for the first I grant that the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity differ as really as Peter James and John But Secondly if by real distinction be meant as great a distinction so we utterly deny that the three Divine Persons differ as much as Peter James and John I Answer that this Phrase as really signifies in the same degree of real distinction as this Phrase as Wisely imports the same degree of Wisdom Again it is an idle Enquiry to dispute by what Name we must call the distinction of the Divine Persons If they were three Infinite Minds they can but be simply denyed one of the other we could then only say that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son and this I shall hereafter shew is not a Modal but a strictly real distinction CHAP. VI. n. 1. THERE ought to be a double care in treating of Mysterious Articles of Faith on the one hand not to debase them to avoid the difficulties which attend the Article in its Native sense and on the other hand not studiously to seek out for Mysteries which possibly God never intended nor to refuse such Illustrations of the Article from Natural Examples which readily offer themselves especially if they have the Suffrage of the most Pious and Learned Fathers of the Church The Sabellian Hereticks have adulterated the Divine Generation because they could not explain how God an Immortal Spirit can generate On the other Hand the Schoolmen are not satisfied that the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation in the general contain great Mysteries in them but they will have every Conclusion throughout both the Articles to be so These two Articles are delivered with so much plainness and simplicity in the Sacred Scriptures and with so much subtilty in the Writings of the Schoolmen that a stranger to the Christian Faith upon the comparing of them both together could hardly be perswaded that the latter were pretended to be an explication of the former The Sacred Writings contented themselves to teach us that the Father and Son are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that these three are one The Fathers of the Church justly explained this Unity that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one in Nature one in Godhead the Unity of a Father and a begotten Son is an Unity of Nature The Shoolmen advance one step higher it is not sufficient with them for any one to acknowledge the Divine Persons to be one in Nature Essence Divinity unless he adds in one singular Essence in one singular Nature in one singular Divinity and that under pain of being guilty of the worst of Heresies Tritheism it self The Animadvertor keeps pace with the warmest not only contends against the admission of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity but calls it a Traducing of the Fathers to assert that they held this Specifick Unity As to the Question it self I wish from the bottom of my Heart that we might learn to distinguish betwixt the Primary Conclusions of our Faith and disputed Articles that they who contend for the singularity of the common Divine Nature with the Schools would not overthrow the received Faith of three Divine Persons and that the Article of the Unity of God be esteemed infinitely more Sacred than any seeming Advantages that the Assertion of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity might afford us in the maintaining the Faith of three Divine Persons The Christian Faith professes an Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity He therefore who asserts an Unity to destroy the Trinity or a Trinity in derogation of the Unity offends against the Christian Religion I shall much rather choose my self and recommend to my Orthodox Reader the Belief that the Divine Nature is above these terms of Art above these distinctions of Logick of Singular and Universal that it is transcendental to those Rules by which we judge of created inferiour Natures than any ways weaken either of those Fundamental Articles before mentioned either of the Unity of God or of the Trinity of Divine Persons The learned Petavius seems to me to incline to this Opinion where speaking of the Unity of the Divine Nature Petav. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 1583. he has these words Speciei unitate constituta etiam individua singularis sequitur And in that Famous Objection of the Greeks against the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son viz. that then Father and Son are one Principle of the Holy Spirit either specie sola or numero Lib. 7. de Trin. c. 16. n. 1. p. 156. To which Petavius Answers That they are Vnum reverà numero specie Principium quatenus in Deum convenire ambo ista possunt Where he expresly asserts that a Specifick Unity and an Unity of Singularity are consistent in the Divine Nature nay that the latter follows from the former as also that the vis spiratrix which to Petavius and the Schools has the same Unity with the common Divine Essence is one both in specie and in number Suarez Metaph. Disp 5. S. 1. n. 6. Non desunt Theologi qui dicant Divinam essentiam nec singularem nec universalem esse And in the Margin Vide Durandum alios in 1. D. 35. To the same purpose I understand those Divines who assert that the common Divine Essence is neither a first nor second Substance that is neither strictly Singular nor Universal but in some measure partaking of both transcendental to both However it must not be dissembled that since every created Nature is either strictly Singular or Universal we want a medium to prove that the Divine Nature can be transcendental to both these and therefore how Modest and Peaceable and otherwise Eligible such an Assertion seems to be yet when we contend with an obstinate Adversary with a subtile Socinian it will be hazardous to found the Defence of so Sacred an Article upon what he will be apt to stile a Precarious Hypothesis The common Opinion of Philosophers is that Singulare and Vniversale are contradictorily opposed in Finite Creatures and consequently that there can be no medium betwixt them and it is not easie to give a Reason why the same Rule should not hold in the Divine Nature especially since we cannot in this Conclusion plead the Authority of express Revelation as we can in that Mysterious Article of a Divine Generation and Procession There is no need of this Precaution in reference to the Animadvertor my Debate with him is rather Historical and Problematical than Dogmatical Historical as whether the Ancient Fathers held this Opinion of the Universality of the common Divine Essence Problematical whether those Reasons which he has brought against the admission of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity prove such Notion to be unphilosophical Nay I do here disclaim all Dogmaticalness in this Conclusion I shall not in the least contend with any Orthodox Divine who
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or likeness of Nature between them but therefore we have the less cause to wonder if there be defects in some of their Arguments if some of their reasonings about the Trinity seem to look no further than a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons This is as little to the advantage of the Animadvertor's cause as the former allegations The Arians would not allow so much as a specifick Unity between the Father and the Son Nicepho Callist Eccles His lib. 18. cap. 47. I would fain know what Hereticks ever did allow it Nicephorus Callistus charges indeed this Opinion upon Philoponus and his followers who are commonly called the Tritheit Hereticks but he is a later and fabulous Writer wrote in the fourteenth Century long after the prevailing of the School-Divinity Philoponus and his followers the Tritheit Hereticks of the seventh Century inclined nearer to Sabellianism than to a belief of a specifick Unity of the Trinity that hard name of Tritheit Hereticks was given them by reason of some uncouth Phrases which they used of which hereafter Secondly what consequence will the Animadvertor draw from the Arians not allowing a specifick Unity between the Father and the Son This is what he aims at that it sufficed to maintain a specifick Unity to confute the Arian Heresie I desire to know why the same Plea might not have served the Reverend Dean in his learned Vindication of this Article against the Socinians who no more allow a Specifick Unity of the Trinity than the Arians of old The Socinians deny them to be three infinite minds why will not that Apologize for the Reverend Dean Why is not this molified and called only a defect in the Reverend Dean as the Animadvertor here Stiles it in the Antient Fathers Thirdly the Arians objected Tritheism against the Orthodox Faith as the Socinians do to this day So that had the Ancient Fathers believed this Heresie a consequence of asserting a specifick Unity in the Trinity they would as carefully have avoided the asserting of it as the School-men and Moderns do on all occasions Fourthly The answer of the Antients to this Objection of Tritheism by the Arians is the clearest demonstration of their judgment this is the Objection Peter James and John are three Men therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Gods The general answer of the Ancients is by denying the truth of the Antecedent that Peter James and John are improperly abusively called three Men that it is contrary to the rules of Philosophy to call them otherwise than one Man and three Human Persons as we say in the Blessed Trinity there are three Divine Persons and one God Now not one School-man or Modern as I believe ever gave such an answer Not one of them ever imagined that the affirming Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one God did in the least enforce them to affirm Peter James and John to be one Man The Animadvertor thinks this Objection only Jocular only fit to be Laughed at which the Antients thought so weighty that to get rid of it they endeavoured says the learned Dr. Cudworth reflectingly with their Logick to prove that three Human Persons ought not to be called three Men. I shall consider their Logicks afterwards at present I declare that is a manifest conviction to me that they did conceive the Unity of Nature between Human and Divine Persons parallel equal n. 9. Fifthly those words are very remarkable in our Animadvertor but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or likeness of Nature between them which insinuates as if the debate of the Catholicks and Arians in the Nicene Council were only about a Title whether the Son be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Father but this is to misrepresent the Fathers of that august Assembly The Arians liked neither the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and a Creature are improperly said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Again the Catholicks approved of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 provided it were understood without equivocation if there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 added to it that is perfectly alike in their Essence is to the Catholicks the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consubstantial The Arians never consented to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when their Party was too weak and they were obliged to dissemble with some Catholicks who were otherwise favourable to their Persons and cause It must be confessed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not without great force suit with the Hypothesis of the Schools of the Singularity of the common Divine Essence A Singularity will not admit of a Comparison of likeness so saith Ricardus de S. Victor Lib. 6. de Trin. c. 20. Siquidem ubi est simplex Vnitas summa simplicitas quid ibi facit qualis talis It is less wonder therefore if the School-men charge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Arianism or Semi-arrianism Vid. Petav. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 6 per totum whereas it is capable of an Orthodox Exposition I thought it necessary to follow the Animadvertor thus closely in the examining of this Historical Truth viz. whether the Fathers of the Church believed the Modus of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity Two very great and learned Persons have said it have abundantly proved it saith the Reverend Dean Their Assertion has never yet been confuted They were not drawn into this Assertion by the heat of Disputation or to favour their own Hypothesis neither of them approve of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity The Reverend Dean rightly judged that those places they had already produced abundantly proved their conclusion and yet Petavius gives them but as an Essay and pronounces this Opinion to be the judgment of all the Greek Fathers especially Shall I ask the Animadvertor a few Questions Was not Petavius as capable of judging betwixt occasional and designed Expressions as himself as capable of judging betwixt an Allusion or an Argument a minore ad majus as himself Did not Petavius know that the Arians denyed a Specifick Unity of the Trinity Shall I ask the Animadvertor whether he ever consulted St. Basil's 43d Epistle and if he did whether he can have Brow enough to say That that Epistle was not designedly wrote of the difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or whether St. Basil has not in the fullest manner delivered his judgment in this point I particularly mention this Epistle because our Animadvertor quotes a passage out of it Pag. 149. of his Animadversions under the name of Greg. Nyssen de differentia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whom in the Printed Editions it is also ascribed and because this Epistle being both in the Works of St. Basil and Gregory
Nyssen the Reader may more easily consult it and there from his own Eyes be satisfied that this was the judgment of that most learned Father St. Basil This Epistle is the first Authority Petavius quotes in the aforementioned seventh Chapter of his fourth Book of the Trinity I do not desire of the Animadvertor to traverse and examine all Petavius's Allegations much less all the Greek Fathers I am content to stand or fall by this single Epistle if this does not assert a Specifick Unity of the Trinity I am content that it pass for a Traducing mis-representing of the Fathers to say That any one of them ever held such a Notion And now I hope with the leave of the Reader I may add that Petavius as well as Dr. Cudworth stands as an unanswered witness and that in the Mouth of these two Witnesses till better Testimony appear the Historical Truth of this disquisition stands at present unshaken n. 10. I in the second place descend to the Problematical part whether the Reasons of the Animadvertor are so cogent as to forbid the Admission of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature The Animadvertor gives us five Reasons p. 181. c. the three first of which are dispatched in a word His first That if a Numerical Unity the Animadvertor means a Singularity in the same Divine Nature be sufficent to make the three Persons one God then a Specifick Unity of the same is not necessary I answer those who admit of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity strictly so called do it upon this account That they are afraid that a Singularity a Numerical Unity in the Animadvertors sense will make Father Son and Holy Ghost one Person as well as one God They conceive that three truly three distinct three can have no other Unity of Nature save a Specifick Unity and those who admit of both mean it only in our imperfect conception of things otherwise they believe that the Unity of the Divine Nature is above both these terms of Art that in our imperfect conception it partakes of some properties of both these Unities but strictly and really it is neither Singular nor Universal The same answer solves the Animadvertor's second Reason n. 11. that a greater and less degree of Unity are not to be admitted in the Divine Nature They who admit of a Specifick Unity deny a Singularity They who in words admit of both do not in reality believe two Unities in the Divine Nature but only one Transcendental Unity in our imperfect Conception partaking of the properties of both these Unities His third has been already answered See cap. 3. n. 5. that a Specifick Unity may agree to ten thousand Individuals as well as to three so may one simple Being have ten thousand Relations or Modes as well as three this Article is wholly owing to Revelation His fourth is that a Specifick Unity is principally n. 12. p. 182. if not absolutely notional and therefore cannot any ways properly belong to the Divine Persons nor is by any means necessary to make the three Persons one God First The Animadvertor brings in his Conclusion with an if if not absolutely notional and yet argues from that Conclusion as if it were the most allowed Maxim Secondly The Distinction of the Divine Attributes of Justice and Mercy is confessedly notional and yet the Animadvertor formerly pronounces it to be Absurd to contradict that Distinction Thirdly The Unity of Nature betwixt Christ and his Mother is certainly a Specifick Unity according to the Animadvertor a notional Unity and yet it is Heresie to deny That Christ and his Mother are of one Nature or Consubstantial Fourthly The Relations of likeness equality which are betwixt the Divine Persons though founded on the express words of Scripture Christ thought it no robbery to be equal with God the Image of the Invisible God the express Image of his Fathers Apostasis are by all the School-men confess'd to be relationes rationis that is Notional and yet I hope the Animadvertor will not hence deny that they ought not properly to belong to the Divine Persons nor necessary to make them one God Fifthly The Unity of the Divine Nature is also a Relation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantial unius substantioe of one Substance implies a relation in Substance We cannot say That the Father and the Spirator of the Holy Ghost are Consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unius substantioe This term is as contrary to the Sabellian Heresie as it is to the Arian and therefore according to the School-mens own Principles this Relation of Unity of Substance must be relatio rationis that is notional Sixthly those Fathers who assert a Specifick Unity of the Trinity do not believe that the Divine Persons are said to be one upon no other account save a Specifick Unity or that they are deny'd to be three Gods from a Specifick Unity alone this Unity they conceive necessary but not of it self sufficient Seventhly Even a Specifick Unity hath a sufficient fundamentum in re A Specifick Unity is indeed a Logical Notion but the Foundation of it is something real viz. a real agreement of the distinct Persons or individuals in the same reason of Nature The Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God as really as Peter is a Man and James is a Man and John is a Man Peter James and John are not notionally each of them a Man nor Father Son and Holy Ghost notionally each of them God From this real agreement in Human Persons we Form in Logicks the notion of a Specifick Unity and the Ancient Fathers applied the same notion to the agreement of the Divine Persons The Animadvertor's fifth and last Argument is n. 13. That a Specifick Unity of Nature implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in every one of the particulars to which it belongs therefore such an Unity cannot be admitted in the Divine Nature The Argument put into due Form is to this purpose If a Specifick Unity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings implies a Multiplication of the said Nature then a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons implies a Multiplication of the Divine Nature But a Specifick Unity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings implies a Multiplication of the said Nature therefore a Specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons implies a Multiplication of the Divine Nature But the Conclusion is Absurd the Divine Nature being uncapable of Multiplication therefore a Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature is not to be allowed from whence such Conclusion follows Now in this Argument as it stands betwixt the Animadvertor and my self I deny the consequence of the Major because I am satisfied the Animadvertor would do the same if I should retort the same Argument mutatis mutandis against his own Hypothesis as for Instance if I should thus urge If a Singularity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings forbids a Plurality
three I turned over with great speed to p. 229. where in the front of the Page in Italick Characters I found this innocent Syllogism Tritheism c. p. 229. Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons are Three Gods But there are not Three Distinct Gods and therefore there are not Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons in the Godhead The Major of this Proposition is false but what other fault to find with it was past my Skill in Logick I therefore consulted the Animadverter in the following words Ibid. In which Syllogism we have these two Terms viz. Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons and Three Distinct Gods But as for the third Term I desire this Author to shew it me for I must confess I cannot find it Alas Who can help the Animadverter's blindness the Reverend Dean's Son at the Vniversity The meanest Sophister of a years standing in the Animadverter's own words could have solved this riddle for this profound Logician and Philosopher In all Syllogisms there is a Major and Minor and Medius Terminus It is clear that Three Distinct Gods is the middle Term as not entring the Conclusion So that if any Term be wanting it must either be the Major or Minor Terminus that is either the Predicate or Subject of the Conclusion Now let me ask this great Logician Can there be a Conclusion a Proposition as this is without a Subject and Predicate that is in other words Can there be an Affirmation and nothing affirmed a Negation and nothing denied Can there be a Proposition of one Term Can there be a Term and Copula and yet nothing coupled Will not that be a Marriage of a Man to himself Is there any thing denied of Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons in the Godhead in the Conclusion or not But I am ashamed to spend the Reader 's time and abuse his patience to teach this great Dictator in Philosophy and Divinity the first Rudiments of Logick the Verb substantive est or sunt in Latine is in these Cases resolvendum hoc modo says Dutrieu Logica Dutrieu p. 3. est existens sunt existentes and the Conclusion in the Reverend Dean's Syllogism is resolved into this and therefore Three distinct infinite intelligent Persons in the Godhead are not existing which term existing is the third term in this Syllogism and to be supplied in this Syllogism both in the Minor Proposition and Conclusion and none but a person of no Logick could have been ignorant of it The Animadverter adds Ibid. I know well enough how this Socinian Syllogism must be supplied and perfected and therefore though it is not my business to correct his Blunders but to expose them I shall set it right for him thus Three distinct infinite intelligent Persons are three distinct Gods but Father Son and Holy Ghost are not three distinct Gods and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are not three infinite intelligent Persons Thus I say this Socinian ought to proceed c. First The Animadverter has changed the whole Syllogism the Conclusion was universal or equivalent to universal in the first form in this last it is particular in the former it was simply universally denied that there are any infinite c. Persons in the Godhead in the latter it is only particularly denied that Father Son and Holy Ghost are infinite intelligent Persons Secondly In the Conclusion of the last Syllogism not the Subject but the Predicate was to be supplied Three infinite c. Persons in the former Syllogism was the Subject and not Predicate of the Conclusion whereas in the Animadverter's Syllogism he has made three infinite Persons the Predicate From whence it is plain that this profound Logician who so often upbraids others with the want of Logick does not yet know the Subject and Predicate of a Proposition the Subject commonly precedes the Verb or copula and the Predicate commonly follows but let me tell this great Critick that this Rule is not Vniversal and I find that he cannot yet tell when it fails And now let the Animadverter jeer others of their mistakes in Orthography and the like slips more tenderly for the future since I persuade my self that a Syllogism with two terms and a Proposition with one term which is included in the former will not easily be forgotten or pardoned to such an insulting Adversary Shall I be pardoned if I add one Error in Divinity out of the same Book Error did I call it it is too mild a name I esteem it a downright blasphemy p. 230. The Animadverter notes this for an absurd and illogical Proposition to say that God is the Father How often do the sacred Scriptures tell us that God sent his Son gave his only begotten Son Are these Expressions absurd and illogical I blush to relate such blasphemous stuff since I challenge the Animadverter any other ways to expound them than by the term of the Father viz. The Father sent his Son gave his only begotten Son Our Saviour Truth it self says I am the Son of God Is this an absurd and illogical Expression since the undoubted meaning of these words are I am the Son of the Father St. Paul tells us That to us there is one God and Father Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Are all these absurd and illogical Does not Scripture all the Creeds use the Expression of God the Father Had the Animadverter that skill in Logick he so often upbraids others with the want of he would have known that God the Father is equivalent in Logick to this that God is a Father and if a Father the Father He would have understood that if this Proposition be true The Father is God it is by the Rules of Logick capable of a conversion of putting the Predicate in the place of the Subject and of the Subject in the place of the Predicate without any alteration of the signa Logica omnis nullus aliquis c. where the Subject and Predicate are both singular as I believe them in this Proposition The Father is God and I have the consent of the Schools on my side And where the Predicate is a terminus communis as the Animadverter contends that God is there a particular sign is to be added to the Predicate when it becomes the Subject as Peter is a Man some Man is Peter And now I leave it with the Animadverter to consider whether he will speak with the Scriptures the Catholick Church the Schools in saying that God is the Father or condemn all these for absurd and illogical Dances and declare that we ought to say that some particular God is the Father as some particular Man is Peter I challenge him to avoid one of these Phrases if he can by the Rules of Logick unless he denies the Divinity of the Father denies that the Father is God The same Expressions of Scripture confute what the Animadverter tells us Tritheism c. p. 130.
suppose some will object P. 78. lin 1. N. 8. That the Soul in a state of separation is not properly a Part for as much as it exists not in any Compound nor goes to the composition of it To which I answer That an actual inexistence in a Compound is not the only Condition which makes the thing a part but its essential relation to a Compound which relation is founded partly upon its original designation and partly upon its natural aptitude to be an ingredient in the constitution of a Compound This Objection lies very obvious That the Soul in a state of separation is a Person as subsisting by it self neither being a part in any Whole nor an adjunct to any Subject Animad c. p. 34. which is his own Definition of subsistence or personality The Animadverter answers That the Soul is then a part notwithstanding it exists in no whole Now in Logicks totum and pars whole and part are Relatives and mutually infer one another There can no more then be a Part without an actual Whole than a Son without a Father Adam was originally designed by God to be a Father and had a natural aptitude to become such What then Will the Animadverter or any one else affirm That he was a Father before he had a Son as the Animadverter here tells us That the Soul in a state of separation is a part tho there is no whole to which such part can belong However Secondly I confess that there is more of truth in this Answer than I believe the Animadverter was aware of viz. That when to be a Part and a Person are opposed as Contradictions We do not take this Term Part in a nice Logical sense of the Term but in a Physical sense for an incomplete Being which naturally requires to be compleated perfected by some other Co-part And thus his own Answer will be strongly retorted against himself viz. That an actual Inexistence in a Compound is not that which absolutely denies any thing to be a Person but its existing incompleatly in the Composition its Existence ad modum adjuncti instrumenti vel principii quo to some superior nature Now in this sense the WORD is not a Part the WORD is not perfected compleated by the Composition The Soul of Man is indeed compleated perfected in its Operations by the Composition is capable of the actions of sense by the Composition but yet the Soul is not perfected in its Metaphysical Suppositality the Soul is not less a principium quod of its own actions in the Composition than in a state of Separation N. 9. Thirdly This Socinian Objection falls as heavy upon the Socinians and the Animadverter in the instance of a Human Person Both will confess that the Soul is a Part and Man a Whole From whence in the Animadverter's words I argue A Whole compounded of Soul and Body as Man is and a Simple uncompounded Part as the Soul is can never be numerically one and the same Being for that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two Beings whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound Being as such including in it several Parts compounding it and a Simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if a Man while alive be one Being and his Soul after Death be a Being too it is impossible for the Soul to be one and the same Being with the Man And from these Premises I can also add P. 77. lin 1. That wheresoever there are two distinct Beings we do and must by all the Rules of Grammar and Logick say that one of them is not the other and where one is not the other we cannot in Truth or Justice say that one ought to account for what was done or not done by the other c. Let the Animadverter answer this and he answers himself A Simple and Compounded Person may as well be the same Person as a Simple and Compounded Being be the same Being These two differ modally and not really And now to return from the Mystery of the Incarnation N. 10. to that of the Sacred Trinity and to the Question the Animadverter is considering as preparatory to it viz. What is the Formal Reason of Personality in Finite Created Persons This is I confess a very proper Enquiry but there is another as proper that is unfortunately omitted by most who treat of this Sacred Mystery viz. Not what that is which strictly and formally denominates any Finite Being a Suppositum or Person but What that is which denominates it this particular Person These are two Questions What strictly and properly denominates Adam a Person And what that is which denominates him the singular Person of Adam To be a Human Person is a common indefinite universal Attribute but to be the Person of Adam is proper to the first Man That which strictly and properly denominates Adam a Person is a Mode of Subsistence totale Attributum the being a compleat Whole as the Fathers often speak That which denominates Adam the particular Person of Adam is unknown to us that which the Schoolmen call Haecceity cannot be defined Ancients and Moderns supply the place of the Individuating difference by a Collection of Accidents says Porphyry by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Personal Properties say the Ancient Fathers It is says the Author of Expositio Fidei the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Adam to be immediately formed by the hands of God to be the Husband of Eve the First Man the Father of Cain Abel Seth c. Again since the Formal Cause of any thing denominates that thing Res omnes communiter denominavi a suis formis sicut album ab albedine homo ab humanitate quare omne illud a quo aliquid denominatur quantum ad hoc habet habitudinem formae Ut si dicam iste est indutus vestimento iste ablativus construitur in habitudine causae formalis quamvis non sit forma Aquin. 1. Par. Q. 37. Art 2. of which it is the Formal Cause hence from what any thing is denominated that thing is conceived by us in the similitude of a Formal Cause nay and often so stiled In which sense * Porphyr Introd ad Arist Organon cap. 2. Porphyry says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Singulars or Individuals are so called for that each is constituted by certain Properties the Collection of which is in no other Individual Not that a Property or Proprium is a Form or Differentia but because it supplies the place of such in the imperfect description of Individuals To apply this to the Divine Persons 't is a double Enquiry What denominates the Father a Person and what denominates him the Person of the Father Subsistence totale Attributum denominates the Father a Person which is a common Attribute to Father Son and Holy Ghost Paternity to be unbegotten to send his Son c.
