Terms can belong for there is no such thing in created Nature and therefore we can have no Idea of it It is abundantly sufficient in this Case that we have a clear and distinct Notion of One Substance and Three Hypostases in the Essential Unity and Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost Three subsisting Relations in One Individual Essence and Substance though when we abstractedly consider these Terms of One Substance and Three Hypostases we can form no consistent Notion or Idea of it And now let our Socinian Adversaries who talk so loud of Absurdities Contradictions Nonsense false Counting and Tritheism try their skill to make good these Charges against the Divine subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Individual Essence SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity BUT since one Nature and Essence and Three Hypostases or Persons is the Catholick Language and necessary to guard the Faith from those Two Extremes of Sabellianism and Arianism it will be necessary to consider how to apply these Ecclesiastical Terms to the Three and One in the ever Blessed Trinity And here were I so disposed I might enter into a very large and perplext Dispute but my design as far as possibly I can attain it is only to explain what the Catholick Fathers meant by these Terms and to give a plain and sensible Notion of them And after what I have already so largely discoursed concerning Nature and Hypostasis I have little more to do than to compare them together and to shew in what the Catholick Fathers placed this Distinction And as nothing is of greater consequence than rightly to understand this matter so nothing requires greater Caution nor greater Application of Mind Whosoever is conversant in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers must acknowledge it not only reasonable but necessary to distinguish between their Faith and their Philosophy Their Faith which they received srom the Scriptures and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church is plain and simple and the same in all That there is but One God who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself True and Perfect God and all but One God which is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that they are in a true and proper Sense Three and One This is the Catholick Faith wherein they all agree but then those Philosophical Terms which the importunities of Hereticks who corrupted either the Faith of the Unity or Trinity forced them to use in the Explication of this Mystery are of a different Consideration These have not always been the same nor have all agreed in them and the wisest Men have owned great Improprieties in them all when applied to this Sacred Mystery and indeed it is impossible to be otherwise for that infinite Difference and Diversity there is between the Divine and Humane Nature nay all created Nature can never admit of any Common Terms proper to express both The most perfect Creatures bear only some imperfect Analogy and Resemblance to what we conceive of God and therefore when we apply such Words and Terms to the Divine Naturâ— as are borrowed from Creatures and we have no other we must understand them only by way of Analogy and Accommodation and when we expound such Terms as are used by the Catholick Fathers in such an accommodated Sense we must apply them no further than that particular Matter they intended to represent by them I have already shâ—wn this in several particular Passages relating to the Homoousion but now I am more particularly to consider the difference between Essence and Hypostasis and I shall only shew how the matter of fact stands what has occasioned this difficulty what the true state of the Controversy is and how we may form some sensible notion of this Distinction and if I should mistake in so nice a Point as this I hope it will be a pardonable Mistake while I make no change in the Catholick Faith and intend it only as an Essay if it be possible to silence or qualify the Dispute about words The Greek Fathers attribute all the Heresies relating to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to this one Mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same for then if there be but One Essence in the Blessed Trinity there must consequently be but One Hypostasis which is Sabellianism or if there be Three Hypostases there must be Three Natures and Essences either in the Arian or Tritheistick Notion Thus with reference to the Incarnation two Natures must be two Persons or Hypostases as Nestorius taught or One Person must be but One mixt and compounded Nature too which was the Heresy of Eutyches This some Fathers thought a fundamental Error in Philosophy introduced by Aristotle who makes the first Substance which is the only true and proper Substance to be that which is predicated of no Subject nor is in any Subject that is what we call a Subsisting Individual as this Man or this Horse And therefore Theorianus observes That the Catholick Fathers understood Essence and Hypostasis in a very different sense from the Greek Philosophers that is by Essence and Substance they did not mean one singular Individuum or singular Nature and Substance as Aristotle did but a common Nature not a common Notion as Genus or Species which are Aristotle's second Substances but a common Subsisting Nature which is one and the same whole and perfect in every Individual of the same kind And what Aristotle call'd his first Substance a singular Subsisting Nature that they called Hypostasis a common Subsisting Nature with its individuating Characters and Properties It is evident some Ages past before these words Essence and Hypostasis were thus nicely distinguished or at least before this Distinction was so unanimously received for as I have already observed these Words were used very promiscuously which occasioned the Alexandrian Schism and it does not appear to me that this Distinction was setled by Athanasius and the Bishops with him in that Synod as some seem to think though soon after it generally prevailed as we may learn from St. Basil Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril of Alexandria Damascen Leontius Theorianus Theodorus Abucara Ignatius Sinaita and generally all the Catholick Writers of the Eutychian and Severian Age who universally agree in this That Essence and Hypostasis differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that which is Universal differs from what is Proper and Singular Now so far these Fathers were certainly in the right That if they must apply Philosophical Terms to Divine Mysteries which the Cavilling Objections of Hereticks made necessary there was an absolute necessity for them to change their signification for as there is nothing common to
be but One God but yet requires us to believe his Eternal Son to be true and perfect God and his Eternal Spirit to be true and perfect God it is certain that the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is very reconcilable with the Unity of God For as far as Revelation must decide this Dispute we are as much obliged to believe That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God as we are to believe That there is but One God Those who will not acquiesce in this must appeal from Scripture to Natural Reason which is a very absurd and impudent Appeal for the plain sense of it is this That they will believe their own Reason before the Scriptures in matters relating to the Divine Nature and Unity which all wise men acknowledge to be so much above human comprehension That is That they know the Unity of God better than God himself does or which is the same thing That they will never believe any Revelation to come from God or any thing how express soever the words are to be the meaning of the Revelation any farther than their own Reason approves it Of which more elsewhere And yet I dare appeal to any man of a free and unbiass'd Reason in this Cause What is that Natural Notion we have of One God Is it any thing more than that there is and can be but One Eternal Self-originated Being who is the Principle or Cause of all other Beings And does not the Scripture do not all Trinitarians with the whole Catholick Church own this Do not all the Christian Creeds teach us to profess our Faith in One God the Father from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their Godhead Thus far then Scripture and Reason and the Catholick Faith agree Does Reason then deny that God can beget of himself an Eternal Son his own perfect Image and Likeness If it does then indeed Scripture and Reason contradict each other But I believe these men will not pretend to prove from Reason That God could not beget an Eternal Son and if this cannot be proved by Reason as I am certain it never can then Reason does not contradict Scripture which teaches us that God has an only begotten Son And if God have an only begotten Son Reason will teach us that the Son of God must be True and Perfect God and yet not another God because he has one and the same Nature with his Father This is all that any Christian need to believe concerning this matter and all this every Christian may understand and all this every one who sincerely believes the Faith of the Holy Trinity does and must agree in Those who do not I will at any time undertake to prove to be secret Hereticks and Enemies to the Christian Faith and as for those who do I will never dispute with them about some Terms of Art and the Propriety of Words in a matter which is so much above all words and forms of speech And here I leave this matter upon a sure Bottom and here we are ready to join Issue with our Socinian Adversaries Our only Controversy as to the Doctrine of the Trinity with them is Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit each of them be True and Perfect God If we can prove this which has been the Faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages we need dispute no other matters with them nor can any Disputes among our