Christ-Church It cannot be denied that could they but prevaricate they might pass for as Orthodox and as sound Trinitarians as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calumniators their Faith concerning God is the same both for Sense and Terms but the Professor though a real Unitarian and only a Nominal Trinitarian can asperse Socinus they on the contrary see no reason to disclaim their Friends and Partisans Other Nominals soar high they explain their Trinity after a very peculiar and surprizing manner The Father say they is the Fountain of the Deity the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons he is original Mind and Wisdom who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections and also Willed that is Loved himself in a most perfect manner No one will doubt say they that God always or from all Eternity perfectly understood himself and 't is Natural and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding to Will or Love himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings 't is the first Affection of such Beings and adheres inseparably to them But seeing whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood therefore the Father as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image because thus conceived and as it were generated by him is called the Son 't is also called the Wisdom of God his reflex Wisdom because 't is the Wisdom that resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections As God understandeth he Willeth also or Loveth himself this second Act or God's Loving himself is the Holy Spirit or third Person as understanding himself or the reflex Wisdom of original Mind and Wisdom was the second Person of the Trinity To understand one self and to love or will one self in created and finite Beings are but only Acts of the Vnderstanding and Will but in God we call them Persons Though nothing can be more ridiculous than this account of a Trinity yet to purchase their quiet the Socinians are content to wear a strange and odd Badg For Peace-sake they will say with our Holy Mother the Church Understanding or reflex Wisdom is a Person and Love another Person and these two with original Wisdom shall be called a Trinity Indeed we could wish that so grave a Matron as the Church would leave off Trifling but seeing for the main of it the thing is true for 't is true that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom and he Vnderstandeth and Willeth himself we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things The Church requires us to say Father Son and Spirit Trinity three Divine Persons but she declares at the same time that the meaning only is God or original Mind Vnderstandeth and Loveth himself it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother about a few uncouth or ill-chose Terms and Words on which she confessedly puts a sober meaning a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God or that there is in truth but one subsisting Divine Person Well here are two Explications of the Trinity by the Nominals The first saith the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation Redemption and Sanctification or God considered as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the World or of Mankind The other saith the second and third Persons of the Trinity are indeed three Acts of God but they are internal Acts even his Understanding and Loving himself So that the whole Trinity is original Mind or the subsisting Person of the Father Knowing and Willing himself so these two Parties But another Division of the Nominals tell us the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God whether External or Internal but they are three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power say they are that Trinity which the Church teaches and she teaches no other But then say I 't is evident again that the Church and the Socinians are well agreed for the latter no less than the former believe this Trinity and the only Hereticks in these Questions are the Real Trinitarians who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons three distinct Spirits three Almighty All-knowing Beings But they are not very many tho they are Learned Men that speak after these manners the School-men and the Divines that follow them and who more properly are the Nominal Party deliver themselves in other Terms though in the main in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians all the Divisions of them perfectly agree Because we litigate in the English Tongue and contest these Questions only with English Writers it will be fit to represent the Doctrine of the Schools or the Party which I said are more properly it may be the Nominal Trinitarians out of the late Books of Dr. S th against Dr. Sherlock They teach that God or the Trinity is one Numerical self-same Spiritual and Divine Substance one only Spirit one solitary Being And though he is three Persons by which what they mean we shall see presently there is in the whole Trinty but one infinite Vnderstanding one soveraign Will one almighty Energy or Power of Action in Number This one Divine inteltectual Substance or really subsisting Person is at it were distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation their Relation is not somewhat consequent upon or supervenient to their Subsistence as in created Persons but is one and the same with it These relative Modes being three in Number are the three Personalities of the Deity but the concrete and abstract Terms namely Personalities and Persons are but only different ways of expressing the same thing And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the Godhead by Relations relative Subsistences relative Modes relative Properties or such like So we say also that every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative that is that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person so that as we have but now said both Persons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations or relative Properties of the one self-same Divine Substance Being or Spirit These three relative Modes Relations or relative Properties in the Divine Substance or Godhead are Innascibility or Paternity passive Generation and passive Spiration in plainer English to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or be Breathed the first maketh the Person of the Father the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit This is the Sum of what Doctor S th saith in his last Book or Tritheism Charged pag. 156 157. Mr. Hooker Author of the Ecclesiastical Policy expresses this Doctrine though not so fully yet more intelligibly to the Unlearned in these words The
