Philosopher Des Cartes but the Discoverer of which is Dr. Sherlock When Dr. Sherlock came out with his Vindication in Answer to the Brief History of the Unitarians and the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius the more ignorant of the Doctors and Rectors and all the young Fry of Lecturers and Readers about Town were his Hawkers to cry it about and cry it up They questioned not what such a Master in Polemicks had delivered especially with so much Assurance and Confidence and with so much Keenness and Contempt of the poor kick'd Note-maker and Epistler But the more learned among them said from the very first that indeed Dr. Sherlock meant honestly and he might have propounded this Explication to his private Friends to be considered and debated but it was liable to too many obvious Exceptions to be published to all the World without great Corrections in the manner of Expression But the Socinians presently saw their Advantage and resolved to make use of it accordingly in about four or five Weeks time out came their Observations on the Vindication of Dr. Sherlock which in some Editions of them are prefaced with the Acts or Gests of Athanasius Here they tell the Doctor that he hath published a worse Heresy than even ours is held to be by our bitterest Opposers in one word that he hath revived Paganism by such an Explication of the Trinity as undeniably introduces Tritheism or three Gods They show him that his Error was condemned by the Antients in the Person of Philoponus and in the middle Ages in the Person and Writings of Abbat Joachim but more severely since the Reformation in the Person of Valentinus Gentilis who was condemned at Geneva and beheaded at Bern for this very Doctrine They demonstrate to him by a great many unexceptionable Arguments that a Mutual Consciousness of three supposed Divine Spirits and Minds having each of them his own peculiar and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action is so far from making three such Spirits to be one God in number that 't is the clearest and the certainest Demonstration that they are three Gods Mutual-Consciousness maketh them to be a Consult or Council a Cabal or Senate of Gods if you will but by no means one Numerical God or one God in Number The Observations of the Socinians opened all Mens Eyes to see and acknowledg that Dr. Sherlock had greatly overshot the Mark and that it was necessary he should yield his Place to some new Opponent who in these Disputes with the Socinians would speak more cautiously All Endeavours therefore were used by his Friends to perswade Dr. Sherlock to be quiet and because such an Example had been made of him they stopped a while all Sermons and other Tracts that were going to the Press against the Socinians The Politicians among them feared the Success of a War that in its Beginnings had been so unsuccessful they said to one another we need not trouble our selves with the Socinians because being Masters of all the Pulpits we can sufficiently dispose the People to the Orthodox Belief without the help of printed Answers and Replies 'T is about three Years since these Observations on Dr. Sherlock's Vindication were made publick and all this time he hath very peaceably taken the Imputations of Heresy and Paganism tho he had said in the Preface to his Vindication That having dipped his Pen in the Vindication of so glorious a Cause by the Grace of God he would never desert it while be could hold a Pen in his Hand The Socinians did not design to give him any farther Trouble but Dr. S th not able to endure that such Aspersions should lie at the Door of the Church could not refrain from declaring to all the World that the Church had suffered nothing in the Defeat of Dr. Sherlock He professeth that the Charge drawn up against Dr. Sherlock by the Socinians is true for he hath in very deed advanced an Explication of the Trinity saith Dr. S th which immediately and unavoidably inferreth three Gods Pref. p. 2. It not being the Design of Dr. S th in his Animadversions to prove the Truth of the Doctrine of the Trinity but only to explain or declare it that is to notify in what Sense and manner 't is held by the Church we must say that his Performance is an accurate and learned Work He concerneth not himself with the Socinians but only rescues the received Doctrines of the Church from the Misrepresentations of them by Dr. Sherlock who either understood them not or ventur'd to depart from them Nor do we concern our selves with Dr. S th but whereas he is the only Writer since the Revival of these Controversies who has indeed understood what the Church means by a Trinity in Unity therefore we must take leave to say and will also prove it that this his true Explication of the Trinity is for all that a great Untruth or rather a great piece of Nonsense Dr. Sherlock's was a Rational and Intelligible Explication tho not a true one 't is not Orthodox as Orthodoxy is reckoned since the Lateran Council Dr. S th's is a true and Orthodox Explication of what the Church intends to say but 't is neither Rational nor Intelligible nor Possible But of that in its proper place for I must next examine the Trinity according to Plato defended by Dr. Cudworth Of the Explication by Dr. Cudworth IT will be necessary in the first place to declare Dr. Cudworth's Explication more largely and clearly than hath been yet done In accounting for the Doctrine of the Trinity he professeth to follow the Platonick Philosophers with whom saith he not the Arians as some suppose but the Orthodox Fathers perfectly agree These held a Trinity of Divine Persons Co-eternal indeed but not Co-equal for the Son and Spirit are inferior to the first Person or the Father in Dignity in Authority and in Power They are so many distinct Substances not one numerical Substance as hath been taught by the School-Doctors and the Lateran Council For tho the Fathers said that the three Persons have but one and the same Substance Essence or Nature they did not mean thereby one and the self-same Substance or Essence in Number but the same Essence or Substance for Kind or Nature Because each Person of the three is Spiritual Eternal Infinite a Creator and necessarily existent therefore they were said by the Fathers and Platonists to have the same Nature Essence or Substance and not because their Essences or Substances Physically or Properly so called are one and the same Physical Substance in Number In few words saith he this famous Term Consubstantial or of the same Substance was never intended by the Platonists or by the Fathers to deny as the Schools do three distinct individual Essences or to denote one Numerical Substance or Essence but only to signify that the Trinity believed by the Orthodox is not made up of contrary or unlike Natures as