selves give any Support to their Cause A Dispute about Words may look like a difference in Faith when both contending Parties may mean the same thing as those must do who sincerely own and believe That the Son is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost is True and Perfect God and that neither of them are the Father nor each other And therefore those different Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity which the Socinians of late have so much triumphed in and made more and greater than really they are and more sensless too by their false Representations can do them no real service among Wise Men tho it may help to amuse the Ignorant If any men have subtilly distinguished away the Catholick Faith they may take them to themselves and increase their Party by them But if this were the Case as I hope it is not it is no Objection against the Catholick Faith that some men openly oppose it and others at least in some mens opinions do secretly undermine it There is reason to guard the Christian Faith against all inconvenient or dangerous Explications which seem to approach near Heresy if this be done with due Christian Temper and Moderation but I hope the Disputes of the Trinitarians are not so irreconcilable but that they will all unite against a Pestilent and Insolent Heresy which now promises it self glorious Successes only from their private Quarrels CHAP. II. An Examination of Some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy BEfore I put an end to this Discourse it will contribute very much to the better understanding of what I have said and give a clearer Notion of the Use of it to apply these Principles to the Examination of a late Treatise entituled Some Considerations concerning the Trinity The Author I know not he writes with Temper and though he takes the liberty to find fault he does it Civilly and therefore he ought to meet with Civil Usage and so he shall from me as far as the bare Censure of his Principles will admit I was I confess startled at the first entrance to find him own the Vncertainty of our Faith in these Points concerning the Trinity for if after the most perfect Revelation of the Gospel that we must ever expect and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for above Sixteen Hundred years this Faith is still uncertain it is time to leave off all Enquiries about it As for the many absurd and blasphemous Expositions that have been made of this Doctrine if by them he means the Ancient Heresies which infested the Church they are so far from rendring our Faith uncertain that as I shall shew him anon the very Condemnation of those Heresies by the Catholick Church gives us a more certain account what the true Catholick Faith was I agree with him that the warm and indiscreet Management of contrary Parties has been to the Prejudice of Religion among unthinking people who hence conclude the uncertainty of our Faith and it concerns good men to remove this Prejudice by distinguishing the Catholick Faith from the Disputes about Ecclesiastical Words and the Catholick Sense of them and I hope I have made it appear this may be done and then the Faith is secure notwithstanding these Disputes and as for any other Offence or Scandal let those look to it who either give or take it This Considerer dislikes all the Ways and Methods which have hitherto been taken to compose these Disputes 1. He
dislikes those who are for reverencing the Mystery of the Trinity without ever looking into it at all who think it proposed to us only as a Trial and Exercise of our Faith and the more implicit that is the fuller do we express our Trust and Reliance upon God Now if by not looking into it at all he means not enquiring what they are to believe concerning the Trinity nor why they believe it this I acknowledge is a very odd sort of Faith but I believe he cannot name any such men whose avowed Principle this is An Implicit Faith is only meritorious in the Church of Rome but then an Implicit Faith is to believe without knowing what or why but these Ignoramus or Mystery-Trinitarians as some late Socinian Considerers have insolently and reproachfully called them and whom our Author ought not to have imitated never teach such an Implicit Faith as this much less admire the Triumph and Merit of Faith in believing Contradictions and the more the better Under all the appearance of Modesty and Temper these are very severe and scandalous Reflections upon some of the Wisest and Greatest Men amongst us and which this Considerer had little reason for as will soon appear The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the most Fundamental Article of the whole Christian Faith and therefore an explicite Knowledge and Belief of it is essential to the Christian Profession and thus all Protestant Divines teach and whatever Voluminous Disputes there may be about it the true Christian Faith of the Trinity is comprized in a few words and the Proofs of it are plain and easy For the Scriptures plainly and expresly teach us that there is but One God and that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son as I have already explained it This we all teach our people to believe upon the Authority of Scripture which is the only Authority we can have for matters of pure Revelation and expound those Texts to them which expresly contain this Faith and vindicate them from the Cavils and perverse Comments of Hereticks And this I think is not to reverence the Mystery without ever looking into it at all when we look as far as we can till Revelation bounds our prospect And this is to look into it as far as God would have us and as far as is necessary to all the purposes of Religion that is as far as the knowledge of this Mystery is of any use to us Now when this is done there are a great many wise men who think we ought to look into this Mystery no further and there seems to be a very good reason for it viz. because with all our looking we can see no further There are indeed some curious Questions started about reconciling the Unity of God with the belief of a Trinity in which there are Three each of whom is by himself True and Perfect God for if there be but One God how can there be Three each of whom is True God Now whatever Answer may be given to such kind of Objections and pretended Contradictions these Learned Men think there is no reason to clog the Christian Faith with them nor to disturb the minds of ordinary Christians with such Subtilties That the Authority of God who has revealed this and the acknowledged Incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is a sufficient Answer to all Objections and as ridiculously as a Witty Man may represent this That is the truest Faith not which can believe Contradictions but which can despise the pretence of Contradictions when opposed to a Divine Revelation for that resolves Faith wholly into Divine Authority which is the true Notion of a Divine Faith To say that this will not suppress any of our Doubts or Disputes in Religion is a manifest mistake for such a profound Veneration for the Authority of God would silence them all And whatever is the Natural Propension of the Soul to the search of Truth Natural Reason will tell us that there are a thousand things which we can know nothing of and that it is in vain to search after them but that the Divine Wisdom is unsearchable and therefore God is to be believed beyond our own knowledge or comprehension and when we are agreed about the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation that will silence all our Disputes about what is revealed and set bounds to our Enquiries And I never knew before the danger of submitting our Reason to Faith of a blind resignation of judgment as he is pleased to call it to a Divine Revelation for that is the matter in debate Blasphemies and Contradictions may and have been imposed upon mens Faith under the Venerable Name of Mysteries but such Blasphemies and Contradictions were never revealed in Scripture and therefore belong not to the present Enquiry which only concerns believing what we allow to be revealed without looking any farther into it We allow all men to examine the Truth and Certainty of the Revelation and to examine what is revealed but here we must stop and not pretend to judge of what is revealed by the measures of human Reason which is so inadequate a Rule for Divine and Supernatural Truths This is all very plain and if he will allow the Truth of this he must confess that what he has said upon this first Head is nothing to the purpose It is a very popular thing to decry Mysteries and to cry up Reason but to be very cautiously imitated because it is generally found that such men are either no great Believers or no very deep Reasoners 2. In the next place he tells us of a very strange sort of men who call the Doctrine of the Trinity an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet are at a great deal of pains to bring it down to a level with Human Vnderstanding and are all very earnest to have their own particular Explications acknowledged as necessary Articles of Faith An Incomprehensible Mystery is what Human Reason cannot comprehend to bring an Incomprehensible Mystery down to the level of Human Vnderstandings is to make it comprehensible by Reason and those are notable men indeed who undertake to make that comprehensible by Reason which at the same time they acknowledge to be incomprehensible It is to be hoped this Considerer does a little mistake them Men may be-believe the Trinity to be an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet speak of it in words which may be understood which does not pretend to make the Mystery comprehensible but to deliver it from Nonsense Jargon and Heresy that is not to explain the Mystery which is and will be a Mystery still but to secure the true Christian Doctrine of the Trinity which they desire may continue an Article of the Christian Faith still There are he tells us a third sort of men who are for no Mystery that is the
