Nature is a meer Creature a fit Lieutenant or Representative of God in Personal or Prerogative Acts of Government and Power must not every Being be represented by one of his own Kind a Man by a Man an Angel by an Angel in such Acts as are proper to their Natures and must not God then be represented by One who is God Is any Creature capable of the Government of the world does not this require infinite Wisdom and infinite Power and can God communicate infinite Wisdom and infinite Power to a Creature or a finite Nature that is can a Creature be made a true and essential God if our Adorers of Reason can digest such Contradictions as these I hope they will never complain of Absurdities and Contradictions more A God without infinite Perfections is only a Titular and Nominal God and to say that Creatures may have all the Perfections of God is to say that God can make an infinite Creature which has a thousand times greater Contradictions than the most absurd Explication of the Trinity can be charged with for then a true and real God may be a Creature then the Divine Nature is not eternal but may be created then the Divine Nature is not numerically One but if the first God so pleased he could make a world of Gods as well as of Angels or Men. If then this Kingdom to which Christ is advanced cannot be administred without infinite Wisdom and Power then he is by Nature a God for otherwise all Power in Heaven and Earth could not have been committed to him because he was not capable of it could not administer it and would God choose a King who could not administer the Government of the World nor do any thing towards it And yet the Difficulty remains if he be by Nature the Son of God and the Natural Lord of the World how is he said to be exalted by God and to receive a Kingdom from him as the Reward of his Sufferings when he was already possessed of it ever since the Foundations of the World being the Natural Lord of all Creatures and therefore had no need to receive that which was his own or purchase what was his Natural Right by such mean and vile Condescensions as suffering Death upon the Cross. And therefore rightly to understand this we must consider the Nature of Christ's Kingdom that it is not meerly the Natural Government of the World but a Mediatory Kingdom God is the Supreme and Natural Lord of the World King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the only Ruler of Princes and while God governed the World only as its Natural Lord the Son had no distinct Kingdom of his own but in Conjunction with his Father For though there always were Three Divine Persons in the Godhead yet the Father being the Fountain of the Deity the Government of the World was administred in his Name But Mankind quickly Apostatized from God forfeited immortal Life corrupted their Manners and defaced the Image of God upon their Souls and the Government of God considered only as our Maker and Soveraign Lord could give no hope nor security to guilty sinners and this made a Mediatory Kingdom necessary to reconcile God and Men and to restore Man to the Integrity of his Nature and this Power and Dignity God bestowed upon his own Son who had the most right to it and was best qualified for it being the begotten Word and Wisdom of the Father but he must first become man and publish the Will of God to the World and make Expiation for Sin and then he should rise again from the dead and set down at the right hand of God And therefore we may observe that all this Power Christ is invested with is as Head of the Church God hath put all things under his feet and given him to be Head over all things to the Church which is his Body the fulness of him which filleth all in all That is he has made him the Governour of the whole World as Head of the Church For the Salvation of Mankind required the Government of the World to be put into his Hands that he might restrain the Power and Malice of wicked Spirits and destroy the Kingdom of Darkness and imploy good Angels in the Service and Ministeries of his Church as the Apostle tells us They are ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation That the Government of this lower World might be administred by him with a peculiar regard and subserviency to the great ends of his Spiritual Kingdom For the Church of Rome is so far in the right that the Supreme Head of the Church must be Supreme in Temporals too in ordine ad spiritualia but their fault is they give this Power to a vicarious Head which is due only and can be administred only by Christ who is the true Supreme Head of all things to his Church The Government of Israel was a Type of this The Kingdom of Israel was originally a pure Theocracy God was their King and governed them almost as visibly by his Priest his Oracles his Judges whom he extraordinarily raised up as a Temporal King governs his Subjects But in time they grew weary of the Government of God and desired a King like other Nations upon which God tells Samuel They have not rejected thee but rejected me that I should not reign over them But yet he complies with their Desires in giving them a King and their King was peculiarly God's Anointed and God's King who ruled God's People and Inheritance by God's peculiar and delegated Authority for the Government of Israel did not cease to be a Theocracy when they had a King for they were God's People and Inheritance still but now the King was between God and the People whereas God governed them more immediately before And therefore as David was a Type of Christ so his Kingdom was typical of the Kingdom of Christ Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion which seems to have some aspect on David though it received its just Acomplishment in Christ and hence the Kingdom of the Messias is called the Throne of his Father David not that Temporal Kingdom which David governed for his Kingdom was not of this World but that of which David's Kingdom was a Type and Figure the Government of the Church who are God's People of whom the carnal Israel was a Type which he rules by a vicarious but a Soveraign Authority for God and in his name and stead This gives a plain account how God may give this Kingdom to his Son and that as the Reward of his Sufferings It may be a Gift because it is not a Natural Right for it is not a Natural Kingdom but erected by the Wisdom and Counsel of God for the Salvation of Sinners and it must be the Reward of his Sufferings because it is a Sacerdotal Kingdom which is founded in the
same Perfections the same Knowledge Wisdom Power Goodness that is the same Nature unless that Knowledge Wisdom Goodness which we are internally conscious of and feel within ourselves be not the Perfections of our Nature whereas we may externally know those Perfections which are not ours but what we feel in ourselves is our own and therefore this mutual Consciousness makes all that is the Father 's the Son 's and all that is the Son 's the Holy Spirit 's as our Saviour speaks All things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I that he the Spirit shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you 16 Iohn 15. And if these Three Persons be thus mutually in each other as you have already heard they must be all equal for if the Father be in the Son how can the Son be less than the Father if he comprehends the Father and all his infinite perfections If Son and Holy Ghost are in the Father and Father and Holy Ghost in the Son and Father and Son in the Holy Ghost imagine what inequality you can between them if Son and Holy Ghost are conscious to all the infinite Perfections which are in the Father and have all the Perfections they are conscious to how can Son and Holy Ghost be less perfect than the Father or then each other I am sure our Saviour attributes all his Wisdom and Knowledge and Power to his intimate conscious Knowledge of his Father which he calls seeing him which is such a knowledge as Creatures cannot have of God 5 Iohn 19.20 Verily verily I say unto you the Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for whatsoever things he doth those also doth the Son likewise For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that himself doeth and he will shew him greater works than these that ye may marvel By this perfect conscious Knowledge which the Son has of the Father he has all those Perfections in himself which are in the Father he can do whatever he sees the Father do and he sees whatever the Father does but can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do He has all the Perfections which are in the Father and therefore can do whatever he sees the Father do but there is no knowledge no perfection no power in the Son which is not in the Father and which he does not receive from the Father and therefore he can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do which signifies the most perfect equality between the Father and the Son founded on the Son's seeing the Father and whatever he doth or his intimate Consciousness of all that the Father is And this is the true Notion of the Son 's being the Image of his Father The brightness of his Father's glory and the express Image of his person 1 Heb. 2. For as a dead Image and Picture represents the external Lineaments and Features of the Person whose Picture or Image it is that we can see the Person in his Picture so a living essential Image is the living essential perfections of the Father and with a conscious knowledge sees the Father in himself For this reason the Son is said to hear of his Father to see what his Father doth and to do the same to receive commandement from his Fatber to do the will of his Father and the works of his Father to finish the works which his Father gave him to do to glorifie his Father c. Which must not be expounded after the manner of Men as the Socinians expound such expressions and thence conclude the great inferiority inequality subjection of the Son to the Father such as there is between a Prince and the Ministers he employs and that therefore the Son cannot be the Supream God for the Supream God cann't be commanded taught sent on Messages to fulfil the will and pleasure of another and do nothing but what he sees done and receives Commission to do I say we must not put such a mean and servile sense on these expressions but we must expound them only to signifie that the Son receives all from the Father Life Knowledge Will Power by Eternal Generation and whatever he does he does with a Consciousness of his Father's Will and Wisdom as it were feeling the Will and Wisdom and Power of his Father in himself and this he calls hearing and seeing the works of the Father receiving Commands and doing the Works of the Father because his Nature is that to him which external Teachings ' and verbal Commands are to Men he hears he sees he does the Works and Will and Commands of his Father by being the perfect living self-conscious image of his Father's Will and Knowledge and infinite Perfections But there is one place more I must take notice of by which the Socinians think to overthrow all that I have now said that the Union between the Father and Son is not such an essential Unity as we speak of but a meer moral Union or a perfect agreement and consent in knowledge will and affection such as is or ought to be among Christians and that our Saviour himself has thus expounded it 17 Iohn 20 21. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word That they all may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in us Which is the very expression I have so much insisted on to prove this essential Union and Self-consciousness between the Father and the Son As thou Father art in me and I in thee which it seems signifies no other kind of Union than what our Saviour prays for among Christians That they also may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee Now the Union of Christians is only an Union in Faith and Love and One Communion and therefore thus the Father and the Son are One also by a consent and agreement in Knowledge Will and Love Now this I readily grant as I observed before that Father and Son are One by a most perfect agreement in Knowledge Will and Love which we call a Moral Union between Men and it is this Unity or Oneness for which our-Saviour prays that his Disciples may be One as the Father and he are One that they may perfectly agree in the same Faith and Love that they may speak the same things and mind the same things But then this perfect harmony and consent between the Father and the Son results from an essential Unity from their being in one another which is such an Union as it is impossible there should be between Christians but this Moral Union in the same Faith and mutual love is called being One as the Father and Son are One because it is the nearest resemblance of this essential Unity that can be between Creatures and that is the only meaning of As That they may be One
things which is the Explication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begotten before the whole Creation and therefore no part of the Creation himself and by him all things consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things were not only made by him but have their Subsistence in him as the Apostle tells us in God we live and move and have our being that this does not relate to the new Creation as the Socinians would have it is very plain For 1. in this Sense Christ if he were meer Man was not the first-born of every new Creature for I hope there were a great many new Creatures that is truly good and pious men before Christ was born of his Virgin Mother 2. Nor in this sense were all things in Heaven and Earth visible and invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers that is all the Orders of Angels created by him For the greatest part of visible things especially in the Apostles days when so little part of the World was converted to the Christian Faith were not new made by him and none of the invisible things were new made by him good Angels did not need it and he came not to convert fallen Angels but to destroy the visible Kingdom of the Devil in this World and to judge them in the next 3. Nor in this sense were all things made for him for he is a Mediator for God to reduce Mankind to their Obedience and Subjection to him and therefore when he has accomplished his Work of Mediation and destroyed all Enemies in the final Judgment of the World he shall deliver up his Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all of which more presently 4. And therefore the Apostle proceeds from his Creation of the Natural World to his Mediatory Kingdom which proves that he did not speak of that before And he is the Head of the Body the Church who is the beginning the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence as the Maker of all things visible and invisible he is said to be before all things begotten of his Father before the Creation of the World as Head of the Church he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also the beginning the first who rose from the dead that he might be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first upon all Accounts before the Worlds and the first-born from the dead That he was God's Minister and Servant he proves by several Texts as that he was appointed or made which has the same sense by God the Apostle and High-Priest of our Profession but here is a restriction to his being High-Priest and therefore no danger of Blasphemy though he be God for we may observe that though the Jewish High-Priest were but a man yet he was a Type of a High-Priest who is more than man even the Eternal Son and Word of God as some of the Learned Jews acknowledge for the Son of God is the only proper Mediator and Advocate with the Father as Philo Iudoeus often calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or High-Priest and shows that the Garments of the High-Priest were Figures of Heaven and Earth which seems to signifie that the Eternal Word which made the world is the true High-Priest And the Story Iosephus tells of Alexander looks this way that when Iaddus the High-Priest went out to meet him dressed in all his Pontifical Attire he approached him with great Reverence and Veneration and his Captains wondering at it he told them That that God who appeared to him and sent him upon that Expedition and promised him Victory and Success appeared to him in that very Habit. I am sure the Apostle distinguishes Christ from High-Priests taken from among men and makes his Sonship the Foundation of his Priesthood Christ glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest which shows that it is no Servile Ministry but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee As he saith also in another place Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedec And what the Mystery of this Melchizedecian Priesthood was he explains 7 Hebrews that Melchizedec was first by Interpretation King of Righteousness and after that also King of Salem which is King of Peace Without Father without Mother without Descent having neither beginning of days nor end of life but made like unto the Son of God which is a Priest continually As for his next Quotation that Christ is Gods I know not what he means by it for there is no doubt but Christ is God's Son God's Christ God's High-Priest serves the ends and designs of God's Glory and what then therefore he is not God By no means he may conclude that therefore he is not God the Father because he acts subordinately not that therefore he is not God the Son His next Proof is that God calls him his Servant by the Prophet Isaiah but it is his Servant in whom his Soul is well-pleased which is the peculiar Character of his Son and is that very testimony which God gave to Christ at his Baptism by a voice from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased His next Proof is that he humbled himself and became obedient which is all he cites but what does he prove from this that Obedience is part of his Humiliation And what then therefore he is not God because he voluntarily condescends below the Dignity of his Nature does he forfeit the Dignity of his Nature and yet this is the plain Case as the Apostle tells us in that place that He being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. And this is a wonderful Proof that he is not God because being in the form of God that is being God he voluntarily condescended to the meanest and most servile state of Human Nature for the Salvation of sinners But the sting of all is behind that for this submission and obedience he was rewarded and exalted by God and a God is not capable of a reward or exaltation being Supreme himself and yet as it follows for this God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every Name Now it seems very strange to me that Christ's advancement to the supreme Government of the World should be made an Argument against his being God or the Eternal Son of God for is it fitting and congruous for God to make a meer Creature the Universal Lord and Soveraign of the World to advance a meer man above the most glorious Angels to be the Head of all Principalities and Powers which would be an Indignity to the Angelical
Expiation of his Blood And though Christ be the Eternal Son of God and the Natural Lord and Heir of all things yet God hath in this highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at or in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue some of all Nations Languages and Tongues shall confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father For when God exalts and magnifies himself or exalts his Son it does not and cannot signifie any addition or increase of their essential Greatness and Glory for neither the Father nor the Son can be greater than they are but yet God is exalted when his Greatness and Power is more visible and more universally acknowledged and adored and thus God has highly exalted his Son too by conferring the Mediatory Power and Kingdom on him as to shew this particularly but briefly This makes the Son more universally known acknowledged and adored The Notion and Belief of one God is Natural to Mankind that there are three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead is not known by Nature but by Revelation There are some obscure hints and intimations of this even in the History of the Creation more plain in the Types and Prophesies of the Jewish Law which relate to the Messias and possibly this was more particularly explained in their Cabala which some learned men industriously prove contained this Mystery of the Trinity but all this while this Mystery was very obscure and the Glory of the Son little known in the World for though now we certainly know from the Exposition of Christ and his Apostles that the Prophets spake of Christ under the name of Lord and God and Jehovah yet all went in the Name of God But when Christ appeared in the World then God owned him for his Son this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Christ owned himself for the Son of God his only begotten Son and upon all occasions calls God his Father and that in such a distinguishing manner that the Jews understood him to mean that he was the Son of God by Nature and charge him with Blasphemy for making himself God He appealed to those mighty Works he did in his Father's Name to prove the Truth of what he taught them that he was indeed the Son of God But then God visibly owned him for his Son when he raised him from the dead and bestowed a Kingdom on him a Name which is above every Name as St. Paul tells us That he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the Dead And for this reason that of the Psalmist Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee is applied to the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead We deliver unto you glad tydings how that the promise that was made to the Fathers God hath fulfilled the same to us their Children in that he hath raised up Iesus again as it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee Which it is plain does not signifie that God then first begot him for he owned him for his beloved Son long before at his Baptism and Christ calls himself his only begotten Son long before and the Socinians themselves attribute his Sonship to his miraculous Conception in the Womb of the Virgin and St. Paul we see expounds God's begetting him at his Resurrection by his being declared the Son of God by the Resurrection from the Dead which supposes he was his Son before and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Flesh for so he was the Seed of David but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Spirit of Holiness or his Divine Nature for so its opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proves it must signifie He was the only begotten Son of God from eternal Ages but the World did not fully know him to be so till God declared this by his Resurrection from the Dead and by bestowing a Kingdom on him and then he visibly appeared in the Glory and Majesty of the Son of God as if he had been begotten by him that day and this seems to be the meaning of our Saviour's Prayer And now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self with that glory which I had with Thee before the World was that is now publickly own me to be thy Son which I always was but was never yet sufficiently declared so to the World And therefore when he was raised from the Dead and advanced into his Kingdom which he was to administer not by Human Force and Power but by the Power of the Divine Spirit it was time to let the World know this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity because each Divine Person has his distinct and proper part in this mysterious oeconomy and therefore he commands his Disciples to Baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that is into the belief and worship of One God Father Son and Holy Ghost of which more presently But this is not all the Son is not only now made known and manifest to the World and publickly owned by his Father but he has a peculiar Authority invested in him distinct both from the Father and the Holy Spirit as he is a Mediatory King There being but One Supreme and Soveraign God Father Son and Holy Ghost who are but One Energy and Power but One Monarchy but One Maker and One Lord of the World in the Natural Government of the World there is no distinction of the Divine Persons no peculiar Offices and Administrations to distinguish them not one thing done by the Father another by the Son and a third by the Holy Ghost but the whole Trinity made and governs the World by One individual Operation and therefore the Creation and Government of the World is the Work of One God and therefore peculiarly attributed to the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity who is that Original Mind and Wisdom who made and who governs the World by his Son and holy Spirit so that in the Natural Government of the World the Son has no Kingdom of his own but reigns as One Supreme God with the Father and the Holy Spirit and all attributed to the Father as the beginning of Energy and Power But in the oeconomy of man's Salvation the Son has a Kingdom of his own which is peculiarly his administred in his Name and by his Soveraign Authority The Father is atoned by him and has committed to him all Power both in Heaven and in Earth He is made the Head of all Principalities and Powers which are now immediately subjected to him and must receive their Commands and
Orders from him as the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us when God bringeth in the first begotten into the World that is when God raised him from the dead and received him into Heaven to sit at his right hand he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him obey his Commands and be his Ministers and Servants The Holy Spirit is given by him he sends the Spirit to dwell in his Church which is his Body and to animate all the true and sincere Members of it He governs this lower World disposes of Kingdoms and Empires in subserviency to the ends of his Spiritual Kingdom He has the Power of pardoning sins of judging the World of raising the dead whom he pardons God pardons whom he condemns God condemns for the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son Should the Father judge the World he must judge as the Maker and Soveraign Lord of the World by the strict Rules of Righteousness and Justice and then how could any sinner be saved but he has committed Judgment to the Son as a Mediatory King who judges by the Equity and Chancery of the Gospel The Power indeed whereby he administers his Kingdom is the Power of the whole Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost for they being essentially One God have but one Energy and Power and therefore can never act separately and therefore the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead is ascribed to God the Father God raised him from the dead to Christ himself as he tells the Jews Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up And I lay down my life that I may take it again I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again And to the Holy Spirit If the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you Where God indeed is said to raise up Christ from the dead but it was by his Spirit and by the same Spirit he will raise us But yet this is the Kingdom of Christ because now the Administration and Exercise of this Power is committed to him and is as it were under his direction and influence The Natural Kingdom and Government of the World is peculiarly attributed to God the Father though the Son and Holy Ghost reign with him as one God because the Father is Original Mind and Wisdom and therefore the beginning of all Power and Energy As the Father begets the Son not the Son the Father and the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son not Father and Son from the Holy Ghost so the Son and Holy Ghost will and act with the Father not the Father with the Son and the Holy Ghost that is if we may so speak where there is but One individual Act and Energy the Father is the first Mover in the Sacred Trinity For reflex Wisdom that is the Son who is begotten Wisdom moves and acts at it is begotten by Original Mind and Wisdom who is the eternal Father as Christ himself tells us The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for whatsoever things he doth these also doth the Son likewise And my Father worketh hitherto and I work But the Father is the Principle and Beginning of Action and therefore the Government and Monarchy must receive its Denomination from him that it is the Kingdom of the Father But now in the Mediatory Kingdom the exercise of the Divine Power is committed into the hands of the Mediator and is administred by the measures and terms of his Mediation The Power is not taken out of God's hands for that is impossible Father Son and Holy Ghost govern the World still by One individual Act and Power but as in the Natural Government of the World the Exercise of this Power begins with the Father so in this Mediatory Kingdom it begins with the Son and is directed by his Mediation that is God governs the World now not meerly as a Natural Lord by the Rules of Natural Justice but with respect to the Mediatory Power and Authority of his Son and to serve the ends of his Mediatory Kingdom Now the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Iudgment to the Son He hath power to save and to destroy whom he pardons God pardons whom he condemns God condemns all Petitions are put up to God in his Name all Blessings both temporal and spiritual are obtained from God in his Name that is it is the Name and Authority of Christ by which God now governs the World This is the Name God has given him which is above every Name that at the Name of Iesus every knee should bow both of things in Heaven and things on Earth and things under the Earth and that every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father That Angels in Heaven move at his Command and obey his Power that Men on Earth worship God and expect all from him in his Name that evil Spirits tremble at his Name and yield to his Power and that all the World confess the Supreme and Soveraign Authority of the Son to the Glory of the Father who hath thus highly exalted him There can be no other meaning but this in what Christ tells his Disciples after his Resurrection from the Dead All Power is given unto me both in Heaven and Earth For unless it be some Power which he had not before as the Eternal Son of God how can it be said to be now given unto him and yet before in conjunction with and subordination to his Father he had all Power both in Heaven and Earth but then this Power was not in his own Name nor seated immediately in himself as his own Personal Authority but now the Son is immediately invested with this Power and Authority as a Mediatory King And this is the meaning of what he tells us As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself To have life in himself is to have the Power and Authority of bestowing Life as appears both from what goes before and from what follows As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them so the Son quickneth whom he will Verily verily I say unto you the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they-that have done good to the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation This Power the Son always had as begotten of his Father from all Eternity and One God with him but he here speaks of a
Personal Authority which is given him as the Son of Man as an Incarnate and Mediatory King And hath given him Authority to execute Iudgment also because he is the Son of Man And therefore now it is given him to have Life in himself as the Father hath Life in himself The Father hath Life in himself as the Original Fountain of all Life by whom the Son himself lives all Life is derived from God either by eternal Generation or Procession or Creation and thus Christ hath Life in himself also in the new Creation he is the Fountain of Life he quickeneth whom he will he is the bread of life that came down from Heaven if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye This is the Authority of his Mediatory Kingdom which he hath received from his Father that he hath Life in himself and hath Authority and Power to give Life to the World This is a Kingdom in a Kingdom the Mediatory Kingdom of the Son in the Natural Kingdom of the Father which restrains the Father's Justice dispenses his Grace and directs the Exercise of his Power in the Government of the World which though it be upon these accounts a Superiour Authority and therefore a high Exaltation of the Son yet it is no diminution to the Father The confessing Iesus Christ to be Lord is to the glory of God the Father 1. Because this Mediatory Kingdom is erected by the Father and by the Father given to the Son it is he who gave him this Authority because he is the Son of Man And therefore Christ every where owns that he was sent by God I am not come of my self I am come in my Fathers Name I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of my self but he sent me I seek not my own will I seek not my own glory I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me Which Scriptures make up the fourth Argument in the History of the Vnitarians against Christ's being God because Almighty God doth all things in his own Name and by his own Authority but Christ comes in the Father's Name and does his will and seeks his glory Which proves indeed that he receives this Power from the Father that he fulfils his will and serves his glory in it but if he receive this Kingdom he has it and a very glorious Kingdom it is in some respects superiour to the Natural Government of God as it sets bounds to it But this only proves that he is not the Father but the Son and the King of God and this Authority being given him of the Father to reduce Mankind to their Obedience it is no lessening of the Fathers Authority from whom he receives this Mediatory Power 2. This can be no Diminution to the Father because he is his only begotten Son One God with himself the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person the Natural Heir of his Power and Greatness and the Natural Lord of the World As a Son he is by Nature equal to his Father but yet subordinate and therefore cannot be his Rival as a Son his advancement is the glory of the Father that all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father and therefore it is no derogation to the Father though he commit to the Son a more glorious Authority then he exercises himself the Authority of a Mediatory Kingdom or Soveraign Grace which is a more glorious Authority to Sinners then Natural Justice and Dominion for all men know a Son must receive all from his Father and if the Father for wise Reasons of which more presently give the Son the more glorious Power it is the Father who is glorified in it As he is God the Eternal Son of God and One with the Father he is the proper Object of Religious Worship and therefore all those Divine Honours and Adorations which are paid him upon account of his Mediatory Kingdom and Power are no Injury to the Divine Nature as they would have been had God conferred this Power on a Creature which had been to give his glory to another which God detests and declares his abhorrence of and which all Arians and Socinians do who worship Christ believing him to be only a Creature or a meer Man The Command in Scripture to worship him and pay Divine Honours to him is a much better Argument to prove that he is God then to justifie the worship of any Creature which God universally prohibits and is a much greater Contradiction to the Principles of Natural Religion than a Trinity in Unity is to Natural Reason 3. To this we must add That his Kingdom is the Reward of his Obedience and Sufferings that is it is founded in the Expiation of his Blood Is an Authority to dispence that Grace and Mercy which he has purchased with his Blood so that his Kingdom and Power is founded in the most perfect submission to his Father is the Reward of his Obedience whereby he glorified his Father on Earth and therefore let his Power be never so great and glorious his receiving it from God as the Reward of his Obedience secures the Prerogative and Glory of the Father 4. Especially when we add That the Exercise and Administration of this Kingdom is not by way of any direct Authority and Power over God which would necessarily Eclipse the glory of the Father and make him subject to the Son but by way of Mediation and Intercession as an Advocate and High-Priest He first makes Atonement to God and reconciles him to Sinners does not command or over-rule but propitiate the Divine Justice and then Exercises a Soveraign Authority in forgiving sins in destroying his Enemies in governing Kingdoms and Empires in subserviency to his Spiritual Kingdom and at the last Day in judging the World 5. And therefore the time shall come when Christ shall deliver up this Kingdom again to the Father for it is not a Natural Kingdom and therefore must not last always no longer then till it has attained the ends for which it was erected when Mankind are reduced into Obedience to God when the Kingdom of the Devil is destroyed and the Devil and his Angels and all bad men cast into the Lake of Fire which is the second Death and good men raised out of their Graves and rewarded with Eternal Life that is when Christ has accomplished the work of his Mediation that there is no longer any need of a Mediator then the Mediatory Kingdom ceases Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall
