if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter But tho' this be inartificial enough if no more yet that which is more grievously suspicious is that he calls the Catholick Faith but a meer Opinion and Perswasion of a Party * P. 31. The third Opinion saith his Lordship is that the Godhead by the Eternal Word the Second in the blessed Three dwelt in and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person as our Soul and Body make one Man And that the Eternal Word was truly God and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration By those of this Perswasion the Term Person became applied to the Three which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost on design to discover those who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word a complete intelligent Being but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other two So again †P. 32 33. This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine That as there is but One God so in that undivided Essence there are Three that are really different from one another and are more than three Names or three outward Oeconomies * P. 42. or Modes and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of Christ § 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this but there are indeed several and those of great Importance First That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church The truth is as his Lordship has stated it it has many meer Opinions in it but they are such as are not in the Faith and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith either as it is or ought to have been stated by him he ought not to have set it out as a meer Opinion or Perswasion of a third Party For a meer partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholick Faith whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion For the Act is meer Humane Conjecture without certain grounds and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain but only probable appearance which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority But Catholick Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholick Church and thereupon to be relied on and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church not the Opinion of any Party in the beginning and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since of what Cut or Size soever pertain not to this Holy Body in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity and as fundamental in the Christian Professions Now would it not be very Theological to say That all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles the whole Synagogue of the Jews and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion That there is one God only the Creator and Governour of all things That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ That it is our Opinion That he came down and dwelt among us died rose again and ascended into Heaven and shall come to Judgment at the general Resurrection Just so absurd it is to call the Catholick Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Perswasion of a Party 'T is true indeed his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine but this term is equivocal and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers But what I require is that the Catholick Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion or form of Faith †P. 26. See Discour 3. That we believe points of Doctrine because we are perswaded that they are revealed to us in Scripture which is so languid and unsafe a Rule that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions since each Man's Faith is his Perswasion that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Perswasions but by a primitive perpetual universal and unanimous Conviction and Tradition The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Perswasions is the cause of all Heresies and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruine of the true Christian and Catholick Faith I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversie What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgment and Knowledge herein must betake him †P. 63. to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirineâ—â— and take that for fundamental Doctrine which hath been received for such in all Ages Places and Churches A Rule very practicable and easie since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholick Faith which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages 'T is true indeed every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately perswaded but he that is not to be perswaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholick upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood and yet stands or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ though he fansies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures § 4. Secondly His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation for he tells us that this third Opinion is that by the Vnion of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity God and Man truly became one Person Now here first we are not taught whether there were three or any one Person in the
their Heresie against the Trinity of real Persons 'T is true a Man may innocently say That the term Person was used against Patripassians while he contends for the proper truth of their Personality as the Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity †P. 25. Ubi citatur Facund pro defensione triâ—â— capit c. 1. p. 19. cites Facundus's Saying that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie but to throw out such Expressions with a Design to deny the Primitive Antiquity of this Faith of Three proper Persons or Personalities is extremely perfidious of which this is a certain Sign when Men avoid the use of these Terms as a stock of Offence as his Lordship appears industriously to do in his State of the Doctrine I have not Facundus by me and so cannot so well judge of the convenience of his Words But as to the Term Hypostasis or Subsistence tho' it was in use long before Sabellianism and used of the Person of the Father * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1.2 yet was that use promiscuous for Essence and Subsistence long after Sabellianism and the determinate use thereof for the distinct Persons was later than the Sardican Council and was indeed at last so fixed to denote their substantial Personality or personal Subsistence against the Sabellians who asserted the Word and Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-subsistent that is not distinctly subsistent from the Person of the Father in the Unity of Essence but the Term Person both in the Eastern and Western Churches was ever received from the beginning without any variety or ambiguity § 7. Now that my Surmises against his Lordship's Integrity herein are well grounded will appear from his Lordship's explanation of this Term which tho' it be received in the third Party yet he dares not make his own nor allow for proper By Person saith he is only meant that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself by which he is truly different from the other Two Here it is plain that by using the Term Three so often without adding Person he shuns the