when he has done so he opposes them Both to a Numerical Sameness of Nature as appears from the Adversative Particle But placed between them In which let me tell him he is guilty of a very great mistake both by making those Things the same which are not the same and by making an Opposition where there is a real Coincidence For by his favour one and the same Numerical Divine Nature is a Common Nature too forasmuch as without any Division or Multiplication of it self it belongs in Common to the Three Divine Persons The Term Deus indeed is neither a Genus nor a Species Nevertheless all Divines and School-men allow it to be a Terminus Communis as properly predicable of and Common to Father Son and Holy Ghost and in this very Thing consists the Mystery of the Trinity That one and the same Numerical Nature should be Common to and Exist in Three Numerically distinct Persons And therefore for one who pretends to teach the whole World Divinity while he is Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons to oppose Common Nature to Nature Numerically One and from the Commonness of it to make the Fathers Argue against its Numericalness whereas the same Divine Nature may be and really is both it is a shrewd sign of the want of something or other in that Man that must needs render him extremely unfit to prescribe and dictate in these Matters In fine the sole Point driven at all along by the Fathers as to the Question about the Unity of the Divine Nature for their Arguments to prove the Coequality of the Three Divine Persons against the Arians are not now before us is an Assertion of a Real Numerical Existing Unity of the said Nature in the said Persons I say a Numerical Unity without making any more steps or degrees in it than One or owning any distinction between Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence And much less by making as this Author does a Specifick Sameness of Nature one thing wherein they place the Unity of the Divine Nature and then making Sameness of Essence another and further degree in the Unity of the said Nature and when they have done so by a return back explaining this Sameness of Essence by the Sameness of Nature newly mentioned as he says they do in these words immediately following by way of Exegesis of the former viz. That there is but one God because all the Three Divine Persons have the same Nature Page 107. and the two last Lines All which is a Ridiculous Circle and a Contradiction to boot making Sameness of Nature one step and Sameness of Essence another and then making this Sameness of Essence no more than a Sameness of Nature again so that according to him the Fathers must be said to go further by resting in the very same step which they first made Which way of Reasoning I confess may serve well enough for one who can forget in one Page what he had said in the other just before But by his favour the Fathers were a little more Consistent and understood themselves better than to run Divisions in such a senseless manner upon a Thing that admitted none And thus having shewn how he has dealt with the Fathers in the Account given by him of their Opinion about the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which was the first Head under which I reduced his Allegations from them I come now in the 2d Place to the other and Principal Head under which he undertakes to prove the chief and more peculiar part of his Hypothesis from the said Fathérs viz. That the Unity and Identity of Nature belonging to the Three Divine Persons consists in the Mutual-Consciousness which is between them That is in Truth That they are therefore One God because they are Conscious to themselves that they are so And here I shall begin with shewing how this Author overthrows the Point undertook by him before he produces any Arguments from the Fathers for it And to this Purpose I shall resume those words of his before cited by me out of Page 106. In which he reminds his Reader That Trinity in Unity being so great a Mystery and of which we have no Example in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and that therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head Now here since our Author's Notion and the Fathers too as he says of this Unity is nothing else but Mutual-Consciousness I desire to Learn of him what necessity there was or is of using several Examples and alluding to several kinds of Union to explain or form an adequate Notion of that And I wonder what kind of Thing he would make of his Mutual-Consciousness should he come to explain and describe it by several Examples and several Kinds of Union But this is not all for he tells us likewise as we also observed before that there are several steps to be taken towards the Explication of this Mystery Whereupon I would again learn of him how many steps are necessary to explain Mutual-Conciousness for one would imagine one single step sufficient to represent and declare a Thing which every Body understands This Author indeed confidently enough Asserts That the Fathers give no other Account of a Trinity in Unity than the same which he gives of it Pag. 101. Line 2. But certainly if the Fathers thought several Examples Steps and Kinds of Union absolutely necessary to explain the Notion they had of this Unity and if these cannot be necessary to explain the Notion of Mutual-Consciousness then it must follow That the Fathers neither did nor possibly could by that Unity mean Mutual-Consciousness And if this Author doubts of the force of this Reasoning let him try his skill and see what Learned stuff he is like to make of it when he comes to explain his Notion of Mutual-Consciousness by several Examples Steps and Sorts of Union and out of them all to form one adequate Notion of this so much admired Thing Wherefore I conclude and I think unanswerably That the Fathers by this Unity between the Divine Persons mean one Thing and this Man quite another and consequently that they have given a very different Account of it from what he gives contrary to his equally bold and false Asseveration affirming it to be the very same And now I am ready to see what he has to offer us from the Fathers in behalf of his Mutual-Consciousness but because I am extremely desirous that the Reader should keep him close to the Point and not suffer him to wander from it which in dispute he is as apt to do as any Man living I shall presume to hint this to him That the Point to be proved by this Author is not that the Three Divine Persons have one and the same
Animadversions UPON Dr. SHERLOCK's Book ENTITULED A Vindication of the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity c. TOGETHER With a more Necessary Vindication of that Sacred and Prime Article of the Christian Faith from his New Notions and False Explications of it Humbly offered to His Admirers and to Himself the Chief of them By a Divine of the Church of England The Second Edition with some Additions LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall MDCXCIII A PREFACE OR INTRODUCTION To the following Animadversions TO be Impugned from without and Betrayed from within is certainly the worst Condition that either Church or State can fall into and the best of Churches the Church of England has had experience of Both. It had been to be wished and one would think might very reasonably have been expected That when Providence had took the Work of destroying the Church of England out of the Papists Hands some would have been contented with her Preserments without either attempting to give up her Rites and Liturgy or deserting her Doctrine But it has proved much otherwise And amongst those who are justly chargeable with the latter I know none who has faced the World and defied the Church with so bold a Front as the Author of Two very Heterodox Books the first Entituled A Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ c. Published in the Year 1674. And the other A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever-Blessed Trinity c. Published in the Year 1690. And as one would think Wrote purposely to let the World see that the Truth cannot be so much shaken by a direct Opposition as by a Treacherous and False Defence I shall in this Preliminary Address to the Reader pass some brief Remarks upon both these Books But first upon this which I have here undertook to Animadvert upon It is now of about Three Years standing in the World and I have wondered even to Astonishment that a Book so full of Paradoxes and those so positively as well as absurdly delivered could pass Unanswered for so long a time For the Author having therein advanced a Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring Three Gods has yet had the Confidence not only to Assert it but to Declare it Heresie and Nonsence to think or hold otherwise that is in other Words to call the whole Christian Church in all Ages and Places Fools and Hereticks For I do here averr and will undertake to prove it as far as a Negative may be proved That no Church known to us by History or otherwise ever held this Notion of the Trinity before And must we then be all Fools and Hereticks who will not acknowledge the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits that is in other Terms to be Three Gods And can so Learned and every way Excellent a Clergy bear this For if they could not whence is it that some Writers amongst them while they are declaring their dislike of his Opinions yet do it with so soft an Air and so gentle a Touch as if they were afraid either to Condemn the Opinion or to Attack the Author Nay and some I find creeping under his Feet with the Title of Very Reverend while they are charging him with such Qualities and Humours as none can be justly chargeable with and deserve Reverence too For my own part I franckly own That I neither Reverence nor Fear him that is I Reverence none who gives whole Communities and Churches such Words nor Fear any One who Writes such Things and in such a manner For even those Mean Spirits who can both Court and Censure him in the same Breath complain That