the Arian Trinity is but of Persons all of them Homogenial all of them Eternal Spiritual and Uncreated They that shall deny this to be the Doctrine of the Fathers will find themselves obliged to answer to two things which are indeed fairly and truly unanswerable The first is Why those Fathers who contend for the Homo-ousios consubstantial or of the same Substance do yet expresly reject the Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Substance and Essence in Number The Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Essence or Substance in Number is the very Doctrine of the Schools and Moderns but is denied by the Fathers as meer Sabellianism which invincibly proves that by one and the same Substance and Essence they meant not one and the self-same or one in Number but one for Kind Nature or Properties Secondly They must also satisfy the Citations of D. Petavius and S. Curcellaeus and these in the Intellectual System which do all of them severally and much more conjunctly clearly show what the Sense of the Fathers was about Homo-ousios and consubstantial It appears by this and abundance more the like that Dr. Cudworth had the same Apprehensions concerning the three Divine Persons with Dr. Sherlock they both apprehend the three Persons to be as distinct and different and as really three several Intelligent Beings and Substances as three Angels are or as Peter James and John are Dr. Sherlock saith they are however called one God because they are internally conscious to all one anothers Thoughts and Actions but I do not believe that Dr. Cudworth would have allowed so much to the Son and Spirit as to be internally conscious to all the Thoughts and Actions of the first Person he always speaketh of them as every way inferior to the Father he will not allow them to be Omnipotent in any other respect but only externally that is to say because the Father concurreth Omnipotently to all their external Actions whether of Creation or Providence Dr. Cudworth desires to distinguish his Explication from all others of the Moderns by this Mark that it alloweth not the three Persons to be in any respect but Duration Co-equal for saith he three distinct Intelligent Natures or Essences each of them Pre-eternal Self-existent and equally Omnipotent ad intra are of necessity three Gods nor can we have any other Notion of three Gods but if only the first Person be indeed internally Omnipotent and the other two subordinate in Authority and Power to him you leave then but one God only in three Divine Persons This is Dr. Cudworth's Explication Every one will readily make this Exception he thinketh either that there is one Great God and two Lesser Ones or else only the first is true God and the other two in Name only The Doctor foresaw without doubt this Objection therefore see how he hath endeavour'd to prevent it First he reports some Answers of the Fathers to this Difficulty which Answers he expresly rejecteth For some of them said that the three Persons are one God by their Unity of Will and Affection Others said they are one God as all Men or all Mankind are called Homo or MAN namely because they All have the same Specifick Nature or Essence or Substance even the Rational For as all Men have the same Specifick Essence or Nature which is the Rational so the Divine Persons also agree in one Nature namely the Eternal Spiritual and Self existent But Dr. Cudworth confesseth that an Union of Will and Affection is only a Moral Union not a Physical or real Unity and as three Human Persons would be three distinct Men notwithstanding the Moral Union in Affection and Will so also the three Divine Persons will be three distinct Gods notwithstanding such an Union in Will and Affection As to the other that the three Persons are but one God by their having the same Specifick Nature or Essence or as some call it Substance namely because they are all of them Spiritual Self-existent and Coeternal he calleth it an absurd Paradox contrary to common Sense and our common Notions of things for so all Men will be but one Man because they have the same Specifick Essence or Nature namely the Rational and all Epicurus his Extramundan Gods will be but one God Then he propoundeth divers other Explications which he neither approveth nor expresly rejecteth tho 't is plain that he disliked them for the Explication on which he insisteth and which appears to be his Sense of the matter is this that follows The three Divine Persons are one God because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head or Chief even the Father He adds here expresly that if the Persons were Co-ordinate i. e. equal in Authority Dignity or Power they should not be one but three Gods This is at large Dr. Cudworth's Opinion the short of it is that the three Persons are as really distinct Beings Essences or Substances as Dr. Sherlock hath imagined them to be And as their Substances or Natures are not one but three so also must their Understandings and other Personal Powers and Properties The Doctors differ only in this that Dr. Sherlock maketh the Unity of the three Persons in the Godhead to consist in the Mutual-Consciousness of the Persons But Dr. Cudworth in this that the Father is both the Principle Root or Fountain or Cause and also the Head of the other two Persons They neither of them believe one Numerical but one Collective God one God not who is really one God but is one God in certain Respects as of Mutual Consciousness or of being the Cause Principle and Head of all other Beings and of the second and third Persons Dr. Cudworth contends by a great number of very Pertinent and Home Quotations that his Explication I mean that part of it which makes the three Persons to be so many distinct Essences or Substances is the Doctrine of the Principal if not of all the Fathers as well as of the Platonists and I for my own part do grant it For I am perswaded that no Man hath read the Fathers with Judgment and Application but he must discern that tho they do not express themselves in the incautelous unwary and obnoxious Terms used by Dr. Sherlock as neither doth Dr. Cudworth yet the Fathers as much believed the three Persons are distinct Minds and Spirits as Dr. Sherlock doth all the Difference as I said is only this that they and Dr. Cudworth do not use his very Terms They do not say in express words three Minds or three Spirits but the Comparisons which they use and their Definitions or Descriptions of what they mean by Persons are such that it cannot be questioned by any that they apprehended the three Persons to be three distinct Spirits Minds and Beings having each of them his own
or Essence of God diversified by three Modes of Subsistence But above all I would not have Dr. S th please himself overmuch in this that he hath cited some Passages of the Fathers which describe the Personalities of the Father Son and Spirit by Modes Justin and Irenaeus have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of subsisting others call them Properties but by Modes Properties Characters and such like the Fathers meant quite another thing than Dr. S th and the Moderns do they meant what Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Cudworth mean By a Mode and Property they meant that discriminating Character by which the Individuals of any Specifick Nature are distinguished or differenced from all the Individuals of the same Species or Nature For Example the Individuals of the Specifick Nature of Humanity are particular Men and all these Individuals or particular Men are discriminated characterized differenced or modified each by his particular Properties Peter from John Peter and John from James by particular Properties Characters or Modes both of Body and Mind one for instance is bigger taller wiser or some other the like than the other This was what they meant when they described Personalities by Modes and when they said there were three Properties Modes or Characters in God they meant not in the least to deny that each Person is a particular Substance Essence or Nature different in Number from all other Substances Essences or Natures or to deny that each Person is a particular Being they meant only that each Individual or each Person besides the common Specifick Nature that is besides the meer Human Angelical