after all probably the Reformers would have come off no better than the Socinians have done that is with all the clear Truth they have of their side and all their Dexterity and Wit in managing it being over-powered by the numbers of the contrary Herd they should have been answered with Penal Laws and Sanguinary Prosecutions of the those Laws They took therefore a Course that would do their Business unperceived by the most and when perceived by some few it would not be hard to convict them of Tritheism and explode them as Tritheists and so de facto they served Abbat Joachim And then getting their Explication of the Trinity confirmed by the Council of Lateran they happily restored the publick Profession and Faith of the Unity of God by an Authority which none dares to contradict for a General Council as was before noted is the highest Court of the Church that last Tribunal on Earth from which there lies no Appeal Of the Noetians and Sabellians THERE is yet another Branch of Nominal Trinitarians more antient far than those yet mentioned for about the Year of Christ 200 the Noetians and but a little after them the Sabellians arose both these said there is but one Divine Substance Essence or Nature and as the Substance of the Father Son and Spiirt is numerically One so consequently said they there is but one Person of God Father Son and Spirit are but only three Names of God given to him in Scripture by occasion of so many several Dispensations towards the Creature For in regard of the Creation God is called the Father he is named the Son as he wrought Miracles and accomplished the whole Work of Man's Redemption by the Lord Christ in whom he dwelt after a peculiar and extraordinary manner and who indeed was the Son of God by miraculous Conception in the Womb of Holy Mary He has the Name of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit from his omnipotent Energy or Power by which he effecteth all things In a word the Noetians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without Him he may be called as the Modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons the one subsisting Person of God sustaineth the three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons or Persons in a Classical critical Sense And this too is the Explication of the Trinity by that Party in the first Nicene Council who contrived the word Homo-usios or Consubstantial by which they meant that the three Divine Persons have all the same Substance and this is the Party which after the breaking up of that famous Council and upon the sudden Prevalence of the Arian Faction were persecuted by the Arians and were considered by all others as the true Nicene Party till about the Year of Christ 380 the Realists obtained that it should be said that God is tres Hypostases three subsisting Persons Indeed there are several Comma's in the Nicene Creed very hardly reconcilable to the Sabellian Doctrine but as there were three powerful and almost equal Parties in the Nicene Council the Arian Party the Realists and the Sabellians the latter thought it enough if they could procure Homo-usios consubstantial to be inserted into the Creed For that ambiguous Word may be interpreted in favour of all those Parties It may be interpreted the same Substance the very same or same in Number and so it establishes the Sabellian Doctrine or the same in Kind and all Properties and so it countenances the Realists or it may be understood of like Substance and so it pleases the Ariani molles the moderate Arians tho the rigid Arians in the Council would by no means admit of it they rather chose to lose their Bishopricks But when the Council was broke up it was perceived by the other Parties that the zealous Assertors of Homo-usios of the same Substance were all of them Sabellians believed that God is but one subsisting Person and therefore destroyed the real Existence of the Son whom the Arians as well as the Realists took to be a subsisting Person not a relative Person a Respect or a Name only And as the Arians discovered that the Homo-usians were indeed Sabellians so these latter charged the Arians and Realists as guilty of a manifest Tritheism because they so interpreted Homo-usios as to make Father Son and Spirit to be distinct intellectual Substances or subsisting Persons Let us hear their own Historian Socrates L. 1. c. 23. After the Council the Bishops wrangled about the word Homo-usios Those that were for it were censured by the contrary Party as Sabellians and were called Impious because they destroyed the real Existence of the Son Those that were against it were condemned by such as were for it as reviving Gentilism or the belief of more Gods And this Truth that Sabellianism was then taken to be the Nicene Doctrine or the same with the Doctrine of Consubstantiality is owned by the Learned Critick H. Valesius in his Notes on Sacrates L. 1. c. 24. For whereas the Historian saith That Cyrus Bishop of Berea was deposed for holding the Sabellian Doctrine Valesius notes hereupon in these words that is for the Doctrine of the Consubstantiality or the Doctrine of the Nicene Council which Council brought in the Homo-usiotes or Consubstantiality The Sum of what has been said concerning the Nominals THESE at length are the Divisions of the Nominals They all agree that the three Persons of God are not subsisting Persons they are not so many distinct Lives Understandings Wills or Energies which together with a particular Substance make a subsisting Person and if they are more than one they make so many physical real or subsisting Persons no they are Persons in a quite different Sense from that vulgar acceptation of the word Persons They are either three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power Or three external Acts Creation Redemption and Sanctification Or two internal Acts of the subsisting Person of the Father that is to say the Father Vnderstanding and Willing himself and his own Perfections Or three internal Relations that is three Relations of God to himself namely the Divine Substance or Godhead considered as Unbegotten and Proceeding Or three Names of God ascribed to him by the Holy Scriptures because he is the Father of all things by Creation and because he did Inhabit and Operate after an extraordinary and miraculous manner in the Person of the Man Christ Jesus who was verily the Son of God by his wonderful manner of Conception and last of all because he effecteth all things more especially our Sanctification by his Spirit which is to say his Energy or Power Every one sees these are very crude Conceits to be dignified with the Name of Mysteries but withal the Reader is to know that the Mystery is still behind For the Mystery lies not here that one subsisting Person is
a proper physical and natural Sense of the word God for the words God and Man are specifical Terms the former implies divers personal Gods as the other implies many personal and individual Men. He is so far from being ashamed of all this that he adds again Page 85. The Fathers of the Nicene Council nay the whole Eastern Church did appropriate a the title one God to the Father and God of God to the Son The Fathers meant thereby the Son is God not of or from himself but from or by or of the Father See what use Mr. J. B. makes of this at pag. 91. The Phrase God of God does necessarily imply a Multiplication of the term God in some Sense or other And one and the same numerical God in concreto can never be God of God and not God of God these two cannot be verified of the same Subject of one and the same God in concreto or in Person 'T is Heresy in excelsis and the last words in Person designed only to blind his true meaning or to mollifie it to those that happen to understand him do but increase the grossness of his Tritheism He hath said in those words in effect the Nicene Creed and Oriental Church acknowledging one who is God of God this God who is God of or from God cannot be the same God with him from or of whom he is God namely with God the Father these two must be several Subjects different Gods This avowed Tritheism I say is neither hid nor sofmed by adding different Gods in concreto or in Person for it was never said or so much as