he gives no Quarter where he supposes he has his Adversary upon the least Advantage And if this be his Way and Temper never to give Quarter I am sure he has no cause to expect any whatsoever he may find But still methinks I can hardly believe my Eyes while I read such a Pettit Novellist Charging the Whole Church as Fools and Hereticks for not Subscribing to a Silly Heretical Notion solely of his own Invention For does he or can he think to Live and Converse in the World upon these Terms And to throw his Scurrility at High and Low at all About him Above him and Below him if there be any such at this insufferable rate Does he I would fain know in this speak his Judgment or his Breeding Was it the School the University or Gravel-Lane that taught him this Language Or does he never reflect upon himself nor consider That though he does not others assuredly will One would think by his Words and Carriage that he had ingrossed all Reason and Learning to Himself But on the contrary that this his scornful looking down upon all the World besides is not from his standing upon any higher ground of Learning and Sufficiency than the rest of the World and that he Huffs and Dictates at a much more commanding rate than he Reasons the perusal of my Ninth Tenth and Eleventh Chapters will or I am sure may sufficiently inform the Impartial Reader and shew him how many things there are in this Author's Vindication which too much need Another but admit none In the mean time I do and must declare both to himself and to all others That the forementioned Charge of Heresie and Nonsence as he has laid it is so very Rude Scandalous and Provoking that it is impossible for the Tongue or Pen of Man to reply any Thing so severely upon him which the foulness of the said Expression will not abundantly warrant both the Speaking and the Writing of The Church of England is certainly very Merciful Merciful as a Great Judge once said of K. Charles II. even to a Fault For who by her silence upon what this Bold Man has Wrote and the Encouragement he has since received would not be shrewdly induced after some consider able number of Years if his stuff should live so long to believe that his Notions were the Current Doctrine of our Church or at least of our Church-men at that time None then opposing them most over-looking them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too This is truly the Case and I hope to do the Church of England so much Service at least as to break the Universality both of the Silence and the presumed Acceptance by one plain resolute and full Negative put in against it For upon a due Consideration of the Things vented by this Author and comparing them with the Proceedings and Zeal of the Primitive Church in its Councils I do from my Heart believe That had he lived and published this Book in those Days and Asserted That the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity were Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits And that Their Personal distinction consisted only in Self-Consciousness and their Unity only in Mutual-Consciousness And withal That the Terms Essence Nature Substance
Person and Hypostasis or Subsistence c. applyed to the Godhead and the Divine Persons served only to perplex obscure and confound Men's Apprehensions of them and for that cause ought to be laid aside I say I do not in the least question but that all and every one of these Propositions would have been publickly and solemnly Condemned in Council and the Author of them as high as he now carries his Head like another Abbot Joachim severely dealt with for Asserting them and that upon great Reason Forasmuch as the Two chief of those Terms viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Substance and Subsistence were equally with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self opposed by those Two grand Arian Hereticks and Furious Disturbers of the Church Ursacius and Valens who with their Accomplices vehemently contended to have them all wholly suppressed and disused So that as for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father and the Son they would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no mention at all to be made of any such Thing and as for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it ought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so much as to be named concerning any of the Three Persons And as one Reason for this they alledged the satisfaction of Tender Consciences Which shews That there are some such tender Consciences in the World as when opportunity serves may put the Church not only to part with its Liturgy Rites and Ceremonies but its very Creed also for their sake But right or wrong those Two Arian Incendiaries pressed hard for the Abolition of these Two Words as this Author also does in this his Vindication treading hereby exactly in the steps of those Blessed Leaders who no doubt understood the Interest of their base Cause well enough and were both Self-Conscious and Mutually-Conscious how much they served the design they drove at by what they did And since Things were so in former Days what hinders but that in these latter Days likewise the same if not prevented may happen again And that One who tho' he carries himself as if he were able to teach the whole World yet for some certain Reasons professes himself a Learner still having already exploded the Terms Substance and Subsistence as not to be used about the Trinity may upon the winning prospect of some Approaching Advantage as where Advantage is the Teacher some care not how long they continue Learners be very easily prevailed upon to send the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 packing after its Fellows and to abandon and cast off that too For though such an One should give the Church his Oath to the contrary there is no security from thence but that a Perpetual Learner by a due waiting upon Providence may all in convenient time Learn to forget it too And a Self-Contradictor having freely allowed a Thing at one time as freely and fully disown it at another Wherefore it was no doubt upon a most serious consideration of the force of Words in Conjunction with the Tempers of Men That the Sixth General Council and Third of Constantinople was so jealously concerned and so remarkably strict to fence against all Heretical Mischief from that Quarter as appears from the Concluding Article of the Synodical Sentence pronounced by the said Council against the Monothelites as we find it thus set down in the Acts thereof These Things therefore being thus with the utmost care and exactness on all sides formed and drawn up by us We Decree and Enact That it shall not be lawful for any one to Produce Write Compose Conceive or Teach another Faith or this in any other way or manner But as for those who shall presume to Compose or Contrive another Faith or Publish Teach or deliver forth another Creed to such as shall be ready to come over to the Acknowledgment of the Truth from Heathenism or Judaisine or any other Sect whatsoever or shall introduce any unusual way of speaking or new Invented Terms as tending to Subvert all that has been defined by us if they be Bishops or in Clerical Orders we decree That they shall be deprived of their Bishopricks or said Orders or if they be Monks or Laymen that they shall be Anathematized So that we have here a clear and full Declaration of a General Council against all teaching not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not only against delivering another Faith but against delivering the same in another way or manner than the Council had settled and against the use of all new-Invented Terms all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness themselves not excepted as in the Judgment of the Council destructive in their consequence to the Faith declared and all this upon pain of Deprivation or Anathematization as the Quality of the Persons concerned should happen to be According to the rigour of which Sentence and the Proceeding of the Church in those â—ges sutable to it Deprivation or Suspension would no doubt have attended this Author had he then lived and produced his new Terms in defiance and reproach of the former received ones And if such a punishment had actually befallen him he would have found that in those Days Men were not wont either to be Suspended or Deprived in order to their Promotion I know indeed that in the Apology lately put out by him for Writing against the Socinians he utters some Things contrary to what he had Asserted in this his Vindication of the Trinity But this the Reader ought not at all to be surprized at it being as Natural to some Men to Write as to Breath and to Contradict themselves at to Write And no Man of Sence who knows this Author will reckon that he knows his Iudgment or Opinion from any Book Wrote by Him any longer than till he Writes another nor from that neither till he has Wrote his last Having given the Reader this short Prelibation or Taste of the Book which I shall more particularly and fully examine presently I think fit to remark something also upon that other Piece mentioned by me and Entituled A Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ c. A Book fraught with such Vile and Scandalous Reflexions upon God's Justice with reference to Christ's Satisfaction that it may deservedly pass for a Blasphemous Libel upon both And I do seriously think that never was any Book Licensed Published and suffered to pass Uncontrolled more to the Disgrace of the Church of England than this which the Reader will quickly see upon his Reading some Passages of it which I am sure if he be but Christianly disposed be cannot do but with extreme Horrour But before I direct the Reader to his Blasphemies I shall lay before him one Grand leading Absurdity which utterly Evacuates and Overthrows the whole Doctrine of Free Grace and the Redemption of Mankind thereby and indeed by Consequence
