much at present That the Greek Writers in expressing the Godhead or Divine Nature whensoever they do not use the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 constantly express it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were commonly used in the same sense And likewise the Latins where they express not the same by Deitas or Divinitas do as constantly express it by Natura and Substantia which words stand now particularly condemned by this Presuming Man and that not only in Defiance of all the Ancients but also of the Church of England Her Self which has set her Authorizing Stamp upon those Two Words Substance and Person by applying them to this Subject both in her Articles and Liturgy In the first of them teaching us That in the Unity of the Godhead there are three Persons of one Substance Power and Eternity Artic. 1. And in her Liturgy rendring the Athanasian Creed by the same words Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance As likewise that Passage in the Nicene Creed by the Son 's being of one Substance with the Father And again in the Doxology at the Communion on Trinity Sunday it gives us these full and notable words One God one Lord not one onely Person but three Persons in one Substance After all which with what face can this strange Anomalar Son of the Church while he is sucking her Breasts and at the same time poysoning the Milk with which she should feed her Children I say with what Face can he aver to the World That this word Substance thus embraced owned and used by her ought to be thrown away as the Direct Cause of all the Errours Men are apt to fall into about this great Mystery And that we can have no Notion of Substance but what implies in it something gross and material Which were it so can any one imagine that the Church of England would ever have made use of such a word as could serve for nothing but a Snare and a Trap to betray the Understandings and Consciences of Men into such Errours as may cost them their Souls This is so fouly Reflexive upon her that I would have any Man living give me a good Reason Why this Author should not be call'd upon by Publick Authority to give the Church satisfaction for the Scandal given to all the Orthodox Members of it by the Contumely and Reproach which he has passed upon those Terms and Words which She has thought fit so solemnly to express her Faith and her Devotions by But some Men such is the Regard had to her Laws and Discipline will venture to utter and write any Thing that the Bookseller will pay them for though they throw their Conscience and Religion into the Bargain But God himself who resisteth the Proud seems to have took the Matter into his own Hands and to shew his Controlling Providence over the Minds and Hearts of Men has at length brought this Scornful Man to eat his own words the hardest Diet certainly that a proud Person can be put to and after all the black Dirt thrown by him upon the School-men and their Terms to lick it off again with his own Tongue So that after he had passed such a Terrible Killing Doom upon these words Essence Substance Subsistence Suppositum Person and the like here in his Vindication all on a suddain in a relenting Fit he graciously reaches out his Golden Scepter of Self-Contradiction and Restores them to Life again in his Apology And that the Reader may behold both sides of the Contradiction the more clearly I think it the best and fairest way to give him the Sense of this Author if it may be so call'd in his own Words Vindication I Have not troubled my Reader with the different signification of Essence Hypostasis Subsistence Persons Existence Nature c. which are Terms very differently used by the Greek and Latin Fathers and have very much obscured this Doctrine instead of explaining it P. 101. l. 12. The School-men have no Authority where they leave the Fathers whose sense they sometimes seem to mistake or to clog it with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own P. 138. l. 28. The Truth is that which has confounded this Mystery viz. of the Trinity has been the vain endeavour to reduce it to Terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis and the like Pag. 138. l. the last P. 139. l. 1. And speaking of the Ancient Fathers in the same Page he tells us They nicely distinguished between Person and Hypostasis and Nature and Essence and Substance that they were three Persons but one Nature Essence and Substance But that when Men curiously examined the signification of these words they found that upon some account or other They were very unapplicable to this Mystery Hereupon he asks the following Questions in an upbraiding manner viz. What is the Substance and Nature of God How can three distinct Persons have but one Numerical Substance And What is the distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence And Lastly At the end of the same Page He confesses that some tolerable Account of the School-Terms and Distinctions might be given but that it would be a work of more difficulty than use Apology HE viz. the melancholy Stander-by is very angry with the School-Doctors as worse Enemies to Christianity than either Heathen Philosophers or Persecuting Emperours Pray what hurt have they done I suppose he means the corruption of Christianity with those barbarous terms of Person Nature Essence Subsistence Consubstantiality c. which will not suffer Hereticks to lie concealed under Scripture-Phrases But why must the School-men bear all the blame of this Why does he not accuse the Ancient Fathers and Councils from whom the School-men learn'd these Terms Why does he let St. Austin escape from whom the Master of the Sentences borrowed most of his Distinctions and Subtleties But suppose these unlucky Wits had used some new Terms have they taught any new Faith about the Trinity in Unity which the Church did not teach And if they have only guarded the Christian Faith with an Hedge of Thorns which disguised Hereticks cannot break through is this to wound Christianity in its very Vitals No no They will only prick the Fingers of Hereticks and secure Christianity from being wounded and this is one great Cause why some Men are so angry with the School-Doctors tho' the more General Cause is because they have notIndustry enough to Read or understand them Apology P. 4 5. I have to prevent all exceptions given the Reader the whole Paragraph in which the last Clause strikes Home indeed tho' in such Cases some think this Author would do well to take heed of striking too Home and Hard for fear the Blow should rebound back again and do execution where
for representing the vanity of his Hypothesis by the forementioned Example and Comparison But I hope the World will give me leave to distinguish between Things Sacred and his Absurd Phantastick way of treating of them which I can by no means look upon as Sacred nor indeed any Thing else in his whole Book but the bare Subject it treats of and the Scriptures there quoted by him For to speak my thoughts plainly I believe this Sacred Mystery of the Trinity was never so ridiculed and exposed to the Contempt of the Profane Scoffers at it as it has been by this New-fashioned Defence of it And so I dismiss his two so much Admired Terms by himself I mean as in no degree answering the Expectation he raised of them For I cannot find That they have either heightned or strength'ned Men's Intellectual Faculties or cast a greater light and clearness upon that Object which has so long exercised them but that a Trinity in Unity is as Mysterious as ever and the Mind of Man as unable to grasp and comprehend it as it has been from the beginning of Christianity to this day In a word Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness have rendred nothing about the Divine Nature and Persons plainer easier and more Intelligible nor indeed after such a mighty stress so irrationally laid upon two slight empty words have they made any thing but the Author himself better understood than it was before CHAP. V. In which is proved against this Author That the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits IT being certain both from Philosophy and Religion that there is but one only God or God-head in which Christian Religion has taught us That there are Three Persons Many Eminent Professors of it have attempted to shew how one and the same Nature might Subsist in Three Persons and how the said Three Persons might meet in one and make no more than one simple undivided Nature It had been to be wished I confess that Divines had rested in the bare Expressions delivered in Scripture concerning this Mystery and ventured no further by any particular and bold Explications of it But since the Nature or rather Humour of Man has been still too strong for his Duty and his Curiosity especially in things Sacred been apt to carry him too far those however have been all along the most pardonable who have ventured least and proceeded upon the surest grounds both of Scripture it self and of Reason discoursing upon it And such I affirm the Ancient Writers and Fathers of the Church and after them the School-men to have been who with all their Faults or rather Infelicities caused by the Times and Circumstances they lived in are better Divines and Soberer Reasoners than any of those Pert Confident Raw Men who are much better at Despising and Carping at them than at Reading and Understanding them Though Wise Men Despise nothing but they will know it first and for that Cause very rationally despise them But among those who leaving the Common Road of the Church have took a By-way to themselves none of late Years especially have ventured so boldly and so far as this Author who pretending to be more happy forsooth in his Explication of this Mystery than all before him as who would not believe a Man in his own Commendation and to give a more satisfactory Account of this long received and Revered Article by Terms perfectly New and peculiarly his own has advanced quite different Notions about this Mystery from any that our Church was ever yet acquainted with Affirming as he does That the Three Persons in the God-head are Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits as will appear from the several places of his Book where he declares his Thoughts upon this great Subject As First in Page 50. he says The Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Infinite Minds really distinct from each other Again in Page 66. The Persons says he are perfectly distinct for they are Three distinct and Infinite Minds and therefore Three distinct Persons For a Person is an Intelligent Being and to say they are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct Infinite Minds is both Heresie and Nonsense For which extraordinary Complement passed upon the whole Body of the Church of England and perhaps all the Churches of Christendom besides as I have paid him part of my thanks already so I will not fail yet further to account with him before I put an end to this Chapter In the mean time he goes on in Page 102. I plainly assert says he That as the Father is an Eternal and Infinite Mind so the Son is an Eternal and Infinite Mind distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost is an Eternal and Infinite Mind distinct both from Father and Son Adding withall these words Which says he every Body can understand without any skill in Logick or Metaphysicks And this I confess is most truly and seasonably remarked by him For the want of this Qualification is so far from being any hindrance in the Case mentioned that I dare undertake that nothing but want of skill in Logick and Metaphysicks can bring any Man living who acknowledges the Trinity to own this Assertion I need repeat no more of his Expressions to this purpose these being sufficient to declare his Opinion save only that in Page 119. where he says That Three Minds or Spirits which have no other difference are yet distinguish'd by Self-Consciousness and are Three distinct Spirits And that other in Page 258. where speaking of the Three Persons I grant says he that they are Three Holy Spirits By the same Token that he there very Learnedly distinguishes between Ghost and Spirit allowing the said Three Persons as we have shewn to be Three Holy Spirits but at the same time denying them to be Three Holy Ghosts and this with great scorn of those who should hold or speak otherwise To which at present I shall say no more but this That he would do well to turn these two Propositions into Greek or Latin and that will presently shew him what difference and distinction there is between a Ghost and a Spirit and why the very same things which are affirmed of the one notwithstanding the difference of those words in English may not with the same Truth be affirmed of the other also But the Examination of this odd Assertion will fall in more naturally towards the latter end of this Chapter where it shall be particularly considered I have now shewn this Author's Judgment in the Point and in opposition to what he has so boldly Asserted and laid down I do here deny That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Three distinct Infinite Spirits And to overthrow his Assertion and evince the Truth of mine I shall trouble neither my Reader nor my self with many Arguments But of those which I shall make use of the first is this
Term One True God or One only True God and the Term One True God or One only True God including in it no more than the Term One God and consequently if he asserts That these Terms cannot with equal Propriety be attributed to and predicated of the Son and the Holy Ghost we have him both Arian and Macedonian together in this Assertion And I believe his Adversary the Author of the Notes could hardly have desired a greater Advantage against him than his calling it as he does a Corruption of the Athanasian Creed to joyn the Term One True God to every Person of the Trinity adding withal That upon the doing so it would sound pretty like a Contradiction to say in the close That there was but One True God These are our Author's words but much fitter to have proceeded from a Socinian than from one professing a belief and which is more a defence of the Trinity But in answer to them I tell him That the repeated Attribution of The One True God or Only True God to each of the Three Persons is no Corruption of that Creed at all Forasmuch as these Terms The One True God and the only True God import an Attribute purely Essential and so equally and in Common belonging to all the Three Persons and not an Attribute properly Personal and so appropriate to some one or other of the said Persons And if this Author would have duly distinguished between Essential and Personal Attributes he could not have discoursed of these Matters at so odd a rate as here he does And therefore I deny it to be any Contradiction let it sound in his Ears how it will to conclude That the said Three Persons notwithstanding this Repetition are not Three True Gods but only One True God But he says That such a Repeated Application implies as if each Person considered as distinguished and separated from the other were the One True God To which I Answer 1. That to imply as if a thing were so and to imply that really it is so makes a very great difference in the case indeed so great that this Author must not think from words implying only the former to conclude the latter which yet must be done or what he here alledges is nothing to his purpose But 2. I Answer yet farther That the forementioned words do indeed imply and which is more plainly declare That the Three Persons who are said to be the One or only True God are while they sustain that Attribute really distinct from one another but it does not imply That this is said of them under that peculiar Formality as they are distinct and much less as separated which latter they neither are nor can be The truth is what he has said against the repeated Application of this Term to every one of the Three Persons may be equally objected against all the repeated Predications in the Athanasian Creed but to as little purpose one as the other since albeit all these Predications do agree to Persons really distinct yet they agree not to them under that formal and precise consideration as distinct For nothing but their respective Personal Relations agree to them under that Capacity and this effectually clears off this objection But here I cannot but wonder that this Man should jumble together these two Terms distinguished and separated as he does twice here in the compass of eight Lines when the signification of them as applyed to the Three Divine Persons is so vastly different that one of these Terms viz. distinguished necessarily belongs to them and the other which is separated neither does nor can take place amongst them Nay and when this Author himself has so earnestly and frequently contended for the difference of them as all along asserting the distinction of Persons and as often denying their separation But he proceeds and says That this Expression of The One or only True God is never that he knows of attributed to Son or Holy Ghost either in Scripture or any Catholick Writer Which words methinks as I cannot but observe again do not look as if a Man were Writing against the Socinians Nevertheless admitting the Truth of his Allegation That this Term the One True God is not to be found expresly attributed to the Son or the Holy Ghost will he infer from hence that therefore it neither can nor ought to be so For if that be attributed to them Both in Scripture and Catholick Writers which necessarily and essentially implys The One True God and does and must signifie the very same Thing is it not all one as if in Terminis it had been ascribed to them Doubtless there are several other Expressions in the Athanasian Creed as hardly as this to be found elsewhere However the Thing being certain from other words equivalent this exception is of no force at all nor by any one who understands these Matters is or ought to be accounted so and much less can I see to what end it should be insisted upon by any one while he is encountring the Socinians And therefore whereas he says This Attribute or Title viz. The One True God cannot so properly be ascribed to any one Person but only to the Father whom he tells us the Fathers call the Fountain of the Deity what he here designs by the words so properly which seem to import degrees of Propriety I cannot well tell But this I ask in short May it be properly attributed to the Son and to the Holy Ghost or may it not If not then they are not properly The One True God nor consequently are they properly The True God For whatsoever any one properly is that he may be properly said to be And as for the Father 's being the Fountain of the Deity I hope he looks upon this Expression only as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native Sence for fear the Consequences of it may engage him too far to be able to make an handsome Retreat which I assure him if he does not take heed they certainly will But in a word I demand of him Whether the Father 's being the Fountain of Deity does appropriate and restrain the Thing expressed by the One True God to the Father in contra-distinction to the other Two Persons or not If it does then the same Absurdity recurs viz. That neither is the Son nor the Holy Ghost the One True God and consequently neither simply really and essentially God But on the other side if the Father 's being the Fountain of the Deity does not appropriate the Thing signified by the One True God to the Father then it leaves it common to the other Two Persons with Himself and to each of them And whatsoever is so may with the same Propriety and Truth of Speech be ascribed to and affirmed of them as it is often ascribed to and affirmed of the Father Himself The Truth is this Man 's adventurous and unwary way of
as defective as the Thing he Argues for is Absurd Nevertheless let us see what the main Conclusion is which he would draw from the Premises Why it is this That the Father is Eternal Wisdom or Mind and the Son Eternal Wisdom and Mind I give you his very Terms And who denies this Or what does it conclude for him For still I ask Does he who says That the Father is Eternal Wisdom or Mind and the Son Eternal Wisdom and Mind by saying so affirm That the Father and the Son are Two distinct Eternal Wisdoms or Minds Any more than he who says That the Father is God and the Son God affirms them to be Two distinct Gods Let him say it if he can and he shall not fail of a through Consutation as soon as it can be Printed off But to give the Reader an Account of the whole matter in short This Author has espoused a very Heterodox and dangerous Notion viz. That the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and in order to the proof of this would perswade us That there are Two distinct Wisdoms one in the Father and the other in the Son and that for this Reason Because the Father who is Essentially Wise cannot be said to be Wise by that begotten Wisdom which is in the Son albeit the Son be yet said to be the Wisdom of the Father but that the Father must have one distinct Wisdom of his own and the Son another distinct Wisdom of his own This I am sure is the full Account of his Argument from top to bottom In Answer to which I have plainly and undeniably shewn That the Father is Wise by one and the same Essential Wisdom common to Father Son and Holy Ghost though not under that particular Modification as it Subsists in the other Two Persons but by that peculiar Modification by which it is appropriated to and Subsists in his own And that those different Modifications do not for all that make it any more than one single Numerical Wisdom but only one and the same under so many distinct Modes of Subsistence determining it to so many distinct Personalities This is the Sum both of his Opinion and of mine and I referr it to the Judicious Reader to arbitrate the Case between us with this profession and promise that if in all or any one of the Quotations alledged by him he can shew That it is either expresly affirmed or necessarily implyed That the Father and the Son are two distinct Infinite Minds I will without further proof of any sort forthwith yield him the Cause and withal renounce all my poor share in Common Sense and Reason nay and all belief of my own Eyes for the future But there is one Clause more which he brings in as one part of his main Conclusion Page 103. Line 33. viz. That if we confess this of the Father and the Son to wit That they are each of them Eternal Mind or Wisdom there can be no dispute about the Holy Ghost who is Eternal Mind and Wisdom distinct both from Father and Son Now this is perfectly gratis dictum without either proof or pretence of proof and that whether we respect the Orthodox or the Heterodox and Heretical And First For the Orthodox they utterly deny the Holy Ghost to be an Eternal Mind or Wisdom distinct both from the Father and the Son and I challenge this Author to produce me but one reputed Orthodox Writer who affirms it In the mean time it argues no small Confidence to give it the mildest Term in this Man to Assert that as certain and without Dispute which is neither granted on one side nor so much as pretended to be proved on the other But Secondly If we respect the Heterodox and Heretical who no doubt can dispute as much as others will this Man say That these also grant this his Assertion about the Holy Ghost without any dispute No it is certain that they neither do nor will For this Author may be pleased to observe That as some in the Primitive Times allowed the Son to be only like the Father so they made the Holy Ghost a downright Creature and an inferiour Agent to both Such were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under their Head and Leader Macedonius as we see in St. Austin de Haeresibus Cap. 52. hereby placing him as much below the Son as they had placed the Son below the Father or rather more Whereupon I appeal even to this Author himself whether those who did so would without all dispute have allowed the Holy Ghost to be an Eternal Infinite Mind or Wisdom distinct both from the Father and the Son and upon that Account Essentially and Necessarily equal to them both Let this Author rub his Fore-head and affirm this if he can and for the future take notice That it becomes a True and Solid Reasoner where a Thing is disputed fairly to prove it and not boldly and barely to presume it In the last place he alledges the Judgment of all the Fathers indefinitely in the Case And truly where he cannot cite so much as one of them to the purpose I think he does extremely well to make short work of it and with one bold Impertinent stroke to alledge them all together His Allegation is this That it is usual with the Fathers to represent the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity as distinct as Peter James and John Well and what then Why That then the said Three Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits I deny the Consequence and to give a particular Answer to this general Allegation I tell him That it is a Fallacy of the Homonymy of the Word and that the Term as distinct is Ambiguous For it may either signifie 1. As Real Or 2. As Great a Distinction As for the first I grant That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity differ as really as Peter Iames and Iohn Forasmuch as they differ by something in the Thing it self or ex parte rei antecedent to and independent upon any Apprehension or Operation of the Mind about it which is a Real difference and whatsoever is so is altogether as Real as the Difference between one Man and another can be But Secondly If by Real distinction be meant as great a distinction so we utterly deny that the Three Divine Persons differ as much as Peter and Iames and Iohn do or that the Fathers ever thought they did so For this would inferr a greater difference or distinction between them than even our Author himself will allow of even such a difference as reaches to a Division or Separation of the Persons so differing And since it is impossible for the Persons of the Trinity to differ so it is hard to imagine upon what bottom of Reason our Author should measure the Distinction or Difference of the Three Divine Persons by the Distinction or Difference that is between Peter Iames and Iohn
to extract the best sense out of it that he can And thus having presented our Author with this Preliminary Observation I shall now proceed to consider how he acquits himself in the first Thing undertook by him viz. The proving a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons out of the Fathers which tho' I do as readily grant and as firmly believe as this Author does or can yet I think it worth while to shew with what Skill Decency and Respect he Treats the Fathers upon this Subject And here in the first place he tells his Reader That this being a Mystery so great and above all Example in Nature it is no wonder if the Fathers found it necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head And withall That they take several steps towards the Explication of this great Mystery viz. of an Unity of Nature in a Trinity of Persons page 106. In our Examination of which Passages reserving his former words to be considered elsewhere we will first consider the steps which he says the Fathers made towards the Explication of this Mistery And these he tells us are Two First The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Coessentiality of the Divine Persons whereby all the Three Persons of the God-head have the same Nature Page 106. Secondly the other is a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence or Nature Page 121. Line 6. which to answer one Greek word with another we may call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Cyril authorizing the Expression whom we find speaking of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Ammonius Cites him in his Catena upon Iohn 17. 11 21. Now as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature and this Numerical Unity of Nature lying fifteen whole Pages in this Author's Book distant from one another must be confessed to make a very large stride so for all that they will be found to make but an insignificant step as setting a Man not one jot further than he was before For as touching those Words and Terms which the Fathers used to express the Unity of the Divine Nature by I do here without any demurr affirm to this Author That Coessentiality Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence all signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also Unity of Nature and Unity of Essence expressed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do all of them in the sense of the Fathers denote but one and the same Thing viz. A Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature only I confess with some Circumstantial Difference as to the way or manner of their signification For 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Unity of Nature with a Connotation of some Things or Persons to whom it belongs Upon which Account it is that St. Ambrose whom this Author cites speaking of this word in his 3d Book Chap. 7. tells us That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliud alii non ipsum est sibi Nor indeed is any Thing said to be the same but with respect to some Thing or Circumstance besides it self And therefore no wonder if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was anciently rejected since the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to the Person whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs to must import a Singularity of Person as well as an Unity of Essence which would be contrary to the Catholick Faith But 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Unity of Nature or Essence without Connotation of any to whom it belongs Not but that it does really and indeed belong to the Three Divine Persons but that according to the strict and proper signification and force of the word it does not connote or imply them but abstracts or prescinds from them And this is a true Account of these words by which the Fathers without making more steps than one intended and meant the same Thing viz. a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature belonging to all the Three Persons only with this difference That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Unity of the Divine Nature with a Connotation of the Persons in whom it is which also gives it the Denomination of Sameness and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Unity of the same Nature absolutely and abstractedly without imploying or co-signifying any respect to those in whom it is and to whom it belongs So that these words as much Two as they are yet in the sense and meaning of the Fathers import but one and the same Unity But our Author tells us That though indeed the Fathers own an Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons yet since there is a Specifick as well as a Numerical Unity the Dispute is here which of these two Unities we shall assign to the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons And for this He tells us That Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved That the Nicene Fathers did not understand the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Numerical but of a Specifical Sameness of Nature or the agreement of Things Numerically different from one another in the same Common Nature Page 106. about the end In Answer to which I must confess my self very unfit to take such Great and Truly Learned Persons to task and that upon comparing this Author and Petavius together if there can be any comparison between them I find much more Reason to believe that he mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers But however I shall lay down this as a Conclusion which I take to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Ancient Fathers as well the Nicene as those after them held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity That is in other words They held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This Conclusion I hold and have good reason to believe That neither Petavius nor Dr. Cudworth shall be able to wrest it from me For the chief Reason of some Men's charging the Fathers with holding a Specifick Unity of Nature amongst the Divine Persons is drawn from this That some of them and particularly Maximus and Nyssen cited by this Author seem to argue from that Specifick Unity of Nature which is found in several Individual Men to an Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity To which I Answer That the Fathers never used the Example of Three or more Individual Men agreeing in the same Nature as a Parallel Instance of the same sort or degree of Unity with that which is in the Three Divine Persons but
if not absolutely Notional and depends upon the Operation of the Intellect drawing one common Notion from the agreement which it observes in several Individuals is by no means necessary to make the Three Divine Persons One God nor can any way properly belong to them But a Specifick Unity is such an one And therefore it neither is nor can be necessary to the making the Three Divine Persons One God as this Author most absurdly Asserts p. 107. Line 23 24. The Major is evident For that if such an Unity could be necessary upon that Account then there would be some sort or degree of Unity in the Divine Nature so depending upon the Operation of some Intellect or other forming one common Notion out of several Particulars that had not such an Operation passed upon the said Particulars such an Unity could not have been nor consequently could the Three Divine Persons have been one God without it which to affirm would certainly be both a Monstrous and Blasphemous Assertion Fifthly and lastly If a Specifick Unity of Nature consists with and indeed implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in every one of the Particulars to which it belongs then such a Specifick Unity can by no means be admitted in the Divine Nature But a Specifick Unity of Nature imports a Multiplication of the said Nature in every one of the Particulars to which it belongs And therefore such an Unity cannot be admitted in the Divine Nature The Reason of the Consequence is evident because the Divine Nature is uncapable of any Multiplication And herein consists the difference of the Divine Nature's belonging to the Divine Persons and of any other Nature's belonging to its proper Individuals That this latter is by a Multiplication of it self in them and the other by a bare Communication of it self to them so as that the same Numerical Nature exists in and becomes thereby common to all the Three Persons As for the Minor Proposition That a Specifick Unity of Nature consists with and implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals which it belongs to I referr him to all the Logicians and Metaphysicians who have wrote of Species and Specifick Unity of Idem Diversum whether they do not give this Account of it But I fancy this Author has a reach of Cunning tho' but a short one in the case For that having made the Three Divine Persons Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which can never be One by a Numerical Unity he is willing to provide them a Specifical Unity and to see whether that will serve the turn but as the Nature of the Thing unhappily falls out to be that will not do it neither These are the Considerations which I thought fit to advance against the Admission of a Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons And the Conclusion which I draw from them all is this That since the Fathers and that even by this Authors own Confession held a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons we can by no means grant that the said Fathers admitted also a Specifick Unity in the same without making them guilty of a gross Absurdity and Contradiction Forasmuch as these Two sorts or degrees of Unity are utterly incompatible in the Divine Nature I hope by this time the Judicious Reader sees how fit this Man is to be trusted with the Fathers whose Judgment about so weighty an Article he dares misrepresent in such a manner For to sum up briefly what he has said upon this Point First he tells us That the Fathers agree very well in the Account they give of a Trinity in Unity Page 106. and the four first Lines Next he tells us That the Nicene Fathers asserted a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and understood the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only of such an Unity and not of a Numerical Page 106. and the five last Lines And Thirdly That this Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature was absolutely Necessary to make the Three Divine Persons One God and that it was impossible they should be so without it Page 107. Lines 23 24. And Fourthly That the other Fathers of which he there names four never so much as Dream'd of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature Page 109. lines 22 23. And Lastly That the Fathers do not stop in this Specifick Unity and Identity of Nature but proceed to shew how the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proves a true Numerical and Essential Unity of the Godhead in the Three Divine Persons Page 114. Lines 30 31 32 33. From all which Assertions which lie plain and open in the forecited Pages I desire this Author to resolve me these following Queries 1. Whether those Fathers who Assert a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature and those who never Dreamt of such an Unity And those again who by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood only a Specifick and not a Numerical Unity of Nature and those who by the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceed to prove a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons can be said to agree so very well in the Account they give of a Trinity in Unity 2. Whether those could give a true and right Account of a Trinity in Unity who never so much as Dreamt of that which was so absolutely necessary to make the Three Divine Persons One God that they could not possibly be so without it 3. Whether a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in several Persons is or can be a direct and proper proof of a Numerical Unity and Identity of Nature in the said Persons These Questions I say being the Natural and Immediate Results of this Author 's Positions I hope he will graciously vouchsafe sometime or other to give the World a satisfactory Resolution of In the mean time I will tell him what it was that imposed upon him so as to make him talk thus Absurdly and Unphilosophically of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature and traduce the Fathers also as if they held the same And that in one word is That in the Subject before us he takes Specifick Nature and Common Nature to signifie one and the same Thing whereas though every Specifick Nature be a Common Nature yet every Common Nature is not a Specifick Nature no nor a Generical neither And that this was his mistake appears from those words of his in Page 106. where he says That Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved That the Nicene Fathers did not understand the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Numerical but of a Specifical Sameness of Nature or the agreement of Things Numerically differing from one another in the same Common Nature In which words it is evident That he makes Specifick Sameness of Nature and the Agreement of Things numerically different in one and the same Common Nature to signifie Convertibly the same Thing and