denominates him the particular Person of the Father This last Question is what the Fathers were chiefly concerned in The Noetianists the Patri-Passianists rarely disputed the Personality of Father Son and holy-Holy-Ghost None who understand the meaning of the Term can deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them a proper Person if he acknowledges that each of them is properly God None can imagine that that Being which is God is either an Accident a Part or to please the Animadverter an Adjunct to any other Being Those only deny the Personality who esteem the Son and Holy Spirit that is each of them not properly God but something in God the Personal Word or Wisdom of God the Father or his Personal Power This was the great Controverted Debate Whether the Father Son and Holy Ghost that is whether Each of them was a Distinct Person and consequently whether they were Three Persons Now Paternity say the Ancient Fathers in this sense constituted the Father a distinct Divine Person The Schoolmen change the Question and say That it constituted him a Person In the same sense Filiation according to the Ancients constituted the Son a distinct Person and Procession Sanctification constituted the Holy Spirit a distinct Person from Father and Son This Observation will be of great use to any one who shall read the Ancients concerning the Personality of Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. III. P. 93. N. 1. COnsideration 5. When the terms Cause formal Reason constituent or productive Principle and the like are used about the Divine Nature and Persons they are not to be understood as applicable to them in the strict and proper signification of the said Terms but only by way of Analogy as really meaning no more than a causal or necessary dependance of one Notion or Conceptus Objectivus upon another so that it is impossible for the Mind to conceive distinctly of the one but as depending upon or proceeding from the other Compare this with his first Consideration P. 92. That the natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the universal Reason of things according to which the Conception of one thing presupposes and depends upon the Conception of another makes no Prius or Posterius and yet is by no means to be contradicted or confounded in our discoursing of God This the Animadverter lays down as a Rule to guide our Discourses concerning the Divine Persons To which I answer First That these Considerations contain a direct Heresy the express Heresy of Sabellius Secondly That the Animadverter himself notoriously breaks these Rules even where he ought to have kept them First It is the direct Heresy of Sabellius to assert That there is no Prius and Posterius between the Divine Persons The Compiler of the Athanasian Creed denies a Prius or Posterius in the Trinity in reference to Duration or Time they are all three Co-eternal But to deny a Prius and Posterius in Original is to deny that there is a Father and Son in the Trinity Again it is very pleasant for the Animadverter to tell us That this Prius and Posterius is founded in the Vniversal Reason of things and yet denies it in the Divine Nature As if Universal Reason did not reach infinite as well as finite Nature I suppose he means That there is a natural Order of Prius and Posterius founded in the particular reason of finite Natures which makes no Prius or Posterius in the infinite Divine Nature And it is as pleasant to hear him telling us That this natural Order of Prius and Posterius must not be contradicted in our discoursing of God when in the very immediate preceding words himself had contradicted it and affirmed that there was no Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature Secondly Himself most shamefully confounds this Natural Order of Prius and Posterius when he asserts p. 98. That the Father is formally constituted a Person by his own personal Act of Generation P. 249. That personal Properties are properly Personalities P. 250. That the Relation and Mode of Subsistence make but one single indivisible Mode of Being Yet says the Animadverter in the next immediate words according to the Natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence as precedent to the Relation For as much as Human Reason considers things simply as subsisting before it can consider them as related to one another The meaning of all this is That these are Rules when he hopes that he can confute the Dean of St. Paul's Self-Consciousness cannot be Subsistence because according to the natural Order of conceiving things we must conceive of the Subsistence before the Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal Reason of Personality for as much as it is a Personal Act one property of the Person already constituted These are Demonstrations against the Dean of St. Paul's What pity was it that the Dean of St. Paul's never asserted this once in all his Book for then it would have been allowed the Animadverter that in one single Article he had been too hard for the Dean But why are not these Rules to himself Is not Generation as much a personal Act as Self-Consciousness Is not the Attribute of being a Father one property of a Person already constituted Is not this Relation founded upon and posterior to a personal Act of Generation Can any thing according to human Reason be related before it is I believe the Animadverter in this point must borrow his own words and tell us That his Thoughts and Words can reach no higher Lastly The Animadverter denies a Prius and Posterius in the Divine Nature to purpose when he tells us That even Productive Principles when used in reference to the Divine Persons that is Father and Son are not applicable to them in the strict and proper Signification of the said term With his leave the Father is strictly and properly the productive Principle of his Son or else he cannot be strictly and properly the Father of his Son or else he did never strictly and properly beget his Son The Arians deny a proper Generation and assert That the Father is an Adoptive Creative and not Generative Father of his Son The Sabellians on the other hand adulterate both the Divine Generation and Mission and expound them in a figurative improper Sense Against both these Heresies the Church has ever professed a true and proper Generation amongst the Divine Persons P. 94. lin 25. N. 2. Self-Consciousness is a personal Act and therefore Self-Consciousness cannot be the formal reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is and to whom it personally belongs The Consequence I allow the Animadverter I only enquire Why it concludes not against Generation which is as confessedly a Personal Act as Self-consciousness Secondly To affirm that Self-consciousness is a Personal Act is the greatest Heresie to the Schoolmen A Personal Act is an Act proper and peculiar to some
one Divine Person as Generation is a Personal Act proper and peculiar to the Person of the Father and distinguishes the Father from the Son and Holy Spirit Now Self-consciousness is an Absolute Attribute and upon that account cannot be esteemed Personal by the Schoolmen Self-consciousness is but one conception of Omniscience and will the Animadverter say That the Father has a distinct Personal Omniscience If he does he multiplies Omniscience with the Persons that is he multiplies the Divine Nature in such Person Self-consciousness as well as Mutual Consciousness to the Schoolmen is an Essential Act Father Son and Holy Ghost according to the Schoolmen as they have but one singular Divine Nature so they have but one singular Omniscience but one singular Self-consciousness and one singular Mutual Consciousness Every Act proceeds not only from some Agent but by vertue of some power to produce that Act Therefore a Personal Act must have a Personal Power a Personal principium quo The Personal Act of Generation by the Father supposes a Personal Power to generate peculiar to the Father A Personal Act of Self-consciousness therefore will imply a Personal Power to exert such Act that is a Personal Omniscience or a Personal Divine Nature Not therefore the Phrase of Three Infinite Minds but the asserting that Self-consciousness is a Personal Act does in the Judgment of the Schoolmen unavoidably infer Three Gods The Personality of every One of the Divine Persons is purely and perfectly Relative P. 98. lin 12. N. 3. and therefore nothing Absolute as Self-consciousness is can be the Formal constituent reason of their Personality The Conclusion and Consequence are granted to the Animadverter The Antecedent viz. That the Personality of every one of the Divine Persons is purely and perfectly Relative is also the General Assertion of the Schoolmen as Petavius observes Lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 10. sect 6. Paucissimi quidem è Schola Theologi vel opinati sunt vel probabile judicant personales proprietatès absolutum non-nihil habere à quibus meritò dissentiunt coeteri How universally soever this Conclusion is embraced by the Schoolmen and from them by the Animadverter I can scarce persuade my self that the Animadverter understood the meaning of the very Conclusion this I am sure of That his pretended Arguments to prove this Conclusion are the greatest Objections against the truth of it and that he all along betrays the grossest Ignorance of the Schoolmens meaning I will give the Reader his own words and then examine them And that the Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative to one another and consequently that their Personalities are so many Relations is no less evident from this that two of them relate to one another as Father and Son and the third to both as proceeding from both and it is impossible for one thing to proceed from another especially by a continual act of Procession without importing a relation to that from which it so proceeds so that the very Personal Subsistence implies and carries in it a formal Relation For the Father subsists Personally as a Father by that Eternal Communication of his Nature to his Son which Act as proceeding from him is called Generation and renders him formally a Father and as terminated in the Son is called Filiation and constitutes him formally a Son and in like manner the Holy Ghost subsists personally by that Act of Procession by which he proceeds from and relates to both the Father and the Son So that that proper Mode of Subsistence by which in conjunction with the Divine Essence always included in it each of them is rendred a Person is wholly Relative and so belongs to one of them that it also bears a necessary reference to another From all which it undeniably follows that the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are in the formal Constitution of them Relative to one another and consequently that the Three Personalities by which they become formally Three Persons and are so denominated are Three Eternal Relations The Ancient Fathers confess That the Divine Relations constitute each of them a distinct Person that they enable us to conceive them distinct this therefore is not the question The question is Whether the Relations constitute each of them a Person indefinitely Spiration is a Relative Attribute in the Father relates the Father to the Holy Spirit but yet Spiration is not properly a Personality not properly the subsistential Form but a subsistential or personal Property A little to examine the Animadverter's proofs First The Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative This is too much more than ever any asserted before him A Person in the Blessed Trinity is God an infinite Mind but to be God to be an infinite Mind are confessedly absolute Attributes The Schoolmen say That the Persons in the Blessed Trinity are purely Relative in their Personalities that is purely Relative secundum quid or in one Respect The Animadverter turns the Proposition into a simple Affirmation that they are in all Respects purely Relative Secondly The Divine Persons are purely Relative because two of them relate to one another as Father and Son and the third to both The Animadverter knows not the difference betwixt a Relative Person and a Person who sustains a Relation Adam is related to God to Eve to Seth yet none ever stiled Adam a Relative Person The Personality of Adam is not a Relation but a proper Mode of Subsistence which can never be conceived otherwise than Absolute Thirdly The Father subsists personally as a Father This is the question it self and by the Rules of Logick ought to have been proved and not supposed The sole Enquiry is Whether to be a Father and to be a Person or subsist personally be formally the same Paternitas sc Divina rationem fundandi non postulat ut in rerum natura sit nam si aliquam talem fundandi rationem haberet maximè generationem activam Illam autem non respicit ut rationem sui esse sed potius est in suo genere ratio cur ipsa sit In quo etiam Paternitas illa aeterna antecellit omnem aliam Paternitatem quae in coelo in terra nominatur Omnis enim alius Pater ideo est Pater quia generat Pater autem aeternus ideo generat quia per Paternitatem est constitutus in suo esse Personali Suarez lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 8. N. 8. p. 437. Fourthly The Father subsists Personally by an Act of Generation How can a Personal Act which supposes the Person already constituted be the formal Cause of Personality in the same Person The Schoolmen were wiser in their Generation they confess that if the Father is denominated a Father from his Act of Generation it is impossible that the Father's Paternity should be his Mode of Subsistence since it is impossible not to suppose a Person subsisting before we can conceive of him acting The first Person of
a Trinity of Divine Persons is owing to Revelation alone and from thence ex posteriori we learn that a Trinity that is neither more nor fewer of Divine Persons is necessary Three Divine Persons are necessary because no Person can be Divine and not have necessary Existence Again we believe that there are no more than Three because God has revealed the existence but of Three and commanded us to worship but Three viz. Father Son and Holy Ghost The Schoolmen pretend to prove the number of a Trinity of Divine Persons not from the formal Reason of Personality for what Reason can we give why a fourth Divine Person might not have proceeded from the three first a fifth from the first four and so in infinitum but from these two Maxims First That there can be but one unproduced Divine Person This to me is a sacred Article by no means to be contradicted and in this I agree with the Learned Henry de Gandavo That those Arguments which prove the Article of the Unity of God demonstrate this Proposition Secondly That there can be no more than two distinct Processions viz. Generation and Spiration If the Schoolmen understood this Proposition That the Scriptures have revealed but these two Processions I entirely agree with them But they argue ex priori A Spirit say they can substantially produce only by his Understanding or Will the former they tell us is proper Generation the latter Spiration Animad c. p. 116. But I cannot keep pace with these Gentlemen whom the Animadverter commends for venturing so little It suffices to my Faith that the quod sit of this Mystery is expresly revealed in Scripture viz. That the Son is begotten and that the Holy Ghost proceeds But what either the One or the Other is how they differ or why God might not have had two Sons or two Holy Spirits or have produced a fourth Divine Person by a different sort of Procession from either Generation or Spiration are things above my thoughts and words I approve of that Ancient Anthem of the Church Quid sit gigni quid processus Me nescire sum professus far beyond the Modern Subtilties of the Schools For this is a received Maxim in the Schools P. 113. lin 10. N. 6. with reference to the Divine Nature and Persons Repugnat in Divinis dari absolutum incommunicabile Greg. de Valen. Tom. 1. p. 874. And it is a sure Rule whereby we may distinguish in every one of the Divine Persons what is Essential from what is Personal For every Attribute that is absolute is communicable and consequently essential and every one that is purely relative is incommunicable and therefore purely Personal and so è converso I shall crave leave to put this Question more largely than the Animadverter has done and enquire What it is which determines the singular or plural predication of any Attribute concerning the Three Divine Persons The Schoolmen commonly give the same Answer with the Animadverter viz. That a Personal Attribute may be plurally predicated an Essential Attribute may be predicated singularly of the Three Divine Persons Secondly That a Relative Attribute is a Personal Attribute and an Absolute Attribute an Essential one To whom I answer That the first distinction concerning a Personal and Essential Attribute is true but insufficient for the difficulty Secondly That the second distinction of an Absolute and Relative Attribute is not necessarily universally true I say the former part of this Rule I confess to be true but answers not the difficulty A Personal Attribute may be predicated plurally if common to more than one Person For all such Predications are reduced to this received one of the Church That there are Three Divine Persons All Essential Attributes may be predicated singularly being equipollent to this that there is but one Essence of Father Son and Holy Ghost But this will not give us satisfaction in our present Enquiry As for instance It is the received Language of the Church That Father Son and Holy Ghost may be truly stiled Vnus Deus Vnus Dominus Vnus Creator as also the allowed Phrase of the Schools that Father and Son are Vnus Spirator and that it is Heresy to assert that Father Son and Holy Ghost are Tres Dii Tres Domini Tres Creatores or to say of Father and Son that they are Duo Spiratores I know the Schoolmen assert that Deus Dominus Creator are Essential Attributes but they cannot pretend this of Spirator to be the Spirator of the Holy Ghost is confessedly a Personal Attribute Attributa Divina positiva adjectivè sumpta rectè praedicantur in plurali de Divinis Personis Suarez lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 11. n. 12. p. 401. how comes that under pain of Heresy to be predicated singularly of Two Divine Persons viz. of Father and Son Secondly Sic enim Tres Personae rectè dicuntur Divinae Dominantes ac Creantes Pater Filius dicuntur Spirantes Spiritum Sanctum licet sint unus Spirator N. 12. p. 401. It is confest by the most rigid of the Schoolmen that it is lawful to say That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Tres Deitatem habentes Tres Dominantes Tres Creantes That Father and Son are Duo Spirantes How shall we extricate our selves out of this difficulty Is Deus an Essential Attribute and Deitatem habens a Personal One What difference is there in sense betwixt Deus and Deitatem habens Dominus and Dominans Creator and Creans Spirator and Spirans Can the Concrete term Deus be better explained than by its abstract Deitatem habens It 's manifest from these Examples that the distinction of an Essential and Personal Attribute will not solve this difficulty The Schoolmen confess this and therefore give us a second distinction of a Noun Substantive and Noun Adjective viz. That an Essential Attribute when exprest by a Noun Substantive is always to be predicated singularly but when the same Attribute is exprest by a Noun Adjective then it may be plurally predicated of the Divine Persons But I enquire How comes this Rule also to hold in the Personal Attribute of a Spirator Can a Criticism of Grammar make a Personal Attribute to be predicated as an Essential one and an Essential Attribute to be predicated in the nature of a Personal Attribute Secondly This is the very Question Why two Phrases in Sense and according to all the Rules of Logick equipollent should be so differently interpreted merely from a Criticism of Grammar that the one of them should be Orthodox and the other Heretical It 's also manifest from these Instances that the second Rule of an Absolute and Relative Predicate is false Deus Dominus Creator Spirator are manifestly Relative Attributes There can be no dispute of the three last and the Scripture Expressions of my God thy God our God your God prove the Relativeness of this term God Besides that an absolute Attribute put into an
Adjective Form may as I have shewed be plurally predicated Nay if it were unlawful to predicate plurally an absolute Essential Attribute the Whole Church has hitherto erred which has never scrupled the Phrase of Three Divine Holy Omnipotent c. Persons or in the Phrase of the Athanasian Creed which all the Schoolmen esteemed to be genuine Three Co-eternal Persons The Schoolmen indeed were infinitely perplexed how to reconcile the Author of that Creed to himself that it was lawful to say Three Co-eternal Persons and yet at the same time forbidden to say Three Eternals in the Masculine Gender Here Thomas Aquinas their Leader help'd them at a dead lift and when he could not bring the Rule concerning the Distinction of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective to this Creed he brought the Creed to the Rule And as Petavius somewhere observes contrary to all Rules of Grammar he interpreted all those Adjective Phrases Substantively that is he taught that they ought to have been put into the Neuter Gender it ought to have been non tria oeterna sed unum oeternum c. which Construction the Athanasian Creed will very well bear in our English Translation But I must here acknowledge to my Reader that this Distinction of an absolute and relative Predicate as the adaequate Reason of a Plural or Singular Predication in this Sacred Mystery is much Ancienter than the Schoolmen claims the Authority of the Latin Fathers who all received it from St. Augustin Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 3. That Learned and Acute Father pinch'd with an Arian Objection which himself calls calidissimum machinamentum first as I believe invented this Distinction and gave us this Maxim in relation to this Mystery Quicquid ad se dicitur Deus Ibid. Cap. 8. de singulis Personis simul de tota Trinitate singulariter non pluraliter dicitur His great Name gave this Axiom Authority with the succeeding Latin Fathers from whom the Schoolmen borrowed it First I ballance St. Augustin's Authority with his own words August Lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 6. Pater ad se dicitur persona with his own argument formerly mentioned N. 4. of this Chapter which demonstrates that this term Persona is an absolute Attribute Ibid. the same he saith of Hypostasis Omnis res ad seipsam subsistit quanto magis Deus And yet the undoubted Faith of the Church is that this term Hypostasis or Persona may be plurally predicated that we may say That there are Three Divine Hypostases or Persons If the Reader shall enquire Whether St. Augustin saw not this obvious Objection against his own Axiom I Answer That he did see it and that he chose rather to forsake the universal Faith and Language of the Church than to part with an Axiom he thought so serviceable against that Calidissimum Machinamentum that subtle Objection of the Arians Magna inopia Humanum laborat eloquium dictum est tamen tres personoe August Lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 9. non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur omnino which words if we strip them of that Rhetorick wherewith that Eloquent Father has cloathed and disguised them carry this plain sense That though the universal Language of the Church has called Father Son and Holy Ghost Three Persons yet to speak the truth the Phrase ought not to be used the thing ought not to be said we must say somewhat therefore we say Three Persons Non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur omnino I speak not this to derogate from the Honour of that deservedly Great and Learned Father but to Vindicate the Truth of this Sacred Mystery Amicus S. Augustinus magis Amica fides When St. Augustin departs from the received Faith of the Church it can be no fault to observe it or to depart from him That Learned Father confesses That he understood not the distinction of Hypostasis and Essence in this Sacred Mystery Augustin Lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 8. Dicunt quidam illi Groeci Hypostasim sed nescio quid volunt interesse inter Vsiam Hypostasim That Learned Father confesses the unhappy reason of these mistakes he wanted the assistance of the Greek Fathers the most accurate Writers in this Mystery of the Trinity as the Latin Fathers are judged the most accurate in the Pelagian Controversie Augustin Lib. 3. de Trin. praefatio Graecoe autem linguoe non sit nobis tantus habitus ut talium rerum libris legendis intelligendis ullo modo reperiamur idonei quo genere literarum ex ijs quoe nobis pauca interpretata sunt non dubito cuncta quoe utiliter quoerere possumus contineri II. Letter of Advice c. S. V. P. 148. P. 149. The Learned Mr. Dodwell has laid the same Charge to the Schoolmen viz. That they were Ignorant of the Greek Fathers and necessitated to rely on Ignorant Translations that they were Unskilful in Critical Learning that they were not ingenuously Rational in the proof of their Principles P. 151. That most of Lombard's Principles were for the much greater part Transcribed from St. Augustin that is originally from the Authority of one private Person from whom it was derived by the rest without any new Examination All I would observe from hence is That there is no necessity of concluding the Sacred Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation indefensible because the Subtleties of the Schools built for the much greater part upon the sole Authority of St. Augustin seem so to most St. Augustin himself confesses this Axiom of quicquid ad se dicitur Deus c. false in relation to this Term Person or which is worse That the Phrase of Three Persons ought not to be used A second Argument which I shall bring against this Axiom of St. Augustin's Quicquid ad se dicitur Deus c. I shall take from the Attribute of Existence Existence is an absolute Predicate We say that God is that the Father is that the Son is that the Holy Ghost is yet we cannot say that Father Son and Holy Ghost is but are I and the Father are one these Three are One. Now every Novice in Logick can inform us that Deus est is the same with this Deus est existens Pater est the same with Pater est existens and consequently Hi tres sunt the same with Hi tres sunt existentes Here also again I may plead St. Augustin's Authority against his own Axiom He once ventured to change our Saviours words and to say Qui gignit quem gignit unum est But upon second thoughts he put this passage into his Retractations and in his Books of the Trinity he affirmed it to be Sabellianism Heresy to change the Verb. Pluraliter dictum est ego pater unum sumus Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 9. Non enim dixit unum est quod Sabelliani dicunt sed unum sumus Thirdly
Unity also is an absolute Attribute We say that God is One in the masculine gender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.20 We say also that the Father is One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Son is One that the Holy Ghost is One in the masculine gender But we cannot say of Father Son and Holy Ghost that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unus One in the masculine gender but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unum One in the neuter gender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is we cannot deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are truly Three I esteem these two last Arguments the more because they are grounded on the express words of Scripture they are each singly and much more conjointly sufficient to overthrow the universality of that Axiom of St. Augustin Quicquid ad se dicitur Deus c. But what will then become of the Arian Objection I answer That I conceive that Objection a weak Sophism and capable of an easy Solution Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 3. I will give it in St. Augustin's own words Quicquid de Deo dicitur vel intelligitur non secundum accidens sed secundum substantiam dicitur Quapropter ingenitum Patri secundum substantiam est genitum esse Filio secundum substantiam est diversum est autem ingenitum genitum diversa est ergo substantia Patris Filii To this sense All the Predicates concerning God or the Divine Persons are either substantial or accidental Predications Not the latter because nothing is mutable in God if the former then to be unbegotten is a substantial Predicate of the Father and to be begotten is a substantial Predicate of the Son But to be unbegotten and to be begotten are contrary one to the other therefore the substance of the Father and Son are diverse or different St. Augustin seems not to acknowledge an accidental Predication concerning God and it is confessed that to be unbegotten or to be begotten are necessary and not accidental Predications of the Father and Son St. Augustin answers to the Objection That there was a middle Predication betwixt these two substantial and accidental which was a relative Predication Now it is very true that there is a middle Predication betwixt these two an essential Predication and an accidental one Secondly it is as true that in the Objection of the Arian this middle Predication was a relative Predication But with all submission it was error non causoe pro causâ to assign the relativeness of the Predication as the reason of its being a middle Predication The Objection is a plain Sophism equivocating in the phrase Substantia which has a double sense in this Mystery sometimes it signifies the same with Person or Hypostasis sometimes the same with Essence in the former sense the Conclusion is sound and orthodox that the Substance that is Hypostasis of the Father and Son is different And the Solution of this Objection is plain and easy A personal Predication is a middle Predication betwixt an essential and an accidental Predication and that a personal Predication may be as necessary as an essential one amongst humane persons the difference of Sex is a personal yet necessary Predication Amongst the Divine Persons to be unbegotten to be begotten to proceed distinguish the Persons but divide not the Essence Paternity is necessary to the Person of the Father but not essential to Him for then Paternity would be common to the whole Trinity St. Augustin could not have failed of this true Answer had he read the Greek Fathers and from them learned the true Distinction of Hypostasis and Vsia Lastly What Rule can I my self give concerning the plural or singular Predication of any Attribute concerning the Divine Persons I answer First That all plural Predications are either equipollent with or reducible to this one allowed Proposition That there are Three Divine Persons This is plain and needs neither Illustration nor Proof Secondly That all singular Predications are equipollent with or reducible to this other allowed Proposition viz. That there is but One God Is not this the same Distinction of an essential and personal Predicate which I have before declared insufficient I answer That so indeed the Schoolmen expound it To them this fundamental Article of Natural Religion there is but One God is the same with this that there is but One Divine Essence But I conceive that these are distinct Articles The Unity of the Divine Essence is but the Explication of the Unity of the Trinity and is not a question to any one to whom the Doctrine of the Trinity is not in some measure revealed Whereas the Article of the Unity of God is an Article of Natural Religion no Mystery but capable of being found out by Natural Reason alone One great occasion of this mistake was the expressing the Article of the Unity of God and of the Unity of the Trinity by the same Phrase The Unity of the Trinity is often expressed by this Phrase that the Trinity or Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God But tho they are the same Words they have a different import when predicated of the whole Trinity conjointly and when they are part of that fundamental Article of Natural Religion that there is but One God A just Exposition of this prime Article of Natural Religion will as I conceive give a Rational Account of these hitherto esteemed insuperable Difficulties of which by God's Grace in my Second Part. CHAP. IV. IN reference to the sacred Articles of Religion N. 1. we ought to have a double care not only to think but speak inoffensively to take care that our Words as well as our Opinions be Orthodox and especially ought we to be thus cautious in the Mysterious Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation where a word disordered I had almost said a Comma misplaced may render us in the judgment of the warm contending Parties guilty of no less than Heresy 'T is St. Augustin's Observation concerning the Mystery of the Trinity that Nec periculosius alicubi erratur Lib. 1. de Trin. cap. 3. nec laboriosius aliquid quoeritur It is no where more dangerous to Err nor more difficult to apprehend than in this Mysterious Subject A Wise Person will have a great care therefore to keep the beaten Path to speak in the received Language of the Church The Learned Calvin gives us his own Experience Expertus pridem sum quidem soepius Calvin's Instit lib. 1. cap. 3. n. 5. quicunque de verbis pertinacius litigant fovere occultum virus That they who obstinately quarrel against the Phrases of the Church are Hereticks in their Hearts It were to be wished that himself had sufficiently considered this when in the same Section he wishes Vtinam sepulta essent hoec nomina viz. Trinitas Persona Hypostasis Essentia Consubstantialis c. That the Ecclesiastical phrases were all buried or laid aside upon certain