effect declares the Nature of the Cause And consequently that the Nature of the Cause may be known by it not by way of simple and immediate apprehension of the Cause it self I confess but by way of Inference and Discourse collecting one thing from another which is one sure way of knowing And therefore I do here affirm and own to this Confident Assuming Man That to assert absolutely as he does That the Essences of things cannot be known is by no means a justifiable Proposition or in the Latitude it is laid down in to be admitted But is really that fallacy that concludes à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter Well but since this Author has concluded the whole World in Ignorance himself I suppose still excepted from so general a Doom What must we do in so sad a Condition Must we all take up in Scepticism and acknowledge that nothing is to be known What then will that old Principle of Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serve for but to tantalize and torment us For must we thus think and thirst and desire to know and after all find nothing to be known with any thing of plainness evidence and demonstration Why Yes to comfort us under this Cimmerian darkness and to shew that God has not given us our Intellectual Faculties wholly in vain There is one certain thing in the World viz. The Doctrine of the Trinity That is to say of three distinct Persons all united in one and the same numerical Divine Nature which is wonderfully plain easie and obvious to be known Though still thanks to our Author for it who by a New-found Exposition and Explication of it has bestowed this piece of Charity upon the World as to render it so For thus in Page 58. line 2. of his Book Explaining the Union of the three Persons in the God-head by Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness which words shall be throughly considered in their due place he says That this is very plain and intelligible and makes the three Persons to be as much one as every Man is one with himself And certainly it is hardly possible for any thing to be more plain and clear more evident and intelligible than that every Man is one with himself Except it be only when he contradicts himself Again in Page 65. line 31. he tells us That his Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness seems to him to make a Trinity in Unity as intelligible as the Notion of one God is And in Page 66. line 2 3. That it gives a plain and intelligible Solution to all the Difficulties and seeming Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity And surely that thing about which all difficulties are solved and all seeming Contradictions are cleared cannot be imagined to have any difficulty remaining in it at all And again in Page 68. line 26. he roundly tells us That the Explication given by him of a Trinity in Unity is a very plain and intelligible Account of this great and venerable Mystery as plain and intelligible as the Notion of one God or of one Person in the Godhead And in good earnest the Notion of one first Cause of all things and of one Supreme Being and consequently of one God is so easily demonstrated or rather with such a broad light stares all Mankind in the Face even without any demonstration that if the Trinity in Unity be as plain as this is it is hardly possible for any thing to the Reason of Man to be plainer And the Arians and Socinians are ten times more inexcusable than ever I thought them before Again in Page 73. line 11. having affirmed The Trinity to be a most Sacred and Venerable Mystery within 6 or 7 Lines after he says If Men would but consider it according to his Hypothesis which he there sets down then a Trinity in Unity is a very plain intelligible Notion Again in Page 74. line 9. There will appear says he no difficulty or absurdity in the essential Union of Three Minds by a Mutual-Consciousness to each other But will this Man conclude That where there is no Absurdity there is therefore no Difficulty neither So that that which removes one must needs remove the other too It is strange to me That any one who pretends to argue closely should place two words so vastly different upon the same level But again in Page 82. line 30. he tells us That this gives an intelligible account of one of the most difficult Problems in all School-Divinity viz. That the whole Trinity is not greater than any one Person in the Trinity And again in Page 85. line 14. This Notion says he gives a plain account too of that Maxime of the Schools That all the Operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to all the Three Persons So that by this time we see here all things relating to the Trinity made plain easie and intelligible and that since this Man has shewed his skill upon it all knots and difficulties are wholly cleared off so that now none are to be found though a Man should beat his Brains as much to find them as Divines did heretofore to solve them And therefore well may he magnifie the Exploits of such a Triumphant Hypothesis as he does first in his Preface Page 1. line 13. which though it be always placed first in Books yet is generally written last Having told us That his Original Design was to vindicate the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation from those pretended Absurdities and Contradictions which were so confidently charged on them He adds these words This says he I am sure I have done for I have given a very easie and intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Unity If he has 't is well But how great soever the assurance is which he utters this with as he had always a very great stock of it I dare aver That he has here said more of himself than any Divine of Note since Christianity came into the World ever durst say He was sure of before But as high as this sounds in Page 85. line 27. he raises his Voice something higher or at least is more particular in the Encomiums he bestows upon this his Performance in these words Thus says he I have endeavoured to explain this great and venerable Mystery of a Trinity in Unity And this I may say That I have given not only a very possible and a very intelligible Notion of it but such also as is very agreeable to the Phrase and Expressions of Scripture such as preserves the Majesty of the Article and solves all the difficulties of it By which account as we see that our Author is not wanting to the Commendation of his own Hypothesis as it is pity but Self-Consciousness and Self-Commendation should go together so we see also that he does it upon three distinct Heads or Topicks which therefore by his good leave we will as distinctly consider And First for it 's being so agreeable
he least intended it Now here the Reader is desired to observe the Soveraign usefulness ascribed by our Author to those School-Terms Person Nature Essence Subsistence Consubstantiality c. As That they will not suffer Hereticks to lie concealed under Scripture-Phrases That the Schools learned all these Terms of the Ancient Fathers That they have guarded the Christian Faith with an Hedge of Thorns which disguised Hereticks cannot break through That instead of wounding Christianity in its Vitals they only prick the Fingers of Hereticks and secure Christianity from being wounded All these great and good Things he tells us have been done in behalf of Christianity by the School-men and their fore-mentioned Terms here in this Apology and now if the Reader will but look back into the Vindication too our Author will there tell him also How and by what Way and Means the said School-men and their Terms have Atchieved all these worthy Feats viz. By their Obscuring instead of Explaining the Doctrine of the Trinity By their mistaking the Meaning of the Fathers or clogging it with peculiar Niceties of their own Also by confounding the Mystery of the Trinity through a vain endeavour to reduce it to such Terms of Art as Essence Substance Subsistence Nature Person and the like As likewise by the said terms being found very unapplicable to this Mystery And lastly Because though some tolerable Account might possibly be given of their meaning yet that it would be of little or no use to give any such Account or Explication of them So useful it seems does he account them to secure Christianity against Hereticks that it is of no use at all to explain them And now I hope when the Reader has considered what this Author has said on both sides he will acknowledge that Hand and Glove cannot more exactly agree than the Vindication and the Apology And as for that Melancholy Stander-by upon whose Account this Apology is pretended to have been written if he will but read and compare the Apology and Vindication together I dare undertake that he will not be half so Melancholy as he was before But does this Author in sober sadness think that this is the way to Confute Hereticks thus to play backwards and forwards to say and unsay and only to set two Books together by the Ears Let me tell him That God is not mocked nor the World neither and that he owes an Account of what he has wrote to both For my own part so far as my Converse reaches I meet with no serious and judicious Person who does not reckon that this Author by his Desultorious Inconsistent but withal Imposing way of writing will in all likelihood make Twenty Hereticks before he Confutes One. It is indeed an amazing Thing to consider That any one Man should presume to Brow-beat all the World at such a rate and we may well wonder at the force of Confidence and Self-Conceit that it should be able to raise any one to such a pitch But Naturalists have observed That Blindness in some Animals is a very great Help and Instigation to Boldness And amongst Men as Ignorance is commonly said to be the Mother of Devotion so in accounting for the Birth and Descent of Confidence too whatsoever other Cause some may derive it from yet certainly He who makes Ignorance the Mother of this also reckons its Pedigree by the surer side CHAP. III. In which the Author 's New Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness is briefly declared Self-Consciousness made by him the formal Constituent Reason of