three We see here he propounds the Doctrine of the Church and of the Unitarians both Affirmatively and Negatively and both ways makes it his own In defining or describing God he saith one God is one infinite BEING one eternal and infinite MIND And tho' we say three Divine Persons yet whatever is thereby meant and he will tell us by and by what is meant they are as perfectly one MIND as a created mind is one Then Negatively he says The Divine Persons are not three Minds or Spirits and as to what some say and himself had often said in former Books of the Perichoresis he now owns no mutual Inbeing of three Spirits or Minds can ever make them to be one In accounting for the nature of the Divine Persons he speaks the very language of the Disinterested of the Author of the Remarks and of the Agreement that was wrote in answer to Mr. Edwards to my Lords the Bishops of Sarum Chichester Worcester and to Monsieur de Luzanzy His words are these P. 256. We acknowledg one God distinguished only by these personal Properties Paternity Filiation Procession as each of them has a compleat Hypostasis distinguish'd only by MODES of subsistence P. 258. The Divine Nature subsists distinctly in three according to their distinct characters of Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeâ—ing And these we call Persons because they have some Analogy or likeness to individuals in created Beings which in an Iâ—telligent nature are called Persons P. 197. We must use such words as we have and qualify their sense as we can P. 259. When we distinguish between Person and Essence and say there are three Persons and one Essence By one Essence we mean one Divinity by Persons we mean the Divine Essence as unbegotten and as communicated by Generation and Procession P. 280. Tho each Divine Person is the Divine Nature and Essence yet three Divine Persons are not three Natures or Essences but three Relations in one singular absolute Nature P. 297. That one Nature is but one Person and one Person but one Nature that individual Natures and Persons must always be multiplyed with each other is the fundamental Principle of all Heresies relating either to the Trinity or the Incarnation Sure this last effort was a very hard and grievous strain to him for 't was the very principle that misled him into the Heresy of three spiritual infinite Substances Minds and Beings He took it for his foundation that Persons and intelligent Natures or Substances are convertible or are the same and this error made him obstinate in it even after the Oxford Decree that the Divine Persons ye so many distinct spiritual Substances distinct Spirits and Minds Well but let us put together this whole reformed Doctrine about the Divine Persons They are not distinct Beings Natures Substances Minds or Spirits but only personal Properties or distinct Relations in the same singular nature Would you know the Mystery more particularly what you are to understand by personal Properties and distinct Relations in the same singular Nature or Essence The Doctor will not be difficult or reserved in the matter he answers The Persons personal Properties or distinct Relations are the Divine Essence or Substance unbegotten and communicated by Generation and Procession that is Begotten and Proceeding Do you except against it or make doubt that Relations personal Properties Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding are properly called Persons or may have the names of Father Son and Spirit He will deliver you from your scruples he wisely minds you that we must of necessity use such words as we have and regulate or qualifie their sense as well as we can In two words he saith The Divine Persons are so called because we must use such words as we have and because they have some likeness to Persons of the created Nature but in truth they are only personal Properties or distinct Relations of the same singular nature namely of the Divinity Or if you had rather they are the Divine Essence or Divinity considered as Unbegotten Begotten and Proceeding This is a true and an exact Abridgment of his large Book I will not think he has so little conscience as to pretend that the Unitarians have in their late Contests opposed this Trinity 't is the account that themselves give of it and profess to believe in that part of the Agreement which is in answer to my Lords the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester 'T is the account also given by Dr. S th in his Animadversions and his Tritheism charged by the Disinterested by the Bishops of Worcester and of Sarum In eight years time this fierce Opposer of the Unitarians has with much to do learned that the Trinity is not three Minds Spirits or Substances but three internal Relations three personal Properties of the Divinity In eight more it may be he will understand that those are good Catholics and orthodox Christians who reject no other Trinity but of distinct Substances Spirits or Minds We are all agreed in the Faith it self and even as to the ordinary terms the more learned Trinitarians wish as the Vnitarians do that they were abolisht but as to some other less usual terms that occur in the debating these questions there is some disagreement among Divines I take notice that as to these Dr. Sherlock is always on the worse side and for the weaker Reasons For Instances 'T is a question whether we may not say three Divine Substances as well as three Persons They that put the question or that so speak grant that in very deed there is but one Divine Substance in the absolute sense of the word yet may we not say with Sr. Hilary three Substances in a restrained limited