Word as much as he dares at present to do and assigns a distinction which is not any way personal For it being only such a diversity that one is not the other it will as well agree to two or three Tobaco pipes for these are truly different from each other I would therefore ask his Lordship Does the Name of Father as distinct from the Son import no more than that one is not the other or does it import a Personality really Paternal If he will grant only the former part of the disjunction as he grants no more in his Discourse then there really was no God the Father from Eternity till the Creation of Christ which was the first Article of Arianism nor was he who is by all called God the Father even a true Person which yet however all have ever acknowledged But if he ever was a true Person and Father then first as to him the Term is elder than Patripassianism and I demand a good reason why the Eternal Word is not as much and as true a Person also especially if he be the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father For otherwise the Father and the Son will be of Dignities specifically different if one be of a personal and the other of impersonal Character tho' how a real Son can be a thing really impersonal I cannot conceive and then be that allows no more distinction but only this that one is not the other tacitly denying the relative distinction between Father and the Son doth really deny both the Father and the Son When these Words were orally delivered at Warmister I observed them to my self but looked on it as a slip only of an extemporary speaking but when I see it also after the last concoction delivered from the Press I suspect somewhat more than should be I am sure the Dictate is rotten and tacitly imports a renunciation of our Christianity § 8. And yet after all so great is the force of Truth that it will maintain its Evidence even in the Tongues and Pens of its Adversaries For though some part of his Lordship's Doctrines denies the Personality yet others unwittingly concede it For first of all when he calls the Trinity the Blessed Three not daring to say Persons the Character of Blessed doth import a Peal Personality For whether it be taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of God's essential Happiness or in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the objects of our religious Praises yet if the Three are either or both ways Blessed they must be Persons For among created Beings none are internally or effectually blessed but what are Personal but if any Man will cavil and say that God in the Creation blessed things Impersonal and promised such Blessings also in the Mosaical Covenants it is enough to reply That these Blessed Three are uncapable of those lower forms of Benediction and must have a Divine Blessedness if they are of a Divine Nature Now his Lordship will not say that these are Three Distinct Blessed Essences and he says they are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes so that he cannot with consistence call them three Blessed Names Oeconomies or Modes and then what can he or any one else conceive by Three Blessed but Three Blessed Persons For though it may be truly said that the highest Blessedness is that of Essence yet none but a Person or Persons can be essentially Blessed So that his Lordship asserting a Blessed Three must against his will yield them to be three Persons really distinct though not divide And so when he says that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself this Pronoun himself is expresly Personal and so either the Personality is Real or his Lordship very unaccurate in attributing a Personal Pronoun to every one of the Three and so is at his choice either unaccurate or self-contradictory or heretical or for the sake of a blessed Comprehension all together § 9. Let us now consider his Lordship's proper Tradition of this third Opinion or perhaps his own under the Colour of that for 't is not easie to find him This saith he is in general the Sum of the Received Doctrine that in God's undivided Essence there are Three really different from each other that are more than three Names Oeconomies or Modes But here is not one word of Persons though asserted by the whole Catholick Church by our own Articles and Liturgies which his Lordship has sworn his unfeigned Assent and Consent to and is by his Station bound to defend and for which he has the great example of his late Metropolitan What latent Ulcer is the Cause of this tergiversation I cannot exactly tell but something there must be at the bottom But since this being matter
of Faith must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism Catechumen My Lord I am an Heathen Philosopher and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith I pray what are they Bish First our received Doctrine is That in the single Essence of God there are Three Catech. Three what my Lord Bish Three really distinct from one another more than three Names Modes or Oeconomies Catech. My Lord you tell me what they are not but I would fain know or have some notion what they are And when you tell me there are Three the Rules of Logick Grammar and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense I pray my Lord has your Catholick Church or your Church of England given them no Characteristick Name Bish Yes after Patripassianism arose she called them Persons as a Test to discover them Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons for if this were received before or since Patripassianism 't is received into your Christian Confessions Perhaps the Catholick Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them that is Persons and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it I pray my Lord deal openly with me is it so or how is it Bish Truly Sir the Church only means that one is not the other that is all that is intended in the Term Person Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons Bish No they only call them by the Names of Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach that the first of these is really a Father and the second really his Son Bish This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me Bish Yes Sir Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles Bish Yes Sir among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity Bish Sir they are not called Persons in Scripture but only Father Son or Word and Holy Ghost but we mean no more by Persons but that one is not the other there are three Sir that you may depend on but I pray Sir do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons for I cannot tell what they are nor what to call them Catech. But I pray my Lord why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God and promised to declare him unto them if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the God-head I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers I pray my Lord what is your Opinion of them herein Bish Perhaps Sir they have gone beyond due bounds contradicted each other and themselves they use many impertinent Simile's run out into much length and confusion while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves Catech. My Lord if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God if you will reject the terms of your