is not meerly as he is the Son of God the second Person in the Trinity for so he is worshipped as One God with the Father and the Holy Ghost but as he is a Mediator or a Mediatory King as he has a Kingdom distinct from the Natural Kingdom of the Father as I have already shown so there is a worship proper to him as Mediator but the Holy Spirit has no distinct Kingdom and therefore no distinct Worship but is worshipped in the Unity of the Godhead and this required no new Command for he who knows that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One Supreme God must worship Father Son and Holy Ghost as One Supreme God 4. His next Argument is against a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead which he says is contrary to the whole Scripture which speaks of God but as One Person and speaks of him and to him by singular Pronouns such as I Thou Me Him His Proofs that the Scripture speaks of God as but One Person are very wonderful His first is that of Iob Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him Will ye accept his Person will ye contend for God But surely to accept God's Person no more signifies the Personality of the Godhead than to accept the Person of a Man signifies his Human Person the Hebrew is his Face which is far from signifying a Person in the sense we say there are Three Persons in the Godhead To respect the Person of a Man is to do something for him which neither Law nor Justice nor Equity required not because he is a Person which every Man is but from some partial respect we have to his particular Person and therefore to accept the Person of God here signifies to speak wickedly for God which is an absurd and sensless thing as Iob represents it whether the Supreme God be One Person or Three for in this sense of Person One God can be but One Person The other Text that Christ is the express Image of God's Person is as little to the purpose for it is plain the Person of whom the Son is the express Image is the Person of God the Father and the Father indeed is but One Person As for his singular Pronouns they prove indeed that there is but One God as we all own not that there are not Three Persons in the Godhead For when the Scripture speaks of God without any particular respect to the distinction of the Persons it must speak but of One God because God is but One and singular Pronouns are most properly applied to One God As for what he objects That no Instance can be given in any Language of Three Persons whoever spoke of themselves or were spoken to by the singular Pronouns I Thou Me Him Thee it were sufficient to answer That there is no other Example in Nature neither of Three Persons who are essentially One and if the manner of speaking must be conformed to the Nature of Things there can be no other Instance of this way of speaking because there is no other Example of this Unity but all Languages speak of One in the singular Number and so the Scripture uses singular Pronouns of One God But this is not the Case for when God speaks of himself he does not speak of himself as Three Persons but as One God and therefore may say I and Me and when the Prophets speak of God or pray to him they pray to him as One God and therefore may say Thou and Him and Thee When Three Persons are One God God may speak of himself or we may speak of or to God either considered as Three Persons or as One God and though Three Persons require the Plural Number yet One God may speak of himself or be spoken to by singular Pronouns 5. He says Had the Son or Holy Ghost been God this would not have been omitted in the Apostles Creed And I say Had not the Son been God and the Holy Ghost God they would not have been put into the Apostles Creed no more than into the form of Baptism which is the original of the Apostles Creed That the Primitive Christians did believe the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost we are sufficiently assured from all the ancient Records of their Faith but there was no reason to express this in so short a Creed before the Arian and Socinian Heresies had disturbed the Church and indeed there was no need of it for the only Son of God must be by Nature God and the Spirit of God is as essentially God as the Spirit of a Man is essential to a Man He concludes That theirs the Socinians is an accountable and reasonable Faith but that of the Trinitarians is absurd and contrary both to Reason and to it self and therefore not only false but impossible The Faith of a Trinity in Unity I hope I have sufficiently vindicated already from Absurdity and Contradiction But it will be worth the while briefly to consider how accountable and reasonable the Socinian Faith is The Socinian Doctrine is That Christ who is called the Son the only begotten Son of God the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person is no more than a meer Man who had no Being till he was Conceived in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and is called the Son of God because God formed him by an immediate Power in the Virgins Womb and raised him from the Dead and exalted him to his own right hand in Heaven and that the Holy Spirit is only the Power and Inspiration of God that is is either God himself or the Operation of his Power in Creatures This is their accountable and reasonable Doctrine and to show how very accountable and reasonable it is I come now to draw up my charge against it 1. That it ridicules the Scriptures 2. That it ridicules the whole Jewish oeconomy 3. That it ridicules the Christian Religion 4. That it justifies or at least excuses both Pagan and Popish Idolatries The Charge is full enough and I am contented it should pass only for big huffing words till I have proved it and then I hope it may pass for a just Return to the ridiculous Blasphemies of the Brief Notes and Brief History 1. That it ridicules the Scripture by putting either an absurd or a very mean trifling sense on it unworthy of the Wisdom of God by whom it was inspired and this I shall give some Instances of in their Expositions of Scripture which I find in the Brief History of the Vnitarians In the second Letter he takes notice of some Texts in the Old Testament which speak of God and in the New Testament are applied to Christ which we think a very good Argument to prove That Christ is that God to whom those Texts belong in the Old Testament for though possibly without such an Application we could not certainly have known that these Texts were
our selves to their Institution and Guidance not as to Creatures but as to God who is both the Author and the Object of our Faith and Worship No man must religiously consecrate himself to a Creature for that is Idolatry even among the Pagans their Mysteries terminated on their Gods and they were initiated by them into the Worship of that God whose Mysteries they were and it was never known yet that men devoted themselves to the Institution and Guidance of any Human Doctors or Masters by Religious Ceremonies Now if Baptism be a Religious Rite God and Creatures can never be made the joynt Object of Religion and therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost must be One God with the Father I desire to know what is meant by being baptized in the Name of the Father Is it only to take him for our Instructor and Guide Or is it to worship and obey him for our God And why then do not the same words in the same Religious Act signifie the same thing when applied to the Son and Holy Ghost as they do when applied to the Father Let them shew me any one Instance in Scripture where a Creature is joyned with God in any Act of Worship much less in the Fundamental Contract of Worship if I may so speak wherein we devote and consecrate our selves to God Our Author with his usual Assurance adds 'T is in vain not to say ridiculously pretended that a Person or Thing is God because we are baptized into it or in the Name of it for then Moses and John Baptist also would be Gods Our Fathers were all baptized unto Moses unto what then were you baptized and they said unto John 's Baptism That is saith the generality of Interpreters unto John and the Doctrine by him delivered But in the first place he mis-represents the Argument which is That the Son and Holy Ghost are God because we are baptized in their Name as we are in the Name of the Father and together with him in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and I confess he had answered this Argument could he have shewn us that the Jews were baptized in the Name of God and in the Name of Moses for that had joyned Moses with God as our Saviour joyns the Son and the Holy Ghost with the Father in the Form of Baptism But he is so far from doing this that in the next place I observe that the Jews never were literally baptized in the Name of Moses or in the Name of Iohn as Christians are by our Saviour's Institution in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Moses did not Baptize the Jews at all much less in his own Name though St. Paul observes that they had a kind of Mystical Baptism under Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea And therefore it is plain that to baptize into Moses is a figurative and allusive Expression and does not and cannot signifie that they were baptized in the Name of Moses because it is not true for though we should grant as he argues that to be baptized into Christ and baptized in the Name of Christ signifies the same thing when men are literally baptized in the Name of Christ yet it is a demonstration that to be baptized into Moses and baptized in the Name of Moses cannot signifie the same thing because those who were mystically baptized into Moses never were baptized in the Name of Moses and it is burlesquing Scripture to make any Phrase and Expression signifie that which never was I will only ask this Author Whether the Jews were baptized in the Name of Moses If they were not let him tell me how their being baptized into Moses comes to signifie their being baptized in the Name of Moses Could the Apostle mean by this Phrase that they were baptized in the Name of Moses that is could the Apostle mean what he knew was not true And yet I deny that to be baptized into Christ and baptized in the Name of Christ signifie the same thing for to be baptized into Iesus Christ does not relate to the Form of administring Baptism in the Name of Christ but to the effect of it in uniting us to Christ and incorporating us with him as Members of his Body which induces an Obligation of a Spiritual Conformity to his Death in dying to Sin and living to God And thus the Israelites were baptized into Moses or into the Mosaical Covenant not by being baptized in the Name of Moses but by mystical Sacraments the Cloud which over-shadowed and guided them and the Red-Sea which divided and gave them safe Passage but drowned the AEgyptians being Types and Figures of the Christian Baptism but I shall not spend time in explaining this now it is enough to shew that it is nothing to our present Argument Thus it is evident that to be baptized into John 's baptism does not signifie to be baptized in the Name of Iohn for Iohn did not baptize in his own Name but made Proselytes to the Messias as the Apostle adds Iohn verily baptized with the baptism of Repentance saying unto the People that they should believe on him who should come after him that is on Christ Iesus Are not these now admirable Proofs that we may be baptized in the Name of Creatures because the Israelites were mystically baptized into Moses who never literally baptized any much less in his own Name and that the Disciples of Iohn were baptized into Iohn's Baptism that is into Iohn and that is in the Name of Iohn which we know he never did And yet the Socinians who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost make this Form of Baptism infinitely more absurd still The Holy Ghost they say is not a Person but the Power and Inspiration of God Now is it not very absurd that the Power and Inspiration of God which is not a Person should be joyned in the same Form with Father and Son who are Persons Is not this like swearing Allegiance to the King and to his Son and to his Power or to his Wisdom The Holy Spirit is plainly distinguished from the Father and from the Son and it seems has a distinct Name of its own into which we are baptized now if the Holy Spirit be not a Person I desire to know how the Power and Inspiration of God is so distinct from the Father as to justifie our being distinctly baptized in the Name of the Father and in the Name of the Holy Spirit or of his Power or Inspiration To be baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is sufficient to convince any man who is not resolved against being convinct that the Holy Ghost is a Person as Father and Son are Persons otherwise it were very absurd to joyn the Holy Ghost with Father and Son in such a Religious Dedication as Baptism is In the
A VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION OF The Son of God OCCASIONED By the Brief NOTES on the Creed of St. Athanasius and the Brief HISTORY of the Vnitarians or Socinians and containing an Answer to both By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Master of the TEMPLE The Second Edition IMPRIMATUR Z. Isham R. P. D. Henrico Episc. Lond. Ã Sacris Ian. 9. 1690. LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1691. TO THE READER I Will make no Apology for publishing this Vindication of the Great and Fundamental Mysteries of our Religion for if ever it were necessary it is now when Atheists and Hereticks some openly some under a disguise conspire together to ridicule the Trinity and the Incarnation I confess the Book is too big could I have made it less as at first I intended but when I was once engaged I saw a necessity of going farther and I hope no man will have reason to complain that I have said too much but those who will find a great deal too much said for them to answer My Original Design was to vindicate the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation from those pretended Absurdities and Contradictions which were so confidently charged on them and this I 'm sure I have done for I have given a very easie and intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Vnity and if it be possible to explain this Doctrine intelligibly the Charge of Contradictions vanishes and whether men will believe this Account or not they can't deny but that it is very possible and intelligible and if we could go no farther that is enough in Matters of Revelation But I hope I have done a great deal more than this and proved That it is the true Scripture Account of it and agreeable to the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers and have vindicated the Scripture Proofs of a Trinity and Incarnation from the pitiful Sophistries of the late Socinian Historian I have not indeed answered particularly the whole Book in Order and Method as it lies which was too tedious a Work and not necessary but I have considered whatever was most material in it and have avoided nothing because it was hard to Answer but because it needed no Answer as I am ready to satisfie the World whenever a just Occasion calls for it for having dipt my Pen in the Vindication of so glorious a Cause by the Grace of God I will never desert it while I can hold a Pen in my Hand I must thankfully own that the writing of this Book has given me clearer and more distinct Notions of this Great Mystery then I had before which is the Reason why the Reader will find some things explained towards the end which I spoke doubtfully of at first as particularly the difference between the Eternal Generation of the Son and the Procession of the Holy Ghost and I hope this is a pardonable Fault The writing this Book has cost me many Thoughts and those who have a mind throughly to understand it must not think much if it cost them some and if they cannot be contented to bestow some serious Thoughts on it it will be lost labour to read it I pray God give success to it and open the Eyes of those Men before it be too late who are so industrious to write or disperse such Brief Notes and Brief Histories as are valuable for nothing but Blasphemy and Nonsense for I will be bold to say That Socinianism after all its pretences to Reason is one of the most stupid sensless Heresies that ever infested the Christian Church THE CONTENTS SECT I. COncerning the Nature of a Contradiction and how to know it page 1. Many Contradictions pretended where there are none as in the Notion of a Spirit and of God 3 How to discover when a pretended Contradiction is not real but in our imperfect Conception of things 4 It is absurd to dispute against the Being of any thing from the difficulty of conceiving it 5 What the natural Boundaries of Humane Knowledge are 9 SECT II. The Athanasian Creed contains nothing but what is necessary to the true Belief of the Trinity and Incarnation 10 The Dispute between the Greek and Lat. Church about the filioque 17 SECT III. Concerning the necessity of the Catholick Faith to Salvation and a Brief History of Athanasius 21 That the Catholick Faith is necessary to Salvation 25 What is meant by keeping the Catholick Faith whole and undefiled 28 The Scriptures being a compleat Rule of Faith do not make Athanasius's Creed an unnecessary Rule 29 The great usefulness of ancient Creeds 31 Pope Leo III. would not deny Salvation to those who disowned the filioque 33 What is meant by the Catholick Faith 35 The History of Athanasius 37 SECT IV. The Catholick Doctrine of a Trinity in Unity and Unity and Trinity explained and vindicated from all pretended Absurdities and Contradictions 45 What it is that makes any Substance numerically One 48 The Unity of a Spirit nothing else but Self-consciousness ibid. And therefore mutual consciousness makes Three Persons essentially and numerically One. 49 The unity of a Mind or Spirit reaches as far as its Self-consciousness does 50 That this is the true Scripture Notion of the Unity of the Father Son and Holy Ghost ibid. The Unity between Father and Son explained 51 The union of created Spirits an union in Knowledge Will and Love 52 The same union between Father Son and Holy Ghost ibid. But this which is only a moral union between Creatures is an essential union between Father Son and Holy Ghost as it is the effect of mutual Consciousness 55 This proved from Scripture as to the unity between Father and Son 56 This makes all Three Divine Persons coessential and coequal 58 That the Holy Spirit is One with Father and Son by a mutual Consciousness proved from Scripture 64 This Notion contains the true Orthodox Faith of a Trinity in Unity 66 For it does not confound the Persons but makes them distinct ibid. Nor divide the Substance but makes them numerically One 68 This makes the Doctrine of the Trinity as intelligible as the Notion of One God ibid. The material Images of Substance confound our Notions both of One God and of a Trinity in Unity 69 God must be considered as Eternal Truth and Wisdom 70 Wisdom and Truth a pure and simple Act and contains all Divine Perfections 71 Three infinite Minds must necessarily be mutually conscious to each other 74 No positive Notion of Infinity but only in a Mind 75 No infinite Extension 76 What the true Notion of Infinite is that it is absolute Perfection 78 That there are no absolute Perfections but those of a Mind 79 Extension is no Perfection nor to be Omnipresent by Extension 80 The same absolute Perfections of a Mind by a mutual Consciousness may be entire and equal in Three infinite Minds 81 This reconciles the
perfect equality and subordination of the Divine Persons ibid. And shows how each Person is God and all but one God 82 This gives an Account of the different modi subsistendi of which the Schools speak 83 And how the Operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to all Three Persons 85 An Answer to the Absurdities and Contradictions charged on the Doctrine of the Trinity by the Brief Notes 87 SECT V. The Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools about a Trinity in Unity reconciled to the foregoing Explication of it page 100 That the Fathers made the Three Divine Persons Three distinct infinite Minds 101 That Father Son and Holy Ghost are as distinct Persons as Peter James and John how to be understood 104 How the Fathers Explain the Unity of the Godhead 105 1. By the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or coessentiality of the Divine Persons 106 What they meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. How they proved the Unity of Essence from the sameness of Nature Gregory Nyssen's reasoning in this matter and vindicated from the Mesrepresentation of Petavius and Dr. Cudworth 109. c. 2. To this the Fathers added a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence 121 Concerning the Unity of Energy and Power 123 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession is Self-consciousness 125 St. Austin explains the Unity of the Divine Persons by Examples of Self-consciousness 126 The Unity of the Godhead consists in the Unity of Principle 128 How the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are essential to the Notion of One God explained at large 129 c. SECT VI. Concerning expounding Scripture by Reason 140 The Arguments against a Trinity in the History of the Unitarians Letter 1. particularly answered 153 c. His first Argument 154 His second Argument 155 1 Coloss. 17. The first-born of every Creature explained 156 The Mediatory Kingdom of Christ explained at large 159 His third fourth and fifth Arguments answered 176 His sixth Argument 178 His seventh Argument 184 His eighth Argument from those Texts which declare that the Father only is God ibid. His ninth Argument That if Christ were God there was no need of giving the Holy Spirit to his Human Nature 187 His tenth and eleventh Arguments 188 His Arguments against the Godhead of the Holy Ghost ibid. Concerning the Personality of the Holy Ghost 189 That the Spirit is obtained of God by our Prayers therefore it self is not God Answered 193 Father Son and Holy Ghost the entire Object of Worship page 193 Those who do not worship the Trinity do not worship the true God if Father Son and Holy Ghost be God 194 No need of any new Cammand to worship the Holy Ghost when it is revealed that he is One God with the Father and Son ibid. That the Scripture speaks of God as One Person Answered 196 Whether the Socinian Faith be a reasonable and accountable Faith 198 The Socinian Faith ridicules the Scriptures 199 This is particularly shown in the Expositions of Scripture contained in the History of the Unitarians ibid. The Form of Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost explained 209 1 John 1 2. In the beginning was the Word c. explained and vindicated 215 How this Historian has represented Grotius 220 Socinianism makes the Iewish oeconomy very unreasonable and unaccountable 231 Socinianism ridicules the Christian Religion 238 SECT VII An Answer to what remains in the Brief Notes 256 Concerning the Generation of the Son ibid. The equality and coeternity of the Persons in the Trinity 259 Concerning the Incarnation 262 How an infinite and finite Being may be united into one Person 263 What makes a Personal Union 266 A VINDICATION Of the DOCTRINE OF THE Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY AND OF THE Incarnation of the SON of GOD In ANSWER to the Brief NOTES on the Greed of St. Athanasius SECT I. Concerning the Nature of a Contradiction and how to know it BEFORE I particularly Examine the Brief Notes on Athanasius 's Creed which under a pretence of exposing that Creed charge the Christian Faith itself of Three Persons and One God with the most monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions I shall 1. Shew what a Contradiction is and in what cases we can judge of a Contradiction 2. I shall take a brief view of the Athanasian Creed and shew that it signifies no more than that there are Three Persons and One God or a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and that if we own this we must own the particular Explications of the Athanasian Creed First As for the first A Contradiction is to deny and affirm the same thing in the same sense as to say that a thing is and is not at the same time that there is but One God and that there is Three Gods that is that there is and that there is not but One God for if there be Three Gods then it is not true that there is only One God Things which are so contrary as to contradict each other can never be both true for all Contradictions finally resolve into this It is and It is not which is absolutely impossible But when we come to apply this to the nature of Things we may easily fancy Contradictions where there are none For a Contradiction in the nature of Things is such a Notion or Idea of any thing as implies a Contradiction and then it is impossible any such thing can be as it is impossible that such a Proposition whose terms contradict each other should be true but then before we can pronounce that such a Notion or Idea is contradictions we must be sure that we perfectly understand and comprehend the nature of that Being otherwise the Contradiction may not be in the thing but in our manner of conceiving it It is not enough in this case to say we cannot understand it and know not how to reconcile it but we must say that we do perfectly understand it and know that it cannot be reconciled As for instance Some new Philosophers will tell you that the Notion of a Spirit or an immaterial Substance is a Contradiction for by Substance they understand nothing but Matter and then an immaterial Substance is immaterial Matter that is Matter and no Matter which is a Contradiction but yet this does not prove an immaterial Substance to be a Contradiction unless they could first prove that there is no Substance but Matter and that they cannot conceive any other Substance but Matter does not prove that there is no other Thus the Atheist discovers a great many Contradictions or Absurdities in the very Notion and Idea of a God or of an Eternal Omnipresent Omnipotent Omniscient Being For to be without a cause and without a beginning without time and without succession to be present every-where and to fill all Places and yet to have no parts no extension to be able to create a World and to annihilate it
the essences of things cannot be known but only their properties and qualities The World is divided into Matter and Spirit and we know no more what the substance of Matter than what the substance of a Spirit is though we think we know one much better than the other We know thus much of Matter that it is an extended substance which fills a space and has distinct parts which may be separated from each other that it is susceptible of very different qualities that it is hot or cold hard or soft c. but what the substance of Matter is we know not And thus we know the essential properties of a Spirit that it is a thinking substance with the Faculties of Understanding and Will and is capable of different Vertues or Vices as Matter is of sensible qualities but what the substance of a Spirit is we know no more than what the substance of matter is Thus as for the essential properties operations and powers of Matter Sense Experience and Observation will tell us what they are and what causes constantly produce such effects and this is all we do or can know of it and he who will not believe that Matter is extended that the Fire burns that Water may be condensed by Frost into a firm and solid Pavement that Seed sown in the Earth will produce its own kind again that a Body can move from one place to another that a Stone falls to the ground and Vapours ascend and thicken into Clouds and fall down again to the Earth in gentle Showers c. I say he who will not believe these things till he can give a Philosophical account of them must deny his Senses in complement to his Understanding and he who thinks that he does understand these matters would make a Man question whether he has any Sense Thus it is also with reference to a Spirit We feel within ourselves that we can think and reason that we can choose and refuse that we can love and hate and desire and fear but what these natural powers and passions are we know not how thoughts rise in our minds and how one thought begets another how a thought can move our Bodies or fix them in their Seat how the Body can raise thoughts and passions in the Soul or the thoughts and passions of the Soul can affect the Body The Properties and Operations both of Bodies and Spirits are great Secrets and Mysteries in Nature which we understand nothing of nor are concerned to understand them no more than it is our business to understand how to make either a Body or a Spirit which we have no power to do if we did understand it and therefore it would be an useless piece of Knowledge which would serve no end but Curiosity and that is reason enough why our wise Maker should not communicate this knowledge to us were we capable of it because it does not belong to our Natures as no Knowledge does which we can make no use of the perfect Notions and Idea's of Things are proper only to that Almighty Mind which can give being to them Now this plainly shews what the Natural Boundaries of Humane Knowledge are how far we may attain to a certain Knowledge and where we must give off our Enquiries unless we have a mind to impose upon our Understandings with some uncertain and fanciful Conjectures or to perplex our selves with inexplicable Difficulties 1. As first We have certain ways of discovering the being of Things which fall within the compass of our Knowledge this our Senses Reason or Revelation will acquaint us with and therefore we may know what Things there are in the World as far as they fall under the notice of Sense or are discovered by Reason or Revelation 2. We may know what Things are or what their essential Properties Qualities Operations and Powers are whereby we can distinguish one sort of Beings from another as suppose a Body from a Spirit Bread from Flesh and Wine from Blood and can Reason from Effects to Causes and from Causes to Effects with as great certainty as we understand what the Causes or Effects are 3. But the Essences of Things and the Philosophy of their Natures the Reasons of their Essential Properties and Powers which immediately result from their Natures the manner of their Production and the manner of their Operations are Mysteries to us and will be so do what we can and therefore here our Enquiries must cease if we enquire wisely for it is vain and absurd to perplex ourselves with such Questions which we can no more answer than we can make a World The sum is this when we charge any Doctrine with Absurdities and Contradictions we must be sure that we understand the thing for if it be such a thing as we do not and cannot understand the Nature of we may imagine a thousand Absurdities and Contradictions which are owing wholly to our Ignorance of Things SECT II. The Athanasian Creed contains nothing but what is necessary to the true belief of the Trinity and Incarnation II. LET us now take a view of the Athanasian Creed which this prophane Author makes the Subject of his Drollery and Ridicule and examine whether there be any thing in it which a good Catholick Christian can reject without rejecting the Catholick Doctrines of the Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY and the Mysterious Incarnation of the SON of GOD for if this Creed contains nothing but what is necessary to this belief and what every Christian who believes these Doctrines must profess then all these Scoffs which are cast upon the Athanasian Creed do indeed belong to the Christian Faith itself if the Trinity and Incarnation be Christian Doctrines As to begin with the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity The Athanasian Creed tells us The Catholick Faith is this that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity that is that we worship One God and Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and this all Christians grant to be the Catholick Faith except Arians Macedonians and Socinians and such like Hereticks And how we must worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity is explained in the next Paragraph Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance Which must be acknowledged if there be Three Persons and One God for if we confound the Persons by saying that they are all but One Person under Three different Names and Titles or Denominations then we destroy the Distinction of Persons if we divide the Substance by saying that every Person has a separate Divine Nature of his own as every Man has a separate Humane Nature then we make Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men which is to overthrow the Doctrine of One God and therefore the Creed adds For there is One Person of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost But the God-head of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the
Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal This is so far from being a Nicity that it is no less than a Demonstration if we confess Three Persons and One God for if there be Three Persons then the Person of the Father the Person of the Son the Person of the Holy Ghost must be distinct Persons or they cannot be Three if there be but One God then the Godhead of all the Three Persons is but One for if the Godhead were more than One there must be more than One God for the Godhead makes the God and there must be as many Gods as there are Godheads as there must be as many Men as there are particular Humane Natures And if the Godhead be but One then with respect to the same One Godhead all Three Persons must have the same Glory and Majesty for there cannot be Three different Glories and Majesties of the same One Godhead and therefore as it follows Such as the Father is such is the Son and such is the Holy Ghost The Father Vncreate the Son Vncreate and the Holy Ghost Vncreate The Father Incomprehensible the Son Incomprehensible the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible The Father Eternal the Son Eternal and the Holy Ghost Eternal And yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal As also there are not Three Incomprehensibles nor Three Vncreated but One Vncreated and One Incomprehensible So likewise the Father is Almighty the Son Almighty and the Holy Ghost Almighty And yet there are not Three Almighties but One Almighty So the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God And yet there are not Three Gods but One God So likewise the Father is Lord the Son Lord and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not Three Lords but One Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian Verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord. So are we forbidden by the Catholick Religion to say there are Three Gods or Three Lords This is the sum of all that as the Catholick Religion both Natural Mosaical and Christian requires us to believe that there is but One God so especially the Christian Religion teaches us that there are Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost who are this One God Now if each Person with respect to the same Divine Nature be God then all the essential Attributes and Perfections of a God must be allowed to each Person that he is Uncreated Infinite or Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty God and Lord unless we will say that there may be a Created Finite Temporal Impotent God that is a God who is not in truth either God or Lord and yet though we must acknowledge each Person to be God and Lord we must not assert Three distinct Uncreated Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty Gods which is the true sence of the Article of which more anon for that is to make not One but Three Gods and Lords which overthrows the Unity of the Godhead Now whatever difficulty there may be in conceiving this which I do not now dispute if that be any fault it is no fault of the Athanasian Creed but of the Doctrine of the Trinity itself the Athanasian Creed only tells us what we must believe if we believe a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God And I challenge any Man who sincerely proffesses this Faith to tell me what he can leave out o◠this Exposition without destroying either the Divinity of some of the Three Persons or the Unity of the Godhead If each Person must be God and Lord must not each Person be Uncreated Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty If there be but One God and One Lord can there be Three separated Uncreated Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty Gods which must of necessity be Three Gods and Three Lords This Creed does not pretend to explain how there are Three Persons each of which is God and yet but one God of which more hereafter but only asserts the Thing that thus it is and thus it must be if we believe a Trinity in Unity which should make all Men who would be thought neither Arians nor Socinians more cautious how they express the least dislike of the Athanasian Creed which must either argue that they condemn it before they understand it or that they have some secret dislike to the Doctrine of the Trinity Nor is this to make any additions to the Christian Faith as some object no more than to explain what we mean by GOD is an addition to the Faith This was all the Christian Fathers aimed at in their Disputes against Arius and other Enemies of the Catholick Faith and in those Creeds they framed in opposition to these Heresies to assert the true Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit in such express terms as would admit of no evasion For this reason they insisted so immoveably upon the term Homo-ousios which signifies that the Son was of the same Nature with the Father as he must be if he be true and real God whereas had he been only like the Father as the Arians asserted he could not be One God with him for that which is only like something else is not the same Now though the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not in Scripture yet this is no unscriptural addition to the Faith because all that is signified by it is there that is that Christ is the Eternal and Only Begotten Son of God a true and real not a made or created or nominal God And the Athanasian Creed as far as it relates to this matter is only a more particular explication of the Homo-ousios or in what sense the Son is of the same Nature with the Father and One God with him In the next place the Athanasian Creed having very explicitely declared the Unity of the Godhead in Three Persons it proceeds to the distinct Characters of each Person and their Unity among themselves and here also it teaches nothing but what seems essential to the Distinction and Unity of the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost The Father is made of none neither created nor begotten The Son is of the Father alone not made nor created but begotten The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding So there is One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts The Distinction then between these Three Divine Persons if I may so speak is in the manner of their Subsistence That the Father is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of Himself the Original Fountain of the Deity not made nor created for then he would be a Creature not a God nor begotten for then he would be a Son not the first Father and Origine of all The Son is of the Father alone which is essential to his being a Son not made nor created for there was no time when he was not as all things made or created must have a beginning but
begotten which is the proper term whereby we express Generation and whereby the eternal Generation of the Son is expressed in Scripture What it signifies we know not any further than this that it is the Eternal communication of the Nature and Image of the Father to him as an earthly Parent communicates his own Nature and Likeness to his Son The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son not made nor created for no Creature not begotten for no Son but proceeding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manner of which we understand no more than the manner of the Eternal Generation but there is this plain difference between being begotten and proceeding that though the Holy Spirit have the same Nature with the Father and the Son yet he represents the Person of neither as the Son does the Person of the Father as being the brightness of his Father's Glory and the express Image of his Person and therefore is said not to be begotten but to proceed But the difficulty of this is with reference to the Dispute between the Greek and Latin Church about the Filioque or the Spirits proceeding from the Father and from the Son the reason why the Latin Church insists on this is to preserve the Unity and Subordination of the Divine Persons to each other The Son is united and subordinate to the Father as begotten by him The Holy Ghost is united and subordinate to Father and Son as proceeding both from the Father and from the Son but if the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father not from the Son there would be no Union and Subordination between the Son and the Spirit and yet the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son as well as of the Father and that these Three Persons be One God it is necessary there should be an Union of Persons as well as One Nature But then the Greek Church confesses That the Spirit proceedeth from the Father by the Son though not from the Son and by and from are such Niceties when we confess we understand not the manner of this Procession of the Holy Spirit as ought to have made no Dispute much less a Schism between the two Churches The Greek Church acknowledges the Distinction of Persons and their Unity and Subordination That there is One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts that the Vnity in Trinity and the Trinity in Vnity is to be worshipped which is all this Creed requires as necessary to Salvation He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity that is must acknowledge and worship a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity which the Greek Church does and therefore are not excluded from Salvation in this Creed upon the nice Dispute of the Spirit 's proceeding from or by the Son That which seems to sound harshest in this Creed is what follows And in this Trinity none is afore or after other none is greater or less than another But the whole Three Persons are co-eternal and co-equal And yet this we must acknowledge to be true if we acknowledge all Three Persons to be Eternal for in Eternity there can be no afore or after other and that we cannot conceive an Eternal Generation or Procession is no great wonder when we cannot conceive an Eternal being without any beginning or any cause As for greater or less and the equality of Three Persons this we must confess also if we believe all Three Persons to be one Supream and Soveraign God for in one Supream Deity there cannot be greater or less but then we must distinguish between Subordination and Equality Persons who are equal may be subordinate to each other and though there be not a greater or less yet there is Order in the Trinity Equality is owing to Nature Subordination to Relation and Order which is indeed a greater and less in Relation and Order without an inequality of Nature and it is the Equality of Persons with respect to their Nature not to their Order and Subordination of which the Creed speaks for in this sense the Father is greater than the Son and the Father and the Son than the Holy Spirit as being first in Order but their Nature is the same and their Persons with respect to this same Nature co-equal And now I see no reason to make such Exclamations as some Men do against that damnatory Sentence That except every One do keep this Faith whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly and that he that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity which refers to no more than the belief of Three Persons and One God or a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity which I take to be the true Christian Faith and as necessary to Salvation as any part of the Christian Faith is but of this more anon Thus much for the Doctrine of the Trinity as for the Doctrine of the Incarnation no Man can reasonably except against that Explication which is given of it in the Athanasian Creed without rejecting the Doctrine it self and then we may as well part with the Doctrine of the Incarnation as with the Athanasian Creed As to shew this particularly For the right Faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Iesus Christ the Son of God is God and Man for otherwise the Son of God is not Incarnate has not taken Humane Nature upon him God of the Substance of the Father begotten before the Worlds as he must be if he be God Man of the Substance of his Mother born in the World for he could not be true Man if he did not partake of Humane Flesh and Blood Perfect God and perfect Man for otherwise he were neither God nor Man of a reasonable Soul and humane Flesh subsisting for a perfect Man consists of Soul and Body and unless he have both he is not a Man in opposition to those Hereticks who thought that the Divine Nature animated a Humane Body instead of a Soul but that Christ had no humane reasonable Soul though he had a humane Body and therefore was no more a Man than a humane Body without a Soul is a Man but a God cloathed with Flesh and Blood Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead for he is perfect God of the same Substance with the Father and inferiour to his Father as touching his Manhood for a Man is inferiour to God and therefore inferiour to the Father though united in one Person to the Son Who although he be God and Man yet he is not Two but One Christ. One not by the Conversion of the Godhead into Flesh but by taking the Manhood into God One altogether not by Confusion of Substance but by Vnity of Person For as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is One Man so God and Man is One Christ. All this is necessary to the belief of the Incarnation that the same Jesus Christ is both God and Man for if