thought before that the multiplication of Persons in the Godhead or these expressions God the Father God the Son God the H. Spirit would warrant any one to say several Gods or that God of God is not the same both Subject and God with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit In short that which this Author and his Party of Realists intend and say though somewhat Covertly and Artificially is that as all the Men in the World in concreto are notwithstanding sometimes expressed by the general abstract word Man So the three Gods in concreto three Personal really subsisting Gods may also be expressed but they care not how seldom the seldomer the better by that scurvy Socinian abstract word God I have not made these short remarks on Mr. J. B. with a malevotent Intention to create Envy or to raise up Enemies to him I shall confess that as broadly as he has spoke St. Sasil Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers after the Year 380 so Taught and so Spoke and I have before given some instances of it as I shall give more in the Continuation of my Answer to Dr. BuII's Defence of the Nicene Faith and Judgment of the Catholick Church But all that I design is only to appeal to the World whether the Realists have not notoriously owned and professed their Tritheism with which they are charged not only by the Socinians but by the Nominals which is to say by the Church Dr. S th is but one Man he is only a private Doctor but he has rightly understood the Doctrine of the Church if a General Council were again to assemble they would certainly espouse his two Books he hath said neither more nor less nor otherwise than the Catholick Church since the Council of Lateran has constantly taught Mr. J. B. is a Learned and very discerning Person so are other Realists of this Nation I must not say of the English or of the Catholick Church for they are departed from both who have lately written against the Socinians but they have opposed to ours such an Explication of the words God Persons Trinity as Dr. S th hath deservedly called a Trinity of Gods nor will they be ever able to wipe off the Imputation Mr. J.B. must not think he has answered Dr. S th he hath only sometimes mistaken him sometimes misreported or perverted his plain and obvious Meaning or quarrelled with the Doctrine of the Schools and of the Lateran Council which is to say of the Catholick Church to make room for the exploded Tritheism of St. Basil and some other Fathers The Doctrine of the Catholick Church Mr. J.B. knows well can be fetched only from General Councils the Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council particular Fathers are but only particular Doctors they are not the Church how many soever they are Therefore I desire Mr. J. B. to tell me what Council ever used his Language that one Divine Person is one God as perfectly one God as one Angelical Person is one perfect Angel In what Council shall we find that the word God is equivalent to a Species which is to say the Divinity no less than the Humanity or the Manhood comprehends several Individuals of the same both Nature and Denomination as there are many Men in concreto so there are divers Gods also in concreto Can he direct us to that Council which teaches that God of God and God not of God that is Father and Son are not the same God or that the term God implies any Multiplication Did ever any Council so far apostatize from Christianity as to deny that there is but one numerical God and call that Doctrine the Faith of Jews Mahometans and Heathens But this is Mr. J. B's Language and the Doctrine of all the Realists they all intend as he has said nor will any of them censure his Book but applaud it as a great and extraordinary Performance I do not regard the Impertinences of Mr. Tho. Holdsworth of North-Stoneham near Southampton in his late Impar Conatui which he hath opposed to Mr. J. B. This Orlando has vomited up his Crudities on a Person too much above him to take notice of him and all that I shall trouble my self to say of him is that if as he has been careful to tell us the Place of his Residence and of his Vicinage so he had also told us his Age we might have guessed with more certainty than now we well can whether he raves or dotes The Realists speak much more Mystically or Absurdly than the Nominals I Must make another Remark on the Realists namely That the absurd contradictory and impossible Things partly expresty said by 'em partly implied in their Doctrine are far less tolerable or accountable than the forced Improprieties in the use of Words and Terms by the Nominals are I confess both Parties so often depart from the common use of Terms and Words that one as well as the other is frequently forced to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Mystery when they cannot assoil the Difficulties objected to themselves by each other or by the Socinians to both when they find that the use of Words and the nature of Things are both against them they cry Mystery their Doctrine then they confess though a Truth is however a Mystery above the Capacity whether of themselves
to the Papists themselves as to us of the Reformation their Memory is glorious and ought to be precious also among us But we say also that the Augéan Stable was too foul to be absolutely cleansed at once even by Hercules and his Companions Dr. Luther did a great deal the Labours of his Companions and Seconds were very laudable but much Filth is still left behind We desire to be fairly and candidly heard concerning some corruptions in the Faith and some abuses in the Morality still taught and particularly which is the Subject of these present Papers concerning the Object of our Faith and Worship Almighty GOD. We see we own that the Doctrine of the Church meaning by the Church the Nominal Trinitarians is sound as to the Sense and Intention of it but we humbly offer that the Terms in which 't is expressed are Vnscriptural and very Dangerous The words Trinity Incarnation Hypostatical Vnion are never used in Scripture nor is God ever there called Persons but Person And 't is evident that by occasion of these Terms the Vulgar have such a conception of the Trinity as is certain Tritheism When the People hear of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost they know not that thereby are meant only so many Relations of God either internal Relations to himself or external Relations to the Creature but they conceive in their Minds such a Father Son and Spirit distinct from both as are so many several subsisting Spirits so many distinct All-perfect Beings in very Deed so many Living Gods and not one God under three several Conceptions For tho they are taught to say three Divine Persons and but one God and that God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost tho each of them is God yet all of them are but one God this last all of them but one God because they know not how 't is to be conceived with the other namely that each of them is God and one of them is God the Father another God the Son they utterly lose the Conception of one God and retain only what is intelligible to them namely three Divine Persons each of them a God We think that the Church having gained her Point against the Fathers and Realists in the Lateran Council and having been in Possession of the Truth for near 500 Years together she may now fling off the Disguise hitherto used the dangerous Tritheistick terms Trinity Persons and the