or Divine Nature has also some particular Properties or Characters which ultimately distinguish him from all the Individuals or Persons of the same Species Specifick Nature or Kind It is not true therefore what Dr. S th pretends that by Modes of Subsistence the Antients meant no more than certain such Habitudes or Affections as Mutability Presence Absence Posture or such like they meant real discretive and characterizing Properties or Qualifications and by Person they meant a particular individual intelligent Substance or Essence and so modefied or characterized They were far from dreaming that the three Divine Persons an Almighty Son an Almighty Father and an Almighty Spirit distinct in Number from both were only one individual Substance distinguished or diversified by only three such lank and meagre Affections as Absence Posture Adherence or any other that are no more in a Spiritual Substance than those three are in Bodies to which they add no Perfection and from which they are every Moment separable But the Socinians are not concerned what becomes of the Dispute about Persons and Personalities in God whether they are adequately the same yea or no and again whether the Moderns who follow the Schools agree with the Antients in their Notion of them for I will put to Dr. S th a plain Question to which if he is disposed to give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men that either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock or with the Unitarians that is to say he is either a Tritheist or what I doubt he will as much abhor a Socinian He saith there is one only Divine Substance Essence or Nature and thus far we agree with him but he adds this one Substance is so diversified by three Modes Affections or Habitudes or something like to them that we must say under pain of Heresy and Damnation that this one Substance is three Divine Persons a Father his Son and a Spirit distinct from both Therefore I ask have the three pretended Divine Persons each his own proper peculiar and personal Understanding Will and Energy so that there are in the Divine Substance or in God three distinct All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies as there are three distinct Persons as Dr. Sherlock has affirmed Or have the three Persons but one only self-same Understanding Will and Energy in Number as there is but one self-same Substance in Number If he saith the former he joins Hands with Dr. Sherlock and is guilty of Tritheism no less than he for three Omniscient and Omnipotent Understandings Wills and Energies without doubt are three Gods If there be three Omnisciencies and Omnipotencies of necessity there must be three Omniscients and Omnipotents but that is Tritheism even in the Judgment of Athanasius himself who expresly denies three Almighties or three All-knowings And indeed I do not think Dr. S th will say that each Person hath his own proper and personal Understanding Will or Energy so that there are three distinct Understandings Wills and Energies in what his Party call the Godhead I see his Book is written with more Judgment and Precaution than Dr. Sherlock's or even than any that I have seen that have been written in Defence of the Trinitarian Cause But if he denies that there are three All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies he is a Socinian he has granted to us the Point in Controversy he grants the whole that we contend for They will allow him to say there are three Persons or three thousand Persons in the Godhead so long as he grants but one Omnipotent Energy and Will and but one All-knowing Understanding or Wisdom If this be granted to us 't is plain to every one who gives but never so little heed that the Question about three Persons is a meer Strife of Words and the Authors of the Brief History and Brief Notes are tho not in their Words yet in their Senses as Orthodox as Dr. S th and the Schools I will affirm we have no need of our Brief Histories or Brief Notes we need not make an operose Proof of our Doctrine of the Unity of God from the Holy Scriptures or from Reason the whole Controversy with the Church is ended in the Resolution of this short and plain Question Is there more than one All-knowing Almighty Understanding Will and Energy If you say there is but one such Understanding Will and Energy in one self-same Divine Substance you may talk of as many Persons Fathers Sons Spirits Modes Properties Respects Nothings as you please we will only peaceably advise you that these are meer empty Words that have nothing to answer them in the thing under Consideration When you have granted to us that there is but one Divine Substance and but one Omniscient Omnipotent Understanding and Energy what you add more of Persons Properties Thingams and call them a Trinity 't is an Addition only of Words and Names not of Realities or Persons that are properly so called These things being so and so very evident I cannot wonder that so discerning a Philosopher as Dr. Cudworth never speaks of the Trinity of the Schools maintained by Dr. S th without calling it a Nominal Trinity a Trinity of Names and Words only a disguised Sabellianism which is to say Unitarianism or Socinianism drest up in the absurd Cant of the Schools But whereas the
Schools deform the sincere and easy Notion of the Unity of God as 't is held by the Socinians and Sabellians by transforming it into a Fantastick Trinity of Nominal Persons or of Persons who are Persons only in Name not in Truth and Reality therefore Dr. Cudworth saith farther that this Trinity is Jargonry in Philosophy a Trinity that falls not under Human Conception and which cannot be in Nature Intellect System p. 605. Elsewhere he scruples not to name it the Philosophy of Gotham These are the just Characters which that great Philosopher and Divine gives of the Scholastick Trinity of Dr. S th he giveth his Reasons up and down in the Intellectual System but 't is not necessary for me to report them when every one may see them in the Author himself and besides they are too Philosophical to be put into a Discourse which I design for the Use of the less learned as well as of the learned I have done with Dr. S th's Explication for this time If he is angry with me for the Reflections I have made thereupon I protest 't is without just Cause I have used no disrespectful Language I have acknowledged and do acknowledg the Worth of the Man and all other Perfections in his Book but only this one that it maintains an unjustifiable Explication The Method or Structure of his Book is Natural Elegant and Judicious the Words Expression or Phrase is proper forcible clean and well chose it hath very many agreeable Turns of Wit which render it pleasant to an ingenious Reader As this Author hath a great deal of Wit so he hath known how to govern it in this respect that he is witty without Buffoonry This is a Conduct not very usual in those that have much Wit commonly they know not how to manage it and among other unjudicious Neglects they forget the Where and When and other such like Circumstances they are so taken with their Talent as to be always using it because they know not that everlasting fooling is true and meer fooling But I wish that Dr. S th in exercising his Wit had remembred the who which he hath utterly forgotten and that was utterly an oversight and a very great one He cannot excuse himself by pleading the many Contradictions in Dr. Sherlock's Book a candid Man would not impute them to the Author but to the extream Obscurity of the Subject when the