The utmost their Hypothesis will allow them to pretend to is That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a distinct Person from the Person of the WORD According to the Schoolmen the Humane Nature of Christ subsists and is a Principium quod of all its own Actions equally with the Humane Nature of any other Humane Person they seem to me to strive to disguise the Heresy of Nestorius by saying That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a distinct Person from the Person of the WORD because it subsists by the Subsistence or Personality of the WORD To explain this a little The Schoolmen who under pain of Heresy assert but one singular absolute Substance in the Trinity found a great and almost insuperable difficulty so to explain the Incarnation that only the Person of the WORD and not the whole Trinity was incarnated or became Man This is an obvious enquiry What it is which was immediately united to the Humane Nature of Christ so as to denominate Christ both God and Man To assert that the singular common Divine Nature was immediately united to the Humane Nature was to assert the Incarnation of the whole Trinity since whatever belongs to the common Divine Nature immediately belongs equally to the whole Trinity it remains therefore according to them that only the Mode of Subsistence of the WORD was immediately united to the Humane Nature This Answer has visibly many difficulties in it which may be considered hereafter Now I am only to enquire how it denies the Humane Nature of Christ to be a distinct Person from the Person of the WORD The Humane and Divine Nature of Christ have say they but one singular Mode of Subsistence Well grant that possible What follows The Schoolmen say that then they are not two distinct Persons I cannot for my life see the Consequence That Maxim of the Law Quando duo jura concurrunt in una persona oequum est ac si concurrerent in duobus may be as I conceive applied here If we suppose it possible for one Personality to constitute two distinct Natures each a Person it is a meer wrangle of a term to deny these two Natures to be two distinct Persons they have all the Properties of two distinct Persons they are two distinct Principia quoe equally with two other Persons The Animadverter does not barely alledge these to me unintelligible Subtilties of the Schools as the only defence of the sacred Article of the Incarnation against Nestorianism but in his third and next Argument to prove that Self-consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in finite Persons He unwittingly I charitably presume has endeavoured to overthrow the defence which the most Learned and Orthodox Fathers of the Church have given us of this sacred and mysterious Article P. 73. N. 4. The Soul of man is Self-conscious and yet not a Person therefore c. P. 74. lin 22. If the Soul be a Person then the Body must be joined to it by being assumed into the personal subsistence of the Soul as the Humane Nature of Christ is assumed into the personal subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon the composition and constitution of a man will be an Hypostatick Union between Soul and Body which I suppose no Body will be either so bold or absurd as to affirm all Divines accounting an Hypostatical Union so peculiar to Christ's Person as not to be admitted in any other Person or Being whatsoever For an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. such an one as makes a compound Hypostasis are quite different things and this Author shall in due time be taught so much if he has any thing to object against it The Compiler of the Athanasian Creed has in this spoke the sense of the Catholick Church For as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is one man so God and Man is one Christ that is One not by Confusion of Substance but by Unity of Person I hope no True Son of the Church of England nor indeed Candid Lover of the Article but will pardon my digression if it deserve to be called such to vindicate this Similitude whereby the most Learned Fathers of the Church have endeavoured to illustrate and defend this Article against all its Heretical Opponents The Animadverter first objects That then the Constitution of a Man will be an Hypostatick Vnion Alas Obj. 1. How extremely afraid are some persons of having the Articles of their Faith found agreeable to the common Principles of Reason If by an Hypostatick Union he means that the Soul and Body of Man only subsist by the same singular Mode of Subsistence and that nothing but the Mode of the Subsistence of the Soul is immediately united to the Body I do assure the Animadverter that I believe not a Syllable of this I do not believe that one Mode can modify two Subjects or that a corporeal Body can be terminated perfected by a Mode of an incorporeal nature such as the Soul is Figure is a Mode of quantity and yet to me it seems unconceivable that a Giant should be terminated by the figure of a Dwarf without any alteration of his quantity or that a Dwarf should have the figure of a Giant and yet not altered in quantity Less am I able to conceive that the Humane Nature of Christ should be terminated by a Mode of Subsistence which belongs to a Divine Nature Secondly Obj. 2. If the Constitution of a Man be an Hypostatick Union then an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. such an One as makes a compound Hypostasis will not be quite different things then the Hypostatick Union in Christ will be also an Hypostatick Composition and then the Person of Christ will be a compound Hypostasis Well and what follows from all this why nothing but a threatning of the Animadverter's That in due time we shall be taught the Falshood of all this But not to await his due time I answer that to say that the Hypostatick Union in Christ is also an Hypostatick Composition or which is the same that Christ is a compound Hypostasis is so far from being a Paradox that it is the received Language not only of the Greek Fathers but of the Councils Syn. 5a. Constantin Can. 4. Sancti Patres docuerunt unitatem Dei verbi ad carnem animatam anima rationali intellectuali secundum compositionem Theodori autem Nestorii sequaces divisione gaudentes affectualem unitatem introducunt Sancta Dei verò Ecclesia utriusque perfidioe impietatem ejiciens unitionem Dei verbi ad carnem secundum compositionem confitetur Vide Can. 7um hujus Concilii Lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 3. sect 12. p. 232. Hear Petavius's Confession Christi Domini Hypostasin sive personam à plerisque Patribus dici compositam ex naturis duabus ut ab Cyrillo Damasceno Maximo aliis To which add what the Learned Suarez hath observed Suarez de
in the proper and genuine Sense of the Phrase the Modes of Subsistence the Divine Relations are capable of an easie and fair Solution as I have formerly hinted chap. 1. n. 14. Upon the whole Matter in discoursing of the Trinity P. 245. l. 19. n. 9. Two things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon One that each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other That each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from the other This one Sentence is a truly Golden one contains the fundamental Truth of this Article of the Trinity But to speak the truth it stands like a Parenthesis or like a forged Passage in an Author it has no connexion with what goes before it and the latter part is confuted by what follows These are the Animadverter's following Words And here if it should be asked How they differ P. 245. n. 10. and whether it be by any real distinction between the Persons What need of this Question which the preceding Words had so positively and orthodoxly determined each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from the other What ever is incommunicably different is certainly really different by a true real and not modal Difference The Animadverter answers P. 246. That the Divine Persons really differ and are distinguished from one another viz. by a Modal or lesser sort of Real difference according to which the Divine Nature subsisting under and being determined by such a certain Mode personally differs from it self as subsisting under and determined by another What is this but to tell us that he did not understand those former Words that each Person is incommunicably different from the other Can any thing be incommunicably different from it self He tells us that two Persons are the same self how is it possible that they can be more communicably the same The Person of the Father is Modally different from the Person of the Spirator but not incommunicably different The Person of the Father is the Divine Nature subsisting under the Mode of Paternity which Modally differs from it self under the Mode of Spiration But all this arises from a mistake of the Nature of Real and Modal Difference In a real Difference we say simply that the one is not the other according to the Animadverter p. 77. That wheresoever there are two distinct Persons we do and must by all the Rules of Logick and Grammar say that the one is not the other And the Rule is as true è converso that where we can say one is simply not the other there we must count two we must acknowledge a strictly real Difference Thus we say that the Father is not the Son that is the Subject of Paternity is not the Subject of Filiation In a Modal Difference the Negation is Modal secundum quid in some Mode or Respect The Person of the Father as a Father is not the Spirator But there needs no proof in so allowed a conclusion Not one Schoolman whom I have met with but is a better Divine and soberer Reasoner I will add and a sounder Philosopher than to affirm that the Divine Persons differ Modally or that a simple Negation can arise from a Modal Difference The first Rudiments in Logicks teach us That Negative Propositions are of a malignant Nature and universally remove the Predicate from the Subject and not under a certain Mode only The exactly learned and solid Forbesius as the Animadverter stiles him p. 251. in the same Chapter which he there quotes S. 19. declares that the Divine Persons differ really as that is distinguished from the greatest Modal Distinction Inter personas in Divinis est realis distinctio Forbesii Instr hist Theol. lib. 1. cap 35. S. 19. non tamen essentialis aut absoluta sed tantum Hypostatica seu personalis relativa secundum oppositionem personarum inter se internam relativam realem To whom I will add the words of the learned Suarez Lib. 3 de Trin. cap. 1. n. 3. p. 385. Vnaquaeque divina Persona in se spectata est vera res per se subsistens una non est alia Ergo est distinctio realis inter ipsas nam realiter distingui nihil aliud est quam esse veras res quarum una non est alia Again Distinctio modalis nunquam invenitur Ibid. n. 4. nisi intra eandem rem quae componitur vel aliquo modo coalescit ex illis rebus quae ita distingui dicuntur Vnde quod ita ab aliqua re semper est tanquam modus vel affectio ejus ut inductione facile constet ideò in Deo non habet locum hic modus distinctionis quae vere actualiter fit in re ipsa quia in eo non habet locum compositio nec modificatio vel affectio per aliquid a seipso actualiter in re distinctum à substantia Dei ergo sola superest distinctio realis quae inter divinas personas esse possit These words are very full and deny not only a modal Distinction betwixt the Divine Persons but any Modes in God for that Modes would inferr a Composition in God In the former abstracted Sense they are properly Personalities or personal Properties P. 249. lin 9. n. 11. By the Animadverter's Favour Personality and a personal Property are distinct Things Differentia and Proprium are different Species of predicables Where the difference is unknown to us as in all Individuals in all singular Persons we use the Properties or a Collection of Accidents in the Definition instead of the Difference but this alters not the Nature of the Properties or Accidents Thus the Ancient Fathers described the Divine Persons by their Personal Properties These are the Animadverter's own words Anim. p. 88. Self-consciousness is one property of a rational or intelligent Being suppose of an Angel then it will be a Property of a Person or Personal Property Will the Animadverter grant that therefore it is properly in an Angel a Personality no the Argument holds the other way therefore it cannot be properly a Personality P. 249. lin 20. n. 12. For neither would the Latins 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First The Animadverter falls into his old mistake that the Faith of this Article is That there are three Hypostases in God there are three Hypostases in the Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Nature but not in God Secondly St. Augustin scrupled nay condemned the phrase of three Persons as well as of three Hypostases Thirdly The Distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 requires us to distinguish betwixt first and
Divine Person nor need Christians so nice a Speculation to defend the Suppositalities of Three Divine Persons If there are any real Modes in the Creatures I approve of the Animadverter's description of them that they are adjuncts or added to the Being that they restrain or determine the nature of the Being But from this very description of a Mode I am satisfied there can be no proper Modes in God or a Divine Person but of this afterwards When the Animadverter adds in the same pag That a Mode is not a meer Ens rationis Ibid. p. 31. he seems to me to contradict himself that it is in some sense an Ens rationis and consequently not real So when he tells us That Modes were invented to prevent an infinite progress in Beings Ibid. upon a supposition that Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance he gives us the right reason the Union of Substance and Accident could not be an Accident that is a Third Being for then that would want another Being to unite it to Substance and so in infinitum But there never was so strange an Explication of this reason as that given by the Animadverter Ibid. p. 31. For since every thing is capable of being defined or described and yet nothing can be defined meerly by it an identical proposition being no definition it must needs be defined by somewhat or other distinct from it self but if that be also a Being then that likewise must be defined by another Being and that by another and so on in infinitum which would be most absurd Whereas if this definition or description of a thing be made by some Modus of it which is not strictly and properly a Being it self the thing presently stops here without any necessity of proceeding to any more Beings There are few mistakes but they have some plausible colour or ground but this is so extreamly extravagant that I cannot conjecture in the least what the Animadverter aim'd at None ever put the Modus of any thing into a proper Definition What Logician ever affirmed that Definitio constet ex genere differentia modo A proper Definition contains only the Essence the quiddity as the Schools speak of any Thing or Being but a Mode according to the Animadverter is a thing added or an adjunct that is quod alicui preter Essentiam adjungitur what is besides the Essence and consequently ought not to be put into the proper Definition of the Being But perhaps it will be here said Ibid. p. 32. N. 6. If these Modes are not so many meer nothings or entia rationis what order or rank shall they be placed in since those ten Heads of Being which we call predicaments cannot seem the proper Receptacles of things which we own not to be properly or formally Beings I answer That tho they are not Beings properly so called and so not directly and upon their own account placeable under any of the ten forementioned Heads of Being yet since they are appendages of Being as cleaving to it and depending upon it they are accounted under and reduced to those respective Heads or Genera of Being to which the Beings modified by them do directly belong It is a common saying That a Fool may ask more Questions and raise more Difficulties in an hour than a wise Man can answer or satisfy in a day but certainly he is not overwise who without any necessity will be starting Difficulties which himself cannot unfold The Faith of this sacred Article as I said before needs none of these Metaphysical Disputes and if it did the Reader would be strangely deceived who should rely upon our Animadverter's skill in Metaphysicks First He has confounded Predicamental and Physical Accidents Even those Metaphysicians and Schoolmen who asserted Accidents to be distinct Beings from Substance never understood that assertion in large of all the Predicamental Accidents but only of quantity and quality He himself is pleased to tell us p. 241. that posture is a Mode of the Body and I believe he has not confidence to deny that posture properly belongs to the predicament of Situs All predicamental Relations are by the said Schoolmen esteemed Modes and not distinct Beings Secondly To differ in predicament is not a certain sign of differing so much as in Mode much less to be two distinct Beings or Accidents according to the Animadverter who calls them ten Heads of Being Action and Passion differ in predicament yet are by Aristotle himself esteemed but one Motion which as it proceeds from the Agent is called Action as it is terminated upon the Patient is called Passion Thirdly Nor are all Modes to be reduced to those predicaments to which the Beings by them modified do directly belong Figure and proportion are Modes of quantity and yet are reduced to the predicament of quality Fourthly This reduction of Modes is what I believe the Animadverter did not in the least understand but of this when I come to speak of the composition of a Divine Person Now the nature of these Modi being thus accounted for P. 32. N. 7. we are in the next place to take notice of the difference resulting from them which we call Modal and that is between two or more such Modes differing from one another as the Personalities belonging to several Persons differ amongst themselves or when a thing or Being differs from the Mode affecting it or lastly when several things thus modified or affected do by vertue of those Modes differ from one another And thus the Persons in the Blessed Trinity may be said to differ amongst themselves No Divine had ever more reason to have informed himself aright of the nature of these Modi and of modal difference For I believe no man before himself ever laid so great a stress upon both these Points Hear his own words p. 285. If Modes of Being should not be allowed in God then I affirm it to be impossible mark those words I affirm it to be impossible for any distinction and consequently for any persons to be in God What is this but to tell the world that whoever does not understand the Metaphysicks of Modes and yet believes the Trinity believes what the Animadverter affirms to be impossible in Reason Now this Assertion shall in due time be examined So p. 246. He affirms that the Divine Persons which the whole Christian Church professes to differ by a real difference I say he affirms that they differ by a modal or lesser sort of real difference of which Assertion also in due place Now we are to examine how well this great Dictator in Philosophy and Divinity understands a Modal difference He names three kinds of Modal difference two of which are false and all three impertinent First two Modes when they belong to one Being differ indeed by a Modal difference but when we speak of them indefinitely as they belong to different Beings they differ by the same difference by which the Beings