only this that every one shall be so recompensed at the Resurrection as is worthy of the holy Judg and compassionate Father of the World But we hold he saith that the Punishment of the Wicked is only Extinction Their life shall be destroyed for ever by the unquenchable Fire into which they are cast Which opinion that it may look ridiculous he words for us thus the unquenchable Fire is nothing but Annihilation What the Scriptures have said concerning the Punishment of the Wicked after the Resurrection is not so clear but that the opinions of Learned Men Fathers and Moderns have been very different about it Some of which number is Origen the most considerable of the Ante-nicens held that not only wicked Men but the very Devils will repent and reform under the Punishments they endure that therefore they will be pardoned be admitted to a new trial of their Behaviour and may attain to Blessedness These say that Man being a reasonable is therefore a docile or teachable Creature and it not looking probable that the Wisdom of God will lose any part of his Creation but will bring it to the Perfection and upon that to the Blessedness of which 't is capable therefore what by Instructions what by Punishments and Encouragements God will reclame the Bad will perfect and confirm the Good and so in the long-run of things be acclamed the Saviour of all Others among whom have been some it may be the most of the Forein Vnitarians have thought that the Righteous are rewarded with an everlasting Life of Blessedness and the impenitent Wicked punisht by that unquenchable Fire that will wholly destroy their being They believe this is the reason why the Punishment by Hell-Fire is called Eternal Death in Holy Scripture But the more current opinion among all denominations of Christians is that the Punishment of the Impenitent in Hell-fire is called Death not because it utterly destroys the life of the Sufferer but because 't is a continual and endless dying The extreme pains of Hell may well be called an everlasting dying or an eternal Death tho' the Sufferer is never extinct I do not find any thing in the Books of the English Vnitarians concerning these opinions they may hold as variously concerning them as the Christians of other denominations But if I may answer for them by what I judg of them by conversation with them I would say we approve the doctrine delivered by Arch-bishop J. Tillotson in a Sermon before her late Majesty of happy memory March 7.1689 on Matth. 25.46 which Sermon was printed by their Majesties special Command VIII I believe as to Christianity it self every thing in it is to be submitted to the dictates of Human Reason and that there are no Doctrines in it that are mysterious Neither of these was ever said by any Vnitarian and all our Prints more especially those in the English Tongue are express that there are many things as well in Religion as Nature that are far above the capacity of human Reason to declare or understand the manner of 'em or how they should be what we either see or are infallibly taught they are We never pretended that the Human Reason is the measure of Truth as Mr. Edwards and Mr. Norris charge us so that what our reason does not comprehend we will not believe on any other evidence whatsoever We never said it or thought it we reject no Doctrines but such as are contrary to Reason and of that I speak fully in the answer to Mr. De Luzancy hereto annexed IX As to Divine Worship I believe it may be given to another besides God to Christ who is but a Creature But we have disavowed nothing more in all our Prints than giving Divine Worship to any but only God that 't is a marvel to me that Mr. Edwards should impute to us such a doctrine we have scarce any English Print where we do not expresly oppose it Nor do we reckon of the Lord Christ as but a Creature I have said before he is God and Man The Divinity did so inhabit in the Humanity of Christ doth so exert in it the most glorious effects of Omnipotence and Omniscience that if others have been called God because they represented God Christ is to be so called because he exhibits God X. I believe Prayer was not required under the Old Testament The Lords-day is a ceremonious Observance abolished by the Gospel There is no spiritual Blessing conferred in the use of the Sacraments Baptism is an useless Rite and the Baptism of Children altogether vain There is no distinct function or office of Ministers in the Christian Church the very Lord's Supper it self may be administred by a private person I think Mr. Edwards is in the right against those if any such there were who deny'd that Prayer was a duty or precept of the Old Testament and the Law when he says It is included in the general precepts of fearing serving worshipping God But he is as much out in the next Article that some have said the Lords-day is abolished by the Gospel for it was never said by any He meant I suppose that the Seventh-day or Sabbath is abolisht and I take it to be the doctrine of the Catholic Church that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was ceremonial and is abolisht It may better however be said that the Sabbath is transferred from the seventh to the first day than