hold the true Catholick Faith and that the Faith of the Athanasian Creed is that Catholick Faith which is necessary to Salvation 1. As for the first of these I would desire him to consider that though without Holiness no Man shall see God yet no Man is saved by his good Works but by Faith in Christ to say that we shall be saved by Holiness and good Works without Faith in Christ is to assert the Merit of good Works ten thousand times more than ever Papists themselves did The meritorious Works of Popery serve only instead of Penance to keep them out of Purgatory or to shorten their time there they serve instead of that Temporal Punishment which absolved and penitent Sinners must undergo for those sins the Eternal Punishment of which is remitted not for their own meritorious Works but for the merits and expiation of Christ but he who expects to be saved for his good Works without Faith in Christ attributes such a merit to good Works as redeems him from the Wrath of God and the Eternal Punishments due to Sin and purchases Eternal Rewards for him which is somewhat more than the Church of Rome pretends to especially since whatever merit they attribute to good Works they ascribe wholly to the Merits of Christ whose Merits alone have made our good Works meritorious which is very honourable to our Saviour and very Orthodox Divinity in comparison with those who think good Works such meritorious things whatever their Faith be and if he considers this twice I suppose he will confess that Faith in Christ the true Catholick Faith is necessary to Salvation 2. Nay it is necessary before all other things to our Salvation because it is necessary to Baptism which alone puts us into a state of Salvation For he that believes and is baptized shall be saved but he that believes not shall be damned All Christians must confess that there is no other Name given under Heaven whereby Men can be saved but onely the Name of Christ that Faith in Christ in adult Persons is necessary to Baptism that Baptism alone incorporates us into the Body of Christ and puts us into a state of Salvation and therefore that neither Jews nor Turks nor Heathens none but believing and baptized Christians are in a state of Salvation how morally vertuous soever their Lives may be Whoever does not confess this makes nothing of the Covenant of Grace in Jesus Christ nothing of his Sacrifice Priesthood and Intercession makes the Christian Religion nothing but a new and more perfect Sect of Philosophy than either Jews or Heathens taught before whose Condition yet is as safe as the Condition of Christians if they live according to the knowledge they have Our Author then must either renounce the Christian Religion or confess the true Catholick Faith or a true Faith in Christ is before all other things necessary to Salvation because this is that which puts us into a state of Salvation by Christ without which no Man can be saved according to the terms of the Gospel 3. If Faith in Christ be necessary to Salvation I suppose all Men will grant it must be the true Faith in Christ not a false and heretical Faith for that is equivalent to Infidelity there seems to be little difference between not believing in Christ at all and not believing what we ought to believe of him and the belief of which is necessary to Salvation for if we do not believe that of Christ which is necessary to Salvation we may as well believe nothing and then to be sure it concerns us to hold the Catholick Faith whatever that be 4. That the Faith of the Holy Trinity is that true Christian Faith which is necessary to Salvation appears from the Form of Baptism itself for we are baptised in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that is into the Faith and Worship of the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity which is the Substance of the Athanasian Creed This is the Baptismal Faith and that certainly is necessary to Salvation if any Faith be Now when we consider that Baptism is our solemn Dedication to God and Admission into Covenant with him to be dedicated to the Son and Holy Ghost in the same manner in the very same act and same form of words whereby we are dedicated to the Father were they not One Supream and Soveraign God with the Father would make any considering Man abhor the Christian Religion as the most open and bare-faced Idolatry as joyning Creatures with God in the most solemn Act of Religion that of dedicating Men to His Worship and Service But not to insist on that now our Author may hence learn that to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost is necessary to Salvation because it is the Faith of Baptism and if that Exposition which the Athanasian Creed has given of this Faith be the true Catholick Doctrine then that is necessary to Salvation and therefore the Creed begins very properly with asserting the necessity of holding the Catholick Faith if we will be saved which must be as necessary to Salvation as it is to be Christians Which Faith except a Man keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly By keeping this Faith whole and undefiled must be meant if any thing be meant that a Man should believe and profess it without adding to it or taking from it If we take from it we do not keep it whole if we add ought to it we do not keep it undefiled and either way we shall perish everlastingly A Man of ordinary Sense and Candor would have said that to keep this Faith whole and undefiled signified not to corrupt the Faith either by adding to it or taking from it for whatever we add or whatever we take away which does not alter the Essentials of our Faith the Faith remains whole and undefiled still But this would have spoiled his notable Remarks both as to adding and taking away First for adding What if an honest plain Man because he is a Christian and a Protestant should think it necessary to add this Article to the Athanasian Creed I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a Divine Infallible and Compleat Rule both for Faith and Manners I hope no Protestant would think a Man damned for such addition And if so then this Creed of Athanasius is at least an unnecessary Rule of Faith That is to say it is an addition to the Catholick Faith to own the Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith As if it were an addition to the Laws of England to own the Original Records of them in the Tower For the Catholick Faith is what we are to believe the Rule of Faith is that Book or Writing wherein this Catholick Faith is to be found and upon the Authority of which we must believe it and therefore what the Catholick Faith is
and what is the Rule of Faith are two very distinct Questions and to apply what is said of the Catholick Faith to the Rule of Faith becomes the Wit and understanding of an Heretick This is the very Argument which the Papists use against our Authors Compleat and Infallible Rule of Faith the Scriptures that they do not contain all things necessary to Salvation because they do not prove the great Fundamental of the Protestant Faith that the Canon of Scripture which we receive is the Word of God now what Answer he would give to Papists with reference to the sufficiency of Scripture let him suppose I give him the same Answer in Vindication of the Catholick Faith of the Athanasian Creed and we are right again But his parting blow is worth some little observation That if the Scriptures be a compleat Rule of Faith then this Creed of Athanasius is at least an unnecessary Rule of Faith But why did he not say the same thing of the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed or any other Creeds as well as of the Athanasian Creed for it seems a Creed as a Creed for there is no other sense to be made of it is a very unnecessary thing if the Scripture be a compleat Rule of Faith And thus both Catholicks and Hereticks even his dear Arians and Socinians have troubled themselves and the World to no purpose in drawing up Creeds and Confessions of Faith But this Author ought to be sent to School to learn the difference between a Creed and a Rule of Faith A Rule of Faith is a divinely inspired Writing which contains all matters to be believed and upon the Authority of which we do believe a Creed is a Summary of Faith or a Collection of such Articles as we ought to believe the Truth of which we must examine by some other Rule the sum then of our Author's Argument is this That because the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and contains all things necessary to be believed therefore it is very unnecessary to collect out of the Scripture such Propositions as are necessary for all Christians explicitely to believe He might as well have proved from the Scriptures being a compleat Rule of Faith that therefore there is no necessity of Commentators or Sermons or Catechisms as that there is no necessity of Creeds But as senseless as this is there is a very deep fetch in it for he would have no other Creed but that the Scripture is the Divine Infallible Compleat Rule of Faith which makes all other Creeds unnecessary and then he can make what he pleases of Scripture as all other Hereticks have done before him But let me ask this Author whether to believe in general that the Scripture is the compleat Rule of Faith without an explicite belief of what is contained in Scripture will carry a Man to Heaven There seems to me no great difference between this general Faith in the Scriptures without particularly knowing and believing what they teach and believing as the Church believes We suppose then he will grant us the necessity of an explicite belief of all things contained in the Scripture necessary to Salvation and ought not the Church then to instruct People what these necessary Articles of Faith are and what is the true sense of Scripture about them Especially when there are a great many damnable Heresies taught in the Church by Men of perverse Minds who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction and does not this shew the necessity of Orthodox Creeds and Formularies of Faith And this puts me in mind of the great usefulness of ancient Creeds though the Holy Scripture be the only Divine and Infallible Rule of Faith viz. That they are a kind of secondary Rule as containing the Traditionary Faith of the Church It is no hard matter for witty Men to put very perverse senses on Scripture to favour their heretical Doctrines and to defend them with such Sophistry as shall easily impose upon unlearned and unthinking Men and the best way in this case is to have recourse to the ancient Faith of the Christian Church to learn from thence how these Articles were understood and professed by them for we cannot but think that those who conversed with the Apostles and did not only receive the Scriptures but the sense and interpretation of them from the Apostles or Apostolical Men understood the true Christian Faith much better than those at a farther remove and therefore as long as we can reasonably suppose this Tradition to be preserved in the Church their Authority is very Venerable and this gives so great and venerable Authority to some of the first General Councils and therefore we find Tertullian himself confuting the Hereticks of his days by this argument from Prescription or the constant Tradition of all Apostolick Churches which was certain and unquestionable at that time and as much as Papists pretend to Tradition we appeal to Tradition for the first Three or Four Centuries and if the Doctrine of the Athanasian Creed have as good a Tradition as this as certainly it has it is no unnecessary Rule though we do not make it a primary and uncontroulable Rule as the Holy Scripture is where there are two different Senses put on Scripture it is certainly the safest to embrace that sense if the words will bear it which is most agreeable to the received Doctrine of the Primitive Church contained in the Writings of her Doctors or Ancient Creeds or such Creeds as are conformed to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church Then for taking ought from this Creed the whole Greek Church diffused through so many Provinces rejects as Heretical that Period of it The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son contending that the Holy Spirit is from the Father only which also they clearly and demonstratively prove as we shall see in its proper place And for the menace here of Athanasius that they shall perish everlastingly they laugh at it and say He was drunk when he made that Creed Gennad Schol. Arch Bishop of Constantin This Addition of the Filioque or the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and from the Son which was disputed between the Greek and Latin Church is no corruption of the Essentials of the Christian Faith about the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as I observed before nor does Athanasius deny Salvation to those who do not believe it For he that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity does not relate to every particular Word and Phrase but to that Doctrine which immediately proceeds That the Trinity in Vnity and Vnity in Trinity is to be Worshipped which the Greeks acknowledged as well as the Latins and therefore agreed in the Substantials of Faith necessary to Salvation And that I havereason for what I say appears from this that after the Latins were perswaded that the Holy Ghost did proceed from the Son they were far enough from denying Salvation to those who
Imperial Palace to countenance and promote their proceedings and having bespattered Athanasius with all the ill things they had formerly charged him with and tried in vain to delay the Sentence of the Western Bishops they proceeded Synodically to condemn and depose him together with several other principal Bishops of the Catholick Party of all which they published an Encyclical or Decretal Epistle wherein they gave a large account of their whole proceeding The Western Bishops in the mean time after a large and particular Examination of Athanasius's Case and all Matters of Fact relating to him acquitted and restored him and having heard the Complaints made to the Synod from all parts concerning the Grievances they lay under from the Arian Faction they particularly condemned and deposed the chief Heads of that Party and banished them from the Communion of the Faithful publishing an account of what they had done in several Synodical Letters Thus far it was pretty well with Athanasius for all the Churches of God did not condemn him if he were condemned by the Eastern Bishops in a Schismatical Conventicle he was absolved by the Western Council if he was condemned by the Arians he was absolved by the Catholicks but still his Faith was no matter of the Dispute But now the Zeal of Constantius reduced Athanasius to greater extremity for he lying at Arles in France Anno 353 a Synod was held there where all Arts were used to procure the condemnation of Athanasius at least by refusing to hold Communion with him to which most of the Bishops yielded and Vincentius of Capua himself the Pope's chief Legate subscribed the Condemnation Paulinus of Triers for his honest courage and constancy in refusing it being driven into Banishment Not contented with this as if poor Athanasius could never be often enough condemned Anno 355 Constantius going to Milan another Synod was called there and the Catholick Bishops were strictly required to subscribe the Condemnation of Athanasius and the Emperor himself being present in the Synod drew his Sword and fiercely told them That it must be so that he himself accused Athanasius and that his Testimony ought to be believed And for refusing to comply Eusebius Vercellensis Lucifer Caralitanus and several others were sent into Banishment This is the Council which as our Author tells us consisted of Three hundred Bishops but the Emperor was more than all the rest and it was he that extorted the Condemnation of Athanasius and let him make his best of this The like Violence was used in other Synods as in that of Syrmium Anno 357 where a Confession of Faith was drawn up which Hosius of Corduba was forced to subscribe and as some say to condemn Athanasius Anno 359 was his other great Council at Ariminum of Five hundred and fifty Bishops where they were so managed by the subtilty and importunity of some few Arian Bishops and so wearied out by Taurus the Prefect and that by the command of the Emperor that they generally yielded several of them being even starved into compliance and this is the time of which St. Ierom speaks that the whole World wondered to see itself Arian By such Councils and by such Arts as these Athanasius was condemned though he was never accused nor condemned for his Faith and that veneration the whole Christian World has had ever since for the Name of Athasius is a sufficient Vindication of his Person and Faith notwithstanding the ill usage he met with under an Arian Emperor As for his next Paragraph wherein he appeals to the late Arian Historian Chr. Sandius I shall only refer the Reader to Dr. Bull 's Answer and I think I am more than even with him and whoever will read and consider what that learned Man has irrefragably proved that those Fathers who lived before the Council of Nice were yet of the same Faith with the Nicene Fathers as to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity will see that a very modest Man may call this the Catholick Faith even in his sense of the word Catholick as it signifies the common Faith of Christians in all Ages since the Preaching of the Gospel in the World And that it requires both Forehead and Forgery to deny it And if in that Age Athanasius were the only Man who durst openly and boldly defend the Catholick Faith against a prevailing Faction supported by a Court Interest and grown formidable by Lies and Calumnies and the most barbarous Cruelties it is for his immortal Honour and will always be thought so by the Churches of Christ. And now I come to answer his terrible Objections against the several Articles of this Creed which he has endeavoured to ridicule and when I have done so I hope he will think it time to consider what it is to ridicule the Christian Faith A modest Man would not affront the general Faith of Christians at least of that Church in which he lives and a cautious Man whatever his private Opinion were would not ridicule so venerable a Mystery lest it should prove true which is the same Argument we use to make Atheists modest not to laugh at the Notion of a God lest he should find the God whom he has so impudently affronted when he comes into the other World SECT IV. The Catholick Doctrine of a Trinity in Vnity and Vnity in Trinity explained and vindicated from all pretended Absurdities and Contradictions THE Catholick Faith is this That we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity He means here That we must so worship the One True God as to remember he is Three Persons and so worship the Three Persons as to bear in mind they are but One Substance or Godhead or God So the Author explains himself in the Three next Articles which are these Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance for there is One Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One. Therefore all these Articles make indeed but One Article which is this The One true God is Three distinct Persons and Three distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are the One true God Thus far I agree with this Author and indeed this is the whole of the Creed as far as relates to the Doctrine of the Trinity that there are Three Persons and One God all the rest being only a more particular explication of this and therefore I would desire the Reader to observe for the understanding this Creed what belongs to the Persons and what to the One Eternal undivided Substance or Godhead which will answer all the seeming Contradictions which are charged on this Doctrine But he proceeds Plainly as if a Man should say Peter Iames and Iohn being Three Persons are One Man and One Man is these Three Persons Peter Iames and Iohn Is it not now a ridiculous attempt as well as a barbarous Indignity to
go about thus to make Asses of all Mankind under a pretence of teaching them a Creed and Things Divine to despoil them of their Reason the Image of God and the Character of our Nature But let us in two words examine the Parts of this monstrous Proposition as 't is laid down in the Creed itself Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance But how can we not but confound the Persons that have say they but One numerical Substance and how can we but divide the Substance which we find in Three distinct divided Persons Our Author should have kept to Athanasius's Creed which he undertook to expose and then we had not heard of this Objection for the Creed does not say that there are Three Persons in One numerical Substance but in One undivided Substance nor does it say that there are Three divided Persons in this One undivided Substance but Three Persons which may be Three and yet not divided but intimately united to each other in one undivided Substance Now tho' we should grant it unconceivable how Three distinct Persons should have One numerical Essence that the Essence of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost should be numerically the same and yet their Persons distinct for it is not easie to distinguish the Essence or Substance from the Person and therefore not easie to tell how there should be but One Substance and Three Persons yet it is no Absurdity or Contradiction to say that Three real substantial Persons should subsist in One undivided Substance and then there is no necessity either to confound the Persons or divide the Substance We must allow the Divine Persons to be real substantial Beings if we allow each Person to be God unless we will call any thing a God which has no real Being as that has not which has not a real Nature and Essence whereas all Men grant there are no Accidents or Qualities or Modes in God but a pure and simple Essence or pure Act and therefore the Three Divine Persons are substantially distinct though in One undivided Substance which shews that to say That the One true God is Three distinct Persons and Three distinct Persons are the One true God is not plainly as if a Man should say That Peter James and John being Three Persons are One Man and One Man is Three distinct Persons Peter James and John Because Peter Iames and Iohn are not only distinct but divided and separate Persons which have Three divided and separate Substances which therefore cannot be One Man as Three distinct Persons in One undivided Substance are One God This is sufficient to vindicate the Athanasian Creed which only asserts Three distinct Persons in One undivided Substance which has nothing absurd or contradictious in it but because this Author founds his Objection upon One numerical Substance let us briefly consider that too for the Divine Essence or Substance is certainly numerically One as there is but One God and the difficulty is how Three distinct substantial Persons can subsist in One numerical Essence I will not pretend to fathom such a Mystery as this but only shew that there is nothing absurd in it and take down the confidence of this vain Pretender to Reason and Demonstration Let us then enquire what it is that makes any Substance numerically One that if there be any Absurdity in this we may find out where it lies Now in unorganiz'd Matter it is nothing else but the union of Parts which hang all together that makes such a Body One whether it be simple or compounded of different kinds of Matter that is One numerical Body whose Parts hang all together In Organical Bodies the Union of all Parts which constitute such an organized Body makes it One entire numerical Body though the Parts have very different Natures and Offices but this is of no use to explain the numerical Oneness of the Divine Essence because the Divine Substance has no Extension and no Parts and therefore cannot be One by an Union of Parts In finite created Spirits which have no Parts and no Extension neither that we know of no more than a Thought or an Idea or a Passion have Extension or Parts their numerical Oneness can be nothing else but every Spirit 's Unity with itself and distinct and separate subsistence from all other created Spirits Now this Self unity of the Spirit which has no Parts to be united can be nothing else but Self-consciousness That it is conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings Passions which no other finite Spirit is conscious to but itself This makes a finite Spirit numerically One and seperates it from all other Spirits that every Spirit feels only its own Thoughts and Passions but is not conscious to the Thoughts and Passions of any other Spirit And therefore if there were Three created Spirits so united as to be conscious to each others Thoughts and Passions as they are to their own I cannot see any reason why we might not say that Three such Persons were numerically One for they are as much One with each other as every Spirit is One with itself unless we can find some other Unity for a Spirit than Self-consciousness and I think this does help us to understand in some measure this great and venerable Mystery of a Trinity in Vnity For God being present every-where without Parts and without Extension we must strip our Minds of all material Images and Figures when we contemplate the Unity of the Divine Nature Though we should suppose but One Person in the Godhead as well as One God as this Author does yet we must consider his Unity not as the Unity of an infinite Body but an infinite Mind which has no distinct Parts to be united and let any Man who can give me any other Notion of the numerical Oneness of an infinite Mind but Self-consciousness that though present every-where it is still intimate with itself and in the very same way and for the very same reason Three Divine Persons who are as intimate to each other and if I may so speak as mutually conscious to each other as any One Person can be to itself are truly and properly numerically One. This I suppose is what several Ancient Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession which I confess is an ill word and apt to raise very material Imaginations in us as if the Divine Persons were united in One Substance as Three Bodies would be could they touch in every Point whereas we know not what the Substance of an infinite Mind is nor how such Substances as have no Parts or Extension can touch each other or be thus externally united but we know the Unity of a Mind or Spirit reaches as far as its Self-consciousness does for that is One Spirit which knows and feels itself and its own thoughts and motions and if we mean this by Circumincession Three Persons thus intimate to each other are numerically One And
therefore St. Austin represents this much better by that Self-consciousness which is between those distinct Faculties in us of Memory Understanding and Will which know and feel whatever is in each other We remember what we understand and will we understand what we remember and will and what we will we remember and understand and therefore these Three Faculties which are thus intimate to each other make one Man and if we can suppose Three Infinite Minds and Persons thus conscious of whatever is in each other as they are of themselves they can be but One numerical God But that this may not be thought a meer arbitrary and groundless conjecture I shall shew you that this is the true Scripture Notion of the Unity of the Godhead or of Three Persons and One God That the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Infinite Minds really distinct from each other that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost either the Father or the Son is so very plain in Scripture that I shall not spend time to prove it especially since it is supposed in this Controversie for when we enquire how these Three Infinite Minds or Persons are One God it supposes that they are distinct and if there were any Dispute about it what I shall say in explaining their Unity will prove their Distinction that they are Three distinct infinite minds 1. Let us then consider what the Unity is between the Father and the Son for so our Saviour tells us I and the Father are One 10 Iohn 30. And how they are One we learn from several places in this Gospel which as the Ancients tell us was wrote on purpose in opposition to the Heresie of Carinthus to prove that Christ was not meer Man but the Eternal Son of God and One with his Father Now 1 Iohn 1. the Evangelists call him the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Word of God the Eternal Wisdom and Reason of God and therefore as intimate to God as his own Eternal Word and Wisdom as intimate as a Man 's own Wisdom and Reason is to him and therefore he adds that this Word which was in the beginning was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with God as we translate it which cannot signifie a local presence but an essential union or a being in God as Christ tells us The Father is in me and I in him 10 Iohn 38. for before place was made or any thing to fill it to be with God could signifie nothing else but to subsist in him and therefore v. 18. the Apostle expounds this being with God by being in the bosome of the Father which cannot signifie an External Union because God has no External Bosom but Bosom signifies the very Essence of God and if we could distinguish Parts in God the most inward and secret Recesses of the Divine Nature Now this intimate Union and In-being when we speak of an essential Union of pure and infinite Minds is a mutual consciousness and if I may so speak an inward sensation of each other to know and feel each other as they know and feel themselves To represent this plainly and intelligibly if it be possible to the meanest understanding I shall consider wherein the most perfect Union of created Spirits consist which are distinct and seperate Beings from each other wherein the Union of the Divine Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity answers this and wherein it excels it Now created Spirits as Angels and Humane Souls are then most perfectly united to each other when they most perfectly know one another and know all that each other knows and perfectly agree in all they know which is an Union in Knowledge when they perfectly love one another have the same will the same affections the same interests and designs when they are a kind of Unisons which move and act a like as if one Soul animated them both This is that perfect Unity which is so frequently and earnestly recommended to Christians both by Christ and his Apostles as we may see every-where in Scripture And the very same Union with this there is between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity an Union in knowledge in love in will in works The Son perfectly knows the Father and therefore knows all that the Father knows this St. Iohn means when he tells us That he is in the Bosom of the Father 1 Iohn 18. No man hath seen God at any time that is no Man ever had a perfect knowledge of God which is here called seeing because sight gives us the most distinct and perfect knowledge of things The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Where it is plain to be in the bosom of the Father is put to signifie the most perfect and intimate knowledge of him as in ordinary speech to take any Man into our bosom signifies to impart all our Secrets to him but our Saviour tells us this in plain words that the Father perfectly knows the Son and the Son the Father 10 Iohn 15. As the Father knoweth me so know I the Father Thus the Father loveth the Son 3 Joh. 25.5 Joh. 20. And the Son loveth the Father 14 Iohn 31. Thus the Son has no will but his Fathers 5 Iohn 20. I can of my own self do nothing as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which hath sent me 6 John 38. For I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me 4 John 34. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work Thus whatever Christ did or spake it was in conformity to his Father what he saw and heard and learnt of him 5 John 19. The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for whatsoever things he doth these also doth the Son likewise 12 John 49. I have not spoken of my self but the Father that sent me he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak This is as perfect an Union as Union signifies agreement and concord as can possibly be between two minds and spirits The like may be said of the Holy Ghost He perfectly knows the Father and his most secret Councels For the spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 He is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation who inspired the Prophets and Apostles to declare God and his will to the World and therefore is most intimately acquainted with it himself Thus our Saviour comforts his Apostles when he was to leave them himself with the Promise of the Spirit who should guide them into all truth 16 Ioh. 13 14 15. Howbeit when he the spirit of truth is come he shall guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will
shew you things to come He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you All things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you Of which words more hereafter at present I only observe how intimately the Holy Spirit is acquainted with all the Secrets both of Father and Son whatever things the Father knows that the Son knows and what the Son knows that the Holy Spirit knows that is whatever the Father knows which is first said to be the Father's then the Son 's and then the Holy Spirit 's according to the Order of Persons in the adorable Trinity Thus the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Love which inspires us with the love of God and gives us the reciprocal Testimonies of God's love to us For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us 5 Rom. 5. And as some of the Ancients represent it he is that love wherewith the Father and the Son love each other and therefore there is no question but that he who unites Father and Son and unites God to us and us to God by love is united to Father and Son by love himself He is that Holy Spirit who renews and sanctifies us and subdues our wills into a conformity and subjection to the will of God and therefore no doubt but he has the same will with Father and Son Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost are most intimately united in knowledge will and affection but after all this is no more than what we call a Moral Union such as may be between created Spirits which remain separate Beings still and though they are morally are not essentially One and therefore such an Union as this cannot make Father Son and Holy Ghost One God but Three agreeing and consenting Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn though they should in the most perfect manner be united in the same Faith and mutual love and affection c. yet would be Three Men still And therefore I must now shew that what is merely a Moral Union between Creatures is an essential Union between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity And this I have already shewn in part The Three Divine Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity are united in knowledge in will in love but are not united as Creatures are by an external likeness conformity agreement consent in knowledge will and affection but are so united to each other as every Man is to himself not as one Man is to another As for instance Every Man by an inward sensation feeels his own knowledge will and affections but he does not know any other Man's thoughts or will or passions by feeling them in himself as he does his own but by an external communication of thoughts and therefore though they may be morally One by an exact agreement and harmony of thoughts and passions as far as by external communication they can know what each others thoughts and passions are yet they are essentially distinct and separate But Father Son and Holy Ghost are One not by an external agreement or consent but by an internal consciousness as every Man is One with himself If I may so speak because we want proper words to express it they feel each other in themselves know the same thing by feeling each others knowledge and will and love a-like by feeling what each other wills and loves just as every Man feels his own thoughts knowledge will and passions that is are as intimate to each other and as essentially One by a mutual Self-consciousness as every Man is One with himself And the phrases and expressions of Scripture whereby the Unity or Oneness of Father Son and Holy Ghost are expressed require this sense Thus I observed before that the Son is the eternal word and wisdom of the Father and therefore as intimate to him as every Man's Reason is to himself and knows the Father not by external Revelation but as every Man knows himself But the most frequent expression whereby Christ represents this close and intimate and essential Union between his Father and him is I am in the Father and the Father in me which he repeats several times in St. Iohn's Gospel Now if we will allow this to be a proper not a metaphorical expression it can signifie no other Union than what I have now described That it is a proper and not a metaphorical expression appears from this that there is no such Union in Nature between any two other Beings as this to be in One another and a Metaphor is translated from something that is real and natural upon account of some likeness and similitude and therefore that which is like to nothing else which has no pattern and example can be no Metaphor because it alludes to nothing Now if we speak of a substantial Union or a Union of Substances what two Substances can there be in the World which can mutually be in each other or can mutually comprehend each other which is indeed a palpable contradiction as signifying at the same time to be greater and to be less than each other for in substantial Unions that which comprehends is greater than that which is comprehended that which is within any thing else is less than that which contains it and therefore for two Beings mutually to comprehend and to be comprehended by each other is to be greater and less than each other greater as they comprehend each other and less as they are comprehended So that this Oneness between the Father and the Son is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it and we cannot long doubt what kind of Union this is if we consider that there is but one possible way to be thus united and that is by this mutual Consciousness which I have now described If the Son be conscious in himself of all that the Father is as conscious to the knowledge to the will to the love of the Father as he is to his own by an internal sensation then the whole Father is in the Son if the Father be thus conscious to all that the Son is then the whole Son is in the Father if the Holy Ghost be thus conscious to all that is in the Father and in the Son then the Father and the Son are in the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son by this mutual Consciousness to each other This is very plain and intelligible and makes them as much One as every Man is One with himself by Self-consciousness And this is a plain demonstration that all Three Divine Persons are coessential and coequal with each other We know nothing of God but that he is an infinite Mind that is infinite Knowledge Wisdom Power Goodness And if these Three Divine Persons are all internally conscious of all these Perfections which are in each other they must all have the