when he has done so he opposes them Both to a Numerical Sameness of Nature as appears from the Adversative Particle But placed between them In which let me tell him he is guilty of a very great mistake both by making those Things the same which are not the same and by making an Opposition where there is a real Coincidence For by his favour one and the same Numerical Divine Nature is a Common Nature too forasmuch as without any Division or Multiplication of it self it belongs in Common to the Three Divine Persons The Term Deus indeed is neither a Genus nor a Species Nevertheless all Divines and School-men allow it to be a Terminus Communis as properly predicable of and Common to Father Son and Holy Ghost and in this very Thing consists the Mystery of the Trinity That one and the same Numerical Nature should be Common to and Exist in Three Numerically distinct Persons And therefore for one who pretends to teach the whole World Divinity while he is Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons to oppose Common Nature to Nature Numerically One and from the Commonness of it to make the Fathers Argue against its Numericalness whereas the same Divine Nature may be and really is both it is a shrewd sign of the want of something or other in that Man that must needs render him extremely unfit to prescribe and dictate in these Matters In fine the sole Point driven at all along by the Fathers as to the Question about the Unity of the Divine Nature for their Arguments to prove the Coequality of the Three Divine Persons against the Arians are not now before us is an Assertion of a Real Numerical Existing Unity of the said Nature in the said Persons I say a Numerical Unity without making any more steps or degrees in it than One or owning any distinction between Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence And much less by making as this Author does a Specifick Sameness of Nature one thing wherein they place the Unity of the Divine Nature and then making Sameness of Essence another and further degree in the Unity of the said Nature and when they have done so by a return back explaining this Sameness of Essence by the Sameness of Nature newly mentioned as he says they do in these words immediately following by way of Exegesis of the former viz. That there is but one God because all the Three Divine Persons have the same Nature Page 107. and the two last Lines All which is a Ridiculous Circle and a Contradiction to boot making Sameness of Nature one step and Sameness of Essence another and then making this Sameness of Essence no more than a Sameness of Nature again so that according to him the Fathers must be said to go further by resting in the very same step which they first made Which way of Reasoning I confess may serve well enough for one who can forget in one Page what he had said in the other just before But by his favour the Fathers were a little more Consistent and understood themselves better than to run Divisions in such a senseless manner upon a Thing that admitted none And thus having shewn how he has dealt with the Fathers in the Account given by him of their Opinion about the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which was the first Head under which I reduced his Allegations from them I come now in the 2d Place to the other and Principal Head under which he undertakes to prove the chief and more peculiar part of his Hypothesis from the said Fathérs viz. That the Unity and Identity of Nature belonging to the Three Divine Persons consists in the Mutual-Consciousness which is between them That is in Truth That they are therefore One God because they are Conscious to themselves that they are so And here I shall begin with shewing how this Author overthrows the Point undertook by him before he produces any Arguments from the Fathers for it And to this Purpose I shall resume those words of his before cited by me out of Page 106. In which he reminds his Reader That Trinity in Unity being so great a Mystery and of which we have no Example in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and that therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head Now here since our Author's Notion and the Fathers too as he says of this Unity is nothing else but Mutual-Consciousness I desire to Learn of him what necessity there was or is of using several Examples and alluding to several kinds of Union to explain or form an adequate Notion of that And I wonder what kind of Thing he would make of his Mutual-Consciousness should he come to explain and describe it by several Examples and several Kinds of Union But this is not all for he tells us likewise as we also observed before that there are several steps to be taken towards the Explication of this Mystery Whereupon I would again learn of him how many steps are necessary to explain Mutual-Conciousness for one would imagine one single step sufficient to represent and declare a Thing which every Body understands This Author indeed confidently enough Asserts That the Fathers give no other Account of a Trinity in Unity than the same which he gives of it Pag. 101. Line 2. But certainly if the Fathers thought several Examples Steps and Kinds of Union absolutely necessary to explain the Notion they had of this Unity and if these cannot be necessary to explain the Notion of Mutual-Consciousness then it must follow That the Fathers neither did nor possibly could by that Unity mean Mutual-Consciousness And if this Author doubts of the force of this Reasoning let him try his skill and see what Learned stuff he is like to make of it when he comes to explain his Notion of Mutual-Consciousness by several Examples Steps and Sorts of Union and out of them all to form one adequate Notion of this so much admired Thing Wherefore I conclude and I think unanswerably That the Fathers by this Unity between the Divine Persons mean one Thing and this Man quite another and consequently that they have given a very different Account of it from what he gives contrary to his equally bold and false Asseveration affirming it to be the very same And now I am ready to see what he has to offer us from the Fathers in behalf of his Mutual-Consciousness but because I am extremely desirous that the Reader should keep him close to the Point and not suffer him to wander from it which in dispute he is as apt to do as any Man living I shall presume to hint this to him That the Point to be proved by this Author is not that the Three Divine Persons have one and the same
other of these in Conjunction with Essence or Substance we give account of all the Acts Attributes and Personalities belonging to the Divine Nature or God-head This is the constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysicians in their Discourses upon God and without which it is impossible to Discourse intelligibly of the Divine Acts Attributes or Persons And as it stands upon a firm bottom so it may well be defended And if this Author has ought to except against it I shall be ready to undertake the defence of it against him at any time But still that he may keep up that Glorious standing Character of Self-Contradiction which one would think to be the very Ratio formalis or at least the Personal Property of the Man Having here in Page 130. made a very bold step by Asserting the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Acts and so distinct that they can never be one Simple Individual Act. In the very next Page but one viz. 132. line 13. he roundly affirms That the Father and the Son are one single Energy and Operation Now how safe and happy is this Man that no Absurdities or Contradictions can ever hurt him Or at least that he never feels them let them pinch never so close and hard What remains is chiefly a Discourse about the different way of the Son 's issuing from the Father and the Holy Ghost's issuing from both As that the former is called Generation because the Son issues from the Father by a Reflex Act and the latter termed Procession because the Holy Ghost issues from both by a Direct Act. But why a Reflex Act must needs be termed properly a Generation and a Direct Act not be capable of being properly so accounted this our Acute Author very discreetly says nothing at all to though under favour all that he says besides leaves us as much in the Dark as we were before And for my own part I cannot think my self concerned to clear up a Point wholly foreign to that which alone I have undertook the Discussion of And thus I have finished my Dispute with Him concerning the Authorities of the Fathers alledged in behalf of his Notion of Mutual Consciousness as that wherein he places the Unity of the Divine Nature belonging to the three Blessed Persons The Sum of which whole Dispute is resolved into this single Question viz. In what the Father 's placed the Unity in Trinity And if they placed it in the Sameness or Unity of Nature Substance or Essence words applyed by them to this Subject at least a thousand Times and still used to signifie one and the same thing then it is plain that they did not place it in an Unity of Mutual Consciousness For I suppose no Man this Author himself not excepted will say That Essence or Substance and Mutual Consciousness are Terms Synonymous and of the same signification And as the whole Dispute turns upon this single Question so in the management of it on my part I have with great particularity gone over all the Proofs by which this Author pretends to have evinced his Doctrine from the Fathers The utmost of which Proofs amounts to this That the Fathers proved an Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common to them all And moreover sometimes illustrated the said Unity by the three Faculties of the Understanding Memory and Will being one with the Soul which they belonged to And lastly That they resolved the Unity of the Trinity into an Unity of Principle the Father being upon that account styled Principium fons Deitatis as communicating the Divine Substance to the Son and together with the Son to the Holy Ghost And what of all this I pray Do all or any of the fore-mentioned Terms signifie Mutual Consciousness Why No But this Author with a non obstante both to the proper signification and common use of them all by absolute Prerogative declares them to mean Mutual Consciousness And so his Point is proved viz That Mutual Consciousness is not only an Argument inferring the Unity of the Divine Nature in the three Blessed Persons which yet was all that the Fathers used the fore-mentioned Terms for but which is more That it is that very thing wherein this Unity does Consist This I say is a true though a short Account of all his Arguments upon this Subject and according to my custom I refer it to the Judicious Reader to judge impartially whether it be not so and withall to improve and carry on the aforesaid Arguments in his behalf to all further advantage that they may be capable of But in the issue methinks the Author himself seems to review them with much less confidence of their Puissance than when at first he produced them For if we look back upon the Triumphant Flag hung out by him at his Entrance upon this part of his Work the only proper time for him to Triumph in and when he declared That his Explication of the Trinity was the Constant Doctrine of the Fathers and the Schools Page 101. lines 24 25. who could have imagined but that he then foresaw that he should prove his Point with all the strength and evidence which his own Heart could desire And yet alas Such for the most part is the vast distance between Promises and Performances that we have him bringing up the Rear of all with this sneaking Conclusion Page 138. line 22 c. It must be confessed says he That the Ancient Fathers did not express their sence in the same Terms that I have done But I leave it to any Indifferent and Impartial Reader whether they do not seem to have intended the same Explication which I have given of this Venerable Mystery These are his words and I do very particularly recommend them to the Reader as deserving his peculiar Notice For is this now the Upshot and Result of so daring a Boast and so confident an Undertaking to prove his Opinion the constant Doctrine of the Fathers viz. That though the Fathers speak not one word of it nay though they knew not how to express themselves about it Page 125. line 18. yet that to an Indifferent Reader and a very indifferent one indeed he must needs be in the worst sence they may seem to intend the same Explication he had given of it So that the sum of his whole Proof and Argument amounts to this and no more viz. That to some Persons videtur quod sic and to others videtur quod non For see how low he sinks in the issue First of all from the Fathers positive saying or holding what he does it is brought down to their Intending it and from their Intending it it falls at last to their seeming to intend it and that is all And now is not this a worthy Proof of so high a Point And may it not justly subject this
Words hitherto pleaded for upon the Authority of St. Austin for the Case needs it not but only to shew That albeit this Father does both particularly consider and expresly speak of the said Terms yet he does not in the least reject or disallow of them But however in the same Book he proceeds to another Topick very much to our present purpose viz. his stating the Divine Personalities upon Relation in these Words In Deo nihil secundùm Accidens dicitur quia in eo nihil est mutabile Nec tamen omne quod dicitur secundùm Substantiam dicitur sed secundùm Relativum Quod tamen Relativum non est Accidens quia non est mutabile ut filius dicitur Relativè ad Patrem c. Whereby as we have said founding Personality in and upon something Relative he sufficiently proves That the same neither is nor can be placed in Self-Consciousness this being a Term in the import ' of it perfectly Absolute and containing nothing Relative in it at all Next to St. Austin we will produce Ruffinus a Writer of the 4th Century and flourishing about the latter end of it who in the short Account he gives us of what was done in the forementioned Synod of Alexandria for the Peace of the Church and the closing up the Division between the Greeks and the Latines about the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Chap. 29. of the first Book of his History tells us That although some thought that both these Words were Synonymous and consequently that as Three Substances were by no means to be admitted in the Trinity so neither ought we to acknowledg Three Subsistences therein yet that others and those much the greater and more prevailing part judged quite otherwise in these Words Alii verò quibus longè aliud Substantia quà m Subsistentia significare videbatur dicebant quòd Substantia rei alicujus Naturam rationémque quâ constat designet Subsistentia autem uniuscujusque Personoe hoc ipsum quod extat subsistit ostendat ideóque propter Sabellii Hoeresin tres esse Subsistentias confitendas quòd quasi Tres Subsistentes Personas significare viderentur ne suspicionem daremus tanquam istius fidei sectatores essemus quae Trinitatem in Nominibus tantùm ac non in Rebus ac Subsistentiis confitetur So that we see here a full and clear Account both of the Sence of this Word and of the Reason Why the Church thought fit to establish the use of it with reference to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity Another Testimony shall be from Beotius who flourished about the beginning of the 6th Century He in Chap. 2. of his Book de duabus Naturis in unâ Personâ Christi first gives us this Difinition of a Person that it is Rationabilis Naturae individua Subsistentia according to which our Author's Warr-Horse is like to fall from his Personal Dignity And afterwards having discoursed about the difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he concludes the said Chapter thus Hoec omnia idcirco sunt dicta ut differentiam Naturae atque Personoe id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 atque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 monstraremus Quo verò nomine unumquodque oporteat appellari Ecclesiasticae sit locutionis Arbitrium ut tamen hoc interim constet quòd inter Naturam Personámque differre praediximus By all which he gives us a very Plain Rational and Scholastick Account of this Matter The next whom I shall produce to Vouch the same Thing is Rusticus Diaconus who lived and flourished about the middle of the Sixth Century He in Chap. 6. of his Book contra Acephalos tells the Nestorian Heretick whom he is there by way of Dialogue disputing with That Subsistentia interdum Personam significat non nunquam verò Substantiam And accordingly that the Council of Ephesus distinguished in our Saviour aliud aliud viz. in respect of his Two Natures but not alium alium in respect of his Person which was but One And this quite contrary to what we observe in the Trinity Illic enim alius alius ne Subsistentias confundamus non verò aliud aliud Unum enim Tria idem Deitate To which Words of the Synod this Author subjoyns these of his own Ecce manifestissimè Synodi Universalis Authoritas Subsistentias pro Personis suscepit atque laudavit This also I think is very full and satisfactory I shall close these particular Testimonies with Two Passages in the Appendix to the Breviary of Liberatus the Deacon who also lived about the middle of the Sixth Century as I find it in Crabb's Collection of the Councils Tom. 2. P. 126. Col. 2. and which the very Learned Dr. Cave observes is the only Edition of the Councils where it is to be found The first Passage is this Idem Natura Substantia quod commune non proprium significat idem Persona Subsistentia quod proprium non commune declarat And the other follows about Ten Lines after in the same Column Sanctae ergo Trinitatis una quidem est Natura atque Substantia Communis est enim Trium Substantia non autem una Subsistentia seu Persona Trium viz. Patris Filii Spiritûs Sancti sed Tres Subsistentiae sunt In which certainly we have so very clear and pregnant a Declaration of the Thing Contended for by us that a clearer cannot possibly be given nor reasonably desired And therefore to add no more Private or Single Authorities I shall conclude all with that of a Council not a General one indeed but that Lateran held under Pope Martin the first of 105 Bishops about the Year 649 or 650 and by way of Preparation for the Sixth General one and of Constantinople the third called as we have already shewn by Constantinus Pogonatus and held the following Year against the Monothelites The first Decree of which said Lateran Synod is this Siquis secundùm Sanctos Patres non confitetur propriè veraciter Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum Trinitarem in Unitate Unitatem in Trinitate hoc est unum Deum in Tribus Subsistentiis consubstantialibus aequalis gloriae unam eandémque Trium Deitatem Naturam Substantiam Virtutem c. sit condemnatus Now this does as manifestly place the Three Divine Persons in Three distinct Subsistences as it is possible for words to express For it is evident that by Subsistentiis cannot be here meant Substantiis forasmuch as Substantiis consubstantialibus would neither be Truth nor Sence And now all that I pretend to from the foregoing Testimonies and Quotations is not to prove that the Latin Church has alway made use of the Terms Hypostases Subsistentiae Modi Subsistendi about the Explication of the Trinity for I own it to have been otherwise but that from the Fourth Century downward those of that Communion
Father Page 102. That is to say than Three vagrant Words applyed by him to he knows not what and to be found for ought appears he knows not where All which being manifestly so I desire any Sober Person to shew me something but like a Reason to prove That the Fathers and other Church-Writers from whom all these Quotations were drawn placed the Personal Distinction of the Divine Persons in Self Consciousness and their Unity only in Mutual-Consciousness On the contrary as these Words were never so much as mentioned by them so I affirm That whensoever in speaking of the Trinity they proceed beyond the bare Word and Name of Person so as to give any Account of the Thing signified thereby and the Reason thereof they do it constantly by Subsistences Modes of Subsistence and Relations This I am positive in and withal that as they never mentioned the Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness upon this Subject so I avert moreover That when they use the Words Subsistences Modes of Subsistence and Relations on the one side and of Unity or Identity of Nature Essence or Substance on the other which they always do they neither do nor can mean Self Consciousness by the former nor Mutual-Consciousness by the latter nor yet the Things signified by either of these Terms And that for these Reasons First Because all Modes of Being importing Existence are in Order of Nature antecedent to the other Attributes of Being such as are Knowledg Wisdom Power and the like And Self-Consciousness is no more as being but a branch or sort of Knowledg and nothing else And Secondly Because nothing Absolute can give Distinction and Incommunicability to the Divine Persons the Rule of the Schools being undeniably true Non dari in Divinis Absolutum Incommunicabile Gr. Valent. Tom. 1. Pag. 874. But such a Thing I affirm Self-Consciousness to be and in Chap. 4. have abundantly proved it so So that it is evident That all the Fathers and Ancient Writers in all the Terms which they used to express the Trinity and Divine Persons by had no regard to Self-Consciousness either Name or Thing and consequently that it is a Term wholly foreign and unapplicable to this purpose And what is said of their silence about Self-Consciousness extends to Mutual-Consciousness too And the Truth is the other forementioned Terms asserted by us against this Innovator are to be looked on by all Sober Intelligent Men as a set of stated Words or Forms of Expression first pitched upon by the Ablest Divines and Writers of the Church then countenanced and owned by Councils and lastly established by a kind of Prescription founded upon a long continued use of the same throughout the several Ages of the Church as the best and fittest helps to guide Men in their Conceptions of and Discourses about this great Mystery and such as the Church in treating of so arduous a Point never yet would nor durst go beyond So that the Question now is Whether they ought to be abandoned and made to give place to a New Mushrom unheard of Notion set up by one Confident Man preferring himself before all Antiquity A Notion no doubt long before he was Born throughly considered canvased and laid aside as not only insufficient but Impertinent to give any tolerable Account of the Trinity by Well but having declared this for the Catholick Orthodox and Received Doctrine about the Blessed Trinity viz. That it is one and the same Divine Nature Essence or Substance diversified into Three distinct Persons by Three distinct Modes of Subsistence or Relations so that by vertue thereof God is truly and properly said to be Three Persons and Three Persons to be One God Having I say vouched this for the Doctrine of the Church let us in the last place see what this Author has to object against it And here his First Reason to put it into Form for him for once may run thus Whatsoever constitutes and distinguishes the Divine Persons is really and truly in God bu Modes of Subsistence are not really and truly in God and therefore Modes of Subsistence do not constitute or distinguish the Divine Persons The Major is evident and shall be readily granted him And the Minor he positively asserts by denying any Modes to be in God as particularly in Page 47. in these Words All Men grant says he that there are no Accidents Qualities or Modes in God And again Pag. 84. There are no Modes no more than there are Qualities and Accidents in the Deity So that we see here what this Author holds concerning all Modes with reference to God In Answer to which Argument as I have formed it and I challenge him to shew that I have at all wronged him in it if he can I deny the Minor viz. That Modes of Subsistence are not in God And as for his Two forecited general Assertions That Modes are no more to be allowed in God than Qualities and Accidents which by the way are so put together as if Qualities were not Accidents I have these Two Things to remark upon those Two Assertions so positively laid down by him First That it is a gross Absurdity and no small proof of Ignorance to reckon things so vastly different as Modes and Accidents are upon the same Range or Level and then to argue and affirm the same thing of both And therefore I do here with the same Positiveness tell him That Modes and Accidents do extremely differ and that none of any skill either in Logick or Metaphysicks ever accounted them the same For an Accident affects the Subject it belongs to so that it is also a distinct Being it self But a Mode affects it so that it is not a distinct Being it self I will not deny but Accidents may sometimes in a large and loose sence be called Modes But I deny That Modes are either Accidents or everso called where they are particularly and distinctly treated of by themselves School-men and Metaphysicians may speak very differently of Modes when they mention them occasionally and when they discourse of them professedly and under a certain and peculiar Head And whensoever they do so if this Author can bring me any one Logician Metaphisician or School-man who takes Accidents and Modes promiscuously for the same Things I dare undertake to forfeit to him a greater Sum than ever yet he received for Copy-money in his Life Secondly My next Remark upon his foregoing Assertion is this That as it is grosly absurd to confound Modes of Being with Accidents so it is equally absurd to deny Modes of Being to belong to God And this I shall prove both from the manifest Reason of the Thing and from Unquestionable Authority And First For the Reason of the Thing If Modes of Being should not be allowed in God then I affirm it to be impossible for any Distinction and consequently for any Persons to be in God Which I prove thus If there be any distinction in God or the Deity
effect declares the Nature of the Cause And consequently that the Nature of the Cause may be known by it not by way of simple and immediate apprehension of the Cause it self I confess but by way of Inference and Discourse collecting one thing from another which is one sure way of knowing And therefore I do here affirm and own to this Confident Assuming Man That to assert absolutely as he does That the Essences of things cannot be known is by no means a justifiable Proposition or in the Latitude it is laid down in to be admitted But is really that fallacy that concludes à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter Well but since this Author has concluded the whole World in Ignorance himself I suppose still excepted from so general a Doom What must we do in so sad a Condition Must we all take up in Scepticism and acknowledge that nothing is to be known What then will that old Principle of Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serve for but to tantalize and torment us For must we thus think and thirst and desire to know and after all find nothing to be known with any thing of plainness evidence and demonstration Why Yes to comfort us under this Cimmerian darkness and to shew that God has not given us our Intellectual Faculties wholly in vain There is one certain thing in the World viz. The Doctrine of the Trinity That is to say of three distinct Persons all united in one and the same numerical Divine Nature which is wonderfully plain easie and obvious to be known Though still thanks to our Author for it who by a New-found Exposition and Explication of it has bestowed this piece of Charity upon the World as to render it so For thus in Page 58. line 2. of his Book Explaining the Union of the three Persons in the God-head by Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness which words shall be throughly considered in their due place he says That this is very plain and intelligible and makes the three Persons to be as much one as every Man is one with himself And certainly it is hardly possible for any thing to be more plain and clear more evident and intelligible than that every Man is one with himself Except it be only when he contradicts himself Again in Page 65. line 31. he tells us That his Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness seems to him to make a Trinity in Unity as intelligible as the Notion of one God is And in Page 66. line 2 3. That it gives a plain and intelligible Solution to all the Difficulties and seeming Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity And surely that thing about which all difficulties are solved and all seeming Contradictions are cleared cannot be imagined to have any difficulty remaining in it at all And again in Page 68. line 26. he roundly tells us That the Explication given by him of a Trinity in Unity is a very plain and intelligible Account of this great and venerable Mystery as plain and intelligible as the Notion of one God or of one Person in the Godhead And in good earnest the Notion of one first Cause of all things and of one Supreme Being and consequently of one God is so easily demonstrated or rather with such a broad light stares all Mankind in the Face even without any demonstration that if the Trinity in Unity be as plain as this is it is hardly possible for any thing to the Reason of Man to be plainer And the Arians and Socinians are ten times more inexcusable than ever I thought them before Again in Page 73. line 11. having affirmed The Trinity to be a most Sacred and Venerable Mystery within 6 or 7 Lines after he says If Men would but consider it according to his Hypothesis which he there sets down then a Trinity in Unity is a very plain intelligible Notion Again in Page 74. line 9. There will appear says he no difficulty or absurdity in the essential Union of Three Minds by a Mutual-Consciousness to each other But will this Man conclude That where there is no Absurdity there is therefore no Difficulty neither So that that which removes one must needs remove the other too It is strange to me That any one who pretends to argue closely should place two words so vastly different upon the same level But again in Page 82. line 30. he tells us That this gives an intelligible account of one of the most difficult Problems in all School-Divinity viz. That the whole Trinity is not greater than any one Person in the Trinity And again in Page 85. line 14. This Notion says he gives a plain account too of that Maxime of the Schools That all the Operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to all the Three Persons So that by this time we see here all things relating to the Trinity made plain easie and intelligible and that since this Man has shewed his skill upon it all knots and difficulties are wholly cleared off so that now none are to be found though a Man should beat his Brains as much to find them as Divines did heretofore to solve them And therefore well may he magnifie the Exploits of such a Triumphant Hypothesis as he does first in his Preface Page 1. line 13. which though it be always placed first in Books yet is generally written last Having told us That his Original Design was to vindicate the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation from those pretended Absurdities and Contradictions which were so confidently charged on them He adds these words This says he I am sure I have done for I have given a very easie and intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Unity If he has 't is well But how great soever the assurance is which he utters this with as he had always a very great stock of it I dare aver That he has here said more of himself than any Divine of Note since Christianity came into the World ever durst say He was sure of before But as high as this sounds in Page 85. line 27. he raises his Voice something higher or at least is more particular in the Encomiums he bestows upon this his Performance in these words Thus says he I have endeavoured to explain this great and venerable Mystery of a Trinity in Unity And this I may say That I have given not only a very possible and a very intelligible Notion of it but such also as is very agreeable to the Phrase and Expressions of Scripture such as preserves the Majesty of the Article and solves all the difficulties of it By which account as we see that our Author is not wanting to the Commendation of his own Hypothesis as it is pity but Self-Consciousness and Self-Commendation should go together so we see also that he does it upon three distinct Heads or Topicks which therefore by his good leave we will as distinctly consider And First for it 's being so agreeable
conclusion therefore I do here assert That the gross and Material Imaginations which Men form to themselves of Substance proceed not from the thing it self but from the grossness and fault of the Persons who take up these Imaginations And accordingly I affirm to this Author That that Assertion of his in Page 69. That we can form no Idea of Substance but what we have from Matter is false and manifestly proved to be so And moreover That it is not only as possible but as easie to form in the mind a conception of a Substance or Being Existing by it self which is all one as abstracted from and strip'd of all conception of Matter and Corporeity as it is to frame to our selves a conception of Truth or Wisdom or of a Being eternally True and Wise separate from all those gross Qualifications And consequently that the word Substance with others of the like import may be most fitly and significantly applyed to the Divine Nature and the Persons of the Holy Trinity which was the thing to be proved But because our Author avers in Page 70. That if we consider God as Truth and Wisdom which is his true Nature and Essence without confounding our mind with some material conceptions of his Substance as he had already affirmed all conceptions of Substance must needs be then these things viz. the Difficulties before-mentioned concerning our Apprehensions of God are all plain and easie Where by the way it is observable That he calls Truth and Wisdom the true Nature and Essence of God whereas in this very Page as well as in 68. he had excepted against the Term Essence no less than that of Substance as by reason of the gross Material Ideas raised by it in the Mind very unfit to be applyed to God So happy is this Author above other Men that he can rectifie the most improper words and expressions barely by his own using them But because he is so positive in making the Terms Truth and Wisdom an effectual Remedy against all the Inconveniences alledged from the Terms Essence and Substance as applyed to the Deity this brings us to our second Proposition viz. That the same Objection lies against the Terms Truth Wisdom Goodness c. as applicable to the Deity that are made against Essence Substance Existence and the like In order to the proving of which I shall observe That Truth may be taken in a three-fold sense First For the truth of Propositions which is called Logical Secondly For an Affection of Being which is Truth Metaphysical And Thirdly and Lastly As it is a Qualification of Men's Words and Actions and consists properly in an Agreement of the Mind with both Concerning all which I observe That the Truth of Propositions is no further eternal than as it exists in the Mind of God That the Metaphysical Truth of Things is eternal or not eternal as the Being or Thing it belongs to is or is not so And for the Moral Truth of Men's Words and Actions it is no more eternal than the said Words and Actions the proper Subject of them can be said to be This premised I would here ask our Author Whether the first Notions we actually entertain of Truth and Wisdom are not drawn from the Observations we make of these things in Men that is in Beings sensible and Material and consisting of Body as well as Soul and accordingly cloathed with sensible Accidents and Circumstances I cannot imagine that he will deny this since we do not speak immediately or converse visibly with God or Angels and I suppose also that he now speaks of Truth Wisdom Goodness c. not as they are exhibited to us in Books or Propositions but as they actually exist and occur in persons and consequently as they are first apprehended by us in Concretion or Conjunction with Men that is with Beings so Compounded Qualified and Circumstantiated as above expressed and as we find see and observe them in Men's Words and Actions in what they speak and what they do and these are certainly very sensible things and such as incurr into and affect the sence as much as Matter it self can do And if so I desire to hear some satisfactory Reason Why the Observation of Substance in Material Beings and our first Occasional collection of it from thence should so necessarily pervert and cause such a grossness in our Conceptions of it as to make it hardly if at all possible to conceive of Substance without the gross Conception of Matter and yet that the same consideration and cause should not equally take place in Truth and Wisdom and equally pervert and thicken our Apprehensions of them when they are equally drawn from sensible gross and Material Objects viz. the Words and Actions of Men which they both Exist in and Converse about For I can see no ground why the same Reason should not infer the very same thing and the same Antecedents draw after them the same Consequents whatsoever they are applyed to For the Argument à Quatenus ad omne c. is certain and infallible If it be here said That Truth and Wisdom in the proper Notion and Conception of them imply no Communication at all with Matter I Answer That as the Notion of them is Abstracted and gathered up by the Discourses of Reason it does not but so neither does that of Substance after such an Act of the Mind has passed upon it So that hitherto the Case is much the same in both But to carry the matter a little further Truth and Wisdom as observed in and amongst Men are certainly finite Things For whatsoever exists in a finite Subject whatsoever the Object be which it converses about or is terminated upon is certainly it self finite also And here I would have this Author tell me Why a Notion drawn off and borrowed from finite Things should not be as apt to perplex and confound our Minds when applyed to an Infinite Being as a Notion abstracted from a Material Being can be to distract and confound our Thoughts when applyed to an Immaterial I must confess I can see nothing alledgeable for one which may not be as strongly alledged for the other All that can be said is what has been mentioned already viz. That Reason may and does extract some Notions from a finite Being that may be properly applicable to an Infinite due allowance made for the disproportion between both and in like manner I affirm That it can and does draw Notions from a thing endued with Matter which may as well agree to Things Spiritual and Immaterial So that I cannot perceive that Truth Wisdom or Goodness have upon this Account any Preheminence or Advantage over Essence Substance Existence and the like Terms at all but the one may be applyed to the Divine Nature as well and properly as the other But this is not all for I affirm in the 3d Place That Essence Substance Nature Existence and other Terms equipollent to Being considered precisely