Socinians and I was glad to find them censured and rejected but wonder'd how they came to be numbred among those men who have laboured in this good design of explaining the Trinity and reconciling the Disputes about it Well All these Methods have proved ineffectual let us then to omit other matters enquire what Course our Considerer took to make himself a fit and competent Judge of this Controversy Take the account of it in his own words I have endeavoured to deliver my self from Prejudice and Confusion of Terms and to speak justly and intelligibly And not being yet prepossess'd in favour of any particular Explication the better to preserve my freedom of examining the Subject in hand I have purposely forborn to search the Fathers Schoolmen or Fratres Poloni or read over any later Treatises concerning this Controversy while I was composing the present Essay resolving to consult nothing but Scripture and my own Natural Sentiments and draw all my Reflections from thence taking only such which easily and without constraint offered themselves Thus Des Cartes made a New Philosophy and this is the best way that can be thought of to make a New Faith This has an appearance of great Indifferency and Impartiality but it is a great mistake when men boast in this as a virtue and attainment and an excellent disposition of mind for the Examination of Matters of Faith I never in my life yet saw any one example to the contrary but that when men who had been educated in the Christian Faith and tolerably instructed in the meaning and the reasons of it could persuade themselves to be thus perfectly indifferent whether it were true or false but this indifference was owing to a secret byass and inclination to Infidelity or Heresy It is in vain to pretend such an absolute freedom of Judgment without being perfectly indifferent which side is true or false For if we wish and desire to find one side of the question true and the other false this is a Byass and our Judgment is not equally poiz'd And certainly in matters of such vast consequence as the Christian Faith and especially that great Fundamental Article of the Holy Trinity such an Indifferency as this is can never recommend either an Author or his Writings to sober Christians Will this Considerer then own that it was indifferent to him when he undertook this design whether the Doctrine of the Trinity should upon Examination appear true or false If it were not the Socinians will tell him that he had not preserved a Freedom of Judgment and then he did well in not consulting the Fratres Poloni for he had condemn'd them without hearing or if he were persuaded concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity Was it indifferent to him whether the Sabellian or Arian or True Catholick Notion of a Trinity contained in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds were the True Faith That is Was it indifferent to him whether the Ancient Heresies condemn'd by the Catholick Church or that Faith which the Catholick Church has always own'd and professed be the True Faith For my part I confess I am not thus indifferent I will never shut my eyes against plain Conviction which is all the Freedom of judging which is allowable but my Prejudices are and I hope always will be on the side of the Catholick Faith No wise man can be thus indifferent And we shall find this Considerer was not so very indifferent for the main Principles he reasons on are some Popular Mistakes and Prejudices which he seems to have espoused without due Consideration But let us allow him to be as free and unprejudic'd as he pleases I cannot think that he took a good method to understand this Sacred Mystery He laid aside Fathers Schoolmen and other later Treatises concerning this Controversy and consulted nothing but Scripture and his own natural Sentiments To consult Scripture is indeed a very good way and absolutely necessary in matters of pure Revelation which can be certainly known no other way but the Fathers at least are very good Guides and have very great Authority in expounding Scripture and our Natural Sentiments otherwise called Natural Reason is a very bad a very dangerous Expositor of Scripture in such Supernatural Mysteries and has no Authority in these mattters and how our Considerer has been misled by his Natural Sentiments will soon appear A few words might serve for an Answer to the Considerer but since this is the great Pretence of Socinians and other Hereticks to set up Scripture and Natural Reason against Scripture and the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church and our Considerer and some other unwary Writers chime in with them it will be very necessary to shew how this betrays the Catholick Faith and makes Reason and Criticism the Supreme Judge of Controversy and then men may dispute on without end and believe at last as they please The Considerer tells us I take it for granted in a Protestant Countrey that Scripture is the only Standard of all necessâ—ry Revealed Truths Neither in the present Case is there any room for a Traditionary Faith For besides that all the Fathers and Ancient Writers ground their Exposition of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture I cannot conceive that the Subject is capable of a plainer Revelation as I shall endeavour to shew more fully in the following Discourse What this last Clause means we shall understand better hereafter but his denying a Traditionary Faith is very extraordinary for if we can prove from the most Authentick Records what the constant belief of the Catholick Chuâ—ch has been especially in the first and purest Ages of it This I take to be a Traditionary Faith nor is it the less Traditionary because the Fathers and Ancient Writers sound their Expositions of the Trinity wholly upon Scripture For if this be true then we have a Traditionary Faith of the Trinity and a Traditionary Exposition of the Scripture for the Reason and Proof of that Faith both in one which I take to be a greater Authority and safer Guide than mere Scripture and our Natural Sentiments And though Protestants allow Scripture to be the only Standard of Faith yet he might have remembred that the Church of England requires us to expound Scripture as the Ancient Fathers expound it But this Wholly is a Mistake for the Primitive Fathers pleaded Tradition as well as Scripture against the Ancient Hereticks as two distinct but agreeing Testimonies as this Author might have known would he have been pleased to have consulted Irenaeus and Tertullian de praescriptionibus with divers others What he means by a plainer Revelation I cannot tell it makes it somewhat plainer to know what the Catholick Faith has always been and what the Catholick Interpretation of Scripture has always been which is the plainest and strongest Answer to Wit and Criticism and Natural Sentiments when they contradict this Traditionary Faith But to discourse this matter more particularly I shall
enquire 1. What that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith 2. What Evidence we have of this Tradition concerning the Trinity in the Catholick Church 3. Of what Authority this ought reasonably to be in expounding Scripture SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity FIrst then Let us consider what that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith Now since Christ gave the Supreme Authority of preaching the Gospel and planting Churches to his Apostles those only must be reckoned the true Apostolick Churches from which we must receive the true Christian Faith which were planted by the Apostles or by Apostolick men and lived in Communion with them It is not sufficient to prove any Doctrine to be the true Primitive Faith That it was preached in the Apostles days but that it was the Faith of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and received their Faith from them for that Only is the Primitive and Apostolick Faith And therefore though Arians and Socinians could prove their Heresies to be as Ancient as the Apostolick Age as we grant something like them was this does not prove theirs to be the true Christian Faith if it were not the Faith of the Apostolick Churches And this was very visible in those days what these Churches were which were planted by the Apostles and lived in Communion with them and is very visible still in the most Authentick Records of the Church For the Hereticks which sprang up in that Age separated themselves from the Apostles and thereby made a visible distinction between the True Apostolick Churches and Heretical Conventicles And in after-Ages they either separated themselves or were cast out of the Communion of the Church This St. Iohn accounted a great advantage to the Christian Church and an Infallible Proof of False Doctrine and Heresy as it certainly was at that time for if the Apostles taught the True Faith those who separated from the Apostles and preached another Gospel which they never learnt from them must be Hereticks 1 Ioh. 2.18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they no doubt would have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us The Separation of Hereticks in that Age was a visible renouncing the Apostolick Faith and Communion and therefore how many Heresies soever started up it was still visible where the Apostolick Faith and Tradition was preserved and this was of admirable use to preserve the Faith of the Church sincere and uncorrupt For had these Hereticks continued in Communion with the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and secretly propagated their Heresies and infected great numbers of Christians without dividing into distinct and opposite Communions it would have been a great dispute in the next Age which had been the true Apostolick Faith when the Members of the same Churches which all their time lived in Communion with the Apostles should preach contrary Doctrines and pretend with equal confidence Apostolick Tradition which the greatest