Divines and soberer Reasoners than any of those pert confident raw Men who are much better at despising and carping at them than at reading and understanding them tho wise Men despise nothing but they will know it first and for that very cause very rationally despise them First I believe that the Animadvertor is the very first Person who commended the School-men for venturing little or for proceeding upon the surest Grounds both of Scripture and Reason The Boldness of the Schools is known to a Proverb he that has but cast his Eye upon Aquinas his Sums must from his own Experience confute the Animadvertor this Character of the School-men that they ventured little puts me in mind of a certain Person I once knew who commended Aristotle for Writing excellent Latin I leave the Application to the Animadvertor himself The second part of their Character is almost as proper they and the Animadvertor proceed upon the surest Grounds of Scripture much alike This last in his Eighth Chapter wherein he professedly endeavours to state the Doctrine of the Trinity quotes only one single place Heb. 1.3 and even that he has mistaken The School-men's Principles were for the most part St. Augustin's Authority as to the first Schoolmen for the latter generally Transcribed one from another A wise Man will no more praise than he will despise any thing till he first knows it and for that cause rationally praise it and not as the Animadvertor has done praise them for venturing little and for proceeding upon Scripture Grounds when it is notorious that they were guilty of the contrary faults After all Praising the School-men is Dispraising himself and his own Hypothesis The Modes of the School-men are only such in name in our imperfect Conception of things the Animadvertor's Modes are such in reality but of this hereafter P. 119. n. 4. Argument I. Three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits are three distinct Gods c. Here I shall enquire into the import of these two Phrases Three infinite Spirits and Three Gods An Explication of these two Phrases is sufficient to solve this Objection and indeed the whole difficulty The rigid'st of the School-men allow That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Tres infinitam Spiritualem naturam habentes nor can there be any dispute either from Grammar or Logick that infinitus Spiritus and infinitam Spiritualem naturam habens are in sense exactly Equipollent and if these two are Equipollent in the singular number I would fain know a reason why the plural Number of these two Phrases should not be Equipollent that is why tres infiniti Spiritus should not signify the same with tres infinitam Spiritualem naturam habentes If any shall object the distinction of the Schools concerning Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective that Spiritus is a Noun Substantive and therefore according to them implys a multiplication of the form viz. the Spiritual Nature whereas Spiritualem naturam habens is an Adjective and only implys a multiplication of the Suppositum First I Answer That the distinction is groundless in it self and needless in respect of the difficulty it pretends to solve Secondly Allowing it to be true It only causes the Phrase to be less accurate not as the Animadvertor pretends absolutely Heretical the Phrases of the Athanasian Creed non tres aeterni c. observe not this rule yet the School-men charge not Athanasius with Heresy with denying a plurality of Persons but choose to say that he understood those Phrases Substantively the same favourable Construction ought a School-man to make of this Phrase viz. that Spiritus in this Phrase ought to be taken Personally Adjectively for Spiritualem naturam habentes and then it is Orthodox But if I will not allow this Criticism of the Schools concerning Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective how came no Man to venture upon it before the Dean of St. Paul's I Answer First That there is a very good reason why this Phrase is not to be found in Antiquity the reason the Reverend Dean himself gives viz That though there are three Holy Spirits yet not three Holy Ghosts in the Trinity that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Spiritus was by the Ancient Fathers Appropriated to signify the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity and consequently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or tres Spiritus would accordingly to them have implyed Three Holy Ghosts strictly so called And for the same Reason the Phrase of one Spirit in reference to the whole Trinity is not that I know of above once to be found in all Antiquity and that in that bold Father St. Augustin Lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 11. Hom. 5. in Jerem. who was not afraid to say of the Phrase of Three Persons Non ut illud diceretur Secondly I find Origen quoted for the very Phrase Tres Spiritus David in Psalmo confessionis postulat Amongst the Moderns the learned Genebrard a Man of great Note in his Time and of great Skill in relation to this Mystery Genebrard Resp ad Scheghium p. 52. not barely justifies the Orthodoxness of the Proposition but declares that it was Propositio vera ac fide ab Ecclaesia Catholica omnibus temporibus recepta a true Article nay an Article of Faith and received as such by the Catholick Church of all Ages The Proposition is thus set down by Genebrard Tres sunt Spiritus oeterni quorum quilibet per se Deus there are three Eternal Spirits whereof every single Spirit is God with much more to the same purpose in the same place The same Answer will serve in reference to the Animadvertor's Objection That three Infinite Spirits are three Gods Tres Dei when it signifies the same with tres Deitatem habentes with tres Divinae Personae is Orthodox Genebrard lib. 2. de Trin. p. 155 Hear the learned Genebrard Si mavis dicere tres Deos id est tres Divinas Personas possis dicere atque interpretari Nam vocabulum Deus aliquando sumitur Hypostaticè ac ultrò citroque commeat cum Divina Persona sive Hypostasi ut cum in Niceno Symbolo legitur Deum de Deo c. But this Objection of Polytheism against the Doctrine of the Trinity I reserve to be handled at large in my Second Part. p. 119. lin 29. n. 5. My Reason for what I affirm viz. That three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits are three distinct Gods is this that God and Infinite Mind or Spirit are terms equipollent and concertible Every Page of the New Testament confutes this assertion This term God is a thousand times in Scripture appropriated to signifie the Person of the Father as in these and the like Phrases The Son of God the Spirit of God God sent his Son c. But this term Infinite Mind or Spirit is not capable of such Appropriation any more than the Phrase of a Divine Person can be appropriated to that signification Infinite Mind or Spirit is therefore
is one he is not the other this latter is a Modal not simple Negation But the Animadvertor himself tells us That wheresoever there are Two distinct Persons we do and must by all the Rules of Grammar and Logick say Animadv c. p. 74. l. 1. that one of them is simply not the other Which single passage overthrows our Animadvertor's Hypothesis that the Divine Persons differ by a Modal difference We have no way from Logicks of knowing when Two Beings differ wholly but from such simple negation a Negative Sign in Logicks distributes all which follows it in the same Proposition but of this more hereafter And therefore to argue from a Person to a Spirit here is manifestly sophistical P. 121. N. 9. and that which is called Fallacia accidentis or since several fallacies may concur in the same proposition it may be also a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For so it is to conclude that three Persons are three distinct Gods since the difference of Persons is only from a diverse respect between them but three Gods import three absolute distinct Natures or Substances Where are we now this is a perfectly new Topick To argue from a Person to a Spirit is manifestly sophistical it is fallacia Accidentis and fallacia a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter Grant all this for once how is this a consequence from the former why is this ushered in with a therefore The former Answer obscurely denies that there are Three Persons this denies that a Divine Person or a person in this Mystery is a Spirit or God and asserts that a Divine Person is only ex accidenti or secundum quid a Spirit or God This will make strange Divinity if we apply it to the Father Son or Holy Ghost The Father is a Divine Person or a Person in this Mystery Will the Animadvertor himself have the Confidence to deduce the Conclusion that the Person of the Father is only ex accidenti or secundum quid a Spirit or God If the Animadvertor does not already know it let me inform him that the Catholick Faith is That every single Divine Person is essentially quidditative as the Schools speak a Spirit or God as fully as every single Angelical person is essentially a Spirit or an Angel And therefore when the Animadvertor tells us in the same page That a Person here imports only a Relation or Mode of Subsistence in conjunction with the nature it belongs to he is guilty of two absurdities First it is unintelligible cant a singular nature or substance in conjunction with the Mode or a singular nature sustaining a Mode is usual but to put the cart before the Horses to put the Mode before the Nature the Adjunct before the Subject is new Philosophy peculiar to the Animadvertor Secondly A person in this Mystery is not in recto a relation or Mode but the subject of the Relation or Mode a Divine Person has a Relation or Mode the Father has a relation or Mode but the Father is not a relation or Mode Animad c. p. 321. The Animadvertor himself tells us that a Person as such is a Substance and a compleat substance therefore not a Mode Ib. p. 121. Every Spirit has a Mode a proper Mode of subsistence belonging to it and yet in the same place the Animadvertor tells us that a Spirit is not a Mode of Being Ib. p. 121. N. 10. The ternary number all the while not belonging to their infinity but only to their personalities Will the Animadvertor stand by this Conclusion that the ternary Number belongs only to the Personalities if he does I am satisfied he gives up the Catholick Faith for that asserts that the ternary Number belongs to the Persons as well as Personalities If the Animadvertor will confess to the Socinians that there is but one Person in the Trinity I believe they will scarce think it worth their while to dispute whether there are Three Modes or not or whether these Modes are to be called Personalities or not One and the same Nature may sustain several distinct Relations or Modes of Subsistence P. 121. N. 11. A Mode of Subsistence in the sense of the Animadvertor for a Subsistential form or Personality is improperly said to be sustained Personality is the constituent form of the Person and not an adjunct of the Person Again Nature when distinguished from the Suppositum or Person is not the Subject of the Relations or Modes The Suppositum or Person is the proper Subject of the Relations or Modes sustained by that Person Further The common Assertion of the Schools is not barely that the Divine Nature sustains three distinct Relations or three distinct Modes but that it sustains three Relations of the same kind three distinct Personalities which is the great difficulty One and the same Person may be twice a Father if he has Two Children that is Natural But can we conceive that a Man can be twice a Father of one and the same Son This is the question how according to the Schools one and the same singular Nature when it is become one Person in the Father by one subsistential form can receive a distinct subsistential form without losing the first and also a third without losing the first or second I freely acknowledge that this is to me an insuperable difficulty and therefore I bless God that to me the Faith of Three Divine Persons needs not so nice a speculation Argument II. Three distinct Minds or Spirits P. 122. N. 12. are Three distinct Substances c. Tres Substantiae signifies no more than Tres Substantialem naturam habentes which is allowed by the strictest of the School-men Secondly The Phrase of Three Substances has been more or less allowed in all Ages of the Church to be predicated of the Three Divine Persons Calvin 's Instit lib. 1. cap. 13. n. 5. St. Hillary calls them so says the Learned Calvin plus Centies more than an hundred times The Greek Fathers understood the same by the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Plural Number St. Augustin confesses this of the Greek Fathers and that he knew no other signification of the term Hypostasis In Monologia cap. Anselmus very plainly Hoec nomina sc Persona substantia aptius eliguntur ad designandam pluralitatem in summa essentia quia Persona non dicitur nisi de individuâ rationali natura Substantia principaliter dicitur de individuis quoe maximè inpluralitate subsistunt Suarez lib. 1. de Trin. cap. 2. n. 11. Suarez Metaph. Disp 34. s. 1. n. 6. The School-men acknowledge Tres substantias incommunicabiles Ita D. Thom. 1 Part quoest 30. artic 1. ad 1. dicit juxta consuetudinem Eclesioe non esse absolutè dicendas tres substantias propter nominis oequivocationem addendo vero aliquid quod determinet significationem dici posse ut si
dicamus tres substantioe incommunicabiles seu relativoe Lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 6. The Learned Suarez acknowledges the Divine Persons to be tres res tria entia but he thinks it better to add tria entia relativa to be tria aliquid No Protestant Writer can deny them to be tres per se subsistentes and in that sense tres substantias Indeed there never had been any scruple of this Phrase had not this term Substantia been ambiguous and sometimes signified the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence Whence the warm St. Jerom Quis ore sacrilego tres substantias proedicabit Whence himself says that there was Poyson in the term Hypostasis whereas there is neither Poyson in the one or the other term if rightly Interpreted P. 123. l. 13. n. 13. And Bellarmin a Writer Orthodox enough in these Points and of unquestionable Learning otherwise in his second Tome p. 348. about the end says that to assert that the Father and Son differ in Substance is Arianism And yet if they were two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible Authority is very low with the Animadvertor when he takes shelter in Orthodox Bellarmin and lays hold on a dubious Expression in a plain case Every one knows that the Arians asserted that the Substance of the Son was not barely different in number but different in kind specifically different from the Substance of the Father and how impossible soever the Animadvertor judges it for two Substances not to differ in Substance the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon did expresly assert That Christ in his Humane Nature and we Men who are confessedly two Substances in number were consubstantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am perswaded that the unquestionably Learned and Orthodox Bellarmin if he were now alive nor the Animadvertor for him will have the Boldness to say that this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to differ in Substance Again the Orthodox Bellarmin justified Calvin who ventured to Condemn that Expression of the Nicene Council that the Son was God of God and affirmed that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of himself Dr. Bull. def fidei Nicaenae S. 4. cap. 1. n. 7. p. 439. Bellarmin thought this only a Dispute of a Phrase Verbi solum locutionis Such an Orthodox Person who can thus easily part with the Nicene Faith may easily find out a new sort of Arianism For to believe Father Son and Holy Ghost three co-equal co-eternal Substances Hypostases was not the Arianism which the Nicene Fathers opposed Since for one and the same Substance to be common to all three Persons p. 124. lin 4. n. 14 and withal to belong incommunicably to each of the three and thereby to distinguish them from one another is contradictious and impossible This is the Faith of the Schools that one and the same Substance one and the same singular Nature is common to all three Persons and withal belongs incommunicably to the Father quatenus ingenita incommunicably to the Son quatenus genita incommunicably to the Holy Spirit quatenus spirita See Animadv c. p. 160. This Faith the Animadvertor declares to be contradictious and impossible which is in his own words not to be able to forbear Writing and yet not know when one writes for and when against an Opinion p. 124. lin 8. n. 15. On the other side to assert two distinct Substances in each Person is altogether as absurd and that as upon many other Accounts so particularly upon this that it must infer such a composition in the Divine Persons as is utterly incompatible with the Absolute Simplicity and Infinite Perfection of the Divine Nature The Schoolmen who assert an Absolute Substance and a Relative Substance in each Divine Person deny a composition from hence for that the Absolute and Relative Substance are not united but identified one with another The Ancient Fathers asserted that the common Divine Nature and each single Hypostasis differed not really but only ratione from each other as Homo and Petrus Angelus and Michael in which cases there is no composition and therefore à majori there is no composition in a Divine Person p. 124. n. 16. Argument III. One Infinite Mind cannot be three Infinite Minds Nor three Infinite Minds one Infinite Mind Therefore the Divine Persons who are one Infinite Mind as they are one God cannot be three Infinite Minds This is the sum in short of his Third Argument which to swell up his Book and make a shew of he repeats backwards and forwards This Argument is a meer Fallacy equivocating in the term Mind or Spirit which is to be interpreted in a concrete or in an abstract sense When the Schoolmen say That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God they do not take this term God in a concrete sense but in an abstract sense Father Son and Holy Ghost are not habens Deitatem which is the concrete sense of this term God but either habentes Deitatem in the Plural Number or Deitas the Godhead it self in the Singular Number So the learned Genebrard Lib. 2. de Trin. p. 154 Nota Dei nomen aliter accipi in his enuntiationibus Pater est Deus Filius est Deus Spiritus Sanctus est Deus aliter in hac Pater Filius Spiritus Sanctus sunt unus Deus Nam in primis Deus idem quod habens Deitatem quod quidem Personae congruit in postrema non simpliciter habentem Deitatem sonat sed ipsam potiùs Deitatem Now the Animadvertor himself will not say that tres habentes Deitatem cannot be one Essence nor that tres habentes infinitam spiritualem naturam cannot be one Infinite Spiritual Nature one Infinite Mind or Spirit in the abstract sense of the term in which only the Divine Persons are said to be one Infinite Mind or Spirit It is in a different sense of this term Infinite Mind or Spirit viz. in the concrete sense that we multiply it and say that three Divine Persons are three Infinite Minds And this Answers the Animadvertor's Fourth Argument drawn from the Athanasian Form p. 128. n. 17. which is grounded upon a false Supposition viz. That this term Infinite Mind is necessarily a Predicate perfectly Essential whereas p. 130. lin 17. when it is taken concretely it must be understood as a Personal Attribute viz. for habens infinitam spiritualem naturam which in the words of Genebrard personoe congruit The Animadvertor's Overplus p. 131. lin 2. n. 18. That the Heathens believed God to be one Infinite Mind cuts deeper than he is aware of For these same Heathens did as certainly believe that God was one single Person as well as one Infinite Mind Nay which is a far greater Objection the Jews God's own People not only did but to this day do most firmly believe that God is one Divine Person and
plead those Sacred words of their Law I am the Lord thy God Thou shalt have no other Gods before me That all their Doctors for the space of two thousand Years interpreted those words in their Natural sense viz. as spoke of one Divine Person What shall we say to this Objection Did God suffer the wisest of the Heathen Philosophers the most Pious Persons of the Jewish Religion to believe an Heresie of him for so many Ages Did God speak of himself in the most Sacred part of the Law in such words which Naturally lead to Heresie For I and me Naturally lead to the belief of one Person speaking This is the great Objection with which the Socinians flourish An Answer to which would be of more worth than a thousand such Books of Inadversions as the Socinian Considerer calls these Animadversions Considerations on the Explications c p. 23. For my own part I cannot be so fond of the Subtilties of the Schools as for the sake of them to confess so harsh a Conclusion I do most firmly believe that the Faith of a Trinity of Divine Persons and the Article of the Unity of God as it was believed by the wisest of the Heathens and the Jewish Church are by no means inconsistent The whole Truth was not revealed to the Jewish Church or at least so very obscurely that very few of them understood it But yet I verily believe that what was revealed was a most Sacred truth I believe that the God whom the Heathen Philosophers by the Light of Nature worshipped was one Divine Person I believe that the same one Divine Person spake of Himself in those Sacred words of the Law I am the Lord thy God c. I also believe that this One Divine Person was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Nor does this contradict that common Article of the Christian Faith viz. That God is Three Persons as the Socinians vainly pretend and some others unwarily grant them God is not three Persons as he is Just or Good or Holy as if three Persons were Essentially included in the Divine Nature For then no one single Person could by himself be God then there could not be a Son of God or a Spirit of God When God is said to be three Persons the term God is taken in a Logical sense equivalent in Predication to a terminus communis or a Species and signifies that the Divine Nature subsists in three Persons that this term God is truly predicable of three distinct Persons But a further disquisition of this Difficulty belongs to my Second Part. The Animadvertor accuses the Reverend Dean of giving a scurvy stroke at the Trinity p. 135. lin 7. n. 19. p. 89. where he the Reverend Dean affirms that the Expression of the one true God and the only true God cannot properly be attributed to the Son nor Holy Ghost Ibid. l. 19. and consequently if he asserts that these terms cannot with equal Propriety be attributed to and predicated of the Son and Holy Ghost we have him both Arian and Macedonian together in this Assertion First The Reverend Dean never asserted that the Son or Holy Ghost could not properly be called the one God or only true God only that they could not so properly be stiled so as the Father The Fathers of the Nicene Council indeed of the whole Eastern Church did expresly appropriate the Title of One God to the Father and God of God to the Son by which Opposition it appears that by One God in the first Article of the Creed they meant a God of himself which is a Personal Attribute and peculiar to the Father Our Saviour appropriates this Title of Only true God to the Person of the Father Hilary lib. 3. de Trin. and St. Hilary who was never hitherto esteemed either an Arian or Macedonian expresly asserts this to be Debitum Honorem Patri St. Paul has patronized this Appropriation Ephes 4.6 To us there is one God and Father Now for my part I had rather be esteemed an Heretick Arian and Macedonian with my Saviour St. Paul St. Hilary all the Oriental Fathers than Orthodox with the Animadvertor and Bellarmin I do assure him that I am neither afraid of him nor the Socinians I crave no Favour at either of their Hands for this Profession of my Faith That the Title of one God only true God is a Proper Personal Prerogative of the Father alone p. 138. lin 21. n. 20. And as for the Father's being the Fountain of the Deity I hope he looks upon the Expression only as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native sense for fear the Consequences of it may engage him too far to be able to make an handsome Retreat which I assure him if he does not take heed they certainly will Oratio contra gregales Sabellii propè initium Athanasius tells us that we might rightly call the Father the only God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he only is unbegotten and he only is the Fountain of the Deity This learned Father has hitherto been esteemed the very Test of Orthodoxy in this Mystery The Reverend Dean's Notion and Phrase is borrowed from him who would not have thought himself safe under so Venerable a Name But alas the World is strangely altered Athanasius himself must come to School to the Animadvertor to learn how to speak I hope he that poor Novice Athanasius looks on the Expression as Metaphorical and such as ought not to be stretched to the utmost of its Native sense I hope also that I may be allowed to vindicate this Phrase of that great Light of the Church from the Exceptions of a bold Animadvertor May I in the Name of Athanasius enquire of this great Critick which of these two words Fountain or Deity are to be interpreted Metaphorically That of Fountain is plainly Metaphorical Athanasius was never so weak as to believe that the Deity was a River of Waters and the Father the Fountain of it If the Animadvertor means that this term Deity is Metaphorical I must require his Proof and not his Affirmation Again neither Athanasius nor any of the Ancient Fathers ever intended by this Phrase that the Father is the Fountain of the Deity that he was the positive Fountain of the Divinity in his own Person any more than Philosophers and Divines mean that God was the cause of Himself when they say that God is of Himself Athanasius added to avoid the suspicion of such an absurd sense that he was unbegotten as well as the Fountain of the Deity What then is the fault of this Phrase of Athanasius Why alas poor Athanasius was unacquainted with the subtilties of the Schools He said plainly and bluntly that the Father was the Fountain of the Deity whereas he ought to have said Animadv c. p. 191. lin 10. That he was the Fountain of the two other Divine Persons To say
that the Divinity has a Fountain is to say in other words that the Divinity is begotten which can neither be affirmed in truth or propriety of speech p. 159. lin 18. The Divine Persons may properly be said to be begotten but not the Divine Nature But with the leave of the Animadvertor all Antiquity before Peter Lombard and the Oxthodox Lateran Council not considering the Consequences of Expressions did venture thus far and used the Phrase of Begotten Wisdom speaking of the Divine Nature of the Son Nay which may possibly sway more with the Animadvertor he himself has allowed it to be very true p. 156. l. 10. that the Son is an Eternal begotten Mind and Wisdom and I am sure then the Son must be an Eternal Begotten Divine Nature and the Father the Fountain of the Deity to the Son For my part I like the Subtilties of the Schools never a whit the better for charging those Expressions with Falshood or Impropriety which so many great Lights of the Church thought both true and proper I fear not his Consequences nor his Threats I do believe with Athanasius that the Father is truly the Fountain of the Deity to the Son and Holy Ghost and that he has no Fountain of his own Divinity and that his being thus the Fountain of the Divinity is the reason of appropriating the Title of one God to his Person alone And that though the Son and Holy Spirit are each of them truly Essentially God yet they cannot with any more Propriety be called the One God the only true God than each of them may be stiled unbegotten the Fountain of the Deity or God of Himself The Socinians say That the Person of the Father is the only true God so say the Ancients so says the Animadvertor so say I But the Socinians say that this Title of Only true God is an Essential Attribute distinguishing the Essence of the Father from the Son and Holy Spirit I say that it is only a Personal Attribute and Prerogative distinguishing the Person of the Father from the Son and Holy Ghost but not dividing their Essence The Animadvertor declares That it is an Essential Attribute in common to Father Son and Holy Ghost which of these Interpretations best Vindicate the Christian Faith will be more fully discussed in my Second Part. CHAP. V. n. 1. THE last Chapter was chiefly spent in considering the import of several Plural Predications and Phrases concerning the three Divine Persons and particularly of the Phrase of three Infinite Minds In this the Animadvertor enquires into the Historical truth of this Assertion whether the Ancients believed the Divine Persons to be Intelligent Minds or Beings This the Reverend Dean thought an uncontested Article to all who professed the Faith of a Trinity of Divine Persons The Reverend Dean was of the learned Genebrard's Opinion before quoted viz. That this was Propositio vera ac fide ab Ecclesia Catholica omnibus temporibus recepta and therefore as it is usual in uncontested Articles was less curious in Collecting the Proofs of an undisputed Opinion which yet I speak not as if I thought the Proofs of this Assertion brought by the Reverend Dean insufficient One thing however I can by no means omit that the Animadvertor has disjoynted the fairest Proof of the Fathers Opinion in this Debate and treated of it in his next Chapter viz. That Father Son and Holy Ghost were esteemed so certainly to be three Infinite Minds by the Ancients that they asserted Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one by a Specifick Unity Now though I should grant to the Animadvertor that the Fathers did not understand such Assertions in the strictest sense of such Phrases but only by way of Resemblance of which afterwards yet this must be allowed that the Ancient Fathers could have had no shadow or pretence for such an Assertion unless they had believed Father Son and Holy Ghost to be three Intelligent Beings which is but another Phrase for three Intelligent Minds It never entred into the Mind of any one Man who understood what a Specifick Unity means that One simple Being under three distinct Relations which is the Animadvertor's Hypothesis of the Trinity was one by a Specifick Vnity Animadv c. p. 120. lin 32. But of this more in its proper place p. 154. lin 29. n. 2. The Son is the Substantial WORD and Wisdom of the Father and that this can be nothing else but to say That he is an Intelligent Being or Infinite Mind And he is so I the Animadvertor confess But does this infer that he is therefore a distinct Intelligent Mind or Being from the Father This we deny and it is the very thing which he ought to prove And it is not come to that pass yet that we should take his bare Affirmation for a Proof of what he affirms It seems the Animadvertor is one of those who do not know a Proof unless it be put into Mood and Figure for him There is a Personal Word and Wisdom of the Father so there is of the Son and Holy Ghost that is to say the Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them Personally Wise and Personally Act. The Personal Wisdom of the Divine Persons is an Attribute the Personal Word of every one of the Divine Persons is an Act and not a Person But the Person of the Son is the Substantial WORD and Wisdom of the Father such a Wisdom which is an Infinite Mind and not the Attribute of an Infinite Mind such a WORD who is a Person and not a Personal Act. And it is absolutely impossible that both these Characters of being an Infinite Mind and also the Wisdom of the Father can belong to the Son unless he be a distinct a Personally distinct Intelligent Mind from the Father This little Particle of is the same in this Mystery with proceeding Of the Father is the same with proceeding from the Father God of God the same with God proceeding from God Light of Light the same with Light proceeding from Light The Son is the Substantial WORD and Wisdom proceeding from the Father Now as the Procession of the Divine Persons from one another is the allowed Proof of their Plurality so if there be a Substantial Wisdom proceeding from the Father there must be the same distinction between this Substantial Wisdom and the Person of the Father But here comes the mighty Objection Obj. p. 156. lin 27. That if Wisdom of Wisdom proves two Wisdoms or Light of Light imports two Lights then by the same Reason God of God very God of very God will and must infer two distinct Gods two distinct very Gods which says the Animadvertor is most monstrous blasphemous stuff I Answer That the Phrase God of God Sol. does necessarily imply a multiplication of this term God in some sense or other One and the same Numerical God in concreto can never be God of God and also