by which the Humane Nature of Christ exists in the person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall hardly find a fitter than to say that it exists in it as an Adjunct in the Subject For it is certain that it does not exist in it as a Part in the Whole since by this means the Second Person in the Trinity must till his Incarnation have wanted one part of his person But I shall not be positive in the application of this term here This Sacred Article of the Incarnation of the Son of God deserves a particular Treatise by it self However I could not in the Interim forbear to vindicate it from those Misrepresentations the Animadverter has unwittingly I charitably presume put upon it The Animadverter did not understand or not consider the relation of an Adjunct to a Subject or he would never have made this Application in reference to the Hypostatic Union of the Humane Nature of Christ to the Person of the WORD Where a Substance is an Adjunct the Adjunct is predicated of the Subject more Accidentis after the nature of an Accident This the predicament of Habitus might have informed the Animadverter We say not that a man is his Cloaths but that a man is cloath'd so that if the Humane Nature of Christ be barely an Adjunct to the Person of the WORD we could not say that the WORD was or became Man but only that he was externally cloathed with Humanity Secondly The Animadverter confutes himself when he tells us That the Humane Nature of Christ exists in the Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A substantial Adjunct can never exist in its Subject but only an accidental Adjunct as a Quality c. If the Humane Nature exists in the Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must in some sense be a part of the Person of the WORD Thirdly Nor is there any Absurdity in acknowledging the Humane Nature to be a part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nay very learned persons have not scrupled to call the Person of the WORD a Part of Christ taking that term Part in a large sense and abstracting from the imperfections which are included in the common acceptation of it The Person of the WORD is not an imperfect Part nor the Humane Nature a Part in such Sense that the Person of the WORD wants such Part to complete it In an Hypostatical Composition the Inferior Nature is in some Analogy a Co-part in other respects an Adjunct and of necessity imperfect but to be the superior Nature in such Composition infers no Imperfection But of this more hereafter One and the same undivided Existence P. 34. lin 28. N. 11. as well as one and the same Essence or Nature belongs to all the Three Persons equally whereas yet every Person has his own distinct Subsistence by himself There is not a more intricate Dispute amongst the Schoolmen than this which the Animadverter argues from as a Principle To assert above one singular Existence in the Trinity thô the Sacred Scriptures expresly multiply this Attribute I and the Father are One these Three are One was to give up the Hypothesis of the Schools of the singularity of the common Divine Nature But the Schoolmen were at a loss Probabilius tamen ac verius existimamus illam substantiam singularem quae communis est tribus personis ut sic subsistentem esse ex se essentialiter habereque unam subsistentiam absolutam essentialem tribus personis communem haec enim sententia communiter recepta est à Theologis utriusque Scholae D. Thomae Scoti ab aliis etiam Suarez Metaph Disp 34. Sect. 1. N. 3. when they came to enquire into the Modus of this singular Existence There are but two Modes of a substantial singular Existence incomplete which belongs to a substantial Part complete which belongs to a Suppositum Complete Existence is but another Phrase for Subsistence and so there will be but One undivided Subsistence of the whole Three Persons and this the whole Party of the Thomists and Scotists affirm and call it an absolute essential Subsistence so little did the Animadverter understand these Disputes The acute Petavius could not here keep pace with the Schoolmen all Antiquity knew nothing of this Essential Subsistence he embraces the former and attributes one singular incomplete Existence to the Divine Nature Now certainly this Learned Person strained very hard to ascribe something incomplete to the Divine Nature I will give the Reader his own words Petav. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 12. Sect. 13. p. 421. Non enim de tali Existentia hîc agimus quoe perfecta completae substantioe propria sit sed quoe formis imperfectis Rebus ex quibus quasi componitur quippiam congruit P. 35. lin 11. N 12. Now whatsoever Being or Nature this Mode of Subsistence does belong to that is properly called a Suppositum And the consequence of this is That as Subsistence makes a Thing or Being a Suppositum so Suppositality makes it incommunicable This is worse Heresy to the Schoolmen than the phrase of three infinite Minds They acknowledge this in finite Beings or Natures but affirm the quite contrary in the Divine Nature Not the Absolute Essential Subsistence renders the Divine Nature a Suppositum but the Divine Relation whether it be Paternity Filiation or Procession according to the Schoolmen constitutes the Divine Nature a Person or Persons Secondly Not the Subsistence with a relation renders the Divine Nature incommunicable but only the Divine Person incommunicable Subsistence in finite Beings renders that particular Nature as well as Person incommunicable but in the Divine Nature only the Person P. 35. lin 30. N. 13. So that as a Suppositum is substantia singularis completa per se subsistens so the Ratio intellectiva being added to this makes it a Person which is a farther perfection of Suppositality I only ask the Animadverter Whether he acknowledges three Suppositums in the Trinity And whether the Objection of three Substances is not as strong against that Confession from this Definition of a Suppositum as himself brings against the phrase of three infinite Minds 2dly Ratio intellectiva is a farther perfection of a Suppositum but not of Suppositality A Beast as truly as perfectly subsists by its self as a Man Rationality is a Perfection a Mode taking that term in a large sense of Animality but not a Perfection or Mode of Subsistence If it be here asked P. 36. lin 3. N. 14. Whether Subsistence or Suppositality added to bare Nature does not make a Composition I answer That in created finite Persons it does but not in uncreated and infinite And the reason is because tho all Composition implies Union yet all Union is not therefore Composition but something higher and transcendental So that in the Divine Persons of the Trinity the Divine Nature and Personal Subsistence coalesce into one
by an incomprehensible ineffable kind of Union and Conjunction And if this does not satisfy as it rationally may I must needs profess that my Thoughts and Words can neither rise higher nor reach further This difficulty is not peculiar to the Asserters of a Trinity of Divine Persons They who acknowledge but one Divine Person in the Godhead are equally concerned in this question Whether the Subsistence of one or more Divine Persons added to the Divine Nature infers a Composition in a Divine Person The Animadverter confesses That in all finite Persons Subsistence and Nature infer a Composition he means a modal Composition a Composition of Substance and Mode This manifestly increases the difficulty how a Substance and Mode should not be a modal Composition in a Divine Person He tells you indeed it does not if we please we may take his word if not his thoughts and words can reach no higher But by his leave I shall consider this point more carefully All Composition is Distinctorum Vnio so as to constitute some whole that is in Composition there must be an Union and also the several things united must in some sense be component parts otherwise we could not distinguish Composition from a bare local Union Now according to the Animadverter the Divine Nature or Substance is one thing and the Mode another a Mode is to him a thing added and a Divine Person a whole so that it is manifest according to him that there must be a modal Composition in a Divine Person in God in a pure simple act which is void of all Composition Nay further those Schoolmen who assert these real Modes reduce some of them to Substance some of them to the accidental Predicaments Those Modes which intimately adhere to Substance as Existence Subsistence they reduce to the predicament of Substance those Modes which complete Substance it self cannot be any thing accidental of a different kind and nature from Substance and yet they cannot be perfect Substances for then they would want other Modes to perfect them but they suppose each of these Modes a substantiale quid a substantial thing tho not so perfect as Substance So again those Modes which perfect an Accident are each of them accidentale quid something accidental tho not a perfect Accident Now I freely profess that I have no Notion of this substantiale quid which is not a perfect Substance nor of an accidentale quid which yet is not a perfect Accident However from this Explication of these Philosophers minds it is manifest that a Substance and Mode in finite Persons infer a Composition of a Substance and a distinct substantiale quid To apply this to the Opinion of the Schoolmen concerning the simplicity of a Divine Person The Subsistence as I have already declared they believed to be one absolute Essential the Divine Relations which they call Modes of Subsistence because according to them they constitute the Divine Persons and render each Person incommunicable which a Mode of Subsistence does in finite Persons I say the Divine Relations of Paternity Filiation and Procession they first declared to be no predicamental Relations for then they must have been esteemed proper Modes Modus non potest non esse quid imperfectum cum non attingat absolutam rationem entis Suarez lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 4. N. 11. p. 410. and the Schoolmen were never so silly as to believe there was any thing so imperfect as a Mode in God they never believed a substantiale quid which was not so perfect as a Substance in God They call the Divine Relations transcendental Relations which in our imperfect way of Conception are but as so many substantial Modes perfecting the one absolute Subsistence of the Divine Essence they believed each distinct Divine Relation to be not a bare substantiale quid but a most perfect infinite Substance with a Relative Form or as they often speak a Relative Substance And here I must again acknowledge that I am as little able to conceive a Relative Substance as a substantiale quid before J am substantia non erit substantia quia relativum erit Absurdum est autem ut substantia relativè dicatur omnis res ad scipsam subsistit quanto magis Deus St. Austin lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 5. But will not this Notion of the Schoolmen infer an higher Composition in a Divine Person viz. of two Substances an Absolute Substance the Divine Nature and a Relative Substance the Relation They answer That the Absolute and Relative Substance are not united but identified one with another this being an Axiom to the Schoolmen Suarez lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. N. 3. p. 407. In Divinis omnia sunt Vnum ubi non obviat relationis oppositio but there cannot be pretended relationis oppositio betwixt an Absolute and Relative Substance and by the same Axiom they endeavour to shew how these three Relative Substances may be one absolute Divine Nature one God But then comes the grand Difficulty of all If each distinct Relative Substance be the same or identified with the one singular absolute Divine Nature are not the three Relations from thence identified one with another Is not this an infallible Axiom in reason Quae sunt eadem uni tertio sunt eadem inter se This is the Gordian Knot which almost every Schoolman gives a different answer to but at last they are generally obliged to cut it and deny the truth of the Axiom in the Divine Nature I thought it necessary to give this account of the Opinions of the Schoolmen to shew the Animadverter how little reason he had to lay so great a stress upon the Metaphysicks of Modes Nothing was farther from the thoughts of the Schoolmen with whose Names he flourishes so often than to believe that there were true Modes in God The Divine Relations according to them were only Modes in Name or in our imperfect Conception of them As for my own private Opinion with all submission to better Information I conceive That Existence in a finite Person or Being much more in a Divine Person is only the actuality of a Person or Being That Subsistence adds only a Negation of incompleteness to substantial Existence even in finite Persons and consequently infers no sort of Composition in them and therefore much less infers a Composition in a Divine Person Again I do believe that all predicamental Relations amongst the Creatures are no positive Modes but only external Denominations the same which the Schoolmen are obliged to affirm of the Relations of the Divine Persons to the Creatures Nor can I see any Absurdity of extending the same conclusion to the Internal Relations as the Schoolmen call them As for instance The Relation of Paternity may justly as I conceive be stiled an extrinsical Denomination extrinsical I say not to the sacred Triad but to the Person of the Father who is denominated by it and in the same sense Filiation extrinsical
to the Person of the Son and Procession extrinsical to the Person of the blessed Spirit This naturally and easily defends the Simplicity of a Divine Person this frees us of endless and inextricable Questions which fill up every page of the Scholastical Writers This forces us not to hide our selves in a Cloud of Words which signify nothing A Substance and a Mode says the Animadverter infer not Composition in a Divine Person because in him the Substance and Mode coalesce into one by an Vnion and Conjunction that is in other words they infer not Composition because they are compounded Composition and Coalescing into One by an Union and Conjunction differ no more than Definitum and Definition It is truly therefore incomprehensible and ineffable that a coalescing into one by an Union and Conjunction should not be a Composition Mind Wisdom Power Goodness P. 39. lin 6. N. 15. c. are formally distinct from one another and so not affirmable of one another and in speaking of things the formal differences of them must still be attended to Gods Justice and his Mercy are one pure simple Act in him But he that says His Justice is his Mercy speaks absurdly for all that c. Whatever differs really differs also formally but here by formal difference the Animadverter understands that difference which is only formal and not real Now in this sense of the term the express contrary Conclusion is true That whatsoever things are only formally different are therefore affirmable of one another The Conclusion the Animadverter ought to have deduced from his Premises is That Mind Wisdom Goodness viz. in God are not formally affirmable of one another But it is Fallacia à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter to put the first Conclusion in place of the second to say That Mind Wisdom Goodness are not simply affirmable of one another because it will be acknowledged that they are not formally affirmable of one another Secondly Whereas the Animadverter tells us That in speaking of Things the formal Differences of them must still be attended to We need no other Confutation of this Proposition than his own immediate following words viz. That God's Justice and his Mercy are one pure simple Act in him His Justice and his Mercy are formally or in our way of Conception two distinct nay two opposite Acts it is only in the Reality that we affirm them to be one pure simple Act in him Thirdly If things only formally different are not affirmable of one another there could be no Propositions but identical ones or at most where the Subject and Predicate are synonimous Terms No man could say without absurdity That the Father is God because these two terms Father and God formally differ and therefore according to this wise Rule of our Animadverter are not affirmable of one another Has the Animadverter never heard of the Distinction of Sensus Identicus and Sensus Formalis This Proposition God's Justice is his Mercy is true Sensu Identico tho not Sensu Formali We are cautioned indeed by the Learned that we avoid Conclusions which are only true Sensu Identico when such way of speaking is against common Custom or when the formal Sense carries a formal Opposition as in the Divine Attributes of Justice and Mercy and the reason they give is because in such instances the Propositions lead to a formal Sense in which Sense they are false But if we add Sensu Identico that is in what sense we understand these Propositions then they are true and consequently not absurd unless a Truth can be absurd CHAP. II. I Shall crave leave of the Reader N. 1. to say thus much in general of the Animadverters Third and Fourth Chapter wherein he endeavours to prove That Self-consciousness is not the Formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons nor Mutual-consciousness the Formal Reason of their Vnity of Nature That all this is said as I verily believe without an Adversary The Reverend Dean of St. Paul's does not once in his Vindication of the B. Trinity expresly affirm either the one or the other of these Propositions He asks no more of his Reader if I misunderstand him not save to acknowledge That a distinct Self-Consciousness is a firm proof of the Distinction of Persons in this Sacred Mystery and that a singular Mutual-Consciousness is an equal proof of the Singularity of the Divine Nature I conceive That the Reverend Dean never intended to deny that the Distinction of Persons is in order of Nature before their distinct acts of Self-Consciousness or that their Unity of Nature is in the same degree of Priority before their singular Mutual-Consciousness but only intended that quoad nos or in our way of Knowledge or Conception their distinct Self Consciousness proved or was known to us before their distinct Personality and their singular mutual Consciousness in order of our Knowledge before the Knowledge of their Unity of Nature In the Animadverter's Third Chapter N. 2. he endeavours to prepare the way by denying that Self-Consciousness is the formal reason of personality in finite created Persons A Conclusion none affirms who understands the meaning of the terms It is impossible that a personal Act an Effect should any ways be the proper formal cause of its efficient a Person Animad c. P. 71. lin 10. But when he tells us That Personality is the ground and principle of all Action wheresoever it is he is guilty of a great Paradox in Philosophy and a greater in Divinity Personality is properly the Principle of no Action a Person is the Principium quod the Principle which acteth Nature is the Principium quo the Principle by which the Person acts Personality is but a necessary condition of a Being to enable it to act a causa sine qua non which is equivocally called a Cause or Principle Secondly Not the Personality of the WORD but the Humane Nature of Christ exerts the acts of Self-Consciousness Ibid. P. 72. lin 12. and other Humane Personal Acts the Humane Nature of Christ has all the Principles and Powers of Self-Reflection upon its own Acts otherwise Christ would not be a perfect Man P. 72. lin 21. N. 3. That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person is no less evident Since it is taken into and subsists in and by the Personality of the Second Person of the Trinity and therefore can have no distinct Personality of its own 1. Never was so obscure an Argument brought to prove so acknowledged a Conclusion Self-Consciousness is not the formal reason of Personality in finite Persons because the Humane Nature of Christ in the Hypostatical Union is Self-Conscious and yet not a Person nay this latter no less evident than the former 2. 'T is a received Article of the Church That the Human Nature of Christ is not a Person but how to reconcile this with the Subtilties of the Schools is above my skill