Hereticks might very plausibly have done had they always lived in Communion with the Apostles But they went out from us says St. Iohn that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us that the world might know how to distinguish between Catholick Christians and Hereticks and between the True Catholick Faith and the Corrupt Innovations of Perverse men And this I take to be a good reason to this day why we should keep the Communion of the Church sincere and uncorrupt and not set our doors open for Arians and Socinians and all sorts of Hereticks to mix with us For though since the Câ—mmunion of the Church has bâ—en so broken and divided by Schisms and Factions and Hâ—resies it is no proof of the True Apostolick Faith merely that it is the Faith of such a Church though the Church of Rome still vainly pretends to such Authority yet it would soon ruin the Christian Church and the Christian Faith to have no distinction preserved between true Apostolick Churches and the Apostolick Faith and the Conventicles of Hereticks the impure Off-spring of Cerinthus and Ebion of Photinus or Arius And therefore I cannot but abhor that Accommodating-Design which some men have expressed so warm a Zeal for to Comprehend away the Faith of the Holy Trinity in some loose general Expressions without any particular determined Sense and to purge our Liturgies of every thing that savours of the Worship of the Blessed Trinity that Arians and Socinians may join in Communion with us Which is a plausible Pretence under the Notion of Christian Charity and Communion to betray the Christian Faith Not expresly to renounce it but to bury it in silence as a Useless and Church-dividing Dispute I am satisfied this Holy Faith can never be Confuted but could these men prevail it might soon be Lost. But to return This is a sure Foundation for our Enquiries into the Faith of the Primitive Church To know what the Primitive Church is for otherwise we may mistake Old Heresies for the Primitive Faith But those Churches which were planted by the Apostles or Apostolical men and received their Faith from them and lived in Communion with them are the true Primitive and Apostolick Churches and their Faith is the true Primitive Apostolick Faith and what that was Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus assure us The Faith and Worship of Father Son and Holy Ghost And what their Faith was as to all these Three Divine Persons is evident from the Writings of those Ancient Fathers who preserved the Succession and Communion of these Apostolick Churches But this is not what I intend at present but from hence it appears That those Ancient Heresies which were rejected and condemned by the Apostolick Churches as soon as they appeared could not be the Apostolick Faith These Hereticks separated from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and therefore could not receive their Faith from them nor did they pretend to this while the Apostles lived though they forged new Gospels and Acts and Revelations for them when they were dead And thus all the Heresies of Simon Magus Menander Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus and all those other Divisions and Subdivisions of Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Doctrine of the Divinity of our Saviour or his Incarnation are all rejected from the Apostolical Faith for these Hereticks did not receive their Doctrines from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches as they themselves owned by their Separation from the Apostolick Churches and these Churches gave Testimony against their Corruptions as soon as they were known and there is no need of any other Confutation of them if we allow the Doctrine of
Disputes amongst themselves which their common Adversaries are so apt to improve into Scepticism Infidelity or Heresy And therefore for a Conclusion I shall only take a brief Review of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article of a Trinity in Unity and apply it in a few words to our Socinian Adversaries The Faith of the Catholick Church taught by Christ and his Apostles is that there is but One God but this One God is a Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Essential Unity of the same Undivided and Undiversified Godhead And this is the Faith which all the Catholick Fathers have owned and taught in their several Ages The whole Christian Church Baptizes as our Saviour commanded in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and this is the Rule of their Faith to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost A plain simple Faith could Men have been contented to believe God concerning himself Let our Socinian Adversaries tell us what there is absurd impossible or contradictious in this Faith Will they venture to say That it is absurd or contradictious that God should have a Son No! in some sense they will allow this true they themselves believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost they acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God as he is frequently called in Scripture and that in a higher sense than any other Man is the Son of God but that he is but a Man after all though advanced by God to Divine Honours above all Principalities and Powers and made the Judge both of the Quick and of the Dead and this they affirm to be all that the Scripture means in calling Christ the Son of God But this is not the present Dispute They know that the Catholick Church believed otherwise that Christ is the Eternal Son of God begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God very God of very God and they know also that thus the Catholick Fathers expounded those Texts which concern the Sonship and Divinity of our Saviour and they cannot but confess That they are very capable of such an Exposition nay that it is very difficult to put any other sense upon many Texts and the only reason why they reject these Catholick Expositions is the pretended Absurdity and Contradiction of the Catholick Faith Here then we join issue with them and desire them to shew us what is impossible or contradictious in this Faith That there is something incomprehensible in this Mystery that is something which we have no Natural adequate Ideas of we readily acknowledge with the whole Catholick Church and some of our Adversaries grant That it is possible for a thing to be whereof we have no Idea and then it seems to me very unreasonable to add but we are no ways concerned nor can we Reason or Discourse about those things whereof we have no Ideas For the direct contrary seems to be the more natural consequence that if God thinks fit to reveal such things to us of which we have no Ideas we are concerned and obliged to believe them for if they may be true they are the proper Objects of Faith though they want the Evidence of Natural Ideas But I do not intend to dispute this now but refer them to the Bishop of Worcester ' s Answer to Mr. Lock ' s Second Letter and to a late Sermon and its Vindication Concerning the Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy What I have now to say is of another Nature viz. That we have an Idea of a Trinity in Unity and such an Idea as contains nothing absurd impossible or contradictious in it That very Idea which I have so largely explained One Absolute Divinity with Two Eternal Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature The Eternal Father Eternal Self-originated Mind with his Eternal Word his Eternal Son and the Eternal Spirit of Father and Son This is that Idea which the Scripture gives us of it and which the Catholick Church hath always taught Every Man may understand what is meant by it and therefore it is not Jargon and Nonsense and I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from Tritheism and Contradiction and have no more to say of that nature till I hear what they have to object against what is already said and when they come to consider this Matter again as Men that shall certainly be called to an Account for it in this World as well as in the next I hope they will see reason to grow out of conceit with their own Philosophy about Emanations and Processions a Priority of Time and Priority of Nature Self-Existence and Necessary Existence and such like Arian Objections which were made and answered many Ages since and which they may find sufficiently answered in this Treatise This brings back the Dispute to Scripture where the last Appeal must lie in all such Matters without appealing for the Sense of Scripture to Natural Ideas and Philosophy And if the Interpretations of the Catholick Fathers were of any Authority with these Men I have already shewn how they expounded Scripture which will always be a venerable Authority to modest Men and sober Christians how much soever it be despised by Hereticks But it is time to put an end to this Treatise we may consider their Expositions of Scripture some other time THE END DR Sherloc◠Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Third Edition Quarto Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A Sermon Quarto A Vindication of the Sermon in Answer to some Socinian Remarks An Answer to the Animad versions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Trinity By I. B. A. M. Quarto A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet Quarto All Printed for William Rogers Quâ nec dicuntur ut cogitantur nec cogitantur ut sunt Aug. de Trinit l. 5. c. 3. Cùm ergo quaeritur quid tria vel quid tres conferimus nos ad inventendum aliquod speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 3. Ad se quippe Pater dicitur Persona non ad Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 6. Cur ergo non haec tria simul unam Personam dicimus sicut unam Essentiam Deum sed tres dicimus Personas cùm tres Deos aut tres essentias non dicamus nisi quia volumus vel unum aliquod vocabulum servire huic significationi quâ intelligitur Trinitas ne emnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cùm tres esse fateremur Ibid.
