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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59853	The present state of the Socinian controversy, and the doctrine of the Catholick fathers concerning a trinity in unity by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing S3325; ESTC R8272	289,576	406

Persons but attribute true and perfect Divinity only to the Father and make the Son a Creature though the most excellent Creature made before the World and as like to God as any Creature can be and the Minister of God in making the World This Heresy was condemned by the first general Council assembled at Nice and if we would understand the Nicene Creed we must expound it in opposition to the Arian Heresy without running into the other Extreme of Sabellianism And therefore when we are taught to believe in One Lord Iesus Christ the Only begotten Son of God begotten of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of very God begotten not made being of One Substance with the Father by whom all things were made Wemust understand a Son who is a distinct Person from his Father as the Arians allowed him to be but not a made or created Son as they taught but a Son by Nature begotten of his Father's substance and that not in Time but from all Eternity and therefore not a Creature but God by Nature true and perfect God as God of God begotten of God and therefore of One Substance with the Father not in the Sabellian sense as One Substance is One Person but as One Substance signifies the same Nature in opposition to the Arians who made him not only a distinct Person but of a different Nature like his Father but not the same not of the substance of his Father but a new created Substance made out of nothing as all other Creatures are The opposition of this Creed to the Arian Heresy is certainly the best way of expounding it and then we find nothing in it but the true ancient Catholick Faith of the real distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence But the present Inquiry is What is the true Notion of the Homousion or One Substance of Father and Son and besides that positive account the Fathers give us of it we may learn this from those false Glosses and Interpretations which they reject and those Rules they give for the expounding these words SECT I. The true Sense of the Homoousion from those Misrepresentations which were made of it and the Answers which were given by the Nicene Fathers to such Objections 1. FIrst then Let us consider what Misrepresentations were made of this disputed word Consubstantial by the Enemies of the Catholick Faith and what Answers the Fathers gave to such Objections St. Hilary mentions three in the beginning of his 4 th Book of the Trinity and I shall consider them in the Order in which he sets them down 1. The first is that this word Homoousion or Consubstantial is no better than Sabellianism that it makes the Father and the Son to be but One by One singular Substance which being Infinite extended it self into the Virgin 's Womb and taking a Body of her in that Body took the Name of Son and thus they say some former Bishops understood it and is therefore to be rejected as Heretical which as he adds is the first misrepresentation of the Homoousion Thus he observes in his Book de Synodis that the Fathers in the Council of Antioch which condemned Paulus Samosatenus did also reject the Homoousion because Paulus thereby understood the singularity of the Divine Nature and Substance which destroys the real personal distinction between Father and Son and adds that the Church though it retained the word Homoousion still rejects that sense of it as profane The Learned Dr. Bull notwithstanding St. Hilary's Authority can't believe that either Paulus or Sabellius did upon choice own the Homoousion but only put a forced and unnatural sense of it to favour their Heresies and seems to have very good reason on his side but that is not the present question How perversly soever Hereticks understood this word the Nicene Fathers rejected this sense as profane and heretical Now if One Substance does not signify One singular Substance in the Sabellian Notion of it which leaves only a Trinity of Names or Modes instead of a Trinity of Persons then Three consubstantial Persons must signisy Three substantial Persons who have the same Nature and Essence but not the same singular Substance And St. Basil tells us that this is the proper acceptation of the word Homoousion which is directly opposed to the Sabellian as well as to the Arian Heresy as it destroys the Identity of Hypostasis and gives us a complete and perfect Notion of distinct Persons for the same thing is not consubstantial to it self but to another that there must be another and another to make two that are consubstantial Another Objection against the Homoousion was this That to be consubstantial or of One Substance signifies the communion of Two in some other thing which is in order of Nature before them both as if there were some prior Substance or Matter of which they both did partake so as to have the whole Substance between them which makes them consubstantial or of one Substance both partaking of the same Being Nature or Substance which was before them both and therefore they rejected the Homoousion because it did not preserve the relation between the Son and the Father and made the Father later than that Substance or Matter which is common to him with the Son This also St. Hilary tells us the Church rejects and abominates for nothing can so much as in thought be before the Substance of the Father and the relation between Father and Son signifies to beget and to be begotten not to be both made of the same Substance A third Reason they assigned against this word Homoousion was this That to be Consubstantial or of One Substance in the strict and proper acceptation of these words signifies that the generation of the Son is by the division of the Father's Substance as if he were cut out of him and One Substance divided into Two Persons and so Father and Son are of One Substance as a part cut out of the whole is of the same nature with that from whence it is taken This was objected against the Homoousion in the time of the Nicene Council while this word was under debate which Socrates gives a more particular account of The reason those Bishops who refused to subscribe to the Nicene Faith gave against the Homoousion was this That that only can be said to be Consubstantial which is of another either by division or by efflux and emanation or by prolation or eruption by eruption as the branches sprout out of the root by efflux according to the manner of human generations by division as the same mass of Gold may be divided into two or three golden Cups but the Son is of the Father neither of these ways and therefore they rejected this Faith and ridiculed the Homoousion For this very reason Eusebius of Caesarea was for some time in suspense about the