Incarn Q. 2. Disp 6. sect 4. p. 194. Ibid. p. 193. Alii Patres licet non apertè utantur nomine compositionis aliis tamen quoe perinde esse videntur utuntur ut adunationis copulationis ex duobus conjunctionis c. Illa vero particula ex planè designat compositionem The phrase of the Hypostatick Union is most opposite to the Heresy of Eutyches who believed that there was not an Union of Two Natures but a Confusion of One of them But the phrase of the Hypostatick Composition is most opposite to the Nestorian Heresy who asserted a kind of Hypostatic Union that is an Union of Two Persons and denied that Christ God and Man was One Person compounded of Two Natures The Animadverter shews his skill in this Controversy to oppose these two phrases and to condemn that phrase of an Hypostatick Composition which the Church has received As great an Opiniator as the Animadverter is I believe he will scarce have the confidence to say that he can teach these great Fathers of the Church how to speak in this Mystery I promise faithfully to attend him when ever he begins The Soul being a Part cannot possibly be a Person P. 75. lin 4. N. 5. Forasmuch as a Part is an incomplete Being and therefore in the very nature of it being designed for the completion of something else must subsist in and by the subsistence of the Whole But a Person imports the most complete Degree and Mode of Being as subsisting wholly by it self and not in or by any other either as a subject of inherence or dependence so that it is a direct Contradiction to the very definition and nature of the thing for the same Being to be a Part and a Person too And consequently that which makes the Soul a Part does irrefragably prove it not to be a Person I answer That to be a Part and a Person in a simple Person in a Person consisting of one Nature I confess to be contradictious and impossible 2dly To be the inferior part in a compounded Person to be in any Actions an Instrument a Principium quo as the Body in the mixt Actions of Sense is to the Soul is contradictory to the Notion of a Person A Person as such is the Principium quod of all the Actions which proceed from it but to be the superior Part in such Composition is very compatible with the Personality of such superior Nature For such superior Nature may very well retain its own proper Mode of Subsistence if we explain Personality with the Schools such a superior Nature retains all the Perfections all the natural Perfections of a whole and complete Being is a Principium quod not only of its own natural Actions but of the mixt Actions of the whole compounded Hypostasis Such a superior Nature may be a Person and at the same time in a large acceptation of the term a Part that is a Part as Aristotle defines that term Arist 4. Met. cap. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that into which any thing is divided or of which that consists which we call a Whole in which sense of the term Part the Learned Petavius is not afraid to call the Divine Nature of the WORD a Part laxius sumpto partis vocabulo Petav. lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 3. sect 12. p. 232. I must pass over the Animadverter's boldness in determining That a Part subsists by the subsistence of the Whole which is very near asserting an Hypostatical Union of every substantial part Others who embrace these Scholastical Subtleties chuse rather to assert That a Part subsists by a partial subsistence and that the subsistence of the Whole is compounded of the subsistence of the Parts So when the Animadverter tells us that a Person does not subsist in any other as a subject of dependence I must crave his pardon for I thought before that every Creature had subsisted in God as a subject on whom we depended that in him we live and move and have our Being P. 75. lin 16. N. 6. If the Soul in the composition of a man's Person were an entire Person it self and as such concurred with the Body towards the constitution of the Man then a Man would be an imperfect accidental and not a perfect natural compound He would be that which Philosophy calls Vnum per Accidens that is a thing made up of two such Beings as cannot perfectly coalesce into one Mutatis mutandis this is the Great Socinian Objection against the Incarnation of the Son of God That Infinite and Finite cannot perfectly coalesce and unite into One that God and Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the name of the most unnatural compound and mixture The same Answer will satisfy both Objections To confound the two Natures of God and Man or of Soul and Body would confessedly make the most unnatural compound and mixture But we maintain an Union in both Cases and not a Confusion The Divine Nature retains all the Perfections of a Divine Person in the Composition and the Human Nature by the Composition loses none of the natural perfections of the Human Nature It cannot indeed properly be called by the metaphysical name of a suppositum as becoming an Instrument a principium quo to the superior Divine Nature but then thereby it becomes capable of being an Instrument in the noblest Acts of the Mediatorial Office which subsisting by it self it was uncapable of So the Soul in the Constitution of Man retains all the Perfections of a separate intellectual suppositum nor did any Philosoper ever assert that an Human Body was more imperfect than a Stone notwithstanding this latter is a suppositum and the former not The Human Body by the Composition is an Instrument a Principium quo to the Soul an Instrument in the mixt Actions of Sense which of it self it was uncapable of And if a Stone could speak it would never complain if God should miraculously change it into an Human Body notwithstanding the compleatness of a suppositum and the incompleatness of an Inferior Nature in an Hypostatick Composition Secondly The Animadverter mistakes that which Philosophers call Vnum per Accidens for that is when two Beings which differ toto Genere as Substance and Accident are united Such an Union say they is accidental and consequently the Compositum not Vnum per se but Vnum per Accidens Or when two Compleat Beings are united as in all Artificial Works where each part is a distinct suppositum which is more properly called Aggregatum per Accidens But the Divine and Human Nature the Soul and Body differ not toto Genere each are Substances and so are capable of a substantial Union which suffices to denominate the Compositum Vnum per se and not Vnum per Accidens Again The Divine Nature is and remains compleat in the Composition the Humane Nature subsists ad modum partis in the nature of a part of an Instrument in the
Composition So is the Soul compleat and the Human Body the Instrument or incompleat in the constitution of Man so that according to the strictest Rules of Philosophy both the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Man are Vnum per se not Vnum per Accidens Thirdly As little can I allow the Animadverter that every Vnum per Accidens must be an unnatural Compound According to these Philosophers a Learned Man a Pious Man is Vnum per Accidens ought we therefore to avoid Piety and Learning that we may not become an unnatural Compound Fourthly The Union of a Subject and its Adjunct is according to all Philosophers an accidental Union the Adjunct as I observed before predicated of the Subject more Accidentis This Objection therefore falls strongest upon his own Head who denied the Human Nature of Christ to be a part of Christ and affirmed That it was an Adjunct to the Person of the WORD Cap. 1. N. 10 which is in consequence to affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Vnum per Accidens P. 76. lin 4. N. 7. If the Soul in a state of Separation from the Body be a Person then it is either the same Person which the Man himself was while he was living and in the Body or it is another Person But to assert either of them is extreamly absurd and therefore equally absurd that the Soul in such a State should be a Person c. This also is a Socinian Objection The Animadverter may be satisfied That no wise Man will chuse the later part of the Disjunction viz. that the Soul in a state of Separation is a different Person from the Man himself or that the WORD before the Incarnation is a different Person from Christ God and Man or the WORD incarnated For the Objection is equal against both Articles as by a small variation of the immediate following words will appear And first it is absurd to affirm it to be the same Person For a Person compounded of Soul and Body as a Man is and a simple uncompounded Person as the Soul if a Person at all must needs be can never be numerically one and the same For that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two things whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound as such including in it several Parts compounding it And a simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if a Man while alive be one Person and his Soul after Death be a Person too it is impossible for the Soul to be one and the same Person with the Man And first it is absurd to affirm it to be the same Person For a Person compounded of the Divine and Human Nature as Christ is and a simple uncompounded Person as the WORD is acknowledged to be can never be numerically one and the same For that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two things whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound as such including in it several Parts and a simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if Christ God and Man be one Person and the WORD before his Incarnation be a Person too it is impossible for the Word before the Incarnation to be one and the same Person with Christ God and Man Now thanks be to God this formidable Objection of the Socinians and the Animadverter is founded upon a mistake in Philosophy viz. That those things which differ from one another as Simple and Compound differ as two things whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other There may be a thousand instances brought to confute this pretended Axiom A Man learned is the same Man with himself before he was learned and yet in the Confession of all Philosophers A Man and a Man learned differ as Simple and Compound A Man learned is an accidental Compositum an Vnum per Accidens So a Man cloathed is the same Man with himself naked and yet a Man cloathed and a Man naked differ as Simple and Compound A Soul in a state of Separation is the same Soul with the Soul cloathed with an Human Body I am ashamed to be obliged to prove so plain a Conclusion In an Hypostatical Union the inferior Nature is so far an Adjunct to the superior Nature that what the WORD was before the Incarnation or the Soul before its cloathing with a Body the same each remains after the Union or Conjunction It is in some sense a Part otherwise the Union could not be substantial but accidental The WORD could with no more propriety be said to be a Man than a Man may be denominated an evil Angel because he is possessed of such Had the Divine and Human Nature of Christ been confounded or the Soul and Body of Man so mixt as to have denominated the Compositum of a different Nature from the component Parts then the WORD and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not be one Person nor the Soul and the Man the same Person But we maintain an Hypostatical Union and not a confusion of Substance or Nature That which has obscured the Analogy betwixt the Union of the two Natures in the One Person of Christ and of the Soul and Body in Man is for that in this latter instance Custom has prevailed with us to say That an Human Person has but one viz. an human Nature Whereas an Human Person properly consists of two unconfounded Natures the Nature of the Soul and Body are not confounded in the Hypostatical Composition of Man The Learned Damascen Vide Damasc lib. 3 de Ortho fide cap. 3. if I remember aright gives the reason of this form of Speech Because we see many distinct Persons possess the same common Nature whence we say That two or more Human Persons are of one and the same nature As also That if the Holy Spirit had been incarnated equally with the WORD we might have said that the WORD incarnate is of the same nature with the Holy Ghost incarnate To conclude All Philosophers assert That a totum differs only ratione from all its parts united if therefore it be possible for the superior part in an Hypostatick Union to retain all the Natural Perfections of a suppositum in the composition and for an inferior part to be united to the superior without confusion of its Nature and yet not as a distinct suppositum but as an instrumentum or principium quo to the superior part It will then evidently follow That the whole compositum is but one suppositum but one Person and the very same Person which the superior part was before the composition and that a simple and compounded Person is in such instance not two Persons but one and the same Person differing not really but modally from himself by such difference by which a Learned Man differs from himself before he was Learned And here I
suppose some will object P. 78. lin 1. N. 8. That the Soul in a state of separation is not properly a Part for as much as it exists not in any Compound nor goes to the composition of it To which I answer That an actual inexistence in a Compound is not the only Condition which makes the thing a part but its essential relation to a Compound which relation is founded partly upon its original designation and partly upon its natural aptitude to be an ingredient in the constitution of a Compound This Objection lies very obvious That the Soul in a state of separation is a Person as subsisting by it self neither being a part in any Whole nor an adjunct to any Subject Animad c. p. 34. which is his own Definition of subsistence or personality The Animadverter answers That the Soul is then a part notwithstanding it exists in no whole Now in Logicks totum and pars whole and part are Relatives and mutually infer one another There can no more then be a Part without an actual Whole than a Son without a Father Adam was originally designed by God to be a Father and had a natural aptitude to become such What then Will the Animadverter or any one else affirm That he was a Father before he had a Son as the Animadverter here tells us That the Soul in a state of separation is a part tho there is no whole to which such part can belong However Secondly I confess that there is more of truth in this Answer than I believe the Animadverter was aware of viz. That when to be a Part and a Person are opposed as Contradictions We do not take this Term Part in a nice Logical sense of the Term but in a Physical sense for an incomplete Being which naturally requires to be compleated perfected by some other Co-part And thus his own Answer will be strongly retorted against himself viz. That an actual Inexistence in a Compound is not that which absolutely denies any thing to be a Person but its existing incompleatly in the Composition its Existence ad modum adjuncti instrumenti vel principii quo to some superior nature Now in this sense the WORD is not a Part the WORD is not perfected compleated by the Composition The Soul of Man is indeed compleated perfected in its Operations by the Composition is capable of the actions of sense by the Composition but yet the Soul is not perfected in its Metaphysical Suppositality the Soul is not less a principium quod of its own actions in the Composition than in a state of Separation N. 9. Thirdly This Socinian Objection falls as heavy upon the Socinians and the Animadverter in the instance of a Human Person Both will confess that the Soul is a Part and Man a Whole From whence in the Animadverter's words I argue A Whole compounded of Soul and Body as Man is and a Simple uncompounded Part as the Soul is can never be numerically one and the same Being for that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two Beings whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound Being as such including in it several Parts compounding it and a Simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if a Man while alive be one Being and his Soul after Death be a Being too it is impossible for the Soul to be one and the same Being with the Man And from these Premises I can also add P. 77. lin 1. That wheresoever there are two distinct Beings we do and must by all the Rules of Grammar and Logick say that one of them is not the other and where one is not the other we cannot in Truth or Justice say that one ought to account for what was done or not done by the other c. Let the Animadverter answer this and he answers himself A Simple and Compounded Person may as well be the same Person as a Simple and Compounded Being be the same Being These two differ modally and not really And now to return from the Mystery of the Incarnation N. 10. to that of the Sacred Trinity and to the Question the Animadverter is considering as preparatory to it viz. What is the Formal Reason of Personality in Finite Created Persons This is I confess a very proper Enquiry but there is another as proper that is unfortunately omitted by most who treat of this Sacred Mystery viz. Not what that is which strictly and formally denominates any Finite Being a Suppositum or Person but What that is which denominates it this particular Person These are two Questions What strictly and properly denominates Adam a Person And what that is which denominates him the singular Person of Adam To be a Human Person is a common indefinite universal Attribute but to be the Person of Adam is proper to the first Man That which strictly and properly denominates Adam a Person is a Mode of Subsistence totale Attributum the being a compleat Whole as the Fathers often speak That which denominates Adam the particular Person of Adam is unknown to us that which the Schoolmen call Haecceity cannot be defined Ancients and Moderns supply the place of the Individuating difference by a Collection of Accidents says Porphyry by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Personal Properties say the Ancient Fathers It is says the Author of Expositio Fidei the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Adam to be immediately formed by the hands of God to be the Husband of Eve the First Man the Father of Cain Abel Seth c. Again since the Formal Cause of any thing denominates that thing Res omnes communiter denominavi a suis formis sicut album ab albedine homo ab humanitate quare omne illud a quo aliquid denominatur quantum ad hoc habet habitudinem formae Ut si dicam iste est indutus vestimento iste ablativus construitur in habitudine causae formalis quamvis non sit forma Aquin. 1. Par. Q. 37. Art 2. of which it is the Formal Cause hence from what any thing is denominated that thing is conceived by us in the similitude of a Formal Cause nay and often so stiled In which sense * Porphyr Introd ad Arist Organon cap. 2. Porphyry says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Singulars or Individuals are so called for that each is constituted by certain Properties the Collection of which is in no other Individual Not that a Property or Proprium is a Form or Differentia but because it supplies the place of such in the imperfect description of Individuals To apply this to the Divine Persons 't is a double Enquiry What denominates the Father a Person and what denominates him the Person of the Father Subsistence totale Attributum denominates the Father a Person which is a common Attribute to Father Son and Holy Ghost Paternity to be unbegotten to send his Son c.