not God of God To be God of God and also not God of God are contradictious and therefore can never be verified of one and the same Subject of one and the same God in concreto of one and the same God in Person Nor is this any Blasphemous stuff it only proves that one sense of the term God is equipollent with a Divine Person in the words of Genebrard before quoted Chap. 4. n. 4. Vocabulum Deus aliquando sumitur Hypostaticè ac ultrò citróque commeat cum Divina persona sive Hypostasi ut cum in Niceno Symbolo legitur Deum de Deo c. It is the Faith and has been the Language of the Church before the Nicene Council that Deus est Trinus in Personis that God is Three in Persons And this is the just and easie Answer to that dreadful Objection of the Socinians that three Divine Persons infer three Gods as three Angelical Persons infer three Angels viz. That if by three Gods the Socinians mean that there are three Divine Persons that there are tres Deitatem habentes that Deus est trinus in personis in these senses in the term God we acknowledge and embrace the Conclusion as an Article of our Faith and despise the weak Sophistry of their Objection which only equivocates in the term God Ask a Socinian what he means by God in that Phrase of three Gods He will readily Answer that he means a Divine Person and consequently this Formidable Objection amounts to no more than this That three Divine Persons are three Divine Persons Therefore c. Just so does the Animadvertor deal with the Reverend Dean He declares that he takes God and Infinite Mind to be equipollent and I will assure him that none will deny that three Infinite Minds are three Infinite Minds And so the Reverend Dean is eternally confuted or rather the Animadvertor ought to be ashamed of so weak a Sophism If the Animadvertor or any Socinian will deal like a Scholar and not like a Sophister let either of them produce those Arguments which deny a Plurality of Gods and shew that they are equally strong against the Faith of three Infinite Minds or three Divine Persons and they shall not fail of an Answer by God's assistance as soon as I can finish it but this more properly belongs to my Second Part. It is a meer begging of the Question to say that this term God is not capable of Multiplication when it signifies equipollently with a Divine Person or any other equivalent Phrase as an Infinite Mind or the like p. 160. lin 3. n. 3. It is one and the same Wisdom which is both ingenita and genita though as it is one it is not the other The Animadvertor p. 156. lin 9. had declared it to be very true that the Son is a begotten Mind and Wisdom and in the same place denies That the Eternal Mind or Wisdom begetting and the Eternal Mind or Wisdom begotten are two distinct Minds but only one and the same Mind or Wisdom under these two distinct Modifications of Begetting and being Begot In this place the Animadvertor advances one step higher and tells us that unbegotten Wisdom and begotten Wisdom are not two Wisdoms but only one Wisdom under two several Modifications as also that Father Son and Holy Spirit are one Infinite Spirit under three distinct Modalities Now say I if this be a fair Solution of this difficulty it is impossible for the wisest Person to be certain that he can count two For ought any one then can tell the Reverend Dean and the Animadvertor may not be two Persons but only one Person under two Modifications The highest Proof that can be brought in such Enquiry is that Contradictions may be verified concerning the Reverend Dean and the Animadvertor that what the one is the other is not Now there cannot be a plainer fuller Contradiction than to be begotten and to be unbegotten Again this Answer undermines the Faith of the Catholick Chuch the Faith of three Divine Persons The Sabellianist asserts that Father Son and Holy Ghost are not three Persons but one Person under three distinct Modalities which Modifications diversifie and distinguish the Person they belong to but not multiply him The same Person is both the Father and the Son but as he is one he is not the other Now the allowed Proof of a Plurality of Divine Persons is from the contradictory Predicates which may be verified of Father Son and Holy Ghost in the words of the Athanasian Creed The Father is made of none neither created nor begotten the Son is of the Father alone not made not created but begotten The Holy Ghost is of the Father and Son neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding If this be a good Argumument to prove a Plurality of Divine Persons I desire to know why an unbegotten and begotten Wisdom are not equally two Wisdoms The Moderns who follow the Schoolmen say indeed the same thing with the Animadvertor that it is one and the same singular Wisdom which is both unbegotten and begotten that is one Wisdom under two distinct Modifications But then they understand themselves better than to say That it is very true that the Son is a begotten Wisdom They say that Begotten Wisdom is to be understood in an improper sense and consequently that the Contradiction is only in words and not in reality According to the Schoolmen the Son is unbegotten Wisdom The Wisdom of the Son is equally unbegotten with the Wisdom of the Father and that Proposition the Son is begotten Wisdom is only true according to them sensu reduplicativo viz. That the Son who is begotten is also Wisdom Now certainly unbegotten is a very improper sense of being begotten The Phrase of Begotten Wisdom was used without scruple by the Ancients and though Lombard and the bold Lateran Council condemned this Phrase Hand over Head yet the more Prudent Persons of the Romish Church thought it more elegible to allow the Phrase in complyance with Antiquity and strive to evade it by a stretched Interpretation by a sensus reduplicativus The Animadvertor has here borrowed the words of the Shoolmen but without understanding their meaning Nay it is very observable that the Animadvertor who here in p. 156. tells us That it is very true that there is a begotten Mind or Wisdom is of a quite different Opinion p. 159. lin 18. viz. That this cannot be said in Truth and Propriety of speech For God cannot properly be said to beget Wisdom c. I leave him at his leisure to reconcile these two places His the Reverend Dean's Allegation is this p. 166. lin 4. n. 4. That it is usual with the Fathers to represent the three Persons in the Blessed Trinity as distinct as Peter James and John The Animadvertor Answers That the term as distinct is ambiguous For it may either signifie 1. as Real or 2. as Great a distinction As
agreeing in the Fundamental Articles of this great Mystery viz. That the Father is truly Essentially God that the Son is truly Essentially God that the Holy Ghost is truly Essentially God that one of these Persons is simply not either of the other two And that there is nothing in this Faith which contradicts that Fundamental Article of Natural Religion That there is but One God or more briefly in the received Language of the Church that there is One God and Three Divine Persons shall choose to explain the modus of the Unity of the common Divine Nature by singularity with the Schools or shall profess that this Unity wants a Name in our present Logicks It is Truth not Victory I contend for he therefore who grants my Conclusion why should I quarrel with him concerning the Premises by which he arrives at the Conclusion The Impudence and Blasphemy of our late Socinian Writers extorted this Essay The Head and Mouth of the Party the Unitarian Historian in one short Section has amassed together this Charge against the Faith of the Ever Blessed Trinity viz. That the Faith of the Trinitarians is absurd History of the Unitarians p. 9. n. 7. and contrary to Reason and it self false impossible an Error in numbring most brutal inexcusable which not to discern is not to be a Man nonsense that it does impose false Gods on us that it robs the one true God of the Honour due to him A Letter of Resolution concerning the Trin. c. p. 6. n. 1. Another of the same Party is pleased to stile the Son and Holy Ghost Gods of our own devising Were such Blasphemies as these ever suffered before in a Christian State Crellius was a Zealous Socinian and wrote one of the subtilest Books which was ever published against the Orthodox Faith his Book of One God the Father These Gentlemen have translated and published this Piece in the English Language I will send these Persons to learn better Manners from him He in his Preface to that Book expresly expounds those words of St. Paul Rom. 9.4 of Jesus Christ viz. that He is over all God Blessed for evermore And in the first Chapter of that Book speaking of those words of our Saviour John 17.3 wherein he calls the Father the only true God Crellius has these express words For neither do we hold that Christ is by vertue of these words wholly excluded from true Godhead Crellius of one God the Father p. 4. I quote their own English Translation I am not for Persecution no not of the Socinians I disallow not of a modest Representation of their Opinions or of the Reasons why they embrace not the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation Heresies are often the occasion to clear the truth it self But in so Sacred Articles it becomes all Persons to use modest Expressions especially those who want not only present Authority but are confessedly contrary to the Voice of the Catholick Church for more than Twelve Hundred Years and most of all since the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation are in their Primary Conclusions the express words of Scripture Christ is called God says Crellius John 1.1 and Rom. 9.4 I doubt not that Crellius himself would have condemned with the greatest abhorrence the stiling of Christ a false God a God of Mens devising There can need no Apology to vindicate the Mysteries of the Christian Religion when they are thus barbarously attacked I have this to plead for my self and my own Hypothesis that as the Socinians confess so I verily believe that it was the Eaith of the Nicene Fathers and embraced by the most learned Fathers of the Greek Church from Athanasius to Damascene and so far as I know to this day Nor do I know that there is one Expression in the Articles of our Church that is not fairly reconcileable with it I have the same Plea in reference to my Second Part my Exposition of the Article of the Unity of God that it is of the Ancient Fathers they are both Venerable for their grey Hairs All I pretend to is only my weak Endeavour to set these two Ancient Expositions of the Articles of the Unity of God and the Trinity in a fairer Light to prove that they are very consistent one with another and liable to no just Exception by a Socinian After all I adjure my Reader that he will not judge of the truth of this Article by the strength of my Defence My Hypothesis may be true I only faulty in the explication of it Or if my Hypothesis of the Modus of this Unity be disallowed the Article concerning the Unity it self stands firm upon the Expressions of Scripture On my self let all the shame of any mistakes fall But let the Truth of God be unshaken and the Gates of Hell never prevail against the Faith of the Church the Faith I mean of one God and three Divine Persons He the Reverend Dean tells us That Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved That the Nicene Fathers did not understand the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Numerical but of a Specifical sameness of Nature or the Agreement of things Numerically different from one another in the same common Nature This is the First Part whether the Ancient Fathers asserted a Specifical Sameness Unity Identity of Nature or a Numerical Unity or rather a Singularity of the Divine Nature The Dean quotes two very learned Persons Petavius and Dr. Cudworth and tells us that they have proved the Specifical Unity of Nature to be the Opinion of the Nicene Fathers nay that they have abundantly proved it Had two such able Judges of Antiquity barely said it it would have weighed very much with considering Persons But the Dean tells us that they have not barely said it but proved it abundantly proved it which cannot be otherwise understood than that they have quoted several Sayings of the Nicene Fathers which plainly and undeniably evince abundantly prove this to have been their Judgment This was very full to the Dean's Design to prove that three Divine Persons are three Infinite Minds that is that the Nicene Fathers judged them so For I dare say p. 215. l. 10. that no Man besides himself will deny That three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Specifically one if not by an higher degree of Unity No one who understands the meaning of the terms can deny that this term Infinite Mind is predicated of three Infinite Minds as a Species is predicated of its Individuals No one surely will say that three Infinite Minds differ Specie or in their definition If three Finite Minds are Specifically one are one in Specie such an Unity or an higher cannot be denyed to three Infinite Minds Again according to his own Argument a Specifick Unity implies a multiplication of the Nature And since all acknowledge that each Divine Person is an Infinite Mind if their Unity be only a Specifick Unity according to
the Animadvertor they are three Infinite Minds in the highest sense The Animadvertor charges the Phrase of three Infinite Minds with the grossest Tritheism it immediately and unavoidably infers three Gods Preface pag. II. The Reverend Dean pleads the Authority of the Nicene Fathers that they had said as much nay more than he they had asserted a Specifick Unity of the Trinity which in the Animadvertor's Judgment implies a multiplication of the Divine Nature that is three Infinite Spiritual Natures whereas three Infinite Spirits in the bare Phrase implies no more than that there are three possessing one Infinite Spiritual Nature Now I presume if the Dean or rather if Petavius and Dr. Cudworth were not mistaken the Animadvertor will abate something of his Confidence he will hardly have brow enough to say That the Notion of the Trinity which the Nicene Fathers advanced was a silly Heretical Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring three Gods The same Request I make to all my Orthodox Readers that they will be pleased to lay aside their Prejudice against the Admission of a Specifick Unity in the Trinity till this Historical Truth be fairly determined The Nicene Fathers Judgment is not indeed the Rule of our Faith but it deservedly demands a Veneration from all Modest and Pious Christians and is infinitely to be preferred before the bare Authority of the Schoolmen or Moderns The Animadvertor Answers n. 3. p. 174. lin 16. I must confess my self very unfit to take such great and truly learned Persons to task and that upon comparing this Author the Reverend Dean and Petavius together I find much more Reason to believe that he mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers If the Animadvertor is unfit to take two such learned Persons to task why does he contradict their Judgment Why does he call it a traducing misrepresenting the Fathers Why does he so confidently aver That the Fathers never mark that word never used the Example of three or more individual Men agreeing in the same Nature as a parallel instance of the same sort or degree of Unity He should have added p. 175. lin 5. of Nature with that which is in the three Divine Persons The Fathers never believed indefinitely universally the same Unity betwixt Humane Persons as betwixt the Divine Persons nor is that the Question but whether they believed the same Unity of Nature betwixt the latter as is confessedly betwixt the former A Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature if we for once only suppose such an Unity has quite different Consequences from what a Specifick Unity of a created Humane Nature implies which yet alters not the Unity of each Nature Well but the Animadvertor has compared the Dean and Petavius May I ask him why he did not also consult Dr. Cudworth He gives him a Complement in the foregoing Lines his Piece is not so rare but it might easily have been procured He was a Protestant Divine a Person of great and deserved Repute for Learning and Skill in Antiquity and which is more gives judgment against himself He himself embraces the Platonick Hypothesis which infers a Generical not Specifical Unity of the Trinity He lays a very severe charge to this Notion of a Specifick Unity It seems plain that this Trinity of St. Cyril and such who believe a Specifick Unity is no other than a kind of Tritheism and that of Gods independent and co-ordinate too The Platonick and Nicene Hypothesis of the Trinity both agreed in this that the common Divine Essence was an Universal They differed in this that the Platonists held the Divinity to be a genus and consequently capable of admitting degrees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the distinct Divine Persons The Nicene Fathers held the Divinity to be a Species capable of no degrees of no essential degrees but that Father Son and Holy Ghost are perfectly equal touching the Godhead in the words of the Athanasian Creed The Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is all one the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal I say the Testimony of this learned Person is of the more weight as being against his own Judgment We naturally in such cases weigh the words of an Author with more exactness when his Authority makes against us than when it agrees with us Him therefore we have left us as an unanswered Witness What does the Animadvertor say to Petavius Has the Reverend Dean misrepresented Petavius or not Why does not the Animadvertor speak plain Why does he keep a muttering between his Teeth That he finds more reason to believe that the Reverend Dean mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers We want a categorical Answer whether Petavius did represent a specifick Unity of the Trinity to be the meaning of the Fathers and if he did so whether in so doing he mistook their meaning and sense This question which was too hard for the Animadvertor I will answer for him but I cannot promise to his good liking The Reverend Dean did not mistake the meaning of Petavius as might be proved from innumerable places of Petavius I shall content my self with two only Petav. l. 4. de Trin. cap. 7. S. 2. In hoc uno Graecorum proesertim omnium judicium opinionesque concordant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est essentiam sive substantiam sive naturam quam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocant generale esse aliquid commune ac minimè definitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verò proprium singulare circumscriptum Ibid. c. 9. S. 1. Again Antiquorum plerosque dicentes audivimus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive naturam commune quiddam esse multis quod universale vocant Hypostasim verò idem atque individuum sive singulare These words are capable of no Evasion Petavius in express terms declares that according to the Judgment of all the Greek Fathers the common Divine Essence is Generale quippiam as opposed to singulare is commune quiddam multis quod Vniversale vocant Thus Petavius as well as the Reverend Dean takes in the subject before us Common Nature and Specifick Nature to be all one Had the Animadvertor consulted the seventh and ninth Chapters of this fourth Book of Petavius concerning the Trinity he could neither have doubted of Petavius's Judgment nor well of that of the Ancient Fathers Well the Animadvertor has a Refuge for himself if Petavius has given his Judgment against him in the immediate following words n. 4. But however I shall lay down this as a Conclusion which I take to be undoubtedly true p. 174. ib. viz. That the Ancient Fathers as well the Nicene as those after them held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature That is in other words They held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This Conclusion I hold and have good reason to believe that neither Petavius nor Dr. Cudworth shall be able to
is justly esteemed by all the Moderns who follow the Schools one of the difficultest Objections against the Faith of the Trinity viz. that if three Humane Persons have three singular Humane Natures and consequently are so many Men why three Divine Persons should not also infer three singular Divine Natures and consequently be three Gods And the Answer that the School men and Moderns give is that the case is vastly different that the Unity of three Humane Persons is only Notional the Unity of the Divine Persons strictly real The Animadvertor himself p. 300. can tell you of a better Allusion and Similitude to the Union of the three Divine Persons The Vnion of Vnderstanding Memory and Will as one and the same Soul One simple Being with three Faculties is a nearer resemblance of one simple Being under three Relations than three simple Beings n. 6. But let us hear the Animadvertor himself explain this Argument p. 175. à minore ad majus If several individual Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature much less could this be said of the three Divine Persons To which I answer First Does the Animadvertor really believe that three Men cannot properly be said to have more than one Nature or not If he believes it What will become of his Objection that a Specifick Unity implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals What becomes of that famous Passage of his P. 270. that Substantiis Consubstantialibus will neither be Truth nor Sense I suppose he will not deny that several individual Men are Substantioe Substances in the plural Number nor yet that Consubstantialibus signifies of one Substance of one Nature I intreat him to answer this Question Are several Men Consubstantial or not Is Christ according to his Humanity Consubstantial with us Men or not Will he dare to say that the whole Catholick Church has neither spoke Truth nor Sense For the whole Church has ever professed a Belief of Christ's Consubstantiality with us Men. If the Animadvertor shall plead that it was the Sense of the Fathers that three Men could not properly be said to have more than one Nature even that is sufficient for my purpose who am now enquiring only into the Judgment of the Fathers This is sufficient ad Hominem to the Animadvertor but for my Reader 's fuller Satisfaction I answer to the Point that so far as this Allegation is true 't is Impertinent and that so far as 't is pertinent 't is false 'T is an acknowledged Truth that the strictest Union that can be betwixt Humane Persons is but a resemblance an Allusion to that inseparable incomprehensible Union betwixt the Divine Persons But this is not the question concerning the Union of the Divine Persons indefinitely but concerning the Unity of their Nature The Fathers maintained that the Unity of the common Divine Nature was of the same kind and degree with the Unity of the common Humane Nature There is certainly a greater Union betwixt two Humane Persons who are dear and intimate Friends than betwixt two who are mortal Enemies There is a greater Union betwixt two Saints in Heaven than betwixt the best Friends on Earth And yet two mortal Enemies have the same Unity of Nature with the Saints in Heaven The Union of the Saints in Heaven is by our Saviour himself resembled to the Union of the Father and the Son John 17.22 That they may be one as we are one But these words no more denote an illimited equality than those other words of our Lord Matt. 5.48 Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect denote an equality in Perfection If we suppose three unbegotten unproduced Divine Persons three Fathers I cannot see how we can deny such to be Consubstantial since we acknowledge three Angelical Persons to be of one Nature and Substance yet three unbegotten Divine Persons three Fathers are to all the Ancient Fathers three Gods They did not therefore believe that a Specifick Unity was the only Unity of the Divine Persons that they were one upon no other account but if we can know their meaning by their words they did certainly believe a Specifick Unity And this I perswade my self the Animadvertor's Heart misgave him n. 7. He therefore comes in with a third Salvo p. 176. That he does not in the least deny but several Expressions may have dropped from the Fathers which if we looked no further might be drawn to a very inconvenient Sense That is in plain English several Expressions have dropped from them which assert if we look no further a Specifick Unity What from those Fathers who never alledged this Example as a parallel Instance but always used it by way of Allusion or à minore ad majus It seems the Animadvertor's always and never will bear an exception What Salvoe has he for this He gives it us in the following words But then also it is as little to be deny'd that the same Fathers professedly and designedly treating of the same Points here declared themselves in such terms as are very hardly if at all reconcileable to those occasional and accidental Expressions And therefore since their meaning cannot be taken from both it ought much rather to be taken from what was asserted by them designedly than what was asserted only occasionally Now it is well contrived to take the conclusion for granted he is to prove It seems that the Animadvertor would have things come to that pass that we must take his bare affirmation of a thing for a proof of it Petavius Dr. Cudworth the Reverend Dean of St. Paul's have asserted the quite contrary they have already equivalently denied it and the Animadvertor gives us his own ipse dixit that it is little to be denied Again the Animadvertor pretends no more than a difficulty or a doubt whether these designed expressions may not be reconciled to the occasional expressions The Animadvertor makes an if of it to him these latter are hardly if at all reconcileable with the former which is no great wonder since he believes tribus substantiis consubstantialibus to be neither truth nor sense since he believes a numerical Unity absolutely inconsistent with a Specifick Unity Lastly Why is the conclusion stronger than the premises Why does he make the conclusion positive Their meaning cannot be taken from both is the conclusion whereas the premises mentioned only a difficulty or a doubt They are hardly if at all reconcileable The Animadvertor was I believe n. 8. in some measure sensible of the weakness of these answers and therefore He provides a fourth Salvoe Ib. p. 176. viz. that the Orthodox Writers of the fourth and part of the fifth Century were chiefly exercised with the Arian Controversie And the Arians would not allow so much as a specifick Unity of Nature between the Father and the Son but instead of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sameness held only an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
of Persons or denies a true Generation then a Singularity of the Divine Nature forbids a Plurality of Divine Persons and denies a true Divine Generation c. But a Singularity of Nature in Created Persons or Beings certainly confessedly forbids a Plurality of Persons possessing the same Singular Nature is certainly inconsistent with a true Generation therefore a Singularity of the Divine Nature forbids a Plurality of Divine Persons denies a true Father and Son The Animadvertor would quickly tell me that this was a weak Sophism to argue from a consequence in finite Nature to the same in the Divine Nature And I desire to be informed why I may not make the same reply to his Objection from the consequence of a Specifick Unity in finite Nature Again I do not positively contend for a nice strict Specifick Unity of the Trinity but for such a Transcendental Unity which in our imperfect Conception of things is either a Specifick Unity or else wants a name in our present Metaphysicks I have the same Plea of the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Nature of the Mysteriousness of this Sacred Article which is given by the Moderns to the Socinian Objections against the Singularity of the common Divine Nature n. 14. This is sufficient to answer the Animadvertor but because it will give occasion to Vindicate the ancient Fathers from the mis-representations of the Moderns I shall also consider the Minor Ib. p. 183. As for the Minor Proposition That a Specifick Unity of Nature consists with and implies a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals which it belongs to I refer him to all the Logicians and Metaphysicians who have wrote of Species and Specifick Unity of Idem Diversum whether they do not give this account of it Our Animadvertor is very confident of his Point He refers to all the Logicians and Metaphysicians who have wrote of Species and Specifick Unity c. But his confidence in quoting all is only the more remarkable since I do not know one single Logician who ever determined for the Animadvertor indeed this Question is not proper for a Logician but this is not the first time the Animadvertor has confounded the two Sciences of Logicks and Metaphysicks and thereby given us a Proof that He understands neither This is the common Definition of a Species in Logicks Species est id quod de pluribus differentibus numero tantum hoc ipso quid est predicatur That which may be predicated of many differing only in number in answer to the Question what each single Individual is I never met with one single Logician who ever changed this Definition of Porphyry into pluribus natura differentibus who ever affirmed that a Species may be predicated of many differing in Nature I shall ask the Animadvertor whether Father Son and Holy Ghost differ in number or not Or how they can be said to be three if they differ not in number He must contradict all Authority both Ancient and Modern if He shall deny that this term God is Essentially predicated of Father Son and Holy Ghost that is in answer to the Question what is the Father or the Son or Holy Ghost I desire the Animadvertor to consider this Point carefully before He determins that this term God is not a Species at least in our imperfect Conception of things since the Definition of a Species agrees to it Lib. 1. Senten Dist 19. I find since that he learned this of his Master Petrus Abelardus Genebr Resp ad Schegkium pag. 121. Damas lib. 3. de orth Fide c. 6. lib. 1. c. 9. Peter Lombard is so far as I can find the very first Person who ever scrupled the Phrase that the Divine Persons differ in Number The most Learned of the Greek Fathers audacter liberè illa vocula utuntur in distinctione Personarum says the Learned Genebrard and quotes St. Basil Justin Martyr Nazianzen Epiphanius Cyrillus and Justinus Imperator Damascen is quoted by Peter Lombard His words are remarkable to my purpose so I shall give them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Hypostases or Persons are said to differ in Number and not in Nature So the same Damascen speaking of Adam Seth and Eve says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They differ not in their Nature for they are all Men. Again lib. 3. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As Peter and Paul are not Numbered in what they are Vnited or one For being Vnited or one in the same Reason of Nature they cannot be called two Natures But differing in Hypostasis lib. 3. c. 6. they may be called two Hypostases More fully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For every Essence is common to all the Hypostases contained under it and there is not to be found any Particular or Singular Nature or Essence otherwise it were necessary to call the same Hypostases Consubstantial and yet of a different Essence As also to call the Holy Trinity of the same and of a different Essence according to the Divine Nature Wherefore the same Nature is beheld in every distinct Hypostasis If Damascen were now alive He could scarce deliver his Opinion more clearly According to him there is no such thing as a Particular or Singular Nature And no Philosopher ever dream'd that the Universal Specifick Nature was Multiplied in the distinct Hypostases This was his judgment which is what we are chiefly inquiring into The learned Damascen adds his Reason For that if we allow a Singular Nature in each distinct Hypostasis the same Hypostasis must be both Consubstantial and not Consubstantial which to him was an Absurdity in Philosophy Secondly if we allow a Singular Nature in each distinct Hypostasis we must also allow it in the Sacred Trinity the Divine Persons must be Consubstantial and not Consubstantial which latter is Arianism Tritheism the worst of Heresies Wherefore the same Essence says this learned Father is in every single Hypostasis The learned Damascen knew no way to avoid the consequence in the Sacred Trinity if he allowed it in a Trinity of Human Persons which is to me a Demonstration that He esteemed the Unity of Nature in both instances Parallel And whether Damascen was mistaken in his Philosophy or not it manifestly appears First That we cannot argue from his Assertion of the Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature that He disbelieved a Specifick Unity of the same Nature He believed not a Multiplicity of Human Nature in Human Hypostases where there is confessedly a Specifick Unity His denial therefore of a Multiplicity of the Divine Nature in the Divine Hypostases is no Argument that He believed not a proper Specifick Unity of the common Divine Nature Vnitas Formalis is common with the Moderns either to Vnitas Vniversalis or Vnitas Individualis as the Form may according to them be either Universal that is the Specifick Form or else a Singular or Individual Form And every Unity is an Arithmetical Numerical Unity the