As thou Father art in me and I in Thee Not that they may be One in the very same manner but with such a kind of Unity as does most nearly resemble the Unity between the Father and the Son that is which produces the like consent and harmony in Will and Affections For we must observe that As very often signifies only some likeness and resemblance not a sameness for kind or degree and thus it must of necessity signifie in all comparisons between God and Creatures for though there is something in Creatures like to what is in God some faint shadows and images of it yet nothing in Creatures is the same that is in God St. Peter exhorts Christians As he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of Conversation 1 Pet. 1.15 And Christ commands us to be perfect as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect 5 Matth. 48. But can any Creature be holy and perfect as God is Will you hence conclude that Holiness is not the immutable Nature of God but the free choice of his Will not his Nature which is One pure simple Act but an Habit of Virtue because so it is in us and yet we must be holy and perfect as God is which cannot be according to this way of Reasoning unless holiness in God be the same holiness which is in Creatures and indeed we may as well conclude this as that the Oneness between the Father and the Son is only a Moral Union in Will and Affection because there can be no other Union between Christians and yet Christ prays that they may be One as He and his Father are One Since this phrase As thou Father art in me and I in thee does evidently signifie a great deal more than such a Moral Union of Will and Affections why should they not as well conclude that Christ prays for such an essential Oneness between Christians as there is between him and his Father as that the Father and the Son are One in no higher and more perfect sense than what is applicable to the Unity of Christians with each other There may be such a likeness and resemblance between natural and moral Unions between the Acts and Perfections of Nature and the Vertues of the Will and Choice as may be a just foundation for a comparison but he is a very absurd Reasoner who from such a comparison will conclude they are the same we are required to love our Neighbour as our selves but will any Man hence conclude that the love of our selves and the love of our Neighbour are of the same kind Which is manifestly false Self-love being a natural and necessary Passion the love of our Neighbour a Christian Vertue the first the effect of Nature the second of Grace but the effects so like each other that they may well be compared and the natural principle which acts most equally and necessarily and perfectly may be made the Rule and Measure of Brotherly love Thus this essential Unity between the Father and the Son produces the most perfect harmony and Union of Will and Affections and therefore is the most perfect Pattern of that Moral Union which ought to be among Christians For we may observe that this Oneness between the Father and the Son is not the only natural and essential Unity which is made the Pattern of Unity among Christians the unity of the natural Body and the vital sympathy and fellow-feeling which all the Members of the same natural Body have for each other is proposed as a pattern also of that mutual love and affection between Christians 1 Cor. 12.12 27. And yet no man will be so absurd as to say That either Christians are as naturally and vitally united to each other as the Members of a natural Body are or that the Members of the natural Body are united only by mutual Love and Affection as Christians are This is sufficient to shew how Father and Son are One by a mutual consciousness whereby they are as intimate to each other as every man is to himself who knows all that is in himself and feels all the motions and workings of his own mind and we need not doubt but the Holy Spirit is in the same manner One with Father and Son But I must not expect that the Adversaries I have to deal with will grant any thing which is not proved and therefore I shall not stand to their Courtesie but briefly prove this also St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 2.10 That the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God So that the Holy Spirit knows all that is in God even his most deep and secret Counsels which is an argument that he is very intimate with him but this is not all it is the manner of knowing which must prove this consciousness of which I speak and that the Apostle adds in the next Verse that the Spirit of God knows all that is in God just as the Spirit of a Man knows all that is in Man that is not by external revelation or communication of this knowledge but by Self-consciousness by an internal Sensation which is owing to an essential Unity v. 11. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God So that the Spirit of God is as much within God and as intimate to him as the Spirit of Man is in Man that is by an essential Oneness and Self-consciousness And as the Spirit knoweth the deep things of God so God who searcheth the hearts knoweth the mind of the spirit too 8 Rom. 27. So that the Father and the Holy Ghost are mutually conscious to each other as a Man and his own Spirit are and then we need not doubt but the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of the Son as well as of the Father Is as intimate to the Son also And therefore Christ tells us of the Spirit He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you all things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you 16 John 14 15. So that the Holy Spirit receives the things of Christ But how does he receive them Just as Christ receives them of the Father the same things and the same way not by an external communication but by an essential Oneness and Consciousness of all that is in the Father and in the Son This seems to me to be the true Scripture-account of the numerical Unity of the Divine Essence and to make a Trinity in Unity as intelligible as the Notion of One God is but because all that I have to say turns upon this I shall more particularly explain this Notion 1. By shewing that this contains the true Orthodox Faith of the Holy Trinity 2. That it gives a plain and intelligible Solution of all the Difficulties and
seeming Contradictions in the Doctine of the Trinity I. This contains the true Orthodox Faith of the Holy Trinity or a Trinity in Unity for so the Athanasian Creed teaches us To worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance for there is One Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal There are two things then which an Orthodox Christian must take care of neither to confound the Persons nor to divide the Substance that is to acknowledge Three distinct Persons and yet but One God and nothing can be more apparent than both these in that account which I have given of the Ever Blessed Trinity 1. It is plain the Persons are perfectly distinct for they are Three distinct and infinite Minds and therefore Three distinct Persons for a Person is an intelligent Being and to say they are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct infinite Minds is both Heresie and Nonsense The Scripture I 'm sure represents Father Son and Holy Ghost as Three intelligent Beings not as Three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is down-right Sabellianism for Faculties are not Persons no more than Memory Will and Understanding are Three Persons in One Man When we prove the Holy Ghost to be a Person against the Socinians who make him only a Divine Power we prove that all the Properties of a Person belong to him such as Understanding Will Affections and Actions which shews what our Notion of a Person is such a Being as has Understanding and Will and Power of Action and it would be very strange that we should own Three Persons each of which Persons is truly and properly God and not own Three infinite Minds as if any thing could be a God but an infinite Mind And the distinction between these Three Infinite Minds is plain according to this Notion for they are distinguished just as Three finite and created Minds are by Self-consciousness They are united indeed into One as I have already discoursed by a mutual Consciousness to each other which no created Spirits have which are conscious only to the actings of their own Minds not to each others and therefore these Three Divine Persons are not separate Minds as created Spirits are but only distinct each Divine Person has a Self consciousness of its own and knows and feels itself if I may so speak as distinct from the other Divine Persons the Father has a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor the Holy Ghost and the Son in like manner feels himself to be the Son and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost feels himself to be the Holy Ghost and not the Father nor the Son as Iames feels himself to be Iames and not Peter nor Iohn which proves them to be distinct Persons Which is a very plain account how these Three Divine Persons are distinct that there is One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts Here is no confounding of Persons 2. Nor do we divide the Substance but unite these Three Persons in One numerical Essence for we know nothing of the unity of the Mind but self-consciousness as I shewed before and therefore as the self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct Persons so the mutual consciousness of all Three Divine Persons to each other makes them all but One infinite God as far as consciousness reaches so far the Unity of a Spirit extends for we know no other unity of a Mind or Spirit but consciousness In a created Spirit this consciousness extends only to itself and therefore self-consciousness makes it One with itself and divides and separates it from all other Spirits but could this consciousness extend to other Spirits as it does to itself all these Spirits which were mutually conscious to each other as they are to themselves though they were distinct Persons would be essentially One And this is that essential unity which is between Father Son and Holy Ghost who are essentially united by a mutual consciousness to whatever is in each other and do by an internal sensation I want other words to express it feel each other as they do themselves and therefore are as essentially One as a Mind and Spirit is One with itself 2. This is a very plain and intelligible account of this great and venerable Mystery as plain and intelligible as the Notion of One God or of One Person in the Godhead The great difficulty of conceiving a Trinity of Persons in One infinite and undivided Essence or Substance arises from those gross and material Idea's we have of Essence and Substance when we speak of the Essence or Substance of God or created Spirits We can frame no Idea of Substance but what we have from Matter that it is something extended in a tripple Dimension in length and breadth and depth which is the subject of those Qualities which inhere and subsist in it And therefore as Matter is the subject of all sensible Qualities so we conceive some such Substance of a Mind and Spirit which is the subject of Will and Understanding of Thoughts and Passions And then we find it impossible to conceive how there should be Three Divine Persons which are all infinite without Three distinct infinite Substances each distinct infinite Person having a distinct infinite Substance of his own and if we grant this it seems a plain contradiction to say That these Three distinct infinite Substances are but One numerical Infinite Substance which is to say that Three Infinities are but One Infinite and that Three Persons are but One Person for a Person and an intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms and therefore Three distinct Persons are Three distinct numerical Substances and One numerical intelligent Substance is but One numerical Person But this is all carnal Reason in a strict and proper sense which conceives of an infinite Mind after the manner of a Body and distinguishes between the Matter or Substance and the Powers and Vertues of the Divine Essence as it does between Matter and Qualities and Accidents in Bodies We know nothing of the Divine Essence but that God is an infinite Mind and if we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God but an infinite Minds that is infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness the Essence of God though considered but as One numerical Person is as perfectly unintelligible to us as the One numerical Essence or Substance of Three Divine Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity It is this gross and material imagination about the Essence and Substance of the Deity which occasions all the Difficulties about the Notion of One God as well as of a Trinity in Unity For we cannot
Beings are distinguished and united and then there will appear no difficulty or absurdity in the essential union of Three Minds by a mutual consciousness to each other That the essential unity of a Spirit consists in self-consciousness every man may feel in himself for it is nothing else which makes a Spirit One and distinguishes it from all other Spirits and therefore if Two Spirits were conscious to all that is in each other as they are to what they feel in themselves they would be united to each other by the same kind of unity which makes every individual Spirit One And why then should not this be thought an essential unity between the Divine Persons of the ever Blessed Trinity And is there any difficulty in conceiving this that Father Son and Holy Ghost should be thus intimately conscious to each other The Scripture plainly asserts that it is so as I have already proved and there is no impossibility in the thing nay if we will allow Three infinite Minds it is impossible it should be otherwise A finite created Spirit indeed is conscious only to itself and not to any other created Spirits but God who is an infinite Mind is conscious to all created Spirits dwells within us and sees all our Thoughts and Motions and Passions as perfectly as we do our own how he does this we know not that he does so the Scripture assures us and that there is nothing impossible in it our Reason will tell us for certainly that infinite Mind which made all finite Spirits can see them too that is see all the Thoughts and Passions of a Spirit which is the only way of seeing a Spirit and that can be no infinite Mind which does not for there is something which it does not know if it does not know our thoughts If then it be essential to an infinite Mind to be conscious to all Spirits if we allow that there are Three infinite Minds we must grant that they are mutually conscious to each other though an infinite Mind is conscious to all that is in created Spirits yet there is not a mutual consciousness and therefore no essential unity between them for created Spirits are not conscious to an infinite Mind as it is impossible they should unless they were infinite themselves for a Mind which is conscious to an infinite Mind that is a Mind which comprehends an infinite Mind must be infinite But it is a contradiction to say there are Three infinite Minds unless they are mutually conscious to each other for if there be any thing in one which is not in the other they cannot both be infinite unless one infinite can be greater than another The truth is we have no positive Notion of Infinity but only in a Mind and it is impossible to conceive any Three Beings that are infinite but only Three infinite Minds and Three Minds may be infinite but then they must be mutually self-conscious or they cannot all be infinite When we think of an infinite Being we are presently confounded with the corporeal Images of an infinite Substance or a Substance infinitely extended and this we can make nothing of for indeed it is demonstrable that there can be no such thing We have an imagination of infinite space which we can set no bounds to but how far soever we extend our thoughts we can still imagine something beyond that but then we have no Notion that space is any thing but only a capacity to receive something nay it seems to me to be nothing else but an imaginary Idea of Extension separated from Body and Matter as we conceive place to be distinct from the Body which fills the place and therefore that if the Body were annihilated place would remain still of the same dimensions which the Body had that filled it and this is the conception of an imaginary space infinitely extended But it is as plain as any demonstration that no real Being is infinitely extended for there is and can be no actual Extension infinite The Extension of a real Being must really and actually be and yet there is not a more self-evident Proposition than this that there is no Extension so great but that it may be extended farther and then there can be no such thing in being as an infinite Extension for if there were there would be such an Extension as could not be extended farther unless we can extend that which is actually infinite already We may easily observe what it is that cheats us into the Opinion of infinite Extension as if there were such a real thing viz. That we cannot see to the end of all possible Extension we cannot extend our thoughts so far but we can imagine something farther and therefore we fancy that there is something infinitely extended though we cannot comprehend it or see to the end of it which would be a contradiction to see to the end of that which has none But we should observe that it is not the defect of our imagination that we cannot conceive an infinite Extension but Reason tells us that there neither is nor can be any such Extension but what may be extended farther now what cannot be cannot be a real thing for whatever is real is It is exactly the same case in Numbers there neither is nor can be an infinite number because there is no number so great nor can any number be so great but it may be made greater by adding to it so that Numbers Extension and the same may be said of Time and Succession are called infinite not that they have any real and positive infinity but because we can add to them without end which is a demonstration that they neither are nor can be infinite for what is infinite is capable of no additions and there can be no Number Extension or successive Duration but what is capable of infinite additions and therefore is at an infinite distance from being infinite By this time I suppose every one is convinc'd that infinite Extension does not belong to the Idea of a God because there is no such thing in Nature and if infinite Extension does not no Extension can for nothing is God but what is infinite Though the truth is this very word infinite confounds our Notions of God and makes the most perfect and excellent Being the most perfectly unknown to us for infinite is only a negative term and signifies that which has no end no bounds no measure and therefore no positive and determined Nature and therefore is nothing that an infinite Being had not use and custom reconciled us to that expression would be thought Nonsense and Contradiction for every real Being has a certain and determined Nature and therefore is not infinite in this sense which is so far from being a perfection that it signifies nothing real But since Custom has made it necessary to use this word it is necessary to explain what we mean by it That an infinite Being signifies a Being absolutely
perfect or which has all possible Perfections which has no other end of its Perfections but Perfection itself that is a finite imperfect Being that wants any Perfections that is an infinite Being not which has no end of its Perfections but which actually has all Perfections and can be no more perfect than it is For there is a measure of the most absolute and in this sense infinite Perfections before which no Being is absolutely perfect and beyond which there are no new degrees of Perfection for if we do not grant this there can be no Being absolutely perfect As for Instance Infinite Wisdom Knowledge Goodness Justice Power have fixt and set bounds to their Perfections beyond which they cannot go Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom knows all things that are knowable and that are wise infinite Goodness can do all things which are good infinite Justice is perfect Justice which observes the exact proportions of Right and Wrong infinite Power can do all things which can be done To know what is not to be known to do what is not to be done to be good or just beyond the perfect measures of Goodness and Justice is a contradiction for it is neither Wisdom nor Power nor Goodness nor Justice The Nature of Wisdom Power Justice and Goodness is fixt and determined and the utmost bounds of them is absolute perfection The Divine Nature is the Original Rule and Standard and utmost bounds of them and therefore absolutely perfect These Perfections indeed may be called infinite in the Negative sense with respect to us that we know not what the utmost extent of them are We know not how far infinite Wisdom and Power and Goodness reaches but then we certainly know that they have their bounds and that the Divine Nature is the utmost bounds of them for nothing can be a Rule and Measure of absolute Perfections but the Divine Nature itself Now this gives us a positive Notion and Idea of God though we cannot comprehend his absolute Perfections we as certainly know what God is as we know what Wisdom Knowledge Power Goodness Justice signifie but how wise how good how powerful God is we know not because we do not know the utmost extent of these Perfections I must now add that there can be no absolute Perfections but those of a Mind such as I have so often mentioned Wisdom Power Goodness As for Matter it is so imperfect a Being itself that it cannot be the subject of absolute Perfections Nothing which belongs to Matter is a Perfection considered in itself Extension is no Perfection no more than the dimensions of a Body are to be long or broad or deep to be little or great which may be Perfections or Imperfections as it happens with relation to the just measures and proportions of different Bodies for either greatness or littleness may make different things monstrous and therefore neither of them are either Beauties or Perfections themselves for what is in itself a Perfection is always so Extension is of no use but where there is a multitude or diversity of Parts and such a compound Being can never be absolutely perfect because it is made of Parts which are not absolutely perfect as no Part can be and ten thousand imperfect Parts can never make up an absolute perfect Being And if what is infinitely perfect can have no Parts it needs no Extension and can have none for what is extended has assignable Parts whether they can be divided or not Omnipresence is a great and unquestionable Perfection but to be Omnipresent by infinite Extension if such a thing could be would be no Perfection at all for this would be to be present only by Parts as a Body might be which is infinitely extended and a Body is a capable of infinite Extension as any Man can conceive a Spirit to be and yet if a Spirit be Omnipresent only by infinite Extension the whole Substance of that Spirit is not present every where but part of it in one place and part in another as many Miles distant from each other as the places are where such parts of the Omnipresent Spirit are This all Men will confess to be absurd and yet if the whole Mind and Spirit be present every where it is certain it is not present every where by way of Extension for the whole Extension of an infinitely extended Spirit is not present every where And if Omnipresence itself cannot be owing to infinite Extension no Man can tell me why an infinite Mind should be extended at all For Extension itself is no Perfection Much less do any other Vertues and Qualities of Bodies deserve the Name of Absolute Perfections and therefore we must seek for Absolute Perfection only in a Mind perfect Wisdom Knowledge Power Goodness Justice make an absolute perfect Mind there are no other absolute Perfections but these and therefore there can be no other absolutely perfect Being but an infinite Mind But besides this we may observe that all these absolute Perfections by a mutual consciousness may be entire and equal in three distinct infinite Minds There is no contradiction that three infinite Minds should be absolutely perfect in Wisdom Goodness Justice and Power for these are Perfections which may be in more than One as Three Men may all know the same things and be equally just and good but Three such Minds cannot be absolutely perfect without being mutually conscious to each other as they are to themselves for if they do not perfectly know each other as they know themselves their Wisdom and Knowledge is not absolutely perfect for they do not know all things if they do not perfectly know one another and there can be no such perfect knowledge of each other without a mutual consciousness This shews not only the possibility of this Notion that Three distinct infinite Minds should be mutually conscious to each other but the necessity of it if there be Three such infinitely perfect Minds for they cannot be infinitely perfect without being conscious to one another Thus to proceed This Notion plainly reconciles the perfect equality of all Three Persons with the Prerogative of the Father and the Subordination of the Son and Holy Spirit That all Three persons are perfectly equal in Knowledge Wisdom Goodness Justice Power is evident from their mutual consciousness whereby they all know love and do the same things which is a perfect equality But this does not destroy the natural Subordination of the Son to the Father of a derivative to an original Light as Christ is called in the Nicene Creed God of God Light of Light For though God has communicated his own Nature to him and received him into his Bosom to an intimate consciousness with himself which makes him the perfect Image of his Father yet he receives all this from his Father by eternal Generation he is a Son still though equal to his Father in all Divine Perfections and therefore subordinate to him as a Son and the
like may be said of the Holy Spirit This shews also how these Three distinct Persons are each of them God and yet are all but One God Each Person is God for each Person has the whole and entire Perfections of the Godhead having by this mutual consciousness the other Persons in himself that each Person is in some sense the whole Trinity The Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit in Father and Son and Father and Son in the Holy Spirit and therefore if the whole Trinity be God the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God they being all mutually in each other and yet this is a plain demonstration that they are not Three Gods but One God because neither of them are the One Supreme God but as thus intimately united to all the rest and then they can be all Three but One Supreme God This gives an intelligible account of one of the most difficult Problems in all School-Divinity which the Master of the Sentences borrowed from St. Austin as he has done most of his other Distinctions that the whole Trinity is not greater than any One Person in the Trinity This sounds very harshly at first hearing and yet if we consider it we must confess it to be true unless we will say that there is a greater and less in God or that the Three Persons in the Trinity make One God as Three parts make a whole each of which parts must be less than the whole and yet I cannot see any possible way to understand this matter but only this That the whole Trinity by a mutual consciousness is in each person and therefore no Person is less than the whole Trinity And this is the only possible way of understanding the different Modi subsistendi of which the Schools speak That the Three Divine Persons have One numerical Essence and are One God but are distinguished from each other by a distinct manner of Subsistence proper to each Person It is plain the Schoolmen were no Sabellians they did not think the Three Divine Persons to be only Three Names of the same infinite Being but acknowledged each Person to be really distinct from one another and each of them to have the same numerical Essence and to be truly and properly God and not to be Three Modes of the same infinite God which is little better than Three Names of One God And what are these Modi subsistendi by which the Divine Persons are distinguished from each other Now they are no other than the proper and distinguishing Characters of each Person that the Father is of himself or without any cause that the Son is begotten of the Father that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son Which proves that by these Modi subsistendi they did not mean as some mistake them that the Three Divine Persons are Three Modes of the Deity or only modally distinguished for there are no Modes no more than there are Qualities and Accidents in the Deity much less can a Mode be a God To be sure all Men must grant that the Father is not a Mode of the Deity but essentially God and yet he has his Modus subsistendi as well as the Son and the Holy Ghost and no Man can think that the Father begat only a Modus and called it his Son whereas a Son signifies a real Person of the same Nature but distinct from his Father All then that can possibly be meant by these Modes of Subsistence is this that the same numerical Essence is whole and entire in each Divine Person but in a different manner the Son and Holy Ghost are in the Father as the One is begotten the other proceeds from him and yet both remain in him an intimate consciousness and thus you have often heard all Three Persons are in each other and therefore are numerically One the Father has the Son and Holy Ghost in himself as the Fountain of the Deity the Son begotten of the Father the Holy Ghost Proceeding from Father and Son That is there are Three infinite Minds which are distinguished from each other by the relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost the Father begets the Son is begotten the Holy Ghost proceeds which are there different Modes of subsisting but each of these infinite Minds has the other Two in himself by an intimate and mutual consciousness and that makes all Three Persons numerically One Divine Essence or One God for when the whole Trinity is in each distinct Person each Person is the same One numerical God and all of them but One God If the Father for instance have his own personal Wisdom and by an internal consciousness all the Wisdom of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and the Son have his own personal Wisdom and by the same consciousness all the Wisdom of the Father and the Holy Ghost and in like manner the Holy Ghost have his own personal Wisdom and all the Wisdom of Father and Son this infinite Wisdom which is in Father Son and Holy Ghost is identically the same for from which Person soever you begin to reckon this Union it is the same Father Son and Holy Ghost still which are thus intimately united into One and therefore it is the same numerical and identical Wisdom which is in each of them and the same in all To add no more This Notion gives a plain account too of that Maxim of the Schools That all the Operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to all Three Persons for it cannot possibly be otherwise when they are thus intimately united by a mutual consciousness for they can no more act than they can subsist separately when the Wisdom Goodness Justice Power of the whole Trinity is entire in each Person and the same in all every Person of the Trinity must be equally concerned saving the Natural Order and Subordination of Persons in all the external Effects and Operations of the Divine Wisdom Justice Goodness and Power Thus I have endeavoured to explain this Great and Venerable Mystery of a Trinity in Unity and this I may say that I have given not only a very possible and a very intelligible Notion of it but such also as is very agreeable to the phrase and expressions of Scripture such as preserves the Majesty of the Article and solves all the Difficulties of it there may be a great deal more in this Mystery than we can fathom but thus much we can understand of it and that is enough to reconcile us to this belief and to shame and silence the profane Scoffers at a Trinity in Unity as I have in part shewn already and will do now more fully by proceeding to answer those many Absurdities and Contradictions charged on it by the Brief Notes To proceed then where I left off There is One Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost Then the Son is not the Father
nor is the Father the Son nor the Holy Ghost either of them I grant it their Persons are distinct and therefore are not each other but they are all essentially united by a mutual consciousness whereby they are mutually in each other and can be no more separated from each other than every Man 's own mind can be divided from itself But if the Father is not the Son and yet is by confession of all the One true God then the Son is not the One true God because he is not the Father The reason is self-evident for how can the Son be the One true God if he be not He who is the one true God After the same manner it may be proved that on thâ—e Athanasian Principles neither the Father nor Holy Spirit are or can be God or the One true God for neither of them is the Son who is the One true God according to Athanasius and all Trinitarians for they all say The Father is the One true God the Son is the One true God and the Holy Ghost the One true God which is a threefold contradiction because there is but One true God and One of these Persons is not the other But if it be a Contradiction it is certainly false for every Contradiction being made up of Inconsistencies destroys itself and is its own Confutation This is meer trick and fallacy or misrepresentation To have made his Argument conclude he should have said The Father is not the Son and yet the Person of the Father considered not only as distinguished but as divided and separated from the Person of the Son is the One true God and then the Son is not the One true God because he is not the Father And then indeed his reason had been self-evident that the Person of the Son as separated from the Person of the Father is not the One true God because the Person of the Son is not the Person of the Father who is the One true God But neither Athanasius ' nor any of the Trinitarians ever said this That the Person of the Father as separated from the Persons for the Son and of the Holy Ghost is the One true God or that the Person of the Son as separated from the Persons of the Father and the Holy Ghost is the One true God or that the Person of the Holy Ghost as separated from the Persons of the Father and of the Son is the One true God for we constantly affirm that Father Son and Holy Ghost by an intimate and inseparable Union to each other are but One true God but as their Persons can never be separated so they must never be considered in a separate state and if we will imagine such an impossible absurdity as this neither of them are the One true God for whoever separates them destroys the Deity and leaves neither Father Son nor Holy Ghost And yet if we consider these Three Divine Persons as containing each other in themselves and essentially One by a mutual consciousness this pretended Contradiction vanishes For then the Father is the One true God because the Father has the Son and the Holy Spirit in himself and the Son may be called the One true God of which more presently because the Son has the Father and the Holy Ghost in himself and the Holy Ghost the One True God because he has the Father and the Son in himself and yet all but One true God because Father Son and Holy Ghost are united into One and then though One of these Persons is not the other yet each Person by an essential unity contains both others in himself and therefore if all Three Persons are the One true God each Person is God And this is the true meaning of the Athanasian Creed which this Author has corrupted by adding the One true God to every Person that the Father is the One true God the Son the One true God the Holy Ghost the One true God as if each Person as distinguished and separated from the other were the One true God and then it would indeed sound pretty like a Contradiction to add yet there is but One true God But the Athanasian Creed only says The Father is God the Son God the Holy Ghost God yet Three are not Three Gods but One God which plainly shews that it does not speak of these Three Divine Persons as distinguished and separated from each other but as united into One God not as Three parts of the Deity but as Three Persons who are essentially One God as mutually containing each other that is by a mutual self-consciousness as I have now explained it which is the essential Unity of a Mind As for this expression The One true God it is never attributed to Son or Holy Ghost that I know of either in Scripture or any Catholick Writer tho' it is to the Father whom our Saviour himself calls The only true God for all Three Divine Persons as in conjunction with each other being the One only true God This Title cannot so properly be attributed to any One Person but only the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity for though all Three Persons are in each other by a mutual consciousness and therefore each Person has all the Perfections of the Godhead yet the Son is in the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Father and the Son in such a manner as the Father is not in the Son nor the Father and Son in the Holy Spirit which the Schools call the Modi subsistendi that is the Son is in the Father by eternal generation and the Holy Spirit in Father and Son by eternal procession and this is the natural Order of the Trinity and therefore when this One God is to be signified by the Name of any One Person it is proper to follow the Order of Nature if I may so speak and to signifie the whole Sacred Trinity by the Name of the Father who is the eternal Scource and Fountain of it The Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the Glory equal the Majesty coeternal The meaning of the last clause is that the Glory and Majesty of the Son and Holy Spirit is equal to the Glory and Majesty of the Father or the Son and Holy Spirit are equally Glorious and Majestical with God the Father Therefore I ask whether the Glory and Majesty with which the Son and Spirit are Glorious and Majestical be the same in number that is the very same with which the Father is Glorious and Majestical or only the same for kind or degree If it be not the same in number then the Godhead of the Father and of the Son is not as this Creed teaches all One and they are not One and the same God for Two infinite and distinct Glories and Majesties make Two Gods and Three make Three Gods as every one sees and to say true the Trinitarians