Purposes of Argumentation Accordingly I affirm That the Notions of Mutual-Consciousness and Self-Consciousness in the Subject now before us ought to be rejected not only as New and Suspicious but as wholly Needless For what can be signified by those which is not fully clearly and abundantly signified by that one plain Word and known Attribute the Divine Omniscience And what are Mutual-Consciousness and Self-Consciousness else if they are any thing but one and the same Omniscience exerting it self several ways and upon several Objects As to apply it to the Matter before us does not every one of the Divine Persons by vertue of the Divine Nature and of this Omniscience therewith belonging to him Perfectly Intimately and Intirely know himself as a Person and all the Actions Motions and every thing else belonging to him No doubt he does for that otherwise he could not be Omniscient And does not the same Person again by the very same Omniscience know all that is known by the other Two Persons and the other Two Persons by the same Mutually know all that is known by him No doubt they may and do Forasmuch as Omniscience knows all things that are knowable and consequently all that is or can be known of or in any one or all of the Divine Persons joyntly or severally considered But to argue the Matter yet more particularly Either Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness are one and the same with the Divine Omniscience or they are distinct sorts of knowledge from it If they are the same then they are useless and superfluous Notions as we affirm they are but if they import distinct sorts of knowledge then these two Things will follow 1. That in every one of the Divine Persons there are three distinct sorts of Knowledge viz. A Knowledge of Omniscience a Knowledge of Self-Consciousness and a Knowledge of Mutual-Consciousness too which I think is very absurd and ridiculous 2. And in the next place If we affirm them to be distinct sorts of Knowledge from that of Omniscience then they must also have Objects distinct from and not included in the Object of Omniscience since all such difference either of sorts or Acts of Knowledge is founded upon the difference of their Objects But this is impossible since the Object of Omniscience comprehends in it all that is knowable and consequently if Mutual-Consciousness and Self-Consciousness have Objects distinct from and not included in the Object of Omniscience those Objects must be something that is not knowable for that Omniscience as we have shewn claims all that is knowable or possible to be known for its own Object From all which it follows That Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness considered as distinct from Omniscience are two empty Chimerical Words without any distinct Sense or Signification In a word Every Person in the Trinity by one and the same Act of Omniscience knows all the Internal Acts Motions and Relations proper both to himself and to the other Two Persons besides And if so what imployment or use can there be for Self-Consciousness or Mutual-Consciousness which Omniscience that takes in the Objects of both has not fully answered and discharged already If it be here said That Omniscience cannot give Personality forasmuch as the Personality of each Person distinguishes him from the other two which Omniscience being common to them all cannot do This I grant and own it impossible for any Thing Essentially involved in the Divine Nature to give a Personal Distinction to any of the Three Persons but then I add also That we have equally proved that neither was Self-Consciousness the Formal Reason of this Personal Distinction by several Arguments and more especially because that Self-Consciousness being a Thing Absolute and Irrelative could not be the Formal Reason of any thing in the Nature of it perfectly Relative as the Divine Persons certainly are For this is a received Maxime in the Schools with reference to the Divine Nature and Persons Repugnat in Divinis dari Absolutum Incommunicabile Greg. de Valen. 1 Tom. p. 874. And it is a sure Rule whereby we may distinguish in every one of the Divine Persons what is Essential from what is Personal For every Attribute that is Absolute is Communicable and consequently Essential and every one that is purely Relative is Incommunicable and therefore purely Personal and so è converso Upon which Account Self-Consciousness which is a Thing Absolute and Irrelative cannot be Incommunicable nor consequently the Formal Reason of Personality in any of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity as we have already at large demonstrated So that still our Assertion stands good That all that can be truly ascribed to Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness with reference to the Divine Nature and Persons may be fully and fairly accounted for from that one known Attribute the Divine Omniscience And therefore that there Is no use at all either of the Term Self-Consciousness or Mutual-Consciousness to contribute to the plainer or fuller Explication of the Blessed Trinity as this Author with great fluster of Ostentation pretends but has not yet by so much as one solid Argument proved But when I consider how wonderfully pleased the Man is with these two new-started Terms so high in sound and so empty of sence instead of one substantial word which gives us all that can be pretended useful in them with vast overplus and advantage and even swallows them up as Moses's Rod did those pitiful Tools of the Magicians This I say brings to my Mind whether I will or no a certain Story of a Grave Person who Riding in the Road with his Servant and finding himself something uneasy in his Saddle bespoke his Servant thus John says he a-light and first take off the Saddle that is upon my Horse and then take off the Saddle that is upon your Horse and when you have done this put the Saddle that was upon my Horse upon your Horse and put the Saddle that was upon your Horse upon my Horse Whereupon the Man who had not studied the Philosophy of Saddles whether Ambling or Trotting so exactly as his Master replys something short upon him Lord Master What needs all these Words Could you not as well have said Let us change Saddles Now I must confess I think the Servant was much in the right though the Master having a Rational Head of his own and being withal willing to make the Notion of changing Saddles more plain easie and intelligible and to give a clearer Explication of that word which his Fore-Fathers how good Horse-men soever they might have been yet were not equally happy in the explaining of was pleased to set it forth by that more full and accurate Circumlocution And here it is not unlikely but that this Author who with a spight equally Malicious and Ridiculous has reflected upon one of his Antagonists and that for no Cause or Provocation that appears unless for having Baffled him may tax me also as one Drolling upon Things sacred
Argument I. Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods But the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Gods And therefore the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits The Minor I suppose this Author will readily concur with me in howbeit his Hypothesis as shall be shewn in the certain Consequences of it Contradicts it and if it should stand would effectually overturn it For by that he asserts a perfect Tritheisme though I have so much Charity for him as to believe that he does not know it The Major Proposition therefore is that which must be debated between us This Author holds it in the Negative and I in the Affirmative and my Reason for what I affirm viz. That Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods is this That God and Infinite Mind or Spirit are Terms Equipollent and Convertible God being truly and properly an Infinite Mind or Spirit and an Infinite Mind or Spirit being as truly and properly God And to shew this Convertibility and Commensuration between them yet further Whatsoever may be affirmed or denied of the one may with equal Truth and Propriety be affirmed or denied of the other And to give an Instance of this with reference to the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity As it is true that one and the same God or God-head is Common to and Subsists in all and every one of the Three Persons so is it true That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit is Common to and Subsists in the said Three Persons And consequently as it is false That one and the same God or God-head by being Common to and Subsisting in the Three Persons becomes Three Gods or Three God-heads so is it equally false That one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit by being Common to and Subsisting in the said Three Persons becomes Three Infinite Minds or Spirits This is clear Argumentation and craves no Mercy at our Author's Hands If it be here objected That we allow of Three distinct Persons in the God-head of which every one is Infinite without admitting them to be Three distinct Gods and therefore why may we not as well allow of Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits in the same God-head without any necessity of inferring from thence That they are Three distinct Gods I Answer That the Case is very different and the Reason of the difference is this Because Three Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three Absolute Simple Beings or Essences and so stand distinguished from one another by their whole Beings or Natures But the Divine Persons are Three Relatives or one simple Being or Essence under three distinct Relations and consequently differ from one another not wholly and by all that is in them but only by some certain Mode or respect peculiar to each and upon that Account causing their Distinction And therefore to Argue from a Person to a Spirit here is manifestly Sophistical and that which is called Fallacia Accidentis or since several Fallacies may concur in the same Proposition it may be also à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter For so it is to conclude That Three Persons are Three distinct Gods since the difference of Persons is only from a diverse respect between them but Three Gods import Three absolutely distinct Natures or Substances And whereas we say That the Three Persons are all and every one of them Infinite yet it is but from one and the same Numerical Nature Common to them all that they are so the Ternary Number all the while not belonging to their Infinity but only to their Personalities The Case therefore between a Mind or Spirit and a Person is by no means the same Forasmuch as Person here imports only a Relation or Mode of Subsistence in Conjunction with the Nature it belongs to And therefore a Multiplication of Persons of it self imports only a Multiplication of such Modes or Relations without any necessary Multiplication of the Nature it self to which they adhere Forasmuch as one and the same Nature may sustain several distinct Relations or Modes of Subsistence But now on the other side a Mind or Spirit is not a Relation or Mode of Subsistence but it is an Absolute Being Nature or Substance and consequently cannot be multiplyed without a Multiplication of it into so many Numerical Absolute Beings Natures or Substances there being nothing in it to be multiplyed but it self So that Three Minds or Spirits are Three Absolute Beings Natures or Substances and Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are accordingly Three distinct Infinite Absolute Beings Natures or Substances That is in other words They are Three Gods which was the Thing to be proved and let this Author ward off the Proof of it as he is able Argument II. My Second Argument against the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity being Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits is this Three distinct Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Substances But the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances And therefore they are not Three distinct Minds or Spirits The Major Proposition is proved from the Definition of a Mind or Spirit That it is Substantia Incorporea Intelligens an Intelligent Incorporeal or Immaterial Substance and therefore Three distinct Minds or Spirits must be Three such distinct Substances And besides if a Mind or Spirit were not a Substance what could it be else If it be any Thing it must be either an Accident or Mode of Being But not an Accident since no Accident can be in God nor yet a Mode of Being since a Spirit not designed to concur as a part towards any Compound is an Absolute Entire Complete Being of itself and has its proper Mode of Subsistence belonging to it and therefore cannot be a Mode it self From whence it follows That a Spirit is and must be a Substance and can be nothing else As for the Minor viz. That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances this is evident both from Authority and from Reason And first for Authority Tertullian against Praxeas affirms Semper in Deo una Substantia And St. Ierom in his Epistle to Damasus Quis ore sacrilego Tres substantias praedicabit And St. Austin in his 5th Book de Trinitate Chap. 9. and in Book 7. Chap. 4. And Ruffinus in the 1st Book of his History Chap. 29. All affirm One Substance in God and deny Three and yet the same Writers unanimously hold Three Persons which shews That they did not account these Three Persons Three Substances And Anselmus in his Book de Incarnatione Chap. 3. says That the Father and the Son may be said to be Two Beings provided that by Beings we understand Relations not Substances And Bellarmine a Writer Orthodox enough in these points and of unquestionable Learning otherwise in his 2d Tome page 348. about the end says
expressing himself in this sacred and arduous Subject to give it no worse word whatsoever it may deserve affords the Arians and Socinians no small Advantages against this Doctrine should it stand upon the strength of His Defence as thanks be to God it does not But I must not here omit that Passage which in the former part of this Chapter I promised more particularly to consider a Passage which indeed looks something strangely It is that in P. 258. line 27. where he tells us that he allows That in the Blessed Trinity there are Three Holy Spirits but denys That there are Three Holy Ghosts so natural is it for false Opinions to force Men to absurd Expressions But my Answer to him is short and positive That neither are there Three Holy Spirits nor Three Holy Ghosts in the Blessed Trinity in any sense properly belonging to these words However the Thing meant by him so far as it is reducible to Truth and Reason is and must be this viz. That when the Third Person of the Trinity is called the Holy Ghost there the word Holy Ghost which otherwise signifies the same with Holy Spirit must be taken Personally and consequently Incommunicably but when the Father or Son is said to be a Spirit or Holy Spirit there Spirit must be understood Essentially for that Immaterial Spiritual and Divine Nature which is common to and Predicable of all the Divine Persons All which is most true But then for this very Reason I must tell our Author withal That as Holy Ghost taken Personally is but Numerically one so Spirit or Holy Spirit as it is understood Essentially is but Numerically one too And therefore though the Father may be called a Spirit or Holy Spirit and the two other Persons may each of them be called so likewise yet they are not therefore Three distinct Spirits or Holy Spirits nor can be truly so called as this Author pretends they ought to be and we have sufficiently disproved but they are all one and the same Holy Spirit Essentially taken and which so taken is as much as one and the same God And moreover though Spirit understood Personally distinguishes the Third Person from the other two yet taken Essentially it speaks him one and the same Spirit as well as one and the same God with them and can by no means distinguish him from them any more than the Divine Essence or Nature which Spirit in this sence is only another word for can discriminate the Three Persons from one another So that upon the whole Matter it is equally false and impossible That in the Blessed Trinity there should be Three Holy Spirits or Holy Ghosts Terms perfectly Synonymous either upon a Personal or an Essential account and consequently that there should be so at all For as the word Spirit imports a peculiar Mode of Subsistence by way of Spiration from the Father and the Son so it is Personal and Incommunicable but as it imports the Immaterial Substance of the Deity so indeed as being the same with the Deity it self it is equally Common to all the Three Persons but still for all that remains Numerically one and no more as all must acknowledge the Deity to be And this is the true state of the Case But to state the difference between the Holy Ghost and the other Two Persons upon something signified by Holy Ghost which is not signified by Holy Spirit as the words of this Author manifestly do while he affirms Three Holy Spirits but denies Three Holy Ghosts this is not only a playing with words which he pretends to scorn but a taking of words for things which I am sure is very ridiculous And now before I conclude this Chapter having a Debt upon me declared at the beginning of it I leave it to the Impartial and Discreet Reader to judge what is to be thought or said of that Man who in such an Insolent Decretorious manner shall in such a point as this before us charge Nonsense and Heresie two very vile words upon all that Subscribe not to this his New and before unheard of Opinion I must profess I never met with the like in any Sober Author and hardly in the most Licentious Libeller The Nature of the Subject I have according to my poor Abilities discussed and finding my self thereupon extremely to dissent from this Author am yet by no means willing to pass for a Nonsensical Heretick for my pains For must it be Nonsence not to own Contradictions viz. That One infinite Spirit is Three distinct Infinite Spirits Or must it be Heresie not to Subscribe to Tritheisme as the best and most Orthodox Explication of the Article of the Trinity As for Non-sence it must certainly imply the asserting of something for true concerning the Subject discoursed of which yet in truth is contradictory to it since there can be no Non-sence but what contradicts some Truth And whereas this Author has elsewhere viz. P. 4. declared it unreasonable to charge a contradiction in any Thing where the Nature of the Thing discoursed of is not throughly comprehended and understood I desire to know of him whether he throughly understands and comprehends the Article and Mystery of the Trinity If he says he does I need no other Demonstration of his unfitness to write about it But if he owns that he does not let him only stick to his own Rule and then he may keep the Charge of Non-sense to himself But what shall we say to the Charge of Heresie in which St. Austin would have no Person who is so charged to be silent Why in the first place we must search and enquire whether it be so or no And here if my Life lay upon it I cannot find either in Irenaeus adversùs Haereses or in Tertullian's Prescriptions contra Haereticos Cap. 49. Nor in Philastrius's Catalogue nor in Epiphanius nor in St. Austin nor in Theodoret nor in Iohannes Damascenus's Book de Haeresibus nor in the latter Haeresiologists such as Alphonsus à Castro Prateolus with several others I cannot I say find in all or in any one of these the Heresie of not asserting the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits no nor yet the Heresie of denying them to be so But where then may we find it Why in this Author's Book And therefore look no further it is enough that so great a Master has said it whose Authority in saying a Thing is as good as another Man 's in proving it at any time And he says it as we see positively and perhaps if need be will be ready to take his Corporal Oath upon it That such as deny his Hypothesis are Hereticks Now in this case our Condition is in good earnest very sad and I know nothing to comfort us but that the Statute de Haeretico comburendo is Repealed And well is it for the Poor Clergy and Church of England that it is so for otherwise this Man
not be long before we find him bestowing a like cast of his Kindness upon the School-men too But since notwithstanding all this He allows the Fathers good Men to have meant well and taught right albeit by reason of a certain Infelicity and Awkwardness they had in representing what they meant by what they wrote their meaning ought by no means to be gathered from their own words as possibly also for the introducing a new and laudable Custom amongst the Fathers and Sons of the Church that the Sons must teach the Fathers to speak our Author has for these and the like Reasons in great Charity and Compassion to their Infirmities provided two other and better words of his own Invention viz. Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness by which alone the True Sense and Doctrine of the Fathers in all their Writings about this Article of the Trinity may or can be understood Nevertheless how kind soever this design of his may be yet to me it seems very unreasonable For in the first place it is upon the most allowed grounds of Reason a just and a sufficient Presumption that the Fathers were wholly Strangers to what our Author intends by these two words for that they never so much as mention or make use of the words themselves Whereas to be Self-Conscious and Mutually-Conscious were things no doubt easie enough not only for the Fathers but for any Man else of Common Sense to find out and understand and they might also without much difficulty have been applyed to the Divine Nature as well as other Acts of Knowledge and therefore since the Fathers never used them in this case it is but too plain that they never thought them fit or proper for this purpose For the Arian Controversie was then viz. in the 4th and 5th Centuries in which also the most Eminent of the Fathers wrote against it at the Highest Among which Writers Gregory Nyssen whom this Author so often quotes has a Passage which in this case is to me very remarkable and a Rational ground to conclude that he knew nothing of Mutual-Consciousness as it is here applyed by this Author For that speaking of the Unity of the Divine Persons in respect of one Common though Single Nature he expresses it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of which certainly he could not have chosen a more apposite and proper place to have expressed the same by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had that Father had the same Notion of it which this Author so much contends for But it seems he was either less Happy or more judicious in this Particular And besides all this it is most worthy to be Noted That the very Terms in which the Orthodox Writers expressed themselves about the Trinity and whatsoever related to it were severely canvased and examined and some of them settled by Councils which is a fair proof that the said Terms were fixed and authentick and exclusive of all others and consequently of those of this Author as well as of the Notion signified by and couched under them which he would here with such Confidence obtrude upon the World by and from the Credit of the Fathers though their Writings demonstrate that they were wholly unconcerned both as to his Doctrines and his Expressions Nor can any Want or Penury of words be here pleaded for their silence in this Matter since the Greek being so happy above all other Languages in joyning and compounding words together in all probability had the Fortunes of Greece as the word is been concerned in the case we might have heard of some such words as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or since most such words as in English terminate in ness usually in the Greek terminate in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 possibly we might have met with some such made-words as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since these do more properly import Consciousness than the former which rather signifie Self-Conscience and Mutual-Conscience and so in strictness of Speech differ something from the other But he who seeks in the Greek Fathers for these words or any thing like them as applyed to the Trinity may seek longer than his Eyes can see Nor will his Inquest succeed at all better amongst the Latines For although that Language be extremely less copious than the other and so affords no one Latine word either for Self-Consciousness or Mutual Consciousness but what we must first make and being made would sound very barbarously yet no doubt there were ways and words enough to have otherwise expressed the same thing had they found it the fittest and best Notion to have expressed this great Article by But no such thing or word occurs in any of their Writings But why do I speak of the Greek and Latine Fathers When the very Schoolmen the boldest Framers and Inventors of Words and Terms of all others where they think them necessary to express their Conceptions by notwithstanding all their Quiddities Hoecceities and Perseities and the like have yet no word for Self-Consciousness and Mutual Consciousness which is a sufficient Demonstration that either the thing it self never came into their Heads or which is most likely that they never thought it of any use for the explication of this Mystery which yet they venture further at than any other Writers whatsoever But after all though this Author is very much concerned to ward off the charge of Novelty and Singularity from his Notions for which I cannot blame him this being a charge sufficient to confound and crush any such Notion applyed to so Sacred and received an Article as the Trinity and for this cause is not a little desirous to shelter it with the Authority of the Fathers yet I assure the Reader That he is no less careful and concerned to keep the Glory of the Invention wholly to himself and would take it very ill either of Fathers School-men or any one else should they offer to claim the least share in it For he roundly tells us That the Fathers were not so happy as to hit upon his way of explaining this Mystery Page 126. Line 5. nay and that how right a Judgement soever they might have of it yet in down-right Terms That they knew not how to explain it Page 126. Line 18. which I confess is no small Complement passed upon himself a thing which he is seldom or never failing in but in good earnest a very course one upon the Fathers In short he would appropriate the Credit of the New Invention entirely to himself but with admirable and more than Metaphysical Abstraction at the same time clear himself of the Novelty of it and so in a word prove it of at least 12 or 13 hundred years standing in the World when yet the Author of it was Born since Conventicles began in England as is well known But I frankly yield him the Invention as perfectly his own and such an one too as he
save one after this this Man should positively say as he does That the Fathers never so much as Dream'd of a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons having here in Page 107. affirmed it to be no less than absolutely necessary to make the Three Persons one God And that certainly is a necessity with a witness But he who exacts of this Author a consistency with himself for five Pages together deals very severely with him And accordingly the more I consider of this Matter I cannot but think that what he says of the Nicene Fathers holding a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons Page 106. and his affirming that Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril Maximus and Damascen never so much as Dream'd of any such Unity Page 109. Line 22. will by no means consist together For first If by the Nicene Fathers be meant not only those who were present at that Council but those Fathers also who about those Times held the same Faith which was Established in that Council then his two fore-cited Passages contain a gross manifest fulsome Contradiction even as gross as the positive asserting of a thing and the never so much as dreaming of it can import But if by the Nicene Fathers he means only those who sat and acted in that Council he will hardly however perswade any understanding Man That Gregory Nyssen who Wrote and flourished between Fifty and Sixty Years after the Council and Maximus about Sixty and St. Cyril about Ninety could be so grosly ignorant of and Strangers to the Sentiments of those Fathers as not so much as to Dream of that wherein they had placed the Unity of the God-head This to me seems Incredible and morally Impossible since it is not to be imagined that Nyssen Cyril and Maximus could so soon forget or knowingly dare to relinquish the Doctrine of the fore-mentioned Fathers whose Authority was so great and Sacred all the Christian World over And therefore since this Author allows these Fathers not to have Dreamt of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature I conclude That neither did the Nicene Fathers Dream of it any more than they howsoever they might express themselves upon some occasions And thus having as well as he could made his first step by Asserting a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in the Three Divine Persons from the Fathers that is to say partly from what Petavius and Dr. Cudworth had told him of the Nicene Fathers holding such a Specifick Unity between them and partly from the other Fathers never so much as dreaming of it he proceeds now to his other step or rather Counter-step which is to shew That the Unity between the Divine Persons held by the Fathers was no other than a Numerical Unity of Nature or Essence belonging to them For since to be one only Specifically and to be one only Numerically are by no means consistent with one another in respect of the same Persons what can this be so truly and properly called as a Counter-step to that which he had made before His Method being plainly this First he tells us that the Nicene Fathers by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood only a Specifick Unity or Sameness of Nature in the Divine Persons Page 106. And then that the Fathers mentioning them indefinitely held this Sameness of Nature absolutely necessary to make the said Three Persons one God Page 107. And now at length he tells us Page 121. Lines 27 28 29. That though several of the Fathers attempted several ways of explaining that Unity of Nature that is in the Divine Persons yet they all agree in the Thing That Father Son and Holy Ghost Three distinct Divine Persons are united in one Numerical Nature and Essence So that the Sum of all must be this as appears also from his own words in the latter end of Page 120. and the four first Lines of the 121. that according to him the Fathers held a Specifick Unity of Nature necessary to make the Three Divine Persons one God but not sufficient without the Completion of it by a Numerical Unity superadded to it This I say is the Sum of what he delivers and in direct opposition to which I do here deny That there is any such Thing as a Specifick Unity of Nature belonging to the Divine Persons or that the Fathers ever held that there was And to prove this I shall premise this Assertion both as certain in itself and withall affirmed by this Author in those forecited words viz. That all the Fathers held That Father Son and Holy Ghost Three distinct Persons are United in or rather are One by One Numerical Nature and Essence Which being so premised I have these Considerations to oppose to the Admission of any Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature as it belongs to the Divine Persons As First If a Numerical Unity in the same Divine Nature be sufficient to make the Three Divine Persons to whom it belongs One God then a Specifick Unity of the same is not necessary but a Numerical Unity in the same Divine Nature is sufficient to make the said Three Persons One God and therefore a Specifick Unity is not necessary The Consequence is evident because nothing can be necessary to any Thing or Effect beyond or beside what is sufficient for the same since this would imply a manifest Contradiction by making the same Thing in the same respect both sufficient and not sufficient And as for the Minor That an Agreement in one and the same Numerical Divine Nature is sufficient to make the Persons so agreeing One God I suppose this carries with it so much Self-Evidence that no Man of Reason will pretend to doubt of and much less to deny it Secondly A greater degree of Unity and a less degree of Unity are not to be admitted in the Divine Nature But a Numerical Unity and a Specifical Unity are a greater and a less degree of Unity and therefore they are not both to be admitted in the Divine Nature The Major is proved thus because two such Unities would overthrow the simplicity of the Divine Nature forasmuch as they must be either two degrees of the same kind of Unity or they must be two different kinds of Unity Either of which would inferr a Composition by no means to be endured in the Divine Nature As for the Minor it is evident in it self and needs no Proof Thirdly Such a degree or sort of Unity of Nature as may agree to Ten Thousand Individuals neither can nor ought to be admitted in the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons But a Specifick Unity of Nature may agree to Ten Thousand Individuals as well as to Two or Three since upon a Specifick Account it has no Stint or Limitation but may be every whit as well and properly in the former Number as in the latter and therefore it neither can nor ought to be admitted in the Divine Nature Fourthly Such an Unity as is principally
Sum of his Argument from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Answer to which before I address my self to his Argument I will give some Account of the Quotation In which by his Favour we are to take the sense of the Father's words from the Father himself and not from the Inferences which he who Quotes them thinks fit to draw from them how good soever he may be at that Work Now what St. Gregory means by them appears plainly by his manner of Reasoning The Question before him was Whether the Three Divine Persons were Three Gods Which St. Gregory denies and amongst other Proofs says That God is the Name of Energy and from the Unity of Energy proves the Unity of the Deity and that three Persons are but one God because the Operation is the same in all To this he raises an Objection from the Sameness of Faculty Office or Operation amongst Men as Geometricians Husbandmen Orators whose Office Business and Operations in their respective way are the same which yet does not hinder but that they are still Three or more several Men. To which he Answers that these act seperately and by themselves but that it is not so in the Divine Nature no Person in the Holy Trinity doing any Thing by himself only or acting separately from the other Two but that there is one and the same Motion ond Disposition of Will passing from the Father through the Son to the Holy Ghost This is the force of St. Gregory's Reasoning and the plain meaning of it is no more but this That Three Men acting the same Thing are still Three Men because they act separately and by themselves but that the Three Persons in the Trinity are but One God because they do not act separately but that there is the same Motion and Disposition of Will in all the Three Persons as on the contrary Three Men's not having one and the same Motion of Will equally proves That they are not One but Three several Men and accordingly makes a manifest difference between Three Men acting the same Thing and the Operation of the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity which is the Sum of St. Gregory's Answer to the forementioned Objection And now what does all this prove Why truly neither of those Two Things which this Author must prove or he proves nothing viz. That this Unity of Motion and Disposition of Will is properly and formally Unity of Divine Nature And next That this Unity of Divine Nature is properly Mutual Consciousness These two Things I say it is incumbent upon him to prove But how it can be done from the fore-mentioned Words or Argument of Gregory Nyssen I believe will pose the Learned'st Man alive to shew The proper Answer therefore to this Argument will be much the same with that just before given to the Argument drawn from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but a Branch and it proceeds thus First I deny the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be any more than a proof of the Unity of the Divine Nature just as either the Effect or the Causality is a sure proof of the Cause but for all that is not the Cause or as a Consequent proves its Antecedent without being the Antecedent or that wherein the Nature of the Antecedent does consist Secondly In the next place I deny that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is formally and properly the same with Mutual-Consciousness any more than an Act or Motion of the Will is formally the same with an Act of the Understanding And before this Author takes it for granted which is his constant way of proving things I expect that he make it appear That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie formally one and the same Thing And it was boldly done of him to say the least to appeal to his Reader about a Thing in which if he understood the difference between an Act of Volition and an Act of Intellection he must certainly judge against him But it may be reply'd That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does at least inserr a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I grant it may But affirm That this is nothing to his Purpose unless it could follow from hence that that which inferrs or proves a Thing is the very Thing which it inferrs and proves which it neither is nor for that Reason can be As for what he adds That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be in the Three Divine Persons without such a Mutual-Consciousness I do readily grant this also But in the mean time is not this Dictator yet old enough to distinguish between the Causa sinè quâ non or rather the Condition of a Thing and the Ratio formalis or Nature of that Thing Between That without which a Thing cannot be and that which that Thing properly is There can be no such Thing as Sight without a due Circulation of the Blood and Spirits But is such a Circulation therefore properly an Act of Sight Or an Act of Sight such a Circulation To dispute this further would be but to abuse the Reader 's Patience And last of all if this Author should take advantage of those words from Gregory Nyssen That God is the Name of Energy Besides that it is not the bare Notation but use of the Word that must govern its signification I would have this Author know That God may have many Names by which his Nature is not signified as well as several others by which it is and may be But I must confess it is a very pleasant Thing as was in some measure hinted before to prove the Divine Nature to be Energy because the Name God does not signifie Nature but Energy or Operation whereas in Truth if it proves any thing it proves that Nature and Energy applyed to God do by no means signifie the same Thing And so I have done with his Argument from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and effectually demonstrated That there is not so much as the least shew or semblance of any proof from this That Mutual Consciousness is properly that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does consist 3. His Third Argument is from the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly Translated Circumincession and signifying a Mutual-Inexistence or In-dwelling of each Person in the other Two The Word was first used in this sence so far as I can find by Damascen a Father of the 8th Century But the Thing meant by it is contained in those words of our Saviour in Iohn 14. 11. 21. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me which I confess are a solid and sufficient proof of the Unity and Identity of the Divine Nature both in the Father and the Son and withal a very happy and significant Expression of the same