rest she may now begin to declare the Truth she owns in Terms and Words that are proper for it Why does she frown upon those nay persecute them that believe the Unity of God in the Sense that she holds it only because they would cast out the Terms that so plainly favour the Tritheists that is the Realists What has the Church to fear has not the Lateran Council and all Writers ever since declared the Realists to be Hereticks therefore what need is there to retain their Terms when we have discharged the Notions intended by them 'T is true we can say as the Church does three Divine Persons the Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God taking these words in the Church's Sense not for subsisting Persons that is to say Living Spirits but for Relations Properties Modes or such like We can say God was Incarnate meaning he did inhabit the Lord Christ after an ineffable manner and without Measure which is really as much as the Church intends by the word Incarnation We own the eternal Generation of the Son or Word and Procession of the Spirit by and from the Father explaining our selves with the School-Divines the Church and divers Fathers thus that God or the Father or original Wisdom conceived a most perfect Image of himself by understanding and considering his own Perfections and that he loveth or willeth as well as understandeth himself We can even say three Divine subsisting Persons intending with Dr. S th the Schools the Lateran Council and the Church Relative Subsistences whose Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation Which are Dr. S th's express words Tritheism charged p. 156. I cannot but ask it again why does the Church keep or impose on us such Words and Terms as in their present Signification destroy the Faith we both imbrace the Faith of the real Vnity of God We can say as the Church says we can use her Terms because we know her meaning but we cannot but say of them as Mr. Calvin did when ask'd his Opinion of the English Common-Prayers Tolerabiles Ineptiae For in very Deed 't is meer Trifling and something worse when the signification of these Terms and Words is wholly altered from what it antiently was yet still to retain them while the Church knows at the same Time that they give wrong Notions to the Vulgar making all our People Tritheists and serve also to animate and harden the Realists in their Heresy But I must do the Church this right to confess that most of her greatest Men particularly the first Reformers have publish'd to all the World their hearty desire that all these terms of the Realists were abolish'd and all were obliged to use the Scripture-Language and Words only which would heal all our Breaches and perfectly restore our Peace not only in this but in almost all other Questions and Strifes Let us hear of so many as might be alledged Dr. M. Luther and Mr. J. Calvin M. Luther complains The word Trinity sounds odly it were better to call Almighty God God than Trinity Postil major Dominic Mr. Calvin is yet less pleased with these kind of Terms he says I like not this Prayer O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity It savours of Barbarity the word Trinity is barbarous insipid profane an human Invention grounded on no Testimony of God's Word the Popish God unknown to the Prophets and Apostles Admon 1. ad Polon Decemb. 17. 1695. FINIS
A DISCOURSE Concerning the Nominal and Real Trinitarians Non Partûm Studiis agimur sed sumsimus arma Consiliis inimica tuis Discordia vecors Printed in the Year 1695. Of the Nominal and Real TRINITARIANS The Distinction of Trinitarians into Nominals and Realists and the Design of these Sheets IT will easily appear to all that have seen the late Prints between the Trinitarians and Unitarians That the Questions controverted between us are managed here on another Foot as they speak in another Method and by different Arguments than in Foreign parts or by the Latin Writers Among other remarks that we have made and urged the English Vnitarians show That their Opposers do indeed all go under the common name of Trinitarians but are in truth a great many several and contrary Sects They all cast up their Caps and cry Trinity Trinity But the Ideas they have of the Trinity and consequently their Faiths concerning this pretended Mystery are so many and so contrary that they are less one Party among themselves than the far more Learned and far greater Number of them I mean hereby the Nominal Trinitarians are one Party with Us. As much as the Socinians are clamour'd on for abominable intolerable Hereticks there is nothing more certain than that the Nominal Trinitarians who are truly and properly the Church and who are by much the Majority of Christians are altogether in the same Sentiments concerning Almighty GOD and the Person of our Saviour that we are This is one of the Points that I shall insist on and evince in these Sheets but I shall argue divers other Matters these two especially That the several Sects of Real Trinitarians are guilty of a manifest Tritheism their Doctrine necessarily and immediately infers three Gods and that the Nominal Trinitarians have causlesly innovated the Language of the Holy Scripture and of the Primitive Church concerning GOD and the Person of the Lord Christ I said in the Language of Scripture and of the antient Church for they have retained the Primitive and true Doctrine only they have not kept to the Form of sound Words I will speak first of our Brethren the Nominal Trinitarians then of the Tritheistick Tribes or Realists Of the Nominal Trinitarians that these are the Church THE first observation to be made on the Nominals is that these are the Church which I prove by two incontestable Arguments 1. Their Doctrine has been espoused by a General Council The Council assembled at the Lateran in the Year 1215 established in the most ample manner and most express Terms the Doctrine of the School-Divines or Nominal Trinitarians and condemns in the Person and Writings of Abbat Joachim the Doctrine of the Real Trinitarians as Heretical and Mad I use the very words of the 2d Canon of that Council To this Argument I must note two things First This Council was more truly General than almost any of the Councils that are so called Here were present 1200 Fathers the Ambassadours of the Emperour of Constantinople the King of the Romans the Kings of France England Arragon Hungary Jerusalem Cyprus and divers others Here also were the five Patriarchs partly in Person partly by their Legats the Roman Constantinopolitan he of Jerusalem the Antiochian and Alexandrian whose Presence by themselves or their Legats is supposed necessary towards constituting an Oecumenical or General Council Secondly Divines and Canonists do not give the name of Heresy to any Doctrine because 't is rejected by a great number of Learned Men or by a National Council but they reckon it Heresy if it has been censur'd by a General Council which represents the Vniversal Church Be the mistake never so great let it have been condemned by never so many Writers whether Fathers or Moderns or both 't is only Error 't is not Heresy unless it has been Anathematiz'd by the Catholick or Universal Church and the Catholick Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council which for that reason is called the Church Representative Briefly Heresy and the Faith can be declared but only by a General Council the General Council at the Lateran in Rome has avowed the Doctrine