themselves confess It remains therefore that they say That the Glory and Majesty of the Son and Spirit is the same in number and not for kind and degree only with that of the Father but then it follows that the Glory and Majesty of these Persons is neither equal nor coeternal Not equal for 't is the same which equals never are Not coeternal for this also plainly intimates that they are distinct For how coeternal if not distinct Do we say a thing is coeternal and cotemperary with itself Therefore also this Article doth impugn and destroy itself Besides if the Glory and Majesty of the Three Persons be numerically the same then so are all their other Attributes from whence it follows that there is not any real difference between the Three Persons and they are only Three several Names of God which is the Heresie of the Sabellians What he says That if the Glory and Majesty of the Three Persons be numerically the same so are all their other Attributes is certainly true for their Glory and Majesty is nothing else but the infinite Perfections of their Nature And therefore to make short work with this I affirm that the Glory and Majesty and all the other perfections of these Three Divine Persons are as distinct as their Persons are and therefore may be coequal and coeternal because they are distinct and yet they are as numerically One and the same as the Godhead is They are Three Infinite Minds and therefore distinct as Three Minds are but they are all mutually conscious to each other and therefore as essentially One as the same Mind is One with itself by a self-consciousness this does not destroy the Distinction of their Persons nor consequently of their Majesty and Glory their Glory and Majesty is as distinct as their Persons are and united as their Persons are into One essential and numerical Glory of one Supreme God a Trinity in Unity But to expose the ridiculous Sophistry of this instead of their Glory equal their Majesty coeternal let us put in their Persons equal and coeternal for the equality of their Glory and coeternity of their Majesty is nothing else but the equality and coeternity of their Persons that the Godhead of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One their Persons equal and coeternal And then our Note-makers Argument runs thus I ask whether the Persons of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which are equal and coeternal with the Person of the Father be the same in number that is the very same with the Person of the Father or only the same for kind and degree If they be not the same in number that is if they be distinct Persons as the Creed affirms then the Godhead of the Father and of the Son is not all One and they are not One and the same God for Two infinite and distinct Persons make Two Gods and Three make Three Gods Is not this now a self-evident proof that there cannot be One Godhead if there be Three Persons because Three Persons make Three Gods Quod erat demonstrandum that is it cannot be because it cannot be But to proceed with his argument It remains therefore that these Trinitarians say That the Person of the Son and Spirit is the same in number and not in kind or degree only with the Person of the Father That is because they affirm these Divine Persons to be distinct therefore they must say they are numerically the same and what then Why then they are neither equal nor coeternal because they are the same without any real distinction and the same thing is not equal nor coeternal with itself Right very right Sir a plain demonstration And thus the poor Trinitarians are eternally confounded They teach that there are Three distinct Persons and One eternal and infinite God he plainly confutes this by saying That if there be One Godhead there cannot be Three distinct Persons for Three distinct Persons are Three Gods and if he had proved it as well as said it it had been a direct confutation They affirm that these Three distinct Persons are coequal and coeternal he proves that they are not because they must say though they say the quite contrary that they are not Three but One numerical Person and then they cannot be coequal and coeternal and thus they shamefully contradict themselves and this Article is Felo de se If this be the profound Reason of Hereticks God deliver me from Heresie if it were for no other Reason but to keep my Understanding And yet as ridiculous as this looks it is the whole of his Reasoning for if there be Three distinct coequal and coeternal Persons their Majesty and Glory must be as distinct coequal coeternal as their Persons are and united into One numerical essential Glory as their Persons are into One God and how Three infinite Minds or the Three Divine Persons or which is the same thing Three Divine Glories and Majesties may be really distinct and yet numerically One God I have already explained at large In the next place this Creed teaches That The Father is Incomprehensible Uncreate Eternal Almighty the Holy Ghost is Incomprehensible Uncreate Eternal Almighty Also That each of these Persons is by himself God and Lord so that the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God yet there are not Three Gods or Lords nor Three Incomprehensibles nor Three Almighties not Three Eternals nor Uncreated Now if in imitation of this a Man should have a mind to say The Father is a Person the Son is a Person and the Holy Ghost is a Person yet not Three Persons but One Person I would know why this were not as good Grammer and Arithmetick as when Athanasius says The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God yet not Three Gods but One God or when he says The Father Vncreated the Son Vncreated the Holy Ghost Vncreated yet not Three Vncreated but One Vncreated And so of the rest Doth not a Man contradict himself when the Term or Terms in his Negation are the same with those in his Affirmation If not then it may be true That The Father is a Person the Son is a Person the Holy Ghost is a Person yet there are not Three Persons but One Person For all the fault here is only this that in the last clause the term Person is denied to belong to more than One when in the first it had been affirmed of no fewer than Three For the same reason it must be a Contradiction to say The Father is God the Son is God the Holy Ghost is God yet there are not Three Gods but One God For the Term God is at last denied to belong to more than One though in the first clause it was affirmed of Three Will they say that in these words there are not Three Gods but One God the term God is not denied to
belong to more than One or is not appropriated to One If so then there are not three Persons but One Person and again there are not Three Men but One Man then I say these Propositions do not deny the terms Person and Men to belong to more than One or appropriate them to One only which yet every Body confesses they do This Objection sounds very formidably too but proves nothing but the shameful Ignorance and impudence of this Author who undertakes to write Notes upon Creeds and to ridicule the Venerable Mysteries of the Christian Faith before he understands them For let us begin with the Adjectives first such as Vncreated Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty and we need take under consideration but any One of these and that will explain all the rest for there is the same account to be given of them all The Father then is Uncreated the Son Uncreated the Holy Ghost Uncreated and yet there are not Three Uncreated but One Uncreated Now to make this a Contradiction that there are Three Father Son and Holy Ghost Uncreated and yet that there are not Three Uncreated but One Uncreated this term Vncreated must be applied to the same subject and affirmed and denied in the same sense Now when Father Son and Holy Ghost are said to be Uncreated this term Vncreated is applied to the Three Divine Persons and if Father Son and Holy Ghost are Uncreated it is certain there are Three Divine Persons Vncreated and had it been said in the Creed that there are not Three Divine Persons Uncreated it had been as plain a Contradiction as to say That the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and yet there are not Three Persons but one Person Thus far our Author and I agree But wherein then do we differ For is it not expresly said in the Creed that though the Father is Uncreated the Son Uncreated the Holy Ghost Uncreated which are plainly Three Uncreated if Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three yet there are not Three Uncreated but One Uncreated I grant it but if our Author had understood any Greek or Latin he should have made a little use of it here and then he would have found that the Creed of Athanasius had not denied that there were Three Uncreated Persons and therefore did not contradict what it had before affirmed that the Three Persons of the Sacred Trinity are all Uncreated For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tres Increati cannot signifie Three Uncreated Persons as it must do to make it a Contradiction for though there is no Substantive expressed yet some must be understood and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Increati will not agree with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Personae and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Dii must be understood that is though there are Three Uncreated Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost yet there are not Three Uncreated Gods but One Uncreated God which is no more a Contradiction than to say that though there are Three Divine Persons there are not Three but One God And that this is the true meaning of the Article appears from the whole scope and design of it I shall instance only in the conclusion which contains the Reason of the whole why though all Three Persons are Uncreated Incomprehensible Eternal Almighty God and Lord yet we must not say that there are Three but One Eternal Incomprehensible Uncreated Almighty God and Lord For like as we are compelled by the Christian Verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord and there is the same reason for Eternal Uncreate c. So are we forbidden by the Catholick Religion to say There are Three Gods or Three Lords Three Eternals Incomprehensibles Uncreated Almighties Which plainly proves that when the Creed denies that there are Three Eternals or Three Uncreated it does not deny that there are Three Eternal and Uncreated Persons but that there are Three Eternal and Uncreated Gods which is not like saying there are not Three Persons but One Person but these Three Eternal Persons are not Three Eternal Gods but One Eternal God This is a sufficient Answer with relation to the Adjectives of Eternal Uncreate Incomprehensible Almighty that if you joyn them with Person there are Three Eternal Uncreated Persons but if you joyn them with God there are not Three Eternal Uncreated Gods but One Eternal Uncreated God and this is no more a contradiction than to say there are Three Persons and but One God but what shall we say to the term GOD which is ascribed to all Three Persons and yet the Creed affirms that though there are Three Persons each of which is God yet there are not Three Gods but One God That is the term God is affirmed of Three and yet denied to belong to more than One And is not this a Contradiction I answer No unless this term God be attributed to Three divided and separated Persons for if Three such separated Persons be each of them God they must be Three Gods and it would be a Contradiction to say that Three Persons which are divided and separated from each other are each of them God and yet that there are not Three Gods but One God But if these Three distinct Persons are not separated but essentially united into One each of them may be God and all Three but One God for if these Three Persons each of whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Creed singly by himself not seperately from the other Divine Persons is God and Lord are essentially united into One there can be but One God and One Lord and how each of these Persons is God and all of them but One God by their mutual consciousness I have already explained That Salvo he has found out for the Trinitarians of this pretended Contradiction of Three Gods and One God that there are Three personal Gods and but One essential God is so senseless and the Paragraph so long that I shall not give my self the trouble of transcribing it for the Answer lies in a few words We grant there are Three Persons each of whom is God but we deny that there are Three personal Gods because though their Persons are distinct they never were and never can be divided and separated and therefore can be but One God being essentially united into One by Three Gods all Mankind understand Three distinct and separate Beings independent on One another each of which is a Supreme and Soveraign God as Three seperate humane Persons are Three Men but where the Persons are not separated but essentially united into One there we must acknowledge but One God But you 'll say Though the Union of their Persons will not allow us to say that there are Three separate personal Gods yet if all Three Persons are distinct though not separated from each other and each of them is God considered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as distinct
though not separate from the other Divine Persons then at least the Godhead of each Person must be as distinct as their Persons are and we must acknowledge three distinct though not separate Gods I answer by no means We must allow each Person to be a God but each distinct Person is not a distinct God there is but One Godhead which can no more be distinguished then it can be divided from it self There is but One God and each Divine Person is this One numerical God has the whole entire Godhead in himself and the same One numerical Godhead is in them all thus each Divine Person is God and all of them but the same One God as I explained it before This One Supream God is Father Son and Holy Ghost a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God Now Father Son and Holy Ghost with all their Divine Attributes and Perfections excepting their personal Properties which the Schools call the Modi subsistendi that One is the Father the other the Son the other the Holy Ghost which cannot be communicated to each other are whole and entire in each Person by a mutual consciousness each Person feels the other Persons in himself all their essential Wisdom Power Goodness Justice as he feels himself and this makes them essentially One as I have proved at large Now if the whole Trinity be in each Divine Person by such an intimate and essential Union we must confess each Person to be God if the whole Trinity be God and yet there being but One Trinity One Father Son and Holy Ghost who are essentially One by a mutual consciousness it is certain all these Three Divine Persons can be but One God for where-ever you begin to reckon there are but Three and these Three are One If we consider the Father and Holy Ghost in the Son by this mutual consciousness we truly affirm the Son to be God as having all the Divine Perfections of the whole Trinity in himself if we consider the Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost for the same reason we affirm the Holy Ghost to be God but the natural Order of the Trinity is to reckon from the Father as the Fountain of the Deity that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God for the Son and Holy Spirit are in the Father not only by a mutual consciousness as the Father and the Son are in the Holy Ghost but as in their Cause if I may so speak and the Ancient Fathers were not afraid to speak so as in their Root their Origine their Fountain from whence they receive the communications of the Divine Essence and Godhead the Son by Eternal Generation being God of God Light of Light the Holy Ghost by Eternal Procession from the Father and the Son Thus all these Divine Persons are naturally united in the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity and all essentially in each other by a mutual consciousness which makes each Person God and all One and the same God without any shew of Contradiction SECT V. The Doctrine of the Fathers and of the Schools concerning the Distinction of Persons and the Vnity of Essence in the Ever Blessed Trinity considered and reconciled to the foregoing Explication of it THis Notion of the Union of the Divine Persons in One numerical Essence by a mutual consciousness to each other is so very plain and gives so easie and intelligible an account both of the Phrases of Scripture and all other Difficulties in the Doctrine of the Trinity that this alone is sufficient to reconcile any Man to it but I am very sensible how afraid Men are and not without reason of any new Explications of so Venerable a Mystery and such a Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity as this is and therefore I must ward this blow as well as I can and remove the prejudice of Novelty and Innovation Now if it appear that I have advanced no new Proposition but have confined myself to the received Faith and Doctrine of the Catholick Church if that Explication I have given of it contain nothing new but what is universally acknowledged though possibly not in express terms applied to that purpose I use it for if that explication I have given be very consistent with nay be the true interpretation of that account the Ancients give of a Trinity in Unity I hope it will not be thought an unpardonable Novelty if I have expressed the same thing in other words which give us a more clear and distinct apprehension of it and to satisfie all men that it is so I shall compare what I have now said concerning the Distinction of Persons and the Unity of Essence in the Ever Blessed Trinity with the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Schools I. To begin then with the distinction of Persons I have not indeed troubled my Readers with the different signification of Essence and Hypostasis Substance Subsistence Person Existence Nature c. which are terms very differently used by Greek and Latin Fathers in this Dispute and have very much obscured this Doctrine instead of explaining it but I plainly assert That as the Father is an eternal and infinite Mind so the Son is an eternal and infinite Mind distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost is an eternal and infinite Mind distinct both from Father and Son which every body can understand without any skill in Logick or Metaphysicks And this is no new Notion but the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and Schools Three Persons signifie Three who are infinite in Knowledge and Wisdom and all other Perfections which belong to a Mind Now no Man who acknowledges a Trinity of Persons ever denied that the Son and the Holy Spirit were intelligent Beings or Minds When they tell us which is their common Language that the Son is the substantial Word and Wisdom of the Father what is this else but to say that he is an intelligent Being or infinite Mind Greg. Nyssen calls the Son or Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind or Intellect Athanasius observes from our Saviour's words I and my Father are One that are signifies two or the distinction of Persons as One signifies the Unity of Essence for he does not say I and my Father am but are One. And therefore if the Father be an eternal Mind and Wisdom the Son also is an eternal but begotten Mind and Wisdom as the Nicene Creed tells us That he is God of God Light of Light very God of very God St. Austin in his Sixth Book of the Trinity takes notice of a common argument used by the Orthodox Fathers against the Arians to prove the coeternity of the Son with the Father that if the Son be the Wisdom and Power of God as St. Paul teaches 1 Cor. 1. and God was never without his Wisdom and Power the Son must be coeternal with the Father for it is distraction to say that the Father was ever without his Wisdom or Power was
neither wise nor powerful But this acute Father discovered a great inconvenience in this argument for it forces us to say that the Father is not wise but by that Wisdom which he begot not being himself Wisdom as the Father and then we must consider whether the Son himself as he is God of God and Light of Light may be said to be Wisdom of Wisdom if God the Father be not Wisdom but only begets Wisdom and by the same reason we may say that he begets his own Greatness and Goodness and Eternity and Omnipotency and is not himself his own Greatness or Goodness or Eternity or Omnipotency but is Great and Good Eternal and Omnipotent by the Greatness Goodness Eternity Omnipotency which is born of him as he is not his own Wisdom but is wise with that Wisdom which he begets The Master of the Sentences follows St. Austin exactly in this Point and urges this unanswerable Argument for it which he grounds upon St. Austin's Principle That in God to be and to be wise is the same thing and if it be he cannot be wise with the Wisdom he begets for then he would receive his Being from this begotten Wisdom not Wisdom from him for if the Wisdom he begets be the Cause of his being wise it is the Cause also that he is which must be either by begetting or by making him but no man will say that Wisdom is any way the Begetter or Maker of the Father which is the heighth of madness And in the next Chapter he teaches That the Father is unbegotten the Son begotten Wisdom so that according to St. Austin and the Master of the Sentences who is the Oracle of the Schools the Father is Eternal Wisdom or an Eternal Mind and the Son Eternal Wisdom and Mind though both are united into One Eternal Wisdom and if we confess this of Father and Son there can be no Dispute about the Holy Ghost who is Eternal Mind and Wisdom distinct both from Father and Son Nothing is more familiar with the Ancient Fathers than to represent Father Son and Holy Ghost to be Three as distinct Persons as Peter Iames and Iohn are as every one knows who is at all versed in this Controversie and this is charged on them by some men as little better than Polytheism or a Trinity of Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are a Trinity of men but this must be true with reference to distinction of Persons if we will acknowledge a real distinction between them for if the distinction be real and not meerly nominal which was the Heresie of Sabellius their Persons must be as distinct as three humane Persons or three men are The Father is no more the Son or the Holy Ghost than Peter is Iames or Iohn but then they are not separated or divided from each other as Peter Iames and Iohn are for that indeed would make them three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are three men There is no Example in Nature of such a distinction and unity as is between the Three Persons in the Godhead and therefore the ancient Fathers made use of several Comparisons to different purposes which must carefully be confined to what they applied them for if we extend them farther we make Nonsense or Heresie of them There are three things to be considered in the ever blessed Trinity the Distinction of Persons the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature and their Essential Unity and the Fathers make use of different Comparisons to represent each of these by because no one can represent them all but inconsidering Persons seek for all in One and because they cannot find it they reject them all as impertinent dangerous or heretical and reproach the Fathers sometimes as ignorant of this great Mystery sometimes as bordering upon Heresie which I am sure does little service to the Doctrine it self and gives great countenance to false and corrupt Notions of it whence the Fathers themselves even those who were the most zealous Opposers of Arianism are thought Favourites of such Opinions I shall have occasion to take notice of several Instances of this as I go on at present I shall confine my self to the Distinction of Persons which cannot be more truly and aptly represented than by the distinction between three men for Father Son and Holy Ghost are as really distinct Persons as Peter Iames and Iohn but whoever shall hence conclude That these Fathers thought that Father Son and Holy Ghost are no otherwise One also than Peter Iames and Iohn are greatly abuse them without any colourable pretence for it as will appear more presently but this Comparison of theirs shows what their sense was that these Three Divine Persons are Three Eternal and Infinite Minds as really distinct from each other as Three men are though essentially united into One Infinite and Eternal Mind or One God But I need not insist on this for the real distinction of Persons is so plainly taught by the ancient Fathers especially after the rise of the Sabellian Heresie that there is more difficulty to understand how they unite them into One God then that they make them distinct Persons and what they say about the unity of the Godhead abundantly proves this distinction of Persons Secondly Let us therefore in the second place consider How they explain this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity they all agree That there are Three distinct Persons and that these Three Persons are but One God and they seem to me to agree very well in that account they give of it though some late Writers are very free and I think very unjust in their Censures of some of them as scarcely Orthodox in this Point I shall only remind you that this being so great a Mystery of which we have no Example in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the Godhead and we must carefully apply what they say to those Ends and Purposes for which they said it and not extend it beyond their Intension as I observed before and there are several steps they take towards the Explication of this great Mystery which I shall represent in short and show that taking them altogether they give a plain and intelligible Notion of this Unity in Trinity and indeed no other than what I have already given of it 1. The first thing then to be considered is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 orCo-essentiallity of the Divine Persons That all Three Persons in the God-head have the same Nature which they signified by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now whereas the same Nature may signifie the same Numerical or the same Specifick Nature Petavius and after him Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved that the Nicene Fathers did not understand this word of a
Numerical but Specifick Sameness of Nature or the agreement of things numerically differing from one another in the same common Nature As Maximus very plainly tell us that that is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which has the same Notion or Definition of its Essence as a man differs nothing from a man as he is a man nor an Angel from an Angel as he is an Angel and therefore this word did equally overthrow the Sabellian and the Arian Heresie as it affirms both a distinction of Persons and the sameness of Nature as St. Ambrose and others observe for nothing is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to it self but to something else distinct from it self but of the same common Nature and therefore some who owned the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rejected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as savouring of Sabellianism and implying such a numerical Unity of Essence in the Godhead as destroyed all distinction of Persons for which reason the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self was rejected by some as abused by the Sabellians till the signification of that word was fixt and declared by the Fathers at Nice as Petavius observes This is One thing wherein the Fathers place the Unity of the Godhead that all three Persons have the same Nature and to be sure this is absolutely necessary to make Three Persons One God for it is impossible they should be One God if they have not the same Nature unless Three distinct and separate Beings of divers Natures can be One God that is unless the Divine Nature be not One pure and simple Act but a compound Being and that of different Natures too But some of the Fathers went farther than this and placed the Essential Unity of the Divine Nature in the sameness of Essence that there is but One God because all the Three Divine Persons have the same Nature And it will be necessary briefly to examine what they meant by it to vindicate these Fathers from the Mis-representations and hard Censures of Petavius and Dr. Cudworth who as I hope to make appear have greatly mistaken their Sense The Charge is that they make the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost to be One God only upon account of the same Specifical Divine Nature common to them all just as Three men are One by having the same common Nature or the same Humanity and being asked Why they may not then be called Three Gods as well as we say Peter Iames and Iohn are Three men they answer That this is owing to an ill Custom for they ought not to be called Three men neither which is like saying there are Three Human Natures and though in inferiour Matters we may bear with the abuse of Words and improper forms of Speech yet this is of dangerous Consequence when we speak of God and therefore though there is no great hurt in saying there are Three men though there is but one Humanity common to them all yet we must not say there are Three Gods since there is but One Divine Nature and Essence common to all Three Persons This Petavius says is to deny the true and real Unity of the Divine Substance and Essence and to make God only collectively One as a multitude of men are said to be One People and a multitude of Believers One Church which was the Error of Abbot Ioachim for which he was Condemned in the Council of Lateran Dr. Cudworth represents it thus These Theologers supposed the Three Persons of their Trinity to have really no other than a Specifick Vnity and Identity and because it seems plainly to follow from hence that therefore they must needs be as much Three Gods as Three men are Three men these Learned Fathers endeavoured with their Logick to prove that Three men are but abusively and improperly so called Three they being really and truly but One because there is but One and the same Specifick Essence or Substance of Human Nature in them all He adds It seems plain that this Trinity is no other than a kind of Tritheism and that of Gods Independent and Co-ordinate too This is a very high Charge and yet these Theologers are no less men than Gregory Nyssen and Cyril of Alexandria and Maximus and Damascen men of Note in their Generation and never charged with Heresie before But whatever the meaning of these Fathers was it is plain that Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have mistaken their meaning For they did not think that Father Son and Holy Ghost were one God only as Peter Iames and Iohn are one man or that Peter Iames and Iohn are One man as Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God they neither dreamt of a Collective nor Specifick Unity of the Godhead but asserted a real subsisting numerical Unity of Essence as is obvious to every impartial Reader and therefore if they had not understood how they explained this yet they ought not to have put such a sense upon their Words as is directly contrary to what they affirm I shall not need to transcribe much out of these Fathers to justifie them in this Point but will only represent their Argument as plainly as I can and that will be their Justification whatever become of their Argument They affirm then That Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One God because there is and can be but One numerical Divinity or one Divine Nature and Essence though it subsist in Three distinct Persons against this it was objected that Peter Iames and Iohn though they have the same Human Nature yet are called Three men and there is no absurdity in it when there are more than One who have the same Nature to speak of them in the Plural Number to call Two Two and Three Three how then comes it to pass that Religion forbids this that when we acknowledge Three Persons who have the same Nature without any imaginable difference we must in a manner contradict our selves confessing the Divinity of the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be One and the same and denying that they are Three Gods This Gregory Nyssen answers at large and I shall chiefly confine my self to the Answers he gives which will abundantly show how much these two Learned Men have mis-represented his Sense And first he takes notice of the common Form of Speech of calling Three who partake of the same Human Nature Three Men which inclines us to call the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost who have all the same Divine Nature Three Gods and that naturally betrays men into the Opinion of a Trinity of Gods as well as of a Trinity of Persons who are as much Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three men and therefore he tells us that this is an improper way of speaking even when applied to men to say that there are Three men For man is the name of Nature not of the Person to
say that there is but One man is no more than to say there is but One Humanity and to say there are Three men is to say there are Three Humanities or Three Human Natures and the Name of Nature cannot be a proper Name of distinction and therefore ought not to be multiplied for that which is the same in all cannot distinguish one Person from another This he observes all men are very sensible of for when they would call any particular Person out of a Crowd they do not call him by the Name of Nature that is they do not say you man come hither for this being a common Name as the Nature is common no man could tell who was meant but they call him by the Name of his Person Peter or Iames for though there are many who partake of the same Human Nature yet there is but One man or One Humanity in them all Persons are distinguished and divided and multiplied by peculiar personal properties and therefore may be numbred but Nature is One united with it self a perfect indivisible Unity which neither increases by addition nor is diminished by Substraction but though it be in a Multitude of Individuals is whole entire and undivided in all And therefore as a People an Army a Church are named in the single number though they consist of Multitudes so in exactness and propriety of Speech man may be said to be One though there are a Multitude who partake of the same Human Nature So that hitherto all that the Father hath said tends only to justifie this Form of Speech as having nothing absurd or incongruous in it to acknowledge that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet that there is but One Divinity or Godhead not Three Gods for though this sounds as harsh as to own that Peter is a man and Iames a man and Iohn a man and yet there are not Three men but One man which Custom has made very absurd and contradictious to say which is the Objection he was to Answer yet he observes that according to strict propriety of speaking this is no absurdity to say there are not Three men but One man nay that it is an abuse of Speech to say otherwise because man is the Name of Nature not of a Person and therefore there is but One man as there is but One Human Nature in all those who partake of it for Human Nature is but One whole and indivisible in all and therefore cannot distinguish One Person from another and therefore not be a Name of Number But what makes St. Gregory dispute thus nicely about the use of words and oppose the common and ordinary Forms of Speech Did he in good earnest believe that there is but One man in the World No! No! he acknowledged as many men as we do a great Multitude who had the same Human Nature and that every One who had a Human Nature was an individual man distinguished and divided from all other Individuals of the same Nature what makes him so zealous then against saying that Peter Iames and Iohn are Three men Only this that lie says Man is the Name of Nature and therefore to say there are Three men is the same as to say there are Three Human Natures of a different kind for if there are Three Human Natures they must differ from each other or they can't be Three and so you deny Peter Iames and Iohn to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of the same Nature and for the same reason we must say that though the Father be God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God yet there are not Three Gods but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Godhead and Divinity lest we destroy their Homoousiotes or the Sameness of their Nature and introduce Three Gods of a different Nature like the Pagan Polytheism which is the first reason he gives why we do not say there are Three Gods to avoid the suspicion of Polytheism in numbring and multiplying Gods as the Heathens did which he says is a sufficient Answer for ignorant and unskilful People But to say this in gross will not satisfie more inquisitive men and therefore he assigns the reason for it that Individuals in strict propriety of Speech ought not to be numbred by the name of their Nature because that argues a diversity in their Natures to say Three men is to say there are Three different Humanities whereas Humanity is One and the same in all and as men are not distinguished so they ought not to be numbred by the Name of Nature and that this is all his meaning appears from the reason he gives why this improper way of speaking may be tolerated without any inconvenience when we speak of men that we may say there are Three men but it is very dangerous to apply this to the Divinity and say there are Three Gods because there is no danger by this Form of Speech that that there are Three or more men that any one should be betrayed into that Conceit that we mean a Multitude of Humanities or many different Human Natures but there is danger lest our naming more Gods or saying that there are Three Gods men should imagine that there are divers and different Natures in the Divinity that is that the Three Persons in the Godhead are not all of the same Nature Here St. Gregory lays his Foundation That we must not say there are Three Gods because there is but One Divinity Father Son and Holy Ghost being all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Nature whereas God being the Name of Nature to say there are Three Gods is to say there are Three different Divinities or Divine Natures which destroys the Homoousiotes of the Godhead which is the Sum of his Argument against using the Name of Nature Plurally to say there are Three men or Three Gods There is nothing more plain than this in the Dialogues of Maximus who all along explains this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One Divinity and the One Humanity by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Sameness of Nature and therefore there can be but One Nature though it subsist in several Persons or Individuals Now indeed had they gone no farther in explaining the Unity of the Godhead than this Specifick Unity and Identity of Nature there had been some reason to quarrel with them but they do not stop here but proceed to show how this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature in all Three Persons of the ever blessed Trinity proves a true Numerical and Essential Unity of the Godhead which it does not and cannot do in created Natures without this it is evident there can be no Essential Unity unless we will allow of a Composition of different Natures in the Godhead where the Nature is the same it may be One not only by a Logical but by a Real and Essential Unity Gregory Nyssen
