Christ-Church It cannot be denied that could they but prevaricate they might pass for as Orthodox and as sound Trinitarians as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calumniators their Faith concerning God is the same both for Sense and Terms but the Professor though a real Unitarian and only a Nominal Trinitarian can asperse Socinus they on the contrary see no reason to disclaim their Friends and Partisans Other Nominals soar high they explain their Trinity after a very peculiar and surprizing manner The Father say they is the Fountain of the Deity the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons he is original Mind and Wisdom who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections and also Willed that is Loved himself in a most perfect manner No one will doubt say they that God always or from all Eternity perfectly understood himself and 't is Natural and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding to Will or Love himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings 't is the first Affection of such Beings and adheres inseparably to them But seeing whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood therefore the Father as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image because thus conceived and as it were generated by him is called the Son 't is also called the Wisdom of God his reflex Wisdom because 't is the Wisdom that resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections As God understandeth he Willeth also or Loveth himself this second Act or God's Loving himself is the Holy Spirit or third Person as understanding himself or the reflex Wisdom of original Mind and Wisdom was the second Person of the Trinity To understand one self and to love or will one self in created and finite Beings are but only Acts of the Vnderstanding and Will but in God we call them Persons Though nothing can be more ridiculous than this account of a Trinity yet to purchase their quiet the Socinians are content to wear a strange and odd Badg For Peace-sake they will say with our Holy Mother the Church Understanding or reflex Wisdom is a Person and Love another Person and these two with original Wisdom shall be called a Trinity Indeed we could wish that so grave a Matron as the Church would leave off Trifling but seeing for the main of it the thing is true for 't is true that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom and he Vnderstandeth and Willeth himself we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things The Church requires us to say Father Son and Spirit Trinity three Divine Persons but she declares at the same time that the meaning only is God or original Mind Vnderstandeth and Loveth himself it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother about a few uncouth or ill-chose Terms and Words on which she confessedly puts a sober meaning a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God or that there is in truth but one subsisting Divine Person Well here are two Explications of the Trinity by the Nominals The first saith the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation Redemption and Sanctification or God considered as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of the World or of Mankind The other saith the second and third Persons of the Trinity are indeed three Acts of God but they are internal Acts even his Understanding and Loving himself So that the whole Trinity is original Mind or the subsisting Person of the Father Knowing and Willing himself so these two Parties But another Division of the Nominals tell us the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God whether External or Internal but they are three Attributes of God Goodness Wisdom and Power say they are that Trinity which the Church teaches and she teaches no other But then say I 't is evident again that the Church and the Socinians are well agreed for the latter no less than the former believe this Trinity and the only Hereticks in these Questions are the Real Trinitarians who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons three distinct Spirits three Almighty All-knowing Beings But they are not very many tho they are Learned Men that speak after these manners the School-men and the Divines that follow them and who more properly are the Nominal Party deliver themselves in other Terms though in the main in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians all the Divisions of them perfectly agree Because we litigate in the English Tongue and contest these Questions only with English Writers it will be fit to represent the Doctrine of the Schools or the Party which I said are more properly it may be the Nominal Trinitarians out of the late Books of Dr. S th against Dr. Sherlock They teach that God or the Trinity is one Numerical self-same Spiritual and Divine Substance one only Spirit one solitary Being And though he is three Persons by which what they mean we shall see presently there is in the whole Trinty but one infinite Vnderstanding one soveraign Will one almighty Energy or Power of Action in Number This one Divine inteltectual Substance or really subsisting Person is at it were distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes or relative Subsistences which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation their Relation is not somewhat consequent upon or supervenient to their Subsistence as in created Persons but is one and the same with it These relative Modes being three in Number are the three Personalities of the Deity but the concrete and abstract Terms namely Personalities and Persons are but only different ways of expressing the same thing And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the Godhead by Relations relative Subsistences relative Modes relative Properties or such like So we say also that every Person as well as every Personality in the Trinity is wholly Relative that is that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person makes him to be a Father and what makes him to be a Father makes him to be a Person so that as we have but now said both Persons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations or relative Properties of the one self-same Divine Substance Being or Spirit These three relative Modes Relations or relative Properties in the Divine Substance or Godhead are Innascibility or Paternity passive Generation and passive Spiration in plainer English to Beget to be Begotten and to Proceed or be Breathed the first maketh the Person of the Father the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit This is the Sum of what Doctor S th saith in his last Book or Tritheism Charged pag. 156 157. Mr. Hooker Author of the