But what is this to our Author's Purpose And how does he prove this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Mutual Consciousness Why truly by no Argument or Reason produced or so much as offered at by him but only by a confident Over-bearing Affirmation That there is no other Account to be given of that Mutual In-being of the Divine Persons in each other which the Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by Mutual Consciousness Page 125. Lines 6 7 8. But by his leave I must debate the case a little with him before he carries it off so And in order to this I must tell him in the first place That the Question is not whether Mutual Consciousness best explains this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether it be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons And in the next place I demand of him Whether our Saviour's Words do not plainly and expresly signifie the Mutual In-being or In existence of the Persons in one another without any signification of their Mutual Consciousness at all And if so let me hear a Reason Why we should not take our Saviour's meaning from the Native signification of his own Words rather than from those of this Author For will he venture to affirm That the Father cannot be in the Son and the Son in the Father by a Mutual In-existence in one another but only by a Mutual Knowledge of one another Let him take heed what he says and how he ventures beyond his Depth Or will he say That our Saviour meant the same Thing with himself but was not so happy in expressing it For no other Reason but one of these two can be assigned That when our Saviour expresses himself in Terms importing Mutual In-existence this Man shall dare to say That he means nothing by them but Mutual Consciousness I referr it to the Serious and Impartial Reader to Judge of the Horrible Boldness of this Man and withal to observe how extremely he varies from himself about this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Mutual Consciousness For First He sometimes says That Mutual Consciousness is the only thing wherein both the Unity of the Divine Nature and this Mutual In-dwelling of the three Divine Persons does Consist Page 124. lines 4 5. And Secondly He says That Mutual Consciousness is the only thing that can explain or give an account of this Mutual In-dwelling or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 125. lines 6 7. To which I Answer That when he speaks of giving an account of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he means only an Account that there is such a Thing belonging to the Divine Persons our Saviour's Words have given a sufficient Account of that already But Secondly If he means such an Account of it as explains and makes clear to us the Nature of it by shewing what it is and how it is I deny that any such Account can be given or perhaps understood by Humane Reason and much less that his Mutual Consciousness does or can give it Concerning which I shall ask him this one Question viz. Whether the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Mutually Conscious to one another of their Mutual In-existence in one another I suppose he will not because he dares not deny it And if he grants it then it manifestly follows That their Mutual In-existence in one another is in Order of Nature before their Mutual Consciousness and consequently cannot be the same with it nor consist in it For certainly those Divine Persons must Exist Mutually in one another before they can know or be Conscious to themselves that they do so So that we see here that nothing is or can be concluded from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his Mutual Consciousness whether we consider the Use of the Word or the Nature of the Thing But let us see how he makes good his Point from the Authority of the Fathers which was the grand Thing undertook by him in this his 4th Section And here as for the Fathers he both Despises and Reproaches them and that very grosly too For first he tells us That such an Union amongst the Divine Persons as is expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they all agree in but how to explain it they knew not Page 125. lines 17 18. And why then in the Name of God does he referr to the Fathers to justifie his Explanation of that which in the very same Breath he says They knew not how to Explain And the Truth is the Fathers never owned themselves able to explain it and that for a very good Reason viz. because they held it unexplicable and unconceivable and not for that scandalous Reason given by him viz. That they had gross Material Conceptions of the Deity by conceiving of it as of a Substance Page 125. lines 27 28. For says he within two lines after Had they Contemplated God as a pure Mind it had been easie to explain this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Indwelling of the Divine Persons in each other Good God! That any Professor of Divinity should call that easie to explain which the Reason of all Mankind has hitherto bent under as a thing too great and mysterious for it to comprehend or to grapple with So that if ever we have cause to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is here Or that he should tax all those who own themselves at a loss about it for not Contemplating God as a pure Mind But to him I confess who can conceive of such a pure Mind as is no Substance that is to say in other words No being For I am sure he will not so much as pretend it to be an Accident to Him I say I cannot wonder if nothing seem difficult or mysterious In the mean time it is shameless and insufferable in this Man to say as he does Page 100 101. That his Explication of the Trinity is not new but the same with that of the Fathers and afterwards in pursuance of this Assertion to say That the Fathers knew not how to explain it and to give this as a Reason of their not knowing how to do so viz. That they had such gross Notions of God that they could not conceive rightly of this Mystery For this he has roundly affirmed and therefore ought in all Reason either to prove this Charge upon the Fathers or to give the World and the Church of England in particular satisfaction for speaking so falsely and scandalously of such glorious Lights and principal Pillars of the Christian Church and such as I dare say never Preached nor Prayed in any Conventicle But what the Doctrine of the Fathers is concerning this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and how they understood those words of our Saviour expressed by this Term is manifest from the Testimony of two or three of them which I shall set down as in so known a
make an Explication of it superfluous this Author having quoted Peter Lombard in such or such a sence ought in all Reason to have produced the Major and more eminent part of the School-men and Writers upon him and shewn their Unanimous Concurrence in the same Sence and Notion which he took him in and quoted him for And this indeed would have been to his Purpose and look'd like proving his Opinion to have been the Doctrine of the Schools Otherwise I cannot see how the Master of the Sentences can be called or pass for all the School men any more than the Master of the Temple can pass for all the Divines of the Church of England Unless we should imagine that this Peter Lombard had by a kind of Mutual Consciousness gathered all his Numerous Brood into Himself and so united them all into one Author So that the Sum of all is this That this Author having declared his Opinion the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools to make his words good has produced for it Three or Four Greek Fathers and Two Latin though even these no more to his purpose than if he had quoted Dod and Cleaver or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Homer and lastly One Sentence out of one School-man Which if it be allowed to pass for a good just and sufficient Proof of any Controverted Conclusion let it for the future by all means for this our Author's sake be an Established Rule in Logick from a Particular to infer an Universal And now that I am bringing my Reader towards a close of this long Chapter I must desire him to look a little back towards the beginning of the foregoing Chapter wherein upon this Man 's Confident Affirmation That his Opinion was the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools I thought it necessary to state what his Opinion was and accordingly I shew'd that it consisted of Four Heads 1st That the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity were three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits which how far he was from being able to prove from the Authority of any of the Fathers cited by him was sufficiently shewn by us in the preceding Chapter The 2d Was That Self Consciousness was the formal Reason of Personality in the said three Persons and consequently That whereby they were distinguished from each other which in the same Chapter I shew'd he was so far from proving from the Authority of those Ancient Writers that he did not alledge one Tittle out of any of them for it nor indeed so much as mention it in any of the Quotations there made by him And as for the 3d. Member of his said Hypothesis viz. That the Unity of the Divine Nature in the three Blessed Persons Consisted in the Mutual Consciousness belonging to them This we have Examined at large and confuted in this Chapter But still there remains the 4th And last to be spoken to as completeing his whole Hypothesis and resulting by direct Consequence from the other Three viz. That a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity explained by the three forementioned Terms or Principles is a very plain easie and intelligible Notion which having been in a most Confident Peremptory manner affirmed by him all along as I shew in Chap. 1. and upon that Score making so great a part of his Hypothesis ought in all reason to be proved to have been the Sence and Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article But not one word does he produce upon this Head neither Nor for my own part do I expect ever to find the least Sentence or Syllable in any Ancient Writer tending this way And I challenge this Author to produce so much as one to this purpose In the mean time how and with what kind of words I find these Ancient Writers expressing themselves about this venerable Mystery I shall here set down Only I shall premise a Sentence or two out of this Author himself and which I have had occasion to quote more than once before from Page 106. line 7. viz. That the Unity in Trinity being as he confesses so great a Mystery that we have no Example of it in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and that therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an Adequate Notion of the God head and moreover Page 139. line 26. c. That there is nothing like this Mysterious Distinction and Unity and that we want proper words to express it by All which Passages lying clear open and express in the fore-cited places of this Author I must needs ask him Whether all these are used by him to prove the Unity in Trinity a plain easie and intelligible Notion as he has frequently elsewhere asserted it to be As to go over each of the Particulars First Whether we must account it plain because he says It is a great Mystery of which we have no Example in Nature And Secondly Whether we must reckon it easie because he says That it cannot be Explained by any one kind of Natural Union but that several Examples must be used and several sorts of Union alluded to for this purpose And Lastly Whether it must pass for Intelligible because he tells us That we want proper Words to express it by that is in other Terms to make it Intelligible since to express a Thing and to make it Intelligible I take to be Terms equivalent In fine I here appeal to the Reader Whether we ought from the forementioned Passages of this Author to take the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity for a plain easie Intelligible Notion according to the same Author's affirmation so frequently inculcated in so many Parts of his Book But I shall now proceed to shew as I promised how the Fathers speak and declare themselves upon this great Point And here we will begin first with Iustin Martyr A Singularity or Unity says he is understood by us and a Trinity in Unity is acknowledged But how it is thus I am neither willing to ask others nor can I perswade my self with my Muddy Tongue and Polluted Flesh to attempt a Declaration of such Ineffable Matters And again speaking of the Oeconomy of the blessed Trinity the nature and manner says he of this Oeconomy is unutterable And yet again speaking of this Mysterious Oeconomy of the Deity and the Trinity as one of the greatest Mysteries of the Christian Faith I cry out says he O wonderful For that the Principles and Articles of our Religion surpass and transcend the Understanding Reason and Comprehension of a Created Nature In the next place Dionysius the Areopagite or some very Ancient Writer under that Name calls it the Transcendent Superessential and Superlatively Divine Trinity In like manner Gregory Nyssen we apprehend says he in these viz. the three Divine Persons a certain Inexpressible Inconceivable
Unity or Communication and distinction c. St. Basil also Writing against such as would derogate from the Equality of the Divine Persons speaks of the Trinity thus Either let these Inexpressible things be silently Reverenced or Religiously and Becomingly Represented And again in a Discourse against such as used Contumelious Words of the Trinity speaking there of the Holy Ghost as Essentially one with the Father and the Son he says the Intimate Conjunction between him and them is hereby declared viz. by the Scripture there quoted by him and applyed to them but the Ineffable Manner of his Subsistence hereby Inviolably preserved So that still we see with this Father the Oeconomy of the Three Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity is a thing Ineffable and above all Description or Expression Nazianzen also speaks of the Trinity under these Epithetes styling it the Adorable Trinity Above and before the World before all Time of the same Majesty of the same Glory Increate and Invisible above our Reach and Incomprehensible And the same Epithetes are given it by Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus declaring the Trinity to be of One and the same Essence Transcendent in its Substance Invisible and Inconceivable And Lastly Eulogius Arch-bishop of Alexandria sets it forth thus We divide not says he what is but One we part not the Singularity nor distract the Unity but so Assert this Unity in an Eternal Singularity as to ascribe the same to Three distinct Hypostases by no means subjecting things above our Understanding to Human Reasonings nor by an Over-curious Search undervaluing things so much above all Search or Discovery Having given this Specimen of what the Greek Fathers and Writers thought and spoke of the Trinity let us now pass to the Latines And amongst these we have in the first place St. Hilary expressing himself thus The Mystery of the Trinity is Immense and Incomprehensible not to be express'd by Words nor reach'd by Sence Imperceivable it blinds our Sight it exceeds the Capacity of our Understanding I understand it not Nevertheless I will comfort my self in this That neither do the Angels know it nor Ages apprehend it nor have the Apostles enquired of it nor the Son himself declared it Let us therefore leave off complaining c. After him let us hear St. Ambrose The Divinity of the Holy Trinity says he is to be believed by us to be without beginning or end albeit hardly possible to be comprehended by the Mind of Man Upon which Account it may be not improperly said concerning it That we comprehend this only of it that in truth it cannot be comprehended To St. Ambrose succeeds St. Austin In this Trinity says this learned Father is but one God which is indeed wonderfully unspeakable and unspeakably wonderful To the same purpose Fulgentius So far as I can judge only the Eternal and Unchangeable Trinity ought to be looked upon by us as worthy to be esteemed Incomprehensibly Miraculous and as much exceeding all that we can think or imagine of it as it surmounts all that we are After him we shall produce Hormisda Bishop of Rome in a Letter to Iustinian the Emperour about the beginning of the Sixth Century speaking thus The Holy Trinity says he is but One it is not multiplyed by Number nor grows by any Addition or Encrease Nor can it either be comprehended by our Understanding nor in respect of its Divinity be at all Divided And a little after Let us Worship Father Son and Holy Ghost distinct in themselves but with one indistinct Worship that is to say The Incomprehensible and Unutterable Substance of the Trinity And presently again Great and Incomprensible is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity In the last place St. Bernard delivers himself upon the same Subject thus I confidently affirm says he that the Eternal and Blessed Trinity which I do not understand I do yet believe and embrace with my Faith what I cannot comprehend with my Mind I have here as I said given a Specimen of what the Ancient Writers of the Church both Greek and Latin thought and said of the Blessed Trinity and it is I confess but a Specimen since I think that enough for an Universally acknowledged and never before contradicted Proposition Whereas had it but in the least seemed a Novelty as this Author's Hypothesis not only seems but unquestionably is I should have thought my self obliged to have brought as many Quotations for it from Antiquity as would have filled a much larger Book than I intend this shall be But as for those which I have here produced I do solemnly appeal to any Man living Christian or not Christian who does but understand these Languages whether the Fathers now Quoted by me and all the rest upon the same Subject speak agreeably to them looked upon Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity as a Plain Easie and Intelligible Notion So that if the Judgment of the Fathers and of this Author be in this point one and the same it must unavoidably follow That either the Fathers have not yet declared their Judgment and Doctrine or that this Author has not yet declared his Since so much as has been declared on the one side is a direct and gross Contradiction to what has been Asserted on the other And moreover the fore alledged Testimonies of the Fathers are such that we are not put to draw what we contend for by remote far fetched Consequences from them but it lies plain open and manifest in them in words too clear and full to be denyed and too convincing to be evaded So that we are sure both of their Words and Expressions and of the common sence of all Mankind to expound and understand them by And will this bold over bearing Man after all this Claim their meaning to be the same with his What his meaning is he has told us forty times over viz. The Unity in Trinity c. is so far from being an Unintelligible Notion that it is not so much as difficult how much soever the dull mistaken World has for near 1700 Years thought otherwise And now if this be the true Account and state of this Matter that when the Fathers say of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Trinity that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Ineffable Inconceivable Unintelligible Incomprehensible and if possible transcending the very Notion of the Deity it self above all Humane Understanding and Reason Discourse and Scrutiny I say if by all this he can prove that the Fathers meant That it was a very Plain Easie and Intelligible Notion as by affirming that those who used all these Expressions meant the same with himself he does and must affirm or say That they knew not their own meaning or at least were not able to express it but in words quite contrary to it I must needs own the
Constantinople being the Fifth General one in the Year 553 for Condemning of the Tria Capitula we have a large and Noble Confession of Faith made by that Emperour and owned and applauded by all the Council and inserted amongst the Acts of it And in this we have the Three Divine Persons several times expressed by so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Term equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and indeed importing withall the Personality or Formal Reason of the same and that so fully and plainly that nothing could or can be more so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is We profess to Believe One Father Son and Holy Ghost Glorifying thereby a Consubstantial Trinity One Deity or Nature or Essence and Power and Authority in Three Subsistences or Persons And again to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We worship says he an Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity having both a strange and wonderful Distinction and Union that is to say an Union or Singularity in respect of the Substance or God-head and a Trinity in respect of Properties Subsistences or Persons with several more such Passages to the same Purpose and Signification And then as for the Council it self the first Canon of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is If any one Confess not One Nature or Substance One Power and Authority of Father Son and Holy Ghost a Coessential Trinity and One Deity to be Worshipped in Three Subsistences or persons Let such an one be Accursed In the next place we have the Sixth General Council and the Third of Constantinople called by Constantinus Pogonatus against the Monothelites in the Year 681. In the Acts of which Council Article 6. we have the Council owning the same Thing and in the same words which a little before we quoted out of the Council of Chalcedon And moreover in the Tenth Article the Council declares it self thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is We believing our Lord Iesus Christ to be the True God do affirm in him Two Distinct Natures shining forth in One Subsistence or Person Agreeably to this the Council immediately following called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the â—atines Concilium Quini Sextum Consisting chiefly of the same Persons with the former and called by the same Constantine about Ten Years after for the making of Canons about Discipline by way of Supplement to the Fifth and Sixth Councils which had made none This Council I say in the first of its Canons which is as a kind of Preface owns and applauds the Nicene Fathers for that with an Unanimous Agreement and consent of Faith they had declared and cleared up one Consubst antiality in the Three Hypostases or Subsistences of the Divine Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And Lastly in the Florentine Council held in the Fif teenth Century in which the Greeks with their Emperor Iohannes Palaeologus met the Latines in order to an Accord between them touching that so much controverted Article about the Procession of the Holy Ghost In this Council Isay we have the Greeks also expressing the Personality of the Holy Ghost by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whereas the Latines affirmed that the Holy Ghost the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say stream or flow from the Son the Greeks desired them to explain what they meant by that Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether they understood that he derived both his Essence and Personality from him and that in these words very significant to our purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which we see that even with these Modern Greeks also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is all one with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie Essence and Person as applyed to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity Hist. Concil Florent in the last Chapter and Question 7. of Section 8. Pag. 246. set forth by Dr. Creyghton 1660. I cannot think it requisite to quote any Thing more from the Greeks upon this Subject it being as clear as the Day that both Fathers and Councils stated the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three distinct Hypostases or Subsistences of one and the same God-head Essence or Substance distinguished thereby into Three Persons And so I pass from the Greeks to the Latines whom we shall find giving an Account of the same partly by subsistences and Modes of subsistence and partly by Relations But not equally by both in all Ages of the Church For we have before shewn That there was a long and sharp Contest between the Greeks and the Latines about the Word Hypostasis and that the Latines dreaded the use of it as knowing no other Latin Word to render it by but Substantia which they could by no means ascribe plurally to God and as for the Word Subsistentia that was not then accounted properly Latin and it was but upon this occasion and to fence against the Ambiguity of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it came at length into use amongst the Latines And even after all it must be yet further confessed That notwithstanding that fair foundation of Accord between the Greeks and Latines laid by the forementioned Council of Alexandria and the hearty Endeavours both of Athanasius and of Gregory Nazianzen after him to accommodate the business between them the Latines were not so ready to come over to the Greeks in the free use of the Word Hypostasis as the Greeks were to comply withthe Latines in the use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answering to their Persona And therefore in vain would any one seek for an Explication of the Divine Persons in the Trinity by the Terms Subsistentiae or Modi Subsistendi in the earlier Latin Writers such as Tertullian about the latter end of the second Century and St. Cyprian about themiddle of the Third and Lactantius about the latter end of the same and the beginning of the Fourth Nevertheless find it we do in the Writers of the following Ages And how and in what sence it was used by them shall be now considered And here we will begin with St. Ambrose who is full and clear in the case in his Book in Symbolum Apostolicum Cap. 2. Tom. 2. in these Words Ità ergò rectum Catholicum est ut unum Deum secundùm Unitatem Substantiae fateamur Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum in suâ quemque Subsistentiâ sentiamus A Passage so very plain that nothing certainly could more effectually declare That this Father reckoned the Personalities of the Three Divine Persons to consist in their several and respective Subsistences The next whom we shall alledge is St. Hilary who flourished in the Fourth Century and wrote Twelve Books
height of Impudence and Ignorance too to say That that Word confounds our Thoughts Notions and Conceptions of God which all Divines and Philosophers in all Places and Ages have constantly express'd the Nature of God by And which after the Notion of his bare Existence does next in order offer it self to the Mind of Man in its Speculations of this Great Object PARADOX We know not says he how far Infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Power reaches but then we certainly know that they have their Bounds and that the Divine Nature is the utmost Bounds of them p. 79. To which I Answer That for an Infinite Wisdom to have Bounds and the Bounds of it to be the Divine Nature which it self has no Bounds is in ipsis Terminis an express downright and shameless Contradiction See this further laid open in my Second Chapter PARADOX This Creed says he speaking of the Athanastan does not speak of the Three Divine Persons as distinguished from one another P. 88. Line 21. In reply to which I am amazed to read an Assertion so manifestly false and yet so positively uttered For will this Author put out the Eyes of his Reader He tells us here that Athanasius or whosoever else might be the Author of this Creed does not herein speak of the Three Divine Persons as distinguish'd from one another But I demand of him does Athanasius here speak of them as of Three Persons or no If the first then he does and must speak of them as distinguished from one another for that without such a Distinction they are not so much as Three But if he does not speak of them as of Three and as of Three thus distinguished What then mean those Words of the Creed There is one Person of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost Do these Words speak of these Persons as distinguished or do they not If they do then what this Man has here said of the Creed is shamelesly false and if they do not express the said Persons as distinct I defie all the Wit of Man to find out any Words that can PARADOX He tells us That the Title of the one Only true God cannot be so properly attributed to any one Person but only to the Father p. 89. Answer This I have already shewn in Chap. 5. p. 137. to be both false and dangerous as by direct consequence either making several sorts of Gods or excluding both the Son and the Holy Ghost from the one true Godhead At present I shall only say thus much That the One only true God and the true God are Terms perfectly equivalent and not only Commensurate but Identical in their signification and withal That this very Author himself affirms Page 186. Line the last That the Son must be included in the Character of the only True God which how he can be without having this Character properly affirmed and predicated of him and his sustaining thereby the Denomination of the only True God let this Confident Self-contradicting Man declare if he can In the mean time let me tell him further That these Terms the True God and the only True God do both of them import an Attribute or Denomination purely Essential and by no means Personal or Oeconomical And moreover that every such Attribute does and must agree to all the Three Persons equally and whatsoever equally agrees to them all may with equal Propriety be affirmed of all and each of them and consequently that the Title of the One only True God may every whit as truly and properly be attributed to the Son and Holy Ghost as to the Father himself See more of this in my forementioned Chapter PARADOX I affirm says he that the Glory and Majesty and all the other perfections of the Three Divine Persons are as distinct as their Persons are And again These perfections are as distinct as the Persons and yet as Numerically one and the same as the Godhead is p. 91. Answer The first part of these Assertions is utterly inconsistent with and wholly overthrows the last And it is indeed very horrid as by inevitable consequence inferring a Tritheisme For if the essential Perfections of God which in truth are only the Divine Essence under several Conceptions and Denominations are as distinct as the Persons whom the Church acknowledges to be really distinct then it will and must follow That in the Trinity there are Three really distinct Essences or Godheads as well as Three really distinct Persons And if they are thus distinct it is impossible that the Three Persons should by virtue thereof either be or be truly said to be really one so that this Author we see has herein asserted a Trinity with a Witness but as for any Unity in it you may go look But I perceive he was driven to this false and absurd Assertion by that Argument of his Socinian Adversary urging him That if the Essential Glory and Majesty in Father Son and Holy Ghost be but One then it cannot be said that their Glory is equal their Majesty co-eternal forasmuch as Unity is not capable of Equality which must of necessity be between two or more This I say no doubt drove him to this Inconvenience In Answer to which Objection though I owe not this Author so much Service as I shall readily grant That where there is an Equality there must be also a Plurality of some sort or other whatsoever it be So I shall observe That the Divine Essence Glory or Majesty which I still affirm to be but different Names of the same thing falling under divers Conceptions and every other essential perfection of the Godhead may be considered two ways First Absolutely and Abstractedly in it self and as prescinding from all personal Determinations in which sense the Divine Nature Essence and every Essential Attribute included in it is and always must be taken whensoever in Discourse it is spoken of either as compared with or contra-distinguished to all or any of the Persons And accordingly in this sense being absolutely One it is incapable of any Relation of Equality Forasmuch as one Thing considered but as One cannot be said to be equal to it self Or Secondly This Glory Majesty or any other Essential perfection of the Godhead may be considered as sustaining Three several Modes of Subsistence in Three distinct Persons which said Modes as they found a plurality in this Essential Glory or Majesty though by no means of it so this Plurality founds a Capacity of Equality by virtue whereof the same Glory according to its peculiar way of Subsisting in the Father may be said to be equal to it self as Subsisting after another way in the Son and after a third in the Holy Ghost so that immediately and strictly this Equality is between the Three several Modes of Subsistence which this Essential Glory or Majesty sustains or if you will belongs to the said Glory for and by reason of them And this is the true Answer