denominates him the particular Person of the Father This last Question is what the Fathers were chiefly concerned in The Noetianists the Patri-Passianists rarely disputed the Personality of Father Son and Holy-Ghost None who understand the meaning of the Term can deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them a proper Person if he acknowledges that each of them is properly God None can imagine that that Being which is God is either an Accident a Part or to please the Animadverter an Adjunct to any other Being Those only deny the Personality who esteem the Son and Holy Spirit that is each of them not properly God but something in God the Personal Word or Wisdom of God the Father or his Personal Power This was the great Controverted Debate Whether the Father Son and Holy Ghost that is whether Each of them was a Distinct Person and consequently whether they were Three Persons Now Paternity say the Ancient Fathers in this sense constituted the Father a distinct Divine Person The Schoolmen change the Question and say That it constituted him a Person In the same sense Filiation according to the Ancients constituted the Son a distinct Person and Procession Sanctification constituted the Holy Spirit a distinct Person from Father and Son This Observation will be of great use to any one who shall read the Ancients concerning the Personality of Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. III. P. 93. N. 1. COnsideration 5. When the terms Cause formal Reason constituent or productive Principle and the like are used about the Divine Nature and Persons they are not to be understood as applicable to them in the strict and proper signification of the said Terms but only by way of Analogy as really meaning no more than a causal or necessary dependance of one Notion or Conceptus Objectivus upon another so that it is impossible for the Mind to conceive distinctly of the one but as depending upon or proceeding from the other Compare this with his first Consideration P. 92. That the natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the universal Reason of things according to which the Conception of one thing presupposes and depends upon the Conception of another makes no Prius or Posterius and yet is by no means to be contradicted or confounded in our discoursing of God This the Animadverter lays down as a Rule to guide our Discourses concerning the Divine Persons To which I answer First That these Considerations contain a direct Heresy the express Heresy of Sabellius Secondly That the Animadverter himself notoriously breaks these Rules even where he ought to have kept them First It is the direct Heresy of Sabellius to assert That there is no Prius and Posterius between the Divine Persons The Compiler of the Athanasian Creed denies a Prius or Posterius in the Trinity in reference to Duration or Time they are all three Co-eternal But to deny a Prius and Posterius in Original is to deny that there is a Father and Son in the Trinity Again it is very pleasant for the Animadverter to tell us That this Prius and Posterius is founded in the Vniversal Reason of things and yet denies it in the Divine Nature As if Universal Reason did not reach infinite as well as finite Nature I suppose he means That there is a natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the particular reason of finite Natures which makes no Prius or Posterius in the infinite Divine Nature And it is as pleasant to hear him telling us That this natural Order of Prius and Posterius must not be contradicted in our discoursing of God when in the very immediate preceding words himself had contradicted it and affirmed that there was no Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature Secondly Himself most shamefully confounds this Natural Order of Prius and Posterius when he asserts p. 98. That the Father is formally constituted a Person by his own personal Act of Generation P. 249. That personal Properties are properly Personalities P. 250. That the Relation and Mode of Subsistence make but one single indivisible Mode of Being Yet says the Animadverter in the next immediate words according to the Natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence as precedent to the Relation For as much as Human Reason considers things simply as subsisting before it can consider them as related to one another The meaning of all this is That these are Rules when he hopes that he can confute the Dean of St. Paul's Self-Consciousness cannot be Subsistence because according to the natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence before the Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal Reason of Personality for as much as it is a Personal Act one property of the Person already constituted These are Demonstrations against the Dean of St. Paul's What pity was it that the Dean of St. Paul's never asserted this once in all his Book for then it would have been allowed the Animadverter that in one single Article he had been too hard for the Dean But why are not these Rules to himself Is not Generation as much a personal Act as Self-Consciousness Is not the Attribute of being a Father one property of a Person already constituted Is not this Relation founded upon and posterior to a personal Act of Generation Can any thing according to human Reason be related before it is I believe the Animadverter in this point must borrow his own words and tell us That his Thoughts and Words can reach no higher Lastly The Animadverter denies a Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature to purpose when he tells us That even Productive Principles when used in reference to the Divine Persons that is Father and Son are not applicable to them in the strict and proper Signification of the said term With his leave the Father is strictly and properly the productive Principle of his Son or else he cannot be strictly and properly the Father of his Son or else he did never strictly and properly beget his Son The Arians deny a proper Generation and assert That the Father is an Adoptive Creative and not Generative Father of his Son The Sabellians on the other hand adulterate both the Divine Generation and Mission and expound them in a figurative improper Sense Against both these Heresies the Church has ever professed a true and proper Generation amongst the Divine Persons P. 94. lin 25. N. 2. Self-Consciousness is a personal Act and therefore Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is and to whom it personally belongs The Consequence I allow the Animadverter I only enquire Why it concludes not against Generation which is as confessedly a Personal Act as Self-consciousness Secondly To affirm that Self-consciousness is a Personal Act is the greatest Heresie to the Schoolmen A Personal Act is an Act proper and peculiar to some
more properly a term equipollent and convertible with a Divine Person than with the term God As it is true that one and the same God or Godhead is common to p. 120. l. 6. n. 6. and subsists in all and every one of the three Persons so it is true that one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit is common to and subsists in the said three Persons This Fallacy is easily answered One Godhead and one Infinite Spiritual Nature in abstracto is common to the three Persons The Animadvertor must prove that this Rule holds of one Infinite Spirit in concreto God the Father is not God the Son God the Father and God the Son are not the same God in Person or Personality in the words of the learned Petavius Petav. lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 9. S. 3. p. 282. Non est igitur Filius idem ille unus Deus qui Pater Can the Animadvertor believe that Petavius would have scrupled to say Non est igitur Filius idem ille unus Spiritus qui Pater The same one Godhead by being common to three Persons becomes Deus trinus in Personis in which Phrase Trinus agrees with Deus and not with Personis nor is it capable of that common but groundless Interpretation of Tri-une God is three and not tri-une in Persons Had Trinus ever signified tri-une which yet it never did to the Ancients nor by any Rules of Grammar ought it to signifie so now If it be here objected p. 120. n. 7. that we allow of three distinct Persons in the Godhead 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 Godhead without any necessity of inferring from thence that they are three distinct Gods This Objection is every way to the purpose this is the Plea of the Reverend Dean To say they are three Divine Persons and not three Infinite Minds was what the Reverend Dean could not understand Secondly This is the great Objection of the Socinians three Humane Persons are three Men three Angelical Persons three Angels therefore three Divine Persons three Gods They esteem God and a Divine Person terms equipollent and convertible they esteem the Consequence from three Divine Persons to three Gods necessary immediate and unavoidable Not one Socinian who understands himself but will confess that he can as soon believe three Infinite Minds as three Divine Persons reconcileable with the Article of the Unity of God If the Animadvertor can give an Answer to this Socinian Objection from the Phrase of three Divine Persons which is not equally applicable to his own Objection against the Phrase of three Infinite Spirits I will yield him the Point he contends for One thing I must note which to me betrays the Animadvertor's fear I mean his not representing the Objection fair The Dean's Phrase is put down three distinct Infinite Minds why did he not equally say three distinct Infinite Persons Why must this last be expressed by a Circumlocution three Persons of which every one is Infinite How often has the Animadvertor used the Phrase of three Divine Persons which is the same with three Infinite Persons Is not this to make a distinction without a difference p. 120. n. 8. 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 This Answer puts me in mind of a certain Respondent who being at a great loss cryed Nego id not determining whether it was the Major Minor or Conclusion which he denyed And I believe most Readers will be equally at a loss whether the Animadvertor applies this Answer to the Premises or Conclusion The Animadvertor's Argument against the Reverend Dean's Assertion of three Infinite Minds is this One Infinite Mind is one God therefore three Infinite Minds are three Gods The Socinians Objection mutatis mutandis the same One Divine Person is one God therefore three Divine Persons are three Gods The Consequence of each Argument the same viz. That three Infinite Minds three Divine Persons must be thrice what one Infinite Mind or one Divine Person is The Consequence is a Mathematical Conclusion that three of any kind must be thrice what one of the same kind is Will the Animadvertor deny the Antecedent that one Divine Person is one God Or will he deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Persons This Objection depends not immediately upon the Relativeness or Absoluteness of a Divine Person If one Mode one Accident one Relation be one God how shall we avoid the Conclusion that three Modes three Accidents or three Relations are three Gods The force of this Answer if it has any must lye in this that there are not properly three Divine Persons the Divine Persons are not three as three Infinite Minds are three to speak the truth the ternary number belongs not to the Persons but to the Personalities to the Modes to the Relations We use the Phrase of three Relatives but we mean only three relations of one simple Being and with equal Justice the Animadvertor might have said that we use the Phrase of three Persons but we mean only three Personalities of one absolute Person The Animadvertor entirely begs the Question if he takes three Relatives and one simple Being under three Relations to be equipollent Adam had three relations of a Creature an Husband and a Father yet he is but one Relative A Relative is not the Relation but that which has the Relation the Subject of the Relation The Person of the Father is one simple Being God under two Relations of Generation and Spiration is therefore the Person of the Father two Relatives two Persons Again the Divine Persons are three Relatives Why did not the Animadvertor speak out Are they three Relative Substances three Relative Accidents or three Relative Modes Further Genebrard and the same I believe of the Reverend Dean would have told him that three Infinite Minds or Spirits have but one singular individual Spiritual Nature or Essence and therefore according to Genebrard three Infinite Minds differ no more than three Divine Persons Lastly the difference of the Divine Persons is not the difference of one simple Being under three Relations For one simple Being under one Relation cannot be simply denyed of it self under another Relation Adam the Father is Adam the Husband Adam the Creature the Person of the Father is the Spirator of the Holy Ghost though as he
plead those Sacred words of their Law I am the Lord thy God Thou shalt have no other Gods before me That all their Doctors for the space of two thousand Years interpreted those words in their Natural sense viz. as spoke of one Divine Person What shall we say to this Objection Did God suffer the wisest of the Heathen Philosophers the most Pious Persons of the Jewish Religion to believe an Heresie of him for so many Ages Did God speak of himself in the most Sacred part of the Law in such words which Naturally lead to Heresie For I and me Naturally lead to the belief of one Person speaking This is the great Objection with which the Socinians flourish An Answer to which would be of more worth than a thousand such Books of Inadversions as the Socinian Considerer calls these Animadversions Considerations on the Explications c p. 23. For my own part I cannot be so fond of the Subtilties of the Schools as for the sake of them to confess so harsh a Conclusion I do most firmly believe that the Faith of a Trinity of Divine Persons and the Article of the Unity of God as it was believed by the wisest of the Heathens and the Jewish Church are by no means inconsistent The whole Truth was not revealed to the Jewish Church or at least so very obscurely that very few of them understood it But yet I verily believe that what was revealed was a most Sacred truth I believe that the God whom the Heathen Philosophers by the Light of Nature worshipped was one Divine Person I believe that the same one Divine Person spake of Himself in those Sacred words of the Law I am the Lord thy God c. I also believe that this One Divine Person was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Nor does this contradict that common Article of the Christian Faith viz. That God is Three Persons as the Socinians vainly pretend and some others unwarily grant them God is not three Persons as he is Just or Good or Holy as if three Persons were Essentially included in the Divine Nature For then no one single Person could by himself be God then there could not be a Son of God or a Spirit of God When God is said to be three Persons the term God is taken in a Logical sense equivalent in Predication to a terminus communis or a Species and signifies that the Divine Nature subsists in three Persons that this term God is truly predicable of three distinct Persons But a further disquisition of this Difficulty belongs to my Second Part. The Animadvertor accuses the Reverend Dean of giving a scurvy stroke at the Trinity p. 135. lin 7. n. 19. p. 89. where he the Reverend Dean affirms that the Expression of the one true God and the only true God cannot properly be attributed to the Son nor Holy Ghost Ibid. l. 19. and consequently if he asserts that these terms cannot with equal Propriety be attributed to and predicated of the Son and Holy Ghost we have him both Arian and Macedonian together in this Assertion First The Reverend Dean never asserted that the Son or Holy Ghost could not properly be called the one God or only true God only that they could not so properly be stiled so as the Father The Fathers of the Nicene Council indeed of the whole Eastern Church did expresly appropriate the Title of One God to the Father and God of God to the Son by which Opposition it appears that by One God in the first Article of the Creed they meant a God of himself which is a Personal Attribute and peculiar to the Father Our Saviour appropriates this Title of Only true God to the Person of the Father Hilary lib. 3. de Trin. and St. Hilary who was never hitherto esteemed either an Arian or Macedonian expresly asserts this to be Debitum Honorem Patri St. Paul has patronized this Appropriation Ephes 4.6 To us there is one God and Father Now for my part I had rather be esteemed an Heretick Arian and Macedonian with my Saviour St. Paul St. Hilary all the Oriental Fathers than Orthodox with the Animadvertor and Bellarmin I do assure him that I am neither afraid of him nor the Socinians I crave no Favour at either of their Hands for this Profession of my Faith That the Title of one God only true God is a Proper Personal Prerogative of the Father alone p. 138. lin 21. n. 20. And as for the Father's being the Fountain of the Deity I hope he looks upon the Expression only as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native sense 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 Oratio contra gregales Sabellii propè initium Athanasius tells us that we might rightly call the Father the only God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he only is unbegotten and he only is the Fountain of the Deity This learned Father has hitherto been esteemed the very Test of Orthodoxy in this Mystery The Reverend Dean's Notion and Phrase is borrowed from him who would not have thought himself safe under so Venerable a Name But alas the World is strangely altered Athanasius himself must come to School to the Animadvertor to learn how to speak I hope he that poor Novice Athanasius looks on the Expression as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native sense I hope also that I may be allowed to vindicate this Phrase of that great Light of the Church from the Exceptions of a bold Animadvertor May I in the Name of Athanasius enquire of this great Critick which of these two words Fountain or Deity are to be interpreted Metaphorically That of Fountain is plainly Metaphorical Athanasius was never so weak as to believe that the Deity was a River of Waters and the Father the Fountain of it If the Animadvertor means that this term Deity is Metaphorical I must require his Proof and not his Affirmation Again neither Athanasius nor any of the Ancient Fathers ever intended by this Phrase that the Father is the Fountain of the Deity that he was the positive Fountain of the Divinity in his own Person any more than Philosophers and Divines mean that God was the cause of Himself when they say that God is of Himself Athanasius added to avoid the suspicion of such an absurd sense that he was unbegotten as well as the Fountain of the Deity What then is the fault of this Phrase of Athanasius Why alas poor Athanasius was unacquainted with the subtilties of the Schools He said plainly and bluntly that the Father was the Fountain of the Deity whereas he ought to have said Animadv c. p. 191. lin 10. That he was the Fountain of the two other Divine Persons To say