of the Nominal Trinitarians and Anathematiz'd the Hypothesis and Explication of the Real Trinitarians therefore say I the former are the Church the latter are Hereticks I am amazed when I hear some Real Trinitarians say in their Books That the Doctrine of the Nominals never had any other publick Authority but the Creed and 2d Canon of the Council of Lateran for what other equal Authority thereto can it have is not a General Council the highest Court of the Church Her Canons declare the Faith her Anathemas Heresy And what other Council ever was so General as this in which were assembled the Emperour and Kings of the East and West the Latin and Greek Churches 1200 Fathers and what especially makes a General Council the five Patriarchs of Christendom What will the Realists say here that this was a Popish Council First it would be News indeed that the Roman Catholicks are not Orthodox in the Questions concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation It has ever been granted to them both by the Lutherans Calvinists and Church of England that they are sound in Fundamentals in the Doctrines of the Trinity the Incarnation the Satisfaction and such like their Error consists in the Additions they have made to the Fundamentals and namely by their Doctrines of Indulgences Transubstantiation Worship and Invocation of Images and Saints and the rest And is the Greek Church also Heretical in the Doctrine of the Trinity for in this Council the Greek Emperour and Church were represented as well as the Latin Church nay of the five Patriarchs here present four of them belong to the Orient or Greek Church When the Realists have turned themselves all ways they will find themselves held and even bound by the Authority of this Council which is too Great and Venerable to be openly or directly disclaimed 'T is objected to this Council by Mr. Spanheim the present Learned Professor at Leyden that they assented to and published 70 Canons in 20 days Time and that the Canons were not framed by the Fathers but by the Pope These are frivolous Exceptions unworthy of so Learned an Historian for 't is not at all to the purpose who contrived these Canons seeing they were approved assented to and published by the Council Canons are oft-times composed by some particular Father in a Council sometimes by a Committee of the Council sometimes as in the present Case by the President but by whomsoever they are drawn up they are not the Canons of that Person or Persons but of the Council when the Council has examined approved and voted them But Mr. Spanheim doth not find Fault with this Council for their Explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity or the Canons that refer to any part of that Article but because it was convened under pretence indeed to carry on
the War against the Saracens in the Holy Land but really to raise a Crusade or Holy War against the Albigenses and to confirm the Vassalage of John King of England to the See of Rome against the Consent of the English Peerage that is in short to inlarge the Jurisdiction and increase the Authority of the Western Patriarch or Bishop of Rome 2. My second as I said incontestable Proof that the Nominal Trinitarians are the Church is that the Divinity-Chairs and all Writers whether of Controversy or Systems have ever followed the Doctrine of the Schools which is the Doctrine of the Nominal Trinitarians and the Creed and 2d Canon of the beforesaid Council of Lateran in declaring the Doctrine of the Trinity They all take it as the Council-Schools and Nominals do for their Foundation That there is but one only and self-same Divine Substance and in that Substance but one infinite Undestanding but one almighty Energy and Will in number Which is to say there is but one really Subsisting divine Person or God is but one subsisting Person tho in a Critical or Classical Sense of the word Persons namely when Persons is used only for various Relations of the same really subsisting Person we may say there are three Divine Persons A subsisting Person is by Confession of all one particular Substance having one Understanding Will and Energy or power of Action in number therefore God being according to the Council Schools and all Nominals one Substance or one particular spiritual Substance with one only Understanding Energy and Will he can be according to them but one subsisting Person tho he may be more Metaphysical or Classical Persons that is more Relations or Properties This I say is the Doctrine of that Council of the Schools and of the Nominal Trinitarians and it has always been approved and taught by the Divinity-Chairs and by the Writers both of Systems and Controversy therefore the Nominals not the Realists are the Church I shall grant that the real Trinitarians have on their side the most and most considerable of the Fathers reckoning from about the Year of Christ 140 and meaning those Fathers whose Writings have been suffered to come down to our Times and excepting out of the Number the Party in the first Nicen Council which some little time after the breaking up of that Council were considered as the Orthodox Party and the Church and were persecuted as such by the Arians But the Nominals have what is much more considerable all the Moderns accounting the Moderns from the Council of Lateran or the Year 1215. Since that Council Learning and more especially Theological Learning has not only been revived but greatly improved the later Divines have been better Criticks Interpreters Philosophers than the Fathers were and the two last Ages only have afforded more Hundreds of able Divines than there were single Persons of the Fathers Of the Latin Fathers only St. Jerem would have been accounted a Learned Divine in our Age and of the Greeks Origen Eusebius the two Gregories Basil St. John Chrysostom and four or five more had the rest wrote in any part of the two last Ages they should undoubtedly have been reckoned among the Scriblers The Nominals therefore if you demand Authority produce a General Council not only establishing their Hypothesis or Explication of the Trinity but denouncing Anathema to the contrary Doctrine and the Realists if you require a Poll if you will be judged by most Votes they have for them an hundred far more Learned Moderns against one Father who can be cited for their Opposers the Realists Why the Nominals are so called their Doctrine and Agreement with the Unitarians THE Church then as I said is unquestionably the Nominal Party and this Party is so called because as the Realists are denominated from their believing three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many real subsisting Persons so the Nominals believe three Divine Persons who are Persons in Name only indeed and in truth they are but one subsisting Person This will appear by all more fully and clearly by the account I shall now give in their own Words and Terms of their Doctrine Hypothesis or Explication The Nominals are one Party in several Subdivisions they must be called one Party because their Explications so far agree as really to leave but one God and one Divine Person properly and physically so called All the Divisions of the Nominals accord that there is but one only and self-same Divine Essence and Substance the Divine Substance according to them is one in Number not as the Realists hold one in Properties only which indeed were only a likeness of Substances not an Vnity As the Divine Substance is