Church to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers you force me to retreat from my hopes and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers This must be the Issue of such a dry sensless insipid State of the Faith if offered to the Wise of the Heathen Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphick Theology accounting for Creation and Providence and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers like Dagon fell before it § 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation †P. 32 33. The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united there did result the Person of the Messias who was both God and Man Now here it is to be noted that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship 's own after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein so that we must take this as most correct and exact He then that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity admits it here concerning the Messias and consequently leaves us to conclude that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity but proper to the Messias or God Incarnate And secondly it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures 'T is true indeed the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal that is it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled and it is certain also that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate but this does not inferr that the Personality of the Messias commenced or resulted from his Incarnation For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messias So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation yet not the Person or Personality for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent but added or contributed nothing thereunto Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation or no If not this is down-right Sabellianism if he was then that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity then this is Nestorianism if you confound them into a compound it is I think Eutychianism since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances But if in the Conjunction of Natures one Personality excludes or destroys the other nothing can result from that which is destroyed but that Personality simply remains as it was before that destroyed the other And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed and if so it 's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature and so destroys it in the Union and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality not in the whole Theanthrôpus
a Creature St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expresly written and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors So that his Lordship's Observation though never so well intended is however partly false and partly impertinent And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it it will amount to no more than this That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature because he whom the Christians worshipp'd in our flesh was by them owned to be the Eternal God Yet no doubt the Jews ever did and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature who really as they think had no Deity in him else had they also thought him to be God they had been ipso facto converted to us the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine So unlucky is his Lordship even in the fairest part of this Discourse as if God had laid this Curse on him that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum c. PART II. § 1. I Have now I think performed my first undertaking that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith A truth so evident to his own Clergy even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities that they ascribe all or seem willing so to do to haste inconsideration and want of judgment not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse I cannot tell but at the best they are but Fig-leaves For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor first uttered to a learned Body and after exposed to the Censure of the World in a matter most fundamental in Christianity most liable to prejudices and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith with their unaccuracies and impertinencies and this not in their particular and private conceptions which the Church hath not authorized but in their most Catholick and established Theories Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men and not to have needed the Candor of a Reader § 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality that 't is not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character The Fathers it is true were Men and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these not with a design to blacken their memory but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions he had dealt very commendably But it falls out quite otherwise For he Taxes them for no real obliquities but their Catholick Principles fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamed of and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them he gives them not so much as one good word but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Bablers which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresie I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England Sure I am as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith so modesty ought to have repressed it if for no other consideration yet for this one reason That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers § 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies which he introduces thus by telling his Clergy that †P. 31. he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood and in what respect these Persons which he calls so according to custom not his own sense are believed to be one and in what respects they are Three By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the shewing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture for to pretend to give any other Account of it is to take away its mysteriousness when the manner how it is in it self is offered to be made intelligible Now what doth this prima facie intimate but that it is not laid down in the Scripture in what respect the Persons are one nor in what respect they are Three But first in the Doctrine of Unity I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence notwithstanding all the wriggles of Hereticks not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7 which his Lordship has exposed * Letter I from Zurich for doubted but in many others And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity I will adventure the proof of it But if his Lordship be not so hardy then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip not a designed Artifice Let it be so yet is it a dangerous one and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction to the service of heretical Comprehensions The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One. This saith he is Scripture * Antap. p. 5. but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not What is this fetch for but that we may not press the Heretick's to own an essential Unity but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith But secondly his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three according to the Scriptures which do instruct us herein with certain notions and respects by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence For are not Father and Son Personal Characters and founded on a substantial generation the Father being the Person Generant as such and the Son the Person generated as such And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind and as such distinguished from its Parent The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and