for the first I grant that the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity differ as really as Peter James and John 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 James and John I Answer that this Phrase as really signifies in the same degree of real distinction as this Phrase as Wisely imports the same degree of Wisdom Again it is an idle Enquiry to dispute by what Name we must call the distinction of the Divine Persons If they were three Infinite Minds they can but be simply denyed one of the other we could then only say that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son and this I shall hereafter shew is not a Modal but a strictly real distinction CHAP. VI. n. 1. THERE ought to be a double care in treating of Mysterious Articles of Faith on the one hand not to debase them to avoid the difficulties which attend the Article in its Native sense and on the other hand not studiously to seek out for Mysteries which possibly God never intended nor to refuse such Illustrations of the Article from Natural Examples which readily offer themselves especially if they have the Suffrage of the most Pious and Learned Fathers of the Church The Sabellian Hereticks have adulterated the Divine Generation because they could not explain how God an Immortal Spirit can generate On the other Hand the Schoolmen are not satisfied that the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation in the general contain great Mysteries in them but they will have every Conclusion throughout both the Articles to be so These two Articles are delivered with so much plainness and simplicity in the Sacred Scriptures and with so much subtilty in the Writings of the Schoolmen that a stranger to the Christian Faith upon the comparing of them both together could hardly be perswaded that the latter were pretended to be an explication of the former The Sacred Writings contented themselves to teach us that the Father and Son are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that these three are one The Fathers of the Church justly explained this Unity that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one in Nature one in Godhead the Unity of a Father and a begotten Son is an Unity of Nature The Shoolmen advance one step higher it is not sufficient with them for any one to acknowledge the Divine Persons to be one in Nature Essence Divinity unless he adds in one singular Essence in one singular Nature in one singular Divinity and that under pain of being guilty of the worst of Heresies Tritheism it self The Animadvertor keeps pace with the warmest not only contends against the admission of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity but calls it a Traducing of the Fathers to assert that they held this Specifick Unity As to the Question it self I wish from the bottom of my Heart that we might learn to distinguish betwixt the Primary Conclusions of our Faith and disputed Articles that they who contend for the singularity of the common Divine Nature with the Schools would not overthrow the received Faith of three Divine Persons and that the Article of the Unity of God be esteemed infinitely more Sacred than any seeming Advantages that the Assertion of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity might afford us in the maintaining the Faith of three Divine Persons The Christian Faith professes an Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity He therefore who asserts an Unity to destroy the Trinity or a Trinity in derogation of the Unity offends against the Christian Religion I shall much rather choose my self and recommend to my Orthodox Reader the Belief that the Divine Nature is above these terms of Art above these distinctions of Logick of Singular and Universal that it is transcendental to those Rules by which we judge of created inferiour Natures than any ways weaken either of those Fundamental Articles before mentioned either of the Unity of God or of the Trinity of Divine Persons The learned Petavius seems to me to incline to this Opinion where speaking of the Unity of the Divine Nature Petav. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 1583. he has these words Speciei unitate constituta etiam individua singularis sequitur And in that Famous Objection of the Greeks against the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son viz. that then Father and Son are one Principle of the Holy Spirit either specie sola or numero Lib. 7. de Trin. c. 16. n. 1. p. 156. To which Petavius Answers That they are Vnum reverà numero specie Principium quatenus in Deum convenire ambo ista possunt Where he expresly asserts that a Specifick Unity and an Unity of Singularity are consistent in the Divine Nature nay that the latter follows from the former as also that the vis spiratrix which to Petavius and the Schools has the same Unity with the common Divine Essence is one both in specie and in number Suarez Metaph. Disp 5. S. 1. n. 6. Non desunt Theologi qui dicant Divinam essentiam nec singularem nec universalem esse And in the Margin Vide Durandum alios in 1. D. 35. To the same purpose I understand those Divines who assert that the common Divine Essence is neither a first nor second Substance that is neither strictly Singular nor Universal but in some measure partaking of both transcendental to both However it must not be dissembled that since every created Nature is either strictly Singular or Universal we want a medium to prove that the Divine Nature can be transcendental to both these and therefore how Modest and Peaceable and otherwise Eligible such an Assertion seems to be yet when we contend with an obstinate Adversary with a subtile Socinian it will be hazardous to found the Defence of so Sacred an Article upon what he will be apt to stile a Precarious Hypothesis The common Opinion of Philosophers is that Singulare and Vniversale are contradictorily opposed in Finite Creatures and consequently that there can be no medium betwixt them and it is not easie to give a Reason why the same Rule should not hold in the Divine Nature especially since we cannot in this Conclusion plead the Authority of express Revelation as we can in that Mysterious Article of a Divine Generation and Procession There is no need of this Precaution in reference to the Animadvertor my Debate with him is rather Historical and Problematical than Dogmatical Historical as whether the Ancient Fathers held this Opinion of the Universality of the common Divine Essence Problematical whether those Reasons which he has brought against the admission of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity prove such Notion to be unphilosophical Nay I do here disclaim all Dogmaticalness in this Conclusion I shall not in the least contend with any Orthodox Divine who
is justly esteemed by all the Moderns who follow the Schools one of the difficultest Objections against the Faith of the Trinity viz. that if three Humane Persons have three singular Humane Natures and consequently are so many Men why three Divine Persons should not also infer three singular Divine Natures and consequently be three Gods And the Answer that the School men and Moderns give is that the case is vastly different that the Unity of three Humane Persons is only Notional the Unity of the Divine Persons strictly real The Animadvertor himself p. 300. can tell you of a better Allusion and Similitude to the Union of the three Divine Persons The Vnion of Vnderstanding Memory and Will as one and the same Soul One simple Being with three Faculties is a nearer resemblance of one simple Being under three Relations than three simple Beings n. 6. But let us hear the Animadvertor himself explain this Argument p. 175. à minore ad majus If several individual Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature much less could this be said of the three Divine Persons To which I answer First Does the Animadvertor really believe that three Men cannot properly be said to have more than one Nature or not If he believes it What will become of his Objection that a Specifick Unity implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals What becomes of that famous Passage of his P. 270. that Substantiis Consubstantialibus will neither be Truth nor Sense I suppose he will not deny that several individual Men are Substantioe Substances in the plural Number nor yet that Consubstantialibus signifies of one Substance of one Nature I intreat him to answer this Question Are several Men Consubstantial or not Is Christ according to his Humanity Consubstantial with us Men or not Will he dare to say that the whole Catholick Church has neither spoke Truth nor Sense For the whole Church has ever professed a Belief of Christ's Consubstantiality with us Men. If the Animadvertor shall plead that it was the Sense of the Fathers that three Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature even that is sufficient for my purpose who am now enquiring only into the Judgment of the Fathers This is sufficient ad Hominem to the Animadvertor but for my Reader 's fuller Satisfaction I answer to the Point that so far as this Allegation is true 't is Impertinent and that so far as 't is pertinent 't is false 'T is an acknowledged Truth that the strictest Union that can be betwixt Humane Persons is but a resemblance an Allusion to that inseparable incomprehensible Union betwixt the Divine Persons But this is not the question concerning the Union of the Divine Persons indefinitely but concerning the Unity of their Nature The Fathers maintained that the Unity of the common Divine Nature was of the same kind and degree with the Unity of the common Humane Nature There is certainly a greater Union betwixt two Humane Persons who are dear and intimate Friends than betwixt two who are mortal Enemies There is a greater Union betwixt two Saints in Heaven than betwixt the best Friends on Earth And yet two mortal Enemies have the same Unity of Nature with the Saints in Heaven The Union of the Saints in Heaven is by our Saviour himself resembled to the Union of the Father and the Son John 17.22 That they may be one as we are one But these words no more denote an illimited equality than those other words of our Lord Matt. 5.48 Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect denote an equality in Perfection If we suppose three unbegotten unproduced Divine Persons three Fathers I cannot see how we can deny such to be Consubstantial since we acknowledge three Angelical Persons to be of one Nature and Substance yet three unbegotten Divine Persons three Fathers are to all the Ancient Fathers three Gods They did not therefore believe that a Specifick Unity was the only Unity of the Divine Persons that they were one upon no other account but if we can know their meaning by their words they did certainly believe a Specifick Unity And this I perswade my self the Animadvertor's Heart misgave him n. 7. He therefore comes in with a third Salvo p. 176. That he does not in the least deny but several Expressions may have dropped from the Fathers which if we looked no further might be drawn to a very inconvenient Sense That is in plain English several Expressions have dropped from them which assert if we look no further a Specifick Unity What from those Fathers who never alledged this Example as a parallel Instance but always used it by way of Allusion or à minore ad majus It seems the Animadvertor's always and never will bear an exception What Salvoe has he for this He gives it us in the following words But then also it is as little to be deny'd that the same Fathers professedly and designedly treating of the same Points here 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 Now it is well contrived to take the conclusion for granted he is to prove It seems that the Animadvertor would have things come to that pass that we must take his bare affirmation of a thing for a proof of it Petavius Dr. Cudworth the Reverend Dean of St. Paul's have asserted the quite contrary they have already equivalently denied it and the Animadvertor gives us his own ipse dixit that it is little to be denied Again the Animadvertor pretends no more than a difficulty or a doubt whether these designed expressions may not be reconciled to the occasional expressions The Animadvertor makes an if of it to him these latter are hardly if at all reconcileable with the former which is no great wonder since he believes tribus substantiis consubstantialibus to be neither truth nor sense since he believes a numerical Unity absolutely inconsistent with a Specifick Unity Lastly Why is the conclusion stronger than the premises Why does he make the conclusion positive Their meaning cannot be taken from both is the conclusion whereas the premises mentioned only a difficulty or a doubt They are hardly if at all reconcileable The Animadvertor was I believe n. 8. in some measure sensible of the weakness of these answers and therefore He provides a fourth Salvoe Ib. p. 176. viz. that the Orthodox Writers of the fourth and part of the fifth Century were chiefly exercised with the Arian Controversie And the Arians would not allow so much as a specifick Unity of Nature between the Father and the Son but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sameness held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or likeness of Nature between them but therefore we have the less cause to wonder if there be defects in some of their Arguments if some of their reasonings about the Trinity seem to look no further than a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons This is as little to the advantage of the Animadvertor's cause as the former allegations The Arians would not allow so much as a specifick Unity between the Father and the Son Nicepho Callist Eccles His lib. 18. cap. 47. I would fain know what Hereticks ever did allow it Nicephorus Callistus charges indeed this Opinion upon Philoponus and his followers who are commonly called the Tritheit Hereticks but he is a later and fabulous Writer wrote in the fourteenth Century long after the prevailing of the School-Divinity Philoponus and his followers the Tritheit Hereticks of the seventh Century inclined nearer to Sabellianism than to a belief of a specifick Unity of the Trinity that hard name of Tritheit Hereticks was given them by reason of some uncouth Phrases which they used of which hereafter Secondly what consequence will the Animadvertor draw from the Arians not allowing a specifick Unity between the Father and the Son This is what he aims at that it sufficed to maintain a specifick Unity to confute the Arian Heresie I desire to know why the same Plea might not have served the Reverend Dean in his learned Vindication of this Article against the Socinians who no more allow a Specifick Unity of the Trinity than the Arians of old The Socinians deny them to be three infinite minds why will not that Apologize for the Reverend Dean Why is not this molified and called only a defect in the Reverend Dean as the Animadvertor here Stiles it in the Antient Fathers Thirdly the Arians objected Tritheism against the Orthodox Faith as the Socinians do to this day So that had the Ancient Fathers believed this Heresie a consequence