has two ways of doing this 1. He observes that the Name God and so those other Names which are ascribed to the Divinity do not so properly signifie the Divine Nature as declare something relating to it for the Divine Nature is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which has no Name and which no words can express and signifie as the Scripture teaches but the Names given to God only teach us either what we ought not to attribute to the Divine Nature or what we ought but not what the Divine Nature it self is This is a fair Introduction such as becomes a wise man who considers how unknown the Essences of all Things are to us much more the Substance and Essence of God and how it confounds our Minds when we talk of the Numerical Unity of the Godhead to have the least conception or thought about the distinction and union of Natures and Essences and therefore he tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Inspector and Governour of the World that is it is a Name of Energie Operation and Power and if this Vertue Energie Operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost then they are but One God but One Power and Energie and thus he proves it is and that not as it is among men who have the same Power and Skill do the very same Things profess the same Art are Philosophers or Orators alike and yet are not all One Philosopher or One Orator because though they do the same thing yet they act apart every one by himself and have no Communion nor share in what each other do but their Operations are proper to themselves alone but in the Divine Nature it is not so the Father does nothing by himself nor the Son by himself nor the Holy Ghost by himself but the whole Energie and Operation of the Deity relating to Creatures begins with the Father passes to the Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit The Holy Trinity does not act any thing separately there are not Three distinct Operations as there are Three Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but one motion and disposition of the good Will which passes through the whole Trinity from Father to Son and to the Holy Ghost and this is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any distance of Time or propagating the Motion from one to t'other but by One thought as it is in One numerical Mind and Spirit and therefore though they are Three Persons they are but one numerical Power and Energie By this time I hope the Reader is satisfied That this Father does not make the Persons of the Trinity Three Independent and Coordinate Gods who are no otherwise One than Three men are by a Specifick Unity and Identity of Nature but has found out such an Unity for them as he confesses cannot be between Three men even such an Unity as there is in a Spirit which is numerically One with it self and conscious to all its own Motions for I leave any man to judge whether this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this one single Motion of Will which is in the same instant in Father Son and Holy Ghost can signifie any thing else but a mutual consciousness which makes them numerically One and as intimate to each other as every man is to himself as I have already explained it Petavius was aware of this and therefore will not allow this to belong to the same Argument but to be a new and distinct Argument by it self Now suppose this yet methinks he should have suspected he had mistaken the Fathers Sense when he found him contradict what he apprehended to be his Sense within the compass of two Pages but indeed the mistake is his own for the Father pursues his intended Argument to prove that though the Father is God and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God yet we ought not to say that there are Three Gods but One God This he proves first because God is the Name of Nature and the Name of Nature must not be expressed in the Plural number when the Nature is the same without any the least conceivable difference for to say there are Three Gods is to say that there are Three different Divine Natures which introduces Polytheism as to say there are Three men is to say there are Three different Human Natures for if they be the same they are not Three and therefore the Name of the Nature must not be expressed plurally how many Persons soever there are who have the same Nature This was to secure the Homoousiotes of the Divine Nature and if he had stopped here Petavius and Dr. Cudworth might have said what they pleased of him but having secured the Homoousiotes or Sameness of Nature which was the great Dispute of those days between the Orthodox and the Arians he proceeds to show how this same Nature in Three distinct Persons is united into one numerical Essence and Godhead and this he does first by showing that God signifies Power and Energie and that all the Three Persons in the Trinity have but One numerical Energie and Operation and therefore are but One God which is only the improvement of his former Argument for the Sameness of Nature is necessary to the Sameness of Operation for Nature is the Principle of Action especially in God whose Nature is a pure and simple Act and an unity and singularity of Energie and Operation is a demonstration of One numerical Essence for the same single individual Act cannot be done by Two separate Beings who must act separately also Secondly As for those who are not contended to contemplate God as a pure and simple Act or Energie which easily solves this difficulty how Three Persons are One God they having but One numerical Energie and Operation I say as for those who not contented with this inquire after the Unity of the Divine Nature and Essence he asserts that this perfect Homoousiotes or Sameness of Nature without the least difference or alteration makes them numerically One and returns to what he had first said That the Name of Nature should not be expressed Plurally it being One entire undivided Unity which is neither encreased nor diminished by subsisting in more or fewer Persons I confess I do not understand his reasoning in this matter he seems to destroy all Principles of Individuation whereby One thing is distinguished from another where there is no difference or diversity of Nature for Things he says must be distinguished by Magnitude Place Figure Colour or some other diversity in Nature before we can number them and call them Two or Three and therefore since the Divine simple unalterable Nature admits of no Essential diversity that it may be One it will not admit of any number in it self but is but One God Whereas I confess to my understanding if the same pure unmixt
Nature as suppose Humanity should subsist in Twenty several Persons without the least variation I should not doubt notwithstanding the Specifick Unity of Nature to say there are Twenty subsisting Human Natures and Three Minds and Spirits which have no other difference are yet distinguished by self-consciousness and are Three distinct Spirits and therefore to help this out he sometimes adds that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no difference either of Nature or Energie in the Deity and at other times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divine Nature is invariable and undivided which all the ancient Fathers added to explain the Unity of the Trinity that inseparate Union of Nature which is between the Divine Persons that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inseparable from each other But however he might be mistaken in his Philosophy he was not in his Divinity for he asserts a numerical Unity of the Divine Nature not a meer Specifick Unity which is nothing but a Logical Notion nor a Collective Unity which is nothing but a Company who are naturally many but a true subsisting numerical Unity of Nature and if the difficulty of explaining this and his zeal to defend it forced him upon some unintelligible Niceties to prove that the same numerical Human Nature too is but one in all men it is hard to charge him with teaching that there are Three Independant and Coordinate Gods because we think he has not proved that Peter Iames and Iohn are but One man This will make very foul work with the Fathers if we charge them with all those Erronious Conceits about the Trinity which we can fancy in their inconvenient ways of explaining that venerable Mystery especially when they compare that mysterious Unity with any Natural Unions I am sure St. Gregory was so far from suspecting that he should be charged with Tritheism upon this Account that he fences against another Charge of mixing and confounding the Hypostases or Persons by denying any difference or diversity of Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which argues that he thought he had so fully asserted the Unity of the Divine Essence that some might suspect he had left but One Person as well as One Nature in God But though the Homoousiotes or Coessentiality of the Divine Persons is not sufficient alone to prove this Unity of the Godhead yet as I before observed this is necessary to an essential Unity for they must all have the same Nature or they cannot be One and therefore this was the first thing to be considered in the Unity of the Godhead Secondly To this Homo-ousiotes the Fathers added a numerical Unity of the Divine Essence This Petavius has proved at large by numerous Testimonies even from those very Fathers whom he before accused for making God only collectively One as Three Men are One Man such as Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril Maximus Damascen which is a demonstration that however he might mistake their explication of it from the Unity of human Nature they were far enough from Tritheism or One collective God For we must observe though all the Fathers assert the singularity of the Godhead or the numerical Unity of the Divine Essence yet they do not assert such a numerical Unity as there is where there is but One Person as well as One Essence but such a numerical Unity as there is between Three who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the very same nature but are not meerly united by a specifick Unity but by an essential Union and therefore are Three and One This as Maximus truly says is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both a wonderful distinction and union but though several Fathers attempt several ways of explaining it they all agree in the thing that Father Son and Holy Ghost Three distinct Divine Persons are united in one numerical Nature and Essence And I cannot but observe that Petavius greatly commends Boethius's explication of this Mystery which is the very same he had before condemned in Gregory Nyssen and those other Fathers That Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God not Three Gods Cujus conjunctionis ratio est indifferentia the reason or manner of which Union and Conjunction is their indifference that is such a sameness of Nature as admits of no difference or variety or an exact Homo-ousiotes as he explains it Eos enim differentia comitatur qui vel augent vel minuunt ut Ariani qui gradibus meritorum Trinitatem variantes distrahunt atque in pluralitatem deducunt Those make a difference who augment and diminish as the Arians do who distinguish the Trinity into different Natures as well as Persons of different worth and excellency and thus divide and multiply the Trinity into a plurality of Gods Principium enim pluralitatis alteritas est Proeter alteritatem enim nec pluralitas quid sit intelligi potest For the beginning of plurality is alterity for we know not what plurality is but alterity that is there must be some difference in the Nature of Things to make them Two or Three but when the Nature is exactly the same they are but One which is exactly the same account which Gregory gave of it as I have already shewn and why this should be little better than Heresie in him and very good Divinity in Boethius is a little mysterious for after all this numerical Unity of Essence is nothing else but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where there are no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Maximus speaks such an invariable sameness of Nature as has no differences to distinguish it and therefore must be One For these Fathers apprehended that where there was such an exact sameness of Nature they did mutually exist in each other and were but One Power and Energie Will and Counsel and therefore but One Godhead and Monarchy This Gregory Nyssen insists on as I shewed before and Petavius has quoted a remarkable Testimony from Damascen to this purpose which shews also that though they asserted but One Humanity yet they were far enough from thinking that the Three Divine Persons are One God only as Peter Iames and Iohn are one Man where he tells us That the distinction and separation between Peter and Paul is real and visible their union and community of Nature only Notional for we conceive in our minds that Peter and Paul are of the same kind and have but One common Nature thus common Nature is discerned by Reason but yet it subsists by Parts and separately by itself and is distinguished from itself as it subsists in individuals by many things some peculiar marks and properties but especially that they do not subsist in each other but separately and therefore may be called Two or Three or many Men and Gregory Nyssen says the same as Petavius himself owns but in the most sacred Trinity it is otherwise for there the community of Nature is not a Logical Notion but is real from the same Eternity Identity of Substance Action Will
Agreement of Counsels Identity of Authority Power Goodness I do not say Likeness but Identity The numerical Unity then of the Divine Essence resolves itself into those two Principles the Unity and Identity of Power and Energie and that which they call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or circumincession or in-being of the Three Divine Persons in each other which preserves the distinction of Persons but makes the Divine Essence numerically One and indeed these Two are but One and both of them nothing more than what I have explained I think a little more intelligibly by a mutual consciousness whereby all Three Divine Persons are mutually in each other and have but One Energy and Operation That the Fathers universally acknowledged That the Operation of the whole Trinity ad extra is but One Petavius has proved beyond all contradiction and hence they conclude the Unity of the Divine Nature and Essence for every Nature has a vertue and energy of its own for Nature is a principle of Action and if the Energy and Operation be but One there can be but One Nature and if there be Two distinct and divided Operations if either of them can act alone without the other there must be two divided Natures This is certainly true but yet it gives no account how Three distinct Persons come to have but One Will One Energy Power and Operation and there is no account to be given of it that I know of but what I have now given viz. mutual consciousness and that is a very plain account of it for if all Three Persons be conscious to each other as every Man is to himself there can be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gregory Nazianzen speaks but One and the same motion and Will of the Deity they must move and act all together according to the order and subordination of the Divine Persons and it is impossible they should do so without this mutual consciousness as it is that Three Men who are not conscious to each other should have but one single motion of Will in One single and undivided Act The Fathers then and I agree in this that the Unity of the Divine Nature and Essence consists in the singularity of Operation I only add how this Energy and Operation is and must be one by a mutual consciousness and if this be a reasonable and intelligible account I hope it is no fault And there is no other account to be given of that mutual In-being of the Divine Persons in each other which they call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Christ tells us I am in the Father and the Father in me the necessity of this they saw from what our Saviour says and because it is impossible they should be One without such an inseparable and intimate Union and Presence and Inhabitation in each other and therefore Damascen tells us that they cannot go out of each other nor be separated but are united and mutually penetrate each other without confusion Such an Union as this they all agreed in as Petavius largely shews but how to explain it they know not sometimes they are thus intimately united by the sameness of Nature but this might be the cause of this Union but does not explain what this intimate Union is sometimes they represent it by corporeal similitudes which raise gross and material Images in the mind unworthy of the pure and simple Essence of God as the mixture and union of the Light of several Candles in the same Room and of the Colours of the Rainbow c. which is owing to a material conception of the Divine Substance and the Union of Substances which we know nothing of but had they contemplated God as a pure Mind it had been easie to explain this Perichoresis or In-dwelling of the Divine Persons in each other for there is and can be no other Union of Minds but consciousness and by a mutual consciousness they are as intimate to each other as they are to themselves and are whatever each other is as I have explained it at large and I hope this is no fault neither to give an intelligible Explication of that which all the Fathers taught but were not always equally happy in their Explications of it But to do St. Austin right though he do not name this consciousness yet he explains this Trinity in Unity by examples of mutual consciousness I named one of his Similitudes before of the Unity of our Understanding Memory and Will which are all conscious to each other that we remember what we understand and will we understand what we remember and will and what we will we remember and understand and therefore all these Three Faculties do penetrate and comprehend each other But his Ninth Book De Trinitate is spent wholly upon this Argument It is very familiar with the Ancient Fathers to represent the Father as the infinite Original Mind the Son the Wisdom of the Father his Image or reflex knowledge of himself and the Holy Spirit that Divine Love wherewith Father and Son love each other St. Austin takes this similitude of a Mind its knowledge of itsself and love of itsself and shews how these are Three and One which he makes a faint Image of and resemblance of a Trinity in Unity Now the Mind when it knows its whole self its knowledge comprehends its whole self and when it perfectly loves itself it loves its whole self and its love comprehends its whole self and this proves them to be of the same Substance for the Mind knows itself and loves itself and these are so Three that the Mind is known and loved by nothing else and therefore it is necessary that these Three have One Nature and Essence He proceeds to shew that this Unity is without all manner of confusion and mixture as it is in the Sacred Trinity where the Persons are united but distinct for mixture of Persons destroys the Trinity and shews how each of them are distinct and then how they are alternately in each other for the Mind that loves is in the love and love in the knowledge of the Lover and knowledge in the knowing Mind and how each of them is in the other two for the Mind which knows and loves itself is in its own knowledge and love and the love of the Mind which knows and loves itself is in its own knowledge and the knowledge of the Mind which knows and loves itself is in the Mind and in its love because it loves itself knowing and knows itself loving and thus also two are in each for the Mind which knows and loves itself with its knowledge is in love and with its love is in knowledge for love and knowledge are together in the Mind which loves and knows itself and the whole is in the whole for the whole Mind loves itself and knows its whole self and knows its whole love and loves its whole knowledge I need not tell
any Man that this is the mutual consciousness which I have described and by this St. Austin represents the Trinity in Unity and I hope his Authority will defend me from the charge of Innovation and I am sure the reason of the thing will defend itself But for the better understanding of this we must further observe that the Fathers resolve the Unity of the Godhead into the Unity of Principle that is though there be Three Divine Persons in the Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost yet the Father is the Original Fountain of the Deity who begets the Son of his own Substance and from whom and the Son the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds of the same Substance with Father and Son So that there is but one Principle and Fountain of the Deity and therefore but One God But this as Petavius well observes does not of itself prove the Unity of the Godhead but only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sameness of Nature and therefore the Fathers add That God begets a Son not without but within himself for the Wisdom of God is within him and inseparable from him This they illustrated by the Sun its light and splendour which are coaeval and inseparable by the Fountain and its Streams by a Tree and its Branches which are united in One which Comparisons must not be strained farther than they were intended as if Father Son and Holy Ghost were one in the same manner as the Sun and its Light or the Tree and its Branches or the Fountain River and Streams but only that there is such a natural and essential Union between the Divine Persons as makes them One numerical God But there is something still to be added to this to compleat this Notion that as the Father is the Fountain of the Deity and the Son and Holy Ghost inseparably united to him so Father Son and Holy Ghost are essential to One God as St. Austin calls the Trinity Vnam quandam summam rem One Supreme Thing And as all acknowledge that the Three Persons are One God and since God is the most necessary Being all Three Persons are necessary and essential to One God That there must necessarily be Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead and there can be no more For the explication of this I shall proceed by these steps which are all plain and universally acknowledged 1. That there are no Accidents nor Qualities nor Faculties in God as there are in created Spirits but whatever is in God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence and Substance a pure and simple Act. This is universally acknowledged by all Christians St. Austin affirms That there are no Accidents in God Athanasius That there is no Composition in God as between Substance and Accident and it is much alike as to Mind and its different Faculties and Powers which is a Composition but that God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pure simple Act but there is no need of Testimonies to prove that which Natural Reason proves for nothing can be Eternal and Self-orginated but a pure and simple Act for what is compounded is made for it wants a Maker 2. That it is essential to an eternal Mind to know itself and to love itself for this is essential to a Mind no human Mind can be without it much less the most perfect and excellent Mind and therefore God does know himself and love himself and his own Image 3. That Original Mind and Wisdom and the Knowledge of it self and love of it self and its own Image are distinct Acts and never can be One simple individual Act. They are distinct Powers and Faculties in men Knowledge Self-reflexion and Love and are so distinct that they can never be the same Knowledge is not Self-reflection nor love either Knowledge or Self-reflection though they are inseparably united they are distinct 4. Therefore these three Acts which are so distinct that they can never be the same must be three substantial Acts in God that is three Divine subsisting Persons for there is nothing but Essence and Substance in God no Accident or Faculties as there are in Creatures 5. That these are the true and proper Characters of the distinct Persons in the ever blessed Trinity The Father is Original Mind and Wisdom the Son the Word and Wisdom of the Father that is the reflex knowledge of himself which is the perfect Image of his own Wisdom the Holy Ghost that Divine Love which Father and Son have for each other It would be very impertinent to confirm this by the Authority of the ancient Fathers because all men who know any thing of them know that this is their constant language I am sure this is very agreeable to the Language of Scripture and Answers all those Characters we find there of the Son and Holy Ghost The Son is expresly called the Word and the Wisdom of God That Word which was in the beginning which was with God and was God 1 Iohn 1. For God did certainly always know himself and therefore this Word was always with God intimately present with him not as our transient and vanishing Reflections are but as a permanent and substantial Word the subsisting and living Image of his Fathers Wisdom as he is called the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person 1 Heb. 2. His Fathers Glory and Person is Eternal and Original Wisdom He is his Fathers begotten Wisdom or the bright Reflexion of his Wisdom which is as perfect and exact as the Fathers Knowledge of himself And therefore St. Iohn might well say No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him 1 Iohn 18. And our Saviour might well tell us As the Father knoweth me even so know I the Father 10 Iohn 15. that he seeth all that the Father doth That he receiveth all his Commands from the Father that he that seeth him seeth the Father and many such like Expressions he uses to signifie his perfect knowledge of his Father for he is that Wisdom and Knowledge wherewith his Father knows himself and if the Father perfectly knows himself he is the perfect Image and Wisdom of the Father For this reason he is called the Son because he is the perfect Image of the Father begotten of his own Eternal Wisdom by a reflex Act upon himself for he begets his own Son in his own likeness by knowing himself and therefore the Son must be of the same Nature the very Wisdom of the Father unless the Father knows himself otherwise than he really is This is the Eternal Son and Word of God whereby he made the Worlds for it is this reflex Knowledge and Wisdom which makes all things The Eternal Ideas of Truth and Wisdom in the Divine Mind effect nothing no more than meer Speculation does in us till it is brought into Act by reflexion for it was this reflex
Knowledge which took the Patterns of things for the new World and gave Being to them and therefore God made the World by his Son and begotten Wisdom who doth all things by seeing what the Father doth as the Father doth all things by seeing himself in his reflex and begotten Wisdom for the Father and the Son are one single Energie and Operation This is that eternal Word and Reason that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world which communicates the light of Reason and the eternal Idea's of Truth to Mankind This is that Son who reveals the Father to us and acquaints us with his secret Counsels for the Salvation of Sinners This is that Word which became Flesh and dwelt among us who hath undertaken the Work of our Redemption and is become the Wisdom of God and the Power of God to Salvation to them that believe for all the natural Communications of Wisdom and Reason all the new Discoveries of the Divine Wisdom whatever the Divine Wisdom immediately does must be done by this begotten Wisdom that is by a reflex Wisdom which is the Principle of Action and Execution and therefore as God made the World by his Word so also he redeems the World by his Incarnate Word this being as immediate an effect of the Divine Wisdom and Counsel as his Creation of the World As for the Holy Ghost whose Nature is represented to be Love I do not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said that the Holy Ghost is that mutual love wherewith Father and Son love each other but this we know that there is a mutual love between Father and Son The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hands And the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that himself doth And our Saviour himself tells us I love the Father And I shewed before that love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person for there are no Accidents nor Faculties in God And that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person is sufficiently evident in Scripture for he is the Spirit of God who knows what is in God as the Spirit of Man knows what is in Man and he is the Spirit of Christ who receiveth of the things of Christ and his peculiar Character in Scripture is love which shews us what he is in his own Nature as well as what he is in his Effects and Operations for Nature and Energy is the same in God It is by the Holy Spirit that the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 5 Rom. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us For this Spirit is the essential love of God and therefore both inspires us with the love of God and gives us a feeling sense of God's love to us He is the Spirit of the Son the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father and which cries in our hearts Abba Father The Spirit of the Son that is of the eternal and only begotten Son that very spirit whereby the eternal Son calls God Father whereby the Father owns the Son and the Son the Father that is that essential Love which is between Father and Son and therefore wherever this Spirit of the Son is it will call God Father will cry Abba Father that is is a Spirit of Adoption in us for the eternal Spirit of the Son dwells only in Sons by our Union to Christ who is the eternal Son of God we become his adopted Sons and as such the Spirit of the Son dwells in us And therefore the fruits and operations of the Spirit answer this Character For the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness which are the communications of the Spirit of Love This shews the difference between generation and procession between being a Son and the Spirit of God Generation as I observed before is a reflex Act whereby God begets his own Image and Likeness it is God's knowledge of himself which to be sure is his own perfect Image and the living essential Image of God is his Son for to be a Son is to be begotten of his Father's Substance in his own Likeness and Image But the Divine Spirit or this Eternal Love proceeds from God is not a reflex but a direct Act as all Thoughts and Passions are said to proceed out of the Heart a reflex Act turns upon it self and begets its own likeness but Love is a direct Act and comes out of the Heart and thus does this eternal Love proceed from God besides this eternal Love is not the Image of God but his eternal complacency in himself and his own Image and therefore is not a Son begotten of him but the eternal Spirit which proceeds from him It is true this eternal subsisting Love which is the third Person of the Trinity has all the Perfections of Father and Son in himself for Love must have the perfect Idea of what it loves and therefore this subsisting Love must have all those Perfections in himself which are the Eternal Object and Cause of this Eternal Love but his essential Character is Love and though Love has the whole Divine Perfections in it self yet it has them not as a Son not as the Image of God This gives a plain Account also how he is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son and according to the Profession of the Latin Church proceeds both from Father and Son for this Divine Love eternally proceeds from God's reflex Knowledge of himself or seeing himself in his own Image he loves himself in his Image and therefore the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son that is from the Original and the Image by one undivided Act as every man loves himself in that Idea and Image he has formed of himself in his own Mind And no man will wonder that the Creation of the World is ascribed to the Holy Spirit as well as to the Father and Son for it is Eternal Love which gives Being to all things which is the Author and Giver of Life without which Infinite Wisdom and Power produces no One Effect Original Wisdom contains the Ideas of all Things and begotten Wisdom can frame the Natures of Things according to the Original Ideas of the Divine Mind but it is Love which gives Being to them 6. From hence it is clear That these Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God as these Three Powers of Understanding Self-reflexion and Self-love are one Mind for what are meer Faculties and Powers in created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead really distinct from each other but as inseparably United into One as Three different Powers are essentially united in One Mind There is a vast difference indeed between them as there is between God and Creatures the Mind is but One the
Faculties and Powers more but these being only Faculties and Powers neither of them is a whole entire Mind the Understanding alone is not the whole entire Mind nor Reflexion nor Love but the Mind is whole and entire by the union of them all in One but these being Persons in the Godhead each Person has the whole Divine Nature The Son has all that the Father has being his perfect and natural Image and the Holy Spirit is all that Father and Son is comprehending all their infinite Perfections in Eternal Love and they are all the same and all united into One God as the several Faculties and Powers are in One Mind 7. For this proves that these Divine Persons are intimately conscious to each other which as I before showed makes them One numerical God for as the same Mind is conscious to all its own Faculties and Powers and by that unites them into One so where there are Divine and Infinite Persons instead of Faculties and Powers they must be mutually conscious to each other to make them all One God 8. This proves also that though there are Three distinct Persons there can be but One Energie and Operation Father Son and Holy Ghost is the Maker and Governour of the World by one inseparable and undivided Energie neither of them do nor can act apart as the several Powers of the Mind all concur to the same individual Action Knowledge Self-reflection and Will do the same thing which is the Effect of Knowledge brought into act by Reflection and Will and yet the Effect may be ascribed to Knowledge and ascribed to Will as the making of the World is to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost not separately to either but as they act in Conjunction and produce the same Effect by One individual Energie and Power 9. This proves also that Father Son and Holy Ghost must be co-eternal as the several Powers and Faculties must be co-temporary and co-exist in the same Mind Understanding cannot be without a Power of Reflection nor that without Will and Love And I suppose no man will say that there could be any imaginable instant wherein God did not know and love himself This Account is very agreeable to what St. Austin has given us who represents the Father to be Original Mind the Son his Knowledge of himself and the Holy-Spirit Divine Love as I have done and gives the very same Account of their Union Cùm itaque se mens novit amat jungitur ei amore verbum ejus quoniam amat notitiam novit amorem verbum in amore est amor in verbo utrumque in amante dicente When the Mind knows and loves it self its Word is united to it by Love and because it loves its Knowledge and knows its Love its Word is in Love and Love in its Word and both in the loving and speaking or knowing Mind This is the Eternal Generation of the Son Itaque mens cùm seipsam cognoscit sola parens est notitioe suoe cognitum enim cognitor ipsa est when the Mind knows it self it is the sole Parent of its own Knowledge for its self is both the Knower and the Thing known that is the Son is begotten of the Father by a reflex Knowledge of himself and he gives us the same Account of the Difference between Generation and Procession that One is a new Production if I may so express it inventum partum repertum that is the Production of its own Image of its own Wisdom and Knowledge by Self-reflexion the other comes out of the Mind as Love does and therefore the Mind is the Principle of it but not its Parent Cur itaque amando se non genuisse dicatur amorem suum sicut cognoscendo se genuit notitiam suam in eo quidem manifeste ostenditur hoc amoris esse principium undè procedit ab ipsa quidem mente procedit quae sibi est amabilis antequam se amet atque ita principium est amoris sui quo se amat sed ideo non rectè dicitur genitus ab ea sicut notitia sui quâ se novit quia notitia jam inventum est quod partum vel repertum dicitur quod saepe praecedit inquisitio eo fine quietura This I hope is sufficient both to explain and justifie this Doctrine which is the great Fundamental of the Christian Religion of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and that Account I have given of it It must be confessed that the ancient Fathers did not express their Sense in the same terms that I have done but I will leave any indifferent and impartial Reader to judge whether they do not seem to have intended the very same Explication which I have now given of this venerable Mystery As for the Schoolmen they generally pretend to follow the Fathers and have no Authority where they leave them Sometimes they seem to mistake their Sense or to clog it with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own The truth is that which has confounded this Mystery has been the vain endeavour of reducing it to terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis Person and the like which some of the Fathers used in a very different Sense from each other which sometimes occasioned great Disputes among them not because they differed in the Faith but because they used words so differently as not to understand each others meaning as Petavius has shewn at large The more pure and simple Age of the Church contented themselves to profess the Divinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost that there was but One God and Three who were this One God which is all the Scripture teaches of it But when Sabellius had turned this Mystery only into a Trinity of Names they thought themselves concerned to say what these Three are who are One God and then they nicely distinguished between Person and Hypostasis and Nature and Essence and Substance that they were Three Persons but One Nature Essence and Substance but then when men curiously examined the signification of these words they found that upon some account or other they were very unapplicable to this Mystery for what is the Substance and Nature of God How can Three distinct Persons have but one Numerical Substance What is the distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence The Deity is above Nature and above terms of Art there is nothing like this mysterious Distinction and Unity and therefore no wonder if we want proper words to express it by at least that such Names as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures should not reach it I do not think it impossible to give a tolerable Account of the School-terms and distinctions but that is a work of greater difficulty than use especially to ordinary Christians and I have drawn this Section to too great a length already to enter upon that now SECT VI.