that 't is absolutely abolisht or taken away In short the English Vnitarians hold no private opinion about either the Sabbath or Lord's day but as well in principle as practice concur with the Catholic Church It is too loosly said That there is no spiritual Blessing conferr'd in the use of the Sacraments For there is no ordinance of God but the serious and devout performance of it draws a blessing on the doer For all that many exceed in ascribing to the Sacraments certain Powers and Energies without competent warrant from the Word of God I do not know that Baptism is any thing more than a federal Rite by which we are initiated into the Christian Religion or the Holy Supper any thing more than a commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ offering himself to God as an atonement for repenting sinners I know not to what purpose so many superstitious Books are written to teach people how to prepare themselves for the Memorial Supper when an honest Intention and a reverent Performance are sufficient both preparations and qualifications for and in all Gospel-Ordinances The Apostle says He that eateth that Bread unworthily or unworthily drinketh of that Cup is guilty of the blood of Christ nay eateth and drinketh Judgment to himself But he also warns them what he means by unworthy partaking namely their not tarrying for one another and withal eating and drinking with so little regard to God or Men that some of them made themselves drunk with the Sacramental Wine while others could not so much as tast of it Briefly their
and relative sense That is meaning thereby the one real Divine Substance considered in its distinct Relations or Properties for hereby the Substance tho 't is not multiply'd yet 't is thrice numbred and in that respect it should seem may be called three relative Substances This is a very slight Reasoning and never misled any body but St. Hilary For men never say THREE on the account that a thing is considered three manner of ways with three Modes three Properties or three Relations Why therefore should we introduce such an improper as well as dangerous form of speaking concerning God a form of speaking that in its natural and immediate sense destroys the divine Unity and introduces by their own confession three Gods Notwithstanding Dr. Sherlock is pleased to approve of that form he saith P. 379. We must not say three Substances in the Trinity for fear of saying three Gods Yet we must own that each Divine Person is true and perfect substance and three in substance are three Substances not indeed three absolute but three relative Substances In the Trinity there is one absolute and three relative Substances P. 287. An absolute Substance is one entire perfect individual Whole Relative Substances are internal subsisting Relations in the same one whole individual substance The meaning is Orthodox the words Heterodox and Phantastical He grants that to affirm three Divine Substances is to affirm three Gods but then meaning by Substances what no body means the same one absolute individual Substance numbred three times or numbred with its three Properties or Relations we may affirm three Divine relative Substances Again Those that grant it must not be said in any sense whatsoever that there are three Divine Substances yet they make it a question Whether the one only Divine Substance is one numerical Substance and one singular Substance They own the Divine Substance is really but one identically one 't is one self-same Substance not two or three in whatsoever sense For all that they are not willing to say the substance of God is numerically one is one numerical or one solitary or singular Substance their wise Reason is this Tho' the Divine Substance is one in Nature and in the thing numbred as the School-Doctors speak yet being thrice numbred for it is numbred distinctly to or with its three Properties or Relations therefore we deny it to be numerically one tho 't is really naturally and identically one Now we grant to these Anti-Grammarians that the thing they intend is true but they should not deny propositions that are true in their Grammatical and immediate Sense because they are not true in a sense that no man ever was so wild as to impose it upon them 'T is something worse than trifling to deny orthodox and necessary Propositions on a pretence that mad men may take them in a sense contrary to their direct immediate and constant meaning When we say the divine or any other Substance is numerically one or is one numerical one singular one solitary Substance every body knows that the words solitary singular and numerical are used only in opposition to plural more or many so that one solitary singular or numerically one Substance is intended only as a denial of this heretical Proposition three Substances If the reason given by Dr. Sherlock and some few others why they will not say one singular or solitary or numerically one Substance were good they must never say one numerical one solitary or singular Earth or Sun or other body or thing whatsoever Nay they must not dare to say numerically one GOD one singular or solitary GOD which yet are forms that I presume they will own as orthodox nay as necessary There is no thing or being whatsoever but must be at least thrice numbred namely to the three Properties of every Being Verum bonum unum therefore if we must not say one numerical or one singular or solitary Divine Substance because this Substance is thrice numbred viz. with or to its three Relations or Properties neither may we say one numerical or one solitary or singular Earth or Sun because they are thrice numbred are distinctly numbred to the three Properties of Verum bonum unum But this impertinent niceness Dr. Sherlock every where takes up and contends for it as an important truth unless we exclude the terms solitary singular and numerical he is positive that we shall lose the three Divine Persons P. 195. The singularity of the Divine Substance is a Sabellian Notion and destroys the faith of a real Trinity P. 213. An individual Substance but not one solitary or singular Substance P. 246. The Unity of the Divine Substance or Nature is not an unity of number but of sameness and identity P. 249. 