of asserting a specifick Unity in the Trinity they would as carefully have avoided the asserting of it as the School-men and Moderns do on all occasions Fourthly The answer of the Antients to this Objection of Tritheism by the Arians is the clearest demonstration of their judgment this is the Objection Peter James and John are three Men therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Gods The general answer of the Ancients is by denying the truth of the Antecedent that Peter James and John are improperly abusively called three Men that it is contrary to the rules of Philosophy to call them otherwise than one Man and three Human Persons as we say in the Blessed Trinity there are three Divine Persons and one God Now not one School-man or Modern as I believe ever gave such an answer Not one of them ever imagined that the affirming Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one God did in the least enforce them to affirm Peter James and John to be one Man The Animadvertor thinks this Objection only Jocular only fit to be Laughed at which the Antients thought so weighty that to get rid of it they endeavoured says the learned Dr. Cudworth reflectingly with their Logick to prove that three Human Persons ought not to be called three Men. I shall consider their Logicks afterwards at present I declare that is a manifest conviction to me that they did conceive the Unity of Nature between Human and Divine Persons parallel equal n. 9. Fifthly those words are very remarkable in our Animadvertor but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or likeness of Nature between them which insinuates as if the debate of the Catholicks and Arians in the Nicene Council were only about a Title whether the Son be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Father but this is to misrepresent the Fathers of that august Assembly The Arians liked neither the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and a Creature are improperly said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Again the Catholicks approved of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 provided it were understood without equivocation if there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 added to it that is perfectly alike in their Essence is to the Catholicks the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consubstantial The Arians never consented to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when their Party was too weak and they were obliged to dissemble with some Catholicks who were otherwise favourable to their Persons and cause It must be confessed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not without great force suit with the Hypothesis of the Schools of the Singularity of the common Divine Essence A Singularity will not admit of a Comparison of likeness so saith Ricardus de S. Victor Lib. 6. de Trin. c. 20. Siquidem ubi est simplex Vnitas summa simplicitas quid ibi facit qualis talis It is less wonder therefore if the School-men charge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Arianism or Semi-arrianism Vid. Petav. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 6 per totum whereas it is capable of an Orthodox Exposition I thought it necessary to follow the Animadvertor thus closely in the examining of this Historical Truth viz. whether the Fathers of the Church believed the Modus of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity Two very great and learned Persons have said it have abundantly proved it saith the Reverend Dean Their Assertion has never yet been confuted They were not drawn into this Assertion by the heat of Disputation or to favour their own Hypothesis neither of them approve of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity The Reverend Dean rightly judged that those places they had already produced abundantly proved their conclusion and yet Petavius gives them but as an Essay and pronounces this Opinion to be the judgment of all the Greek Fathers especially Shall I ask the Animadvertor a few Questions Was not Petavius as capable of judging betwixt occasional and designed Expressions as himself as capable of judging betwixt an Allusion or an Argument a minore ad majus as himself Did not Petavius know that the Arians denyed a Specifick Unity of the Trinity Shall I ask the Animadvertor whether he ever consulted St. Basil's 43d Epistle and if he did whether he can have Brow enough to say That that Epistle was not designedly wrote of the difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or whether St. Basil has not in the fullest manner delivered his judgment in this point I particularly mention this Epistle because our Animadvertor quotes a passage out of it Pag. 149. of his Animadversions under the name of Greg. Nyssen de differentia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whom in the Printed Editions it is also ascribed and because this Epistle being both in the Works of St. Basil and Gregory
Nyssen the Reader may more easily consult it and there from his own Eyes be satisfied that this was the judgment of that most learned Father St. Basil This Epistle is the first Authority Petavius quotes in the aforementioned seventh Chapter of his fourth Book of the Trinity I do not desire of the Animadvertor to traverse and examine all Petavius's Allegations much less all the Greek Fathers I am content to stand or fall by this single Epistle if this does not assert a Specifick Unity of the Trinity I am content that it pass for a Traducing mis-representing of the Fathers to say That any one of them ever held such a Notion And now I hope with the leave of the Reader I may add that Petavius as well as Dr. Cudworth stands as an unanswered witness and that in the Mouth of these two Witnesses till better Testimony appear the Historical Truth of this disquisition stands at present unshaken n. 10. I in the second place descend to the Problematical part whether the Reasons of the Animadvertor are so cogent as to forbid the Admission of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature The Animadvertor gives us five Reasons p. 181. c. the three first of which are dispatched in a word His first That if a Numerical Unity the Animadvertor means a Singularity in the same Divine Nature be sufficent to make the three Persons one God then a Specifick Unity of the same is not necessary I answer those who admit of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity strictly so called do it upon this account That they are afraid that a Singularity a Numerical Unity in the Animadvertors sense will make Father Son and Holy Ghost one Person as well as one God They conceive that three truly three distinct three can have no other Unity of Nature save a Specifick Unity and those who admit of both mean it only in our imperfect conception of things otherwise they believe that the Unity of the Divine Nature is above both these terms of Art that in our imperfect conception it partakes of some properties of both these Unities but strictly and really it is neither Singular nor Universal The same answer solves the Animadvertor's second Reason n. 11. that a greater and less degree of Unity are not to be admitted in the Divine Nature They who admit of a Specifick Unity deny a Singularity They who in words admit of both do not in reality believe two Unities in the Divine Nature but only one Transcendental Unity in our imperfect Conception partaking of the properties of both these Unities His third has been already answered See cap. 3. n. 5. that a Specifick Unity may agree to ten thousand Individuals as well as to three so may one simple Being have ten thousand Relations or Modes as well as three this Article is wholly owing to Revelation His fourth is that a Specifick Unity is principally n. 12. p. 182. if not absolutely notional and therefore cannot any ways properly belong to the Divine Persons nor is by any means necessary to make the three Persons one God First The Animadvertor brings in his Conclusion with an if if not absolutely notional and yet argues from that Conclusion as if it were the most allowed Maxim Secondly The Distinction of the Divine Attributes of Justice and Mercy is confessedly notional and yet the Animadvertor formerly pronounces it to be Absurd to contradict that Distinction Thirdly The Unity of Nature betwixt Christ and his Mother is certainly a Specifick Unity according to the Animadvertor a notional Unity and yet it is Heresie to deny That Christ and his Mother are of one Nature or Consubstantial Fourthly The Relations of likeness equality which are betwixt the Divine Persons though founded on the express words of Scripture Christ thought it no robbery to be equal with God the Image of the Invisible God the express Image of his Fathers Apostasis are by all the School-men confess'd to be relationes rationis that is Notional and yet I hope the Animadvertor will not hence deny that they ought not properly to belong to the Divine Persons nor necessary to make them one God Fifthly The Unity of the Divine Nature is also a Relation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantial unius substantioe of one Substance implies a relation in Substance We cannot say That the Father and the Spirator of the Holy Ghost are Consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unius substantioe This term is as contrary to the Sabellian Heresie as it is to the Arian and therefore according to the School-mens own Principles this Relation of Unity of Substance must be relatio rationis that is notional Sixthly those Fathers who assert a Specifick Unity of the Trinity do not believe that the Divine Persons are said to be one upon no other account save a Specifick Unity or that they are deny'd to be three Gods from a Specifick Unity alone this Unity they conceive necessary but not of it self sufficient Seventhly Even a Specifick Unity hath a sufficient fundamentum in re A Specifick Unity is indeed a Logical Notion but the Foundation of it is something real viz. a real agreement of the distinct Persons or individuals in the same reason of Nature The Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God as really as Peter is a Man and James is a Man and John is a Man Peter James and John are not notionally each of them a Man nor Father Son and Holy Ghost notionally each of them God From this real agreement in Human Persons we Form in Logicks the notion of a Specifick Unity and the Ancient Fathers applied the same notion to the agreement of the Divine Persons The Animadvertor's fifth and last Argument is n. 13. That a Specifick Unity of Nature implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in every one of the particulars to which it belongs therefore such an Unity cannot be admitted in the Divine Nature The Argument put into due Form is to this purpose If a Specifick Unity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings implies a Multiplication of the said Nature then a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons implies a Multiplication of the Divine Nature But a Specifick Unity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings implies a Multiplication of the said Nature therefore a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons implies a Multiplication of the Divine Nature But the Conclusion is Absurd the Divine Nature being uncapable of Multiplication therefore a Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature is not to be allowed from whence such Conclusion follows Now in this Argument as it stands betwixt the Animadvertor and my self I deny the consequence of the Major because I am satisfied the Animadvertor would do the same if I should retort the same Argument mutatis mutandis against his own Hypothesis as for Instance if I should thus urge If a Singularity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings forbids a Plurality
except Innascibility or the property of being unbegotten which notifies not a difference of Essence or a different essential Dignity but a personal Property even as Adam being unbegotten for he was immediately formed by God and Seth begotten for he was the Son of Adam and Eve proceeding out of the side of Adam for she was not begotten differ not in Nature for they are all Men or human Persons but in a distinct personal Property These words need no Comment Seth's Birth and Eve's Procession of the Rib of Adam are not their Personalities not their Modes of Subsistence but their personal Properties not that which constituted them Persons but that which distinguished them in our Conception one from another that which constituted them distinct Persons one from another Besides the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not of it self capable of any other Interpretation to be unbegotten a negation See Ch. 2. n. 10. can never be the Father's Mode of Subsistence his Personality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Animadverter is a term not importing in it any positive Relation but only a meer Negation of all Producibility by any superior Principle Anim. c. p. 248. This term therefore cannot signifie causally and consequently not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here stiled contrary to the Animadverter's Observation I acknowledge to the Animadverter that every Person Ibid p. 250 251. and consequently the Divine Persons are formally constituted such by a Mode of Subsistence or what we are obliged to conceive of as a Mode of Subsistence that is each distinct Person has a distinct Mode of Subsistence and the three Divine Persons have in our Conception three distinct Modes of Subsistence Nay I will add further that I believe that no Man who understands the meaning of the term Hypostasis and uses it without Aequivocation will or can deny any part of this The Reverend Dean expresly acknowledges this truth A Beast is a Suppositum Vind. of the Trinity p. 262. that is a distinct living subsisting Being by it self But I do here deny to the Animadverter that the Ancient Fathers did ever assert that the Divine Relations were in this proper formal Sense Modes of Subsistence or that That Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to the Divine Relations and much more when applied to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was by them understood in the proper formal Sense of which we are now enquiring Secondly If the Animadverter could get over the first Difficulty Anim. c. p. 120. he would find a second behind how one simple Being which is the Animadverter's Hypothesis of the Trinity can have three Modes of Subsistence The whole School of the Thomists and Scotists assert an absolute essential Subsistence and consequently one Subsistence of the whole Trinity they esteem the three Divine Persons to be unum subsistens unum suppositum aut personam incompletam says Cajetan one of the most famous Commentators upon Aquinas to which Suarez only replies Suarez de incar q 3. Act. 1. disp 11. S. 5. p. 285. Cavendus est hic loquendi modus utpote alienus à modo loquendi conciliorum Patrum Theologorum that is have a care lest Hereticks hear us and take advantage at such a novel Expression otherwise Suarez finds no fault with the Doctrine and indeed to say That Existence or Subsistence by it self is Relative is a contradiction to the very Phrase Subsistence by it self denies all relation to any other So that according to the Thomists and Scotists the three Personalities are not three Modes of Subsistence not three Subsistences but one essential absolute Subsistence with three Relations or three relative Modes or three Modes of Incommunicability But of this I have already spoke Chap. 1. n. 11 12 13. Thirdly To allot three Subsistences to the God-head is to contradict the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Properties are not Names of the Essence of the God-head but of the Persons The God head does not properly subsist but the Divine Persons subsist Cajetan may inform the Animadverter what is the consequence of ascribing Subsistence to the God-head even the same with calling it a suppositum or incompleat Person where the term incompleat is only added to avoid the grossness of the Phrase otherwise they ascribe all the Divine Acts to this unum subsistens unum suppositum and call them essential Acts whereas the Notion of Philosophers is that actiones non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attribuuntur that Actions ought not to be attributed to the Nature but to the Person endowed with such Nature The Person is the principium quod Nature only the principium quo the power by which the Person acteth The School-men retain in words the personal Acts of the Divine Persons that Generation is the personal Act of the Father Incarnation the personal Act of the Son Sanctification the personal Act of the Holy Spirit Active Spiration the personal Act of the Father and Son But these are meer words Generation according to the School-men is the reflex Act of the Divine Understanding whereby it knows it self and this singular individual Act they ascribe in common to Father Son and Holy Ghost So every thing that is an Act in Incarnation is according to them the Act of the whole Trinity they pretend indeed that the same singular reflex Act of the Divine Understanding only generates as it proceeds from the Person of the Father and that the Incarnation is only terminated upon the Person of the Son But what Pretence to invent for Sanctification I do not find that they are yet agreed The sacred Scriptures give Sanctification for the distinguishing Character of the third Person he is so called in the very Form of Baptism to deny this distinguishing Character was Sabellianism to the Ancients Yet this the School-men have undeniably done in the Act of Sanctification The Maxim of the Ancients was that Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa They have not only misconstrued indivisa for confusa but in reality left out the Exception ad extra and confounded the Actions ad intra as well as those ad extra So Spiration to the School-men is that Act of the Divine Will whereby it loves it self and this singular individual Act they also ascribe to the Holy Spirit equally with the Father and the Son Only say they The Divine Will 's loving it self is not Spiration in the Person of the Holy Ghost but only in the Person of the Father and Son How much better is it with the Ancient Fathers to confess these to be inscrutable Mysteries than to expose the sacred Article by such bold and abstruse Definitions and yet these are the Gentlemen whom the Animadverter commends for venturing little for preceding upon the surest grounds of Reason and Scripture Again Sanctification which the divinely inspired Writings give us as the peculiar