bare Phrase of it self therefore is not inconsistent with a Specifick Unity even according to the Moderns and much less with the Ancients according to whose Philosophy a Specifick Unity implied a strictly Numerical Unity of Nature in all the several Individuals It is an easie thing to say That the Ancients were mistaken in their Philosophy but not so easie to overthrow the learned Damascen's Reason viz. That then properly two Human Hypostases would not be Consubstantial Vrsin Expli Cate. Quest 33 n. 4. p. 196. This Conclusion the learned Vrsinus embraces Duo homines sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui tamen non sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But this is contrary to the Language of all Philosophers contrary to himself who a little before Determins that Christ Ib. Quest 33. p. 183. secundum humanam naturam habet multos fratres ejusdem naturae according to his Human Nature had many Brothers of the same Nature or Consubstantial Again the Definition is justly supposed to contain the Essence of any thing but a true and proper Definition contains only the Genus and Difference that is only the Species If we ask what is James or Peter We answer by the Difinition or Species that each of them is a Man or animal rationale but if according to the proper Rules of Philosophy the Essence of Peter and James is Singular We ought to add Singulare to animal rationale that is We must confound what is Personal in Peter and James with what is Essential the Notes of Singularity with the Genus and Difference A Second Corollary I shall deduce from the Philosophy of the Ancients in this Point is n. 15. That their denying Peter James and John to be properly called three Men is not so great a Paradox as some of the Moderns represent or rather mistake it They never doubted whether Peter James and John had three Souls and three Bodies they never denied them to be three distinct Substantial Beings three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is three Subjects in which the common Humanity did subsist they believed them properly three Hypostases which is all the vulgar mean by three Men The Debate is solely about a Phrase whether Peter James and John are more properly called three Hypostases in one Human Nature or three Men. The Former Phrase even the Moderns allow as also they confess that all Concrete terms such as Man is do Primarily signifie the Form and Secondarily assignifie the Subject in which such form subsists Thirdly the School-men themselves give this Rule concerning Deus Creator Dominus c. that because the Form signified by those Concrete terms cannot be Multiplied neither Deitas vis creatrix nor potentia Dominatrix are according to the School-men capable of Multiplication therefore neither are the Concrete terms Deus Creator Dominus capable of a Plural Predication Now by the same Rule this term Man ought not to be Plurally Predicated since according to the Philosophy of the Ancients Humanity the Form was not Multiplied in the several Human Hypostases Nor see I what a School-man can reply upon his own Principles save his own ipse dixit that the Ancients were mistaken when they asserted that Humanity was not Multiplied in the several Human Individuals For my own Part I esteem this one Reason why thase terms Deus Creator Dominus c. are not Multiplied but neither the sole nor chief Reason of the Singularity of their Predication nay further That the chief Reason why the Fathers of the Church from before the Nicene Council have Religiously observed a singular Predication of those Attributes is by no means applicable to the term Man in respect of several Human Hypostases so that I can very well comply with common Custom which calls Peter James and John three Men and yet believe that Father Son and Holy Ghost ought not to be called three Gods three Creators three Lords but this belongs to my Second Part of the true Notion of the Unity of God n. 16. A Second thing I shall crave leave to observe is that the School-men themselves that is the chief Leaders of them Thomas and Scotus were not averse to this Philosophy of the Ancients in immaterial Beings they determining that the Angelical Nature was not capable of Multiplication in the several Angelical Persons and consequently that the several Angels differed Specifically and that there could not according to some even by the Omnipotence of God be created two Angels in the same Species This several of the School-men thought more Eligible than to Parallel the Unity of the Divine Persons with Angelical Persons Common Custom Authorising the Phrase of different Angels as well as of different Men. The Foundation of this Assertion of the Schoolmen concerning the impossibility of different Angels within the same Species arose from their belief that Matter was the sole Principle of Individuation which is now generally disapproved However from Hence a fair Reason appears why none of the School-men embraced this notion of the Ancients of the Specifick Unity of the Trinity Si ergo Angeli non sint compositi ex Materia forma sequitur quod impossibile sit esse duos Angelos unius Speciei Aquin. sum Quest 50. they thought such Unity impossible between immaterial Persons and it was down-right Arianism to assert a Specifick Essential difference betwixt Father Son and Holy Ghost and a worse Heresie to assert that Father Son and Holy Ghost had Bodies A Third thing I shall crave leave to observe is That Philoponus the famous Ring-leader of the Tritheit Hereticks was the first of the Ancients who asserted that a Specifick Unity implied a Multiplication of the said Nature in the several Individuals of the same Species n. 17. and that consequently not only three Human Persons had three distinct Human Natures which according to the Antients was an Error in Philosophy But also the three Divine Persons had three distinct Natures For which uncouth Phrase of three Natures in the Trinity and not for holding a Specifick Unity of the Trinity were Philoponus and his followers Stiled Tritheit Hereticks Philoponus himself as I believe His followers more certainly if we may Credit Eulogius were nearer Sabellius than the Faith of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eulogius Photii Biblioth Cod. ccxxx p. 879. to me has cleared this obscure Part of the Ecclesiastical History These Monophysitae Hereticks these Tritheist Hereticks for both these Heresies are charged upon Philoponus distinguished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt Nature and Essence and none but some of the Maddest asserted three Essences in the Trinity but only three Natures But the Othodox esteeming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as equivalent gave the Name of Tritheit Hereticks to both Otherwise those who distinguished betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were so far
1690 when the Reverend Dean published his Vindication of the Trinity And the second Edition of his Animadversions are printed in 1693 viz. That none then opposed the Reverend Dean's Notions most over-looked them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too this truly is the Case and by those some he especially understood the then Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Animad p. 361. so that this is a meer Complement if not as a Friend hinted put in in hopes of more Preferment Secondly This Article that there is but one God is an Article properly of Natural not the Christian Religion The Christian Religion does repeat and acknowledge it This Article is the Foundation of the Christian Religion and not a Foundation laid by the Christian Religion of which Distinction in my second part when I come to explain the Unity of God Thirdly That Proposition that there is nothing in God but what is God is true without his exception of a Mode which the Animadverter intends by his Parenthesis but the whole relates to the Simplicity of a Divine Person and not of the Trinity Fourthly There is no Composition in the Trinity not because there is no Plurality in the Trinity for then there could be no Trinity but because Father Son and Holy Ghost are not parts nor any ways analogous to component parts of God but each distinct Divine Person is as compleatly perfectly God as each distinct angelical Person is a compleat perfect Angel Fifthly the Christian Religion does declare not only that there is but one God but also that there are three to whom distinctly mark that word distinctly the Godhead does belong which is in other Words that God is one and three neither of which Articles are to be contradicted Sixthly Heb. 1.3 was not the Warrant why the Church stiled Father Son and Holy Ghost by the Title of Persons the term in that place is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hypostasis and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Person secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in the singular not plural Number The Enquiry is not whether Father Son and Holy Ghost be each an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether they be Hypostases in the Plural Number thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in that very place from before St. Jerom's time in all the Authentick Translations of that Epistle so far as I know till Beza's Translation constantly renderd by substantioe Substance fourthly The place it self requires this Translation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies there not the Person of the Father but something which the Father in our Conception hath See Petav. lib 6. de Trin. cap. 6. per totum The Son is not the Image of his Father's Subsistence in the Sense of the Animadverter that is of his Paternity but of his Father's Substance or Nature Hypostasis answers to Glory by which is certainly meant the Father's essential Glory fifthly The Fathers who in their private Comments expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Person as our Translation also renders it did it to express a further Similitude between the Father and Son viz. That the Son is a Person as well as the Father which is a true Exposition but perhaps not intended in this place however it overthrows the subtleties of the Schools that the Relations constitute each a Person for then the Son could not be the Image of the Father in Personality as he is not his Image in Relation is not a Father but a Son Sixthly And stated their Personalities upon three distinct Subsistences allotted to one and the same God-head First This is a secondary and less principal Enquiry about which there would be little or no difficulty if the great difficulty in this Controversie were first determin'd viz. What the three Divine Persons are A Person in this sacred Mystery is that to which the ternary Number belongs Three Persons as a late Reverend Author expresses it are three Somewhats Anim. p. 120. three Relatives says the Animadverter Agree but what we must add to Somewhats to Relatives and there needs not a word to determine what the three Personalities are If we say with the Ancients three Hypostases that is three Substances and neither St. Augustin St. Hierom nor St. Hilary knew any other Sense of the term Hypostases Every compleat Substance is a Suppositum and has a proper Mode of Subsistence and then there is no more difficulty in conceiving three Hypostases to have three Modes of Subsistence than for the Socinians or Jews to explain how God whom they believe one Person one Hypostasis has one Mode of Subsistence Secondly To allot three Modes of Subsistence to one and the same singular God-head is quickly said but it is such a Choke-pear that the several Parties of the scholastick Tribe have not known how to swallow 1. The Foundation of it is a Mistake viz. a false Translation of that noted Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that Phrase signifies not as the Schoolmen from their ill Translations mistook it modes of Subsistence in the Abstract but the Modes or Properties of the subsistent Being or Person in the Concrete this Phrase signifies not the personal Forms or Personalities but the Properties of the Person already constituted which two differ as a Form and an Adjunct Personality is the Form a personal Property is an Adjunct and supposes the Person already constituted and formed Justin Martyr or rather the Author under his Name whom our Animadverter quotes Anim p 252. after those remarkable words so often imitated by the succeeding Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Terms unbegotten begotten proceeding are not Names of the Essence but Properties of the subsistent Being or Person and before that latter place viz. that these Terms are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not denoting the Essence but signifying the Hypostases or Persons Hypostasis signifies the Person in concreto and not the Subsistence in abstracto as the Animadverter has falsely translated it I say that Author has in the middle between these two places a Passage that undeniably evinces the Sense of the Phrase in Dispute That Author illustrates the former Phrase by the example of Adam whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose personal Property was to be immediately formed by the Hands of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Formation of Adam gives us his personal Property for it declares how he was produced I believe the Animadverter himself will not have the Confidence to pretend that the Formation of Adam by the hands of God was the Personality of Adam that which properly constituted Adam a Person but only a Property of Adam considered in our Conception as already constituted This Sense of the Phrase was undisputed in the learned Damascen's time Damas lib. 1. de ortho fide cap. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore all things that the Father hath are also his that is the Son 's
except Innascibility or the property of being unbegotten which notifies not a difference of Essence or a different essential Dignity but a personal Property even as Adam being unbegotten for he was immediately formed by God and Seth begotten for he was the Son of Adam and Eve proceeding out of the side of Adam for she was not begotten differ not in Nature for they are all Men or human Persons but in a distinct personal Property These words need no Comment Seth's Birth and Eve's Procession of the Rib of Adam are not their Personalities not their Modes of Subsistence but their personal Properties not that which constituted them Persons but that which distinguished them in our Conception one from another that which constituted them distinct Persons one from another Besides the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not of it self capable of any other Interpretation to be unbegotten a negation See Ch. 2. n. 10. can never be the Father's Mode of Subsistence his Personality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Animadverter is a term not importing in it any positive Relation but only a meer Negation of all Producibility by any superior Principle Anim. c. p. 248. This term therefore cannot signifie causally and consequently not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here stiled contrary to the Animadverter's Observation I acknowledge to the Animadverter that every Person Ibid p. 250 251. and consequently the Divine Persons are formally constituted such by a Mode of Subsistence or what we are obliged to conceive of as a Mode of Subsistence that is each distinct Person has a distinct Mode of Subsistence and the three Divine Persons have in our Conception three distinct Modes of Subsistence Nay I will add further that I believe that no Man who understands the meaning of the term Hypostasis and uses it without Aequivocation will or can deny any part of this The Reverend Dean expresly acknowledges this truth A Beast is a Suppositum Vind. of the Trinity p. 262. that is a distinct living subsisting Being by it self But I do here deny to the Animadverter that the Ancient Fathers did ever assert that the Divine Relations were in this proper formal Sense Modes of Subsistence or that That Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to the Divine Relations and much more when applied to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was by them understood in the proper formal Sense of which we are now enquiring Secondly If the Animadverter could get over the first Difficulty Anim. c. p. 120. he would find a second behind how one simple Being which is the Animadverter's Hypothesis of the Trinity can have three Modes of Subsistence The whole School of the Thomists and Scotists assert an absolute essential Subsistence and consequently one Subsistence of the whole Trinity they esteem the three Divine Persons to be unum subsistens unum suppositum aut personam incompletam says Cajetan one of the most famous Commentators upon Aquinas to which Suarez only replies Suarez de incar q 3. Act. 1. disp 11. S. 5. p. 285. Cavendus est hic loquendi modus utpote alienus à modo loquendi conciliorum Patrum Theologorum that is have a care lest Hereticks hear us and take advantage at such a novel Expression otherwise Suarez finds no fault with the Doctrine and indeed to say That Existence or Subsistence by it self is Relative is a contradiction to the very Phrase Subsistence by it self denies all relation to any other So that according to the Thomists and Scotists the three Personalities are not three Modes of Subsistence not three Subsistences but one essential absolute Subsistence with three Relations or three relative Modes or three Modes of Incommunicability But of this I have already spoke Chap. 1. n. 11 12 13. Thirdly To allot three Subsistences to the God-head is to contradict the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Properties are not Names of the Essence of the God-head but of the Persons The God head does not properly subsist but the Divine Persons subsist Cajetan may inform the Animadverter what is the consequence of ascribing Subsistence to the God-head even the same with calling it a suppositum or incompleat Person where the term incompleat is only added to avoid the grossness of the Phrase otherwise they ascribe all the Divine Acts to this unum subsistens unum suppositum and call them essential Acts whereas the Notion of Philosophers is that actiones non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attribuuntur that Actions ought not to be attributed to the Nature but to the Person endowed with such Nature The Person is the principium quod Nature only the principium quo the power by which the Person acteth The School-men retain in words the personal Acts of the Divine Persons that Generation is the personal Act of the Father Incarnation the personal Act of the Son Sanctification the personal Act of the Holy Spirit Active Spiration the personal Act of the Father and Son But these are meer words Generation according to the School-men is the reflex Act of the Divine Understanding whereby it knows it self and this singular individual Act they ascribe in common to Father Son and Holy Ghost So every thing that is an Act in Incarnation is according to them the Act of the whole Trinity they pretend indeed that the same singular reflex Act of the Divine Understanding only generates as it proceeds from the Person of the Father and that the Incarnation is only terminated upon the Person of the Son But what Pretence to invent for Sanctification I do not find that they are yet agreed The sacred Scriptures give Sanctification for the distinguishing Character of the third Person he is so called in the very Form of Baptism to deny this distinguishing Character was Sabellianism to the Ancients Yet this the School-men have undeniably done in the Act of Sanctification The Maxim of the Ancients was that Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa They have not only misconstrued indivisa for confusa but in reality left out the Exception ad extra and confounded the Actions ad intra as well as those ad extra So Spiration to the School-men is that Act of the Divine Will whereby it loves it self and this singular individual Act they also ascribe to the Holy Spirit equally with the Father and the Son Only say they The Divine Will 's loving it self is not Spiration in the Person of the Holy Ghost but only in the Person of the Father and Son How much better is it with the Ancient Fathers to confess these to be inscrutable Mysteries than to expose the sacred Article by such bold and abstruse Definitions and yet these are the Gentlemen whom the Animadverter commends for venturing little for preceding upon the surest grounds of Reason and Scripture Again Sanctification which the divinely inspired Writings give us as the peculiar
Ancient Fathers denied them to have one simple subject Vt visum est Sabellio sed diversitatem illam multiplicitatem in subjecto esse reverà To assent to the ternary number to be only in the Modes or Properties is the Sabellian Heresy the Catholick Faith is that there are three Persons as well as three Personalities three Subjects of the Divine Relations It is no contradiction that the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same Subject should be Father and Son the contradiction is that the same Subject should be Father and Son to it self These Properties cannot have relation to the same Subject Otherwise they are consistent in the same Subject in the same Person in the same finite Person the same Man is both Father and Son The Divine Person of the Son according to the Western Church is produced himself and doth produce the Holy Spirit which are opposite Relations as well as Paternity and Filiation But the contradiction vanishes since those opposite relations respect distinct Subjects He is produced by the Father he doth produce the Holy Spirit This therefore is the principal enquiry in this sacred Article what is the Subject of Paternity not what is Paternity that is but a secondary Article of less moment what is the Subject of Filiation not what Filiation is What is the Subject of Procession not what Procession is in other words what is the Father what is the Son what is the Holy Ghost The Subject of Paternity is not the Subject of Filiation for then the Father would be the Son Nor is the Subject of Procession the Subject either of Paternity or Filiation for then the Holy Ghost would either be Father or Son or both To say that the Divine Nature is the Subject of Paternity Filiation and Procession is not only contrary to the Ancients who assert these Properties not to be the Names of the Essence but renders the Sabellian Heresy impossible to be confuted since an infinite Person is as capable of sustaining these three distinct relations as an infinite nature and makes one and the same Subject Father and Son to it self lastly contradicts our formal conception of these sacred Articles The Divine Nature is according to our conception the essential Form of the Divine Persons is predicated of the Divine Persons in obliquo Father Son and Holy Ghost have each of them the full whole and entire Divine Nature in them We are enquiring what it is which may be predicated in recto of them and which may be multiplied with them what is the Subject to which the essential form in our imperfect conception of these things is joyned and which we conceive as the proper subject of the Divine Relations And after the strictest enquiry I can make no better Answer than the Church has done before me Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Hypostases three Substances when that term is not understood as equipollent with Essence three infinite Substances so say the Schoolmen only they add Relative three infinite spiritual Beings which is all the Reverend Dean understood by three infinite Spirits That is that they are not three Faculties or Affections of one Being but three proper Beings Both Accidents and Modes are affections of Being And moreover P. 242. l. 5. n. 7. as every Mode essentially includes in it the Thing or Being of which it is the Mode so every Person of the Blessed Trinity by vertue of its proper Mode of Subsistence includes in it the God-head it self and is properly and formally p. 293. the God-head it self as subsisting with and under such a certain Mode or Relation This is a very fruitfull Period of Paradoxes A Mode according to the Animadverter is an Abstract not concrete Term to be understood as a simple Form as the Affection of a Being as Himself defines it p. 31. and not a Being affected The Concrete of a Mode includes the Being as well as the Mode Album includes the Thing that is white as well as whiteness but Album is not formally the Mode not Whiteness but that which has Whiteness the subject of Whiteness Whiteness the Affection the Mode is an Abstract and by the Term abstracts from the Subject Secondly The Father is Essentially God by his Nature this all confess but who ever said that the Father is Essentially God by his Personality by his Paternity Thirdly There can be no such Heresy as that of Sabellius if every Mode of the Deity essentially includes the Deity the Rankest Sabellianist never denied that Father Son and Holy Ghost signified three Modes of the Deity Fourthly I cannot but ask this great Master of Language why he uses those Terms its and it speaking of a Divine Person He was pleased to condemn this Language as improper and absurd when used of Human Persons Anim. c. p. 341. is there more respect due to Human Persons than to Divine Persons Had it been any fault to have expressed it thus So every Person of the Blessed Trinity by vertue of his not its proper Mode of Subsistence includes in Him not it the God-head it self Far be it from me to pretend to be a Critick in Words or Phrases I rather crave the Reader 's even the Animadverter's pardon for much greater slips than this However 't is some comfort that I find Homer Himself may nod sometimes P. 242. l. 17. n. 8. And accordingly as these Relations are three and and but three so the Persons of the God-head to whom they belong are so too viz. Father Son and Holy Ghost Some Persons take a priviledge to speak and write what they please The Animadverter might almost as well have said that the Persons of the God-head are but two as that the Relations are but three Nothing is more notorious than that there are four Relations in the Trinity if the Relation of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father inferr two Relations there can be no shadow of pretence why the Relation of the Father and Son to the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son should not make two more P. 243. There are says the Animadverter four internal Acts Generation Filiation Spiration Procession though by the By two of these are not Acts but Passions viz. Filiation and Procession upon which the Divine Relations are founded and from which they flow And in the same Page puts the Objection That four Relations inferr four Persons which he endeavours to solve in the following Words That is one Difficulty and unanswerable upon the Animadverter's Principles that one singular Divine Nature is the Subject of these four Relations The Second is What this Relation of it self is whether a Mode or not an infinite relative Substance or not The Schoolmen are obliged to confess this a Property of a Person already constituted and not a Mode of Subsistence Whereas if with the Ancients we assert the Divine Persons to be three substantial Beings three Hypostases
second Substance So says Thomas Aquinas in his own quotation Anim. p. 272. Hoc nomen Hypostasis apud Graecos significat tantum substantiam particularem quoe est substantia prima sed Latini utuntur nomine substantioe tam pro primâ quam pro secundà P. 249. lin 24. n. 13. The word Subsistentia being by them looked upon as barbarous and not in use St. Augustin manifestly derived Substantia from Subsistere St. August lib. 7. de Tr. cap. 4. and in that Sense translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet argued against the Plurality of the Phrase Nam si hoc est Deo esse quod subsistere ita non erant dicendoe tres substantioe ut non dicuntur tres essentioe Si autem aliud est Deo esse aliud subsistere sicut aliud Deo esse aliud Patrem esse vel Dominum esse relativè ergo subsistet sicut relativè gignet relativè dominatur Ita substantia non erit substantia quia relativum erit Sicut enim ab eo quod est esse appellatur essentia ita ab eo quod est subsistere substantiam dicimus absurdum est autem ut substantia relativè dicatur omnis res ad seipsum subsistet quanto magis Deus Nothing is more evident than that St. Augustin thought relativè subsistere to be a great Absurdity which is his Objection against the Phrase of three Hypostases and also three Persons that they signified absolutely Ibid. cap. 6. yet the Animadverter has the Confidence to quote St. Augustin p. 267. As stating the divine Personalities upon Relation for founding Personality in and upon something relative Nor on the other side P. 249. lin 29. n. 14. would the Greeks acquiesce in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor admit of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of falling thereby into the contrary Error of Sabellius I doubt not that the Sabellian Heresy was the cause why the Greeks were not content with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they did not refuse to admit of the Phrase but thought it alone insufficient but required afterwards either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Pet. lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. S. 9. N. 15. I. that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are three kinds of Sabellianism The first is the most common the confounding the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which was otherwise called the Patri-passian Heresy which asserts That Father Son and Holy Ghost are only three Names or three Offices of one Person and consequently that the Father suffered this is properly the Heresy of Noetus and not of Sabellius Sabellius Petav. lib. 1. de Trin. cap. 6. S. 5. says Epiphanius expresly denied the Father to suffer However the Latin Fathers scarce knew any other Species of Sabellianism which with Submission I conceive to be one cause why they are less accurate in treating of this Mystery than the Greek Fathers II. A second Species of Sabellianism is the Contraction of the Trinity to the single Person of the Father acknowledging the Father to be a true proper Person asserting the Word or Son to be not strictly and formally the Person of the Father but an Attribute of the Father His personal Wisdom in the same Analogy as Wisdom is an habit of Man in like manner asserting the Holy Spirit to be the personal Power of the Father This Sabellius himself embraced and explained the Trinity by the Similitude of the Body of the Sun its Light or Ray and its Heat The first Epiphan Hoer 62. he resembled to the Father the second to the Son the third to the Holy Ghost this the ancient Fathers called Judaism that is such a Trinity which a Jew would own and by the same reason it may be stiled a Socinian Trinity No Socinian in this Sense will scruple a Father Vide Sti. Basilii Ep. 64. a Word and an Holy Spirit A third Species of Sabellianism is the compounding the Divine Persons which is contrary to a Confusion of them this asserts a real distinction betwixt the Divine Persons but then it makes Father Son and Holy Ghost to be as three parts of some whole Petav. Addenda ad Tom. 2. de Trin. p. 866. So Petavius varius à seipso discrepans videtur Sabellius fuisse ut interdum personas tres quasi partes alicujus totius esse diceret ut ex Epiphanii loco colligitur Petavius undoubtly alludes to that other Similitude of the Trinity mentioned by Epiphanius Epiphan Haer. 62. That the Trinity was by Sabellius sometimes compared to the Body Soul and Spirit in one Man These three are but one Hypostasis These three are Co-essential Parts of one Man which possibly moved Sabellius to invent this Hypothesis to have an evasion to assert in some Sense an Homoousian Trinity Vide Pet. lib. 1. de Tr. cap. 6. S. 3. This kind of Sabellianism was by some of the Fathers called Atheism This Hypothesis in reality ungodding Father Son and Holy Ghost Not the Body alone or the Soul alone or the Spirit alone but all three conjoyntly are one Man so not the Father alone or Son alone or Holy Ghost alone but all three conjoyntly are God whereas the Catholick Faith is that each distinct Person is God The Father is God the Father the Son is God of God the Holy Spirit is in the Language of the Church God the Holy Ghost See both these kinds of Sabellianism condemned by Athanasius in his Oration contra gregales Sabellii Now the Phrase of three Hypostases is contrary to all the Forms of the Sabellian Heresy Of the first there is no doubt the second is as plain to be an Hypostasis and to be an Attribute are inconsistent and contradictory So also to be an incompleat Part a component Part and an Hypostasis are inconsistent It is essential to an Hypostasis to have totale attributum to be a compleat and perfect whole so the Words of the first Article of the Augustan Confession quoted by the Animadverter p. 278. Et utuntur nomine personae ea significatione qua usi sunt scriptores Ecclesiastici ut significet non partem aut qualitatem sed quod propriè subsistet That which properly subsists can neither be as a Part of any Whole nor as a Quality or Attribute of any Being The Scripture says the Reverend Dean of St. Paul s Im sure represents Father Son and Holy Ghost Vindication of Trinity p. 66. as three intelligent Beings not as three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is downright Sabellianism The very Dreggs of Sabellianism as I take it worse than Sabellianism for as the Reverend Dean adds Faculties are not Persons no nor one Person neither A Million of Faculties and Attributes will not make one Person A Million of Qualities will never make one Substance and a Person is a Substance