Reason tell us That Three Divine Persons cannot be One God if my Reason be like other Mens I am sure my Reason says nothing at all about it does neither affirm nor deny it and therefore when the Scripture assures us that there is but One God as Natural Reason teaches and that this One God is Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost this contradicts nothing which Reason teaches but adds something which Natural Reason could not discover which is the proper use of Revelation Scripture teaches that there is but one God and that there are Three Divine Persons who are this One God Reason teaches that there is but One God but does not teach that there are Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the Godhead nor does it teach that there are not and therefore though the Scripture teaches more then Natural Reason does which I suppose may be allowed by these Adorers of Reason yet it teaches nothing contrary to what Natural Reason teaches nay these men can not graft any Contradiction upon it without perverting the Faith of the ever blessed Trinity as it is taught in Scripture and has always been taught in the Catholick Church that is to find a Contradiction their business is to prove that these Three Divine Persons each of which is God must be Three distinct Gods and then Three distinct Gods cannot be One God this I grant and their Argument is unanswerable to those who own these Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Gods but what is that to us who teach that they are not Three distinct Gods but One God as the Scripture teaches and the Catholick Church always taught and as of necessity we must teach if we believe a Trinity in Unity so that there is no Contradiction is not our Faith for that which they make a Contradiction is not our Faith but a Contradiction to our Faith as well as to common Sense and Reason Well! but if we believe Three distinct Divine Persons each of which is God we must believe Three distinct Gods I hope not when we profess to believe but One God yes whatever we profess to believe Three such distinct Persons must be Three Gods now this we deny and challenge them to produce any plain Principle of Reason to prove that it must be so Natural Reason teaches nothing about the Personality of the Godhead it teaches One God but whether this One God be One or Three Persons it says not and therefore it may be either without contradicting the Natural Notions we have of One God and then here is free scope for Revelation and if Revelation teaches that there is but One God and that there are Three Divine Persons each of which in Scripture have not only the Title but the Nature and Attributes of God ascribed to them then we must of necessity believe a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God for what the Scripture affirms and Reason does not deny is a proper Object of our Faith and then their Objection against this Faith that these Three Divine Persons must be Three distinct Gods if each of them be God is sensless and ridiculous for it is demonstrable that if there be Three Persons and One God each Person must be God and yet there cannot be Three distinct Gods but One. For if each Person be not God all Three cannot be God unless the Godhead have Persons in it which are not God and if all Three are but One God they cannot be Three distinct Gods so that whoever believes the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Gods does not believe a Trinity in Unity and whoever believes a Trinity in Unity cannot believe Three distinct Gods and if there be a Trinity in Unity each Person must be God and yet there cannot be Three Gods but One God and now let him go look for his Contradiction in the belief of Three Persons and one God and when he has found it let me hear from him again So that all his Absurdities and Contradictions are vanished only into Nicodemus his Question How can these things be and if I could give him no other Answer I should think it a very good one to say God knows Must we deny every thing that we can't conceive and comprehend though it be expresly taught by God himself Must we deny what we read in the Bible to be there because Reason does not teach it and cannot frame an Adequate Idea of it But I have not done with our Author thus but must give him a little more about expounding Scripture according to Reason For I affirm that Natural Reason is not the Rule and Measure of Expounding Scripture no more than it is of Expounding any other Writing The true and only way to interpret any Writing even the Scriptures themselves is to examine the use and propriety of Words and Phrases the Connexion Scope and Design of the Text its Allusion to ancient Customs and Usages or Disputes c. for there is no other good Reason to be given for any Exposition but that the Words signifie so and the Circumstances of the Place and the apparent Scope of the Writer requires it But our Author as many others do seems to confound the Reasons of believing any Doctrine with the Rules of Expounding a Writing We must believe nothing that contradicts the plain and express Dictates of Natural Reason which all Mankind agree in whatever pretence of Revelation there be for it well say they then you must expound Scripture so as to make it agree with the necessary Principles and Dictates of Reason No say I that does not follow I must expound Scripture according to the use and signification of the Words and must not force my own Sense on it if it will not bear it But suppose then that the Natural Construction of the Words import such a Sense as is contrary to some evident Principle of Reason then I won't believe it How not believe Scripture no no I will believe no pretended Revelation which contradicts the plain Dictates of Reason which all Mankind agree in and were I perswaded that those Books which we call the Holy Scriptures did so I would not believe them and this is a fairer and honester way than to force them to speak what they never intended and what every impartial man who reads them must think was never intended that we may believe them to put our own sense on Scripture without respect to the use of Words and to the Reason and Scope of the Text is not to believe Scripture but to make it is not to learn from Scripture but to teach it to speak our Language is not to submit to the Authority of Scripture but to make Scripture submit to our Reason even in such Matters as are confessedly above Reason as the infinite Nature and Essence of God is Though I am never so well assured of the Divine Authority of any Book yet I must expound it as I do other Writings for
when God vouchsafes to speak to us in our own Language we must understand his Words just as we do when they are spoke by men Indeed when I am sure that it is an inspired Writing I lay it down for a Principle that it contains nothing absurd and contradictious or repugnant to the received Principles of Natural Reason but this does not give me authority to Expound the Words of Scripture to any other sense than what they will naturally bear to reconcile them with such Notions as I call reason for if one man has this liberty another may take it and the Scripture will be tuned to every mans private Conceits and therefore in case the plain sense of Scripture contradicts those Notions I have of things if it be possible to be true I submit to the Authority of Scripture if it seems to include a Contradiction and Impossibility if that Contradiction be not plain and notorious and in such Matters as I am sure I perfectly understand there I submit again and conclude it is no Contradiction though I cannot comprehend how it is if I can by no means reconcile it I will confess I do not understand it and will not pretend to give any Sense of it much less to give such a Sense of it as the Words will not bear This shows that men may pretend to Expound Scripture according to Reason when the Dispute is nothing else but a Clash of Reason with Scripture as this Author phrases it for so it is when the usual signification of the Words and the Scope and Circumstances of the Place require one Sense and men force another Sense on it upon pretence of Expounding Scripture by Reason that is to reconcile Scripture to their pre-conceived Notions and Opinions of Things for what the Words signifie that is the Sense of Scripture and when they will not admit this Sense because they apprehend it contrary to Reason though most agreeable to the Words and Scope of the Place that is nothing else but a Controversie between Scripture and Reason My present Undertaking does not oblige me to examine all the Scriptures which are alleadged by the Socinians against the Doctrine of the Trinity or by others for it this is a voluminous Work and has often been done by others and if there were any just Occasion of doing it again it deserves a Treatise by it self but indeed it is the Doctrine it self which the Socinians dislike more then our Expositions which they cannot deny to be reasonable enough were the Doctrine so but they must not expound Scripture contrary to Reason and therefore must never allow that the Scripture teaches such a Doctrine which they think contradicts the plain and self-evident Reason of Mankind reconcile men to the Doctrine and the Scripture is plain without any farther Comment this I have now endeavoured and I believe our Adversaries will talk more sparingly of Absurdities and Contradictions for the future and then they will loose the best Argument they have against the Orthodox Expositions of Scripture but yet I am unwilling to dismiss this Argument without some few Observations about the Sense of Scripture This Author refers us to the History of the Vnitarians which though it be but a little Book in all Senses is too large to be particularly examined now but however I shall give some taste of it In the first Letter the Author marshals those Texts which he thinks overthrow the Doctrine of the Trinity and because this may be most dangerous to unskilful Readers I shall more particularly examine that He reduces the Scriptures under several Topicks or Heads of Arguments 1. If our Lord Christ were himself God there could be no Person greater than he none that might be called his Head or God none that could in any respect command him Now this Argument is fallacious for though Christ be God himself yet if there be Three Persons in the Godhead the equality and sameness of Nature does not destroy the Subordination of Persons a Son is equal to his Father by Nature but inferiour to him as his Son if the Father as I have explained it be Original Mind and Wisdom the Son a personal subsisting but reflex Image of his Fathers Wisdom though their Eternal Wisdom be equal and the same yet the Original is superior to the Image the Father to the Son and therefore though I know such Texts as he alleadges My Father is greater than I. The Head of Christ is God I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God are both by Ancient and Modern Expositors applied to Christ's Human Nature yet I see no Inconvenience in owning this to be true with respect to his Divine Person and his Relation to his Father For the Father is the Head and Fountain of the Deity and the Son is God of God and therefore the Father may be called his God As for Christ's receiving Commands from the Father though this relates to the Execution of his Mediatory Office and so concerns him as God Incarnate as by the Dispensation of the Gospel he is the Minister of God's Will and Pleasure yet I grant even as God he receives Commands from his Father but it is no otherwise than as he receives his Nature from him by Nature he is the Word the Wisdom the Command of the Father his reflex Image whereby he produces all the Designs of his own Wisdom and Counsel into act Thus St. Austin answered the Arrian Objection That Christ was but God's Instrument and made the World by God's Command Let them consider with what other words the Father commanded his only Word But they frame to themselves an Imagination of two near one another but separated by their distinct Places one commanding another obeying Nor do they understand that the Fathers Command it self that all things should be made is no other Word of the Father but that by which all things are made that is the substantial Word and Wisdom and Command of the Father his only begotten Son 2. If our Lord Christ were indeed God it could not without blasphemy be absolutely and without Restriction affirmed of him that he is the Creature the Possession the Servant and Subject of God It is well he added absolutely and without restriction but he had done better if he had remembred it in his Proofs that Christ is called a Creature he proves because he is the first-born of every Creature but here he should have remembred his absolutely and without restriction for he is so to the first-born of every Creature that he is the Image of the Invisible God and therefore no Creature so born before all Creatures as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also signifies That by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all
have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power and when all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all That is the Son shall no longer have a distinct Kingdom of his own but shall return to his Natural Subordination to his Father and reign with Father and the Holy Spirit One God blessed for evermore there shall no longer be any distinction between God and a Mediator but God shall be all in all This is the best Account I can give of that Kingdom which the Son receives from the Father and which he delivers up to the Father again and these Socinians must think themselves very great Wits or the rest of Mankind very great Fools who hope to prove that Christ is not God because he received a Kingdom when it is such a Kingdom as none but a God can receive or administer But to proceed 3. His next Argument is That Christ it not God because He is a Mediator between God and Men a Priest that appeareth in the Presence of God and intercedeth with him for men This he needed not have proved because all Christians own it only the Socinians make him a metaphorical Priest which indeed is no Priest But this I have answered already He is a Priest after the Order of Melchizedec King of Salem and Priest of God that is he is a Sacerdotal King and this Sacerdotal or Mediatory Kingdom proves him to be God not a meer Creature Advocate or Intercessor 4. His next Argument is That he receives Authority from God is sent by God came to do the will of God And this I have also already answered 5. His next Argument consists in applying such things to the Divinity of our Saviour as belong to his Humanity That he increased in Wisdom he should have added Stature too but that had been ridiculous because it had discovered the fallacy for to be sure Stature does not belong to a God and in favour with God and Men and why did he not add that he was born and was an Infant and Child and by degrees grew up to be a Man that he knows not the Day of Iudgment which he evidently speaks of himself as Man as all the ancient Fathers confess In St. Mark it is said But of that day and that hour knoweth no man no not the Angels that are in Heaven neither the Son but the Father St. Matthew does not mention the Son Of that day and hour knoweth no man not the Angels of Heaven but my Father only Which shews that the Son in St. Matthew is included in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none or no man and therefore concerns him only as a man for the Father includes the whole Trinity and therefore includes the Son who seeth whatever his Father doth But of this more hereafter That he knew not where Lazarus was laid because he asks Where have ye laid him And yet this very Jesus knew without asking at a distance and some days before that Lazarus was dead which would tempt one to guess that he might know where they laid him too though it was decent to ask What his next Text refers to I know not For how the Father being always present with him to confirm that testimony he gave of himself by miraculous Powers proves that he is not God I cannot tell that he was tempted by the Devil proves that he was a Man but does not prove that he was not God and that he would not be called good by those who thought him no more than a man or that he took this occasion to instruct them what an infinite distance there is between the essential Goodness of the Divine Nature and the Goodness of Creatures I think does not prove that he is not God 6. His sixth Argument is to the same purpose That God giveth what and to whom he pleaseth he needs not the aid of any other he entreateth not for himself and his people he cannot die and deriveth his Power from none but himself But 't is certain that the Lord Christ could not himself without the praevious ordination of the Father confer the prime Dignities of Heaven or of the Church or any thing else if he pleases for he does nothing but what he sees his Father do he placed his safety in his Fathers presence and help he prayed often and fervently to the Father both for himself and for his Disciples He died and was raised from the dead by the Father After his Resurrection he had received of another that great Power which he now enjoyeth Now all this we grant and have answered already which partly refers to the oeconomy of the Incarnation and partly to his Natural Subordination to his Father But to give a more full and plain Answer and to prevent all such Objections for the future it will be necessary briefly to state this Matter also Now this Author is certainly so far in the right that the One Supreme God has all Authority and Power can need no help from any other can receive no Commands no Power from another has no need to pray to any other to intercede for himself or others can dispose of all things as he pleases and to whom he pleases accordingly this One Supreme God Father Son and Holy Ghost receives no Power or Authority from any other Being intercedes with no other Being stands not in need of the help of any other neither prays for himself or others to any other Being Well! but the Son prays to the Father interceeds with the Father receives Authority from the Father disposes of all things by his Father's Will What then then the Son is not the One Supreme God Why so He interceeds with no Creature receives Authority from no Creature c. nor from any God neither separated from himself for he is One God with the Father and the Holy Ghost that he interceeds with the Father proves indeed that he is a distinct Person from the Father not that he is not One God with him If each Divine Person be God none of them can interceed with or receive Authority from any separate Being for then there must be some separate God above them and then they are not the Supreme God but if there be Three distinct Divine Persons in the Godhead and an order and subordination between these Divine Persons I see nothing to hinder why One Person may not interceed with another and receive from another To show the fallacy of this I will frame another Argument exactly like it which may do our Socinians a kindness in helping them to a new Argument and who knows but that such great Wits as they are may make it a good one and it is this The One Supreme God is not and cannot be begotten of any other nor proceed from any other and therefore the Son who is begotten
of the Father is not the One Supreme God and the Holy Ghost who proceeds from Father and Son is not the One Supreme God The Major is as self-evident as any Proposition in Euclide whoever understands the Terms must confess it to be true that the One Supreme God cannot be begotten nor proceed from any other the Minor is confessed by Trinitarians that the Son is begotten of the Father and the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son how then shall we avoid the Conclusion That the Son is not the One Supreme God nor the Holy Ghost the One Supreme God Indeed no way that I know of for the thing is true the Son is not the One Supreme God nor the Holy Ghost the One Supreme God nay nor the Father the One Supreme God considered separately from each other but Father Son and Holy Ghost or a Trinity in Unity is the One Supreme God Now of this One Supreme God it is certainly true that he is not begotten nor proceeds from any other for then there must be a God above this One Supreme God but if there be Three Persons in this One Supreme God this does not hinder but the Father may beget the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from Father and Son and yet the One Supreme God neither be begotten nor proceed for it is not the One Supreme God that is begotten but the Divine Person of the Son who is God and with the Father and Holy Spirit One Supreme God nor is it the One Supreme God that proceeds but the Divine Person of the Holy Ghost who also is God and together with Father and Son One Supreme God This is plain and what every one may understand at first sight and the fallacy of the Argument consists in this That whatever may be affirmed of the One Supreme God is applied to each Divine Person in their Personal Capacities as if each Person considered separate from the other Divine Persons were the One Supreme God Now this is false for the One Supreme God is not any One Person distinct and separate from the rest but all Three Persons essentially united into One God and therefore the Application must be false too when what is true of the One Supreme God is applied to every distinct Person in the Godhead It is certain the One Supreme God can neither be Father Son nor Holy Ghost If he be a Father he must beget a Son who is not One with him and yet is God For the Son of God who is begotten of his Father's Substance and has the same Nature with him which is the proper Notion of a begotten Son must be God as the Son of a man is a man And if the Father himself in his own proper Person as begetting the Son be the One Supreme God the whole entire Deity then he must beget a Son without not within himself who is not and cannot be that One Supreme God that the Father is The One Supreme God is One in himself and separate from all other Beings And therefore if the One Supreme God be a Father he must beget a Son separate from himself if he be a Son he must have a Father separate from himself and so of the Holy Ghost In the One Supreme God there may and must be a Trinity of Divine Persons within the Unity of the Godhead there is a Father a Son and a Holy Ghost but the One Supreme God is neither neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds for all Three Persons are the One Supreme God and what belongs to the Godhead belongs to them all as considered in the Unity of the same Godhead but not as considered in their distinct Personal Capacities as One is the Father the other the Son and the third the Holy Spirit And thus it is in the present Case the One Supreme God can no more be sent then he can be begotten can receive no Commands from any other cannot be given by any other cannot be subject to any other Will but his own c. but the Divine Persons may send and be sent and interceed with each other for though in the Unity of the Godhead they are all the One Supreme God yet there is a mutual Relation and Subordination between the Divine Persons as I have already explained it As to instance in Intercession or Prayer for himself or others which is a Contradiction to the Notion of a Supreme God as it is to the Notion of an Absolute and Soveraign Prince But yet a Soveraign Prince may interceed with himself his own Wisdom his own Mercy Clemency and Compassion may interceed with him and prevail too without any diminution to his own Soveraign Power Thus though the Supreme God can interceed with no other Being yet the Son may interceed with the Father his own eternal and begotten Wisdom may interceed with him and make Atonement and Expiation for sinners and thus God interceeds with no body but himself for it is his own Wisdom which interceeds with him and makes the Atonement And if we will consider things aright we shall find that there can be no other Advocate with the Father but the Son but his own eternal and begotten Wisdom When a man interceeds with himself it is done by reflecting on his own Mind and examining the Reasons and Motives he finds there to pity and spare and to do good that is by his reflex Wisdom and Knowledge of himself which in the Godhead is the Son God's reflex Knowledge of himself or his begotten Wisdom that Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word which Philo calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or High Priest For let us consider what it is to interceed with God and what kind of Intercession is consistent both with the Soveraign Authority and Soveraign Goodness of God An infinitely wise and just and good Being cannot be moved by meer Entreaties nor by the bare Interest and Favour of the Advocate for this is weakness in men and therefore cannot be incident to the Divine Nature Now if you set aside Entreaties and Importunities and Favour there can be no other Advocate with the Father but his own Eternal Wisdom It is his own Wisdom that must Atone him that must reconcile him to sinners that must obtain Pardon and all other Blessings for them for if this cannot be done wisely God cannot do it and therefore his own Wisdom must do all this for no created Wisdom can But God loves his own Wisdom his only begotten Son and therefore Wisdom is a powerful Advocate and must prevail with the Father So that the Son's Intercession with the Father is so far from being incongruous or inconsistent with his being God that the Divine Nature can admit of no other Advocate or Intercessor properly so called To intercede with a never-failing Effect and Success is an Act of Power and Authority and for God to make a Creature-Advocate and Mediator is to give a Creature Authority over himself which
cannot be for it is a debasement of the Divine Nature and a reproach to the Divine Wisdom as if God did not better know how to dispose of his Grace and Mercy than any Creature does For Creatures to pray to God for themselves or others as humble Supplicants is part of the Worship which Creatures owe to God but to intercede with the Authority of a Mediator is above the Nature and Order of Creatures and God can no more give this to any Creature than he can commit his own Soveraign Power and Authority to them But his own Eternal Wisdom can intercede with Authority for Original Mind and Wisdom must yield to the Intercessions of his own Eternal Wisdom which is not to submit to any Foreign Authority but to his own To proceed 7. His next Argument to prove that Christ is not God is this That Iesus Christ is in Holy Scripture always spoken of as a distinct and different Person from God and described to be the Son of God and the Image of God This we own and he has no need to prove it and this is a wonderful Argument to convince those who acknowledge Three distinct Persons in the Godhead to prove that Christ is not God because he is a distinct Person from the Father for so according to the Language of Scripture God signifies God the Father when he is distinguished from the Son and the Holy Spirit as all men grant and to say 'T is as impossible that the Son or Image of the One true God should himself be that One true God as that the Son should be the Father and the Image that very thing whose Image it is is meer Sophistry for if the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost be the One true God they are the same One true God and yet the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father 8. His next Argument is from many Texts which expresly declare that only the Father is God Now this I confess would be a demonstration could he produce any one Text which asserts the Father only to be God in opposition to the Son and to the Holy Ghost for then the Father must signifie the Person of the Father in opposition to the Person of the Son and to the Person of the Holy Ghost but when the Father is called the Only true God only in opposition to all the false Gods which the world then worshipped there Father does not signifie personally but that One Godhead or Divinity of which the Father is the Source and Fountain and Original he being that Eternal and Original Mind which begets his own Image or Eternal Son and from whom and the Son the Holy Spirit proceeds in the Unity of the same Godhead When the Father is said to be the only true God and the One God that the Son and Holy Ghost are not hereby excluded from the Unity of the same Godhead is evident from those other Texts of Scripture which plainly teach the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost for if the Scripture teaches that the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God it can never separate the Father from his only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit and therefore the Dispute will issue here Whether the Scripture does teach the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit When the Father is called the only true God it must be in opposition to all those who were at that time worshipped for Gods in the World but were not true Gods and therefore when Christ calls his Father the only true God it could not be in contradistinction to himself and the Holy Spirit for they were not then distinctly worshipped And when St. Paul calls the Father the One God he expresly opposes it to the many Gods of the Heathens For though there be that are called Gods whether in Heaven the Sun and Moon and Planets and Deified men or in the Earth the several Elements Birds Beasts c. as there be Gods many and Lords many but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and One Lord Iesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him where the One God and One Lord and Mediator is opposed to the many Gods and many Lords or Mediators which were worshipped by the Heathens These Texts indeed do plainly distinguish between the Father and Christ This is Life eternal to know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent And to us there is but One God the Father and One Lord Iesus Christ which is no more than what St. Paul teaches There is one God and One Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Iesus The One God and the One Mediator ought to be distinguished for the whole Christian Religion and the salvation of sinners depends upon this distinction but this does not exclude Christ from being One God with the Father though he have a distinct additional Glory of a Mediatory Kingdom I consider farther when the Father is called the One God and the only true God it can be understood only of those who are distinct and separated Gods from the Father and are not One God with him but it cannot exclude those who are united in the Unity of the same Godhead for they are but One God with the Father And this is plainly signified in the Title of the Father and the Father of our Lord Jesus which is God's peculiar Name under the Gospel as the Maker of Heaven and Earth was before for the Title of the Father does not exclude but includes the Son and therefore if it appears from Scripture that this Son is true and real God begotten of his Father from Eternity the Son at least must be included in this Character of the only true God His other Texts which he cites under this Head prove no more but that the Father of Christ is God not that Christ is not One God with the Father 9. He adds If Christ were indeed God as well as Man or as Trinitarians speak God the Son incarnate in an Human Nature it had been altogether superfluous to give the Holy Spirit to his said Human Nature as a Director and Guide for what other help could that Nature need which was One Person with as they speak God the Son and in which God the Son did personally dwell Now the account of this is plain and short for the whole Trinity is but One Energy and Power and the Divine Persons cannot act separately ad extra what the Father does that the Son does and that the Holy Ghost does by one individual Act as I have shown at large but the sanctification of all Creatures and such the Human Nature of Christ is is peculiarly attributed to the Holy Spirit and he might as well have asked Why the sanctification of the Church is ascribed to the Holy Spirit for the Church is the Body of Christ and Christ the Head from