Subject it self is contradictory there will be many Contradictions committed in defending it I doubt not that Dr. Sherlock will find many Contradictions in Dr. S-th's second Chapter Having done to Dr. S th this Right he ought not to be out of Humour that I as a Socinian have attacked his Explication as I have some other Learned Men I mean no Disrespect thereby to him or them I acknowledg their Personal Merit but cannot give up to them so sacred a Truth as the Unity of God or consent that it be disguised and deformed Of the Explication by Mr. Hooker Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity MR. Hooker tho he was none of the Fathers of the Catholick Church is not of less Authority in the particular Church of England than any one of the Fathers is and it must be confest he was not only a very good but a very learned and discerning Man But it is observed of him that in speaking of the Trinity he speaks somewhat incorrectly this was a Doctrine which he took for granted there was no Dispute in his time about it so he hath delivered himself not with his usual Precaution and Judgment He saith That the Substance of God with this Property to be of none doth make the Person of the the Father The very self-same Substance in Number with this Property to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son The same Substance having added to it the Property of proceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God which is one and also that Property which causeth the same Person really and truly to differ from the other two I must observe in the first place hereupon that Mr. Hooker in this matter hath not spoken over critically and correctly nay hardly Orthodoxly I mean as Orthodoxy goes among the Learned of his own Parry He saith that the Substance of God with these Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from the other two make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit now to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from both are but other Words for this Sense to beget to be begotten and to proceed But that Father of Modern Orthodoxy Peter Lombard whom we have already twice mentioned denies that these before-mentioned are Properties in the Substance of God or that they can belong to it he saith Essentia Divina non est generaâ—â— nec generaâ—â— nec procedens i. e. the Substance of God neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds 'T is impossible to make this consist with Mr. Hooker who expresly ascribeth those Properties to the Divine Substance or Essence and saith that being in the Divine Substance they make it to be three Persons What shall we do here Shall we say Reverend Hooker has mistaken and missed his Sons who are all the Church of England into an Error concerning the Trinity Hath he ascribed to the Divine Essence Properties which he calleth Persons that are not in it To give up Hooker is to dishonour the Church of England it self to part with Father Hooker is to endanger the very Surplice and even the Cross in Baptism nay that Book of Books the Common-Prayer If Mr. Hooker could err about the Trinity What will the Fanaticks and Trimmers say Will they not be apt to pretend too he may have erred in his profound Dissertations and Discourses for the Rites and Discipline of the Church I am afraid for all that we must keep close to Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences and of the Modern Divinity he hath been espoused by all the Popes since Innocent the Third by the Lateran Council which was General and by the tacit Approbation of the whole Church ever since I doubt it is not much more passible that Mr. Hooker saith that the Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed do together with the Substance of God make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit It is not true that those are the Properties which make the Persons he might say that they make the Persons to be Father Son and Spirit or to have that threefold Relation among themselves but they do not make the three Persons to be Persons or thus they do not make as he speaks the Persons To be of none maketh the Father but I deny that it maketh as Mr. Hooker affirms the Person of the Father the Character or Property which maketh the Person of the Father is quite another
pass by this Affront and Imputation which no Clergy-man ought to bear nay he even fawns upon the Oxford Doctor in his late Answer to the Stander by But a very surprizing thing hath happened Dr. Wallis writes in Defence of the Trinity and the Athanasian Creed his Explications are allowed by the University of Oxford and even applauded by great numbers of Learned Men who profess to be Trinitarians and yet after all the Socinians in their Observations on the Letters of Dr. Wallis profess that they are of his Mind they even say that in Honour of him they are content to be called Wallisians This is very odd for it follows that either the Socinians are the true Orthodox and their Opposers Tritheists or else that this good Doctor is a Socinian and knows it not Those that say without doubt the Socinians understand their own Doctrine are very picquant upon Dr. Wallis they pretend themselves very desirous to be informed what might be in the Doctor 's Mind to apologize for the Athanasian Creed and the Trinity and yet to asperse at the same time his own Patriarch Socinus and his dear and close Friends and Brethren the Unitarians especially in such an hainous manner as we see in his third and fourth Letters They say either the Man is Wood or he has written after that fashion only to give occasion to the Socinians as in effect it also happened to appear more bright by a thorow and unanswerable Vindication of themselves for so it is that wronged Innocence and Vertue are rendred more conspicuous and lovely when injurious Calumnies are wiped off They say farther that 't is not to be much regarded that so many have complemented Dr. Wallis for his Letters for what Assurance have we that the Writers of them are not secret Socinians and that they only banter the good Doctor As for the University of Oxford to whom these Sabellian and Unitarian Sermons were preached 't is very usual for the old Men that preside in that University to sleep at Sermons especially at dull ones But you are not to think say they that these Sermons or Letters were ever licensed to the Press by the University or that the Doctors there understand so little as to mistake a disguised Sabellianism or Socinianism for the Trinity of the Catholick Church The three Persons says Dr. Wallis are but three Relations Capacities or Respects of God to his Creatures he is their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and in this Sense of the word Person God is three Persons But then because God hath also the Capacity or Relation of a Judg and of an Oeconomus or Provider and many more we must not say that God is only three Persons he is five at the least besides I know not how many more Furthermore this new-fangled Socinian or Sabellian has introduced a Trinity of Divine Persons that were but of yesterday The Churches Trinity are all of them from all Eternity Co-eternal saith the Athanasian Creed before all Worlds saith the Nicene Creed but Dr. Wallis his three Divine Persons the first of them begins with the Creation and the second is no older than the Crucifixion of our Saviour for God was not a Creator before he created any thing nor a Redeemer till those words were spoken by our Saviour on the Cross It is finished i. e. The great Work of