are not levelled against the Fundamental Truth of this Article the true Divinity of each single Person and their real Distinction but against the particular Hypothesis of the Schools the Singularity of the common Divine Essence these Objections are of no force against the Nicene Hypothesis and therefore we meet not with them in the Writings of the Ancients of the most learned Defenders of the Orthodox Faith against the Arians The Sophistry of those few Socinian Objections which remain appeared no less evident to me and I doubted not by God's Grace to be able to make them appear so to any unprejudiced Reader that is I doubted not by God's Assistance satisfactorily to any unbyass'd Person to reconcile the Nicene Hypothesis and the Article of the Unity of God I was fully perswaded that I could clearly answer all the Socinian Harangues of Nonsense and Contradiction which they so confidently charge upon this Article of the Trinity and thereby reduce the debate to this single Question Whether the Article be revealed or not The Article of the Trinity will still be a Mystery that is it will still be unfathomable to us Why there were a Trinity of Divine Persons neither more nor fewer How God an immaterial Spirit can generate or beget a Son Why but one Son Why the Holy Spirit is not also a Son Wherein his Procession differs from Filiation The Oeconomy also of the Divine Persons will be a Mystery How Father Son and Holy Ghost concurred to the Creation of the World In what manner they jointly acted in the natural Kingdom of Providence How they will govern after the surrender of the mediatorial Kingdom of the Son of God In these and the like Questions did the Ancient Fathers place the Mystery of this sacred Article in these the Nicene Hypothesis that I mean which I propose as the Nicene Hypothesis still places an unsearchable Mystery The Schoolmen can decide you these with the greatest ease if you believe them with the greatest exactness but then instead of these which they pretend to solve they have given us many others ten times more difficult These Mysteries claim express Revelation for their Foundation viz. That God has an only begotten Son and a Blessed Spirit proceeding from him That God the Father made the Worlds That the Son laid the Foundations of the Earth That the Spirit moved upon the Face of the Waters at the Creation For these we have the Authority of the Ancient Fathers these are manifestly Difficulties only in the Modus we cannot indeed tell how they can be nor can the Socinians prove that they cannot be And I hope these great Adorers of Reason the Socinians will esteem God's Word a sufficient proof for an Article of Faith against which they have no solid Objection at least I presume they will pardon the Orthodox if they take not the Mysteriousness of an Article for an Objection against the truth of it but this will be more proper when I have finished my Second Part which relates to the Article of the Unity of God which if God grant Life and Health and Ability shall be performed with all convenient speed To God the Father Almighty and his Eternal Son and ever Blessed Spirit be all Honour Praise Glory Dominion and Power now henceforth and for evermore Amen FINIS BOOKS Printed for and are to be Sold by William Rogers ARchbishop Tillotson's Sermons and Discourses in 4 Vol. 8 vo Discourse against Transubstantiation 8o. alone Price 3 d. stitcht Persuasive to frequent Communion in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 8 vo stitcht 3 d. 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Trinity Genebrard justifies the Phrase of Three Infinite Minds Of the Phrase of Three Gods 70 N. 5 6. Whether God and Infinite Mind are Terms equipollent 72 N. 7. Of the Animadverter's Answer to the Objection of Polytheism from the Assertion of Three Divine Persons Three Relatives not one simple Being under Three Relations 73 N. 10. Whether the Ternary Number belongs only to the Personalities 78 N. 11. Whether the Divine Nature sustains Three Modes of Subsistence 79 N. 12. Of the Phrase of Three Substances N. 13. Whether two Substances necessarily differ in substance Of Bellarmin's Orthodoxness in relation to this Controversy 80 N. 16. Whether one Infinite Mind can be Three Infinite Minds In what sense the Trinity One God 82 N. 18. Of the God of the Heathens and Jews In what sense God Three Persons 83 N. 19. In what sense the Father is the only True God 85 N. 20. Of the Father's being the Fountain of the Deity 86 CHAP. V. N. 1. WHether the Ancients believed the Divine Persons to be Intelligent Beings 89 N. 2. How the Son is the Wisdom of the Father Of the Particle of in this Mystery God of God Whether Three Persons infer Three Gods 90 N. 3. Whether the same Wisdom can be both unbegotten and begotten 92 N. 4. Of the Distinction of the Divine Persons 95 CHAP. VI. N. 1. OF a double Care in Mysterious Articles What is fundamental in this Mystery Three Hypotheses concerning the Trinity In what sense I affirm the Universality of the Common Divine Essence Of the Blasphemy of the Modern Socinians compared with the Ancient Socinians Of the Antiquity of both parts of my Hypothesis 96 N. 2. Petavius and Dr. Cudworth's Assertion That a Specifick Unity of the Trinity was the dogma of the Nicene Fathers considered as to its Historical Truth and vindicated from the Animadverter's Exceptions 102 N. 10. The same discussed Problematically betwixt the Animadverter and my self 118 N. 12. How far a Specifick Unity is notional 119 N. 13. Whether a Specifick Unity implies a Multiplication in the several Individuals Lombard the first who denied that the Divine Persons differ in number Two Corollaries 1st That a numerical Unity and a specifick Unity are not according to the Philosophy of the Ancients inconsistent 2dly That it was no such Paradox in the Ancient Fathers to deny that three Human Persons ought to be called three men as it is commonly esteemed 121 N. 16. The Principles of Individuation according to the Schoolmen 128 N. 17. The Opinion of Philoponus and the Tritheit Hereticks 129 N. 18. How far a Multiplication of the Divine Nature may be allowed 130 N. 20. Whether the term Deus be a Terminus Communis 131 N. 21. The Divine Attributes no Modes 132 N. 22. Of the Animadverter's definition of the nature of God 138 CHAP. VII N. 1. SCripture the only Rule of Faith 139 N. 2. The Unity of God an Article of natural Riligion Heb. 1.3.141 Not the Warrant of Three Hypostases 142 What Three Personalities are Of the Subtleties of the Schools in relation to Three subsistences Of the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 143 The Trinity one Suppositum to Cajetan 217. The Godhead sustains not the modes of Subsistence 218. Of Personal acts according to the Schoolmen 219 N. 3. A Deity diversified Whether the Personalities are Modes 223 N. 4. Whether Modes in God Modes according to the new and old Philosophy 150 N. 6. Three Modes not sufficient to explain the Trinity The principal inquiry in this Mystery what the Three Persons are 155 N. 10. Of Real and Modal Distinction Whether the Divine Persons differ Modally 159 N. 11. Whether Personality is a personal property 161 N. 15. Three kinds of Sabellianism Confusion of Persons Contraction of the Deity to the single person of the Father The Compounding of the Trinity 163 N. 18. Rufinus acknowledges trinitatem in rebus 167 N. 19. Boetius for the Universality of the common Divine Essence N. 20. Peter Lombard 168 N. 21. Thomas Aquinas N. 22. Of a Relative subsistence and a subsisting relation The Conclusion Containing a summary Account of the whole 170 AN ANSWER TO THE ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE Vindication of the TRINITY c. By way of LETTER to the Animadverter SIR I Make bold to follow your own Example and offer the following Papers to your Admirers your self and the late Socinian Historian and Considerer This last Person has given us his judgment Considerations of the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity c. P. 12 13. That you are the only Writer since the revival of these Controversies who has indeed understood what the Church means by a Trinity in Vnity that your Explication is a true and orthodox Explication of what the Church intends to say That your design being only to declare and explain the Doctrine of the Trinity that is to notify in what sense and manner 't is held by the Church In reference to such design We this great Author and his Party the English Socinians must say That his Performance is an accurate and learned Work Thus this Socinian Historian like a Second Celsus pretends to know all the poor Orthodox are able to say in Defence of the tottering and falling Ark Ibid. p. 20. as he Blasphemously calls the Doctrine of the Sacred Trinity You you Sir have without question laid down the very Explication of the Schools Ibid. p. 4. the Doctrine or Explication generally received in Vniversities which he doubts not would be approved by most of the Chairs of our European Vniversities or Schools of Learning you verily have acquitted your self like a Man of Learning and Wit All must bow before you but his own greater Self In your Person he slays his ten thousands When Goliah is defeated the Philistines must fly This Euge concludes that Pamphlet Ibid. p. 35. And indeed he this Considerer and all others that have laboured in this Controversy may surcease their Pains henceforth and leave what they have already said to the Judgment and Conscience of all considerate and sincere Men. How much you are an Admirer of your own performance may be more than surmized from several Passages in your Book and especially from your scornful treating of your Reverend and Learned Antagonist In your Preface you tell us That you neither Reverence nor Fear him and in the same Preface you charge him P. III. With defying the Church with so bold a Front P. II. with being so very Rude Scandalous and Provoking P. IV. that it is impossible for the Tongue or Pen of Man to reply any thing so severely upon him which the foulness of his Expression will not abundantly warrant both the speaking and writing of And in the same page with peculiar Modesty you call his Vindication Stuff if his Stuff should live so long Nay not content with this Censure upon his own Person you add in the same place concerning the Governors of
our Church whom you vouchsafe only the bare Title of Church-men to None then opposing them The Reverend Dean's Notions concerning the Trinity most overlooking them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too This is truly the Case Is not this in your own words To throw your Scurrility at high and low Preface p. III. at all about you and below you at an unsufferable rate Is this the Character of so Learned and every way Excellent a Clergy not to oppose most to overlook nay some to countenance and advance the Author of the worst of Heresies Tritheism it self You explain your self p. 361. when you call the late Learned and Worthy Archbishop of Blessed Memory his Great Lord and Patron whom you here designed by those words and advancing the Author for them too I need add but one place more at present p. 379. where you tell the Reader how thin a Bottom the Reverend Dean has to support him But it seems Coward-like in my apprehension to accuse the Reverend Dean as a Person of so thin a Bottom and yet immediately in the same page to declare That if any one besides him shall attempt an Answer to your Discourse you shall not in the least trouble nor concern your self about him whosoever he be You mean probably that you will not in Print Answer any such Discourse but it is not always in our power to avoid being troubled or concerned However if that will do you any kindness I design not an Answer to your Animadversions so far as they are personal betwixt the Reverend Dean and your self The Reverend Dean needs not so weak a Pen as mine to defend him His own is best able to chastise you if that Learned Person were not better imployed more to the Glory of God and the Service of the Church of England If the Novelty of the phrase of three infinite Minds startled many of our Clergy I do assure you That yours of three Modes has displeased more not one whom I have had the honour to consult but are better reconciled to three infinite Minds since the reading of your eighth Chapter than they were before They believed the Article without enquiring into the Modus But if they must determine the Modus if they must chuse to profess three infinite Minds or only three Modes The former is an intelligible Notion There is a difficulty indeed how to reconcile this with the Article of the Unity of God but the latter is to most meer Metaphysical Cant. They believe and can readily understand that each distinct Divine Person is an infinite Mind from whence the Consequence lies fair that three distinct Divine Persons are three distinct infinite Minds But they cannot in the least comprehend how a Divine Person can be a Mode which you expresly affirm p. 121. A Person here in this Mystery imports only a Relation or Mode of Subsistence c. My design is by God's assistance to vindicate this great Article of a Trinity in Vnity against the Socinians The Church by God's Providence has overcome the Arian Heresy a much more subtle Heresy than that of the Socinians which perswaded me that treading in the steps of the Ancients was the best way to defend the Orthodox Faith at present It was a great surprise to me in my Enquiry to find 1st that those things which at this day are esteemed as the greatest Objections against this Sacred Article had a quite different import in the Judgment of the Ancients 2dly That all these Subtilties which the Schools have taught us in this Mystery were utterly unknown to Antiquity nay in many of them the direct contrary Conclusion most expresly maintained by the Fathers of the Church 3dly That the Subtilties of the Schools were little studied by the Moderns these Animadversions were no small confirmation of this point the Animadverter having in so many places and in the most material Articles not understood the Hypothesis of the Schools which yet at the same time he would be thought to embrace and shelter himself under 4thly That the Article of the Trinity is safe without recurring to the Scholastick Subtilties I am very sensible that to clear all this is a difficult Province and I heartily wish this Lot had fallen to an Abler Hand I am so conscious of my own Defects that nothing but Zeal for that Eternal Truth of this Article in the Belief of which I hope to be saved could have tempted me to expose my self and my own Deficiencies to the Censure of the world It often pleases the Divine Providence by weak means to bring to pass great effects If it shall please his Infinite Wisdom to use so weak an Instrument as my self to illustrate this great Truth or at least to incite by me some Abler Person to adorn this Great Mystery as it deserves To God and his Great Name be all the Glory and I shall then sit down contentedly joyfully with the Shame which any Mistake or Error of mine may bring to my self The Faith of the most Learned Fathers of the Church if I aright apprehend them that Faith at least which I embrace and propose is That the Extra Scriptural Terms used by the Church in this Great and Sacred Article viz. Trinity Person Hypostasis Consubstantial Essence are to be received and understood in the most proper native and genuine Sense of those Terms that is in the same Sense in which they were understood when by the same Fathers they were applied to Angelical or Human Persons And this I conceive in Sense to imply no more than what the same Fathers declared concerning the following Scriptural Expressions viz. That Father Son Spirit Begotten Proceeding Son of God Spirit of God Begotten Son of God c. are to be properly expounded and not in some improper uncouth figurative or Metaphorical Sense I shall divide my Design into Two Parts In the First I shall endeavour to give an Account of all the Metaphysical Terms used in this Mystery and as far as is necessary of the Subtilties which the Schoolmen have introduced in their Explication of them and this I have chosen to do by way of Animadversion upon our Animadverter from a double Reason First in relation to himself to convince him if possible of his Barbarous Treatment of a Worthy and Reverend Person for barely venturing on a new Expression in a Vindication of this Sacred Article The Piety of the Design with all Candid and Ingenuous Lovers of the Article would have attoned for a much greater Erratum Three Infinite Minds or Spirits is capable of an Orthodox Exposition even in the mouth of a Schoolman However the Animadverter of all persons ought to have been silent or the last to have found fault with it who has so often been guilty of greater Slips both in Philosophy and Divinity Secondly In relation to the Socinian Historian who by his Commendation of the Animadversions has adopted them for his own
and from his own words is bound to defend them for an Acurate Account of what the Church and Schools have taught in this Mystery or else confess that he has opposed possibly forsook the Faith of the Church and Schools before he understood either In my Second Part I intend to enquire more carefully into that uncontested Article of The Vnity of God especially since I am verily persuaded that most of the Subtilties not to say Perplexities wherewith this Article of the Trinity is too often obscured arise from want of a just stating of that First Article of Natural Religion the Unity of God It will be an ease both to my Reader and my self to divide my First Part into Chapters and numbred Sections and be more ready in case of any occasion of Reference or Comparison My design will also apologize for me if I sometimes take occasion to digress much farther than a bare Answer to the Animadversions seems to require since my desire is to bring as far as I conveniently can all Metaphysical or Nice Disputes into this First Part that my Second Part may be more suited for the use of those persons who are less acquainted or less delight in these Terms of Art I also crave leave to acquaint the Reader that for the avoiding of unnecessary Disputes I judge it sufficient at this time to reduce the Question to what is owned and professed on both sides As for instance Both Jews and Socinians acknowledge one Divine Person Both also acknowledge God's relation to his Creatures If therefore the Divine Relations within the Trinity are capable of the same Solution with the Relation of God to his Creatures I mean in respect of their Real Existence that sufficeth for my purpose So if the Suppositality of Three Divine Persons be capable of the same Solution with the Suppositality of One Divine Person whether that Suppositality be a Mode or Negation I need not in my present Design strictly determine CHAP. I. Animadv c. chap 2 p 30. 2d Edition N. 1 BUT because the Subject I am about to engage in is of that nature that most of the Metaphysical and School-Terms hitherto made use of by Divines upon this occasion will naturally and necessarily fall in with it I think it will contribute not a little to our more perspicuous proceeding in this Dispute to state the Import and Signification of these Terms Essence Substance Existence Subsistence Nature and Personality with such others as will of course come in our way while we are treating of and explaining these c. The Method is extremely judicious and ought to be commended but if we state the Import of these Terms falsly or imperfectly we shall obscure and perplex our selves and our Readers instead of assisting them to understand things more perspicuously The simple Faith of this Sacred Article to pious and docible minds needs not any of these Metaphysical or School-terms accordingly the divinely-inspir'd Writers have used none of them But the subtle Equivocations and Objections of the Arians on one hand and the Sabellians on the other together with the great Veneration paid to the Conclusions of the Schoolmen in this Mystety have made it necessary to enquire into the just signification of these and other School Terms and Distinctions N. 2. And here first of all according to the old Peripatetick Philosophy which for ought I see as to the main Body of it at least has stood its ground hitherto against all assaults I look upon the division of Ens or Being a summary word for all things into Substance and Accident as the Primary and most Comprehensive I see no necessity from this Mystery to concern our selves with this Metaphysical Dispute Whether Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance The Ancient Fathers denied any Accidents in God or in a Divine Person because God was immutable whereas an Accident potest adesse aut abesse sive subjecti interitu is separable from its Subject is changeable So St. Augustin lib. 5. de Trin. cap. 4. Nihil itaque accidens in Deo quia nihil mutabile aut amissibile But not one of them so far as I can find ever gave this Metaphysical Reason that it would compound God or a Divine Person of two Beings All the new Philosophers who are neither a small nor contemptible Body of Men explode this Division of Ens they do all deny that Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance Ens is not Vnivocum but Analogum to Substance and Accident that is an Accident is not properly a Being but Analogous or like to a Being not properly Ens simpliciter but Ens entis an affection of Being Lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 9. S. 15. p. 391. rather than a Being Accidens saith the Learned Petavius proprie non est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affectio quaedam Sola vero substantia esse dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocatur Transubstantiation as I verily believe first persuaded the Schoolmen to teach That Accidents are distinct Beings from Substance as being capable to exist separate from Substance Nay this monstrous Doctrine cannot persuade the new Philosophers of the Romish Church to believe these real Accidents they rather chuse to affirm that God by a perpetual Miracle causes the appearances of Bread and Wine to all our Senses than to acknowledge that Accidents are distinct Beings from the Substance they affect Aristotle himself appropriates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence to Substance if therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are Relatives if that only be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Being which hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Essence nothing but Substance according to that Philosopher can be such P. 31. N. 3. As for Substance I define that to be a Being not inhering in another c. A Division rather than a Definition of Substance is necessary in this Mystery Aristotle divides Substance into first and second Substance And it is no such contemptible Enquiry as possibly the Animadverter may imagine whether the Ancient Fathers of the Church when they so often say that Father Son and Holy Ghost are of one Substance are not to be interpreted of a second Substance P. 31. N. 4. Accident I define a Being inherent in another This I have already spoken to N. 2. P. 31. N. 5. But now besides these two Terms of Substance and Accident there is another assigned by Logicians Metaphysicians and School-men called a Mode of Being viz. such a thing as Being added to another does not make any addition of another Being or degree of Being to it but only restrains and determines it c. All the new Philosophers deny real Modes equally with real Accidents Nor can I see any necessity to recur to such a nice Metaphysical Debate to explain this sacred Mystery Neither Jews nor Socinians fly to this Metaphysical Notion to explain the Suppositality of One
the Trinity say the Schoolmen is not therefore a Father because he generates but therefore generates because he is a Father Fifthly Filiation constitutes the Son formally a Son that 's not the question But does Filiation constitute the Son a Person that is the thing in debate and which the Animadverter ought to have proved Sixthly The very Personal Subsistence of these Persons implies and carries in it a formal Relation This is not sufficient to imply a Relation to carry in it a Relation except the Animadverter means that the Personal Subsistence is it self a Relation Again Subsistence in relation to a productive Principle which is all the Relation the Animadverter here mentions is a quite different thing from Personal Subsistence Every Human Person subsists relatively in Relation to God his Creator but what is this to his Personality This does not denominate an Human Person relative in his Personality The Son and Holy Spirit relate to the Father as their productive Principle but how does this prove them Relative Persons It is certain That to be a Father P. 101. lin 3. N. 4. is a Relative Subsistence A Father as understood in this Mystery viz. as implying the property of being unbegotten can have no Relation to a productive Principle A Father has indeed a Relation to a Son but the natural Order of conceiving things obliges us to conceive of a Person as subsisting before we can conceive him capable of the Act of Generation or of the Relation of a Father The Schoolmen therefore call this not a thing certain and evident but a Mystery and confess that unless the Father be so denominated antecedently to his Act of Generation it is impossible that the Father's being a Relative Subsistence or Person should be so much as true And having said thus much from the Animadverter concerning this Subtilty of the Schools viz. the Relativeness of the Divine Persons in their Personalities give me leave to consider it more generally And first it is no small prejudice with me against the Scholastick Subtilties that in this material Article all Antiquity for above a thousand Years have affirmed the quite contrary viz. that to be a Person is an absolute Attribute Petrus Abelardus Peter Lombard Council of Trent examined and disproved c. p. 79. August lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 6. Hugo de St. Victore who first shewed the way to School-Divinity saith the Learned Bishop of Worcester all agreed with St. Augustin That Pater dicitur ad se persona that the Father was absolutely and not relatively called a Person Indeed St. Augustin has given us an unanswerable Argument against this Assertion of the Relativeness of this Attribute of being a Person in this Sacred Mystery August lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 6. If to be a Person be a Relative Attribute as to be a Friend is then according to the nature of all Relatives the Father when denominated a Person must be defined by his Correlate and so of the other Persons that is to say that this Phrase viz. The Person of the Father cannot signify the Father but the Son And this Phrase viz. The Person of the Son cannot signify the Son but the Father for so it is in all other Relatives The Friend of James cannot be James but must be Peter or some other Person This is a just Consequence of this Scholastick Subtilty I need not note the Paradoxicalness of it To which I add as an Argument ad homines to the Animadverter and those who follow the Schools That to be a Person is as common to Father Son and Holy Ghost Animadv p. 113. as to be God is common to the Three If therefore this be a sure Rule that whatever Attribute is communicable is absolute to be a Person will be an absolute Attribute Si enim tres personae commune est eis id quod persona est St. August lib. 7 de Trin. cap. 4. as certainly communicable And they strain very hard to maintain this Scholastick Subtilty who deny that this Attribute of being a Person is common to Father Son and Holy Ghost save only in Name or aequivocally and yet this is a just consequence of asserting the Relativeness of this Attribute That which drove the Schoolmen to this novel and unintelligible Subtilty shall be considered hereafter P. 101. N. 5. Argument III. If Self-Consciousness be the formal reason of Personality in the Three Divine Persons then there is no repugnancy in the Nature and Reason of the thing it self but that there might be Three thousand Persons in the Deity as well as Three P. 102. lin 1. c. Because this repugnancy if there be any must be either from the nature of Self-Consciousness or from the Nature of the Godhead But it is from neither of them For first there is nothing in the Nature of Self-Consciousness to hinder its Multiplication c. Nor in the next place is there any repugnancy on the part of the Godhead that Three thousand Self-Conscious Spirits should subsist in it any more than that Three should For the Godhead considered precisely and abstractedly in it self and not as actually included in any Person is as able to communicate it self to the greatest number as to the smallest This is an old Socinian Objection and were it of any force it would conclude universally against the Faith of Three Divine Persons viz. that if we once acknowledg a plurality of Divine Persons we can give no reason why we stop at the number Three we might equally assert Three thousand as well as Three For to suppose a Socinian retorting the Animadverter's own Argument against himself If Three distinct Modalities or Modes be sufficient to constitute Three Divine Persons then there is no repugnancy in the Nature and Reason of the thing but that there might be Three thousand Persons in the Deity as well as Three Because this repugnancy if there be any must be either from the Nature of a Mode or from the Nature of the Godhead But it is from neither of them for first there is nothing in the Nature of a Mode to hinder its Multiplication into never so great a number of particulars but that there may be Three thousand or Three millions of Modes as well as Three Nor in the next place is there any repugnancy on the part of the Godhead that Three thousand Modes subsist in it or be sustained by it any more than that Three should For the Godhead considered precisely and abstractedly and not as actually included in any Person is as able to communicate it self to the greatest number of Modes as to the smallest Now there is not a surer sign that an Author does not understand the Subject he writes upon than his bringing an Objection which is so plainly and easily retorted upon his own Hypothesis The Animadverter cannot answer this Objection in the mouth of a Socinian but in the same words he will answer himself The Faith of