to this Socinian Objection which by a manifest Fallacy proceeds à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter viz. That because Equality cannot belong to the Essential Glory or Majesty of the Godhead considered abstractedly from the Divine Persons therefore neither can it agree to the same Glory or Majesty upon any other Account whatsoever which is utterly false forasmuch as considered according to the Three different ways of its Subsistence in the Three Persons it may as Subsisting under any one of them be said to be equal to it self as Subsisting under the other Two PARADOX This Author represents Gregory Nyssen as first asserting a Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons which also he makes all along to be signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then asserting that this Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature makes the said Three Persons Numerically One Page 118. the latter end Answer This is too great an Absurdity for so Learned a Father to be guilty of and therefore ought to lie at this Author 's own Door for that a Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature should make any Thing or Person Numerically One any more than a generical Unity can make Things specifically One is beyond measure senceless and illogical PARADOX Though the Fathers says he assert the singularity of the Godhead or the Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence yet they do not assert such a Numerical Unity as where there is but one Person as well as one Essence but such a Numerical Unity as there is between Three who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the very same Nature but are not merely united by a specifick Unity but by an Essential Union and therefore are Three and One Page 121 Line 15. Answer In these Words there are several Absurdities which he falsly charges upon the Fathers but ought in all Reason to take to himself As 1. He supposes a specifick Unity and an essential Unity to be distinct Unities whereas every specifick Unity or Union call it at present which you will is also an essential Unity or Union For a specifick Unity is one sort of an essential Unity which in its whole compass contains the Generical the Specifical and the Numerical and therefore thus to contra-distinguish a Species to its Genus is fit for none but such a Logician as this Author it being all one as if one should say of Peter That he is not only a Man but also a Living Creature 2. The second Absurdity is That he owns a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons which sort of Unity I have abundantly proved in Chap. 7. the Divine Nature not to be capable of for he says here of the Divine Persons That they are not merely United by a specifick Unity which Words must imply that however so united they are 3. He makes Two sorts of Numerical Unity contrary to all Rules of Logick viz. One where there are several Persons of one Nature as here in the Trinity and the other where there is but One Person as well as One Nature But let me here tell him That the Divine Nature is every whit as numerically One in the Three Persons as if there were but one Person in the Godhead and no more And in this very Thing as has been shewn does the Mysteriousness of an Unity in Trinity consist I say The Divine Nature is as Numerically One in the Three Persons as the humane Nature was numerically One in Adam while there was no other Person in the World but himself nay much more so since it is not multiplicable as that was And to affirm That the Numerical Unity of the Godhead is not so perfect or is not the very same Subsisting in Three distinct Persons as if we could imagine it to subsist but in One Subverts and Overthrows such an Unity in Trinity as the Church in all Ages hitherto has maintained PARADOX Having told us That the Fathers universally acknowledged the Operation of the whole Trinity ad Extra to be but One and from thence concluded the Unity of the Divine Nature and Essence for that every Nature has a Virtue and Energy of its own Nature being a Principle of Action and if the Energy and Operation be but One there can be but One Nature He adds within four Lines after That this is certainly true but gives no Account how Three distinct Persons come to have but One Will One Energy Power and Operation nor that any Account that he knows of can be given of it but by Mutual-Consciousness Page 124. Line 7 c. Answ. Were I not acquainted with this Man's way of Writing I should be amazed to see him in so small a compass so flatly contradict himself For will he in the first place assert in the Three Divine Persons a Numerical Unity of Nature And in the next assert also that this Unity of Nature is proved by Unity of Energy and Operation And after this tell us That this gives no Account at all how Three distinct Persons come to have but one Will and Energy Power and Operation For does not Unity of Nature in these three distinct Persons prove this While the said Unity of Nature proves Unity of Operation as the Cause proves its Effect and Unity of Operation again proves Unity of Nature as the effect proves its cause This any one of sense would think is a fair full and sufficient Account how Three distinct Persons having all but One Nature come thereby all to have but one Will Energy and Operation And should any one else argue otherwise I should think him beside himself but this Author in this Discourses like himself PARADOX Knowledge Self-reflection and Love are distinct Powers and Faculties in Men and so distinct that they can never be the same Knowledge is not Self-reflection nor Love either Knowledge or Self-reflection though they are inseparably united they are distinct P. 130. L. 11 12 c. Answ. Here also is another knot of Absurdities For First Knowledge Self-reflection and Love are not in Men distinct Powers and Faculties as this unfledged Philosopher calls them but only distinct Acts. Secondly Admitting that Knowledge were a Faculty as it is not yet I deny that Knowledge and Self-reflection would make Two distinct Faculties forasmuch as it is one and the same Intellectual Faculty which both exerts an Act of Knowledge and an Act of Reflection upon that Act of Knowledge or upon it self as producing the said Act. For which Cause it is as has been observed before that Philosophers hold that the Understanding is Facultas supra se Reflexiva all of them allowing both the direct and the reflex Acts of Knowledge to issue from the same Faculty Thirdly He says That albeit the forementioned Acts are distinct yet they are inseparably united But this also is false for whether an Act of Knowledge may be without an Act of Self-reflection as some not without Reason think it may I am sure in
Animadversions UPON Dr. SHERLOCK's Book ENTITULED A Vindication of the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity c. TOGETHER With a more Necessary Vindication of that Sacred and Prime Article of the Christian Faith from his New Notions and False Explications of it Humbly offered to His Admirers and to Himself the Chief of them By a Divine of the Church of England The Second Edition with some Additions LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall MDCXCIII A PREFACE OR INTRODUCTION To the following Animadversions TO be Impugned from without and Betrayed from within is certainly the worst Condition that either Church or State can fall into and the best of Churches the Church of England has had experience of Both. It had been to be wished and one would think might very reasonably have been expected That when Providence had took the Work of destroying the Church of England out of the Papists Hands some would have been contented with her Preserments without either attempting to give up her Rites and Liturgy or deserting her Doctrine But it has proved much otherwise And amongst those who are justly chargeable with the latter I know none who has faced the World and defied the Church with so bold a Front as the Author of Two very Heterodox Books the first Entituled A Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ c. Published in the Year 1674. And the other A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever-Blessed Trinity c. Published in the Year 1690. And as one would think Wrote purposely to let the World see that the Truth cannot be so much shaken by a direct Opposition as by a Treacherous and False Defence I shall in this Preliminary Address to the Reader pass some brief Remarks upon both these Books But first upon this which I have here undertook to Animadvert upon It is now of about Three Years standing in the World and I have wondered even to Astonishment that a Book so full of Paradoxes and those so positively as well as absurdly delivered could pass Unanswered for so long a time For the Author having therein advanced a Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring Three Gods has yet had the Confidence not only to Assert it but to Declare it Heresie and Nonsence to think or hold otherwise that is in other Words to call the whole Christian Church in all Ages and Places Fools and Hereticks For I do here averr and will undertake to prove it as far as a Negative may be proved That no Church known to us by History or otherwise ever held this Notion of the Trinity before And must we then be all Fools and Hereticks who will not acknowledge the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits that is in other Terms to be Three Gods And can so Learned and every way Excellent a Clergy bear this For if they could not whence is it that some Writers amongst them while they are declaring their dislike of his Opinions yet do it with so soft an Air and so gentle a Touch as if they were afraid either to Condemn the Opinion or to Attack the Author Nay and some I find creeping under his Feet with the Title of Very Reverend while they are charging him with such Qualities and Humours as none can be justly chargeable with and deserve Reverence too For my own part I franckly own That I neither Reverence nor Fear him that is I Reverence none who gives whole Communities and Churches such Words nor Fear any One who Writes such Things and in such a manner For even those Mean Spirits who can both Court and Censure him in the same Breath complain That he gives no Quarter where he supposes he has his Adversary upon the least Advantage And if this be his Way and Temper never to give Quarter I am sure he has no cause to expect any whatsoever he may find But still methinks I can hardly believe my Eyes while I read such a Pettit Novellist Charging the Whole Church as Fools and Hereticks for not Subscribing to a Silly Heretical Notion solely of his own Invention For does he or can he think to Live and Converse in the World upon these Terms And to throw his Scurrility at High and Low at all About him Above him and Below him if there be any such at this insufferable rate Does he I would fain know in this speak his Judgment or his Breeding Was it the School the University or Gravel-Lane that taught him this Language Or does he never reflect upon himself nor consider That though he does not others assuredly will One would think by his Words and Carriage that he had ingrossed all Reason and Learning to Himself But on the contrary that this his scornful looking down upon all the World besides is not from his standing upon any higher ground of Learning and Sufficiency than the rest of the World and that he Huffs and Dictates at a much more commanding rate than he Reasons the perusal of my Ninth Tenth and Eleventh Chapters will or I am sure may sufficiently inform the Impartial Reader and shew him how many things there are in this Author's Vindication which too much need Another but admit none In the mean time I do and must declare both to himself and to all others That the forementioned Charge of Heresie and Nonsence as he has laid it is so very Rude Scandalous and Provoking that it is impossible for the Tongue or Pen of Man to reply any Thing so severely upon him which the foulness of the said Expression will not abundantly warrant both the Speaking and the Writing of The Church of England is certainly very Merciful Merciful as a Great Judge once said of K. Charles II. even to a Fault For who by her silence upon what this Bold Man has Wrote and the Encouragement he has since received would not be shrewdly induced after some consider able number of Years if his stuff should live so long to believe that his Notions were the Current Doctrine of our Church or at least of our Church-men at that time None then opposing them most over-looking them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too This is truly the Case and I hope to do the Church of England so much Service at least as to break the Universality both of the Silence and the presumed Acceptance by one plain resolute and full Negative put in against it For upon a due Consideration of the Things vented by this Author and comparing them with the Proceedings and Zeal of the Primitive Church in its Councils I do from my Heart believe That had he lived and published this Book in those Days and Asserted That the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity were Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits And that Their Personal distinction consisted only in Self-Consciousness and their Unity only in Mutual-Consciousness And withal That the Terms Essence Nature Substance
what concerns the Licensing this Book so severely and so justly reflected upon by Dr. Owen it did it must be confessed meet with a Person as it were framed for the very purpose For none certainly could be so fit to stamp an Imprimatur upon a Book Wrote against Christ 's Satisfaction as One who while he was Eating the Bread and Wearing the Honours of the Church could stab the Doctrine of it to the Heart by Writing for Transubstantiation And then in the next place for it s passing Uncontrolled it had really been to be wished That the Clergy in Convocation in the last especially in which so many of them acquitted themselves so exceeding worthily upon other Accounts would have vouchsafed to wipe off this foul Blot from the Church by a due Censure passed upon the forementioned Positions so reproachful to that and so Contumelious to our Common Christianity For what vast advantage the Dissenters have taken from hence to Scandalize and Bespatter the Government and Governours of our Church is but too well known and cannot be too much Lamented and I heartily wish That it had been a Scandal only Taken and not Given And the rather do I represent this as a Work fit for the Convocation since this Author has given the World such a Notable Proof That nothing but a Convocation can Convince or work upon him And thus I have given the Reader a Specimen of the Doctrines of this Author in these Two Books of his In the former of which he affects to be the Socinian 's humble Servant by Ridiculing and Exploding Christ 's Satisfaction of God 's Iustice and so in effect the whole Mystery of the Gospel And in the latter he pretends to oppose them by such a Vindication of the Trinity and of Christ's Incarnation as one would think were Wrote by Themselves But whatsoever it is that he either pretends or intends as it is hard to know the latter by the former this Character I shall give of him as a Writer That there is hardly any one Subject which he has Wrote upon that of Popery only excepted but he has Wrote both for it and against it too Not that I say that he has Printed all which he has so Wrote but Printing is not the only way of Publication and this I will say besides That where he has not Printed he has Acted it with a Witness And yet even for Printing could any thing be Wrote and Printed more sharp and bitter against the Dissenters than what this Man Wrote in his Answer to the Protestant Reconciler And yet how frankly or rather fulsomely does he open both his Arms to embrace them in his Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor on Novemb. 4. 1688 Though I dare say That the Dissenters themselves are of that Constancy as to own That they were of the same Principles in 88 that they were of in 85. But the Truth is Old Friendships cannot be so easily forgot And it has been an Observation made by some that hardly can any one be found who was first tainted with a Conventicle whom a Cathedral could ever after cure but that still upon every cross Turn of Affairs against the Church the irresistible Magnetism of the Good Old Cause as some still think it would quickly draw him out of the Good Old Way The Fable tells us of a Cat once turned into a Woman but the next sight of a Mouse quickly dissolved the Metamorphosis cashiered the Woman and restored the Brute And some Virtuosi skilled in the Useful Philosophy of Alterations have thought her much a gainer by the latter change there being so many unlucky turns in the World in which it is not half so safe and advantagious to Walk Upright as to be able to fall always upon one's Legs But not to hold the Reader too long in the Entrance of the Work which I am about to present him with I do here assure him That in the following Animadversions I have strictly pursued this Author in every part of his new Hypothesis I have answered all his Arguments not omitting so much as one or any Thing that looks like one And if I have thought fit sometimes in a short Remark or two here and there to refresh the Reader and my self by exposing his Bold and Blind side together yet this has still been my method throughly to dispatch the Argument before I offer to divert upon the Author As for that part of his Book which peculiarly concerns the Socinians I leave him and them to fight it out My business is to shew That the Doctrine of our Church is absolutely a stranger to his Novel and Beloved Notions It knows them not It owns them not nor ought we to look upon him so far as he Asserts and Maintains them to be any True and Genuine Son of it And consequently whether he worries the Socinians or which is much the more likely the Socinians worry him the Church of England is not at all concerned The Contents of the Chapters CHAPTER I. REpresenting the Sence and Signification of the Word Mystery as also a Vindication of the Use and Application of it to some of the most Difficult and Sublime Truths of the Gospel and lastly a full Proof That the Account given by this Author of his Explication of the Article of the Trinity is wholly inconsistent with the Mysteriousness of it together with some Remarks upon his needless Apology for Writing against the Socinians CHAP. II. Containing an Account of several Terms commonly made use of in discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons and particularly shewing the Propriety of Applying the Words Essence Substance Nature Infinity and the like to this great Subject and lastly proving this Author's Exceptions against the use of them about the same False Groundless and Impertinent With some further Remarks upon his forementioned Apology CHAP. III. In which this Author 's New Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness is briefly declared Self-Consciousness made by him the Formal Constituent Reason of Personality in all Persons both Create and Increate and on the contrary proved against him in the first place That it is not so in Persons Create CHAP. IV. In which is proved against this Author That neither is Self-Consciousness the Formal Constituent Reason of Personality in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity nor Mutual-Consciousness the Reason of their Unity in one and the same Nature CHAP. V. In which is proved against this Author That the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits CHAP. VI. In which is considered what this Author pretends to from the Authority of the Fathers and the Schoolmen in behalf of his New Hypothesis and in the first place shewn That neither do the Fathers own the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds nor Self-Consciousness to be the Formal Reason of their Distinction CHAP. VII In which is shewn That the Passages alledged by this Author
out of the Fathers do not prove Mutual-Consciousness to be that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does consist but that the Fathers place it in something else CHAP. VIII In which is set down the Ancient and Generally received Doctrine of the Church concerning the Article of the Blessed Trinity as it is delivered by Councils Fathers Schoolmen and other later Divines together with a Vindication of the said Doctrine so explained from this Author's Exceptions CHAP. IX In which this Author's Paradoxes both Philosophical and Theological as they occur in this Discourse are drawn together Examined and Confuted CHAP. X. In which this Author 's Grammatical and other such like Mistakes as they are found here and there in his Writings are set down and remarked upon CHAP. XI In which is given some Account of this Author's Temper and insolent way of Writing as well in Extolling himself as in Depressing and Scorning his Adversaries in both which he has not his Parallel CHAP. XII Containing a Brief Review and Conclusion of the whole Advertisement IT having been found requisite to make some Alterations and Additions in this Second Impression of these Animadversions c. yet that those who have bought up the former may suffer thereby as little as may be the Author has thought fit for their use and benefit to cause the said Additions and Alterations to be Printed in a Sheet or two by themselves Some of the most Considerable Errata of the Press are thus to be Corrected PReface Page 5. Line 2. of the Quotation for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 7. l. 5. of the Quotation for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 8. l. 23. for at read as Book p. 6. l. 20. for asserter r. Assertor p. 51. l. 10. for Analagous r. Analogous p. 71. for Chap. II. r. Chap. III. p. 72. l. 29. for destinct r. distinct p. 103. l. 17. for it r. that p. 116. l. 4. for Spirits r. Spirits p. 126. l. 7. for one and another dele and l. 17. for infiinite r. infinite p. 131. l. 23. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 25. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 132. l. 7 8 9. r. campósque lucentémque Titaniáque totámque p. 138. l. 28. for of Deity r. of the Deity p. 143. l. 8. instead of me read Men p. 155. l. 19. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 157. l. 10. of the Quot for utrûm r. utrùm p. 160. l. 31. for Denaeus r. Danaeus p. 161. l. 5. for our read our l. 8. in Quot for genetricem r. genitricem p. 164. l. 31. for gratis r. gratis p. 168. l. 14. dele one to p. 173. l. penult for imploying r. implying p. 196. l. 8. of the Greek Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 198. l. 21. for separately read separately p. 205. at the end of the second Greek Quot for quarta read quartâ p. 207. l. 18. for of Three read of the Three p. 215. l. 11. for specificully read specifically p. 220. l. 19. for quod sic read quòd sic l. 20. for quod non read quod non p. 224. l. 28. for in self r. in it self p. 229. l. 2. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 231. l. 2. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 6. of the Gr. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 232. in the 3d Gr. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 233. l. 1. of the 4th Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 234. l. 6. of the second Quot ex-eâ r. ex eâ p. 237. l. 14. for the Unity r. That Unity p. 253. l. 6. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 260. l. 3. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 9. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 263. l. 16. for ergò r. Ergo p. 266. l. 16. for audiérant r. audierant p. 268. l. 22. for Beotius r. Boetius and ibid. l. 25. for Difinition r. Definition p. 278. l. 17. for Nicaenae r. Nicenae p. 283. l. 6. for on r. upon p. 284. l. 1. for Bu r. But p. 285. l. 7. for Metaphisician r. Metaphysician alibi p. 288. l. 5. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 17. for Concession r. a Concession p. 289. l. 6. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 8. Quot for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 291. in the Latin Quot l. 2. for tantummodo r. tantúmmodo l. 8. for quarc r. quáre p. 310. l. 25. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 25. for asserter r. Assertor p. 333. l. 13. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 335. l. 31. for Archbishop r. Bishop p. 343. l. 30. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 351. catch word for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. Greek Errata p. 352. Correction the 25th for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 362. l. 16. for wreaking r. reeking p. 364. l. 8. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 365. l. 24. for ita r. itá If the Reader chance to meet with any more Faults in Accents he is desired to Correct or Excuse them together with all Mispointings which in Books of any length are commonly too many to be particularly and exactly set down Besides that here through the faintness of the Character several Letters Points and Accents do scarce appear in some Copies though legible in others Animadversions c. CHAP. 1. Representing the Sence and Signification of the Word Mystery as also a Vindication of the Use and Application of it to some of the most Difficult and Sublime Truths of the Gospel and lastly a full Proof That the Account given by this Author of his Explication of the Article of the Trinity is wholly inconsistent with the Mysteriousness of it together with some Remarks upon his needless Apology for Writing against the Socinians IN Order to the better Examination of what this Author has wrote about the Holy Trinity I think it requisite to premise something concerning the Signification Sence and Nature of a Mystery For certainly the Unity of One and the same undivided God-head in a Trinity of distinct Persons is one of the greatest Mysteries if not absolutely the greatest in our Christian Religion Now a Mystery according to the common signification of the word is derived either from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which
to the Phrase and Expressions of Scripture I hope amongst these some consideration ought to be had of such Texts of Scripture As that forementioned one in the 1 Corinth 13. 12. Where no doubt with reference to the Mysteries of the Gospel of which this is one of the chief we are said to see but as through a glass darkly and to know but in part c. neither of which can I perswade my self to think is only another Expression for knowing a thing plainly easily and intelligibly and without any difficulty The like may be said of that place in 1 Pet. 1. 12. where the Apostle speaking to the Saints he wrote to of the things reported to them by such as had preached the Gospel amongst which this Doctrine doubtless had it's place or an equal difficulty at least he adds That they were such things as the Angels desire to look into The Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which all Interpreters lay a peculiar weight and Emphasis upon as importing both the earnest intention of the Inspector and the difficulty of the object inspected from the Posture of such as use to stoop down for the better discerning of such things as cannot otherwise be well perceived or look'd into And now is not this think we a most proper and fit posture for such as view and look into things very plain obvious and intelligible And yet I doubt not but the Angels who are said to use it could very easily give us the Philosophy of Rain Snow and Ice of the Fires burning and the descent of Stones and other heavy Bodies which yet this Author will allow no Man of sense and reason without forfeiting the reputation of both to presume to give a Philosophical Account of Whereas in the mean time the Trinity is declared to be a very plain easie and intelligible Notion even to such Persons as can give no such Account of the other And thus much for the Agreement of his Hypothesis with the Phrase and Expressions of Scripture The next head of its commendation is That it preserves the Majesty of this great Article as he words it But in much the same sense I suppose as his Refusing the Oath preserved the Majesty of King William and his taking it the Majesty of K. Iames But that it preserves it so as to have a singular virtue to encrease Men's Veneration of it this I very much question and demur to Forasmuch as that old Observation that Familiarity breeds Contempt holds too frequently as well as undeservedly no less in Things than in Persons which we are more apt to venerate at a distance than upon a clear plain and full knowledge of them I do not say That Men ought to do thus but such is the present state of Nature that thus they use to do And it is worth our marking That where a Man is said to know a thing perfectly he is said To be Master of it and Mastership one would think is not naturally apt to create in the mind any great awe for the thing it is thus Master of But be it as it may this I am sure of That as the Scripture tells us That things revealed belong to us so the same Scripture tells us also That there are secret things which by a kind of sacred enclosure belong only to God Deut. 29. 29. And till God shall think fit to reveal to us the Nature of the Trinity I for my part shall reckon it amongst those Secret things And accordingly with all the Pious submission of an humble Reason falling down before it adore and admire it at a distance not doubting but that for this very cause That Men should do so God in his Infinite Wisdom thought fit to spread such a Cloud and Veil over it And therefore I cannot but think that that Man expressed the due measures of our behaviour to this and the like Mysteries extreamly well who being pressed in the Schools with an Argument from the Trinity in opposition to the Question held by him gave it no other Answer but this Magister hoc Mysterium Trinitatis ex quo argumentaris est potiùs flexis genibus adorandum quà m curiosâ nimis indagine ventilandum The Respondent who made this Reply had the Repute of a Learned and Eloquent Man and I think this Reply represents him a very Pious and Discreet one too And therefore as for the third and last Topick upon which our Author would recommend his Hypothesis about the Trinity viz. That it solves all the difficulties of it I fear from what hath been last said that it will prove as far from being a Commendation as it is from being a Truth especially when the Author himself after his saying so in Page 85. immediately adds and that in the very next words Page 86. line 1. That there may be a great deal more in this Mystery than we can fathom c. But now if our Author will in this manner utter one Assertion and immediately after it subjoyn another which quite overthrows it who can help this For that a great deal more should remain in this Mystery than we can fathom or that there can be any thing unfathomable in that in which there is nothing difficult or that any thing can be difficult after such an Explication given of it as solves all the difficulties of it for that is his very word in Page 85. the last Line I must freely confess surpasses my Understanding to conceive and God bless his Understanding if it can It must be confessed indeed as I hinted before in my Preface that in a short Treatise lately Published by him and entituled An Apology for Writing against the Socinians he seems to deny the Notion of a Trinity to be comprehensible and easie Page 15. telling us That there must be infinite degrees of knowledge where the Object is Infinite and that every new degree is more perfect than that below it And yet no Creature can attain the highest degree of all which is a perfect Comprehension so that the knowledge of God may encrease every day and Men may write plainer and plainer about these matters every day without pretending to make all that is in God even a Trinity in Unity comprehensible and easie which he calls a Spightful and Scandalous Imputation By which angry words it is manifest that he would fain rid himself from those Inconveniences which his former unwary and absurd Assertions had involved him in But by his favour the Truth of the Charge shall take off the Scandal from such as make it wheresoever else it may fix it For I have fully shewn That in this his Vindication c. he has frequently and as clearly as words can express a thing affirmed a Trinity in Unity to be a plain easie intelligible Notion Where by Plain must be understood either 1st Such a Plainness as excludes all Doubts and Difficulties whatsoever In which sense alone a thing can be said to be
simply and absolutely plain And in this sense also it can admit of none and much less of Infinite degrees of plainer and plainer since that which excludes all doubts certainly can exclude no more Or 2dly The word may be taken in a Lax Popular and Improper sense for that which is so Plain as to have no considerable doubt or difficulty remaining about it But now the Notion which Men have of God or of the Trinity can never be truly said to be Plain in either of these Senses and therefore not at all For in the first to be sure it cannot No nor yet in the second For let Men know never so much of any Object yet if there remains more of that Object actually unknown than either is or can be known of it such a knowledge can never render or denominate the Notion of that Object even in the common sense of the word Plain And so I hope our Author will allow it to be in the knowledge Men have of God and the Blessed Trinity And whereas he lays no small stress upon this That Men may write plainer and plainer of these matters every day I must here remind him of two Things 1. That he would be pleased to tell us How Men can write plainer and plainer of the Trinity every Day after his new Notion of it has solved all the Difficulties about it as in the forecited Page 85. line 27. he positively tells us it does For as I take it where there remains no difficulty there must be the utmost degree of Plainness and withal when Men are once come to the utmost of any Thing they can then go no further 2. I must remind him also That the word Plainer in the Comparative Degree does not couch under it the positive signification of Plain but denotes only a less degree of difficulty and signifies no more than That a Thing or Notion is not quite so difficult or obscure as it was before which it may very well be and yet be far from being Plain in either of the two foregoing senses laid down by us And therefore tho' we should admit That Men might write plainer and plainer of the Trinity every Day yet I affirm notwithstanding that the Notion of a Trinity in Unity can in no sense be truly said to be plain and easie and much less very plain and easie nay so very plain as to have all the Difficulties of it solved as this Author has expresly affirmed So that if this be a Scandalous Imputation it is easie to judge to whom the Scandal of it must belong But besides all this I see no cause to grant this Author that which he so freely takes for granted for I think it very questionable viz. That Men may write plainer and plainer of the Trinity every Day For so far as the Writers of the Church have informed us about this great Mystery the Catholick Church for above these 1200 Years past has not only had and held the same Notion of a Trinity but has also expressed it in the same way and words with the Church at this very day And for so much of this Mystery as Divines could give no Account of then neither have they given any clearer Account of it ever since nor has the Church hitherto advanced one step further in this Subject Which is an evident demonstration that it has already proceeded as far in it as the Reason of Man could or can go And as for any further Discoveries of it which this Author pretends to from two Phantastick words found out by himself it will not be long before they shall be throughly weighed in the Balance and found as inconsiderable as the Dust of it But there is one thing more which I must not pass over and it is this That in the Passage I transcribed from him he lays down that for a certain Principle which is indeed an Intolerable Absurdity viz. That where the Object is infinite there must be infinite degrees of knowledge Now it is most true That nothing but Insinite knowledge can adequately comprehend an insinite Object For which reason God alone can comprehend himself and he does it by one simple indivisible act uncapable of Parts or Degrees But as for Degrees of any sort whether of knowledge or any thing else nothing but a Finite Being is capable of them and therefore for this Man to assert infinite degrees of knowledge when Uncreated knowledge is uncapable of Degrees and Created knowledge uncapable of Infinite Degrees is a gross thick piece of Ignorance in the first and commonest Rudiments of Philosophy But to return to his Absurdities about the plainness and easiness of the Notion of a Trinity in Unity and therein to be as short with him as I can I shall only demand of him Whether he does in this Apology retract and renounce all that in his Vindication he has Asserted quite contrary to what he has since delivered in his Apology If he does let him declare so much and I have done but till then no regard at all ought to be had to his Apology as serving for nothing else but to shew That according to his accustomed way and known Character he has denied some things in one of his Books which he had positively and expresly affirmed in another and consequently proving That the Apology which denies a Trinity in Unity to be comprehensible and easie and the Vindication which forty times over affirms it to be plain and easie nay very plain and easie ought to pass for the genuine undoubted Works of this Author though they had never born his Name Wherefore upon the Result of all what shall we or what can we say to the fore-cited Particulars which with so much positiveness over and over assert the plainness and intelligibility of the Notion of a Trinity Which yet has hitherto amazed and nonplus'd the whole Christian Church For if it be really so plain and intelligible as this Author tells us it must to my Apprehension unavoidably follow either that a Mystery is a very plain intelligible Notion or that the Trinity is no Mystery I shall not here presume to take this Author 's beloved word out of his Mouth and cry Nonsence and Contradiction But certainly if the Trinity be a Mystery and a Mystery in the nature of it imports something hidden abstruse and by bare reason not to be understood then to say we may have a plain as well as an intelligible Notion of it nay plain even to a demonstration this to say no more is as like a Contradiction as ever it can look But really our Author has shewn himself very kind and communicative to the World For as in the beginning of his Book he has vouchsafed to instruct us how to judge of Contradictions so in the Progress of his Work he has condescended to teach us if we will but learn how to speak and write Contradictions too There remains therefore only one favour more viz. That