Redemption is accomplished The three Divine Persons believed by the Church begat one another after a wonderful manner Will Dr. Wallis being the oldest Divine of England instruct Novices that are desirous to learn how his Persons begat one another How did Creation beget Redemption and from all Eternity that is before either of them were for Creation it self is but Coeval with the World and how was Sanctification we must not say begotten for that 's Heresy when you speak of a third Person but how did it proceed from Creation and from Redemption Dr. Wallis say they will find it as hard to account for these Difficulties as to double the Cube or even to square the Circle which the most learned Mathematicians think to be impossible He is not say they to think that he is Orthodox because he hath escaped the heavy cudgelling that hath all fallen on Dr. Sherlock 't is not because his Doctrine but because his Luck hath been better than that Doctor 's In a word whereas the Church believes three real subsisting Persons Dr. Wallis hath taught a Trinity of External Denominations or Accidental Predications only Creation Redemption and Sanctification are Acts of God's free and soveraign Will he was under no necessity to create to redeem or to sanctify they are all Effects of his most voluntary and every way free Love if therefore the Mystery of the Trinity so much hitherto contested be nothing else but Almighty God considered as the Maker Redeemer and Sanctifier of his Creatures 't is a Trinity only of three Denominations or Names and of Predications purely Accidental and besides that 't is no manner of Mystery but the most intelligible and obvious thing in the Word nor was it ever denied either by Sabellians or Socinians Thus it is Sir that divers learned Persons speak concerning the Trinity maintained by Dr. Wallis I for my part will add nothing to the Observations I have formerly made on Dr. Wallis his Letters only I pray take notice here with me how well the Cadmean Brethren agree among themselves Three Divine Persons saith Dr. Wallis are the three Relations of God to his Creatures he made he redeemed he sanctifies them this is the Holy Trinity Out upon it saith Dr. Sherlock 't is Nonsense and Heresy both for the Divine Persons are three Beings three Minds three Spirits all of them living subsisting and conscious to one another No no that 's as much too much saith Dr. S th 't is neither so nor so but as I have explained it in my eighth Chapter of Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock The Explication of the Trinity by Dr. Sherlock saith Dr. S th is a treacherous and a false Defence of that Mystery he hath advanced a Notion that immediately and unavoidably infers three Gods and if he had lived in the times of the sixth General Council he would have incurred the Penalty of Deprivation Pref. p. 2 7 8. Well I hope Dr. S th hath at length told us the very true Doctrine about the Trinity Yes he hath without question laid down the very Explication of the Schools the Doctrine or Explication generally received in Universities I doubt not it would be approved by most of the Chairs of our European Universities or Schools of Learning he hath verily acquitted himself like a Man of Learning and Wit For all that Dr. Cudworth in his Intellectual System hath largely and clearly proved these two things 1. That this Trinity of the Schools is quite different from the Trinity held by the Fathers and that by them it would have been reckoned no other than Sabellianism 2. That as
Understanding and all other Personal Qualifications It is indeed apparent Tritheism and that was the true Reason why the Schools advanced a new Explication but because the Schools durst not find fault with the Fathers or seem to depart from their Doctrine therefore what the Father 's intended of one Specifick Essence or Nature or Substance that the Scools interpreted of one Numerical Substance Nature or Essence but of that hereafter when we examine their Doctrine in its own place Dr. Cudworth being so great a Philosopher as every one knows he was found himself very hard put to it what to say colourably and reasonably concerning the Persons of the Trinity He saw that either he must say that they are but one self-same Essence or Substance in Number or that they have distinct and several Substances or Essences To say that they are or they subsist in one self-same Substance or Essence in Number is such Jargonry in Philosophy that is to say in the Nature and Possibilities of Things that he never speaks of it without a just mark of Contempt 't is Nonsense saith he and 't is impossible and besides that 't is Sabellianism and a Trinity not of Persons but of Words and Names Well shall we say then that the three Persons are three distinct Substances is it not plain Tritheism No saith the Doctor for the Persons are not equal the Father is both the Principle or Original and the Head of the other two Persons and besides that he only is Omnipotent ad intra But then will some say indeed this Explication leaveth us but one God which is the thing we look'd after but it is by utterly abolishing the Godhead of the Son and Spirit it maketh only the Father to be really God the other two Persons are so only by a certain Dependance on him both in Origination and Acting As bad as this Consequence is and as clear Dr. Cudworth is forced to swallow it and to sit down contented with it he thought it should seem it is better somewhat to strain the use of Words than the Natures and Possibilities of Things 'T is hard indeed that we must say one Supream and two Dependent Persons make but one God but 't is harder to say three Persons have but one Substance or Essence in Number Words are Arbitrary Signs applied to things according as Men please and therefore are capable of Alteration in their Use but the Nature of Things is absolutely unchangeable three Persons can never be one Substance Essence or individual Nature No Philosophy but that of Gotham will allow that one Intelligent Substance can be more than one Person but divers Philosophers especially the Platonists have called three Distinct Intelligent Divine Substances one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Diâ—inity or God therefore nothing hinders but that so also may Christians To this purpose Dr. Cudworth in divers places of his Intellectual System But it is now time to make our Observations on this Doctor 's Explication which I shall do the more carefully because I am perswaded that all the chief Fathers were in his Sentiments that the three Divine Persons are three distinct individual Substances or Essences in Number which by the Schools and all the Moderns is granted to be Tritheism and because it is evident by his Intellectual System that this Doctor understood all the Philosophies Antient and Modern in the most perfect manner and was himself one of the ablest Philosophers we have known His Explication hath these Parts 1. That the Divine Persons are one Specifick but three distinct particular individual Substances or Essences in Number or in the Reality of Things and that otherwise there could not be three Divine Persons but only one such Person 2. That three distinct individual intelligent Divine Essences or Substances commonly called Persons are yet but one God because tho they are three in Number yet they are one in Original for the second and third Persons are derived from the Father as their Fountain and Cause 3. Tho they are three Persons yet they are but one God because they concur to all the same Actions