conditions he there mentions But there is one thing here especially to be noted that several Expressions are rejected by the Fathers of the Church not that they are absolutely uncapable of an Orthodox sense but because they are apt to lead to a false or Heritical sense as for instance In Trinitate datur alius alius sed non aliud aliud The rigid'st of the School-men allow aliud aliud suppositum in Trinitate the Axiom is understood of aliud in an Arian sense of aliud naturâ Again If ever it be lawful to use a new Phrase in this Mystery it will then be lawful when the antient allowed Phrases are rendred in a manner insignificant when three Persons are Expounded by three somewhat 's or are declared to be Metaphorical This seems to me to be the case of the Reverend Dean of St. Pauls by three Persons in this Mystery says he are to be understood three intelligent Beings Vindication of the Trin. p. 66. l. 24. three distinct Infinite Minds to say they are three Divine Persons and not three Infinite Minds is Heritical and absurd that is contains the Heresy of Sabellius and contradicts the Scripture which as the Reverend Dean observes represents Father ibid. Son and Holy Ghost as three Intelligent Beings not as three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is downright Sabellianism The Animadvertor laying hold on the Novelty of the Phrase of three Infinite Minds took occasion to Write and Publish one of the most spiteful and malicious Books that perhaps ever saw the Sun For he is not content to note That this is a Phrase difused by the Church but he calls it a silly Heretical Notion Pref. p. 3. ibib p. 2. solely of his own invention a notion immediately and unavoidably inferring three Gods and p. 376. a Monstrous Assertion by which he holds and affirms the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which I the Animadverter shew unavoidably and irrefragably inferr'd them to be three Gods Now that I may render these Papers more useful to my Reader I shall enquire into the reason why the Church refused several Phrases in this Mystery in what sense the same Phrase was allowed and in what other it was disallowed and more particularly have an Eye to the Animadvertor's Objections against the Phrase of three Infinite Minds It being certain both from Phylosophy and Religion P. 116. l. 5. n. 2. That there is but one only God or Godhead in which Christian Religion has taught us that there are three Persons It is ominous to stumble at the Threshold these two Terms God and Godhead are formally distinct and therefore ought not to be Confounded Every thing which may be affirmed of one of these Terms cannot with equal Truth and Propriety be always affirmed of the other The Christian Religion has taught us That there are Three Persons in the Godhead or in the words of the first Article of our Church in the Unity of the Godhead For the Unity of the Godhead and the Unity of the Trinity are equipollent Articles and there are certainly Three Persons in the Trinity in the Unity of the Trinity But if we take this term God as distinct from Godhead we can by no means say That there are three Persons in God or in one God The Christian Religion compels us to acknowledge that each distinct Person is God which would be impossible if there were three Persons in God For how can that Person be God which wants something which is in God for each distinct Person has not three Persons in him Hence the 11th Council of Toledo Nec rectè dici potest ut in uno Deo sit Trinitas with the Animadvertor's leave the Heretick Sabellius and not the Christian Religion taught this Article that there are three Persons in one God It had been to be wished P. 116. l. 12. n. 3. I confess That Divines had rested in the bare Expressions delivered in Scripture concerning this Mystery and ventured no farther by any particular and bold Explication of it But since the Nature or rather Humor of Man has still been too strong for his Duty and his Curiosity especially in things Sacred been apt to carry him too far those however have been all along the most Pardonable who have ventured least and proceeded upon the surest grounds both of Scripture it self and Reason Discoursing upon it Does the Animadvertor consider the import of those Words of resting in the bare expressions delivered in Scripture If I understand them they forbid the shortest Paraphrase they except not the most necessary Vindication of the Scripture Expressions from the false interpretations of Hereticks Again Is this the best Defence the Animadvertor can give for the Fathers of the Church who have not only exceeded the bare Expressions delivered in Scripture but expressed their Faith of this Mysterious Article by Sundry extrascriptural terms such as Trinity Person Hypostasis Substance Essence Consubstantial c. Was this only a wanton Humour in them an Humor too strong for their Duty a Curiosity which carried them too far Was this a fault and crime tho a pardonable one When it served the Animadvertor's design against the Reverend Dean these extrascriptural Terms were neither ambiguous faulty nor improper Animadv c. p. 147. l. 3. but much the contrary though now he condemns the Inventors of them as acting contrary to their Duty All are in some measure faulty even those who have ventured least those who have proceeded upon the surest grounds both of Scripture it self and of Reason discoursing upon it which I am satisfied is his own notion and not an over-wise one that we cannot escape a fault even where we proceed upon the surest Grounds not where we proceed upon the surest Grounds both of Scripture and Reason The Arians of old and the Socinians of late and some favourers of them or who otherwise occultum virus fovent in the words of Calvin have embraced some False and Heretical Notion of this Mystery are very angry with the extra scriptural Terms used by the Church in this Mystery But the Apology which the Nicene Fathers made for themselves was That the Arians and other Hereticks were the occasion of it these Hereticks Equivocated in the sense and meaning of the bare Scripture Expressions and the more ancient and simple Phrases of the Church so that the Church was obliged to use new Expressions to detect the Frauds of subtle and cunning Hereticks The Church chose not these Terms to express a new Faith by to say more than the Scripture had said but to say that in short which the Scripture had scatteringly delivered in several places And such I affirm the ancient Writers and Fathers of the Church Ibid. and after them the School-men to have been who with all their faults or rather infelicities caused by the times and circumstances they lived in are better
more properly a term equipollent and convertible with a Divine Person than with the term God As it is true that one and the same God or Godhead is common to p. 120. l. 6. n. 6. and subsists in all and every one of the three Persons so it is true that one and the same Infinite Mind or Spirit is common to and subsists in the said three Persons This Fallacy is easily answered One Godhead and one Infinite Spiritual Nature in abstracto is common to the three Persons The Animadvertor must prove that this Rule holds of one Infinite Spirit in concreto God the Father is not God the Son God the Father and God the Son are not the same God in Person or Personality in the words of the learned Petavius Petav. lib. 3. de Trin. cap. 9. S. 3. p. 282. Non est igitur Filius idem ille unus Deus qui Pater Can the Animadvertor believe that Petavius would have scrupled to say Non est igitur Filius idem ille unus Spiritus qui Pater The same one Godhead by being common to three Persons becomes Deus trinus in Personis in which Phrase Trinus agrees with Deus and not with Personis nor is it capable of that common but groundless Interpretation of Tri-une God is three and not tri-une in Persons Had Trinus ever signified tri-une which yet it never did to the Ancients nor by any Rules of Grammar ought it to signifie so now If it be here objected p. 120. n. 7. that we allow of three distinct Persons in the Godhead of which every one is Infinite without admitting them to be three distinct Gods and therefore why may we not as well allow of three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits in the same Godhead without any necessity of inferring from thence that they are three distinct Gods This Objection is every way to the purpose this is the Plea of the Reverend Dean To say they are three Divine Persons and not three Infinite Minds was what the Reverend Dean could not understand Secondly This is the great Objection of the Socinians three Humane Persons are three Men three Angelical Persons three Angels therefore three Divine Persons three Gods They esteem God and a Divine Person terms equipollent and convertible they esteem the Consequence from three Divine Persons to three Gods necessary immediate and unavoidable Not one Socinian who understands himself but will confess that he can as soon believe three Infinite Minds as three Divine Persons reconcileable with the Article of the Unity of God If the Animadvertor can give an Answer to this Socinian Objection from the Phrase of three Divine Persons which is not equally applicable to his own Objection against the Phrase of three Infinite Spirits I will yield him the Point he contends for One thing I must note which to me betrays the Animadvertor's fear I mean his not representing the Objection fair The Dean's Phrase is put down three distinct Infinite Minds why did he not equally say three distinct Infinite Persons Why must this last be expressed by a Circumlocution three Persons of which every one is Infinite How often has the Animadvertor used the Phrase of three Divine Persons which is the same with three Infinite Persons Is not this to make a distinction without a difference p. 120. n. 8. I Answer that the case is very different and the reason of the difference is this because three Infinite Minds or Spirits are three absolute simple Beings or Essences and so stand distinguished from one another by their whole Beings or Natures But the Divine Persons are three Relatives or one simple Being or Essence under three distinct Relations and consequently differ from one another not wholly and by all that is in them but only by some certain Mode or Respect peculiar to each and upon that account causing their distinction This Answer puts me in mind of a certain Respondent who being at a great loss cryed Nego id not determining whether it was the Major Minor or Conclusion which he denyed And I believe most Readers will be equally at a loss whether the Animadvertor applies this Answer to the Premises or Conclusion The Animadvertor's Argument against the Reverend Dean's Assertion of three Infinite Minds is this One Infinite Mind is one God therefore three Infinite Minds are three Gods The Socinians Objection mutatis mutandis the same One Divine Person is one God therefore three Divine Persons are three Gods The Consequence of each Argument the same viz. That three Infinite Minds three Divine Persons must be thrice what one Infinite Mind or one Divine Person is The Consequence is a Mathematical Conclusion that three of any kind must be thrice what one of the same kind is Will the Animadvertor deny the Antecedent that one Divine Person is one God Or will he deny that Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Persons This Objection depends not immediately upon the Relativeness or Absoluteness of a Divine Person If one Mode one Accident one Relation be one God how shall we avoid the Conclusion that three Modes three Accidents or three Relations are three Gods The force of this Answer if it has any must lye in this that there are not properly three Divine Persons the Divine Persons are not three as three Infinite Minds are three to speak the truth the ternary number belongs not to the Persons but to the Personalities to the Modes to the Relations We use the Phrase of three Relatives but we mean only three relations of one simple Being and with equal Justice the Animadvertor might have said that we use the Phrase of three Persons but we mean only three Personalities of one absolute Person The Animadvertor entirely begs the Question if he takes three Relatives and one simple Being under three Relations to be equipollent Adam had three relations of a Creature an Husband and a Father yet he is but one Relative A Relative is not the Relation but that which has the Relation the Subject of the Relation The Person of the Father is one simple Being God under two Relations of Generation and Spiration is therefore the Person of the Father two Relatives two Persons Again the Divine Persons are three Relatives Why did not the Animadvertor speak out Are they three Relative Substances three Relative Accidents or three Relative Modes Further Genebrard and the same I believe of the Reverend Dean would have told him that three Infinite Minds or Spirits have but one singular individual Spiritual Nature or Essence and therefore according to Genebrard three Infinite Minds differ no more than three Divine Persons Lastly the difference of the Divine Persons is not the difference of one simple Being under three Relations For one simple Being under one Relation cannot be simply denyed of it self under another Relation Adam the Father is Adam the Husband Adam the Creature the Person of the Father is the Spirator of the Holy Ghost though as he
wrest it from me I must put this into form and then the weakness of it will evidently appear The Argument of the Animadvertor is to this purpose If the Nicene Fathers held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more then they held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature and if they held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity then they could not hold a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity But the Nicene Fathers and those after them held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more c. that is A Numerical Unity of God infers a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons and a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons is inconsistent with a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature in the Divine Persons Now grant this last to be true in the Animadvertor's Sense what follows That the Nicene Fathers who held the Antecedent must also hold the Consequent By no means This indeed follows that they ought to have held the Consequent if they embraced the Antecedent not that they actually did It is a very weak Argument that such Persons embrace such a Conclusion because they hold such Premises from whence another believes that such a Conclusion does necessarily follow Secondly I must examine his Antecedent The Nicene Fathers held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This is ambiguously expressed The Nicene Fathers the whole Catholick Church holds and acknowledges one God and in what Sense God is one it is impossible he should be more For one and more than one are contradictorily opposed and therefore impossible to be verified of the same Subject in the same Sense But neither the Nicene Fathers nor the Catholick Church do so hold God to be one but they also hold God to be Three that is In a different Sense of the term God viz. God is Three in Persons that is When this term God is taken as equipollent with a Divine Person for undoubtedly the Catholick Faith is that there are Three Divine Persons The Jews Socinians Mahometans do indeed hold that there is but one Numerical God but one in Person that there is but one Divine Person but the Christian Faith is that Deus est unus Trinus Again The Numerical Unity of God does not determine the Modus of the Unity of the Trinity does not determine that there is a Trinity of Divine Persons and much less of what kind their Unity is Lastly It is a mistake though a common one that a Numerical Unity of the common Divine Essence and a Specifick Unity of the same Essence are inconsistent A common Essence must of necessity be Numerically One even in Three Humane Persons the Common Humanity the Species of Humanity is numerically One there is as strictly one Species of Adam Eve and Seth as there is one Person of Adam The Moderns indeed say that there are three singular Humane Natures of Adam Eve and Seth but it is a Contradiction to say that the singular Nature of Adam is common to Eve It is the Objection of the Animadvertor that a Specifick Unity in the Trinity would imply three singular Divine Natures in the three Persons of which afterwards But be that so still the common Divine Essence would be numerically One that is the Species of the Divinity would be but one or which is the same the common Divine Nature would be an Universal Petav. l. 4. de Trin. c. 13 14. This Observation alone will answer the greatest part of two Chapters wherein Petavius has endeavoured to impose upon his Reader as if the Nicene Fathers had believed a Singularity of the common Divine Essence whereas his proofs are only concerning a Numerical Unity of the common Divine Essence But there was a very good reason for the thing he was a Jesuit and those of his own Order and of his own Church would never have suffered his elaborate Work of the Trinity to have been published if he had not made a seeming Defence for the Faith of the Schools the Singularity of the common Divine Essence and that was impossible upon his Principles viz. The Authority of the Ancient Fathers he therefore shamm'd this of the Numerical Unity in the room of it St. Ambrose St. Augustin St. Hilary and others even of the Latin Fathers in express terms reject the Singularity of the Divinity There is one single passage of Maxentius which ascribes Singularity to the Divine Nature and another I have seen quoted from Anselm tending to the same purpose and these two are all I have ever met with which would have made a poor shew had they stood alone whereas for the Numerical Unity of the common Divine Essence Petavius might have transcribed half the Fathers but this I shall have occasion to mention again The Animadvertor's next refuge is n. 5. p. 175. lin 5. only his own positive ipse dixit that the Fathers always mark that word always alledged the Example of three or more individual Men agreeing in the same Nature either by way of Allusion or Illustration as it is the nearest resemblance of and approach to this Divine Unity of any that could be found in created Beings or else à minore ad majus To which I reply First that these two ways are really but one way what is only a near resemblance must in this debate be à minore ad majus Secondly The Animadvertor's Phrase is universal they always alledged it thus which supposes that not one single Father in any one single passage ever alledged it otherways and that the Animadvertor has examined every single passage and upon his own Experience finds it so Thirdly The Unity of three Humane Persons of three distinct proper Beings of three Substances of three Natures can never be the nearest resemblance of and approach to the Unity of one simple Substance or Being under three Relations An Unity that is barely Notional can never be the nearest resemblance of an Unity that is properly Real There are a thousand Instances in Nature of one simple Being under these Relations the single Person of Adam has three Relations The Animadvertor p. 167. calls it a jocular Argument an Argument fit to be answered by Laughter only to argue from three Humane Persons from Peter James and John to Father Son and Holy Ghost to the three Divine Persons yet here to serve a turn he acknowledges it to be the nearest resemblance of and approach to the Divine Unity that can be found in created Beings I am sure upon the Animadvertor's Principles I may well borrow the Poets words Risum teneatis amici since 't is in Sense as if he had said that three Substances is the nearest resemblance of and approach to one Substance that can be found in created Beings Fourthly This is so far from being an Argument à minore ad majus upon the Animadvertor's Principles that it
from believing three Gods that they did not as Eulogius there tells us believe that either Father Son or Holy Ghost were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly God and in the next words gives us their positive Faith that they esteemed the Personal properties to be the Persons themselves There may be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Personal property of what we conceive in the Nature of an Accident 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Aristotle appropriated to Substance Again a Personal property an Accident or Mode can never be properly God So that these Hereticks as the Church then judged them believed one Essence with three properties they believed these properties to subsist or to be Hypostases How near the Animadvertor comes to them when he tells us Animadv c. p. 121. Ibid. p. 275. that the ternary Number belongs only to the Personalities that a Person here or in this Mystery imports a Mode or Relation c. that the Relations subsist I leave to Himself upon cooler consideration Pholii Biblio Cod. ccxxx p. 866. If he desires to see these Notions confuted He may please to consult Eulogius in the same place where He will find that Eulogius thought them scarce in their Senses that could imagine a Relation or Personal property could subsist or be a Person I was the more willing to explain this obscure Heresie since this is the eternal Harangue of the Socinians that the Faith of three proper Persons was condemned by the Ancients in the Person of Philoponus when yet at the same time they confess that the belief of a Specifick Unity of the Trinity was the Faith of the Nicene Fathers which two Opinions are inconsistent that they should condemn that for Heresie the worst of Heresies in Philoponus which they esteemed Orthodox in themselves and their own Party n. 18. Fourthly and lastly Though I see no necessity of Multiplying the Divine Nature if we assert a Specifick Unity of the Trinity and less if we assert it in the Sense I only contend for that is for such a transcendental Unity which in our imperfect Conception of things must either be called a Specifick Unity or confessed to want a Name in our present Philosophy yet ex abundanti I am not afraid to declare to the Sociniuns that I would sooner acknowledge three Singular Divine Natures in the Trinity than deny the Faith of three Divine Persons A Singular Nature or Essence if we admit such a Notion in Philosophy is also a Personal Nature or Essence and whatever is Personal in the Divinity it self may be Multiplied nor have the Ancients sometimes scrupled the Phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor Petavius that of Trina Deitas no more than Trinus Deus and genita and ingenita sapientia c. is of the same Import All I will say at present of these and the like Phrases is that they are fairly reconcileable with the true Notion of the Unity of God and no ways contradictions to Reason that I know of Both which I hope to evince in my Second Part where I shall also endeavour to explain the sense in which the Ancients used these different Expressions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is evident that He the Reverend Dean makes Specifick sameness of Nature p. 186. lin 20. n. 19. and the Agreement of Things Numerically different in one and the same common Nature to signifie convertibly the same thing Well and what follows In this says the Animadvertor Ibid. He is guilty of a very great mistake by making those things the same which are not the same With the Animadvertor's leave the mistake lies wholly at his own door The Agreement of Modes Numerically different in one and the same common Nature and a Specifick sameness of Nature are vastly different But the Reverend Dean's words are the Agreement of Things Numerically different and it is the sense of all Philosophers that Things Numerically differing can only agree in one Specifick Nature The term Deus indeed is neither a Genus nor a Species p. 186. lin ult n. 20. Nevertheless all Divines and School-men allow it to be a terminus communis This great Dictator in Philosophy I find is yet to learn the first Rudiments in Logick A terminus communis in Logick is the same with a terminus Vniversalis with a terminus predicabilis and all Logicians I have had the Fortune to consult speak but of five Predicables Genus Species Differentia Proprium Accidens It is too great an absurdity for the Animadvertor to be guilty of to affirm that the term Deus is either Differentia Proprium or Accidens Besides that all the Arguments himself has brought against the Admission of a Specifick Unity of the Divine Nature are equally levelled against the Admission of the Universality of the common Divine Nature that is against this Assertion that Deus is a terminus communis Animadv p. 154. Essentia habet se per modum termini communis quia licet singularis sit tamen vere est in pluribus suppositis quare in praedicationibus fungitur munere vocis Vniversalis Bellarminus de Christo l. 2. c. 18. Well but do not all Divines and School-men allow it to be a terminus communis Shall I borrow his own words and answer that by this expression it would more than seem that He has read them all But by the conclusion that he has read none of them For not one single School-man or Modern who follow them do I verily believe allow this term Deus to be a terminus communis That famous Objection against the Faith of the Trinity which the Schoolmen and Moderns are so much concerned to answer viz. That if the Father is God and the Son is God the Father must be the Son grounded upon this Axiom Quoe sunt eadem unitertio sunt eadem inter se shews the judgment of the Schoolmen and Moderns that they take this term Deus to be a terminus singularis for that Axiom holds not in a terminus communis This indeed the School men and Moderns do hold that this term Deus is a terminus singularis communicabilis communicable by Praedication as a terminus communis but in it self a terminus singularis p 217. lin 2. n. 21. In God besides Essence or Substance we assert that there is that which we call Mode Habitude or Relation We cannot contemplate God as he is in himself a pure simple Act but to assert the existence of Modes in God from our imperfect Conception of things is peculiar to the Animadvertor but this falls in naturally in the next Chapter where we are to enquire whether the Personalities are proper Modes One thing I cannot omit the Animadverter tells us Ibid. That by one or either of these in Conjunction with Essence or Substance we give account of all the Acts Attributes and Personalities belonging to the Divine Nature What do we give
account of the Divine Attributes by Essence and a Mode is this in his own Words Ibid. The constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysitians in their Discourses upon God Can a Reader unacquainted with these Debates believe that by the constant unanimously received Doctrine of Divines School-men and Metaphysitians we are to understand the single Aninmadverter alone and yet that is the truth So p. 51. l. 3. he with the same confidence and something else tells us That all Divines hitherto have looked upon and professedly treated of the Divine Nature and Attributes as different and distinct from one another still considering the first as the Subject and the other as the Adjuncts of it What must we say when a Person shall set up for a Critick in the most mysterious Article of our Religion and himself understands not the first Elements of Divinity Did any Divine before himself compound God of Subject and Adjunct Did any Divine before himself assert that Holiness Goodness Truth Knowledge Eternity c. were Adjuncts in God Does he know what an Adjunct is Quod alicui preter essentiam adjungitur something added conjoyned to the Essence of a Being Do not all Divines teach That the Divine Attributes may be predicated in abstracto of God God is his Wisdom his Power his Goodness but a Subject cannot be so predicated of its Adjunct But I am ashamed of confuting so weak a Notion yet our Animadverter has the Face to say That without this Notion it is impossible to discourse intelligibly of the Divine Attributes Ibid. p. 217. P. 223 Qu. 3. n. 27. What is the Substance or Nature of God I answer It is a Being existing of and by it self Incorporeal Infinite Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent c. The Animadverter triumphs over this and some other questions the Reverend Dean had made as easie and trifling for that is the natural Sense of calling them not so very formidable c. But I conceive that he mistook the Reverend Dean's Mind in asking this question which probably was What Notion we can frame in our Minds of the Substance of God of an infinite immaterial Substance However I shall wave that and tell him That he has extremely failed in the answer of this easie Question First When he tells us that the Nature of God is a Being God is properly called a Being but his Nature ought to be stiled an Essence and not a Being when we speak properly and according to the formal Conception of things Secondly To be a Being existing of it self is not of the Nature or Essence of God otherwise the Son and Holy Spirit are not each of them God for certainly neither the Son nor Holy Spirit exist of themselves to be a Being existing of it self is a personal property of the Father alone Thirdly Existing by it self is but an explication of being an Hypostasis or Suppositum which indeed agrees to Father Son and Holy Ghost but yet by the Consent of sober Divines is not esteemed an essential Predication and consequently ought not to be put into the Definition of God Fourthly Incorporeal Infinite c. are Attributes that is according to the Animadverter Adjuncts to the Essence or Nature of God how come they therefore to make up part of the Definition of the Nature of God But I am tired and have reason to believe my Reader so with the observation of the Animadverter's Mistakes and therefore I have omitted very many I did observe and doubtless a more attentive Reader would find many which escaped my notice The Animadverter in this Book has concern'd himself chiefly with three Articles Christ's Satisfaction His Incarnation and the Doctrine of the Trinity and I do not find upon the strictest Search that he understands any one of them Concerning the last of these Articles the Reader cannot have a clearer Proof than by Examination of the Animadverter's eighth Chapter wherein he professedly endeavours to lay down the positive Faith of the Church concerning this Article CHAP. VII I judge it neither improper nor unusefull to represent what the Church has hitherto held and taught concerning this important Article of the Trinity p. 240. l. 2. n. 1. as I find it in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern Make room for this mighty Man keep silence and learn what Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern have taught in this important Article Goliath himself was not more compleatly armed Cap-a-pee but Goliath wanted little David's Sling he came not in the name of the Lord. And it seems this great Opiniator has forgot his Bible behind him quite forgot Christ and his twelve Apostles in the Crowd of Fathers and School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern Shall I need to remind this great Critick that if Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern have determined I will not say against but without a sufficient Foundation of Scripture their determination is no rule of a Protestant's Faith Article 8. Our Church receives the Creeds themselves because they may be proved by most certain Warrants of Holy Scripture I acknowledge it a great Confirmation of my Faith as to this Article that Councils and Fathers have explained the Scriptures in the same Sense in which I believe them The Ecclesiastical Phrases and Forms of Speech are very usefull to detect aequivocating Hereticks or as they speak in short what the Scriptures deliver in several places or as they are Arguments ad homines to those who acknowledge their Authority p. 240. l. 14. n. 2. Now the commonly received Doctrine of the Church and Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judge but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this That the Christian Religion having laid this sure Foundation that there is but one God and that there is nothing i. e. no positive real Being strictly and properly so called in God but what is God and lastly That there can be no Composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self and yet the Church finding in Scripture mention of three to whom distinctly the God-head does belong it has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1.3 expressed these three by the Name of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence allotted to one and the same God-head and these also distinguished from one another by three distinct Relations First The Complement is very high to the Church of England that he will submit the Faith which he finds in Councils Confessions Fathers School-men and other Church-writers both ancient and modern to the Judgment of the Church of England but whom does the Animadverter mean by the Church of England this is his Character of the Churchmen the Clergy of the Church of England in