numerically One so according to the Nominals is the Divine Understanding Energy and Will they are not repeated as the Persons are but they are one as strictly and properly as the Essence or Substance is one Or more clearly if it may be thus as there is but one Divine spiritual Substance so there is but one omniscient Understanding but one omnipotent Energy but one most Holy Will. They allow indeed of three Persons in the Sense hereafter declared but all these Persons have but one Understanding one Will one Energy in Number Having laid this honest and sound Foundation they take a Latitude and without quarrelling with or censuring one another in declaring what is to be meant by the three Persons One saith they are only three Acts of God whereby he is denominated after three several manners On the account of his Creating Redeeming and Sanctifying Mankind he is called three Persons for say these Gentlemen a Creator is a Person a Redeemer is a Person a Sanctifier is a Person If you reply true but one Person may perform all these Acts and sustain all these Denominations they answer you have rightly understood them for they intend not to say there are three Divine physical or subsisting Persons but three Persons in a Critical or Classical or if you will Metaphysical sense of the word Persons For instance three such Persons as one Man who happens to be a King a Husband and a Father may be said to be Every Body knows who is that Learned Professor that preached this Trinity first in three Sermons to the University of Oxford with great applause afterwards maintained it with no less Approbation among the London Divines in divers Letters by him published The Socinians not only never denied three such Persons in God or such a Trinity but as willingly avow it as this Professor himself his Learned Auditory at Oxford or his Admirers at London Why are we Hereticks while he is not only confest to be Orthodox and Catholick but is esteemed as a worthy and deserving Apologist for the Faith Why may not the Author of the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius or he of the Considerations on the Explications and Defences of the Trinity succeed to this Professor in his Canonship at
made to be three Relative Persons or three Names or three Attributes or that God is called Father because he Created all things Son because he Inhabited and Operated in the Son our Lord Christ or Spirit because he is that Almighty Energy which effected all things for all this though very harsh and improper is yet intelligible and the manner of speaking in Antient Times did warrant such ways of expressing themselves as may be seen in the Classical Authors both Romans and Greeks But it is Mystery because or as when you apply any of these Explications of the Trinity to the Incarnation the Hypostatical Union or the Satisfaction 't is next to impossible to make any degree of Sense of it for how can we say that an Attribute or a Property or a Name or to be Begotten or any such like was Incarnate or Satisfied for Sin as also because the Terms Generation and Procession cannot without most remote and ridiculous Subtleties be applied to three Attributes or to Understanding and Willing ones self or to the same Unbegotten and unproceeding Substance or to Creation and Redemption and Sanctification In short our poor Brethren the Nominals are here purely constrained and forced to call their Doctrine Mystery because 't is so hard to find a way to reconcile it to the ordinary Forms of speaking that is to common Sense Therefore here the Realists glory over them here they have an ample Field for Wit and Sarcasm to parade in here they ask the Nominals an hundred malevolent pleasant Questions to which they answer by objecting Profaness to the Questionists and by the serious word Mystery Moreover they the Nominals comfort themselves that the whole Mystery or Absurdity of their Doctrine consists only in the Terms Trinity c. which they are forced to retain to preserve the Church's Peace not in the Sense or thing intended for the meaning and Sum of their Doctrine as they explain it is there is but one Divine subsisting Person not more such Persons for that were to say more Gods Besides after all the dry Bobs of the Realists on the Nominals themselves must take their turn of being jeered For when their Explications come to be examined and their Contradictions to and Comdemnations of one another as Tritheists are considered the Nominals will seem to be profound Philosophers deep Sages in comparison with these their Opposers and these Opposers the Realists such awkward uncouth Rusticks that a great deal of Charity or Discretion must be used within ones self to be civil to them But I shall not consider their Persons or Doctrine as the Nominals do neither with Railery nor Anger as the manner now is but only as desirous to convince them that they have as causlesly departed from the Doctrine of the Church as dangerously Of the Realists that they are divided into two Factions which comdemn each the other of manifest Tritheism THE first Observation to be made on the Real Trinitarians is not only that as has been said they stand Condemned and Anathematiz'd as Hereticks by a General Council and by all the Moderns who are more and more Learned than the Fathers or that they are every day challeng'd and impeached of Tritheism by Learned Men of the Nominal Party and Appeals made to Universities and the Divinity-Chairs against them But they themselves being divided among themselves censure one another as manifest Tritheists They are divided into many Parties but all those Parties are again bandied into two principal Factions that can never be reconciled to one another One of these Factions saith that the three Divine Persons are every way equal namely Co-eternal alike Omnipotent Omniscient and Omnipresent Most of the Fathers after the Year 380 were of this Perswasion because they plainly saw that to ascribe any Perfection or degree of that Perfection to the Father more than to the Son or Spirit is to say in effect that the Father only is true God not the Son or Spirit because whosoever hath not omnimodous Perfection cannot be God And for this reason they affirm and earnestly contend That any one of the three Divine Persons is equal to all the Three the whole Trinity is not greater or more perfectly God than any one of the Trinity is Surely a strange Paradox that one Third should be Equal or Equivalent to the Whole Yet the Modern Realists the most hold this Opinion as well as th Antients did But the more Learned and Ablest of the Moderns detest so much as the Mention of three Equal Divine Persons for what are three Gods say they of three equally Supereminent and All-sufficient subsisting Persons are not three Gods If they are Equal in Dignity and Power as wel as Co-eternal we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods but three such Persons Therefore these Gentlemen suppose that the Son and Spirit are inferiour to the Father in all things but only this that they are Co-eternal with him they are Subordinate to him Dependent on him and are Omnipotent and the rest of the Divine Attributes not ad intra or of themselves but only as he concurs with them to all their Actions Episcopius Instit l. 4. c. 32. and Dr. Cudworth Intellec System pag. 603 604. largely defend this Opinion and condemn those of undeniable Tritheism who make the Son and Spirit to be equal to the Father But to know the Writers