both of Creation and Providence under one Head even the Father The Emphasis of this lies in their concurring to all the same Actions but principally in this that they concur to the same Actions under one Head which is the Father 1. That the Divine Persons are three distinct particular individual Intelligent Substances Essences or Natures and that otherways that is were there but one self-same Substance or Essence in Number they should not be three Persons but only one Person I have granted that if there are three Divine Persons those Persons are of necessity three distinct individual Essences or Substances so that as to this first Proposition the Doctor and the Socinians are perfectly agreed all that we deny is that three such Essences or Persons are or can be but one God But tho the Socinians allow that three Persons must be three distinct Substances or Essences yet all the Modern Trinitarians utterly deny it the reason is because they saw plainly that to say there are three distinct Essences or Substances is to grant in effect to the Socinians what they so much contend for namely that the Doctrine of the Trinity doth imply three Gods Three distinct Divine Persons saith Dr. Cudworth are three distinct Divine Essences or Substances it is true say the Socinians and we grant this to the Doctor no say all the Modern Trinitarians three distinct Divine Essences are not only three distinct Divine Persons but they are also three distinct Gods if once we grant that the three Divine Persons are three Essences the Socinians will extort it from us as an unavoidable Consequence that we teach three Gods The Truth is since the Lateran Council which determined in favour of P. Lombard against Abbat Joachim and the Fathers that there is but one only Divine Essence or Substance in Number I do not believe there hath been any Divine of note but Dr. Cudworth and Dr. Sherlock and some few who may have borrowed it from them who durst ever publish it in Writing that there are three distinct Divine Substances Essences or Natures or that every distinct Person is a distinct Substance They all saw that so to say is to introduce three Gods for if you say there are three distinct Intelligent Almighty All-knowing and Pre-eternal Substances Essences or Natures you have actually said there are three Gods because you can possibly give no fuller nor other Description of three Gods If one All-knowing Almighty Essence or Substance is one perfect God to whom nothing at all can be added 't is no better than fooling or effrontry to deny that three such Essences or Substances are three Gods This plain and clear Reason hath constrained the School-Divines to depart from the Explication of the Fathers and has also obliged all the Moderns to follow the Schools and forsake the Fathers Yet so as out of good Manners
first Commandment Thou shalt have no other God but Me he speaks to all Men to the illiterate to the sincere and even to Children as well as to those who are practised in the Arts of deceiving and being deceived by a Disguise of Words and by captious Forms of speaking If his meaning therefore was there is an Almighty Father who is God he hath an Almighty Son who also is a God and besides these there is an Almighty Spirit distinct from the other two and a God no less than either of them if I say this was his meaning would he have couched it in such words as these There is none other God but one or in these There is one God and there is none other but He or would he have said Thou shalt have none other God but ME Could the Wisdom of God it self find no other words but these which are so directly contrary to such a meaning by which to express himself and that too to those who were utterly uncapable of apprehending such a Sense in them These are the words which God spake upon Mount Sinai with Thunders that shook the Earth and Heavens I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other God but ME. They tell us his meaning was there are three Almighty All-knowing and Most good Persons each of them singly and by himself God and all of them jointly Creators of all things Now who would have thought it that this should be the meaning of no other God but ME Without doubt the Texts and the meaning are as far from one another as any the most contradictory Propositions can be and till they can remove this first Commandment out of the way it will be impossible for Men of Sense to be of the Trinitarian Perswasion I mean if they be also sincere if they suffer not themselves to be blinded by the Interests or awed by the vain Terrors of the present false World Our Opposers themselves grant that when the Israelites first heard this Commandment they understood it and could then no otherways understand it as the Unitarians now do namely thus Thou shalt never own any other Person as God but only Me who now speak to thee God Almighty suffered this Sense of his Words to pass current for upwards of 1500 Years But then say they he sent our Saviour and his Apostles to give another Sense of them nay a contrary Sense The Apostles and our Saviour had it in Charge to tell us that no other God but Me was as much as to say God the Father and God his Son and God the Holy Ghost three Divine Persons each of them Almighty each of them All-knowing and most Good and each of them God But I verily think had the Apostles indeed pretended this to be the Interpretation of the first Commandment they would not have found a single Person who would have believed or received them For these good Men had not nor desired Penal Laws Prisons Confiscations Deprivations Exclusions from the common Privileges of the Society by which to awe Mens Minds to profess and even to believe that black is white and white is black It would have been told them by all their Hearers that the Sense of Words is unalterable and that even the greatest Miracles cannot authorize an Interpretation evidently contrary to the Text. If the Speaker had been only a Man yet the Sense of his Words when actually spoken can never be changed by any Authority whatsoever If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroyed to confirm an Interpretation that disagrees with the Natural and Grammatical Sense of the Words it will for all that ever remain a false Interpretation Cardinal Bellarmine is extreamly puzled with this Difficulty he saw plainly that the first Commandment and other Texts of the Law is conceived in such words that the Israelites could not think there were three Divine Persons but only one Divine Person But the Reason saith he of this was because the Israelites having lived long in a Nation where they owned and worshipp'd many Gods if they had been told of three Divine-Persons or of God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost they would most certainly have apprehended them to be three Gods This saith the Cardinal is the Reason why the Doctrine of the Trinity was reserved to the Times of the New Testament Bellarm. de Christo l. 2. c. 6. Notandum est Deum in vetteri Testamento noluisse proponere Mysterium Triuitatis expresse quia Judaei incapaces erant quia recens exierant de Egypto ubi colebantur multi Dii intraturi erant in terram Chanaan ubi etiam multi babebantur Dii ne videlicet putarent sibi tres Deos proponi colendosâ— voluisse tamen Deum adumbrare hoc Mysterium ut cum in Novo Testamento praedicaretur non videretur omnino Novum q. d. The Doctrine of the Trinity was not propounded expresly to the Jews in the Old Testament they were uncapable of it because coming out of Egypt where many