that the term three intelligent Persons is adequately and convertibly predicated of God For whatever is adequately and convertibly predicated of any term may in all Propositions be put in the place of that term according to which Rule we may say that three intelligent Persons sent his Son gave his only begotten Son That our Saviour is the Son of three intelligent Persons Blessed be three intelligent Persons even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ There needs no words to expose or confute these Expositions Is this the Person who calls so loud for a Decretum Oxoniense for a Theological Censure from both the Universities Is this the Person who is to vindicate the Reputation of the Church of England to Foreigners Is this the Man who is to warn us that our Religion our old Religion lies at stake If it does it is from such Heterodox Expounders of it as himself To conclude This Proposition viz. God is the Father which the Animadverter with so much ignorance of the received language of the Church and in the consequence Blasphemy charges with Absurdity and Illogicalness was in the judgment of the greatest Man as to this Controversy next to the Divinely inspired Writers whom the Church ever enjoyed the Learned Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most sacred and venerable Article of the Church of God But this belongs to my Second Part concerning the Vnity of God ERRATA PAge 9 l 6. f. sive r. sine p. 11. l. 10. f. by it r. by it self l. 29. r. Praeter p. 15. l. 25. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 18. l. 27. f. part of r. co-part with p. 42. l. 23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. Marg. r. denominari p. 44. l. 15. after prius posterius add in the Divine Nature p. 46. l. 15. r. Principle p. 47. l. 15. f. such r. each p 48. l. 9. r. judicarunt p. 71. l. penult r. according p. 73. l. 23. f. personallity r. personally p. 88. l. 29. r. vindicates p 92. l. 2. f. senses in r of p. 98. l 13. r dicunt and place the Quotation after the following Sentence p. 109. l. penult f. these r. three p. 110. l. 28. f. as one r. in one p. 114 l. 7. f. but therefore r. so that p. 116. l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 120. l. 5. f. Apostasit r. Hypostasis p. 129. l. 21. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 137. l. 27. r. praeter p. 148. l. 24 r. believes p. 153. l. 8. r. Hypothesis p. 155. l. 21. f. assent to r. assert p 163. l. 4. r. subsistit l 5. gignit l. 9. seipsam the same mistake in some other places l. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 165. l. 21. r. subsistit There are some other literal mistakes as Logicks for Logick Hypostases for Hypostasis and several mispointings which will not much disturb a judicious Reader and the Animadverter if he pleases may correct them himself if this Book does not find him other employment The Pages are mistaken from 132 to 137. INDEX A Preface to the Reader concerning Tritheism charg'd c. i. An Introduction by way of Letter to the Animadverter Page 1 The Socinian Historian's Encomium on the Animadversions c. ibid. The Animadverter's Treatment of the Dean of St. Pauls 2 The Hypothesis of Three Infinite Minds and Three Modes compared 4 My Design and Surprize in four particulars ibid. The Faith of the Church as to several Extra-scriptural Terms and several Scriptural Expressions 5 The design of my First Part to state the Doctrine of the Trinity the Reason of my proceeding by way of Animadversions on the Animadverter 6 The design of my Second Part to state the Article of the Unity of God ibid. CHAP. I. N. 1. THE absolute necessity of the Scholastick Terms their usefulness at this time 8 N. 2. Whether Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance 9 N. 3 4. Of Substance and Accident 10 N. 5 6. Of the Nature of Modes of the reason of inventing Modes the Animadverter's mistake N. 7. Of Modal Difference 13 N. 8. Of the Animadverter's definition of Essence 14 N. 9. Whether Existence be a Mode 15 N. 10. Of Subsistence of the Animadverter's addition to the common definition of Subsistence 16 Whether the Human Nature of Christ be barely an adjunct to the WORD 18 N. 11. Of one singular Existence of the Trinity 19 N. 12 13. More Considerations about Subsistence 20 N. 14. Of Modal Composition of the reduction of Modes Whether a Divine Person is compounded 21 N. 15. Whether things formally different be affirmable of one another 25 CHAP. II. N. 1. OF the Debate betwixt the Reverend Dean and the Animadverter concerning Self-consciousness and Mutual-consciousness 27 N. 2. Whether Personality be the Principle of Action N. 3. Whether the Human Nature of Christ be a Person And of some of the Subtilties of the Schools relating to the Incarnation 28 N. 4. Whether the Soul of man is a Person and of the illustration of the Incarnation from this similitude Whether Christ is a compound Hypostasis 30 N. 5. Whether the Soul can be a Part and Person both 33 N. 6. Whether the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and man be Unum per Accidens or Unum per se 34 N. 7. Whether the Soul be the same Person with the Man and whether the WORD be the same Person with whole Christ How a whole and compound Being or Person differ 36 N. 9. A Retortion of the Argument against the Socinians and the Animadverter 40 N. 10. What denominates any Being a distinct Person 41 CHAP. III. N. 1. OF a Prius and Posterius in the Trinity 44 N. 2. Whether Self-consciousness be a Personal Act 46 N. 3 4. Whether to be a Person be a Relative Attribute in this Mystery 47 N. 5. Why we believe Three Divine Persons and no more 52 N. 6. Of the Singularity or Plurality of the Predication of any Attribute concerning the Divine Persons Of the Distinction of Personal and Essential Predicates Of the distinction of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective in relation to this Mystery Of the distinction of Absolute and Relative Predicates in relation to this Mystery St. Augustin's Axiom of quicquid ad se Deus c. confuted Of St. Augustin's Opinion in this Article A Character of the Schoolmen by Mr. Dodwell The Answer to an Arian Objection Of the true Rule of Singular and Plural Predications in the Trinity That the Articles of the Unity of God and the Unity of the Trinity are distinct Articles 55 CHAP. IV. N. 1. OF Orthodox Forms of Speech in relation to this Mystery 65 N. 2. Whether Three Persons in God 67 N. 3. Of the Reason of using Extra-Scriptural Terms in this Controversy Of the Schoolmens Principles 69 N. 4. Of the import of this Phrase of Three Infinite Minds Why this Phrase so rare Of the Phrase of One Infinite Mind in relation to the
the Animadvertor they are three Infinite Minds in the highest sense The Animadvertor charges the Phrase of three Infinite Minds with the grossest Tritheism it immediately and unavoidably infers three Gods Preface pag. II. The Reverend Dean pleads the Authority of the Nicene Fathers that they had said as much nay more than he they had asserted a Specifick Unity of the Trinity which in the Animadvertor's Judgment implies a multiplication of the Divine Nature that is three Infinite Spiritual Natures whereas three Infinite Spirits in the bare Phrase implies no more than that there are three possessing one Infinite Spiritual Nature Now I presume if the Dean or rather if Petavius and Dr. Cudworth were not mistaken the Animadvertor will abate something of his Confidence he will hardly have brow enough to say That the Notion of the Trinity which the Nicene Fathers advanced was a silly Heretical Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring three Gods The same Request I make to all my Orthodox Readers that they will be pleased to lay aside their Prejudice against the Admission of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity till this Historical Truth be fairly determined The Nicene Fathers Judgment is not indeed the Rule of our Faith but it deservedly demands a Veneration from all Modest and Pious Christians and is infinitely to be preferred before the bare Authority of the Schoolmen or Moderns The Animadvertor Answers n. 3. p. 174. lin 16. I must confess my self very unfit to take such great and truly learned Persons to task and that upon comparing this Author the Reverend Dean and Petavius together I find much more Reason to believe that he mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers If the Animadvertor is unfit to take two such learned Persons to task why does he contradict their Judgment Why does he call it a traducing misrepresenting the Fathers Why does he so confidently aver That the Fathers never mark that word 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 He should have added p. 175. lin 5. of Nature with that which is in the three Divine Persons The Fathers never believed indefinitely universally the same Unity betwixt Humane Persons as betwixt the Divine Persons nor is that the Question but whether they believed the same Unity of Nature betwixt the latter as is confessedly betwixt the former A Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature if we for once only suppose such an Unity has quite different Consequences from what a Specifick Unity of a created Humane Nature implies which yet alters not the Unity of each Nature Well but the Animadvertor has compared the Dean and Petavius May I ask him why he did not also consult Dr. Cudworth He gives him a Complement in the foregoing Lines his Piece is not so rare but it might easily have been procured He was a Protestant Divine a Person of great and deserved Repute for Learning and Skill in Antiquity and which is more gives judgment against himself He himself embraces the Platonick Hypothesis which infers a Generical not Specifical Unity of the Trinity He lays a very severe charge to this Notion of a Specifick Unity It seems plain that this Trinity of St. Cyril and such who believe a Specifick Unity is no other than a kind of Tritheism and that of Gods independent and co-ordinate too The Platonick and Nicene Hypothesis of the Trinity both agreed in this that the common Divine Essence was an Universal They differed in this that the Platonists held the Divinity to be a genus and consequently capable of admitting degrees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the distinct Divine Persons The Nicene Fathers held the Divinity to be a Species capable of no degrees of no essential degrees but that Father Son and Holy Ghost are perfectly equal touching the Godhead in the words of the Athanasian Creed The Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is all one the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal I say the Testimony of this learned Person is of the more weight as being against his own Judgment We naturally in such cases weigh the words of an Author with more exactness when his Authority makes against us than when it agrees with us Him therefore we have left us as an unanswered Witness What does the Animadvertor say to Petavius Has the Reverend Dean misrepresented Petavius or not Why does not the Animadvertor speak plain Why does he keep a muttering between his Teeth That he finds more reason to believe that the Reverend Dean mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers We want a categorical Answer whether Petavius did represent a specifick Unity of the Trinity to be the meaning of the Fathers and if he did so whether in so doing he mistook their meaning and sense This question which was too hard for the Animadvertor I will answer for him but I cannot promise to his good liking The Reverend Dean did not mistake the meaning of Petavius as might be proved from innumerable places of Petavius I shall content my self with two only Petav. l. 4. de Trin. cap. 7. S. 2. In hoc uno Graecorum proesertim omnium judicium opinionesque concordant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est essentiam sive substantiam sive naturam quam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocant generale esse aliquid commune ac minimè definitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verò proprium singulare circumscriptum Ibid. c. 9. S. 1. Again Antiquorum plerosque dicentes audivimus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive naturam commune quiddam esse multis quod universale vocant Hypostasim verò idem atque individuum sive singulare These words are capable of no Evasion Petavius in express terms declares that according to the Judgment of all the Greek Fathers the common Divine Essence is Generale quippiam as opposed to singulare is commune quiddam multis quod Vniversale vocant Thus Petavius as well as the Reverend Dean takes in the subject before us Common Nature and Specifick Nature to be all one Had the Animadvertor consulted the seventh and ninth Chapters of this fourth Book of Petavius concerning the Trinity he could neither have doubted of Petavius's Judgment nor well of that of the Ancient Fathers Well the Animadvertor has a Refuge for himself if Petavius has given his Judgment against him in the immediate following words n. 4. But however I shall lay down this as a Conclusion which I take to be undoubtedly true p. 174. ib. viz. That the Ancient Fathers as well the Nicene as those after them held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature 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