'T is not a singular Nature or Substance with the singularity of solitude but of identity or sameness I imagine Dr. Sherlock's best Friends will not deny 't is an odd melancholy humour of his to espouse and affect Terms and Phrases that have been rejected by all Learned Men as improper dangerous and tending to Tritheism merely that he may amuse Novices in these Questions and may afterward explain his Riddles to the admiration of the weak or unlearned and the sleight of the learned and discerning He concludes his Book with an Address to the Unitarians to this effect They were not best to concern themselves with him or against his Book for if they do they shall certainly be called to account for it in this World as well as in the World to come I take this to be another melancholy Fit for the Orthodox will but laugh at the threatnings of a Man under publick Censure for the very worst Heterodoxy What! three relative substances call to account honest orthodox one absolute Substance Believe me Doctor they despise the menace They send you word Physitian heal thy self Mr. Informer purge your own Books even this last of the many Heterodoxies in it As Page 191. The Son is nothing else but the whole entire immediate participation of the Father's Substance and therefore is as perfectly one with the Father as the Father is one 'T is Sabellian The Son is not so one with the Father as the Father is one for the Father is numerically one as all confess but Father and Son are numerically two with all but Sabellians P. 198. Each of them Father Son and Spirit is perfect God and therefore an infinite Mind and an infinite Spirit 'T is Tritheism For if each of the Divine Persons is an infinite Mind or an infinite Spirit then there are three infinite Minds and Spirits which is the Heresy you have been retracting throughout this whole Book I supoose however he meant to say each Divine Person is infinite Mind and Spirit which is Catholic and Unitarian P. 247. To have asserted one singular Divine Substance which is but one in number had given up the cause to the Sabellians One singular Divine Substance and one in number is the Language of the Catholic Church and is refused by none but Arians and Tritheists P 369. The name God doth not originally absolutely and immediately belong to the Son or Spirit but only relatively P. 373. Only the Father is absolutely and simply God 'T is absolute Heresy Taking Father Son and Spirit in the personal senfe the Son and Spirit are no less absolutely and simply GOD than the Father is When the Unitarians say only the Father is God in the absolute sense they do not take the word Father personally but by Father they mean the Deity Father Son and Spirit as Persons of the Deity taking Persons in the Ecclesiastical sense or sense of the Church are equally God neither is afore or after other neither greater or less than the other as Athanasius rightly teaches In short this perpetual Litigant understands not well either the Doctrine of the Church or the Party he opposes these are not Questions in which he might concern himself they require an attention and subtilty of thought which either he seems not to have had or to have lost He has concerned himself in the supposed Controversy between the Church and the Socinians with like prudence dexterity and success as the present Archbishop of Paris has intermedled between the Jansenists and Molinists The Archbishop published an Ordinance against a Book entituled An Exposition of the Catholic Faith touching Grace and Predestination Father Quesnel a Priest of the Oratory and Mr du Guè a Learned Person but who has laid aside the habit have severally written upon this Ordinance They agree that what is proposed as Catholic Doctrine in the second Part of the Archbishop's Ordinance is really the same with what is censured in the first Part as the Heresy of the Jansenists but in another point these two Criticks differ For Mr. du Guè thinks the Archbishop may be pardoned the Errors in the first Part in consideration of his second Part but Father Quesnel doth not approve this Indulgence of Mr. du Guè he maintains that the Archbishop cannot make satisfaction but only by a Recantation 'T is well for Dr. Sherlock that he dos not write among or to the Wits of France for his Books concerning these Questions in truth are nothing but heaps of Contradictions A Person well versed in the Controversy may spell out his meaning and find what is the Writer's aim but he must pardon a thousand Improprieties and Blunders and as many Contradictions some of them in the very stress turn or as they speak nicety of the Controversy FINIS