Personality in all Persons both Create and Uncreate and on the contrary proved against him in the first place That it is not so in Persons Create OUR Author not being satisfied with the Account given of the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity by the Schools nor with those Notions about it which have hitherto obtained in the World till he came into it no doubt as a Person peculiarly sent and qualified to rectifie all those Imperfect and Improper Notions which had been formerly received by Divines He I say with a Lofty Undertaking Mind and a Reach beyond all before and indeed beside him and as the Issue is like to prove as much above him too undertakes to give the World a much better and more satisfactory Explication of this great Mystery and that by two new Terms or Notions purely and solely of his own Invention called Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness which though still joyned together by our Author in his Explication of the Blessed Trinity have yet very different Effects as we shall presently see For by Self-Consciousness he means a Mind 's or Spirit 's being Conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings and Affections and I suppose all other Internal Motions too which no other finite Spirit is or can be naturally Conscious to but it self And this he says makes a finite Spirit Numerically one or one with it self for he uses both Expressions and withal separates and distinguishes it from all other Spirits so that hereby every Spirit feels only its own Thoughts Passions or Motions but is not Conscious to the Thoughts Passions or Motions of any other And this so far as his own Words import he means by Self-Consciousness As for Mutual-Consciousness That takes place when two or more Spirits or Minds know all that of one another which each Mind or Spirit knows of its self by a particular Self-Consciousness of its own And this I conceive to be a just Account of what this Man means by Mutual-Consciousness Now the Effects of these two as I noted before are very different For Self-Consciousness according to him is the Constituent Principle or formal Reason of Personality So that Self-Consciousnss properly Constitutes or makes a Person and so many Self-Consciousnesses make so many distinct Persons But Mutual-Consciousness so far as it extends makes an Unity not of Persons for Personality as such imports distinction and something personally Incommunicable but an Unity of Nature in Persons So that after Self-Consciousness has made several distinct Persons in comes Mutual-Consciousness and sets them all at one again and gives them all but one and the same Nature which they are to take amongst themselves as well as they can And this is a True and strict Account of this Author 's New Hypothesis and such as I suppose he will not except against because justly I am sure he cannot howsoever I may have expressed the Novel Whimsey something for the Reader 's Diversion Now by what has been said it is evident that the Author assigns Self-Consciousness as the formal Reason of Personality in all Persons Universally whether Finite or Infinite Create or Uncreate For having first stated it so in Finite and Created Spirits Pag. 48. lin 26 c. He afterwards applies it to Infinite and Uncreate viz. the Three Persons of the Godhead And therefore that we may proceed fairly and without any ground of Exception in the Case we will examine I. Whether or no
Action of Battery against them who certainly has a Pate to break as well as Priscian and is as sensible of hard usage how patiently soever he has took it hitherto at this Author's hands But to give the said Author his due he is not so much a Slave to his word as to speak the same Thing in all places of his Book For to quote his own Authority though of little value but when brought against himself in page 62. of this very Tract he has these words A Person says he and an Intelligent Substance are Reciprocal Terms And are they so Why how then comes a Beast in page 269. to be a Person Is a Beast an Intelligent Substance Or can a Beast be a Person and yet not an Intelligent Substance when he affirms That they are Terms Reciprocal If I have not quoted this Author fairly and justly let the Advantage be his and the shame mine But if I have then let all the Learned and Impartial World which I appeal to judge whether one who talks thus Ignorantly and Self-Contradictiously about the Nature of a Person be fit to prescribe to the whole Church New Terms and Models never heard of before to explicate the Persons of the Sacred Trinity by But the Truth is the distance between the 69. and the 262. pages was so great and the Contradictions which passed within that compass so Numerous that how gross and bulky soever this one might be yet with the help of a little good luck it might well escape the Author's Eye in such a Crowd And perhaps it had been never the worse luck for the Author Himself if it could as easily have escaped the Reader 's Eye too And now to sum up in short the Chief Heads of what has been treated of in this Chapter I have proved against this Author That Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in Created Beings And that first by an Argument drawn from the very Nature of the Thing For that Self-Consciousness presupposes Personality and therefore cannot be the formal Reason of it As also from two Notable Instances One of the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ. The other of the Soul of Man in its state of Separation from the Body Both of which I have shewn to be perfectly Self-Conscious of all the Internal Acts Motions and Passions respectively belonging to each of them and yet that they were neither of them Persons And pursuant to this Subject I have by clear and solid Reasons overthrown the pretended Personality of the Soul both in a state of Conjunction with the Body and of Disjunction from it which in both is asserted by this Author And Lastly I have examined his Absurd Unphilosophical Assertions about these Matters in one whereof he ascribes a Personality even to Beasts themselves By all which it is but too manifest against this Assuming big-talking Man that as loftily as he carries it yet in very Deed and Truth he does not understand what those Terms Suppositum and Subsistence Person and Personality mean So fit is he as I have said to treat of the Divine Persons of the God-head whom yet he has made so bold with And here I should judge it high time to conclude this Chapter but that methinks it is pity to leave this fine Trim Notion of Self-Consciousness so without taking a little further View of the Curious Artifice and admirable Contrivance of so rare a production For if it were not such could this Author vaunt of it at such a rate as he does pleasing himself and proclaming his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as upon an Invention forsooth which all Antiquity before him could never yet reach to Nevertheless to deal clearly and plainly amongst Friends such a Cheating Lurching thing does this Expectation usually prove that after all these Pompous Shews and Glorious Boasts of Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness ushered in with twenty Encomium's at least like so many Heralds or Tip-staves or rather Yeomen of the Guard marching before it yet in Truth after all this noise it is like an Owl stripp'd of its Feathers but a very Mean Meagre Ordinary Thing being in down-right Terms neither more nor less than only one Property of a Rational or Intelligent Being by vertue whereof the Soul is as the Schools express it Supra se Reflexiva that is to say Able by a Reflex Act of Knowledge intimately to know and consider it self and its own Being together with its own Acts Motions and Operations This is the Sum Total of the Matter and all that Self-Consciousness is or can truly pretend to be And which is yet a further Diminution to it as poor and mean a Notion as it is it is Borrowed too But you will say From whom Why Even from Honest Des Cartes and his Cogito ergo sum Only with this unhappy difference in the Application of it That this Proposition which Des Cartes lays as the Basis and Ground-work of his Philosophy our Author places with its Heels upwards in his Divinity For whereas Des Cartes insists upon Cogitation only to prove and infer Being as one would prove a Cause from its Effects or rather an Antecedent from its Consequent Our Author on the contrary makes Cogitation the very Cause and Principle of Being and Subsistence by making it the formal Constituent Reason of Personality in the Person who Thinks or Reflects than which nothing can be more false and ridiculous And this according to the Truest and most Philosophical Account of the Thing is the very utmost which this New and so much bragg'd of Notion amounts to And I do hereupon Challenge this Author to prove these two Things if he can First That the Self-Consciousness hitherto spoken of by him is any Thing more than a bare Property of an Intelligent Being whereby it reflects upon it self and its own Thoughts and Actions And in the next place That such a Property does or can Constitute the Being or Nature which it flows from and belongs to properly a Person These two things I say I call upon him to prove and if he does not by dint of Argument make them good he exposes a poor senceless infant Hypothesis to the wide World and then very unmercifully leaves it to shift for it self In fine I cannot but again and again own my Amazement at the Confidence of some bold presuming Men who set up for Enlightners of the Church and new Modellers of Divinity in the strength of some odd upstart Notions which yet are not able to acquit or support themselves upon and much less against the very first Elements and Principles of a long tryed and never yet baffled Philosophy CHAP. IV. In which is proved against this Author That neither is Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality in the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity nor Mutual-Consciousness the Reason of their Unity in one and the same Nature HAving thus examined and as I think overthrown our Author's Notion of Self-Consciousness with reference to