from believing three Gods that they did not as Eulogius there tells us believe that either Father Son or Holy Ghost were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly God and in the next words gives us their positive Faith that they esteemed the Personal properties to be the Persons themselves There may be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Personal property of what we conceive in the Nature of an Accident 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Aristotle appropriated to Substance Again a Personal property an Accident or Mode can never be properly God So that these Hereticks as the Church then judged them believed one Essence with three properties they believed these properties to subsist or to be Hypostases How near the Animadvertor comes to them when he tells us Animadv c. p. 121. Ibid. p. 275. that the ternary Number belongs only to the Personalities that a Person here or in this Mystery imports a Mode or Relation c. that the Relations subsist I leave to Himself upon cooler consideration Pholii Biblio Cod. ccxxx p. 866. If he desires to see these Notions confuted He may please to consult Eulogius in the same place where He will find that Eulogius thought them scarce in their Senses that could imagine a Relation or Personal property could subsist or be a Person I was the more willing to explain this obscure Heresie since this is the eternal Harangue of the Socinians that the Faith of three proper Persons was condemned by the Ancients in the Person of Philoponus when yet at the same time they confess that the belief of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity was the Faith of the Nicene Fathers which two Opinions are inconsistent that they should condemn that for Heresie the worst of Heresies in Philoponus which they esteemed Orthodox in themselves and their own Party n. 18. Fourthly and lastly Though I see no necessity of Multiplying the Divine Nature if we assert a Specifick Unity of the Trinity and less if we assert it in the Sense I only contend for that is for such a transcendental Unity which in our imperfect Conception of things must either be called a Specifick Unity or confessed to want a Name in our present Philosophy yet ex abundanti I am not afraid to declare to the Sociniuns that I would sooner acknowledge three Singular Divine Natures in the Trinity than deny the Faith of three Divine Persons A Singular Nature or Essence if we admit such a Notion in Philosophy is also a Personal Nature or Essence and whatever is Personal in the Divinity it self may be Multiplied nor have the Ancients sometimes scrupled the Phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor Petavius that of Trina Deitas no more than Trinus Deus and genita and ingenita sapientia c. is of the same Import All I will say at present of these and the like Phrases is that they are fairly reconcileable with the true Notion of the Unity of God and no ways contradictions to Reason that I know of Both which I hope to evince in my Second Part where I shall also endeavour to explain the sense in which the Ancients used these different Expressions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is evident that He the Reverend Dean makes Specifick sameness of Nature p. 186. lin 20. n. 19. and the Agreement of Things Numerically different in one and the same common Nature to signifie convertibly the same thing Well and what follows In this says the Animadvertor Ibid. He is guilty of a very great mistake by making those things the same which are not the same With the Animadvertor's leave the mistake lies wholly at his own door The Agreement of Modes Numerically different in one and the same common Nature and a Specifick sameness of Nature are vastly different But the Reverend Dean's words are the Agreement of Things Numerically different and it is the sense of all Philosophers that Things Numerically differing can only agree in one Specifick Nature The term Deus indeed is neither a Genus nor a Species p. 186. lin ult n. 20. Nevertheless all Divines and School-men allow it to be a terminus communis This great Dictator in Philosophy I find is yet to learn the first Rudiments in Logick A terminus communis in Logick is the same with a terminus Vniversalis with a terminus predicabilis and all Logicians I have had the Fortune to consult speak but of five Predicables Genus Species Differentia Proprium Accidens It is too great an absurdity for the Animadvertor to be guilty of to affirm that the term Deus is either Differentia Proprium or Accidens Besides that all the Arguments himself has brought against the Admission of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature are equally levelled against the Admission of the Universality of the common Divine Nature that is against this Assertion that Deus is a terminus communis Animadv p. 154. Essentia habet se per modum termini communis quia licet singularis sit tamen vere est in pluribus suppositis quare in praedicationibus fungitur munere vocis Vniversalis Bellarminus de Christo l. 2. c. 18. Well but do not all Divines and School-men allow it to be a terminus communis Shall I borrow his own words and answer that by this expression it would more than seem that He has read them all But by the conclusion that he has read none of them For not one single School-man or Modern who follow them do I verily believe allow this term Deus to be a terminus communis That famous Objection against the Faith of the Trinity which the Schoolmen and Moderns are so much concerned to answer viz. That if the Father is God and the Son is God the Father must be the Son grounded upon this Axiom Quoe sunt eadem unitertio sunt eadem inter se shews the judgment of the Schoolmen and Moderns that they take this term Deus to be a terminus singularis for that Axiom holds not in a terminus communis This indeed the School men and Moderns do hold that this term Deus is a terminus singularis communicabilis communicable by Praedication as a terminus communis but in it self a terminus singularis p 217. lin 2. n. 21. In God besides Essence or Substance we assert that there is that which we call Mode Habitude or Relation We cannot contemplate God as he is in himself a pure simple Act but to assert the existence of Modes in God from our imperfect Conception of things is peculiar to the Animadvertor but this falls in naturally in the next Chapter where we are to enquire whether the Personalities are proper Modes One thing I cannot omit the Animadverter tells us Ibid. That by one or either of these in Conjunction with Essence or Substance we give account of all the Acts Attributes and Personalities belonging to the Divine Nature What do we give
imperfect as Suarez quoted before Chap. 1. n. 14. says Modus non potest non esse quid imperfectum cum non attingat absolutam rationem entis But I will ask no other authority but his own to confute this singular Assertion of the Animadverter's that there are Modes in God This is his own Definition p. 31. A Mode of Being is such a thing as being added to another does not make any Addition of another Being or Degree of Being to it but onely restrains and determines it I have already shewed that such an Addition would make a Composition Chap. 1. n. 14. now I argue from the latter words that a Mode restrains and determines the Being or Nature it belongs to And will the Animadverter say That the Divine Nature can be restrained or determined If he dares I desire to know the difference betwixt a Nature restrained and determined and a finite Nature or whether the Animadverter will say That the Divine Nature can be Finite Or whether our acute Animadverter to borow his own words will distinguish betwixt terminus and finis and say that the Divine Nature may be determined but cannot be Finite p. 55. the Animadverter tells us That the Divine Nature is that of which there neither are nor can be any Bounds Limits or Determinations and therefore I hope I may say from his own Definition of a Mode not any Modes And this may suffice at present to answer his manifest Reason N. 5. Anim. c. p. 286. His unquestionable Authority is no less than all Divines Metaphysicians and Schoolmen they do unanimously concurr in this thing they universally affirm Modes of Being to be in God and to belong to him Nay and which is more they do in these very Modes state the Ground and Reason of the Personalities c. Now I do confess that the Phrase of three Modes of Subsistence in the Trinity is used by most Divines by most who treat of the Trinity so is the Term of Modes used by the new Philosophers that is not the question But whether all Metaphysicians Schoolmen and Divines do assert Modes of Being in the Trinity in the Sense in which the Animadverter has defined them A Copernican Astronomer uses the Ancient Terms of Art of Epicycles invented by the Ptolemaists and uses the Phrases of the Sun 's rising and setting c. does he therefore embrace the Ptolemaick Hypotheses All wise men understand Phrases according to the known principles of the Speaker The Schoolmen believed that three finite persons had three proper real modes of Subsistence in the sense of the Animadverter they declare that the modes of Subsistence which constitute the Divine persons are in our imperfect conception analogous to the former but in the reality not Modes but perfect infinite relative Substances Holiness goodness in the creatures are proper adjuncts nor can our imperfect minds conceive of them otherwise in God and therefore we call them Attributes in God But our judicium correctivum tells us that this is only the weakness of our conception of things and that the Divine simplicity will not admit of any proper Attributes in God The same mistake has the Animadverter made in those words of the Reverend Dean which he quotes p. 287. viz. That the same numerical Essence is whole and entire in each Divine Person but in a different manner By which words it appears 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 The oftner I read these words the more I admire at the presumptuous confidence of him that wrote them I am sure no man can give a more convincing argument of his utter unacquaintance with the principles of the new Philosophy than these words nay indeed with the principles of all Philosophy and Divinity There is a mode habitude or relation whereby God is related to and respects a created Being God as a Creator is related in one manner and God as a Governour or Judge is related in another manner What then are the Relations of a Creator and Governour or Judge true and proper modes in God The Animadverter will himself determine the contrary p. 242. they derive says he only an external Habitude and Denomination consequent from it upon the Deity it self A Posture of the Body according to the Schoolmen is a real Mode a distinct accidentale quid from the Body it self according to the new Philosophers a different posture is only a different circumstance a different external habitude of the parts of the Body or of the whole Body in respect of the different situation of the parts yet not one of them would scruple the phrase that the Body standing is in a different manner from the Body sitting I am really ashamed of spending the Readers time in confuting so weak objections Modus is Latin for Manner therefore he that uses the one or the other phrase must necessarily assert Modes of Being in the sense of the Reallists for I do more than conjecture that the Nominalist Schoolmen did not believe these Real Modes but my distance from Libraries will not give me leave to determine any thing positively concerning their opinion Risum teneatis n. 6. Thirdly if we should grant the Animadverter a triplicity of proper Modes if we confess the three Personalities to be three proper Modes nay if we allow that the three relations of Paternity Filiation and Procession and the three Personalities in the reality make but three Modes notwithstanding the distinction that natural reason conceives betwixt proper modes of Subsistence and relations resulting from Beings constituted I say all this if liberally granted to the Animadverter would avail him very little For first it would only increase the difficulty what we must do with the fourth Relation of Active Spiration Four Modes in the Trinity would be new even to the Schoolmen themselves But of this afterwards Secondly this would leave us as much in the dark what the three Persons are A Person is not Personality but the Subject of Personality The Father is not Paternity but the Subject of Paternity Paternity is a personal Property but will any one dare to say that God the Father is a Personal Property Paternity according to the Animadverter is a Mode not so perfect as a Being It is boldness to ascribe a Mode to God the Father but to say that the Father is in recto a Mode not a Being is the height of folly and madness This is the constant language of the Ancient Fathers that the Divine Persons are distinguished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in subject Lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. §. 9. p. 324. Hence Petavius speaking of the Divine Persons according to the opinion of the Ancient Fathers says Non unum simplex habere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Phrases of the
account of the Divine Attributes by Essence and a Mode is this in his own Words Ibid. The constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysitians in their Discourses upon God Can a Reader unacquainted with these Debates believe that by the constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysitians we are to understand the single Aninmadverter alone and yet that is the truth So p. 51. l. 3. he with the same confidence and something else tells us That all Divines hitherto have looked upon and professedly treated of the Divine Nature and Attributes as different and distinct from one another still considering the first as the Subject and the other as the Adjuncts of it What must we say when a Person shall set up for a Critick in the most mysterious Article of our Religion and himself understands not the first Elements of Divinity Did any Divine before himself compound God of Subject and Adjunct Did any Divine before himself assert that Holiness Goodness Truth Knowledge Eternity c. were Adjuncts in God Does he know what an Adjunct is Quod alicui preter essentiam adjungitur something added conjoyned to the Essence of a Being Do not all Divines teach That the Divine Attributes may be predicated in abstracto of God God is his Wisdom his Power his Goodness but a Subject cannot be so predicated of its Adjunct But I am ashamed of confuting so weak a Notion yet our Animadverter has the Face to say That without this Notion it is impossible to discourse intelligibly of the Divine Attributes Ibid. p. 217. P. 223 Qu. 3. n. 27. What 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. The Animadverter triumphs over this and some other questions the Reverend Dean had made as easie and trifling for that is the natural Sense of calling them not so very formidable c. But I conceive that he mistook the Reverend Dean's Mind in asking this question which probably was What Notion we can frame in our Minds of the Substance of God of an infinite immaterial Substance However I shall wave that and tell him That he has extremely failed in the answer of this easie Question First When he tells us that the Nature of God is a Being God is properly called a Being but his Nature ought to be stiled an Essence and not a Being when we speak properly and according to the formal Conception of things Secondly To be a Being existing of it self is not of the Nature or Essence of God otherwise the Son and Holy Spirit are not each of them God for certainly neither the Son nor Holy Spirit exist of themselves to be a Being existing of it self is a personal property of the Father alone Thirdly Existing by it self is but an explication of being an Hypostasis or Suppositum which indeed agrees to Father Son and Holy Ghost but yet by the Consent of sober Divines is not esteemed an essential Predication and consequently ought not to be put into the Definition of God Fourthly Incorporeal Infinite c. are Attributes that is according to the Animadverter Adjuncts to the Essence or Nature of God how come they therefore to make up part of the Definition of the Nature of God But I am tired and have reason to believe my Reader so with the observation of the Animadverter's Mistakes and therefore I have omitted very many I did observe and doubtless a more attentive Reader would find many which escaped my notice The Animadverter in this Book has concern'd himself chiefly with three Articles Christ's Satisfaction His Incarnation and the Doctrine of the Trinity and I do not find upon the strictest Search that he understands any one of them Concerning the last of these Articles the Reader cannot have a clearer Proof than by Examination of the Animadverter's eighth Chapter wherein he professedly endeavours to lay down the positive Faith of the Church concerning this Article CHAP. VII I judge it neither improper nor unusefull to represent what the Church has hitherto held and taught concerning this important Article of the Trinity p. 240. l. 2. n. 1. as I find it in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern Make room for this mighty Man keep silence and learn what Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern have taught in this important Article Goliath himself was not more compleatly armed Cap-a-pee but Goliath wanted little David's Sling he came not in the name of the Lord. And it seems this great Opiniator has forgot his Bible behind him quite forgot Christ and his twelve Apostles in the Crowd of Fathers and School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern Shall I need to remind this great Critick that if Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern have determined I will not say against but without a sufficient Foundation of Scripture their determination is no rule of a Protestant's Faith Article 8. Our Church receives the Creeds themselves because they may be proved by most certain Warrants of Holy Scripture I acknowledge it a great Confirmation of my Faith as to this Article that Councils and Fathers have explained the Scriptures in the same Sense in which I believe them The Ecclesiastical Phrases and Forms of Speech are very usefull to detect aequivocating Hereticks or as they speak in short what the Scriptures deliver in several places or as they are Arguments ad homines to those who acknowledge their Authority p. 240. l. 14. n. 2. Now the commonly received Doctrine of the Church and Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judge but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this That the Christian Religion having laid this sure Foundation that there is but one God and that there is nothing i. e. no positive real Being strictly and properly so called in God but what is God and lastly That there can be no Composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self and yet the Church finding in Scripture mention of three to whom distinctly the God-head does belong it has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1.3 expressed these three by the Name of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence allotted to one and the same God-head and these also distinguished from one another by three distinct Relations First The Complement is very high to the Church of England that he will submit the Faith which he finds in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern to the Judgment of the Church of England but whom does the Animadverter mean by the Church of England this is his Character of the Churchmen the Clergy of the Church of England in