in the proper and genuine Sense of the Phrase the Modes of Subsistence the Divine Relations are capable of an easie and fair Solution as I have formerly hinted chap. 1. n. 14. Upon the whole Matter in discoursing of the Trinity P. 245. l. 19. n. 9. Two things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon One that each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other That each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from the other This one Sentence is a truly Golden one contains the fundamental Truth of this Article of the Trinity But to speak the truth it stands like a Parenthesis or like a forged Passage in an Author it has no connexion with what goes before it and the latter part is confuted by what follows These are the Animadverter's following Words And here if it should be asked How they differ P. 245. n. 10. and whether it be by any real distinction between the Persons What need of this Question which the preceding Words had so positively and orthodoxly determined each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from the other What ever is incommunicably different is certainly really different by a true real and not modal Difference The Animadverter answers P. 246. That the Divine Persons really differ and are distinguished from one another viz. by a Modal or lesser sort of Real difference according to which the Divine Nature subsisting under and being determined by such a certain Mode personally differs from it self as subsisting under and determined by another What is this but to tell us that he did not understand those former Words that each Person is incommunicably different from the other Can any thing be incommunicably different from it self He tells us that two Persons are the same self how is it possible that they can be more communicably the same The Person of the Father is Modally different from the Person of the Spirator but not incommunicably different The Person of the Father is the Divine Nature subsisting under the Mode of Paternity which Modally differs from it self under the Mode of Spiration But all this arises from a mistake of the Nature of Real and Modal Difference In a real Difference we say simply that the one is not the other according to the Animadverter p. 77. That wheresoever there are two distinct Persons we do and must by all the Rules of Logick and Grammar say that the one is not the other And the Rule is as true è converso that where we can say one is simply not the other there we must count two we must acknowledge a strictly real Difference Thus we say that the Father is not the Son that is the Subject of Paternity is not the Subject of Filiation In a Modal Difference the Negation is Modal secundum quid in some Mode or Respect The Person of the Father as a Father is not the Spirator But there needs no proof in so allowed a conclusion Not one Schoolman whom I have met with but is a better Divine and soberer Reasoner I will add and a sounder Philosopher than to affirm that the Divine Persons differ Modally or that a simple Negation can arise from a Modal Difference The first Rudiments in Logicks teach us That Negative Propositions are of a malignant Nature and universally remove the Predicate from the Subject and not under a certain Mode only The exactly learned and solid Forbesius as the Animadverter stiles him p. 251. in the same Chapter which he there quotes S. 19. declares that the Divine Persons differ really as that is distinguished from the greatest Modal Distinction Inter personas in Divinis est realis distinctio Forbesii Instr hist Theol. lib. 1. cap 35. S. 19. non tamen essentialis aut absoluta sed tantum Hypostatica seu personalis relativa secundum oppositionem personarum inter se internam relativam realem To whom I will add the words of the learned Suarez Lib. 3 de Trin. cap. 1. n. 3. p. 385. Vnaquaeque divina Persona in se spectata est vera res per se subsistens una non est alia Ergo est distinctio realis inter ipsas nam realiter distingui nihil aliud est quam esse veras res quarum una non est alia Again Distinctio modalis nunquam invenitur Ibid. n. 4. nisi intra eandem rem quae componitur vel aliquo modo coalescit ex illis rebus quae ita distingui dicuntur Vnde quod ita ab aliqua re semper est tanquam modus vel affectio ejus ut inductione facile constet ideò in Deo non habet locum hic modus distinctionis quae vere actualiter fit in re ipsa quia in eo non habet locum compositio nec modificatio vel affectio per aliquid a seipso actualiter in re distinctum à substantia Dei ergo sola superest distinctio realis quae inter divinas personas esse possit These words are very full and deny not only a modal Distinction betwixt the Divine Persons but any Modes in God for that Modes would inferr a Composition in God In the former abstracted Sense they are properly Personalities or personal Properties P. 249. lin 9. n. 11. By the Animadverter's Favour Personality and a personal Property are distinct Things Differentia and Proprium are different Species of predicables Where the difference is unknown to us as in all Individuals in all singular Persons we use the Properties or a Collection of Accidents in the Definition instead of the Difference but this alters not the Nature of the Properties or Accidents Thus the Ancient Fathers described the Divine Persons by their Personal Properties These are the Animadverter's own words Anim. p. 88. Self-consciousness is one property of a rational or intelligent Being suppose of an Angel then it will be a Property of a Person or Personal Property Will the Animadverter grant that therefore it is properly in an Angel a Personality no the Argument holds the other way therefore it cannot be properly a Personality P. 249. lin 20. n. 12. For neither would the Latins at first admit of three Hypostases in God as taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the same thing for that they had no other Latin word to translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by but substantia by which also they translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First The Animadverter falls into his old mistake that the Faith of this Article is That there are three Hypostases in God there are three Hypostases in the Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Nature but not in God Secondly St. Augustin scrupled nay condemned the phrase of three Persons as well as of three Hypostases Thirdly The Distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 requires us to distinguish betwixt first and
and a compleat Substance too Again a Million of Qualities Attributes Faculties can never make one God so that if Father Son and Holy Ghost signify three Faculties three Attributes three Modes not only each single Person is ungodded but the whole Trinity conjoyntly cannot be God The Sabellians acknowledge the Divine Persons to be Deum unum the Catholicks Deum unum trinum but this opinion neither unum nec trinum And hence we may see with what Prudence the Church chose the Phrase of three Hypostases and what danger there would be to change it with a late Reverend Author for three Somewhats P. 247. lin 2. n. 16. Which three Persons superadd to this Divine Nature or Deity three different Modes of Subsistence founding so many different Relations Three human Persons add to the common universal human Nature three different Modes of Subsistence according to the Schoolmen and the Animadverter What then would the Animadverter take this Answer for a Solution of this question what three human Persons are The same reply may justly be made to himself This is the difficulty what in the Deity the ternary number can belong to which a Divine Person is not as the Animadverter has mistaken it what in the Deity the ternary number can belong to which a Divine Person has The Schoolmen answer that the ternary number belongs to an infinite relative Substance I agree with them that a Divine Person is an infinite Substance or which I like better as freer from Ambiguity an infinite substantial Being and that this may be multiplied as well as Divine Person with the Trinity N. 17. The design of the Animadverter in quoting so many places of the ancient Fathers is very vain to prove a Conclusion which none denies that the three Personalities are in some Sense or other three Modes of Subsistence However in respect of the Greek Fathers I have formerly observed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not signify a Mode of Subsistence nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subsistence in the Abstract but a subsistent Person or Being in concreto Ruffinus believed Trinitatem in rebus ac subsistentiis N. 18. Anim. p. 268. and not with the Animadverter Trinitatem in modis ac subsistentiis Subsistentia to the Ancients signified concretely the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Boetius of all the Latin Fathers of those times seems most acquainted with the Writings of the Greeks and therefore most expresly determins for the Universality of the common Divine Essence N. 19. he defines a Person in common to God Angels and Men to be rationabilis naturoe individuam substantiam he uses Subsistentia afterwards which shews he looked upon the terms as equivalent Secondly He gives us these remarkable words of the Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Boetius thus translates Id est essentioe in solis universalibus quidem esse possunt in solis verò individuis particularibus substant Quo circa cum ipsoe substantioe in universalibus quidem sunt in particularibus verò capiant substantiam jure substantias particulariter subsistentes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 groeci appellaverunt These words are capable of no Evasion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was in Universals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Individuals and Particulars that the Greeks whose very words he quotes understood it in this Sense and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood Substantias particulariter subsistentes and this jure not impropriè not by a Fetch as Thomas Aquinas Anim. c. p. 272. afterwards Secundum quod Divina verbis humanis significari contingit This Caution is necessary to reconcile the Subtleties of the Schools and the Faith of three Hypostases But Boetius had no need of any such Caution and therefore he used it not and it is the more remarkable that these words I have quoted out of Boetius are in that very Book of two Natures in the one Person of Christ which the Animadverter quotes so that either the Animadverter never read Boetius or read him at a very careless rate N. 20. Peter Lombard is express against the Relativeness of this Term Lib. 1. Sent. Dist 23. n. 1. Person Est unum nomen c. Persona quod secundum substantiam dicitur de singulis Personis pluraliter non singulariter in summa accipitur c. and Dist 25. That this Term Persona is to be taken in one Sense when we say that the Father is a Person the Son is a Person c. and in a different Sense when we say that Father Son and Holy Ghost are three Persons in this last Phrase it only signifies three Personalities in the former a proper Person Now this to me is a betraying of the Catholick Faith a Confession that we ought not to say three Persons if we speak properly if we understand this Term Person in the same Sense in which we say that the Father c. is a Person N. 21. P. 273. The Animadverter quotes these words of Thomas Aquinas Hoc nomen persona in divinis significat relationem per modum rei subsistentis sic hoc nomen Hypostasis I wish our great Critick had translated these words I take this to be the meaning of them viz. That this Name Person in the Trinity signifies a relation conceived by us after the Nature of a Substance and not after the Nature of a Mode which the Animadverter has all along with so much confidence pretended I cannot define Substance better than by res subsistens N. 22. P. 275. lin 9. Only I think fit to remark this That whereas I have alledged some of the Schoolmen and particularly Durandus Thomas and Suarez expressing the Divine Personalities by Relations as well as by Hypostases or Subsistences as they do in both these mean but one and the same thing viz. a Relative Subsistence or a subsisting Relation c. If the Animadverter means that a Relative Subsistence and a subsisting Relation are according to the Schoolmen materially identically the same thing it is no News The Schoolmen hold that the Relation and the Divine Essence in each single Person are thus identically the same each single Person being God that is a pure simple Act. But if he means that they are formally the same it is manifest that he understands neither of the Phrases nor what the Schoolmen meant by them Subsistence which himself very justly calls p. 97. Self-subsistence is an absolute Attribute and can no more be relative than Self-Consciousness By a relative Subsistence the Schoolmen mean that the Relation in each single Person modifies the one common absolute essential Subsistence and renders it incommunicable which of it self as being infinite it was not But a Divine Person being as Ruffinus observed Hoc ipsum quod extat subsistit and consequently the Divine Persons being three Somewhats subsisting three Hypostases in concreto and not three Personalities with Peter Lombard Thomas Aquinas
and the other Schoolmen found out a relative Substance a relationem per modum rei subsistentis a Relation subsisting and affirm that the three Divine Persons are three Relations subsisting But to this I answer First That this will assert four Subsistences in the Trinity one absolute and essential and three relative ones by which the Relations subsist which is contrary to all Antiquity Secondly This is but a subtler Disguise for what the Master of the Sentences spoke more plainly viz. That there are not three Persons in the same Sense in which we say that the Father is a Person For the Father is not Paternity and therefore not Paternity subsisting The Father is not a Relation subsisting but formally properly God an infinite Mind Lastly A Mode a Relation subsisting is perfectly unconceivable and contrary to the known rules of Philosophy And now it may be time to put an end to this First Part and to my Animadversions upon the Animadverter first taking a short review how far I have proceeded My first Chapter is chiefly spent in explaining the Metaphysical Terms used in this Mystery such as Substance Accident Mode the Nature of modal Difference Essence Existence Subsistence modal Composition c. How much reason there was to re-examine the Animadverter's Definitions and Distinctions of these things in Relation to the Subject of the Trinity I must leave to the Reader to judge when he has perused the Chapter My second Chapter is chiefly spent in defending that ancient Illustration of the Incarnation the Conjunction of the human Soul and Body in one Person from the Objections of the Animadverter one Question of which was briefly touched Chap. 1. n. 10. In the close of this Chapter I give the Reader a very necessary and usefull Distinction concerning the formal reason of Personality in reference not only to Finite Persons but to the Divine Persons My third Chapter enquires how far a Prius and Posterius may be admitted in the Trinity whether Self-Consciousness be a personal Act explains at large that Subtlety of the Schools concerning the relative Personality of the Divine Persons and shews the Animadverter's great mistakes therein as also that Question of the number of the Divine Persons why we believe a Trinity neither more nor fewer As also that difficult Problem concerning the Singularity or Plurality of the Predication of any Attribute concerning the Divine Persons where I first give the Predications themselves which are to be solv'd and shew the Insufficiency of the Schoolmen's Solutions from the Distinction of essential and personal Attributes from the Distinction of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective from an absolute and relative Predicate Lastly I lay down the true rule my self which at persent I only vindicate from a Mis-interpretation of the Schoolmen by distinguishing betwixt the Articles of the Unity of God and the Unity of the Trinity which the Schoolmen confound My fourth Chapter treats of the import of these Phrases viz. Three infinite Minds three Gods three Substances one infinite Mind one God and how far they are allowed or disallowed in speaking of the Trinity of the Animadverter's Answer to the Objection of Polytheism from the Phrase of three Divine Persons and occasionally of the Notion of the Unity of God and of the Appropriation of the title of Only True God to the Person of the Father and of his being stiled the Fountain of the Divinity My fifth Chapter is chiefly Historical of the Opinion of the Ancients whether they believed the Divine Persons to be three intelligent Beings Of the import of that Phrase that the Son is the substantial WORD and Wisdom of the Father of the Particle OF in this Mystery and occasionally I give an answer to the Socinian Objection from the Phrase of three Divine Persons and enquire whether the same Wisdom can be both begotten and unbegotten My sixth Chapter treats of what is Fundamental in this Mystery of the different Hypotheses of explaining the Unity of the Trinity of the Blasphemy of the Modern Socinians compared with their Predecessors of the historical Truth of Petavius and Dr. Cudworth's Assertion that the specifick Unity of the Trinity was embraced by the Nicene Fathers which I largely vindicate against the Animadverter's Exceptions the same discussed problematically betwixt the Animadverter and my self Whether a Specifick Unity of the Trinity and a Numerical Unity were in the judgment of the Ancients inconsistent Why Philoponus and his Followers were called Tritheit Hereticks My last Chapter treats of Heb. 1.3 Whether that place was the Warrant of the Phrase of three Persons or three Hypostases Of the Divine Personalities according to the Schoolmen of the Sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Ancients of Cajetan's calling the Trinity one Suppositum of essential and personal Acts according to the Schoolmen Whether there are true Modes in God Of the Insufficiency of three Modes to explain the Trinity Whether the Divine Persons differ modally or really Of three different Species of Sabellianism Of the Distinction of a Relative Subsistence and a subsisting Relation There are several other material Enquiries in the Explication of these and others which are less material which I leave to the Reader 's own Observation This I hope I may say of this present Essay that there are very few of the material Disputes of the Schoolmen concerning this Article of the Trinity which the Reader will not find either explained in this Essay or at least a sufficient Key given to him who shall desire to consult the Schoolmen themselves The many and great mistakes of the Animadverter convinced me of the Usefulness of such an Explication he often swallowed without chewing what they strained very hard to believe and at other times sheltered himself under their Name and Authority when his opinion was contradictorily opposite to theirs and which is more forgot or omitted the principal and most material Enquiry in this Article of the Trinity viz. What the three Divine Persons are that is What Suppositum Persona Hypostasis signifies when these terms are predicated plurally of the Father Son and Holy Ghost The Animadverter defines Suppositum in the singular number Anim. c. p. 35. Substantia singularis completa per se subsistens but this according to the Animadverter only increases the Difficulty since he dare not deny a Multiplication of the Definitum of Suppositum He cannot deny that there are tria supposita in the Trinity yet with earnestness he contends that the Definition cannot be multiplied that there are not tres substantioe singulares completoe per se subsistentes in the Trinity but how unsatisfactory soever the Scholastick Subtleties in this Article appear to me I am satisfied that I had contented my self with a private Proposal of my Hypothesis to some of my Friends if the unmeasurable Blasphemy and boasting of our Socinian Writers had not over-perswaded me I plainly saw that nine parâ—s in ten of the Objections of the Socinians
by an incomprehensible ineffable kind of Union and Conjunction And if this does not satisfy as it rationally may I must needs profess that my Thoughts and Words can neither rise higher nor reach further This difficulty is not peculiar to the Asserters of a Trinity of Divine Persons They who acknowledge but one Divine Person in the Godhead are equally concerned in this question Whether the Subsistence of one or more Divine Persons added to the Divine Nature infers a Composition in a Divine Person The Animadverter confesses That in all finite Persons Subsistence and Nature infer a Composition he means a modal Composition a Composition of Substance and Mode This manifestly increases the difficulty how a Substance and Mode should not be a modal Composition in a Divine Person He tells you indeed it does not if we please we may take his word if not his thoughts and words can reach no higher But by his leave I shall consider this point more carefully All Composition is Distinctorum Vnio so as to constitute some whole that is in Composition there must be an Union and also the several things united must in some sense be component parts otherwise we could not distinguish Composition from a bare local Union Now according to the Animadverter the Divine Nature or Substance is one thing and the Mode another a Mode is to him a thing added and a Divine Person a whole so that it is manifest according to him that there must be a modal Composition in a Divine Person in God in a pure simple act which is void of all Composition Nay further those Schoolmen who assert these real Modes reduce some of them to Substance some of them to the accidental Predicaments Those Modes which intimately adhere to Substance as Existence Subsistence they reduce to the predicament of Substance those Modes which complete Substance it self cannot be any thing accidental of a different kind and nature from Substance and yet they cannot be perfect Substances for then they would want other Modes to perfect them but they suppose each of these Modes a substantiale quid a substantial thing tho not so perfect as Substance So again those Modes which perfect an Accident are each of them accidentale quid something accidental tho not a perfect Accident Now I freely profess that I have no Notion of this substantiale quid which is not a perfect Substance nor of an accidentale quid which yet is not a perfect Accident However from this Explication of these Philosophers minds it is manifest that a Substance and Mode in finite Persons infer a Composition of a Substance and a distinct substantiale quid To apply this to the Opinion of the Schoolmen concerning the simplicity of a Divine Person The Subsistence as I have already declared they believed to be one absolute Essential the Divine Relations which they call Modes of Subsistence because according to them they constitute the Divine Persons and render each Person incommunicable which a Mode of Subsistence does in finite Persons I say the Divine Relations of Paternity Filiation and Procession they first declared to be no predicamental Relations for then they must have been esteemed proper Modes Modus non potest non esse quid imperfectum cum non attingat absolutam rationem entis Suarez lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 4. N. 11. p. 410. and the Schoolmen were never so silly as to believe there was any thing so imperfect as a Mode in God they never believed a substantiale quid which was not so perfect as a Substance in God They call the Divine Relations transcendental Relations which in our imperfect way of Conception are but as so many substantial Modes perfecting the one absolute Subsistence of the Divine Essence they believed each distinct Divine Relation to be not a bare substantiale quid but a most perfect infinite Substance with a Relative Form or as they often speak a Relative Substance And here I must again acknowledge that I am as little able to conceive a Relative Substance as a substantiale quid before J am substantia non erit substantia quia relativum erit Absurdum est autem ut substantia relativè dicatur omnis res ad scipsam subsistit quanto magis Deus St. Austin lib. 7. de Trin. cap. 5. But will not this Notion of the Schoolmen infer an higher Composition in a Divine Person viz. of two Substances an Absolute Substance the Divine Nature and a Relative Substance the Relation They answer That the Absolute and Relative Substance are not united but identified one with another this being an Axiom to the Schoolmen Suarez lib. 4. de Trin. cap. 2. N. 3. p. 407. In Divinis omnia sunt Vnum ubi non obviat relationis oppositio but there cannot be pretended relationis oppositio betwixt an Absolute and Relative Substance and by the same Axiom they endeavour to shew how these three Relative Substances may be one absolute Divine Nature one God But then comes the grand Difficulty of all If each distinct Relative Substance be the same or identified with the one singular absolute Divine Nature are not the three Relations from thence identified one with another Is not this an infallible Axiom in reason Quae sunt eadem uni tertio sunt eadem inter se This is the Gordian Knot which almost every Schoolman gives a different answer to but at last they are generally obliged to cut it and deny the truth of the Axiom in the Divine Nature I thought it necessary to give this account of the Opinions of the Schoolmen to shew the Animadverter how little reason he had to lay so great a stress upon the Metaphysicks of Modes Nothing was farther from the thoughts of the Schoolmen with whose Names he flourishes so often than to believe that there were true Modes in God The Divine Relations according to them were only Modes in Name or in our imperfect Conception of them As for my own private Opinion with all submission to better Information I conceive That Existence in a finite Person or Being much more in a Divine Person is only the actuality of a Person or Being That Subsistence adds only a Negation of incompleteness to substantial Existence even in finite Persons and consequently infers no sort of Composition in them and therefore much less infers a Composition in a Divine Person Again I do believe that all predicamental Relations amongst the Creatures are no positive Modes but only external Denominations the same which the Schoolmen are obliged to affirm of the Relations of the Divine Persons to the Creatures Nor can I see any Absurdity of extending the same conclusion to the Internal Relations as the Schoolmen call them As for instance The Relation of Paternity may justly as I conceive be stiled an extrinsical Denomination extrinsical I say not to the sacred Triad but to the Person of the Father who is denominated by it and in the same sense Filiation extrinsical
to the Person of the Son and Procession extrinsical to the Person of the blessed Spirit This naturally and easily defends the Simplicity of a Divine Person this frees us of endless and inextricable Questions which fill up every page of the Scholastical Writers This forces us not to hide our selves in a Cloud of Words which signify nothing A Substance and a Mode says the Animadverter infer not Composition in a Divine Person because in him the Substance and Mode coalesce into one by an Vnion and Conjunction that is in other words they infer not Composition because they are compounded Composition and Coalescing into One by an Union and Conjunction differ no more than Definitum and Definition It is truly therefore incomprehensible and ineffable that a coalescing into one by an Union and Conjunction should not be a Composition Mind Wisdom Power Goodness P. 39. lin 6. N. 15. c. are formally distinct from one another and so not affirmable of one another and in speaking of things the formal differences of them must still be attended to Gods Justice and his Mercy are one pure simple Act in him But he that says His Justice is his Mercy speaks absurdly for all that c. Whatever differs really differs also formally but here by formal difference the Animadverter understands that difference which is only formal and not real Now in this sense of the term the express contrary Conclusion is true That whatsoever things are only formally different are therefore affirmable of one another The Conclusion the Animadverter ought to have deduced from his Premises is That Mind Wisdom Goodness viz. in God are not formally affirmable of one another But it is Fallacia à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter to put the first Conclusion in place of the second to say That Mind Wisdom Goodness are not simply affirmable of one another because it will be acknowledged that they are not formally affirmable of one another Secondly Whereas the Animadverter tells us That in speaking of Things the formal Differences of them must still be attended to We need no other Confutation of this Proposition than his own immediate following words viz. That God's Justice and his Mercy are one pure simple Act in him His Justice and his Mercy are formally or in our way of Conception two distinct nay two opposite Acts it is only in the Reality that we affirm them to be one pure simple Act in him Thirdly If things only formally different are not affirmable of one another there could be no Propositions but identical ones or at most where the Subject and Predicate are synonimous Terms No man could say without absurdity That the Father is God because these two terms Father and God formally differ and therefore according to this wise Rule of our Animadverter are not affirmable of one another Has the Animadverter never heard of the Distinction of Sensus Identicus and Sensus Formalis This Proposition God's Justice is his Mercy is true Sensu Identico tho not Sensu Formali We are cautioned indeed by the Learned that we avoid Conclusions which are only true Sensu Identico when such way of speaking is against common Custom or when the formal Sense carries a formal Opposition as in the Divine Attributes of Justice and Mercy and the reason they give is because in such instances the Propositions lead to a formal Sense in which Sense they are false But if we add Sensu Identico that is in what sense we understand these Propositions then they are true and consequently not absurd unless a Truth can be absurd CHAP. II. I Shall crave leave of the Reader N. 1. to say thus much in general of the Animadverters Third and Fourth Chapter wherein he endeavours to prove That Self-consciousness is not the Formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons nor Mutual-consciousness the Formal Reason of their Vnity of Nature That all this is said as I verily believe without an Adversary The Reverend Dean of St. Paul's does not once in his Vindication of the B. Trinity expresly affirm either the one or the other of these Propositions He asks no more of his Reader if I misunderstand him not save to acknowledge That a distinct Self-Consciousness is a firm proof of the Distinction of Persons in this Sacred Mystery and that a singular Mutual-Consciousness is an equal proof of the Singularity of the Divine Nature I conceive That the Reverend Dean never intended to deny that the Distinction of Persons is in order of Nature before their distinct acts of Self-Consciousness or that their Unity of Nature is in the same degree of Priority before their singular Mutual-Consciousness but only intended that quoad nos or in our way of Knowledge or Conception their distinct Self Consciousness proved or was known to us before their distinct Personality and their singular mutual Consciousness in order of our Knowledge before the Knowledge of their Unity of Nature In the Animadverter's Third Chapter N. 2. he endeavours to prepare the way by denying that Self-Consciousness is the formal reason of personality in finite created Persons A Conclusion none affirms who understands the meaning of the terms It is impossible that a personal Act an Effect should any ways be the proper formal cause of its efficient a Person Animad c. P. 71. lin 10. But when he tells us That Personality is the ground and principle of all Action wheresoever it is he is guilty of a great Paradox in Philosophy and a greater in Divinity Personality is properly the Principle of no Action a Person is the Principium quod the Principle which acteth Nature is the Principium quo the Principle by which the Person acts Personality is but a necessary condition of a Being to enable it to act a causa sine qua non which is equivocally called a Cause or Principle Secondly Not the Personality of the WORD but the Humane Nature of Christ exerts the acts of Self-Consciousness Ibid. P. 72. lin 12. and other Humane Personal Acts the Humane Nature of Christ has all the Principles and Powers of Self-Reflection upon its own Acts otherwise Christ would not be a perfect Man P. 72. lin 21. N. 3. That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person is no less evident Since it is taken into and subsists in and by the Personality of the Second Person of the Trinity and therefore can have no distinct Personality of its own 1. Never was so obscure an Argument brought to prove so acknowledged a Conclusion Self-Consciousness is not the formal reason of Personality in finite Persons because the Humane Nature of Christ in the Hypostatical Union is Self-Conscious and yet not a Person nay this latter no less evident than the former 2. 'T is a received Article of the Church That the Human Nature of Christ is not a Person but how to reconcile this with the Subtilties of the Schools is above my skill