he would vouchsafe to teach us how to reconcile them also For I for my own part think it every whit as hard a task to reconcile Contradictions as to reconcile Protestants and I hope much harder And yet this latter he has endeavoured to prove in a certain Book wrote by him in the Year 1685 a thing not to be done But whether it can or no I am sure he has hardly published any Book since but what manifestly proves That there is great need of some Reconciler to do the other But why do I speak of reconciling Contradictions It would be a very troublesome work if it could be done and a very uncomfortable one when it could not And therefore our Author to give him his due has attempted a much surer and more compendious way of clearing himself of this imputation than such a long and tedious way of reconciling inconsistent Propositions could possibly have been For having Asserted That we cannot justly charge a Contradiction where we cannot comprehend the Nature of the thing said to be contradicted and that in the next place there is nothing in the World which he knoweth of the Nature of which we can throughly understand or comprehend I hope it follows That where nothing can or ought to be contradicted as nothing ought to be which cannot be comprehended none can be guilty of a Contradiction And this I suppose none will deny to be an Expedient every way answerable and equal to our Author's Occasions For otherwise I cannot see what can stand between him and the charge of many Scurvy Contradictory Assertions but that which shall effectually prove and make out to us That indeed there neither is nor can be any such thing as a Contradiction CHAP. II. Containing an Account of several Terms commonly made use of in Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons and particularly shewing the Propriety of applying the Words Essence Substance Nature Infinity and the like to this great Subject and lastly proving this Author's Exceptions against the use of them about the same false groundless and impertinent With some further Remarks upon his forementioned Apology OUR Author seems so desirous to advance nothing upon this sublime Subject but what shall be perfectly new that in order to the making way for his particular Novelties he Quarrels with almost all the old words which Divines in their Discourses about the Divine Nature and Persons were heretofore accustomed to make use of He can by no means approve of the words Essence Substance Nature Subsistence and such like as reckoning them the Causes of all the Difficulties and seeming Absurdities that are apt to perplex Mens minds in their Speculations of the Deity and the Trinity 4 Sect. p. 68 69 70. and therefore they must be laid aside and made to give way to other Terms which he judges properer and more accommodate to those Theories To which purpose though our Author has fixed upon two purely of his own Invention which are to do such wonderful feats upon this Subject as in all past Ages were never yet seen nor heard of before and which I therefore reserve in due place to be considered of particularly by themselves yet at present the Author seems most concerned to remove and cashier the fore-mentioned useless cumbersome words and to substitute some better and more useful in their room Such as Eternal Truth and Wisdom Goodness and Power Mind and Spirit c. which being once admitted and applyed to all Disputes about the Divine Nature and an Act of Exclusion past upon the other the way will become presently smooth and open before us and all things relating to the Mystery of the Trinity according to our Author 's own excellent words be made very plain easie and intelligible Nevertheless as I may so speak to borrow another of our Author's Elegancies let not him that putteth on his Armour boast as he that putteth it off A great Promissor with a great Hiatus being much better at raising an Expectation than at answering it And hitherto I can see nothing but words and vapour Though after all it is Performance and the issue of things alone that must shew the strength and reason of the biggest Pretences Now for the clearer and more distinct discussion of the matter in hand I shall endeavour to do these Four things I. I shall shew That the ground upon which this Author excepts against the use of the Terms Nature Essence Substance Subsistence c. in this Subject is false and mistaken II. I shall shew That the same Difficulties arise from the Terms Truth Wisdom Goodness Power c. used for the Explication of the Divine Being that are objected against Essence Substance Nature and the like III. I shall shew That these Terms do better and more naturally explain the Deity or Divine Being than those other of Truth Wisdom Goodness c. And IV. And Lastly I shall shew That the Difficulty of our Conceiving rightly of the Deity and the Divine Persons does really proceed from other Causes These four things I say I will give some brief Account of But because the Subject I am about to engage in is of that Nature that most of the Metaphysical and School-Terms hitherto made use of by Divines upon this occasion will naturally and necessarily fall in with it I think it will contribute not a little to our more perspicuous proceeding in this Dispute to state the Import and Signification of these Terms Essence Substance Existence Subsistence Nature and Personality with such others as will of course come in our way while we are treating of and explaining these And here first of all according to the old Peripatetick Philosophy which for ought I see as to the main Body of it at least has stood it's ground hitherto against all Assaults I look upon the Division of Ens or Being a summary word for all things into Substance and Accident as the Primary and most Comprehensive as we hinted before in our first Chapter But that I may fix the sense and signification of these Terms all along as I go by giving them their respective Definitions or at least Descriptions where the former cannot be had I look upon Ens or Being to be truly and well defined That which is though I must confess it is not so much a perfect Definition as a Notation of the word from the original Verb est For to define it by the Term Essence by saying That Ens or Being is that which has an Essence though it be a true Proposition yet I believe it not so exactly proper a Definition since the Terms of a Definition ought to be rather more known than the thing defined Which in the fore-mentioned Case is otherwise As for Substance I define that to be a Being not inhering in another that is to say so existing by it self as not to be subjected in it or supported this way by it Accident I define a Being inherent in another as in a
conclude That because a thing is actually thus or thus it cannot possibly be otherwise Do not some form to themselves gross and absurd Imaginations of God the Father from that Expression of the Ancient of Days Dan. 7. 9. representing Him to their thoughts as an Old Man sitting in Heaven But may not others therefore who are wiser conceive more worthily of him without laying aside that Scripture-expression If it be a good Argument as it is all our Author brings that Terms which may occasion gross and Material Imaginations in the Minds of Men ought not to be applyed to God then I hope it is as much an Argument in one thing as in another And accordingly I desire to know of him Whether the Terms Begetting and being begot Father and Son are not very fitly applyed to and used about the Divine Persons And if so Whether they are not altogether as hard to be abstracted from material Imaginations as the Notions of Essence or Substance are or rather indeed much harder I believe all thinking Men will conclude they are Nay and I shall venture to tell him further That these two words partly through their Corporeal signification and partly through the weakness of Men's Minds have occasioned more difficulties about the Notion of a Deity and a Trinity too than ever the words Essence or Substance did or perhaps could do And yet for all that the Spirit of God has thought sit to make use of them to express so sacred a Mystery by But this Man should have remembred That how gross and Material soever the Representations of things are which our senses first make to us there is a Iudicium Correctivum in Reason as the superiour faculty which is to consider and separate what is gross and Material in them from what is otherwise till at length by rejecting some Notions and retaining others it finds out something even in the most Material things which may truly properly and becomingly be applyed to the purest and most Immaterial But to give a fuller Account of this matter we must observe That the Idea of Substance may be said to be taken from Matter two ways 1. Remotely and Occasionally as the Observation of Material Things may first set Reason to work which in the strength of its own Discourse may draw from thence the knowledge of Immaterials as the Apostle tells us in Rom. 1. 20. That the Invisible things of God from the Creation were clearly seen and understood from the things that are made viz. Such visible sensible Objects as Men daily converse with And if so then surely these do not necessarily dispose the Mind of Man to gross and Material Imaginations of the things so apprehended by it But 2. The Idea of Substance may be said to be taken from Matter immediately and exemplarily as when the Imagination does as it were transcribe and copy one from the other and take one for the representation of the other and this I confess must needs imprint a very gross Idea of Substance upon the Imagination And to this way may be referred all those gross and Material Ideas of Substance which this Author so much exclaims against But then all this is from the neglect of the Person in not imploying his Reason to correct and refine the first reports of Sence as he might and ought to have done and if from hence we conclude an utter Incapacity in the thing it self to be improved and heightened into Immaterial Representations and thereupon to be conceived and spoken of agreeably to them we must even expect a Teacher to be sent down from Heaven to furnish us with a new Language or we must shut up our Mouths and put up our Pens and not speak or write of Divine Matters at all And therefore whereas this Author further adds in Page 70. That we cannot imagine how any substance should be without a Beginning and how it should be Present in all places I tell him This is not the Point in Controversie Whether we can imagine it or no But I tell him withal That it is as easie for the Mind of Man to conceive all this of Substance as of any thing else whatsoever For Why not a Substance without Beginning as well as Truth or Wisdom or Goodness without a Beginning I say Let him shew me some solid Reason why In the mean time I can tell him That of the two it should seem less difficult to imagine the Eternal Existence of Substance than of Truth since Substance is in order of Nature before it as the Subject must needs be before that which affects it Though in very deed the main difficulty here is not so much to find out which of those Perfections may be the most easily conceived to have been without a Beginning as it is to bring the mind to a full and clear Conception How any thing at all is so While it finds it self wholly at a loss in running up its thoughts still higher and higher without any bound or stint to determine them And this it is and not the particular Nature of Essence or Substance that nonplusses and confounds our Reason in these unlimited Speculations And whereas he goes on in the next words and tells us That we cannot imagine How Substance Existence and all the Divine Attributes and Powers should be all one and the same simple Act in God I Answer What if we cannot Must nothing be applyed to God but what shall let us into the full knowledge of all that is difficult and mysterious in the Divine Nature Or will this Man say That the Application of the Terms Essence and Substance to God is the true cause and reason why we cannot apprehend How Substance and Existence and all the Divine Attributes and Powers are one and the same simple Act in God For this is the thing that he has been professedly driving at and therefore ought to prove And besides as what he has here alledged is nothing to his purpose without the proof of that so it is all but a meer fallacy a fallacy of the Accident For albeit we cannot apprehend how all these Attributes are one and the same simple Act in God yet surely it will not follow hence that we cannot apprehend them singly and severally by themselves and as we so apprehend them apply them properly and fitly to God And here I cannot but take notice of a way of Arguing usual with this Author as I cannot conceive and I cannot understand and I cannot imagine c. After which as if he had laid down irrefragable Premises he concludes That the thing it self is not to be conceived understood or imagined But for my part I must be excused that I cannot allow this Man's single Judgment or prejudice rather for the universal Standard or measure of humane Reason or that such a way of discoursing proves any thing but the assuming humour of him who uses it and one strangely full of Himself instead of better things In
69. positively says That we know nothing of the Divine Essence but that God is an Infinite Mind Very well and if he grant him to be an Infinite Mind let him prove this Infinite Mind to be three distinct Infinite Minds if he can The Truth is Infinite Mind or Spirit is an Essential Attribute of the Divine Nature and Convertible with it and whatsoever is so belongs equally to all the Three Persons and consequently cannot be ascribed to them plurally any more than the Deity it self it being as uncapable as that of being multiplied Upon which Account if the Three Persons are with equal Truth said to be one Infinite Mind or Spirit and to be one God they can no more be said to be Three distinct Infinite Minds than they can be said to be Three distinct Gods So that which way soever the Argument be proposed either That one Infinite Mind is Father Son and Holy Ghost or That Father Son and Holy Ghost are one Infinite Mind it still overthrows this Author's Hypothesis That the said Three Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits Argument IV. My Fourth and Last Argument against the same shall be this Whatsoever Attribute may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in the Athanasian Form so belongs to them all in Common that it can belong to none of them under any Term of distinction from the rest But the Attribute Infinite Mind or Spirit may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in and according to the Athanasian Form And therefore it can belong to none of them under any Term of distinction from the rest The Major is as evident as that no Attribute can be Common to several Subjects and yet peculiar and appropriate to each of them And the Minor is proved by Instance thus The Father is an Infinite Mind the Son is an Infinite Mind and the Holy Ghost is an Infinite Mind and yet they are not Three Infinite Minds but one Infinite Mind And this I affirm to be as good Divinity as any part in the Athanasian Creed and such as I shall abide by both against this Author and any other whatsoever But now let us see how his Assertion cast into the Athanasian Model shews it self as thus The Father is a distinct Infinite Mind the Son is a distinct Infinite Mind and the Holy Ghost is a distinct Infinite Mind and yet they are not Three distinct Infinite Minds but one distinct Infinite Mind And this is so far from being true that it is indeed neither Truth nor Sence For what Truth can there be in denying That Three Persons of which every one is said to be a distinct Infinite Mind are Three distinct Infinite Minds And what sence can there be in affirming or saying That they are but one distinct Infinite Mind Whereas the Term distinct is never properly used or applyed but with respect had to several Particulars each discriminated from the other but by no means where there is mention made only of one Thing and no more as it is here in this Proposition But to make what allowances the Case will bear and for that purpose to remit something of the strictness of the Athanasian Form by leaving out the word distinct in the last and illative Clause we shall then see that our Author's Hypothesis will proceed thus The Father is a distinct Infinite Mind the Son is a distinct Infinite Mind and the Holy Ghost is a distinct Infinite Mind and yet they are not Three Infinite Minds but one Infinite Mind Thus I say it must proceed in the Athanasian way with the word distinct left out of the Conclusion Nevertheless even so the Inference is still manifestly and grosly false in both the branches of it For it is absolutely false That Three distinct Infinite Minds are not Three Infinite Minds and altogether as false That Three Infinite Minds are but One Infinite Mind The Author's Hypothesis put into the Athanasian Model must needs fall in with that Fallacy sometimes urged against us by the Socinians viz. The Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and yet they are not Three Persons but one Person which is manifestly Sophistical by arguing ab imparibus tanquam paribus viz. Concluding that of an Attribute Relative and Multiplicable which can be concluded only of such as are not So. For the Athanasian Inference holds only in Attributes Essential and Common to all the Three Persons joyntly or severally taken and not in such as are Proper Personal and Peculiar to each As also in such as are Absolute as the Attribute of Mind or Spirit without the word distinct is and not in such as are Relative For those Attributes which agree to the Divine Persons Personally Peculiarly and Relatively can never Unite or Coincide into one in the Inference or Conclusion In a word Infinite Mind or Spirit is a Predicate perfectly Essential and so in its Numerical Unity Common to all the Three Divine Persons and for that cause not to be affirmed of or ascribed to either all or any of them with the Term distinct added to it or joyned with it For that would multiply an Attribute that cannot be multiplyed And now what I have here discoursed upon and drawn from the Athanasian Creed with respect to this particular Subject I leave to our Author's strictest Examination For my own part I rely upon this Creed as a sure Test or Rule to discover the falshood of his Hypothesis by So that as long as it is true that God is one numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit and as long as the Athanasian Form duely applied is a firm and good way of Reasoning this Author's Assertion That the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits is thereby irrefragably overthrown And therefore I shall not concern my self to produce any more Arguments against it Only by way of Overplus to and Illustration of those which have already been alledged I cannot but observe the Concurrent Opinion of the Philosophers and most Learned Men amongst the Heathens about God's being one Infinite Mind or Spirit as a necessary deduction no doubt made by Natural Reason from the Principles thereof concerning the Divine Nature For most of the Philosophers looked upon God as the Soul of the World as One Infinite Mind or Spirit that animated and presided over the Universe For so held Pythagoras as Cicero in his first Book de Naturâ Deorum and Lactantius in his Book de irâ Dei tells us Pythagoras quoque unum Deum confitetur dicens Incorpoream esse mentem quae per omnem Naturam diffusa intenta vitalem sensum tribuit In like manner the Great Hermes being asked What God was answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Maker of all Things a most Wise and Eternal Mind Thales called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the Mind of the World Diogenes Cleanthes and Oenipides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
would have kindled such a Fire for them as would have torrified them with a vengeance But as he has stocked the Church with such plenty of New Hereticks and all of his own making so could he by a sway of Power as Arbitrary as his Divinity provide for them also such a Furnace as that of Nebuchadnezzar whom in his Imperious Meen and Humour he so much resembles yet he must not think That the Sound and Iingle of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness how melodiously soever they may tinkle in his own Ears will ever be able to Charm Me◠over to the Worship of his Idol or make them Sacrifice their Reason and Religion either to Him or to the New Notions which he has set up And indeed I cannot but here further declare that to me it seems one of the most preposterous and unreasonable things in Nature for any one first to assert Three Gods and when he has so wel furnished the World with Deities to expect that all Mankind should fall down and Worship Him CHAP. VI. In which is Considered What this Author pretends to from the Authority of the Fathers and School men in behalf of his Hypothesis and shewn in the first place That neither do the Fathers own the Three Divine Persons to be Three Distinct Infinite Minds nor Self-Consciousness to be the Formal Reason of their Distinction I Have in the foregoing Chapters debated the Point with this Author upon the Reason and Nature of the Thing it self But that is not all which he pretends to defend his Cause by endeavouring to countenance it also with great Authorities and that in these positive and remarkable words This is no New Notion says he but the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools Page 101. These are his very words and I desire the Reader carefully to consider and carry them along with him in his Memory For as they are as positive as Confidence can make them so if they are not made good to the utmost they ought severely to recoil upon any one who shall presume to express himself at such a Rate And now that we may do him all the right that may be The way to know whether this Author's Hypothesis be the Constant Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools is in the first place truly and fairly to set down what this Author's Doctrine is and wherein it does consist as we shall declare what the received Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools is in our Eighth Chapter Now we shall find That the whole Doctrine delivered by him concerning the Blessed Trinity is comprehended under and reducible to these four Heads First That the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits Secondly That Self-Consciousness is the Formal Reason of Personality and consequently that each of the Divine Persons is such by a distinct Self-Consciousness properly and peculiarly belonging to him Thirdly That the Three Divine Persons being thus distinguished from one another by a distinct Self-Consciousness proper to each of them are all United in one and the same Nature by one Mutual Consciousness Common to them all And Fourthly and Lastly That a Trinity in Unity and an Unity in Trinity by this Explication and Account given of it is a very Plain Easie and Intelligible Notion These four Heads or Particulars I say contain in them a full and fair representation of this Author 's whole Hypothesis concerning the Oeconomy of the Blessed Trinity And I am well assured That the knowing and Impartial Reader neither will nor can deny that they do so In the next place therefore that we may see how far our Author makes good all the said Particulars by the Authority of the Fathers as he has peremptorily promised and undertook to do I think it requisite to consider how the Fathers expressed themselves upon this Subject and how this Author brings the said Expressions to his purpose For surely the natural way of knowing any Writer's Mind is by the Words and Expressions which he pretends to deliver his Mind by But concerning these we have our Author declaring First That he has not troubled his Reader with the signification of Essence Hypostasis Substance Subsistence Person Existence Nature c. Pag. 101. and some of his Readers could give him a very good Reason why though I fear too true for him to be pleased with But the Reasons which he himself alledges for his not troubling his Readers either with these Terms or the Explication of them are First That they were very differently used by the Fathers themselves Page 101. And be it so yet still for all that used by them they were and that not so very differently neither the chief difference having been about the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet was fairly accorded and well high setled between the Greeks and the Latines before the end of the 6th Century as shall be further made to appear in our Eighth Chapter And his next Reason for his not troubling his Reader forsooth with these Terms is Because they have as he tells us very much obscured the Doctrine of the Trinity instead of explaining it Page 101. which being one of the chief Things which he might conclude would assuredly be disputed with Him for Him thus to presume it before he had proved it is manifestly to beg the Question In the mean time certain it is That these and these only were the Terms which the Father 's used in their Disputes about the Trinity and by which they managed them and consequently were they never so Ambiguous Faulty or Improper as they are much the contrary yet whosoever will pretend to give the Sence of the Fathers must have recourse to them and do it by them and to do otherwise would be to dispute at Rovers or as the word is to speak without Book which may much better become our Author in the Pulpit than in the management of such a Controversie And now let the Reader whom he is so fearful of troubling with any Thing that is to the Purpose judge Whether this Man has not took a most extraordinary way of proving his Doctrine the very same with the Fathers For neither in the first place does he set down what the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning the Trinity was which yet one would have thought was absolutely necessary for the shewing how his own Doctrine agreed with it which he professed to be his design Nor in the next place does he either use or regard or offer to explain those Terms which the Fathers all along delivered that their Doctrine in but is so far from it That he reproaches explodes and utterly rejects them as serving only to obscure this Doctrine instead of explaining it Which in my poor Judgment is such a way of proving the Fathers on his side as perhaps the World never heard of before and will be amazed at now But it is his way and it will
is more like to be known by than ever admired for and so much happiness attend him with it But as little success as we have had in seeking for his Darling and peculiar Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness in the Ancient Writers of the Church we are like to find no more in seeking for his other equally espoused Notion and Opinion there viz. That the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits We find indeed the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. but not one Tittle of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I hinted before is sometimes used in the same sense and signification with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in this case I am sure no difficulty of framing Words or Terms as might possibly in some measure be pretended in the Case of Self-Consciousness can with any colour of Reason be alledged for our not finding this Notion in the Fathers had the thing it self been at all there For can there be any words more Obvious and Familiar than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek or than Tres Spiritus or Tres Mentes in the Latine But neither one nor the other are to be met with any where amongst them as applied to the Subject now before us But in Answer to this I expect that our Author will reply That they are not the words Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits or those other of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness but the things meant and signified by them which he affirms to be found in the Fathers But this is the very thing which I insist upon against him viz. That the Non-usage of these words nor any other equivalent to them in the Works of those Ancient Writers while they were so particularly and nicely disputing this Matter is a solid Argument That neither are the things themselves there For that all those Great and Acute Men should mean the very same thing with this Author and not one of them ever light upon the same words is not rationally to be imagined For What Reason can be given of this Was either the Thing it self as I noted before of such deep or sublime Speculation as not to be reached by them Or the Language they wrote in too scanty to express their Speculations by Or can we think that the Fathers wrote Things without Words as some do but too often write Words without Things So that to me it is evident to a Demonstration That the Fathers never judged nor held in this Matter as this Author pretends they did And besides all this there is yet one Consideration more and that of greater weight with me than all that has been or can be objected against this Man's pretensions viz. That it seems to me and I question not but to all Sober Persons else and that upon good reason wholly unsuteable to the wise and good Method of God's Providence That a clear Discovery of such a Principal Mystery of the Christian Religion as the Trinity is should now at length be owing to the Invention or lucky Hit of any one Man's single Mind or Fancy which so many Pious Humble as well as Excellently Learned Persons with long and tedious search and the hardest study and these no doubt joyned with frequent and servent Prayers to God to enlighten and direct them in that search have been continually breathing after but could never attain to for above Sixteen Hundred Years together This I freely own and declare That I judge it morally impossible for any serious thinking Person ever to bring himself to the belief of and much less for any one not intoxicated with intolerable Pride to arrogate to Himself To which sort of Persons God never reveals any thing extraordinary for the good of the World or of themselves either But since I am now upon Disputation which has its proper Laws and that this Author may have no ground of Exception I will proceed to examine his Quotations out of the Fathers and try whether his Hypothesis may be found there where it is certain that we can find none of his Terms And here he first begins with the Distinction of the Divine Persons where I must remind him That it is not the bare proving a Distinction of Persons which none who acknowledges a Trinity either doubts of or much less denies which will here serve his turn but He must prove also That they stand distinguished as Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and that this Distinction is owing to Three distinct Self-Consciousnesses belonging to them otherwise all his Proofs will fall beside his Hypothesis This premised I will consider what he alledges And in the first place he positively tells us Page 101. That no Man who acknowledges a Trinity of Persons ever denied That the Son and Holy Spirit were Intelligent Minds or Beings To which I Answer First That it is not sufficient for him who advances a Controverted Proposition that none can be produced who before denied it but it lies upon him the Advancer of it to produce some who have affirmed it Forasmuch as a bare non-denial of a Thing never before affirmed can of it self neither prove nor disprove any Thing But Secondly I Answer further That if none of the Ancient Writers did ever in express Terms deny this it was because none had before in express Terms asserted it But then I add also That the Ancients have expresly asserted that which irrefragably inferrs a Negation of the said Proposition For they have affirmed That the Son and Holy Spirit are one single Intelligent Mind and consequently that being so they cannot possibly be more And this is a full Answer to this sorry shift for an Argument I am sure it deserves not to be called But he proceeds from Negatives to Positives and tells us Page 101. That it is the Constant Language of the Fathers for it seems he has read them all That the Son is the Substantial Word and Wisdom of the Father and that this can be nothing else but to say That he is an Intelligent Being or Infinite Mind And he is so I confess But does this inferr That He is therefore a distinct Intelligent Mind or Being from the Father This we deny and it is the very Thing which he ought to prove And it is not come to that pass yet that we should take his bare affirmation for a Proof of what he affirms He comes now to Particulars and tells us That Gregory Nyssen though since he neither mentions Book nor Page this ought not to pass for a Quotation calls the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which this Author renders Mind or Intellect And I will not deny but that it may by consequence import so much but I am sure it does not by direct Signification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly Res quaedam Intellectualls or Intellectu praedita And since
nothing is so but a Mind or Spirit it may as I have said imply a Mind but it does not directly signifie it But admitting that it does both does this expression prove That the Son is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinct from the Father By no means For not only the Son but the Father may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet they are not Three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Reason of this is because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Essential Attribute following the Divine Nature and therefore common to all the Three Persons and not a Personal Attribute peculiar to any one of them So that granting the Son to be as truly and properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as this Author would have him yet we absolutely deny That he is a distinct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Father And this Expression I am sure is far enough from proving him to be so From Nyssen he passes to St. Athanasius who he tells us observes out of these words of our Saviour John 10. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that our Saviour does not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by so speaking he gave us a perfect Duality of Persons in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an Unity of Nature in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All which is very true and that this distinction of Persons overthrows the Heresie of Sabellius and the Unity of their Nature the Heresie of Arius But then this is also as true that all this is nothing at all to our Author's Purpose For how does this prove either that the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits Or that Self-Consciousness is the proper ground or Reason of their distinction Why yes says He If the Father be an Eternal Mind and Wisdom then the Son is also an Eternal but begotten Mind and Wisdom Very true but still I deny that it follows hence That the Eternal Mind or Wisdom Begetting and the Eternal Mind or Wisdom Begotten are Two distinct Minds or Wisdoms but only one and the same Mind or Wisdom under these Two distinct Modifications of Begetting and being Begot But he pretends to explain and confirm his Notion of a distinct Mind or Wisdom out of those words of the Nicene Creed in which the Son is said to be God of God Light of Light very God of very God By which words I cannot imagine how this Author thinks to serve his turn unless that by Light must be meant Infinite Wisdom or Infinitely Wise Mind and that this must also infer the Father and Son to be Two distinct Infinitely Wise Minds or Wisdoms one issuing from the other But if so then the same words will and must infer them also to be two distinct Gods and very Gods For all these words stand upon the same level in the same Sentence and then if we do but joyn the Term Distinct equally with every one of them we shall see what Monstrous Blasphemous Stuff will be drawn out of this Creed In the mean time let this Author know once for all That Light of Light imports not here Two distinct Lights but one Infinite Light under Two different ways of Subsisting viz. either by and from it self as it does in the Father or of and from another as it does in the Son All which is plainly and fully imported in and by the Particle of signifying properly as here applyed Derivation or Communication in the thing which it is applyed to And this is the clear undoubted sense of the Word as it is used here In the mean time I hope the Arians and Socinians will joyn in a Letter of Thanks to this Author for making such an Inference from the Nicene Creed In the next place he comes to St. Austin where though I am equally at a loss to find how he proves his Point by him any more than by those whom he has already produced yet I will transcribe the whole Quotation into the Margin that so both the Reader may have it under his Eye and the Author have no cause to complain that he is not fairly dealt with Now that which he would infer from thence seems to be this That God the Father is Infinitely Wise by a Wisdom of his own distinct from that Wisdom by which the Son is called The Wisdom of the Father and consequently that they are Two distinct Infinite Wisdoms or Infinitely Wise Minds This I say is that which he would inferr and argue from St. Austin or I know not what else it can be But this is by no means deducible from his words for the Father is wise by one and the same Infinite Wisdom equally belonging both to the Father and the Son but not by it under that peculiar Formality as it belongs to the Son For it belongs to the Son as Communicated to Him whereas it belongs to the Father as Originally in and from Himself And whereas it is objected That if the Father should be Wise by the Wisdom which he Begot then he could not be said to be Wise by a Wisdom of his own but only by a Begotten Wisdom proper to the Son I Answer That neither does this follow since it is but one and the same Essential Wisdom in both viz. in him who Begets and in him who is Begotten Though as it is in him who is Begotten it is not after the same way in Him who Begets So that it is this determining Particle as or Quatenus which by importing a distinction of the manner causes a quite different application of the Term while the Thing is still the same For the Father himself is not denominated Wise even by that very Wisdom that is Essential to Him considered as Personally determined to the Son for so it must be considered as Derived and Communicated and no Divine Perfection can agree to the Father under the Formal Consideration of Derived and Communicated albeit the Thing it self which is Derived and Communicated absolutely considered may and does In a word the Father is Wise by one and the same Wisdom which is both in himself and in his Son but not by it as it is in the Son But by the way it is worth observing That this Man who here in the 102 and 103 Pages denies the Father to be Wise by this Begotten Wisdom which the Son is here called and which in the Sense we have now given of it is very true and alledges St. Austin and Lombard to abett him in it This very Man I say Page 131. Line 24. affirms That the Son is that Wisdom and Knowledge wherewith his Father knows himself Where If for the Father to be Wise and to know himself be formally the same Act and as much the same as his Wisdom and Knowledge can be as it is manifest they are then I leave it to this