seems self-evident that either the Father only must be said to the truly God because he only hath omnimodous Perfection and in the highest Degree or that there is one Great God and two Inferior or lesser ones To this they that maintain the Inequality of the three Persons answer by retorting the Argument thus If the Divine Persons are equal then there are three Omnipotents and three Omniscients which is the very Notion of three Gods and is denied in terminis or expresly by the Athanasian Creed which saith not three Almighties but one Almighty c. But was it ever heard since the Creation of things say the common Enemy to both the Nominals that two contending erroneous Parties did more effectually ruin one another's common Mistake For as 't is self-evident on the one Hand that it being the very Definition of God the Notion that all Men have of him that he is a Being Omnimodously or absolutely Perfect therefore if the Son or Spirit want some Perfections or some degree of Perfection neither of them can be God but the Father only So on the other hand 't is noless incontestable that three Distinct and really subsisting Persons each of which possesses all Perfections and every degree of those Perfections must of necessity be three Gods Why do not these unhappy Men say the Nominals see that three Almighties and three Omniscients are most certainly three Gods and that on the contrary if only one of them is internally and verily Almighty as well as Superiour in Dignity to the other two he only is true God they are Gods only by Courtesy and Civility of Speech Do not the two contrary Arguments of these unlucky Reasoners make a Dilemma that overthrows their common Foundation even this that the Persons of the Trinity are subsisting Persons Have they not shown us how to argue succesfully against them both for we learn from themselves to say either the imagined subsisting Persons of their Trinity are equal or not equal if equal they must be three Gods because nothing is wanting to any of them toward making him a perfect God if unequal only one of them is properly and truly God the other two by Civility and Courtesy only they may be Gods to those that have a mind to compliment but wanting some Perfections or some Degrees of Perfection neither of them can be God in a Theological or Philosophical Sense But the Pleasure and Sport of the Nominals increases when the Realists seek to extricate themselves from these Noozes For example The Realists that are for the Equality say Father Son and Spirit though omnimodously Perfect and subsisting Persons are one God by their mutual Concord and Agreement So also Origen and other Antenicenes make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons tho they did not believe the Equality To this the Nominals answer the supposed Divine subsisting Persons are hereby loving Friends which is a good Hearing for should three Almighties fall out what would the World do but if they are not only distinct but subsisting Persons they are as much three Gods in a proper and natural Sense as if they were never so much at odds Concord doth not make a Real or Physical Unity which is the Unity of God but only a Moral Vnity or such as is between Friends or Allies Other Realists almost all the Moderns see and confess this therefore they say their Gods are one because they are in one another But say the Nominals God is in his Creatures more especially in the Faithful and they in him as our Saviour himself witnesses are they thereby all but one God is the Creature deified by being in God and he in us No no say others but the Divine Persons who are thus in one another have like Substances Natures and Properties which cannot be said of God and the Creatures Admirable again cry the Nominals but remove this one Scruple If these resembling Gods are so united in their Substances or so in one another that their Substances are continuous like the Parts of the same Angel or like the assignable Parts of the same Divine Person 't is plain that by such an Union or mutual Immeation of their Parts they are become but one subsisting Person in number which is what the Nominals and Socinians contend for but if they are only so united or so in one another that their Parts are only Contiguous like Wine and Oil shook together and yet never incorporating this is but only Contact and Juxta-position and doth not make the three Persons to be one much less one God any more than all the Men in a close Croud are one Man or than the Wine and Oil before-said are one Substance In a word say the Nominals who sees not that the three Divine subsisting Persons having like Substances or Properties or what is all one like Natures are but only Gods resembling one another and whether they be in at out of one another likes are never the same 'T is well but it may be they have better luck who say the Divine Persons are not equal but the Second and Third are subordinate in Authority and inferiour in their Perfections The Objection against them is that hereby either the second and third Persons are neither of them God but only the First or here is one great God and two lesser They reply that as a Father and his two Sons are one Master of the Family though the Authority and Power is in the Father and only secondarily derivatively and less absolutely in the Sons So Father Son and H. Spirit are one God because the two latter though subject and inferior to the former have like Authority and Power with him for that he always concurs with them But the Nominals cry this is not one God in a Physical or Natural Sense but only in a Political and that the supposed Father of the Family and his two Sons may as well be said to be one Man as one Master For in very Deed only the Father is Master though he delegates Authority and Power to his Children during his Pleasue or if Power and Authority is absolutely and irrevocably conferred on them they are as much Masters as he and there is no longer one Master but three Secondly Another Argument of those that contend for the Equality is if the Son and Spirit are unequal to the Father and he only hath omnifarious Perfection with all degrees of those Perfections then the two former are very unnecessarily superadded to the latter he is perfect God without them they add nothing to him we can understand them but only as Foils to set off and to recommend his Perfections This Reasoning also is retorted by them that hold the inequality of the Persons in the supposed Trinity for they reply if there are three equally perfect Divine subsisting Persons two of them are redundant or more than needs If we suppose them say these Gentlemen unequal we leave but one God because the