who believe the equality of the Son and Spirit with the Father from those that deny it this Rule most commonly will serve They that say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of himself and Independent generally hold the absolute Equality of all the three Persons and that one Person of the Trinity is equal to the whole Trinity for if he were not they plainly see he could not be perfect God for something would be wanting to him that is found in the whole Trinity But those that deny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more commonly make the Son and Spirit subordinate to the Father not only in Dignity but in all other Respects but these though they ground themselves on the Authority of the Nicene Creed which in direct opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God of himself affirms the Son is God of God that is God of or from the Father seldom care to speak plain that they may avoid giving Offence Let us consider the Arguments with which these two Factions of Realists attack one another and what effectual use the Nominals make of those very Arguments to ridicule and destroy both Parties and their common Principle or Foundation namely this that the Divine Persons are subsisting Persons not Persons but only critically so called By what Arguments the Parties of Realists attack and oppose each the other and what effectual Vse the Nominals make of this Contention FIRST say they who affirm the Equality if the Son and Spirit are Subordinate in Dignity and Authority and inferior in Power and other Divine Attributes it
or of any others But then say I the Realists would cover such flat Impossibilities such gross Contradictions to common Sense in a Word such Monstrosities under the cloak of Mystery that they have infinitely more need of that wretched Blind than the Nominals who only by explaining their Terms which Custom and Law have imposed on them go a great way in fairly satissying all Difficulties and when they cannot perfectly account for them they make some small use of Mystery To understand this we must take a short view of the polite happy Things said by them both The Nominals teach there is but one numerical God or one God in Number who yet is three Persons That the Father is God the Son is God the H. Ghost is God yet all three are but one God one God in Number one self-same God They are perfectly aware this were equally Impossible and Ridiculous if 't were not dextrously interpreted and explained it would not be Mystery or Mysterious Truth but notorious Falshood and Absurdity they well know if wholly left in these Terms without an Explication Therefore they declare that by the term Persons and the words Father Son and Spirit they mean not with the Vulgar several subsisting Persons that is to say So many intellectual Substances with each his own particular Life Understanding Will and power of Action for they confess there is in God but one Substance Life Understanding Will Energy in number but three Persons in God are so many States or Respects or Properties or Relations or something equivalent to these of the same ore Divine intellectual Substance or Nature And in this Sense also according to the Nominals the words Father Son and Spirit when used of God are to be understood namely as Relations or States all of them sustained by one and the same subsisting Person or intellectual Substance not as in so many Subjects or as denominating variously three distinct Beings They show that so the Classical Authors both Greek and Latin spoke and as their Language was adopted by the Church in speaking of God with great Propriety so in process of Time the use of Words being much altered occasion was given to introduce the Heresy of the Realists who unlearnedly understanding the old Words in a novel Sense have brought into the Church three Gods instead of one Again they the Nominals say the second Person of the Trinity or of God was Incarnate in the Man Christ Jesus in such manner that thereby the Lord Christ is God as well as Man This also is called by that Mystical Name the Hypostatical or personal Union But they mean no more by it than this that God was as much and truly united to the Humanity as the Human Nature is capable of that is to say in a most extraordinary marvellous and to us unaccountable Manner When they say O God the Father have Mercy on us O God the Son O God the Holy Ghost have Mercy on us they intend not hereby three Objects of Worship or so many several Patrons and Helpers but only as these are so many Relations and Respects of the Deity either to himself or to us so they invocate him by these Distinctions or in these several Properties and Relations In short the whole Mystery consists in the Terms they use and scarce at all if at all in the Sense or things intended by those Terms which things or sense are received and imbraced by us the Unitarians for we admit the whole Doctrine as here declared and explained But 't is quite otherwise with the Realists their Non-sense is in the thing meant not in the Words or Terms They say there are three Divine subsisting Persons three infinite Spirits three omniscient Minds three distinct Almighties as distinct as so many Angels or Men each of them as truly properly adequately and perfectly God as each Man is a Man and each Angel an Angel and yet all of them are but one God This we confess is Mystery with a Witness the Mystery every one sees lies not in the Words and Terms but the thing it self is absurd and impossible to cry Mystery here is to profess that by Mystery we mean Contradiction and Impossibilities The Excuses they make for this Mystery are as mysterious or more mysterious than the Mystery for which they would apologize For to say these three most perfect Gods become one God by their mutual Accord and Love is as if you should pretend that by Love and Accord three Men are one Man And when they say they are one God by likeness or sameness of Nature and Properties and by being in one another they might equally say that two or more Angels because they have the same Nature and Properties and being Spiritual do immeate or are in one another are thereby one Angel These Explications of their Mystery are assuredly as great Mysteries as direct Contradictions to Reason and common Experience as the Doctrine it self of one God and three Divine subsisting Persons But why do the Realists expect that Mankind will be perswaded to accept such palpable abnegations of all consistent Sense for Mystery words that are hardly Sense or of either ambiguous or obscure meaning may be put off with some or other who care not for the Trouble of considering for Mystery but gross Contradictions obvious and notorious Non-sense will never be mistaken for Mystery 'T is true People may be constrained to profess it or to subscribe to it but they never believe it no not when through a long habit of Submission to the Commands of others they seem to themselves to believe it I doubt not that the Doctors of the Church of Rome seem to themselves to believe the Transubstantiation because having accustom'd themselves to submit to the Declarations of the Church they have never suffered any reluctance to arise in their Minds against any of those Declarations notwithstanding I am perswaded not a Man of them truly believes that Mystery were all Fears and Hopes and other blassing Interests removed they would presently perceive that in very Deed they believe it not their Reasons never assented to an impossible Proportion nor could assent but only as I said through a long habit of Submission they did not discern that they assented not to the Church's Declarations And this I believe is true also of all who pretend or seem to believe any other inconsistent or impossible Doctrines The Tritheism of the Realists not grounded on the H. Scripture BUT this once more 't is not on a probable or prudent Ground that the Realists sometimes pretend that the Tritheism they impose has such a Foundation in Holy Scripture that as on the one side to believe the Trinity in their Notion of it is a violence done to Reason so not to own and profess it would oblige them to as great a Violence and Disobedience to Holy Scripture I confess I have often wondred that Men so Learned and Discerning as very many of the Realists are