For though the Three Divine Persons differ as really yet it is certain that they do not differ as much But what the Fathers alledged only as an Illustration of the Case this Man is pleased to make a direct proof of his Point which by his Favour is to stretch it a little too far For if he would make the foregoing Example a Parallel Instance to the Thing which he applies it to it would prove a great deal too much as has been shewn and therefore as to the Thing which it is brought for does indeed prove nothing at all Now the Thing it is brought to prove is That the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits but since we have shewn That a Real Difference or Distinction may be much short of such an one as is between two or more Minds or Spirits which we own to be as great as between two or more Men it follows That the Real Difference which is between the Three Divine Persons cannot prove them to be so many distinct Minds or Spirits In short our Author 's whole Argument amounts to no more but this which though it may sound something jocularly is really and strictly true viz. That because Peter Iames and Iohn are so many Men therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are so many Minds A pleasant way of Arguing certainly I have now examined all that this Author has alledged about the distinction of the Three Divine Persons and I have done it particularly and exactly not omitting any one of his Quotations But how comes it to pass all this while that we have not so much as one Syllable out of the Fathers or School-men in behalf of Self-Consciousness Which being according to this Author the Constituent Reason of the Personality and Personal Distinction of the Three Divine Persons will he pretend to prove the Distinction it self from the Fathers and at the same time not speak one Tittle of the Principle or Reason of this Distinction Or will he profess to prove his whole Hypothesis by the Authority of the Fathers and yet be silent of Self-Consciousness which he himself makes one grand and principal part of the said Hypothesis Certainly one would think that the very shame of the World and that Common Awe and regard of Truth which Nature has imprinted upon the Minds of Men should keep any one from offering to impose upon Men in so gross and shameless a manner as to venture to call a Notion or Opinion the Constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools nay and to profess to make it out and shew it to be so and while he is so doing not to to produce one Father or Schoolman I say again not so much as one of either in behalf of that which he so confidently and expresly avows to be the joynt Sentiment of Both. This surely is a way of proving or rather of imposing peculiar to Himself But we have seen how extremely fond he is of this new Invented Term and Notion And therefore since he will needs have the Reputation of being the sole Father and Begetter of the Hopefull Issue there is no Reason in the World that Antiquity should find other Fathers to maintain it CHAP. VII In which is shewn That the Passages alledged by this Author out of the Fathers do not prove Mutual-Consciousness to be that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does Consist But that the Fathers place it in something else OUR Author having undertook to make good his Doctrine about the Blessed Trinity from the Fathers and that both as to the Distinction of the Divine Persons and also as to their Unity in the same Nature And having said what he could from those Ancient Writers for that new sort of Distinction which he ascribes to the said Persons in the former part of his 4th Section which I have confuted in the preceding Chapter he proceeds now in the following and much longer part of the same Section to prove the Unity of the Three Persons in one and the same Nature according to his own Hypothesis And the Proofs of this we shall reduce under these Two following Heads as containing all that is alledged by him upon this point of his Discourse viz. First That it is one and the same Numerical Divine Nature which belongs to all the Three Divine Persons And Secondly That the Thing wherein this Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature does consist is that Mutual-Consciousness by which all the Three Persons are intimately Conscious to one another of all that is known by or belongs to each of them in particular And here the Authority of the Fathers is pleaded by him for both of these and I readily grant it for the first but however shall examine what this Author produces for the one as well as for the other But before I do this I must observe to him That if that Distinction Asserted by him between the Divine Persons whereby they stand distinguished as Three Infinite Minds or Spirits holds good all his proofs of the Unity of their Nature will come much too late For he has thereby already destroyed the very Subject of his Discourse and it is in vain to seek wherein the Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature as it belongs to the Three Persons does Consist after he has affirmed that which makes such an Unity utterly impossible And it has been sufficiently proved against him in our 5th Chapter That Three Infinite Minds or Spirits can never be one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit nor consequently one God Three distinct Spirits can never be otherwise One than by being United into one Compound or Collective Being which could such a Thing be admitted here might be called indeed an Union but an Unity properly it could not And hereupon I cannot but observe also That this Author very often uses these Terms promiscuously as if Union and Unity being United into One and being One signified the very same Thing whereas in strictness and propriety of Speech whatsoever Things are United into One cannot be Originally One and è Converso whatsoever is Originally One cannot be so by being United into One for as Suidas explains the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Union is so called from the pressing or thrusting together several Things into one But our Author who with great profoundness tells us of the same Nature in Three distinct Persons being United into One Numerical Essence or God-head Page 118. Lines 9 10. has certainly a different Notion of Union from all the World besides For how one and the same Nature though in never so many distinct Persons since it is still supposed the same in all can be said to be United into any one Thing I believe surpasses all Humane Apprehension to conceive Union in the very Nature of it being of several Things not of one and the same I desire the Reader to consult the place and
Unity or Communication and distinction c. St. Basil also Writing against such as would derogate from the Equality of the Divine Persons speaks of the Trinity thus Either let these Inexpressible things be silently Reverenced or Religiously and Becomingly Represented And again in a Discourse against such as used Contumelious Words of the Trinity speaking there of the Holy Ghost as Essentially one with the Father and the Son he says the Intimate Conjunction between him and them is hereby declared viz. by the Scripture there quoted by him and applyed to them but the Ineffable Manner of his Subsistence hereby Inviolably preserved So that still we see with this Father the Oeconomy of the Three Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity is a thing Ineffable and above all Description or Expression Nazianzen also speaks of the Trinity under these Epithetes styling it the Adorable Trinity Above and before the World before all Time of the same Majesty of the same Glory Increate and Invisible above our Reach and Incomprehensible And the same Epithetes are given it by Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus declaring the Trinity to be of One and the same Essence Transcendent in its Substance Invisible and Inconceivable And Lastly Eulogius Arch-bishop of Alexandria sets it forth thus We divide not says he what is but One we part not the Singularity nor distract the Unity but so Assert this Unity in an Eternal Singularity as to ascribe the same to Three distinct Hypostases by no means subjecting things above our Understanding to Human Reasonings nor by an Over-curious Search undervaluing things so much above all Search or Discovery Having given this Specimen of what the Greek Fathers and Writers thought and spoke of the Trinity let us now pass to the Latines And amongst these we have in the first place St. Hilary expressing himself thus The Mystery of the Trinity is Immense and Incomprehensible not to be express'd by Words nor reach'd by Sence Imperceivable it blinds our Sight it exceeds the Capacity of our Understanding I understand it not Nevertheless I will comfort my self in this That neither do the Angels know it nor Ages apprehend it nor have the Apostles enquired of it nor the Son himself declared it Let us therefore leave off complaining c. After him let us hear St. Ambrose The Divinity of the Holy Trinity says he is to be believed by us to be without beginning or end albeit hardly possible to be comprehended by the Mind of Man Upon which Account it may be not improperly said concerning it That we comprehend this only of it that in truth it cannot be comprehended To St. Ambrose succeeds St. Austin In this Trinity says this learned Father is but one God which is indeed wonderfully unspeakable and unspeakably wonderful To the same purpose Fulgentius So far as I can judge only the Eternal and Unchangeable Trinity ought to be looked upon by us as worthy to be esteemed Incomprehensibly Miraculous and as much exceeding all that we can think or imagine of it as it surmounts all that we are After him we shall produce Hormisda Bishop of Rome in a Letter to Iustinian the Emperour about the beginning of the Sixth Century speaking thus The Holy Trinity says he is but One it is not multiplyed