always alledged it one or perhaps sometimes both of these two ways First By way of Allusion or Illustration as I have already noted in the foregoing Chapter and as it is the nearest Resemblance of and Approach to this Divine Unity of any that could be found in Created Beings For still their Argument proceeds only by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the one side and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on the other as appears from that place quoted out of Maximus P. 107. which Terms surely do not of necessity import an Identity of the Case but only some Similitude in the parts of the Comparison Secondly The Fathers used the forementioned Example as an Argument à minore ad majus viz. That if several Individual Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature upon which Nyssen's who le Argument turns much less could this be said of the Three Divine Persons Forasmuch as it is not only certain but evident That Persons merely distinguished from one another and no more must have a greater Unity of Nature than such as are not only distinguished but also divided from one another by a separate Existence And let any one stretch this Argument of the Fathers further if he can I do not in the least deny but several Expressions may have dropped from the Fathers which if we look'd no further might be drawn to a very inconvenient sense But then also it is as little to be denied That the same Fathers professedly and designedly treating of the same Points have declared themselves in such Terms as are very hardly if at all reconcileable to those Occasional and Accidental Expressions And therefore since their meaning cannot be taken from both it ought much rather to be taken from what was Asserted by them designedly than what was Asserted only occasionally To which I shall add this further Remark That a due consideration of the Circumstances under which those Fathers wrote may very well Apologize for the Deseâ—â—s of some of their Arguments For the Grand Controversie which exercised the Orthodox Writers of the fourth and part of the fifth Century was that with the Arians So that we have the less cause to wonder if some of their Reasonings about the Trinity seem to look no further than the proof of a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons while they had to deal with Adversaries who would not allow so much as this between the Father and the Son but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Likeness of Nature between them which together with the foregoing Considerations may serve as a Key to let us into the true Explication of several Passages of the Fathers about the meaning of which we might otherwise possibly be something at a loss And the same likewise may serve to give a fair Account of what has been alledged by Petavius and mistook by this Author upon the present Subject For to traverse and examine all Petavius's Allegations particularly would require a full and distinct Work by it self But still our Author seems extremely set upon making good his first step of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature from the Fathers and to that purpose he tells us Page 107. Line 23. That one thing wherein the Fathers place the Unity of the Godhead is that all the Three Persons have the same Nature by which he means as shall be shewn presently Specifically the same Nature and a few Lines after he tells us again That some of the Fathers went further than this and plac'd the Essential Unity of the Divine Nature in the Sameness of Essence Lines 30 31 32 of the same Page Now here I would desire this Author to inform me of Two Things First By what Rule of speaking or upon what Principle of Divinity Logick or Philosophy Sameness of Nature ought to signifie one Thing and Sameness of Essence to signifie another and withal to be so contra-distinguished to each other that in the degrees of Unity this latter must be a step beyond the former For the Fathers I am sure make no such distinction but use the words Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence as well as the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 themselves promiscuously so that neither by their Native signification nor yet by their use do they import any more than one sort of Unity Secondly Whereas in Page 106. Lines 23 24. he makes the first step towards this Unity to consist in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Coessentiality which also in the next Page Line 23. c. he explains by Sameness of Nature And whereas in Page 121. he makes a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence the next step introducing it with the word Secondly and telling us That the Fathers added it to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he had before made the first step And whereas notwithstanding this having in Page 107. told us That Sameness of Nature was one Thing wherein the Fathers placed the Unity of the Divine Nature within seven Lines after he tells us That some of the Fathers went further and placed it in the Sameness of Essence which yet it is manifest all along that he reckons not the same Thing with Numerical Unity of Essence I desire to know of him whether there be Two second steps in this Unity or whether there be one between the first and the second For he makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature one step Page 106 107. And Sameness of Essence a further step Page 107. Line 30. c. And then Numerical Unity of Nature another step calling it also the Second Page 121. Line 5. These Things I must confess I am utterly unable to give any Consistent Account of and I shrewdly suspect that our Author himself is not able to give a much better But it is still his way to forget in one place what he has said in another and how kind soever he may be to himself I should think it very hard for another Man to forget himself so often and to forgive himself too Nevertheless our Author without mincing the Matter roundly Asserts a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons telling us Line 23. c. of the fore-cited Page 107. That this is absolutely necessary to make the Three Persons one God and that it is impossible that they should be so without it where it is evident that he means a Specifick Unity both from this that it was the Subject which he had been there treating of as also from this that immediately after he mentions another sort or degree of Unity as a step further than this which since nothing can be but a Numerical Unity it follows That that which was one step short of a Numerical must needs be a Specifical And now is it not strange that in Page 109. which is but the next
case abundantly sufficient St. Cyril of Alexandria says expresly Christ's saying that he is in the Father and the Father in him shews the Indentity of the Deity and the Unity of the Substance or Essence And so likewise Athanasius Accordingly therefore says he Christ having said before I and my Father are one He adds I am in the Father and the Father in me that he might shew both the Identity of the Divinity and the Unity of Essence And so again St. Hilary The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father by the Unity of an inseparable Undivided Nature By which Passages I suppose any Man of sense will perceive That the thing which the Fathers meant and gathered from those words of our Saviour since expressed by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was no Unity of Mutual Consciousness which they never mention but an Unity of Essence or Nature which they expresly and constantly do Nor does this very Author deny it as appears from his own words though he quite perverts the sence of the Fathers by a very senceless Remark upon them Page 125. lines 20 21. This Sameness or Unity of Nature says he might be the Cause of this Union in the Divine Persons viz by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not explain what this Intimate Union is Now this Author has been already told That the Question here is not what explains this Union but what this Union is But besides this his mistake of the Question I desire him to declare what he means by the Cause of this Union as he here expresses himself For will he make an Union as he calls an Unity in the Divine Persons by Sameness of Nature a Cause of their Intimate Union by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mutual In-being of them in each other and affirm also this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the same thing with Mutual Consciousness If he does so he makes the same thing the Cause of it self For the Sameness of Nature in the three Persons and their Mutual In-being or Indwelling are the very same thing and the same Unity though differently expressed But however if we take him at his own word it will effectually overthrow his Hypothesis For if the Sameness of the Divine Nature in the three Persons be as he says the cause of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same with Mutual Consciousness it will and must follow That this Sameness or Unity of Nature can no more consist in Mutual Consciousness than the Cause can consist in its Effect or the Antecedent in its Consequent And this Inference stands firm and unanswerable against him But as to the Truth of the Thing it self though we allow and grant the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons and the Mutual In-being or In-dwelling of the said Persons in each other to be the same Thing yet we deny That this their Mutual In-being is the same with their Mutual Consciousness But that their Mutual Consciousness follows and results from it and for that cause cannot be formally the same with it And so I have done with his 3d. Argument which he has drawn from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is indeed nothing else but a bold down-right Perversion of Scripture and a gross Abuse of the Fathers 4. His fourth Argument is from an Allegation out of St. Austin who though he does not as our Author confesses Name this Mutual Consciousness yet he explains a Trinity in Unity as he would perswade us by Examples of Mutual Consciousness particularly by the Unity of three Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will in the same Soul all of them Mutually Conscious to one another of the several Acts belonging to each of them And his 9th Book is spent upon this Argument In which he makes the mind considered with its knowledge of it self and its love of it self all three of them as he says but one and the same Thing a faint Resemblance of the Trinity in Unity And this is what he Argues from St. Austin To which I Answer First That Faint Resemblances are far from being solid Proofs of any Thing and that although similitudes may serve to illustrate a thing otherwise proved yet they prove and conclude nothing The Fathers indeed are full of them both upon this and several other Subjects but still they use them for Illustration only and nothing else And it is a scurvy sign that Proofs and Arguments run very low with this Author when he passes over those Principal Places in which the Fathers have plainly openly and professedly declared their Judgment upon this great Article and endeavours to gather their sence of it only from Similitudes and Allusions which looks like a design of putting his Reader off with something like an Argument and not an Argument and of which the Tail stands where the Head should For according to the true Method of proving things the Reason should always go first and the Similitude come after but by no means ought the Similitude ever to be put instead of the Reason But Secondly To make it yet clearer how unconclusive this Author's Allegation from St. Austin is I shall demonstrate That this Father does not here make use of an Example of Mutual Consciousness by shewing the great disparity between the thing alledged and the thing which it is applyed to and that as to the very Case which it is alledged for For we must observe That the Mutual Consciousness of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity is such as is fully and entirely in each Person so that by virtue thereof every one of them is truly and properly Conscious of all that belongs to the other Two But it is by no means so in those three Faculties of the Soul Understanding Memory and Will For though the Understanding indeed be Conscious to all that passes in the Will yet I deny the Will to be Conscious to any Thing or Act that passes either in the Understanding or the Memory and it is impossible it should be so without exerting an Act of Knowledge or Intellection which to ascribe to the Faculty of the Will would be infinitely absurd It is true indeed That one and the same Soul is Conscious to it self of the Acts of all these three Faculties But still it is by virtue of its Intellectual Faculty alone that it is so And the like is to be said of its Knowledge and of its Love of it self For though it be the same Soul which both Knows and Loves it self yet it neither knows it self by an Act of Love nor loves it self by an Act of Knowledge any more than it can Will by an Act of the Memory or Remember by an Act of the Will which is impossible and amongst other proofs that it is so it seems to me a very considerable one That if a Man could remember by his Will this Author in all likelyhood would not forget
Author to the same Sarcastical Irony which he passed upon his Socinian Adversary Page 92. line 17 c. Right very Right Sir a plain Demonstration But still there is one half of his Promise to be yet accounted for viz. The proving his Opinion to have been the constant Doctrine of the Schools And how does he acquit himself as to this Why in a very extraordinary manner too For first instead of alledging the Authority of the School-men he tells us Page 138. That they are of no Authority at all but as they fall in with the Fathers And withall That instead of doing so They use to mistake and clog the sence of the Fathers with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own And that the Truth is the vain Endeavours of reducing this Mystery to Terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis Person and the like which he says some of the Fathers used in a very different sence from each other have wholly confounded this Mystery And here I cannot but desire the Reader to judge whether this be not a new and wonderful way of procuring Credit to an Hypothesis upon the score of its being the constant Doctrine of the Schools by telling the World as this Man here does that the School-men are a Company of Impertinent Fellows of little or no Authority in themselves and who have by their useless absurd Niceties consounded this whole Mystery For if they are of no Authority but what they derive from the Fathers as he avers why does he quote them upon the same level with the Fathers and plead them both as two distinct Authorities And if they do nothing but pervert and confound this Mystery why instead of alledging them does he not earnestly caution his Reader against them and disswade him from having any thing to do with their dangerous and absurd Writings This certainly is a way of proving a Point by Testimony and Authority so beyond all Example ridiculous that unless the Reader will vouchsafe to read these Passages in the Author himself and so take his Conviction from his own Eyes I can hardly blame him if he refuses to believe my bare Affirmation in a thing so Incredible As for the Terms Essence Substance Subsistence Person and the like which he so explodes I hope I have given my Reader a satisfactory Account both of their usefulness and of the uselesness of such as this Author would substitute in their room in Chap. 2. at large to which I referr him And whereas he says Page 139. line 25. c. That the Deity is above Nature and above Terms of Art and that there is nothing like this Mysterious Distinction and Unity and therefore no wonder if we want proper words to express it by at least that such Names as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures should not reach it It by all this he means that there are no Terms of Art Comprehensive and fully expressive of the Divine Nature and the Mysterious Distinction and Unity of the Persons belonging to it none that I know of thinks otherwise But if he means that no Terms of Art can be of any use to aid us in our inadequate imperfect Conceptions of those great things so as thereby we may conceive of them in some better degree and clearer manner than we could without such Terms pray then of what use are his Self-Consciousness and Mutual Consciousness in this Matter For I suppose he will allow these to be Terms of Art too and such I am sure as he has promised the World no small wonders from But if he will allow any usefulness in those two Terms of Art of his own Inventing towards our better Apprehension of the Divine Nature and Persons the same and greater has the constant use of all Church-Writers proved to be in the Terms Essence Substance Hypostasis Person c. as the properest and most significant the fittest and most accommodate to help and methodize Men's thoughts in discoursing of God and Immaterial Beings of all or any other Terms of Art which the Wit of Man ever yet invented or pitched upon for that purpose And I hope the known avowed use and experience of such great Men and those in so great a number is an abundant overpoise to the contrary Affirmation of this or any other Novel Author whatsoever But all this it seems he endeavours to overthrow and dash with Three Terrible confounding Questions Page 139. Lines 22 23 c. Which yet I can by no means think so very formidable but that they may be very safely Encountered and fairly Answered too As Qu. 1. What says our Author is the Substance or Nature of God I Answer It is a Being existing of and by it self Incorporeal Infinite Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent c. Qu. 2. How can Three distinct Persons have but One Numerical Substance I Answer Every whit as well as they can be said to have but one Numerical God-head or Divine Nature or as they can have one Numerical Mutual Consciousness common to them all Qu. 3. What is the Distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence I Answer The same that is between a Thing or Being and the Modes of it And he who neither knows nor admits of a difference between these is much fitter to go to School himself than to sit and pass judgment upon the Schoolmen And as for the Terms Subsistence and Personality they import the last and utmost Completion of the Existence of Things by vertue whereof they exist by themselves so as neither to be Supported by nor Communicable to any Subject Of which two Modes Personality belongs only to Intelligent Beings but Subsistence to all others to whom the aforesaid Definition does agree And this is the True Proper Difference and Distinction between these Two And this Author may take Notice of it if he pleases However having thus answered his Questions tho' to what purpose he proposed them I cannot imagine yet that he may see how ambitious I am to follow his great Example I shall in requital of his three Questions propose these four to him As First Since in Page 139. he affirms the Deity to be above Nature and all Terms of Art so that we want proper Words and Names to express the Distinction and Unity of the Divine Persons by and that such as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures cannot reach it I desire to know of him upon what ground of Reason it is That speaking of this same Mysterious Unity and Distinction in Page 106. lines 11 12 c. He says That the Fathers used several Examples and alluded to several kinds of Union thereby to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head For if the Deity be so far above Nature and all Terms of Art that there is an utter want of words or Names to express the Unity of it by How could any Examples or Allusions drawn from Nature though never so many form
Spiration which Three Divine Persons superadd to this Divine Nature or Deity Three different Modes of Subsistence founding so many different Relations each of them belonging to each Person in a peculiar Uncommunicable manner so that by vertue thereof each person respectively differs and stands distinguished from the other Two And yet by reason of one and the same Numerical Divine Nature or Godhead equally existing in and common to all the Three Persons they are all but One and the same God who is blessed for Ever This I reckon to be a True and Just Representation of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church so far as it has thought fit to declare it self upon this Great and Sacred Mystery Not that I think this sets the Point clear from all Difficulties and Objections For the Nature and Condition of the Thing will not have it so nor have the Ablest Divines ever thought it so for where then were the Mystery But that it gives us the fairest and most consistent Account of this Article both with reference to Scripture and Reason and liable to the fewest Exceptions against it of any other Hypothesis or Explication of it whatsoever And the same will appear yet further from those Terms which the Writers of the Church have all along used in expressing themselves upon this Subject And that both with respect First To the Unity and Agreement of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Nature And Secondly To their Personal Distinction from one another And first For their Unity and Agreement in one and the same Nature The Greeks expressed this by the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Latines by Consubstantialitas and Coessentialitas By all which I affirm That they understood an Agreement in one and the same Numerical Nature or Essence For tho this Author has affirmed That the Nicene Fathers understood no more by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than a Specifick Unity of Nature this Matter has been sufficiently accounted for and his Assertion effectually confuted in the foregoing Chapter In the next place As for the Terms expressing the Distinction and Difference of the Divine Persons from one another the Greeks make use of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subsistences or Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of Subsistence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marks of Distinction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distinguishing Properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Notes of Signification And agreeably to them the Latines also make use of the following Terms Trinitas Personae Subsistentiae Modi Subsistendi Proprietates Relationes and Notiones seu Notionalia By which last the Schoolmen mean such Terms and Expressions as serve to notifie and declare to us the proper and peculiar distinction of the Divine Persons And they reckon four of them viz. the above mentioned Paternitas Filiatio Spiratio Processio all of them importing Relation To which some add a fifth which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Innascibilitas a Term not importing in it any positive Relation but only a meer Negation of all producibility by any Superiour principle and upon that account peculiar to the Father who alone of all the Persons of the Blessed Trinity is without Production Touching all which Terms I cannot think it necessary to enlarge any further in a particular and more distinct Explication of them since how differing soever they may be in their respective significations they all concur in the same use and design which is to express something proper and peculiar to the Divine Persons whereby they are rendred distinct from and Incommunicable to one another But these few general Remarks I think fit to lay down concerning them As 1. That albeit most of these Terms as to the Form of the Word run abstractively yet they are for the most part to be understood Concretively and not as simple Forms but as Forms in Conjunction with the Subject which they belong to In the former abstracted sence they are properly Personalities or Personal Properties viz. Those Modes or Forms by which the Persons whom they appertain to are formally constituted and denominated what they are but in the Latter and Concrete Sence they signifie the Persons themselves 2. The Second Thing which I would observe is That there has been in the first Ages of the Church some Ambiguity in the use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Persona For neither would the Latines at first admit of Three Hypostases in God as taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the same Thing for that they had no other Latin Word to Translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by but Substantia by which also they Translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word Subsistentia being then looked upon by them as Barbarous and not in use so that they refused the Term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of admitting of Three distinct Substances or Essences in the Trinity which they knew would lead them into the Errour of Arius Nor on the other side would the Greeks acquiesce in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor admit of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of falling thereby into the contrary Errour of Sabellius for that they thought the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imported no real Internal difference but only a difference of Name or Attribute or at most of Office and for them to allow no more than such an one amongst the Divine Persons they knew was Sabellianisme And this Controversie of Words exercised the Church for a considerable time to appease and compose which amongst other Matters a Council was called and held at Alexandria about the Year of Christ 362. in which amongst many other Bishops Convened from Italy Arabia Aegypt and Lybia was present also Athanasius himself And in this Council both sides having been fully heard and found to agree in sence though they differ'd in words it was ordained That they should thenceforth Mutually acknowledg one another for Orthodox and for the future cease contending about these words to the disturbance of the Church By which means and especially by the Explication given of these words by Athanasius whereby as Gregory Nazianzen tells us in his Panegyrick upon him he satisfied and reconciled both Greeks and Latines to the indifferent use of them and indeed that Oration made by Nazianzen himself in the Council of Constantinople viz. The second General before 150 Bishops not a little contributing to the same the sence of these Terms from that time forward came generally to be fixed and the Ambiguity of them removed and so the Controversie by degrees ceased between the Greeks and Latines and the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Personae and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Subsistentiae grew
but Three Hypostases or Subsistences This keep this hold c. Theodoret also speaks very fully upon the same Subject in his first Dialogue contr Anomaeos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Such Things as belong properly to the Divine Essence or Substance are in like manner common to Father Son and Holy Ghost But the Term Father is not common to them and therefore Father is no Property of the Essence but of the Subsistence or Person But now if one Thing be proper to the Hypostasis or Subsistence and there be other Properties of the Essence it follows That Essence and Hypostasis do not signifie one and the same thing And again a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Essence or Substance of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost is common being equally and alike Immortal Incorruptible Holy and Good And for this Reason we affirm One Essence and Three Hypostases Auctarium sive Tom. 5. Theodoret. p. 286. Edit Paris 1684. Certainly nothing could with greater Evidence state the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three several Subsistences than the Words here quoted out of this Father And I quote them out of him though I know the same Dialogues are inserted into Athanasius's Works but I am convinced by the reasons given by Garnerius the Learned Editor of this Auctarium that the said Dialogues cannot belong to Athanasius Next to him let us hear Basilius Seleuciensis speaking the same Thing in his first Oration upon the first Verse of the first Chapter of Genesis where upon these words Let us make Man after our own Image and Likeness he discourses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say The Image here formed is but One but the mention here made is not of One Hypostasis or Person only but of Three For the Thing formed being the common Work of the whole Deity shews the Trinity to have been the Former thereof and so gives us one Image or Resemblance of the Trinity But if the Image of the Trinity be but One the Nature of the Hypostases or Persons must be One too For the Unity of the Image proclaims the Unity of the Substance or Essence Basil. Seleuciens Orat. 1. p. 5. Printed at Paris with Gregorius Thaumaturgus c. Anno Dom. 1622. Zacharias Sirnamed Scholasticus and sometime Metropolitan of Mitylene of the Sixth Century in his Disputation against the Philosophers who held the Eternity of the World to a certain Philosopher asking him How the Christians could acknowledg the same both a Trinity and an Unity too Makes this Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We affirm a Trinity in Unity and an Unity in Trinity hereby affirming the Subsistences or Persons to be Three and the Essence or Substance to be only One Johannes Damascenus a Writer of the Eighth Century in his Third Book de Orthodoxâ fide Chap. 11. about the end of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Godhead declares the Nature but the Term Father the Subsistence as Humanity does the Humane Nature but Peter the Subsistence or Person For the Term God denotes the Divine Nature in Common and equally denominates or is ascribed to each of the Hypostases or Subsistences Damascen Page 207. Edit Basil. 1575. I shall close up these particular Testimonies with some Passages in the Creed commonly called the Athanasian which I place so low because it is manifest that Athanasius was not the Author of it it being not so much as mentioned in any Antient Writer as the very Learned Dr. Cave affirms till it occurs in Theodulphus Aurelianensis who lived about the latter end of the Eighth Century Now the Passages are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in some Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is Neither confounding the Hypostases or Persons nor dividing the Substance For there is one Hypostasis of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is One c. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The whole Three Hypostases or Persons are Coeternal together and Coequal These Passages are full and plain and the Creed it self may well claim the Antiquity at least of the Eighth Century My next Authorities shall be those of the Councils But before I pass to them I cannot but observe and own to the Reader concerning some of the first of my Quotations viz. those out of Justin Martyr and that out of St. Athanasius that it has been very much questioned by some Learned Men Whether those Books from whence they are taken do really belong to the Authors to whom they are ascribed and among whose Works they are inserted or no. This I say I was not ignorant of nevertheless I thought fit to quote them by the Names under which I found them placed since many very Learned Persons and much more acquainted with the Writings of the Ancients than I pretend to be have upon several Occasions done so before me And the said Tracts are certainly of a very early date and though the Authors of them should fall a Century or two lower yet they still retain Antiquity enough to make good the Point for which I alledged them Nevertheless I must and do confess it very probable That the more distinct and exact use of the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applyed to the Divine Persons did not generally and commonly take place but as by degrees the Discussion of the Arian and other the like Controversies through frequent Disputes grew to still a greater and greater Maturity And that the use of these Terms did obtain then and upon that Account I think a very considerable Argument to authorize and recommend them to all Sober and Judicious Minds And so I pass to the Testimonies of Councils concerning the same Amongst which we have here in the first place the Council of Chalcedon making a Confession or Declaration of their Faith concerning the Person of our Saviour and that both as to the Absolute undivided Unity of his Person and as to the Difference and Distinction of his Two Natures part of which Confession runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We confess One and the same Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in Two Natures without Confusion c. the difference of the said Natures being by no means destroyed by their Union but rather the property of each Nature being thereby preserved and both concurring to or meeting in One Person or Hypostasis This Account of the Chalcedon Confession we have in the Second Book of Evagrius towards the latter end of the 4th Chapter and a lively Instance it is of the Council's expressing the Personality of Christ by and stating It upon Subsistence In the next place upon Justinian's calling the second Council of
of the Trinity and some other Tracts upon the same Subject against the Arians He I confess frequently and particularly in Book 4. de Trinit p. 36. Basil. Edit 1570. calls the Three Divine Persons Tres Substantias but it is evident that he took Substantia in the same sence with Subsistentia or Hypostasis forasmuch as he else where often affirms that which must of necessity infer this to be his meaning As for instance in his Book de Synodis contra Arianos Page 223. he tells us That Nullam diversitatem aut dissimilitudinem admittit Geniti Gignentis Essentia And again That there is Indifferens in Patre Filio divinitatis substantia p. 224 And nulla differentis Essentiae discreta Natura ibid. And nulla Originalis substantiae diversitas ibid. And that there is between them nulla diversitas Essentiae p. 225. None of all which Propositions could possibly be true if the Divine Persons were three distinct Substances according to the proper sence and signification of the Word Substance And therefore the Learned Forbesius in his Historico-Theological Instructions Book 1. Chap. 2. quoting the aforesaid Passage after the Words Tres substantias subjoyns these of his own Eo nempe sensu quo Graeci dicebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And accordingly St. Hilary explaining himself further in his fore-cited Book de Synodis contra Arianos p. 226. says That though between the Father and the Son there was nulla diversitas Essentiae yet they did respuere Personalium Nominum Unionem ne Unus Subsistens sit qui Pater dicatur Filius Which Words manifestly infer That the Father is said to be a Father and the Son to be a Son by a distinct Subsistence proper to each of them And again speaking of those Fathers who opposed the Heresie of Sabellius says of them Idcircò Tres Substantias esse dixerunt Subsistentium Personas per Substantias edocentes non substantiam Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti diversitate dissimilis essentiae separantes p. 228. By which Words he speaks all that the Greeks meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Latines of the following Times by Subsistentia For which reason it is that the Learned Collator and Editor of this Father's Works uses now and then to such Passages as these to add an Explicatory Marginal Note to this purpose as in Page 36. Book 4. de Trinitate he puts in the Margin Tres Substantiae id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in this Book de Synodis c. p. 227. he remarks in the side Trina in Divinis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which manifestly shews what the Judgment of Learned Men was concerning St. Hilary's sence in the use of the words Tres Substantioe with reference to the Divine Persons From St. Hilary we pass to St. Ierome who indeed scrupled the use of the Word Hypostasis as applyed to the Divine Persons in Epistle 57. to Pope Damasus But that he did only scruple it and not absolutely refuse or reject it is evident from several other Passages in that Epistle which shewed his Judgment to be that there was nothing of it self ill and hurtful in the use of it For had he judged otherwise surely he would not have told Damasus that he was ready to own the Expression of Tres Personas Subsistentes And moreover That if Damasus would command the use of the Term Hypostasis he would use it But his Exception against it for it was not the Word Person as a great Man mistakes it but the Word Hypostasis which St. Ierome demurred to the use of was built upon these Two grounds both expressed in the same Epistle First That Hereticks abused or made an ill use of this Term to deceive and impose upon the Minds of Weak and Unwary Persons And in good earnest that must be a very extraordinary Word indeed which is uncapable of being one way or other abused by some and misunderstood by others Secondly The other ground which as there is great reason to believe was the main and principal cause of St. Ierome's dislike of this Term was its being imposed by an Incompetent Authority viz. That some of the Greek Church would needs command him and him a very warm Man too who was of the Latin Communion to the use of that which the Latin Church had not obliged him to And Calvin in Lib. 1. Chap 13. of his Institutions Sect. 5. shrewdly intimates the peculiar Pique which St. Ierome bore to the Eastern Bishops to have been the chief if not the sole cause of his Exception against this Word adding withal that it was not fairly done of him which Calvin was a very Competent Judge of to Assert as in that Epistle he does that in omnibus Scholis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was nihil aliud quà m Hypostasis which Calvin there says Communi tritóque usu passim refellitur But after all it seems St. Ierome could relent from his stiffness and reconcile himself to this so much scrupled Expression For in his Epistle or Discourse ad Paulam Eustochium de assumptione Beatoe Marioe speaking of our Saviour's exercising Two distinct kinds of Operation according to his Two Natures combining in one Person has these Words Per hoc quod audiérant quod viderant quod tractârant viz. Apostoli verbam vitoe erat nihil aliud ex duabus Naturis quà m Unum juxta Subsistentiam vel Personam Hieronym Tom. 9. p. 113. Edit Paris apud Nivellium 1579. So that I am in good hopes that for the future St. Ierome's Authority will not be alledged against expressing the Divine Persons by Hypostases till it be proved that there cannot be a Greek and a Latin Word for one and the same Thing For what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in the Greek That it is certain Subsistentia signifies and declares to us in the Latin As for St. Austin though he looks upon the Word Hypostasis or Subsistentia as new and strange to the Latines in the sence in which it was used by the Greeks yet he is so far from a bridging the Greeks in their way of speaking that he very amicably allows even of those Latines also who chose to follow the Greek Expression as to this Particular in his 5th Book de Trin. Chap. 8 9. where he tells us Qui hoec tractant Groeco eloquio dicunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latinè ista tractantes cùm alium modum aptiorem non invenirent quo enuntiarent verbis dicunt Unam Essentiam vel Substantiam Tres autem Personas ibid. By which this Father manifestly shews That the Latines indeed undestood the very same Thing by Persona which the Greeks did by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that they really rendered one by the other though they were not generally so ready to use the Term. And here I suppose the Reader will easily perceive that my Intent is not to establish the use of the