the Apostles to be the only Infallible Rule of Faith This is the Argument from Prescription which Tertullian insists so largely on and is frequently urged by Irenaeus and other Catholick Writers which is not as some mistake it an Argument merely from Antiquity for though the true Faith was ancienter than any Heresies yet some Heresies had Antiquity enough to make them venerable if that alone would do it but the Argument was from the Tradition of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and had preserved an uninterrupted Succession from them and all the world over taught the same Faith without any material change or variation Whereas none of these Heresies how Ancient soever they might be could pretend to such an Original were never taught by the Apostles or any Apostolical men nor were received or owned by any Churches planted by them And this is an unanswerable Argument as long as we can reasonably suppose the Tradition of the Catholick Faith and the Communion of the Church was preserved entire which it visibly was at least till the first Nicene Council and during all this Period had we no other ways to know it we might learn the Faith of the Catholick Church by its opposition to those Heresies which it condemned 2 dly And this is the only Evidence which I shall at present insist on for the Catholick Tradition of the Faith of the Holy and Ever blessed Trinity for we may see the plain Footsteps of the Ancient Catholick Tradition concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost in those Ancient Heresies Simon Magus was the first Heretick we read of and may be very justly accounted the Father of many of the Ancient Heresies having led the way and sown the Seeds and Principles of them Now if we believe that Account which Epiphanius gives of him this wicked Impostor pretended himself to be God both Father and Son and affirmed that his Lewd Woman who was called sometimes Helena sometimes Selene was the Holy Ghost These Names and Distinctions of Father Son and Holy Ghost he could not possibly learn from any persons but only from the Christian Church in which he was baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And therefore we may observe that before his Baptism he only pretended to be some Great One and the deluded people thought him to be the great power of God 8. Acts 9 10. But when he was baptized and soon aâ—ter apostatized from the Christian Faith the Devil whose great Power he was set him up for the God of the Christians both Father and Son And though he blasphemously attributed these Titles of God the Father and Son to himself and wickedly corrupted this Faith by making the Father and Son but one Person under different appearances that he appeared to his Countreymen the Samaritans as God the Father and to the Iews as the Son yet there had been no pretence for this had not the Christian Church owned Jesus Christ the Son of God to be true and perfect God For had the Father been God and the Son a mere Man it is certain Father and Son could never be the same Person And besides the Wickedness and Impudence of the Impostor in pretending himself to be Father and Son it had been ridiculous to pretend this to Christians had he not known that the Catholick Faith taught the Son to be True and Real God as well as the Father and then if he could persuade them that he was God the Father he might with the same ease persuade them that he was God the Son too under a different appearance Thus when he pretends that his wicked Strumpet was the Holy Ghost by whom he created the Angels which created the World the very Prophanation of this Holy Mystery shews what the Faith of the Church in that Age was concerning the Divinity of the Holy Ghost for he could have no other Inducement to make his Woman whom he calls the Holy Ghost such a Divine Power but because he knew the Christian Church believed the Holy Ghost to be God and the Spirit of God as he made her to be his Divine Creating Intelligence Another Heresy concerning the Person of Christ attributed Divinity to him owned him to be the Son of God though not of the Maker of the world who they said was but an Inferior Angel but of the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father and that he appeared indeed in the world like a Man but was no true and real Man Now what should put such a wild Conceit as this into their heads had they not known this to be the Catholick Faith That Jesus Christ was the Son of God Their eyes could not see him to be God but they saw him to be a Man and yet they deny him to be a Man and teach that he was the Son of God in the form and apparition of a Man Which is a plain indication what the Catholick Faith was That Christ was both God and Man This they could not believe that the Son of God would so unite himself to Human Nature as to become true and real man and yet they thought it so evident that he was the Son of God or at least saw that this Faith was accounted so sacred that they would not venture to deny that and therefore chose to deny his Humanity and make a mere Apparition of him But then on the other hand Cerinthus and Ebion thought it too evident to be denied That he was a true and real Man and therefore they taught That Iesus was a Man and no more than a Man born as other Men are of Ioseph and Mary But then it is worth considering how they came to make this the distinguishing Doctrine of their Sect That Christ was but a mere Man if the Apostolick Churches whom they opposed and from whom they separated had not taught That he was more than a Man That he was God as well as Man Was there ever any Dispute either before or since concerning any other Man in the world who was owned to be a Man Whether he were a mere Man or not When one sort of Hereticks deny Christ to be a Man and another deny him to be God and both of them in contradiction to the Apostolick Faith it is a very strong presumption at least what the True Catholick Apostolick Faith was That Christ was both God and Man And yet Cerinthus himself though he makes Jesus to be a mere Man owns Christ to be a Divine Person and that this Christ descended on Jesus at his Baptism in the form of a Dove and rested on him or dwelt in him and wrought Miracles by him but left him at his Crucifixion and flew up again to Heaven So that according to Cerinthus from the time that Jesus was baptized till he was crucified the Divinity was very nearly and intimately united to him not that he was God and Man in one Person as the Catholick Faith teaches
those Heresies which the Catholick Church condemned and from the Corrupted Remains of the Ancient Faith which appeared in them For these Hereticks were originally Christians and professed themselves Christians and therefore did not wholly renounce the Christian Faith but grafted their Heresies on it As to confine my self to the Subjâ—ct of the present Dispute What we are to understand by Father Son and Holy Ghost Whether Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons or not each of whom is distinctly by himself True and Perfect God but in the Unity of the same Divine Nature and Godhead Now that this was the received Faith of the Catholick Church we may learn both from the Valentinians Sabellians and Arians Though the Valentinians as I observed before had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity either with the Platonick Philosophy as that it self had been corrupted by the Iunior Platonists or with the Pagan Theology yet the Propagation of their Aeons in different Degrees and Descents from the first Supreme Aeon the Unbegotten One and the Invisible and Incomprehensible Father as they stile him shews what they thought the Catholick Faith was concerning the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit which they took to be a Substantial Generation and Procession and accordingly in imitation of this Faith asserted a Substantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Emanation of one Aeon from another and which is more none of the Ancient Fathers who wrote against this Heresy as far as I have observed ever quarrel with them upon this account Nay Tertullian though he abominates these Heresies owns this Probole or Emanation in a true Catholick Sense and tells us that these Hereticks borrowed this word from the Catholick Faith though they fitted it to their Heresy And challenges any man to say whether the Divine Word be not produced by the Father and if it be Here says he is the Prolation or Emanation which the true Catholick Faith owns And adds That the fault of this Heresy was not their producing one Aeon from another but that besides the number of their fictitious Aeons they did separate these Emanations and Aeons from their Author that the Aeons knew not the Father nay desired to know him but could not know him and was e'en dissolved with Passion and Desire whereas in the Catholick Faith there is the most Inseparable Union of the Son with the Father and the most Intimate and Perfect Knowledge of him So that Tertullian allows of a Real and Substantial Production of the Person of the Son from the Person of the Father as the Valentinians pretended of their Aeons and asserts that these Hereticks learnt this from the Catholick Faith of the Trinity And that the Church must not reject this Probole Prolation or Emanation in an Orthodox Catholick Use of those words because Hereticks abuse them to countenance their own Heresies As for the Noetians and Sabellians for however they explain the Doctrine of the Trinity whether by Three Names or Three Powers or Three Parts while they Teach That the One God is but One Single Person the Heresy is the same it is impossible the Catholick Church should reject this Heresy without asserting Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons in the Unity of the Godhead each of whom is as True and Perfect God as each of Three Men Peter Iames and Iohn is a True Perfect Distinct Man though these Three Men are not uniâ—ed as the Three Divine Persons are The occasion of this Heresy was That they thought that Three Real Distinct Persons in the Godhead were Three