by Number nor grows by any Addition or Encrease Nor can it either be comprehended by our Understanding nor in respect of its Divinity be at all Divided And a little after Let us Worship Father Son and Holy Ghost distinct in themselves but with one indistinct Worship that is to say The Incomprehensible and Unutterable Substance of the Trinity And presently again Great and Incomprensible is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity In the last place St. Bernard delivers himself upon the same Subject thus I confidently affirm says he that the Eternal and Blessed Trinity which I do not understand I do yet believe and embrace with my Faith what I cannot comprehend with my Mind I have here as I said given a Specimen of what the Ancient Writers of the Church both Greek and Latin thought and said of the Blessed Trinity and it is I confess but a Specimen since I think that enough for an Universally acknowledged and never before contradicted Proposition Whereas had it but in the least seemed a Novelty as this Author's Hypothesis not only seems but unquestionably is I should have thought my self obliged to have brought as many Quotations for it from Antiquity as would have filled a much larger Book than I intend this shall be But as for those which I have here produced I do solemnly appeal to any Man living Christian or not Christian who does but understand these Languages whether the Fathers now Quoted by me and all the rest upon the same Subject speak agreeably to them looked upon Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity as a Plain Easie and Intelligible Notion So that if the Judgment of the Fathers and of this Author be in this point one and the same it must unavoidably follow That either the Fathers have not yet declared their Judgment and Doctrine or that this Author has not yet declared his Since so much as has been declared on the one side is a direct and gross Contradiction to what has been Asserted on the other And moreover the fore alledged Testimonies of the Fathers are such that we are not put to draw what we contend for by remote far fetched Consequences from them but it lies plain open and manifest in them in words too clear and full to be denyed and too convincing to be evaded So that we are sure both of their Words and Expressions and of the common sence of all Mankind to expound and understand them by And will this bold over bearing Man after all this Claim their meaning to be the same with his What his meaning is he has told us forty times over viz. The Unity in Trinity c. is so far from being an Unintelligible Notion that it is not so much as difficult how much soever the dull mistaken World has for near 1700 Years thought otherwise And now if this be the true Account and state of this Matter that when the Fathers say of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Trinity that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Ineffable Inconceivable Unintelligible Incomprehensible and if possible transcending the very Notion of the Deity it self above all Humane Understanding and Reason Discourse and Scrutiny I say if by all this he can prove that the Fathers meant That it was a very Plain Easie and Intelligible Notion as by affirming that those who used all these Expressions meant the same with himself he does and must affirm or say That they knew not their own meaning or at least were not able to express it but in words quite contrary to it I must needs own the
but Three Hypostases or Subsistences This keep this hold c. Theodoret also speaks very fully upon the same Subject in his first Dialogue contr Anomaeos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Such Things as belong properly to the Divine Essence or Substance are in like manner common to Father Son and Holy Ghost But the Term Father is not common to them and therefore Father is no Property of the Essence but of the Subsistence or Person But now if one Thing be proper to the Hypostasis or Subsistence and there be other Properties of the Essence it follows That Essence and Hypostasis do not signifie one and the same thing And again a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Essence or Substance of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost is common being equally and alike Immortal Incorruptible Holy and Good And for this Reason we affirm One Essence and Three Hypostases Auctarium sive Tom. 5. Theodoret. p. 286. Edit Paris 1684. Certainly nothing could with greater Evidence state the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three several Subsistences than the Words here quoted out of this Father And I quote them out of him though I know the same Dialogues are inserted into Athanasius's Works but I am convinced by the reasons given by Garnerius the Learned Editor of this Auctarium that the said Dialogues cannot belong to Athanasius Next to him let us hear Basilius Seleuciensis speaking the same Thing in his first Oration upon the first Verse of the first Chapter of Genesis where upon these words Let us make Man after our own Image and Likeness he discourses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say The Image here formed is but One but the mention here made is not of One Hypostasis or Person only but of Three For the Thing formed being the common Work of the whole Deity shews the Trinity to have been the Former thereof and so gives us one Image or Resemblance of the Trinity But if the Image of the Trinity be but One the Nature of the Hypostases or Persons must be One too For the Unity of the Image proclaims the Unity of the Substance or Essence Basil. Seleuciens Orat. 1. p. 5. Printed at Paris with Gregorius Thaumaturgus c. Anno Dom. 1622. Zacharias Sirnamed Scholasticus and sometime Metropolitan of Mitylene of the Sixth Century in his Disputation against the Philosophers who held the Eternity of the World to a certain Philosopher asking him How the Christians could acknowledg the same both a Trinity and an Unity too Makes this Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We affirm a Trinity in Unity and an Unity in Trinity hereby affirming the Subsistences or Persons to be Three and the Essence or Substance to be only One Johannes Damascenus a Writer of the Eighth Century in his Third Book de Orthodoxâ fide Chap. 11. about the end of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Godhead declares the Nature but the Term Father the Subsistence as Humanity does the Humane Nature but Peter the Subsistence or Person For the Term God denotes the Divine Nature in Common and equally denominates or is ascribed to each of the Hypostases or Subsistences Damascen Page 207. Edit Basil. 1575. I shall close up these particular Testimonies with some Passages in the Creed commonly called the Athanasian which I place so low because it is manifest that Athanasius was not the Author of it it being not so much as mentioned in any Antient Writer as the very Learned Dr. Cave affirms till it occurs in Theodulphus Aurelianensis who lived about the latter end of the Eighth Century Now the Passages are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in some Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is Neither confounding the Hypostases or Persons nor dividing the Substance For there is one Hypostasis of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is One c. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The whole Three Hypostases or Persons are Coeternal together and Coequal These Passages are full and plain and the Creed it self may well claim the Antiquity at least of the Eighth Century My next Authorities shall be those of the Councils But before I pass to them I cannot but observe and own to the Reader concerning some of the first of my Quotations viz. those out of Justin Martyr and that out of St. Athanasius that it has been very much questioned by some Learned Men Whether those Books from whence they are taken do really belong to the Authors to whom they are ascribed and among whose Works they are inserted or no. This I say I was not ignorant of nevertheless I thought fit to quote them by the Names under which I found them placed since many very Learned Persons and much more acquainted with the Writings of the Ancients than I pretend to be have upon several Occasions done so before me And the said Tracts are certainly of a very early date and though the Authors of them should fall a Century or two lower yet they still retain Antiquity enough to make good the Point for which I alledged them Nevertheless I must and do confess it very probable That the more distinct and exact use of the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applyed to the Divine Persons did not generally and commonly take place but as by degrees the Discussion of the Arian and other the like Controversies through frequent Disputes grew to still a greater and greater Maturity And that the use of these Terms did obtain then and upon that Account I think a very considerable Argument to authorize and recommend them to all Sober and Judicious Minds And so I pass to the Testimonies of Councils concerning the same Amongst which we have here in the first place the Council of Chalcedon making a Confession or Declaration of their Faith concerning the Person of our Saviour and that both as to the Absolute undivided Unity of his Person and as to the Difference and Distinction of his Two Natures part of which Confession runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We confess One and the same Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in Two Natures without Confusion c. the difference of the said Natures being by no means destroyed by their Union but rather the property of each Nature being thereby preserved and both concurring to or meeting in One Person or Hypostasis This Account of the Chalcedon Confession we have in the Second Book of Evagrius towards the latter end of the 4th Chapter and a lively Instance it is of the Council's expressing the Personality of Christ by and stating It upon Subsistence In the next place upon Justinian's calling the second Council of