it must be either from some distinct Substance or some Accident or some Mode of Being for I defie him or any Mortal breathing to assign a fourth Thing besides these But it cannot be from any distinct Substance for that would make a manifest Composition in the Divine Nature nor yet from any Accident for that would make a worse Composition And therefore it follows That this Distinction must unavoidably proceed from one or more distinct Modes of Being This I affirm and according to my promise made to this Author in the foregoing Chapter I shall be ready to defend the Truth of this Assertion against him whensoever he shall think fit to engage in the Dispute Secondly In the next place for the proof of this from Authority I affirm that all Metaphysicians School-men and Divines at least all that I have yet met with do unanimously concurr in these Two Things 1. That they utterly deny any Accidents in God And 2. That they do as universally affirm Modes of Being to be in God and to belong to him Nay and which is more That they do in these very Modes state the Ground and Reason of the Personalities and the distinction thereof respectively belonging to the Three Persons of the Godhead And for a further proof of what I have here affirmed and withal to shew how unable this Man's Memory is to keep pace with his Confidence whereas in the forementioned page 47. He affirms That all Men mark this Word deny Accidents Qualities and Mâ—des to be in God He himself afterwards in page 48. Owns That the School-men hold these different Modos Subsistendi in the Godhead and accordingly there sets himself as well as he is able to confute them for it Now how shall we reconcile these blind Assertions that so cruelly buâ—t and run their Heads against one another For will he say That the School-men do not grant such Modes to be in God after he himself has done his poor utmost to confute them for holding it Or having said That all Men deny these Modes to be in God and yet that the School men grant and hold it will he say That the School-men are not Men and so come not under that Universal Appellative What the School-men hold and assert in this Matter has been sufficiently shewn already But I must needs tell this Author upon this occasion That he seems to have something a bad Memory and withal to have more than ordinary need of a very good one There is one Thing more which I think fit to observe and it is something pleasant viz. That our Author having exploded all Modos Subsistendi in God and Chastised the School-men for holding them even to a forfeiture of their very Humanity he yet vouchsafes afterwards by a kind of Correctory Explication to allow them in this sence viz. That the same Numerical Essence is whole and entire in each Divine Person but in a different Manner P. 84. Lines 12 13 14. By which Words it appearing that he grants that of the Manner which he had before denied of the Modus it is a shrewd Temptation to me to think That certainly this Acute Author takes Modus for one Thing and Manner for another In fine I appeal to the Judicious and Impartial Reader Whether a Man could well give a more convincing Argument of his utter Unacquaintance with the True Principles of Philosophy and Theology than by a Confident Assertion of these Two Positions 1. That Accidents and Modes of Being are the same Things And 2. That such Modes are not at all to be allowed of or admitted in God Secondly His Second Objection against our stating the distinction of the Divine Persons upon Three different Modes of Subsistence is That these Modes are little better than Three Names of One God Which was the Heresie of Sabellius P. 83. To which I Answer Two Things First In direct and absolute Contradiction to what he asserts I affirm That the difference between Three Modes of Subsistence in the Godhead and only Three distinct Names applyed to it is very great For Names and Words depend only upon the Will and Pleasure of the Imposer and not upon the Nature of the Thing it self upon which they are imposed and for that cause neither do nor can Internally affect it But on the contrary all Modes of Subsistence spring from the Nature of the Thing or Being which they affect both antecedently to and by consequence independently upon the Apprehension or Will of any one So that altho neither Man nor Angel had ever considered or thought of or so much as known that there were such or such things yet the Modes of Subsistence proper to them would have belonged to them as really and as much as they do now And if this Author cannot by this see a vast difference between these and so many bare Names thanks be to God others can both see and defend it too But Secondly Whereas he says That these Three Modes are but little better than Three Names I answer That his very saying so is Concession that they are something at least more and better To which I add further That this something as small a Difference as it makes is yet sufficient to discriminate things which are only Distinguishable and no more For separable or divisible from one another I am sure they are not Nay this is so far from being a just and rational Exception against placing the difference of the Divine Persons in so many different Modes of Subsistence that in the Judgment of very Great and Learned Men it is no small Argument for it For St. Cyril says That the difference between the Divine Persons by reason of the perfect Unity of their Nature as it were blotting out or taking away all Diversity between them is so very small as but just to distinguish them and no more and to cause that One of them cannot be called the other the Father not the Son nor the Son upon any Account the Father c. I thought fit to Transcribe the whole Passage tho' the latter part viz. from the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. is most immediately and directly to the Purpose which I here alledge the whole for And Thomas Aquinas tells us That the Divine Persons ought to be distinguished by that which makes the least distinction In like manner Durandus affirms That the first Instance of Plurality or remove from Unity ought to be the least And therefore that the distinction of the Divine Persons since it is the first ought to be by distinct Relations compatible in the same Essence Which for that cause is a less distinction than any that can be made by Things Absolute And Lastly Bellarmine averrs pofitively That the distinction of the Divine Persons ought to be the least that is Possible Supposing all along that it must still be Real and not barely Nominal or Imaginary This was the Judgment of these Learned Men who as they
examined and laid open in the foregoing Animadversions I shall now set down without any further Descant or Enlargement upon them or at least with very little But as for those which I there passed over without any Notice or Remark as I did it all along with full purpose to treat of them by themselves so I shall particularly insist upon them now And the Reader may please to take them as they follow PARADOX It is a vain and arrogant presumption says this Author to say What is or what is not a Contradiction when we confess we do not understand or comprehend the thing we speak of p. 4. And again I know nothing in the World that we do perfectly understand p. 7. line 19. Answer According to these Two Assertions taken together I affirm That though a Man discourses never so falsly and inconsistently of God or indeed of any thing in the World besides yet he cannot justly be charged as guilty of a Contradiction And moreover since this Author affirms page 97 That for any one to say That Three Divine Persons who are divided and separated from each other are each of them God and yet that they are not Three Gods but one God is a direct Contradiction I desire to know of him Whether he comprehends what the Godhead and what the Divine Persons are And if not Whether according to his own Rule it is not a vain and arrogant Presumption in him to say what is a Contradiction when he professes himself not to comprehend the thing he is speaking of and about which the Contradiction is said to be PARADOX This Author having declared the Intimate and Essential Unity between the Father and the Son from those Words of our Saviour John 14th Chap. 10. Ver. I am in the Father and the Father in me Subjoyns That this Oneness between them is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it and we cannot long doubt what kind of Union this is if we consider that there is but one possible way to be thus United and that is by this Mutual-Consciousness p. 57. Answer These Words I charge with Contradiction and consequently with Absurdity upon two Accounts First because they Contradict our Saviour's Words And Secondly Because they Contradict the Author 's own Words 1. And first concerning those of our Saviour Whereas this Author says That this Oneness between the Father and the Son is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it Our Saviour in Iohn Ch. 17. where this whole Passage is repeated twice affirms something to be like it viz. in ver 11. where he prays to his Father That they viz. Believers may be One as We viz. his Father and Himself are One And again ver 21. That they may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee So that our Saviour expresly asserts a Likeness of something to this Union on the one side and this Author as expresly denies it on the other In which according to his blundering undistinguishing way he confounds Likeness and Sameness of kind as all One as shall presently be further shewn In the next place our Saviour as plainly as Words can express a Thing says That he and his Father are One by a Mutual In-being or In-existence in one another And this Man as expresly says That there is no possible way for them to be one but by Mutual-Consciousness But I on the contrary deny That Mutual-Consciousness is Mutual-Inexistence or Mutual-Inexistence Mutual-Consciousness any more than that Being or Existence is properly Consciousness or Knowledge and therefore if they cannot possibly be one but by Mutual Consciousness it is certain that they are not so by Mutual-Inexistence which yet our Saviour in Words properly and naturally signifying Inexistence affirms that they are And the more intolerable is this Assertion in this Author for that in Pag. 56. he affirms that these Words of our Saviour ought to be understood properly and if so I hope they do not only exclude Metaphors but all other Tropes and Figures also for Proper is not adequately opposed to Metaphorical but to Figurative whatsoever the Figure be And I do here affirm That if our Saviour's words be understood of Mutual-Consciousness they do not signifie properly but figuratively and the Figure is a Metonymy of the Subject for the Adjunct forasmuch as in God Being or Inexistence are to be look'd upon as the Subject and Knowledge and the like Attributes as the Adjuncts And therefore I do here tell this bold Man again that for him to say as he does that the forementioned words of our Saviour ought to be understood properly and yet to interpret them to a sense not Proper but Figurative which by interpreting them of Mutual-Consciousness he evidently does is both an Absurdity and a Presumption equally insufferable But in the 2d Place I charge the forecited Passage of this Author with the same Absurdity for being as Contradictory to his own words as it was to those of our Saviour For whereas he here says First That this Oneness between the Father and the Son expressed in those words I am in the Father and the Father in me can be no other kind of Union than an Union by Mutual-consciousness And Secondly That it is such an one that there is nothing in Nature like it I desire him to turn to Page 106. of his Book where he tells us That the Fathers use several Examples and allude to several sorts of Union thereby to form a Notion of the Unity of the Godhead in the Three Divine Persons Let him I say read this and tell me Whether those Examples and Allusions could be of any use to form a Notion of that Unity to which they bore no Resemblance at all For I for my part ever thought that there can be no Allusion of one thing to another without some similitude between them and that a similitude is always on both sides it being not possible for Peter to be like Iohn but Iohn must be like Peter too And if this Man does not yet blush at such contradictory Assertions let him turn a little farther to Page 126 127. where he tell us particularly that St. Austin explains this Unity by Examples of Mutual-Consciousness and by several Similitudes mark the words of which the Unity of Understanding Memory and Will with the Soul of Man is alledged by him for One and that a notable one too for that these Faculties as he there says are mutually in one another and the Example of Love and Knowledge in the same Mind is alledged by him as another such a Simile affirming them in like manner to be mutually in one another Now I say after all this ought not the Reader to stand amazed when he reads the Man first affirming that the Unity between the Father and the Son mutually existing in one another by virtue of the Mutual-Consciousness between them has nothing like it in Nature nor has any Example Metaphor or
than the difference of a Noun from an Adverb which we know is below a Person Paramount to all rule to take notice of Though by his good leave the Church of England both Writes and Teaches better Latine to such as are disposed to learn it Again in Page 139. in the Quotation on the side we have these Words cited out of the third Book of Optatus Milevitanus Recordamini quomodò à vobis jamdudum Matris Ecclesiae membra distracta sunt non enim Unumquamque demum semel seducere potuistis Of which Passage I must confess I could make neither Sence nor Grammar till consulting the Author himself of Albaspinaeus's Edition instead of Unumquamque demum I found it Unamquamque Domum which no doubt is an admirable Various Lection of which this Author ought to have the Glory upon the Text of such a Father But this is not all the Blunders which this fruitful Sentence affords us there being yet another viz. recedit for resedit and that such an one as utterly perverts the sence of the Author who speaks here of some who left and some who remained in the Communion of the Church opposing them in this respect to one another as Aut ivit uxor aut resedit maritus aut Parentes seducti sunt filii sequi noluerunt aut stetit frater migrante sorore c. Thus the Father here speaks but pray what opposition could there be between aut ivit uxor aut recedit maritus any more than there is between going away and departing Besides that all the rest of the Verbs running in the Preterperfect Tense this must needs do so too or make a very gross fault in the Construction So that this is an Illiterate Perversion of the sence of this Father Upon which as well as upon other occasions I look upon this as the only sure Rule of dealing with this Author's Quotations viz. To trust them no further than one can see them in their Originals In like manner Page 178. in the place there quoted in the Margin out of St. Cyprian's 55. Epist. and not the 52d as this Author there mistakes it we meet with these words à Coepiscoporum suorum Corpore ab Ecclesiae Unitate discisserit But the word in St. Cyprian is as it ought to be descisceret from descisco to fall off between which and the other word used by this Author there is a wide difference descisceret being a most proper Latine Word but discisserit so far from Proper that it is not so much as Latine And in Page 187. Line the last we find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which makes the whole Period neither Sence nor Greek Again Page 188. Line the last but one we have this Passage Videte annon dicantur martyres sed aliquid Alium dici mereantur which being there put for Aliud is a downright Solecism And lastly in Page 198. in the Quotation in the Margin we have those remarkable words Simiarum more qui cùm homines non sint homines tamen imitantur Which is another Solecism every whit as bad and scandalous as the former Now all these Words and Passages I assure the Reader as they stand in the Authors from whence they are quoted carry a very different face from what this Writer has given them which shews that whensoever the words of the Fathers are transcribed into any of his Books they are quite out of their Element For amongst them as they stand here there are some such vile faults or rather such clamorous sins in Grammar that should a School-Boy tender an Exercise to his Master with but Two or Three such in it he would soon find himself very roundly and severely took up for them and that perhaps more ways than one But Hands that can restore dispossessed Princes may Write any Thing and Authorize what they have Wrote by their very Writing it For otherwise the Truth is the Latine which the forecited Passages are dressed up in seems a sort of Providential Latine as being above all Rules and Laws of Speaking and Writing whatsoever As for faults about Accents such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Vind. P. 102. Line 3. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 113. Line 2. of the Quotation in the Margin and the like they are too numerous for me to trouble the Reader with But this I desire him to take notice of upon the whole that has been produced by me That as none of the forementioned Faults are in the Table of the Errata so some of them in the first Edition of his Vind. Trin. stand Corrected in the second as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 115. Line 1. of the Quotation in the Margin of the first is Corrected into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 121. Line 21. in the former is changed into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the latter And therefore according to the old Maxime That Exceptio firmat Regulam in non Exceptis it is to me a sufficient proof That since this Author Corrected some Passages and not others which yet need correcting as much if not more it was because His Acuteness did not see that these last needed any Correction at all And in such a case some are of Opinion that where the Words escape it the Author himself ought to have it But because some perhaps will hardly be satisfied with so General a Charge without an Allegation of more Particulars I shall here give the Reader a Catalogue of this Author's Greek Errata in the 2d Edition of his Vindication of the Trinity which should in Reason be thought the most correct together with their Correction confronting them Greek Errata Correction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Punctum interrogationis post 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro Semicol  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Punctum interrogationis post 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro Semicol  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
should expect to hear no more from him And if withal this Socinian be but able to handle him at such a Rate as that close Reasoner has done I dare undertake for him that he shall go out of the World the most baffled Person that ever lived in it But why for God's sake must the Socinians Reasoning Abilities which his great Lord and Patron has given so high so signal and so peculiar an Encomium of all of a suddain fail them upon this Author's Publication of his Book What can the meaning of this be Why the meaning of it is this Hic vir hic est c. according to the words by which Virgil pointed out Augustus Caesar. This This is the Man This is that Incomparable Mighty and Irrefragable Divine who has wrote more convincingly and effectually against the Socinians if you will believe him than all that ever wrote against them before put together For notwithstanding all that has been wrote by those great Men who from time to time have appear'd in this Controversie the Controversie is still alive and the Socinians continue writing and reasoning still And even by this Author's confession once at least to some Purpose For otherwise how could he say of his Socinian Adversary That he would never be able to reason to any purpose in this cause again if he had never reasoned so at all But so far are the Socinians from being put out of Countenance and much less out of Heart by what this Man has wrote against them That I assure him they look upon him as an Opponent according to their Hearts desire as having play'd a fairer Game into their hands than ever was dealt into them before So that next to their wishing all the World their Friends they wish they may always have such Adversaries And therefore if they should resolve to reason against him no more he will have great cause to thank either their Inadvertency for over-looking the great advantage given them or their good Nature for not taking it For the Book called by him a Vindication of the Trinity is certainly like a kind of Pot or Vessel with handles quite round it turn it which way you will you are sure to find something to take hold of it by And the truth is upon a strict impartial comparing of things together I cannot see any new Advantage that he has got over the Socinians unless it be That he thinks his Three Gods will be too hard for their One. And perhaps it is upon Presumption of this That he discharges that clap of Thunder at them in his Preface where he tells us That having dipp'd his Pen in the Vindication of so glorious a Cause by the grace of God he will never desert it while he can hold Pen in hand In which words methinks I see him ready Armed and Mounted with his Face towards the West and brandishing his Sword aloft all wreaking with Socinian blood and with the very darts of his Eyes looking his poor forgotten Friends through and through For in good earnest the Words sound very terribly to these Men but most terribly of all to the Article it self which is like to suffer most by his Vindication For thus to threaten that he will never leave off vexing it as long as he can hold Pen in hand which I dare say will be as long as he can tell Money with it This I say again sounds very dreadfully Nevertheless as fierce and formidable as these words may represent him he has yet like a merciful Enemy very great reserves of compassion For otherwise how come so many Socinian Pieces wrote against him to lie so long unanswered He has indeed lately wrote an Apology for writing against the Socinians but where is the Apology for writing in such a prevaricating way against them at first and for never writing against them since For has he lost his daring Polemick Pen Or has he lost the use of his Hand Or has he run himself out of Breath If this last be his case as by some Asthmatick Symptoms one would think it is he will do well to call in his old Friend and Defender the Foot-man to second him Especially since the Contention which now seems most likely to be is who shall run fastest from the Enemy and keep furthest from Him In the mean time I wonder that in the mannage of this Disputation he does not take the same course that other Learned Men in the like cases use to do For he frequently taxes his Adversary with Fallacies telling him that this is a Fallacy and that is a Fallacy But why does he not express to his Reader what the particular Fallacy is There being no Sophism or Fallacy incident to Speech or Argumentation but what falls under one of the Thirteen reckoned up by Aristotle Moreover while he is Animadverting upon the History of the Unitarians he will I believe hardly get clear of a scurvy lapse in that History himself For concerning the Exposition given by the Socinians of that Text in the 3. Iohn 13. where our Saviour tells the Iews That he came down from Heaven He writes thus Did Socinus find it so easie a Thing to reconcile this Text to his Darling Opinion when he was forced to Fast and Pray for it and to pretend Revelation because he wanted Reason to support it viz. That Christ before he entred on his Prophetick Office was taken into Heaven to be instructed in the Gospel and then came down from Heaven again to publish it to the World pag. 143. l. 19. c. Now the Person here spoken of and intended by this Author must needs have been Faustus Socinus and I believe he will not pretend that he meant any other which being supposed This Remark of his will appear to have been a very great mistake For neither was this the Text about which this Praying and Pretence of Revelation was for Fasting is a word of this Author 's putting in nor was Faustus Socinus the Person who did any of these Things upon this occasion But the Text was that in Iohn 8. 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Person of whom this was pretended was Laelius Socinus the Unkle of Faustus who interpreted this Text to this sence Antequà m Abramus factus fuerit Abrahamus that is from the Father of the Faithful enclosed within the Church of the Iews should become the Father of the Faithful diffused through many Nations Christ was to preach his Gospel to the World and by so doing enlarge the Church from the limits of one People to all Nations throughout the World So that to the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to supply the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importing Christ's Enlightning the World by the Publication of his Doctrine This was Laelius's Interpretation of this Text which together with the Interpretation of the first Chapter of St. Iohn were the Two Scriptures which he first set
best way of Illustrating Things is by example I shall also take this course here Thus for instance For any one to own a Thing for a great and sacred Mystery the very Notion and use of the word Mystery importing something Hidden and Abstruse and at the same time to affirm it to be very Plain Easie and Intelligible is Nonsense To say That in Men Knowledge and Power are Commensurate nay That Knowledge is Power so that whatsoever a Man knows how to do he is by vertue thereof also able to do it is contrary to the Common Sense of all Mankind and consequently Nonsense To say A Beast is a Person and yet to say withal That a Person and an Intelligent substance are Terms reciprocal is both Nonsense and Contradiction too with a Witness To affirm That a specifical Unity can make any Thing or Person Numerically One is Nonsense To affirm That there are two distinct Reasons and two distinct Wills in each Man and those as really distinct as if the same Man had Two distinct Souls is Nonsense And to affirm That the Body which is utterly void of any Intellectual Power or Faculty is conscious to all the Dictates and Commands of the Will is gross and inexcusable Nonsense So that whereas this Author according to his mannerly way charges his Adversary with unintelligible Nonsense p. 227. l. 6. it must needs be granted that he has much the advantage of him in this Particular since all must acknowledge that his own Nonsense is very Intelligible And here I could easily direct him where he may be supplyed with several more such Instances as those newly alledged but that I think these may suffice for the Purpose they are produced for In the mean time I would advise him for the future to use this rude Word more sparingly and cautiously and to apply it only where the generally received way of speaking applies it And now and then also to cast his Eye upon his own Writings These things I say I would advise him to and to consider withal how unreasonable and unjust it is for him to bestow about the Word so freely upon others while he keeps the Thing to himself CHAP. XII Containing a Brief Review and Conclusion of the whole Work I AM at length come to a close of that Work which I should much more gladly have been Prevented than engag'd in by being a Reader rather than the Author of a Reply to this Man 's strange unjustifiable Innovations upon this great Article of our Religion But it is now a considerable Time that the Book here Animadverted upon has walked about the World without any publick Control And though in private Discourse generally censur'd by all yet as to the Point undertook by me hitherto Answered by none which may well be Matter of Melancholy Consideration to all Hearty Lovers of our Church and Ancient Christianity Whereas I dare say had this Heterodox Piece been wrote and published in a Language understood by Foreigners we should long since have had several Confutations of it sent us from abroad and probably not without some severe Reflexions upon the English Church and Clergy for their silence in a Cause which so loudly called for their Defence To take off therefore this Reproach from our Church in some degree at least I have while others far more able to Defend it chuse rather to sit still and enjoy it ventur'd to set my weak Hand to the Vindication of a Principal Article of her Faith against the rude Attacks of this bold Undertaker In which though I freely own that all that has been done by me in it is extremely below the Dignity of the Subject which I have employed my self in yet I am well assured that I have fully and effectually answered this Man and if it should prove otherwise I must ascribe it to a peculiar Misfortune attending me since none besides has hitherto wrote against him but has confuted him In the Work I have here presented the Reader with I have examined and gone over all that I conceive requires either Answer or Remark and that according to the following Method and Order which I shall here briefly set down I have in the first place laid my Foundation in the Explication and State of the Sense of the Word Mystery which I shew in General signifies something Concealed Hidden or Abstruse in Religious Matters and amongst Christian Writers not only that but something also neither Discoverable nor Comprehensible by bare Reason According to which I shew that this Author 's frequent affirming that his Hypothesis and Explication of the Trinity rendred the Notion thereof very Plain Easie and Intelligible was utterly incompatible with the Mysteriousness of the same I shew also upon what absurd Grounds he stated the Nature of a Contradiction according to which joyned with another of his Assertions I shew That no Man could be justly charged with Contradiction though he discoursed never so incoherently and falsely upon any Subject whatsoever From hence I proceeded to consider the Ancient Terms constantly received and used by Councils Fathers and Schoolmen in speaking of the God-head and Trinity which this Author in his Book had confidently and avowedly condemned as obscuring and confounding Men's Notions about these great Matters and upon a distinct Explication of each of them I shew the Propriety and singular usefulness of them both against all his Exceptions and above those other Terms which he would needs substitute in their Room And under the same Head I laid open the Contradiction of his Vindication and his late Apology to one another as I had done before in my Discourse about the Nature of a Mystery From hence I passed to his New Notions of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness in the strength of which two Terms he pretended to make a Trinity in Unity a plain easie and intelligible Notion nay so very plain as to solve all Difficulties about it these being his very words And as he pretended Self-Consciousness to be the formal constituent Reason of Personality Universally both in Beings Create and Uncreate I first Demonstrated the contrary in Created Beings and that both from the general Reason of Things and from Two manifest Instances and withal examined and confuted several extremely absurd Propositions and Assertions advanced by him concerning Personality From this I passed on and proved that neither could this Self-Consciousness be the formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons shewing the impossibility thereof by several clear and unquestionable Arguments And in the next place with the same Evidence of Reason I proved That Mutual-Consciousness could not be the Ground or Reason of the Unity or Coalescence of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Divine Nature and all this upon known allowed Principles of Philosophy as well as Divinity And so I Naturally went on to the examination of that monstrous Assertion of his by which he holds and affirms the Three Divine Persons to be
perfectly equivalent But there would be no end of Particulars should I quote all that might be quoted and therefore I shall conclude all these single Testimonies with that of Turretinus late Professor of Divinity at Geneva who gives us this full and Judicious Account in his common Places of the Point here before us Fides Orthodoxa haec est in Unicâ ac Simplicissimâ Dei Essentiâ Tres esse distinctas Personas quae proprietatibus Incommunicabilibus sive Modis Subsistendi ità inter se distinguuntur ut una non sit alia licèt per ineffabilem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maneant semper existant in se invicem Turretinus part 1. Loco 3. Quaest. 28. In the last place to confirm the Testimonies of particular Persons with the joynt Suffrage and Concurrence of whole Churches in their Publick Confessions I shall mention some of them And amongst these the Augustan or Ausperg Confession gives this Account of the Trinity Ecclesiae scilicet Reformatae magno consensu docent Decretum Synodi Nicaenae credendum esse viz. Quòd sit Una Essentia Divina tamen sint Tres Personae ejusdem Essentiae c. Et utuntur Nomine Personae eâ significatione quâ usi sunt Scriptores Ecclesiastici ut significet non partem aut qualitatem sed quod propriè Subsistit Confessio Augustana in Articulo fidei 1. Next to this we have the Wirtemberg Confession declaring the same in the very beginning of it Credimus confitemur Unum solum Deum c. Et in hâc unâ Aeternâ Deitate Tres esse per se Subsistentes proprietates seu Personas Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum This Confession was made and given forth in the Year 1552. Likewise the Gallican Reformed Churches in their Confession made in the Reign of Charles the IX and in the Year 1561. declare themselves much the same way upon this Article Sancta Scriptura nos docet in illâ singulari simplice Essentiâ Divinâ Subsistere Tres Personas Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum Add to these the Belgick Confession also recognized approved and ratifyed in the Synod of Dort which in its eighth Article speaks of the Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity thus Haec distinctio viz. Personarum non efficit ut Deus in Tres sit divisus quandoquidem Scriptura nos docet Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum singulos distinctam habere suis Proprietatibus Hypostasim which Words are extremely expressive and full But as touching these Confessions the Reader ought not in Reason to be dissatisfied that I produce no more of them to the present purpose out of those many which are extant since it has been still the Custom of most Churches to draw up their Confessions in Terms as general and short as they well could So that we are the less to wonder if we seldom meet with such Words in them as are Explicatory and Particular And now after all these Authorities thus alledged by me I would desire this Confident Man whom I am here disputing with to look back upon the fore-mentioned Greek and Latin Fathers Councils School-men and all those Eminent Modern Divines together with the Clergy of whole Countreys and Nations Solemnly and Unanimously declaring themselves in their Publick Avowed Confessions of Faith upon this great Article and Mystery I say I desire him to look all these in the Face and to tell them That they have hitherto abused the whole World with false Notions of the Trinity by expressing the Divine Persons and Personalities by Hypostases Subsistences and Modes of Subsistence Words as he says importing little better than Sabellianism and serving for nothing else but to obscure perplex and confound the Minds and Thoughts of Men in conceiving or discoursing of this Weighty and Sacred Point of our Christian Faith This I require him in defence of what he has so expresly peremptorily and Magisterially affirmed all along in his Book to do if his Heart and Fore-head will serve him for it In the mean time I have here delivered in all the Testimonies both Greek and Latin Ancient and Modern which I think fit to offer in behalf of the Point pleaded for Though should I have represented all that occurrs in the fore-cited Authors besides many others not mentioned to the same Purpose I should not so much have quoted as upon the Matter Transcribed them And now if any one should ask me Whether I look upon these Testimonies as sufficiently representing the Doctrine of the Catholick Church upon this Head of Divinity I Answer That barely by way of Induction they do not since an Induction ought to consist of a greater Collection of Particulars Nevertheless I avouch this Number of Testimonies to be a full and sufficient Representation of the sence of the Church herein if we consider them as joyned with and supported by these Three following Considerations As First That it is morally impossible that the Persons above quoted being of such Eminent Note in the Church both for Orthodoxy and Learning and Living most of them at such a great distance both of Time and Place rendring all Communication between them impracticable should or could presume to express themselves upon so Sacred an Article and so Tender a Point but in such Terms as were generally received used and approved of by the Church Secondly That these Terms were never yet Condemned nor the Users of them Censured by any Church or Council accounted Orthodox which in so great and so revered an Article they would infallibly have been had they been judged unfit for or unapplicable to the Things to which they were actually applyed as this bold Author with great Confidence affirms them to be Thirdly and Lastly That hardly any Church-Writer of considerable Remark and Name can be produced who ever treated of this great Subject in any other Terms than those expressed by us or particularly made use of the Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness to explain it by All being wholly silent of them in all those Writings in which they do most particularly and exactly design a Discussion of these Matters These Three Considerations I say added to the fore-alledged Quotations irrefragably prove them to be a true just and sufficient Representation of the Sence and Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this Matter and that it is utterly inconsistent with the Common Reason Principles and Practice of Mankind that it should be otherwise And as for what concerns this Author whom I am disputing with I dare affirm yet further that any one or two of the Passages quoted by me are more full and clear to the purpose I quote them for than all that he has produced from the several Fathers alledged by him for his Self Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness put together and much more than his forlorn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cited out of Gr. Nyssen to prove the Son an Infinite Mind distinct from the