should maintain such an Opinion and after having made such Concessions to the Nominals and to the Unitarians as the Realists do They grant it to be certain and incontestable not only in Reason but in Holy Scripture that there is but one God but one Creator they allow this to be so true and evident that the Scripture ought never to be so interpreted as in any degree to contradict this first Article of all revealed Religion because to interpret Holy Scripture at any Time or in any part of it inconsistently with that Article were to make it contradict it self and that too where it speaks most plainly and expresly I say this Foundation being laid and agreed on all Hands I have often wondred at the pretence of the Realists for their Doctrine being a manifest Tritheism as explained by them in saying 'tis what the Holy Scriptures teach they say that the Sacred Scriptures contradict themselves They would have it understood as a great deference on their Parts towards the Holy Scriptures that they imbrace and profess the Doctrine therein contained though such Doctrine very flatly contradicts all Reason and common Sense and withal other parts of the same Scriptures but it were far more becoming such as they are to express their Reverence for the Scripture by interpreting it consistently with it self and with Reason as the Nominals and Unitarians do than to expose it to the contempt and unbelief of all others by such a Reverence of it as this Book needs not that is to say by pretending to believe it indeed but believe it as manifestly inconsistent with it self as well as with that Reason which God has infused into the Human Nature for a Guide and Judg in all either obscure or doubtful Matters It is the Church and the Unitarians that truly reverence the Scriptures by rescuing them from senseless and contradictory which is to say impossible Senses But supposing it were true that the meer Words of some few suspected or ambiguous Texts did seem very much to favour the Doctrine of the Realists yet seeing those Texts as interpreted by the Realists too plainly contradict evident Reason and the Nature of things why will not these Gentlemen see that in such a Clash as this We must interpret the Scripture consistently with Reason and the nature of things because words will bear to be somewhat strained much rather than things The nature of Things and the dictates of Reason are Eternal and Immutable they will not admit or bear the least Stretch Strain or Violence done to them but Words are of a very desultory and vagrant Meaning they are sometimes to be taken Literally or as they Sound sometimes in a metaphorical or figurative Sense sometimes in an Hyperbolical that is excessive nay sometimes in an Ironical which is to say contrary Sense which being the Case of all Books and Writings whatsoever there can never be a real Necessity of so interpreting the Scripture that it should contradict the known Nature of things plain Reason or it self Whereas some say here and are willing always to repeat it that the current of Scripture is so much and so clearly for such a Trinity as the Realists profess that it would be manifest Violence done to the Divine Word to interpret it as the Socinians do I answer Cedò locum name me the Text or Context alledged for the Doctrine of the Trinity that is not interpreted by some of the most Learned Criticks and Interpreters of the Trinitarian Party in the same manner as 't is understood by the Unitarians Why do they pretend that they are constrained and by the clearness and the current of Scripture to profess a Trinity of Divine subsisting Persons when all Learned Men know that the Texts they have to alledg are so far from being the current of Scripture that they are few in Number and also of very suspected Authority that is they are justly doubted of whether they are genuine original Parts of Scripture or have been added to it and so far from being clear that they are extreamly Ambiguous and accordingly not only some but even the generality of Trinitarian Criticks interpret most of them as we do and not only most of them but the Principal of them more particularly the objected Texts that seem to impute the Creation of Things to our Saviour As I said but now Cedò locum I demand that Text or Context which I will not show is interpreted by the most sufficient of their own Party as we take it but if so as 't is not the first Time this Challenge has been made to them why do they so untruly pretend that they are carried away by the Current of Scripture and by the clearness of it both on their sides May they call a few single Texts or rather shreds of Texts the Current of Scripture or talk of the clearness of their Texts when they cannot alledg so much as one but is interpreted to an Unitarian Sense by some of their own best Writers on the Scriptures and of Controversy With how much more Reason and Sincerity may the Unitarians claim the current of Scripture and that 't is clear also on their Side For there is not a Page there but speaks of God in the singular Number there God is never called Persons but Person he is always spoken of and to by singular Pronouns such as I Thou Thee He Him Me which are never used in any Language but only of one single Person never of three subsisting Persons When the Realists say the Scriptures are clear of their side they mean it chiefly of those Texts wherein Christ is called God and of those in which the Creation of the World and of all things is or seems to be attributed to him But how often is the name God given in Holy Scripture to those that either represent God as Kings and Magistrates or that are like to him in some very distinguishing Respect or in whom he dwells after a peculiar manner as Prophets and Heroical Persons is not Moses for one Instance on all these accounts called God and by God himself And is it a Marvel then that the Mediator also of the New Testament as well as he of the Old is dignified with this Name And yet as I have said elsewhere I am well assured that the Realists will never prove against the Author of the Brief History of the Socinians that the name God is really given to the Lord Christ in any Text that is a genuine Part of Scripture that is to say that hath not been corrupted by the Zeal of Catholicks to make it more conformable to their Sentiments As to the Texts that impute the Creation of things to the Son that is to the Lord Christ do not all Learned Men know that the best of the Trinitarian Interpreters some of the zealousest Men of the Party understand all those Texts of the New Creation that is of the Renovation of things on Earth by the Ministry of