perfectly equivalent But there would be no end of Particulars should I quote all that might be quoted and therefore I shall conclude all these single Testimonies with that of Turretinus late Professor of Divinity at Geneva who gives us this full and Judicious Account in his common Places of the Point here before us Fides Orthodoxa haec est in Unicâ ac Simplicissimâ Dei Essentiâ Tres esse distinctas Personas quae proprietatibus Incommunicabilibus sive Modis Subsistendi ità inter se distinguuntur ut una non sit alia licèt per ineffabilem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maneant semper existant in se invicem Turretinus part 1. Loco 3. Quaest. 28. In the last place to confirm the Testimonies of particular Persons with the joynt Suffrage and Concurrence of whole Churches in their Publick Confessions I shall mention some of them And amongst these the Augustan or Ausperg Confession gives this Account of the Trinity Ecclesiae scilicet Reformatae magno consensu docent Decretum Synodi Nicaenae credendum esse viz. Quòd sit Una Essentia Divina tamen sint Tres Personae ejusdem Essentiae c. Et utuntur Nomine Personae eâ significatione quâ usi sunt Scriptores Ecclesiastici ut significet non partem aut qualitatem sed quod propriè Subsistit Confessio Augustana in Articulo fidei 1. Next to this we have the Wirtemberg Confession declaring the same in the very beginning of it Credimus confitemur Unum solum Deum c. Et in hâc unâ Aeternâ Deitate Tres esse per se Subsistentes proprietates seu Personas Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum This Confession was made and given forth in the Year 1552. Likewise the Gallican Reformed Churches in their Confession made in the Reign of Charles the IX and in the Year 1561. declare themselves much the same way upon this Article Sancta Scriptura nos docet in illâ singulari simplice Essentiâ Divinâ Subsistere Tres Personas Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum Add to these the Belgick Confession also recognized approved and ratifyed in the Synod of Dort which in its eighth Article speaks of the Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity thus Haec distinctio viz. Personarum non efficit ut Deus in Tres sit divisus quandoquidem Scriptura nos docet Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum singulos distinctam habere suis Proprietatibus Hypostasim which Words are extremely expressive and full But as touching these Confessions the Reader ought not in Reason to be dissatisfied that I produce no more of them to the present purpose out of those many which are extant since it has been still the Custom of most Churches to draw up their Confessions in Terms as general and short as they well could So that we are the less to wonder if we seldom meet with such Words in them as are Explicatory and Particular And now after all these Authorities thus alledged by me I would desire this Confident Man whom I am here disputing with to look back upon the fore-mentioned Greek and Latin Fathers Councils School-men and all those Eminent Modern Divines together with the Clergy of whole Countreys and Nations Solemnly and Unanimously declaring themselves in their Publick Avowed Confessions of Faith upon this great Article and Mystery I say I desire him to look all these in the Face and to tell them That they have hitherto abused the whole World with false Notions of the Trinity by expressing the Divine Persons and Personalities by Hypostases Subsistences and Modes of Subsistence Words as he says importing little better than Sabellianism and serving for nothing else but to obscure perplex and confound the Minds and Thoughts of Men in conceiving or discoursing of this Weighty and Sacred Point of our Christian Faith This I require him in defence of what he has so expresly peremptorily and Magisterially affirmed all along in his Book to do if his Heart and Fore-head will serve him for it In the mean time I have here delivered in all the Testimonies both Greek and Latin Ancient and Modern which I think fit to offer in behalf of the Point pleaded for Though should I have represented all that occurrs in the fore-cited Authors besides many others not mentioned to the same Purpose I should not so much have quoted as upon the Matter Transcribed them And now if any one should ask me Whether I look upon these Testimonies as sufficiently representing the Doctrine of the Catholick Church upon this Head of Divinity I Answer That barely by way of Induction they do not since an Induction ought to consist of a greater Collection of Particulars Nevertheless I avouch this Number of Testimonies to be a full and sufficient Representation of the sence of the Church herein if we consider them as joyned with and supported by these Three following Considerations As First That it is morally impossible that the Persons above quoted being of such Eminent Note in the Church both for Orthodoxy and Learning and Living most of them at such a great distance both of Time and Place rendring all Communication between them impracticable should or could presume to express themselves upon so Sacred an Article and so Tender a Point but in such Terms as were generally received used and approved of by the Church Secondly That these Terms were never yet Condemned nor the Users of them Censured by any Church or Council accounted Orthodox which in so great and so revered an Article they would infallibly have been had they been judged unfit for or unapplicable to the Things to which they were actually applyed as this bold Author with great Confidence affirms them to be Thirdly and Lastly That hardly any Church-Writer of considerable Remark and Name can be produced who ever treated of this great Subject in any other Terms than those expressed by us or particularly made use of the Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness to explain it by All being wholly silent of them in all those Writings in which they do most particularly and exactly design a Discussion of these Matters These Three Considerations I say added to the fore-alledged Quotations irrefragably prove them to be a true just and sufficient Representation of the Sence and Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this Matter and that it is utterly inconsistent with the Common Reason Principles and Practice of Mankind that it should be otherwise And as for what concerns this Author whom I am disputing with I dare affirm yet further that any one or two of the Passages quoted by me are more full and clear to the purpose I quote them for than all that he has produced from the several Fathers alledged by him for his Self Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness put together and much more than his forlorn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cited out of Gr. Nyssen to prove the Son an Infinite Mind distinct from the
for maintaining that the Passages and Events of Providence are not the Rule which God will have us govern our Actions by but the Precepts and Prohibitions of his Law And what but the same malice could make him insinuate that the same Author was inclined to Popery and an Infallible Interpreter only for saying that one Text of Scripture was obscure and much controverted Which yet St. Peter had said of many Passages of St. Paul's Epistles 1 Pet. 3. 16. and yet without giving any wise Man the least occasion from thence to think that he was then providing an Argument for the Infallibility of his supposed Successor And Lastly what but the bitterest Rancour could make him charge his Adversary as if he had compared the swearing Allegiance to K. W. and Q. M. for the great and notorious Impiety of it with the Villanies foretold by the Prophet of Hazael only because he had told Him that as Hazael had changed his mind notwithstanding his confident Opinion of himself to the contrary so had this Author too For who but one of equal Virulence and Ignorance would have stretched the comparison which respected only the changing of Minds to a Comparison as to the merits of the Cause which it had no relation to at all Indeed no more than that Reply of Hazael Is thy Servant a Dog Was design'd to convince the Prophet That he had not four Legs and not rather only to clear himself from such a currish and belluine temper of mind as those Actions foretold of him must needs imply And I suppose when a certain Person speaking of the New Oath to a certain Bishop said My Lord I will be Crucified before I will take this Oath His meaning was not that he thought the taking it more Painful and Tormenting than a Crucifixion but that he had a greater unwillingness to take the one than to undergo the other And yet this was this Author's way of Treating a very Worthy Man an old Acquaintance and a fair Adversary I am not at all concern'd to espouse or abett the Cause defended by that Learned Person But this I do and ever shall averr That there is a Ius Belli in these Controversial as well as in Military Conflicts and consequently an obligation to Truth and Justice and common Ingenuity even in the exercise of the greatest Hostilities But this Man's usage of his forementioned Adversary is not more Senseless and Illogical than Disingenuous Barbarous and Unchristian And so let the Reader take this as a Specimen of his impotent Spleen and Malice After which let us shew him in his next good Quality his Insolence and first in that Branch of it which concerns his wonderful Opinion and Applause of Himself As to which we shall first of all see him as we have in some degree shewn him before preferring himself before all the Fathers as much happier in giving an explication of the Trinity than they were and this in such a fleering scoptical way scoptical I mean as to the Fathers but highly Commendatory of himself that it would even turn ones Stomach to read his fulsom Expressions For he tells us and that with the most profound humility no doubt p. 101. l. 1. c. If that explication which I have given be very consistent with nay be the