begotten of his Fathers Substance the Son of God who in his own proper Person is true and perfect God not a part of God but all that God is not One God as One Person with the Father but as having the true Divine Nature distinctly in his own Person This is a Demonstration that the Nicene Consubstantiality is the Consubstantiality of Two real substantial Persons who have the same Nature distinctly subsisting in each of them 2 Another Rule for expounding the Homoousion is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are equipollent terms that to be of one Substance and to be in all things alike to each other signify the same thing I know the Fathers condemned the Arian Homoiousion for they asserted That the Son was like the Father in opposition to his being of the same Nature with the Father and therefore this was an imperfect likeness and resemblance or indeed no likeness at all for a created and uncreated Nature are at such an infinite distance as to have no true and real likeness to each other to be sure not such a likeness as there must be between a Son and a Father Nay sometimes they would not allow that likeness can be properly applied to two individual Natures of the same species as to two individual human Natures which are not like to each other but are the same But yet whether it was proper or improper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be upon all accounts and every way perfectly alike was allowed to be very Orthodox and therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis approves several Oriental Creeds as very Orthodox though they left out the Homoousion because they in the most express terms confessed the perfect likeness and similitude of Nature between Father and Son which they guarded with the utmost Caution against the perverse Interpretations both of the Sabellian and Arian Hereticks And he disputes at large That perfect similitude is a sameness and equality of Nature and calls God to witness that before he ever heard of those words Homoousion and Homoiousion he always thought that what is signified by both these words is the same that perfect likeness of Nature is the sameness of Nature for nothing can be perfectly alike which has not the same Nature And this he says he learnt from the Evangelists and Apostles before ever he heard of the Nicene Faith which he had not heard of till a little before he was banished for that Faith This observation is of great use as St. Hilary notes to confute Sabellianism and to fix the true sense of the Homoousion for if to be Consubstantial or of one Nature signifies a perfect likeness similitude and equality of Nature Consubstantiality must at least signify Two who are thus consubstantial as likeness similitude and equality does and these Two must have One and the same Nature not in the sense of Singularity and Sabellian Unity but of likeness and similitude that Father and Son are One Substance not as One Person is One with himself but as Two Persons are One by a perfect likeness and similitude of Nature which must be the true meaning of Consubstantial if Consubstantiality and likeness of Nature be the same 3. I observe farther That the Catholick Fathers did not make the Homoousion the Rule of Faith that whatever sense some critical Wits can put on it must therefore be owned for the Catholick Faith but they chose it as the most comprehensive word to comprize the true Catholick Faith and to detect the Frauds of Hereticks They taught no new Faith by this word but what the Catholick Church had always taught but secured the Faith by it against the shifts and evasions of H●reticks This is the defence they made to the Arian Objection That it was an unscriptural word they confessed the word Homoousios was not to be found in Scripture but the Faith expressed by that word was Thus St. Austin answers Pascentius and tells us That Christ himself has taught us the Homoousion where he says I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and my Father are One and expounds this of the Unity Dignity and Equality of Nature And adds That it is not the word but the thing signified by that word which is so terrible to Hereticks and if they would dispute to purpose they must not reject the word but the doctrine it contains And thus Laurentius who presided in that Dispute gives judgment in this Controversy That the Homoousion was not the Name of the Christian Faith but signified the Equality of the Trinity and that though this word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by it is true and we must believe honourably of the Unity lest we injure the Trinity We may find enough to this purpose in Athanasius De Decret Syn. Nic. and elsewhere of which more presently And therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis which he wrote to some Catholick Bishops who were very Orthodox in the Faith and yet doubted of this word Homoousion tells them That they are to consider what the Synod intended by that word and not reject the word unless they rejected the Faith taught by it and would profess those Arian Doctrines which the Council condemned in it This is the constant language of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers when the Dispute is concerning the use of this word which gives us this certain Rule for expounding the Homoousion that we must understand it in no other sense than what the Nicene Fathers intended by it for if we do we may acknowledge the Homoousion and yet deny the Nicene Faith What they taught by this word that we must own and what they rejected by it we must reject And though we may fancy that this word signifies more than what the Nicene Fathers understood by it as we have heard what perverse Senses the Hereticks fixt on it yet it being not a Scriptural but an Ecclesiastical word it must be expounded to that Sense and no other which placed it in the Creed SECT III What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion AND this brings me to a more particular Account of the Homoousion and what the Nicene Fathers understood by it Eusebius Pamphili who at first doubted about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ was of the substance of the Father and consubstantial or of One Substance with him gives an account to his Coesareans of the Reasons which moved him afterwards to subscribe to that Form of Faith as appears by his Letter to them recorded in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History He tells them That he did not admit these words without due examination but when he found there was nothing meant by them but what was truly Catholick and Orthodox he complied for Peace sake For by the Son 's being of his Father's Substance they meant no more than