Gods and therefore though being profess'd Christians and consequently baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost they durst not deny Father Son and Holy Ghost yet neither would they own Three Divine Persons but turned them into Three Names or Three Parts of One Person which has much more sense in it than Three Modes though Three Modes of the same Person let them call them Three Personalities if they please is the same Heresy if there be but One Suppositum as One Man may be the Subject of Three or Three and twenty Modes and be but One Human Person still Noetus and Sabellius did certainly apprehend that by Father Son and Holy Ghost the Catholick Church understood Three Distinct Substantial Divine Persons or else why should they charge them with Tritheism upon this account and turn Three Persons into Three Names or Three Parts of One and the same God to avoid the Imputation of Three Gods And if this had not been the belief of the Catholick Church what meant their Zeal against this Heresy For all the Wit of Man can't find a Medium between Sabellianism and Three Divine Substantial Persons A Trinity must be Three Somewhats as it has been lately called and then it must either be One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Three Modes or compounded of Three Parts or be Three Distinct Suppositums and Persons Now if this had been the Catholick Faith That the Trinity is but One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Modes c. I cannot imagine why the Catholick Church should have quarrell'd with these Hereticks or they with the Catholick Church unless they both mistook one another But if the Sabellians and Catholicks understood themselves and each other and did intend to contradict each other we certainly know what the Catholick Faith was For there is nothing contradicts a Noetian and Sabellian Trinity but a Trinity of Distinct Substantial Divine Persons And Novatianus well observes That these Hereticks did acknowledge the Divinity of Christ That whoever Christ was it was evident from those Characters given of him in Scripture That he was True and Perfect God And because the Father is True and Perfect God and Christ True and Perfect God for fear of owning Two Gods they make the Father and the Son to be but One and the same Person The Arians denied the Eternal Godhead of Christ and made a Creature of him though the most excellent Creature the Minister and Instrument of God in making the World and the reason of this Heresy was the same viz. for fear of a Plurality of Gods should they allow Christ to be True and Perfect God And this still is a plain evidence what they thought the Catholick Faith to be not only that Christ was True and Real God but that he was Truly and Really a Distinct Person from God the Father so distinct that if they should acknowledge him to be True God he would be a Second God which they thought contradicted the Faith of One God Well Though they would not own him to be True God yet they own him to be a distinct Person from the Father as distinct as God and a Creature are distinct Do the Catholicks now quarrel with the Arians that they have made a Substantial Person of the Son as in reason tâ—ey ought to have done had thâ—y not believed
Contradictions as he cannot require us to believe and consequently That whatever is plainly revealed implies no Contradiction how much soever it may be above our comprehension because God does require us to believe what he plainly reveals this had put an end to this Dispute and left the belief of the Trinity possible whatever difficulties we might apprehend in conceiving it But this great Zeal against believing Contradictions when applied to the belief of the Trinity is a very untoward Insinuation as if the Doctrine of the Trinity as commonly understood were clogg'd with Contradictions and that we must cast all such Contradictions which in the Socinian account is the Doctrine it self out of our Faith and therefore That whatever the Scripture says we must put no such sense on it as implies any Contradiction to our former knowledge This is an admirable Foundation for Considerations concerning the Trinity and what an admirable Superstructure he has rais'd on it we shall soon see I may possibly discourse this Point of Contradictions more at large elsewhere at present I shall only tell this Author That as self-evident as he thinks it this Proposition is false That it is impossible to believe what implies a Contradiction to our former knowledge and that God cannot require us to believe it I grant that all Logical Contradictions which are resolved into is and is not are impossible to be believed because they are impossible to be true and such is his Contradiction about the Whole and its Parts for to say That the Whole is not bigger than any of its Parts is to say That a Whole is a Whole and is not a Whole and that a Part is a Part and is not a Part. But contradictory Ideas may both be true and therefore both be believed and every man believes great numbers of them The Ideas of Heat and Cold White and Black Body and Spirit Extension and No Extension Eternity and Time to have A Beginning and to have No Beginning are contradictory Ideas and yet we believe them all that is we believe and know that there really are such things whose Natures are directly opposite and contrary to each other Now when there are such Contrarieties and Contradictions in Created Nature it may justly be thought very strange to true Considerers that our Natural Ideas should be made the adequate measures of Truth or Falshood of the Possibilities or Impossibilities of things that we must not believe what God reveals concerning himself if it contradicts any Natural Ideas And yet I challenge this Considerer and all the Socinian Sabellian Arian Fraternities to shew me any appearance of Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity but what are of this kind that is not Logical Contradictions but Contradictions to our other Natural Ideas And if our Natural Ideas of Created Nature contradict each other it would be wonderful indeed if the Divine Uncreated Nature should not contradict all our Natural Ideas Every thing we know of God is a direct Contradiction to all the Ideas we have of Creatures an Uncreated and a Created Nature an Infinite and a Finite Nature are direct Contradictions to each other Eternity without Succession Omnipresence without Extension Parts or Place a pure simple Act which is all in one without Composition an Omnipotent Thought which thinks all things into Being and into a Beautiful Order these and such like Ideas of God are direct Contradictions to all the Ideas we have of Creatures and can any Contradiction then to any Ideas of Created Nature be thought a reasonable Objection against believing any thing which God reveals to us concerning himself But of this more hereafter SECT IV. Concerning his State of the Question That One and the Same God is Three Different Persons THese are his Preliminaries Axioms Postulata's all in the strict demonstrative way but now he comes to apply all this more closely to the business in hand but then he very unfortunately stumbles at the Threshold The Proposition he proposes to examine by these Principles is this That One and the same God is Three Different Persons Where he met with this Proposition in these very Terms I know not I 'm sure there is no such Proposition in Scripture nor did I ever meet with it in any Catholick Writer It is very far from giving us a true and adequate Notion of the Catholick Faith concerning the Trinity it is of a doubtful signification and in the most obvious sense of these words which I fear will appear to have been intended by this Considerer is manifest Heresy For if by One and the same God he means That there is but One who is God and That this One and same God is Three different Persons it is the Heresy of Sabellius at least if he would have owned the Term different which inclines more to the signification of diversity than of mere distinction which savours of Arianism and more properly relates to Natures than to Persons We meet with different forms of speech in Catholick Writers concerning the Unity and Trinity in the Godhead all which must be reconciled to form a distinct and compleat Notion of the Trinity That Deus est Vnus Trinus God is One and Three is very Ancient and very Catholick That the Father is the One God in a peculiar and eminent sense is both the Language of Scripture and of the Church That each Person Father Son and Holy Ghost is by himself True and Perfect God is likewise the Doctrine both of the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Fathers That the Trinity is One God That Father and Son are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnum One Divinity Christ himself teaches us That Father Son and Spirit are also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One St. Iohn teaches us And nothing is more familiar both with the Greek and Latin Fathers than to call the Trinity One God and in consequence of this That One God is the Trinity though this they rather chose to express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three Persons And whoever would give an account of the Catholick Faith of the Trinity must have respect to all these Notions and not content himself with any one of them as to make the best of it the Considerer here does when he only proposes to enquire How One and the same God is Three Persons But he ought to have enquired also in what sense each Person is by himself True and Perfect God and the Person of the Father in a peculiar and eminent sense the One God and to have framed his Notions of Unity and Distinction with an equal regard to all these Catholick Expositions which would have secured him from the Sabellian Heresy which now his Words are very guilty of whatever He himself be But let us now proceed to his Examination of these Terms God Vnity Identity Distinction and Number and Person As to the Notion of a Deity he confesses he has not a