a proper physical and natural Sense of the word God for the words God and Man are specifical Terms the former implies divers personal Gods as the other implies many personal and individual Men. He is so far from being ashamed of all this that he adds again Page 85. The Fathers of the Nicene Council nay the whole Eastern Church did appropriate a the title one God to the Father and God of God to the Son The Fathers meant thereby the Son is God not of or from himself but from or by or of the Father See what use Mr. J. B. makes of this at pag. 91. The Phrase God of God does necessarily imply a Multiplication of the term God in some Sense or other And one and the same numerical God in concreto can never be God of God and not God of God these two cannot be verified of the same Subject of one and the same God in concreto or in Person 'T is Heresy in excelsis and the last words in Person designed only to blind his true meaning or to mollifie it to those that happen to understand him do but increase the grossness of his Tritheism He hath said in those words in effect the Nicene Creed and Oriental Church acknowledging one who is God of God this God who is God of or from God cannot be the same God with him from or of whom he is God namely with God the Father these two must be several Subjects different Gods This avowed Tritheism I say is neither hid nor sofmed by adding different Gods in concreto or in Person for it was never said or so much as thought before that the multiplication of Persons in the Godhead or these expressions God the Father God the Son God the H. Spirit would warrant any one to say several Gods or that God of God is not the same both Subject and God with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit In short that which this Author and his Party of Realists intend and say though somewhat Covertly and Artificially is that as all the Men in the World in concreto are notwithstanding sometimes expressed by the general abstract word Man So the three Gods in concreto three Personal really subsisting Gods may also be expressed but they care not how seldom the seldomer the better by that scurvy Socinian abstract word God I have not made these short remarks on Mr. J. B. with a malevotent Intention to create Envy or to raise up Enemies to him I shall confess that as broadly as he has spoke St. Sasil Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers after the Year 380 so Taught and so Spoke and I have before given some instances of it as I shall give more in the Continuation of my Answer to Dr. BuII's Defence of the Nicene Faith and Judgment of the Catholick Church But all that I design is only to appeal to the World whether the Realists have not notoriously owned and professed their Tritheism with which they are charged not only by the Socinians but by the Nominals which is to say by the Church Dr. S th is but one Man he is only a private Doctor but he has rightly understood the Doctrine of the Church if a General Council were again to assemble they would certainly espouse his two Books he hath said neither more nor less nor otherwise than the Catholick Church since the Council of Lateran has constantly taught Mr. J. B. is a Learned and very discerning Person so are other Realists of this Nation I must not say of the English or of the Catholick Church for they are departed from both who have lately written against the Socinians but they have opposed to ours such an Explication of the words God Persons Trinity as Dr. S th hath deservedly called a Trinity of Gods nor will they be ever able to wipe off the Imputation Mr. J.B. must not think he has answered Dr. S th he hath only sometimes mistaken him sometimes misreported or perverted his plain and obvious Meaning or quarrelled with the Doctrine of the Schools and of the Lateran Council which is to say of the Catholick Church to make room for the exploded Tritheism of St. Basil and some other Fathers The Doctrine of the Catholick Church Mr. J.B. knows well can be fetched only from General Councils the Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council particular Fathers are but only particular Doctors they are not the Church how many soever they are Therefore I desire Mr. J. B. to tell me what Council ever used his Language that one Divine Person is one God as perfectly one God as one Angelical Person is one perfect Angel In what Council shall we find that the word God is equivalent to a Species which is to say the Divinity no less than the Humanity or the Manhood comprehends several Individuals of the same both Nature and Denomination as there are many Men in concreto so there are divers Gods also in concreto Can he direct us to that Council which teaches that God of God and God not of God that is Father and Son are not the same God or that the term God implies any Multiplication Did ever any Council so far apostatize from Christianity as to deny that there is but one numerical God and call that Doctrine the Faith of Jews Mahometans and Heathens But this is Mr. J. B's Language and the Doctrine of all the Realists they all intend as he has said nor will any of them censure his Book but applaud it as a great and extraordinary Performance I do not regard the Impertinences of Mr. Tho. Holdsworth of North-Stoneham near Southampton in his late Impar Conatui which he hath opposed to Mr. J. B. This Orlando has vomited up his Crudities on a Person too much above him to take notice of him and all that I shall trouble my self to say of him is that if as he has been careful to tell us the Place of his Residence and of his Vicinage so he had also told us his Age we might have guessed with more certainty than now we well can whether he raves or dotes The Realists speak much more Mystically or Absurdly than the Nominals I Must make another Remark on the Realists namely That the absurd contradictory and impossible Things partly expresty said by 'em partly implied in their Doctrine are far less tolerable or accountable than the forced Improprieties in the use of Words and Terms by the Nominals are I confess both Parties so often depart from the common use of Terms and Words that one as well as the other is frequently forced to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Mystery when they cannot assoil the Difficulties objected to themselves by each other or by the Socinians to both when they find that the use of Words and the nature of Things are both against them they cry Mystery their Doctrine then they confess though a Truth is however a Mystery above the Capacity whether of themselves