Gods were worshipped and entering into Canaan where also many Gods were acknowledged the Jews would have thought that three Gods had been propounded to them to be worshipped Nevertheless it was hinted or shadowed to them lest when it came to be preached in the New Testament it should seem altogether a new thing In reading the Works of this Cardinal I have often had this Thought That provided his Works were but bulky and learned he never cared what other Property they wanted no one can deny that his five Books against the Unitarians intituled by him De Christo are the most learned of any that have been written against us but they have no Wit and are throughout most injudicious What can be more unthought or silly for instance than this vain Elusion God speaks to the Jews saith he as if he were but one Person because they living among People who acknowledged many Gods would have mistaken three Divine Persons to be three Gods How came it to be more safe or seasonable or less liable to Misinterpretation to instruct Christians in the Belief of three Divine Persons than it would have been to teach the same Belief to the Jews The Jews saith the Cardinal would have mistaken they would have thought the Trinity an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit to be three Almighties and three Gods so this Mystery was not preached to them What a Narrowness of Thought and Consideration is implied in this Answer for was not the whole Christian Church taken from among such Nations who all worshipped and owned many Gods The Reason alledged by the Cardinal if it were good for any thing must also have prevented the Revelation of that pretended Mystery to any of the Christian Nations and Churches I might also ask the Cardinal why he hath so much better Thoughts of Athanasius than of Moses and the Prophets Athanasius knew how to compose a Trinitarian Creed in the most express and particular
believed that the Son was created by the Father or God but a little before the Creation of the World and that the Spirit was the Work or Creature of the Son and further that their Substances or Essences were altogether unlike from whence they were also called Heterousians But the moderate Arians were content to say that there was no conceivable Duration or Time between the Being of God or the Father and the Generation or Creation for those are with them equivalent Terms of the Son the Father made or generated the Son so early that there was no conceivable Portion of Time before the Son was no more than was absolutely necessary for giving to the Father the Priority of Existence and his Title of Father and as to their Substances they are Consubstantial by which this sort of Arians meant and the Church then meant no more that their Substances or Essences are alike or the same for Kind and Properties tho not in Number that is the Essences of these three Persons are all of them Spiritual Eternal and Infinite tho only the Father is Infinite in Power These moderate Arians were received to Communion by the moderate Trinitarians and particularly by Pope Liberius Dr. Cudworth holdeth their very Doctrine he alloweth only the Father to be Omnipotent and tho he saith that the Son and Spirit are also Eternal yet he cannot deny that there must be some Priority of the Father as the Fountain Principle and Cause before the Son and Spirit as Effects In a word the moderate Arians ascribed as much to the Son as Dr. Cudworth doth Were Dr. Cudworth alive it would not be expedient to make this Judgment of his Explication but being dead it cannot hurt him He is retired to the true Mount Moriah or Land of Vision where he no longer guesses by prudent and wary Conjectures but he knows and even sees how these things are God and Nature after which he enquired with so much Application and Freedom are now known to him and he now rests from his excellent Labours out of all danger from the Malevolence of the present evil Generation with whom 't is a Crime not to take every thing upon Trust on the meer Credit of those who have been before us As if it were the way to Truth not to enquire but to believe not to examine try and judg but to pre-suppose and take for granted every thing that has been told us by Men in Power and Place This is the Spirit that now prevails in the Church and on the contrary an ingenuous Freedom in enquiring and examining tho it be nothing else indeed but an honest and necessary Sincerity is now called Heresy and Schism and is if you 'll believe them to be punish'd with certain Damnation We have however in the mean time this Satisfaction that it is God who shall at last judg us He that hath said to us Try all things hold fast that which is good But I pass to the Trinity according to Aristotle defended by Dr. S th Of the Explication by Dr. S th I Have already done Right to Dr. S th and his Book if he takes it amiss that I observe also some Defects in it he ought to show his Patent by which he is constituted the only Animadverter on the Books of others If he hath received any Personal Wrong or Affront from Dr. Sherlock he is the more excusable that his Book hath so much more Scurrility than Argument but the Injury must have been very great to excuse him wholly He has noted some Errors either of Inadvertency and Haste or of the Pen in some Expressions and Words used by Dr. Sherlock he imputes all these as faults of meer Ignorance or Dulness to the Doctor This was somewhat barbarous nay it was more Barbarity in Point of Morality or Manners than ever Dr. Sherlock was guilty of in Grammar or Speech Dr. S th will not at least has not yet been able to perswade many that Dr. Sherlock wants the Qualifications or the degree of the Qualifications for which Dr. S th hath deserved Esteem the World thinks there is a great deal more in Dr. Sherlock to be commended besides his Preferments it is only wished that both these Doctors had something more of the Tenderness and Catholick Charity of Genuine Christianity tho it were accompanied with lesser Abilities or Learning Dr. Sherlock hath publish'd an Essay towards vindicating and explaining the Difficulties of the Trinity and Incarnation the Method he hath taken is wholly new and is a Mistake but it was meant well and I do not think that setting aside some Authorities or Quotations Dr. S th hath said any thing against it which Dr. Sherlock will much value The Arguments used by Dr. S th are only Metaphysical Reasonings easily advanced and as easily destroyed Dr. S th's is the true Explication that is to say as Orthodoxy is reckoned since Peter Lombard and the Lateran Council but Dr. Sherlock knew it to be Nonsense and therefore adventur'd to propose another he put forth his Hand to save the tottering and falling Ark and 't is made an inexcusable Fault But I will pass from the too Cynical Doctor to his Book and Explication 'T is not till Chap. 8. that he begins to bless us with the Catholick and Orthodox Account of his Trinity in Unity but at length at Pag. 240. out comes the Secret with this Preface to it The Doctrine of the Church and of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judg but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this Truly I am heartily sorry to hear it that Dr. S th at these Years has no fixed Religion of his own no not concerning the Trinity it self but is ready to turn with the Wind is prepared to renounce a Doctrine and Explication which he believes to be not only true but Fundamental if the Church commands him Mr. Milbourn makes the same Complement to his good Mother the Church in his late Book against the Socinians as I have noted in my Answer to him but Mr. Milbourn is somewhat excusable because he hath not yet received any of the Rewards due as he thinks to his Industry and Learning but Dr. S th is full and even overflows with the Blessings of the holy Mother It should seem Dr. S th thinketh he hath not yet enough else he would never be so over-mannerly as to put his Faith it self afloat and that too with the humblest Submission at the Command of his Reverend Mother We may infer however from these publick Professions of the Writers that could the Socinians get Mother Church of their side all her Champions would also come over to us for 't is not it seems the Cause that they defend 't is not the Trinity or Incarnation that they value but our Mother our Mother the Church If Dr. S th makes so light of his own Explication that he