as he represents it but the Personal Union of the Divine Nature of Christ to Human Nature He was not only as conscious of all the Divine Perfections in himself as a man is conscious of his own thoughts which yet by the way is absolutely impossible without being True and Perfect God in his own Person but he knew himself to be God the Eternal Son of God not the same Person with his Father but One with him Were a man thus regularly and constantly Inspired he would know that he was thus Inspired and he would also know that these Divine Perfections are not in himself not seated in his own Human Person nor under the Conduct of his own Will as his own Natural Powers are and therefore must know himself to be a mere Man still not God-Man So that this constant and regular Inspiration this uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity which is all he allows in this matter cannot make any Person God-Man This Inspiration is not a subsisting Person is not the Person of the Son of God is not Incarnate by its Union to Man no more than it is Incarnate in other Prophets The Man is the Person and therefore a mere Creature still tho never so Divinely Inspired This is such an Incarnation as Socinians themselves own in as high expressions as the Considerer can invent Cerinthus owned something more That Christ who descended on Iesus at his Baptism was a Divine Person not a mere Inspiration and rested on him and was most intimately united to him till his Crucifixion That Sect of the Noetians and Sabellians who were called Patripassians for they do not seem by the accounts we have of them to have been all of that mind did acknowledge the Incarnation of God in a true and proper sense as the Catholick Church did the Incarnation of Christ But then their Trinity being but One proper single Divine Person distinguished by Three Names or Personal Characters which is the express Doctrine of the Considerer their whole Trinity was Incarnate suffered and died in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ the Father as well as the Son as it must of necessity be if there be but One Divine Person who is Father Son and Holy Ghost and if this One Person is in a true and proper sense Incarnate But this the Catholick Church abhorred and condemned under the name of the Patripassian Heresy Others of them were Sabellians in the Doctrine of the Trinity but Photinians or Samosatenians that is Socinians as to the Doctrine of the Incarnation as Athanasius often intimates And if I understand him this is the Considerer's way who believes a Trinity in One single Person and an Inspired Man for a God Incarnate And thus we have lost the Trinity and Incarnation and must part with every thing which is peculiar and essential to Christianity with them And now one would wonder after all this what he has to say more about the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation and yet this is his next Enquiry What the Scriptures necessarily oblige us to believe in this Point that is concerning the Trinity and Incarnation Though he has been careful all along never to use this term Incarnation as being sensible that all he said about God-Man would not reach the Catholick Notion of Incarnation When I met with this Enquiry I was in hope that there was something behind to unsay all that he had hitherto said for if what he has already said be true it is certain the Scripture requires us to believe nothing about them But upon Examination I found that the Question was fallaciously stated and the true meaning of it was What the Scriptures oblige us to believe instead of what has hitherto passed for the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation I shall not dispute this Point with him now to shew what he means will be Confutation enough We must not he says look upon the Doctrine of the Trinity as a nice abstracted Speculation designed for the exercise of our Vnderstandings but as a plainer Revelation of God's Love and Good Will towards men and a greater Motive and Incitement to Piety than ever we had before this Doctrine was delivered This we grant That the Christian Faith is not designed merely for Speculation but for Practice but yet all the Doctrines of Faith are matters of Speculation and the Doctrine it self must be believed in order to Practice or else the Revelation of it is of no use at all The Question then is Whether we must not believe the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation Or how much we must believe of them Must we not believe That God has in a true and proper sense an Eternal and Only-begotten Son begotten from Eternity of his own Substance his True Perfect Living Subsisting Image Must we not believe That this Eternal Son of God did in a true proper Notion become Man by uniting Human Nature to his own Person and that in Human Nature he suffered and died for the Redemption of Mankind Truly No if I understand him All this is a nice abstracted Speculation and a very perplexing exercise of our Vnderstandings and we are bound to understand no more by God's giving his own Son to dye for us but his Love and Gâ—od Will to Mankind as it is a great Motive and Excitement to Piety But how can we learn God's Love and Good Will to Mankind from this Doctrine if it be not true if God have no Eternal Son and therefore did not give his Eternal Son to become Man and to suffer and dye for us The Gospel proves the great Love of God to Sinners by the Incarnation Death and Sufferings of his Son that if we do not believe this Doctrine strictly and literally true we lose the Gospel Proof of God's Love to Sinners and of the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's Death and Sacrifice to expiate our sins and of the Power of his Intercession as the Eternal Only-begotten and Well-beloved Son of God But our Considerer will not allow this These Titles and Relations must be chiefly câ—nsidered with reference to the great Work of Man's Salvation But must they not be considered as Three distinct proper Persons in the Unity of the Godhead who have their distinct Parts and Offices in the Redemption of Mankind No but distinct Relations and Offices of One and the same single Divine Person who is the One Supreme God and is All in One Father Son and Holy Ghâ—st Saviour Mediator Comforter But how then can these Titles and Relations signify an Eternal Distinction in the Godhead an Eternal Fâ—tâ—â—r an Eternal Son and an Eâ—ernal Spirit when thâ—se Offices relating only to Man's Salvation were not Eternal This he resolves into the Eternal Purpose and Decree of God to redeem Mankind by the Death and constant Mediation of a Man chosen and enabled for this work by the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him And in consideration of
ask for or to conceive what is the Place of God of the Word or of the Holy Spirit And if a man will deny that the Son is or was begotten because he cannot conceive nor find out the place of his Essence or Substance for the same reason he may deny that there is a Father or that there is a God So that Athanasius acknowledges the Son to be as true and substantial a Son as the Father is a substantial Father and that he does as perfectly and compleatly subsist by himself as the Father does but denies that it hence follows as the Sabellians objected That the Son if he be a distinct substantial Person himself must be divided and parted from the Substance of his Father and that if he subsist distinctly by himself he must subsist in a separate place from his Father that this distinction of Persons and Subsistence cannot be conceived without a Local Separation For he tells them All these Mistakes are owing to Corporeal Imaginations that they conceive of God after the manner of Bodies that because Body cannot generate another without parting and dividing of Substance nor subsist without being in some place nor subsist distinctly without being in distinct and separate places therefore if God beget a Son and this Son subsist distinctly by himself this Son must go out of the Divine Substance and be locally separated from God the Father as a human Son is from his Father whereas the Divine Nature and Substance cannot be divided nor does God subsist in a place and therefore the Son may be substantially begotten of the Father and subsist distinctly by himself without any division of the Divine Substance or separation of place Let us now proceed to a Third sort of these Hereticks who did allow a real and substantial difference between Father Son and Holy Ghost but made God a compound Being but one Person as well as one God and that Father Son and Holy Ghost were the Three Parts of this One God This St. Austin calls Triformis Deus and tells us That these Hereticks did not allow the Father to be Perfect in himself nor the Son Perfect in himself nor the Holy Ghost Perfect in himself that neither of these considered by themselves were Perfect God but that all Three together made one Compleat and Perfect God This all the Catholick Fathers unanimously reject and for the same reasons because there can be no composition in the pure and simple Nature of God and it was the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church That each Person is by himself True and Perfect God not an incompleat Part of the Deity Thus Athanasius warns us against this Heresy which conceives the Trinity like Three Bodily Parts inseparably united to each other which he says is an ungodly reasoning contrary to the Nature of Perfect Unbodied Beings and therefore attributes the Perfection of the Godhead to each Person who are a real Trinity inseparably united in the same Form and Nature That the Father is Perfect Essence and Being without any defect the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit That the Son in the Fulness of the Deity is the Living Word and Perfect Offspring of the Father That the Spirit is the Fulness of the Son not Part of another Being but Whole and Entire in himself That we must conceive them inseparably united to each other but yet Three real subsisting Persons in the same Form and Species which is originally in the Father shines in the Son and is manifested by the Holy Spirit And