is distinguished from and asserted the Author of those Operations and Graces there the Spirit cannot be those very Operations or Graces produced by them as those middle Virtues and Qualities must be See 1 Cor. 12.1 to 12. 2 Thess 2.13 1 Pet. 1.2 Gal. 5.22 Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. 1 Joh. 5.7 In which last the Holy Spirit is said to be in Heaven and consequently can be no middle Quality in us and yet in Heaven personally distinct from the Father and the Word which I take to be a good Argument from a good Authority in despite of Hereticks and defective Libraries to which I could add very many more were it necessary But the truth is the Texts alledged by Crellius do not all manifestly denote by the Spirit of God a mere created Virtue or Quality but may except some few to be by and by considered denote the essential Spirit of God supervening upon Men and creating in them the Spirits of Wisdom Vigour Prophecy Life c. And particularly where Elihu Job 33.4 saith the spirit of God hath made me he implies the prae-existence of that Spirit before himself and so not after effected in him being indeed a Virtue operant not operated but a precedent cause of the Operation it self And though according to the literal form of the Hebrew the evil Spirit that troubled Saul is called the Lords evil Spirit 1 Sam. 16.15 16 23. and 18.10 and 19.9 yet this may denote not a divine Operation surely which is not evil but a wicked infernal Personal Spirit the Lictor or Carnifex which God sent to punish him But if we keep to Crellius's Notion and let the evil Spirit here be a Quality effected in Saul it must be from some inspiring Agent which the Quality being evil cannot be God and so must be an evil Spirit of darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 16.14 sent from the Lord. And if so how can it be evinced that the Term evil Spirit does not denote the Person of the Evil Angel but only the effect of his infernal Operation And as to the Spirit of Wisdom with which God had filled some Persons for making the Priests habits c. Exod. 28.3 it appears not to be that effected Wisdom it self but the Divine Principle efficient thereof from Exod. 31.1 Where God says he had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God in Wisdom and Understanding c. where the filling Power i. e. the Spirit of God is distinguished from its effect i. e. that Wisdom and Understanding inspired by the Spirit of God into him And that Spirit of God producent of that Wisdom Exod. 31.3 might well be called the Spirit of that Wisdom which it produced as likewise Esa 11.2 So that in all these places I am verily perswaded that the Spirit of God signifies not a mere Divine Operation nor a mere Virtue divinely operated but a Principle and Substantial Power operant But that the Term Spirit of God may be sometimes put for the Grace effected thereby nay and that actions of Subjects are many times elegantly attributed to their Adjuncts as it may also happen to the effect for the efficient I shall not gainsay but such mere Metonymies do not presently exhibit a formal Prosopopoecia of those Adjuncts or Effects without other technical Schemes such as usually appear in Poetick or Dramatick fancies not in serious Prose plain Discourse didactick Institutions especially in the Simple Catechetical and Inartificial Rules of Faith delivered by Christ and his Apostles Besides with Poets and other Painters personated Qualities put on the feminine Veil Face and Sex but Christ describes his Holy Spirit * Joh. 14.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 16.13 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita 15.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as a Masculine Person when he calls him Paraclete with a Personal Pronoun He to shew him as it were exactly both in Nature and Person Where as Bishop Pearson well observes on Joh. 16.13 14 c. upon the Article of the Holy Ghost those personal Attributes of the Spirit can be by no means applied to God the Father nor to the Apostles by any Metonymy whatsoever according to the Socinian pretention But further that supreme Spirit of God is only one which yet by manifold Operations creates many kinds of Virtues which therefore are plurally called Spirits 1 Cor. 12.10 1 Cor. 14.32 § 29. Now to break off this blow Crellius coins a double sort of Unity for the Holy Spirit One generical consisting in this that all such Spirits how numerous and various soever are yet of one Genus of Spirit as all individual Bodies and sorts of Bodies are included in one Genus of Body But such Unity is but merely notional and uncapable of individual Acts and Offices which yet are ascribed to the one Holy Spirit For when †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the self same Spirit is said to distribute all gifts according as he will it is manifest that many single and many sorts of Graces are given by the will of one only Spirit individually One. For individual and actually existent effects must be the products of individual and actually existing Cause or Causes not from mere Genus and Species which are not the subjects of Historical Relations For it cannot be said of Substance or Body in general that one and the self same Substance or Body produces all Physical effects in the material World nor of Man in Specie that one and the self same Man performs all the Acts and Offices that are done by all and every single Man Nor is Genus and Species capable of Personal Unities and Distinctions But now the Apostle distinguishes both the Operations and Effects of one and the self same Spirit both from themselves and that Spirit not only numerically but specifically and yet asserts them the products * 1 Cor. 12. of one and the self same Spirit one and the self same Lord one and the self same God shewing at least the Unity of the Spirit to be such and the same as is the Unity of the Lord and God which must be therefore most perfectly Individual But if each particular Divine Inspiration or it s produced Graces had been so many distinct Holy Spirits of God in themselves since there are such multitudes and multiplicities of them there was no reason why in the same breath he should assert them many and manifold and yet but one operant Spirit only which therefore must be distinct from them as the Cause from the effect as the Author from the product and as the Donor from the gift § 30. His second sort of Unity is that of Origine by which he pretends the Spirit to be called One because though infinitely manifold or divisible in it self yet it proceeds from one God and in this respect may be called One But neither will this last fit For the Terms one and the self same are too narrow and express a closer