true Interpretation of that account the Antients give of a Trinity in Unity I hope it will not be thought an unpardonable Novelty if I have expressed the same thing in other Words which give us a more clear and distinct apprehension of it c. And again p. 126. l. 2. I hope this is no fault neither to give an Intelligible explication of that which all the Fathers taught but were not equally happy in their explication of it No for his comfort no to excel and outdo all the Fathers if a Man can do it can be no fault at all But before this be allow'd him I do here require him to name and produce me but one who acknowledges a Trinity in the whole World besides his own modest self who ever preferr'd his explication of the Trinity for the Happiness and Intelligibility of it before that given by the Fathers I say let him produce me so much as one affirming this if he can So that in short the Comparison here stands between the Fathers and this Author And we see the Preheminence given him above all the Fathers by the sole and single Iudgment of one Doctor and that Doctor is Himself Nay and which is more to put the matter past all Comparison between him and them for the future He tells us as was also observed before in my 7th Chapter That the Fathers neither knew how to speak their own Thoughts of the Trinity nor indeed so much as to conceive of it aright by reason of the grossness of their Imaginations Whereas if they had as he adds but conceived of it and expressed themselves about it as he has done all would have been plain easie and intelligible And as for Gregory Nyssen from whom he had Quoted more than from all the rest of the Fathers together he gives him a cast of his Temper at last p. 119. l. 5. and sends him away with this rap over the Pate That he could not tell what to make of him and his Reasonings for that in his judgment he destroyed all Principles of Individuation And in this manner we have him Pluming himself clapping his Wings and crowing over all the Fathers for which and his quarrelsome domineering Nature together most think it is high time that his Comb were cut In the next place let us see what Elogies he bestows upon himself for his Atchievements in the Socinian Controversie Concerning which he tells the Men of that Persuasion That after his Vindication of the Trinity He believes they will talk more sparingly of Absurdities and Contradictions for the future pag. 153. But why I pray Is it because this Author has got the Monopoly of them and engrossed them all to himself And that therefore the Laws will be very severe upon such as invade his Property For as for any other Reason they have none that I know of to talk more sparingly of Absurdities and Contradictions than they used to do having so many more out of his Writings to talk of than ever they had before But he proceeds and closes his Work with this Triumph over his Antagonist and in him I suppose over all the rest of that Tribe pag. 272. That he is pretty confident that he will never be able to reason to any purpose in this cause again As for his confidence none doubts of it but as for his Prediction if he proves no better a Prophet in what he here foretels of his Socinian Opponent than in what he foretold of that Learned Person who answered both his Case of Allegiance and his Vindication of it viz. That if he would but well examine his Arguments before he answered them he
Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which I shew unavoidably and irrefragably inferr'd them to be Three Gods It being impossible for the God-head which is essentially One single Infinite Mind or Spirit to be multiplyed into three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits without being multiplyed into as many Gods This Opinion of his I shew was easie enough to be confuted But for all that I must here add further that for the insufferable Scandal of it it is much fitter to be censured by a Convocation though even he himself since John Goodwin and Hugh Peters are gone off should be Prolocutor of it After this since he had the Confidence to vouch his Hypothesis for the constant Doctrine of the Fathers and the Schools I first proved it quite otherwise in the Point of Self-Consciousness and in his Assertion of Three distinct Infinite Minds For the latter of which he quoted Three or Four Fathers and One Sentence out of one Schoolman viz. P. Lombard which one would think was far from proving it the constant Doctrine either of the Fathers or the Schools and yet even these very Quotations I shew were no more to his Purpose than if he had alledged them to prove that twice Three makes Twenty And as for Self-Consciousness which is one of the Two main Branches or Members of his Hypothesis he does not produce nor so much as mention one Father or School-man in the behalf of it so exact is he in proving his Doctrine the very same with Theirs And then in the next place for the proof of his Mutual-Consciousness from the Fathers and School-men I have distinctly considered his Allegations for it and forming them into Arguments such as the matter would afford found them the saddest wofullest things to be called by that Name that perhaps ever appeared in the World since Argumentation was in use And to complete his excellent and peculiar way of Arguing from the Fathers for not so much as one School-man is cited in favour of Mutual-Consciousnsss his whole business I shew was to reproach the Fathers as neither able to conceive rightly of the Trinity nor yet express themselves Properly and Intelligibly about the same and all this because they neither conceived of it nor expressed it according to his Terms and Hypothesis which yet he affirmed to be the Constant Avowed Sentiments of those very Fathers though God help them poor Men they were not so happy as to know it And this I hope all the World will acknowledge to be a most extraordinary way of proving a Thing from the Authority of the Fathers by thus representing them as a Company of Dolts who neither knew how to think or speak as they should upon the subject which they were professedly treating of Upon which Head having finished my Answer as to the main Point I first engaged in I proceeded to mark out and Animadvert upon several of his Paradoxical Absurd Assertions both in Divinity and Philosophy And I did not only alledge them for such but also by the most commonly received and current Principles of both effectually proved them such and I refer it to any Man of clear and impartial Sense upon a survey of the Particulars there distinctly examined and remarked upon to pass as Judge between this Author and my self whether the Proof falls at all short of the Charge Next to which because of his Insolent Reflexions upon some Learned Men I took into consideration also his vocabular Sins and manifold Transgressions of the Laws of Grammar and Philology And whereas he had vilified his Adversary as having neither Greek nor Latine I shew that albeit the Charge had been never so true yet that he was one of the unfittest Persons living to make it for some certain Reasons fairly presented to him in that Chapter And lastly to bring up the Rear of all I thought it expedient to lay open the Temper of the Man and his way of Writing His Immoderate Applauses of himself above all before him or about him together with his disdainful Treatment of all that come in his way as if they were not worthy to carry his Books after him Though by what some of them have Wrote against him it appears that they have made too good use of their own Books to be fit to carry his In fine I have in my Perusal of this Man's Writings with the utmost exactness I was able observed his way of speaking both of himself and others and upon the result of all do most seriously and sincerely affirm That never did I nor perhaps any one else meet with so much confidence with so thin a Bottom to support it and yet surely that Man ought to stand upon a very broad and firm Bottom indeed who ventures to defie all the World And thus to relieve the Reader 's Memory I have given him this brief draught or Scheme of the whole Work In which as it is this Author alone whom I have undertook so I think fit to declare That if any one besides him shall attempt an answer to this Discourse I shall not in the least trouble or concern my self about him whosoever he be but if this Author himself shall be disposed to defend his New Notions and Hypothesis by a just and Scholastick Reply to what I have here offered against them I will not fail God affording me such a measure of Health and Strength as may enable me for Study to attend his Motions upon this Subject as soon and as often as he pleases For I can hardly perswade my self that I have yet paid him all that I owe him Nevertheless I must leave this Admonition with him That I neither can nor shall account such a Pamphlet as his late Apology a just and sufficient Answer to these Animadversions In the mean time since the Reverend Dr. J. W. spoken of in the preceding Chapter in his Letters about the Trinity and W. I. another very Learned Person in his 2d Letter to the said Doctor upon the same subject have both of them been pleased to commend this Author for several excellent Things in this Book I do with the greatest earnestness of Entreaty as well as with the profoundest deference of Respect to their great Judgments beg of them that they would by a kind of charitable Benefaction to such low and mean Understandings as mine vouchsafe to point out in particular what those excellent Things are and in what part of his Book they may be found and whether I have hit upon any of them in my Three immediately foregoing Chapters For I have read the Book over and over as after I had took up Thoughts of Answering it it concerned me in all Reason to do And I do thereupon solemnly profess that according to the best of my poor Judgment and that ordinary Measure of Learning which God has vouchsafed me I can hardly find throughout the whole Work unless perhaps here and there a passage or two against the Socinians so much as one