therefore he adds That he did not compound the Trinity nor force it into a Monad or Unit that is One single Person to preserve the Unity of the Godhead nor conceive of God as of a Man who is compounded of Three Parts Spirit Soul and Body for such a composition cannot belong to a simple Nature This is the constant language of the ancient Writers That the Divine Nature is not compounded of Parts nor is God a compound Being that each Person in the Trinity is a complete and perfect Person and Three complete and perfect Persons cannot be One by Composition as Three incomplete Parts are that each Person by himself is perfect God and perfect Essence though when we unite them and number Three we acknowledge but One perfect God for the Deity is not compounded but in Three each of which is complete and perfect there is One perfect Being without Composition and without Parts that is the same One Divine Nature subsisting distinctly not by Parts or Composition but Whole and Entire in Three Let us now then consider the true state of the Question between these Sabellians and the Catholick Fathers These Hereticks owned at last Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three distinct Substances but not Three substantial Wholes but Three substantial Parts which by their Union and Composition made up One whole intire God The Catholick Fathers join with them so far as to own these Divine Persons to be Three substantial subsisting Persons but reject their Notion of a compounded God or Three Parts of the Deity with the utmost abhorrence and affirm that each Person is by himself entire and perfect God perfect and complete Divine Essence or Substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen speaks and that they are not One God by Composition or as One Person is One God but as Three complete and perfect Persons each of which is perfect God can be One God Now I think after this we need not dispute what the Metaphysical Notions of Person and Personality are for a Person in this Sacred Mystery signifies One who is true and perfect God and therefore is whatever God is for the true and perfect definition of God must belong to every Person who is true and perfect God If then we acknowledge God to be Infinite Substance Mind Life Knowledge Power every Person who is God must be all this and if each Person be true and perfect God and yet no One Person is the other nor the Motion Affection or personal Power nor part of the other then each Person is distinctly and by himself complete and perfect God and therefore has distinctly in himself all those Attributes and Perfections which belong to the perfect Notion and Idea of God and to make any Person less than what God is is to make him no God But Athanasius has another Argument against the Sabellian compounded Deity which must put all Compositions of the Deity for ever out of countenance The Scripture assures us that God sends his Son and that the Son sends the Holy Ghost whereas were the Father Son and Holy Ghost Three inseparable Parts of one compounded Deity how could this One God Father Son and Holy Ghost send part of himself and one part of the same One God send another To send and to be sent necessarily supposes Persons really and substantially distinct such as can give and receive and execute Commands who
Peter Iames and Iohn is the very same and therefore there is a specifick Sameness and Unity of Nature between them The Divine Nature in Father Son and Holy Ghost is the same not merely in Notion and Idea but Substantially the same and therefore all the names of a Specifick Sameness and Unity do in a more perfect and excellent manner belong to the Sameness and Unity of the Divine Nature as Subsisting Perfectly Indivisibly and yet Distinctly in Father Son and Holy Ghost And when we speak of the Sameness of the Divine Nature as subsisting distinctly in Three Divine Persons we have no other words to express it by but such as signify a Specifick Unity and we must use such words as we have and qualifie their sense as well as we can As for instance Those words whereby we signify a common specifick Nature which is One and the Same in all the Individuals of the same Species are the best we have to express the Unity of the Divine Nature as common to Three Persons and thus the Catholick Fathers use them without scruple and speak of the Unity of the Divine Nature and of its being common to all the Three Divine Persons in the same Words and Phrases as they use concâ—rning a common specifick Nature Which leads some into a great mistake as if they meant no more by it but a specifick Sameness and Unity of the Divine Nature that Father Son and Holy Ghost have one Substance no otherwise than as Peter Iames and Iohn have one and the same Humane Nature For the Divine Nature is not One merely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in mere Notion and Idea but actually indivisibly inseparably One nor is it a common Nature merely as it has a common Name and Definition but by an actual Inexistence in Three For the same reason it is very difficult what Three to call Father Son and Holy Ghost so as to avoid the Heresies of both Extreams for there is no Example of such Three in Nature They are certainly Three for the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost nor the Son the Father or the Holy Ghost and each of the Three is perfect God and therefore an Infinite Mind an Infinite Spirit and the most Perfect Essence and Substance And that Substance which is the Person of the Son is not that Substance which is the Person of the Father no more than the Person of the Son is the Person of the Father or an unbegotten is a begotten Nature and Substance and therefore in opposition to Sabellius they asserted Three Substantial Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Hypostases or Personal Substances as Hypostasis signifies tria in substantia tres substantias tres res 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet at the same time did assert That there is but One Divine Nature and Substance which indivisibly and inseparably though distinctly subsists in all Three For the understanding of which we must observe That as the Divine Nature which is common to Three is not a mere Species but is really and actually One and the same in all so these Three Divine Persons which have one and the same common Nature are not in a strict and proper notion Individuals of the same common Nature Though we have no Names for these Three but such as signify Individuals as Persons Hypostases Subsistences c. and there being no Created Person Hypostasis or Subsistence but what is an Individual To shew you the difference with respect to the notion of an Individual between the Three Divine Persons and three individual Humane Persons I observe That every Humane Person is such an Individual as has a particular Humane Nature of his own which is not the particular Nature of any other Person the notion and definition of Humane Nature is the same in all men but the same Numerical Humane Nature does not subsist in all but every particular individual man has one particular individual Humane Nature appropriated to himself that is which is his particular Person and as many particular Persons as there are so many particular Humane Natures and particular men there are But now the Divine Persons are not Three such Individuals as these because they have not three individual Divine Natures but the same One Divine Nature common to them all originally in the Father and communicated whole and entire to the Son by an Eternal Generation and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit by an Eternal Procession How impossible soever it is for our finite Understandings to comprehend these Mysteries of the eternal Generation and Procession it is not so hard to conceive the difference between Three Persons who have One individual Nature common to them all but subsisting so distinctly in each of them as to make them Three distinct Persons and Three Persons who have Three Individual Natures of the same Kind and Species As for Instance Three Human Persons which have Three individual Human Natures are by the confession of all Mankind Three Men But could we conceive One individual Human Nature which originally constitutes but One Person to Communicate it self Whole and Entire without Division or Separation to Two other Persons we must acknowledge Three Human Persons each of which Persons is distinctly and by himself True and Perfect Man but not Three Men for Man is a name of Nature and if Persons can be multiplied without multiplying the Nature as we at present suppose there must be Three Human Persons in One individual Human Nature that is Three Persons and One Man but not Three Men no more than Three Human Natures Thus it is with respect to the Divine Nature Were there Three individual Divine Natures Self-originated and Independent on each other though perfectly the same in their Notion and Definition Three such Persons would be as Perfectly Three Gods as Three Human Persons that have Three individual Human Natures are Three Men. But whereas the Scripture teaches and the Catholick Church has always believed there is but One Infinite Self-originated Divine Nature Originally in the Father and by Communication in the Son and Holy Spirit these Three Divine Persons are each of them True and Perfect God but not Three Gods because they have not Three Individual Divine Natures but One Divine Nature subsisting distinctly but Whole and Perfect in them all This I think may give us some Notion of One Numerical Common Nature which is no Species and of Persons which are no Individuals St. Austin shews particularly how improper it is to call the One Divine Essence a Genus and the Three Divine Persons Species or to call the Divine Essence a Species and the Divine Persons Individuals for in both these cases we must multiply the name of Essence with the Species and Individuals as we not only say three Horses but three Animals and as Abraham Isaac and Iacob are three Individuals so they are three Men in consequence of which we must