is more honourable to own a clear and necessary Truth or to set one's self to darken and to obstruct it I confess the latter requires more Wit especially against an able and dexterous Defendant but 't is the other that deserves greater Praise especially before God because it argues Sincerity and Justice But I pass to the last sort of Trinity the Mystical Trinity Of the Mystical Trinity or the Trinity of the Mobile THE poor common People are first made to believe by the help of corrupted Copies and false Translations of the Bible that 't is a Scripture-Doctrine that there is a Trinity of Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit distinct and different in Number from both Father and Son But because this at the very first sight appears contrary to Reason and common Sense therefore in the next place they are told that they must consider this Doctrine as a Mystery impossible indeed for us to understand yet necessary to be believed because God hath said it How many things say these Teachers are there in the Works of Nature which we understand not no more than we can understand the Trinity and yet we believe them to be as assuredly as if there were no Difficulty in conceiving how they should be As that there are Antipodes whose Feet are opposite to our Feet and who walk with their Heads downwards with respect to our Parts of the World Again that a Spirit can move a Body from place to place tho Reason first assures us that there can be no Motion without a Resistance and then that a pure Spirit can meet no Resistance from Matter or Bodies Also that the Parts of Matter or Bodies hold together tho no Cause can be assigned for it but what appears immediately to be unsufficient nay ridiculous All these are great Truths and we believe them even contrary to the Verdict of Reason how much more ought we to believe the Trinity which hath been propounded to us as an Article of Faith in the Word of God it self tho our fallible and frail Reason reclaims and kicks perhaps against it When the Socinians say these Gentlemen have accounted for all the Mysteries of Nature and Art let them begin to object to the Trinity that 't is a Mystery and that it hath sundry Contradictions to Reason but till they do the first 't is nothing else but a bold Impiety to insist on the other It must be confessed Sir that this is the most plausible Pretence the strongest Hold as well as the last Resort of our Opposers when we have drove them from all other Posts here they take Sanctuary I will therefore take care to remove this Occasion and Cover of Error I say 1. I might leave it wholly to Dr. S th to answer this Pretence of some of his Party At p. 2 and 3 c. of his Animadversions he shows at large what is a Mystery he saith that a Mistery is a Truth revealed by God above the reach of Human Reason to find out or to comprehend He vindicateth this Definition part by part he saith p. 3. first a Mystery is a Truth by which saith he I exclude every thing from being a Mystery which is absurd or contradictions Now we desire nothing else of our Oppoâ—â—â—â— but that they would abide by this Account of Mystery that 't is not something absurd or contradictory but only some Secret revealed by God because it was above Human Capacity to discover it and sometimes also even to comprehend how it can be For there is a vast Difference between my not being able to conceive how a thing should be and a clear Apprehension and Sight that it cannot be There are it may be Mysteries which we cannot comprehend how they should be but that three Divine Persons or three distinct Almighty and All-knowing Persons should be but one Almighty but one All-knowing or but one God a Man who considers but with never so little Intention and Sincerity clearly sees that it cannot be In short that 't is not a Mystery but as Dr. S th speaks an Absurdity and a Contradiction In a word we do not reject the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation because they are Mysteries but because they are plain Contradictions to Reason and common Sense and consequently Untruths for without doubt Reason and Truth are but two Names for the same thing and clear Reason is no other thing but clear Truth 2. I consider that what will equally serve to excuse all the Nonsense and impossible Doctrines that are to be found among Men we cannot admit of it as a Defence of the pretended Trinity and Incarnation especially in Opposition to such powerful Proofs both from Scripture and Reason as may be and actually are alledged against those Doctrines A Papist for Example does with equal colour alledg this Pretence for his Transubstantiation He says 'T is a Scripture-Doctrine delivered in these express words This is my Body and how many things are there in the Works of Nature which we comprehend not no more than we can comprehend the Miracle of the Transubstantiation and yet we believe them to be as assuredly as if there were no Difficulty in conceiving how they should be or that they can be Such as the Antipodes and that a pure Spirit can â—â—â—ve a Body in which it findeth no Resistance and that the Parts of Matter or Bodies are continuos or hold together and many the like Thus do the Papists argue and I deny that this Pretence can be wrested from them by any Trinitarian for 't is the same Defence that the Trinitarian makes for his Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation Our Opposers will not vouchsafe so much as to hear Catholicks and Lutherans when they plead Mystery for the Transubstantiation or the Consubstantiation I desire of them therefore to give me but one Reason why that Plea is not as good in those Controversies as in these of the Trinity and Incarnation The Author of two Dialogues concerning the Trinity and the Transubstantiation finding himself pressed with this Difficulty answers to this effect that there are a great many more Texts of Holy Scripture for the Trinity than are pretended for the Transubstantiation But this is no Solution of the proposed Difficulty for 't is not at all the Question which Doctrine hath most Texts alledged for it but only whether the Pretence of Mystery be not a Plea as rational and allowable against all the Exceptions made against the Transubstantiation as an impossible inconceivable and contradictory Doctrine as 't is to the same Exceptions when urged by the Socinians against the Incarnation or Trinity But whereas that Author insists upon an Answer wholly foreign to this Difficulty and is so careful to bring together from Cardinal Bellarmine all the Texts alledged for the Trinity he is desired to name to us so much as one Text for either of those Doctrines that is not given up to the