whence all Influences of Grace are derived into the Body and though this be not a personal Union it is next degree to it for we are Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone and a Personal Union makes no difference in the manner of Operation though it does in the Measures and Degrees the Divine Word acts by and in conjunction with the Holy Spirit and therefore sanctifies his own Human Nature as he does his mystical Body the Church by the Operations and Influenences of the Holy Ghost 10. And this Answers his next Argument That the Miracles of Christ are attributed to the Holy Ghost or to the Father dwelling in him for Father Son and Holy Ghost act together as Christ tells us My Father worketh hitherto and I work 11. His next Argument is Had our Lord been more than a Man the Prophesies of the Old Testament in which he is promised would not describe him barely as the Seed of the Woman the Seed of Abraham a Prophet like unto Moses the Servant and Missionary of God on whom God's Spirit should rest That our Saviour ought to have been thus described though he had been more than a Man is plain enough because he was to be all this the Seed of the Woman the Seed of Abraham a Prophet like unto Moses but a much greater Prophet for Moses was faithful in all his House as a Servant but Christ as a Son over his own House But what he insinuates that he is barely thus described shews That this Author will never loose a Cause by over-much Modesty for we with all the Christian Church and we have the Authority of Christ and his Apostles for it too say That he is described in the Old Testament also not only as the Seed of Abraham but as the Son of God Of which more presently His next Attempt is against the Divinity of the Holy Ghost but here is little that requires a distinct Answer it being only the Repetion of his old Fallacies 1. That the Holy Ghost or Spirit and the Power of God are spoken of as one and the same thing And what then His intended Conclusion I suppose is that the Holy Ghost is not a Person which is the Intention of his second Argument but this is so novel and ridiculous a Conceit too sensless for any of the ancient Hereticks that it ought not to be seriously confuted but despised for it is as easie to prove the Father and the Son to be no Persons as the Holy Spirit He is the Spirit of God which searcheth the deep things of God and he who knows all that is in God is a knowing Mind but to dream of Power and Inspiration in God distinct as he confesses from God and no Person is to attribute such Powers and Faculties to an infinite Mind as there are in created Minds to compound God of Mind and Intellectual Powers and Faculties which all Men of sense have scorned the thoughts of what are Faculties in us are Persons in God or else God is not a pure and simple Act as I showed above Which shows the vanity of his Pretence That the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a Person by the same figure of Speech that Charity is described as a Person 1 Cor. 13.4 5. and Wisdom 9 Prov. 11. For these natural or acquired Powers and Habits are said to do that which the Person who has them and acts by them does as Charity suffereth long and is kind because a charitable man does so c. And if we will allow such Habits and Powers in God the Case may be somewhat parallel for when we have compounded God of Substance or Essence or Faculties or Powers we may then find figurative Persons in God as there are in Men. This is certain all Personal Acts belong to a Person and therefore whatever has any Personal Acts ascribed to it we must conclude is a Person unless we know by some other means that it is no Person and then that proves the Expression to be figurative Thus we know Charity is no Person but a Grace or Vertue and therefore when Personal Acts are attributed to Charity as to suffer long and be kind c. we know this is a figure but it is ridiculous hence to conclude That the Holy Ghost who has Personal Acts ascribed to him to work Miracles to raise the Dead to comfort to convince to sanctifie the Church to dwell in the Church as in his Temple c. is yet no Person because Charity which we know to be no Person has Personal Acts ascribed to it which is as much as to say That because Personal Acts are sometimes used figuratively therefore they must never be properly expounded whereas on the other hand we must never expound any thing figuratively but where the subject will not admit of a proper sense If it were as known and certain that the Holy Ghost is no Person as that Charity is none then there would be reason to allow a figure but to prove that the Holy Ghost is no Person only because Personal Acts are sometimes figuratively attributed to that which is no Person is a maxim only in the Socinian Logick which is nothing else but a System of absurd and ridiculous Fallacies 2. His second Argument against the Spirit 's being God is this A manifest distinction is made as between God and Christ so also between God and the Holy Spirit or Power and Inspiration of God so that 't is impossible the Spirit should be God himself This has been answered already as to the distinction between God and Christ and the same Answer will serve for the Holy Spirit But this Confession of the Socinian confutes his whole Hypothesis and proves the Holy Spirit to be a Person and a God He says the Holy Spirit is distinct from God so distinct that 't is impossible he should be God himself then say I this Holy Spirit is either a Divine subsisting Person or nothing but a Name If this Spirit were a Divine Vertue and Power as he would have it then it is not distinct from God but is God himself as the Powers and Faculties of the Mind though they may be distinguished from each other yet they can't be any thing distinct from the Mind but are the Mind it self and therefore if the Spirit as he says be represented in Scripture as so distinct from God that 't is impossible he should be God himself then he must be a distinct Divine Person and not the meer Power of God which is not distinct from God himself If the Spirit be distinct from God and not God himself and yet have Personal Acts ascribed to him then he must be a distinct Person for Faculties Vertues and Powers have Personal Acts and Offices ascribed to them only upon account of their unity and sameness with the Mind in which they are which is a Person and acts by these Powers but a Power which is distinct from
God and is not God himself as he says the Holy Spirit is if it have any Personal Acts must be a distinct Person and if these Personal Acts are such as are proper only to God it must be a distinct Divine Person He says this Holy Spirit is the Inspiration of God be it so This Inspiration then is either within God himself or without him in Creatures who have this Inspiration If it be within God himself it must be a Person or else it cannot be distinct from God and a Divine Person unless any thing be in God which is not God If this Inspiration be without God in Creatures who are inspired by him how is it the Spirit of God for the Spirit of God must be in God as the Spirit of Man is in Man How does this Inspiration in Creatures search all things yea the deep things of God and knoweth the things of God as the Spirit of a Man knoweth the things of a man For the inspiration in Creatures searcheth nothing of God and knoweth nothing of God but what God is pleased to reveal The Inspiration knows nothing of God but the inspired Mind knows as much as it is inspired with the knowledge of So that according to this Account the Spirit of God is nothing but the inspired knowledge in Creatures and therefore no Personal Acts can be attributed to it but what Creatures can do by such Inspiration and let any man consider whether this Answers those Characters we have of the Spirit of God in Scripture If this be so I desire to know How the Spirit of God differs from his Gifts and Graces For if the Spirit be nothing but God's Inspiration in Creatures the Spirit is either a Gift or a Grace and is not One in All but as many as those Creatures are that are inspired and as different as the Gifts and Graces are with which they are Inspired Whereas St. Paul tells us There are Diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit and there are differences of Administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of Operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all So that the Spirit is distinguished from his Gifts as the Lord is from his Administrations and God from his Operations and is the same Spirit in all as it is the same Lord and the same God 3. His next Argument is The Spirit is obtained for us of God by our Prayers therefore itself is not God But this has been answered already for though the One Supreme God cannot be sent nor given which I suppose is the force of his Argument yet in the ever blessed Trinity One Divine Person may send and give another the Father may send the Son and give the Holy Spirit And yet since they like that better we will allow That the Holy Spirit does give himself and is asked of himself for the Divine Persons in the Trinity as I have often observed and proved do not act separately but as the Father and the Son give the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit gives himself in the same individual Act. And when we pray to God for his Holy Spirit we pray to Father Son and Holy Ghost who are this One God and One entire object of Worship It is the ever blessed Trinity we invoke when we pray Our Father which art in Heaven For as they are inseparably One God so they are the inseparable Object of our Worship since this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity is so plainly revealed to us we cannot worship this One Supreme God but we must direct our Worship to all Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead for we do not worship this One Supreme God unless we worship Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore whether we invoke each Person distinctly as our Church does in the beginning of the Litany or pray only to God by the Name of the most High God or by the Name of Father or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ it is all one for Father Son and Holy Ghost is the One Supreme God and the entire Object of our Worship and whoever worships One God but not Father Son and Holy Ghost does not worship the true God not the God of the Christians Before this was so plainly revealed it was sufficient to worship One Supreme God without any conception of the distinct Persons in the Godhead but when it is plainly revealed to us that this One Supreme God is Father Son and Holy Ghost whoever does not worship Father Son and Holy Ghost does not worship the true God for the true God is Father Son and Holy Ghost and there is no God besides him which I would desire our Vnitarians as they falsly call themselves and our Deists carefully to consider if any thing be fundamental in Religion it is the worship of the One true God and if Father Son and Holy Ghost be this One true God those who worship a God who is not Father Son and Holy Ghost do not worship the true God and that I think is the true Notion of Idolatry So that these Men are so far from being Christians that I cannot see how they are worshippers of the true God which should at least make them concerned to examine this matter with more Care and less Prejudice than they have yet done So that when we worship One God we worship Father Son and Holy Ghost and when the Glory of these Divine Persons was made known to the World there was no need of any new Command to worship these three Divine Persons for when it is revealed that they are the One Eternal God the Command of worshipping this One God must include them all Which gives a sufficient Answer to what he adds That there is neither Precept nor Example in all Holy Scripture of Prayer made to the Spirit on this or any other occasion which on the Trinitarian Supposition that the Holy Spirit is a Person and God no less than the Father is very surprizing nay utterly unaccountable But I hope this will satisfie any man that it is not unaccountable for though the Spirit be God he is but One God with Father and Son and therefore not a distinct and separate Object of Worship but is worshipped with the Father and the Son in the Unity of the same Godhead and this required no new Command nor any separate worship of the Holy Spirit There is indeed a distinct worship paid to Christ All men must honour the Son as they honour the Father When God brought his first begotten into the World that is when he raised him from the Dead and exalted him to his own right hand he said and let all the Angels of God worship him God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name that at the Name of Iesus every Knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth But this
spoken of Christ yet the Authority of Christ and his Apostles who have made this Application is as good a Reason to believe that they were meant of Christ as to believe any other part of the Gospel Let us then consider how he answers such Texts What the Psalmist says Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever a Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed Thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellows the Apostle to the Hebrews applies to Christ But unto the Son he saith thy Throne O God c. To this he Answers In the Hebrew and in the Greek 't is God is thy Throne i. e. thy seat resting place establishment for ever If he had only said it may be so he had said right but it is false to say it is so For the Hebrew Elohim may be either the Nominative or the Vocative Case and so the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is an Attick Vocative and so is used by the Septuagint 22 Psalm 1. ' O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And it is evident the Septuagint the Vulgar Latine the Chaldee Paraphrase the Syriack and Arabick Versions took it for the Vocative Case and thus the Christian Church has always understood it and this is the most natural Construction when it immediately follows a Pronoun which has no other immediate Relative Thy Throne O God that is O God thy Throne is for ever and ever And thus the Apostle must understand it To the Son he saith Thy Throne O God where O God must be referred to the Son and thy to God and the sense he gives of it is absurd and what we have no Example of in Scripture that God is a Throne God indeed is called a Rock a Fortress a high Tower which is expounded by a Deliverer but a Throne here signifies a Kingdom as is evident from the following words and to say that God is the Throne and the Kingdom of Christ is to Subject the Father to the Son for a King sits upon his Throne and governs his Kingdom The Apostle in the next Verse cites another glorious Testimony which God hath given to his Son And Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thine hands they shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a Garment and as a Vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail This is so plain a Testimony to the Divinity of our Saviour if these words be allowed to be applied by the Apostle to Christ that our Author is forced to deny it He says The Context has this sense And thou Lord that is and in another Text of the Psalms it is said Thou Lord which is certainly true if he had added but One word more viz. to the Son And in another Text of the Psalms it is said to the Son And thou Lord hast laid the Foundations of the Earth for so the Context requires us to supply it if we will make sense of it for the Apostle observes in what different Language God speaks of the Angels and to the Son Of the Angels he saith who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flaming fire but to the Son he saith thy Throne O God is for ever and ever And to the Son he saith Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth But to which of the Angels said he at any time Sit on my right hand until I make thine Enemies thy Footstool This is easie and natural but to apply those words to the Father Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth c. is to break the whole Context is contrary to the Apostles design and no good sense can be made of it and this I think is to ridicule Scripture to make it Nonsense or very bad disturbed and incoherent sense when there is no need of it but to serve an Hypothesis which the Text was designed to confute He says Tho. Aquinas rightly acknowledged that the words of both these Texts may be understood of God only not of Christ but this is false as indeed he seldom cites any Author but he corrupts him for Thomas says this Text may be understood of either but if you understand it of the Father then by in the beginning you must understand the Son who he says is called the beginning Thou Lord in the beginning that is in or by the Son hast laid the Foundations of the Earth for he saw the Context required that these words should be applied to Christ but he thought it indifferent whether they were applied to him in whole or in part since both ways he is made the Creator of the World which answers the Apostles design and though I think Thomas was mistaken yet this makes nothing to our Authors purpose Thus what the Psalmist says of God Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led captivity captive thou hast received Gifts for Men St. Paul attributes to Christ. Here our Historian spends a great many words to no purpose about Christ's discent into the Grave and into Hell and his ascending into Heaven to fill all things or as he says it might be better rendred to fulfil all things that is all the Prophesies of himself and others concerning his Death and Ascension into the highest Heavens But how does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie all Prophesies or how does his Ascension into Heaven fulfil all Prophesies As for the Gifts given to men he says in the Psalms they are literally meant of God and of Christ only by way of Prophesie or rather of Emblem or Accommodation which he learnedly proves because the Gifts the Apostle speaks of were not given or received till about One thousand years after David 's time Now what of all this we readily grant that ascending on high the leading captivity captive the receiving gifts for men which the Psalmist speaks of were not the same with the Ascension of Christ into Heaven his leading captivity captive and giving Gifts to men but were Types and Figures of it but the single Question is Whether Christ be that God of whom the Psalmist says that he ascended on high c. if he be not St. Paul has abus'd us for he applies that to Christ which was not said of him if he be we have what we desire that Christ is God but this which was the only Question he says not one word to Men may be Types and Figures as David and others were of Christ and in this case what was said of David as a Typical Person may be applied to the Person of Christ but God himself can be no Type for the Type is always less perfect than the
Antitype and therefore whatever is said of God must belong to his Person and cannot belong to any other What God did under the typical State of the Law may be a Type and Figure of those more glorious things which we would do in Human Nature and thus his Triumphs and Victories over the Enemies of his Church which is by a Metaphor called his ascending on high since God who fills all places neither locally ascends nor descends was a Type and Figure of his real Ascension into Heaven after he had first descended into the lowermost parts of the Earth as the Apostle argues but if what the Psalmist says that God ascended on high c. received its accomplishment in the Ascension of Christ into Heaven Christ must be the God of whom the Psalmist speaks Thus what the Psalmist says of God Worship him all ye Gods or Angels the Apostle Attributes to Christ when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him To this our Author answers 'T is uncertain whether St. Paul had any respect to the words in the Psalm What when he cites the very words as a Prophesie of Christ How shall we then know when the Apostle has respect to the words he quotes But if he had he doth not quote the words of the Psalmist as if they were spoken of Christ but only declareth the Decree of God known to him by the Spirit for subjecting the Angels to Christ in the same words that the Psalmist had used upon another occasion But he proves this Decree of God by no other Revelation but the words of the Psalmist nor pretends any other and if that do'nt prove it we have no other But his Reason for this is admirable because they are words most proper to express that Decree for the Writers of the New Testament generally affect to speak in Scripture language which is an effectual Answer to all the Texts of Scripture quoted out of the Old Testament that the Apostles did not intend to prove any thing by them but only affected to speak in Scripture language but when the Apostle says this was spoken of Christ if it were not spoken of him I doubt he affected something worse than speaking in Scripture Language this is either to ridicule Scripture or give the lie to it let him choose which he likes best St. Paul applies that of the Prophet Isaiah I have sworn by my self which all acknowledge to be spoken by God unto me every knee shall bow to Christ. This our Historian says is Because Christ then and there at the last Iudgment holdeth the place of God representeth him and acteth by his Commission So men are said to appear before our Soveraign Lord the King when they appear at the Bar of his Iudges because the Iudges act in the King's stead and by his Commission But why does he confine this bowing the Knee to the last Iudgment St. Paul indeed gives this as one Instance of it but does not confine it to this but in the Epistle to the Philippians makes it as large as the Exaltation of our Saviour Wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name that at the Name of Iesus every knee should bow and that every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father This is what God says by the Prophet Every Tongue shall swear to me and St. Paul to the Romans Every Tongue shall confess to God And this shows that it is the Person of Christ to whom we must bow the knee it is the Name of Iesus at which every knee must bow and every Tongue must confess that Iesus Christ is the Lord. Now I suppose he will not say That we must confess the Judges to be the King or that we must bow to their Persons but to their Commission or that they represent the King wherever they are but only in the King 's Court. If then we must bow to the Person of Christ and confess him to be the Lord and this be an accomplishment of God's Oath unto me every Knee shall bow and every Tongue shall swear then Christ is that God who in the Prophet Isaiah swore that every Knee should bow to him And the Prophet plainly describes who this God is to whom every Knee shall bow Surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength even to him shall men come and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed in the Lord shall the Seed of Israel be justified and shall glory And I suppose all Christians know who that Lord is who is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption by whom we are justified through Faith in his Blood And this is that God to whom every Knee must bow But he is a little mistaken also in his Law we are not said to appear before our Soveraign Lord the King because we appear before the Judges who act by the King's Commission for this is true only of the Court of King's Bench which is peculiarly the King's Court though other Judges act by the King's Commission also in the Kings Court we are said to appear before the King But now though Christ receive his Kingdom and Power from God and God is said to judge the World by him yet it is properly Christ's Iudgment Seat So St. Paul here calls it We shall all stand before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ and we must all appear before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ for the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Iudgment to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father which I explained before And therefore this being Christ's Court of which he is the Supream and Soveraign Judge to him we must bow our Knee that is he is that Lord of whom the Prophet Isaiah speaks The same Prophet tells us Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself and let him be your fear and let him be your dread And he shall be for a Sanctuary but for a Stone of stumbling and for a Rock of Offence to both the Houses of Israel for a gin and for a snare to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem This is evidently spoken of the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel And this St. Paul applies to Christ that the Jews did stumble and fall and were broken as the Prophet foretold at this stumbling Stone Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness hath not attained to the Law of Righteousness Wherefore because they sought it not by Faith the Faith of Christ but as it were by the Works of the Law for they stumbled at the stumbling-stone as it is written Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed Where the Apostle joyns two Prophesies together the first that which I have already quoted
where the Lord of Hosts is said to be a Stumbling-stone and Rock of Offence And another of the same Prophet Behold I lay in Zion for a Foundation a Stone a tried Stone a precious Corner-stone a sure Foundation he that believeth shall not make haste which both St. Paul and St. Peter render with the Septuagint shall not be ashamed Now from hence we learn that the Prophet speaks of the same Stone that the Stumbling-stone and Rock of Offence is the Foundation stone the precious Corner-stone and therefore the Lord of Hosts who is the Stumbling-stone is the precious Corner-stone also And St. Paul and St. Peter tells us that Christ is the Stumbling-stone and that precious Corner-stone of which the Prophets speaks that is that Christ is the Lord of Hosts To whom to Christ coming as unto a living Stone disallowed indeed of Men but chosen of God and precious ye also as lively Stones are built up a spiritual House wherefore also it is contained in Scripture Behold I lay in Sion a chief Corner-stone elect precious and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded or ashamed All that our Historian says to this is That neither St. Paul nor St. Peter cite the words of the Prophet as spoken of Christ but only as in some sense applicable to him namely as Christ was to many a stone of stumbling which is nothing else but to out-face the World with down-right Impudence and to charge the Apostles with abusing Scripture and producing Proofs which are no Proofs St. Paul alleadges this Prophesie to prove that the Infidelity of the Jews and that Offence they should take at Christ was foretold in Scripture which answers that Objection against his being the Messias that the great Body of Israel to whom the Messias was peculiarly promised should reject him when he came which had it not been foretold had been a very unanswerable prejudice and yet if Christ be not the Prophets stumbling Stone this Prophesie does not foretel it St. Peter urges this Prophesie to prove that Christ is the Foundation Corner Stone Elect and Precious on which the Church was to be built but he abuses us also with a sham Proof if this Prophesie were not meant of Christ. And thus these men rather than they will allow the Scripture proofs that Christ is God destroy all the Old Testament proofs of the Truth of Christianity and I am afraid they are able to give us no good proofs of Christianity without them and yet if such Texts as these must pass only for Accommodations and Allusions I know not where they will find any proofs St. Iohn curiously observes the several Circumstances of our Saviour's Death and shows that they were the Accomplishment of ancient Prophesies and among others that of piercing his side with the Souldier's Spear which was foretold by the Prophet Zechary They shall look on me whom they have pierced which is confessed to be spoken of God and here he tells us again That the words in the Prophet are not by St. John interpreted of Christ but accommodated to Christ and his Sufferings And thus as fast as he can one after another he accommodates away all the proofs of Christianity for we may as well prove the Gospel out of Homer by accommodating Homer's Words and Phrases to it and turning it into an Homerical Poem as we know has been done as prove it by accommodating the Phrases and Language of the Old Testament to it which were never intended to signifie any such thing this I think is to ridicule and profane both the Old and New Testament and to overthrow the Authority of both But I am quite tired with this Work and therefore shall pass over his other Old Testament Proofs for what can we say to convince these men that such Old Testament Texts speak of Christ who will not believe the Apostles themselves And to conclude this I shall only give you a Specimen how they deal with the New Testament also in two or three Instances I shall begin with the Form of Baptism Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost All the Fathers have made this an Argument that Father Son and Holy Ghost are One God because we are baptized in their Name and we must not be baptized in the Name of any Creature for to be baptized in their Name signifies to be devoted and consecrated by a Sacred and Religious Rite to the Faith Worship and Obedience of Father Son and Holy Ghost and it is Idolatry to joyn Creatures with God in so solemn an Act of Religion in the same Act whereby we give up our selves to God to give up our selves to Creatures in the same Form of words without making any other difference between them but the Order of Persons And it is to no purpose to dispute What is meant by baptizing in the Name for whatever that be it signifies the very same to be baptized in the Name of the Father and to be baptized in the Name of the Son and in the Name of the Holy Ghost our Saviour makes no distinction and we must make none and if Father Son and Holy Ghost be not One God this Form of Baptism destroys the distinction between God and Creatures and devotes us as intirely to Creatures as to God We must consider Baptism as the Sacrament of our Initiation into the Christian Religion and our Admission into the Gospel-Covenant and therefore the Persons in whose Name we are baptized is that God who receives us into Covenant and to whose Worship and Obedience we consecrate our selves Our Historian says That to be baptized in the Name of a Person or Persons is a Rite by which one delivers himself to the Institution Instruction and Obedience of such Person or Persons so that to be baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is to profess to be led or guided by them or as Grotius expresses this matter 't is to declare we will admit of no other thing as a part of our Religion but what proceeds from these that is nothing but what is commanded by God or the Father and has been delivered by his Son the Lord Christ and confirmed externally by Miracles and internally with the Witness and Testimony of the Spirit that is by the Power and Inspiration of God This is a very false Account of Grotius and therefore I shall consider it as his own Now I readily grant that Baptism does include our Profession of believing the Gospel and making that the sole Rule of our Faith and Worship those who are baptized do own as Grotius speaks tres dogmatis sui Auctores Three Authors of their Doctrine or Religion Father Son and Holy Ghost but then Baptism being a Religious Rite it is a Religious Profession of this a Religious devoting our selves to them and therefore we give up
next place let us consider the first Chapter of St. Iohn's Gospel which gives a glorious Testimony to the Divinity of Christ and a plain demonstration of the incurable perverseness of Hereticks In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God the same was in the beginning with God Our Historian tells us The Trinitarian Exposition of this Chapter is absurd and contradictory 'T is this In the beginning i. e. from all Eternity Answ. From all Eternity is before the beginning or without beginning not in the beginning Reply This is false No man expounds in the beginning of Eternity but when St. Iohn tells us In the Beginning was the Word we say this proves the Eternity of the Word for that which was when all things began which had a beginning was it self before the beginning and without beginning especially when it was so in the beginning that it gave beginning to every thing else that all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made Was the Word i. e. was God the Son Answ. But where in Scripture is the Word called God the Son Reply This Word indeed is God the Son but we do not Paraphrase it so in this place In the beginning was God the Son but in the beginning was that Divine Person who is called the Word The Word was with God i. e. The Son was with the Father Answ. It seems then that God in this Clause is the Father But was not the Son also with the Holy Ghost and is not he too according to the Trinitarians God or a God If he is why doth St. John only say The Son was with the Father and how comes the Father to engross here the Title of God to the Exclusion of the Holy Ghost Rep. This is true also the God with whom the Word was is the Father but that is not his Character here neither no more than the Character of the Word is the Son But by God the Apostle here means that Original mind and Wisdom that Supreme and Soveraign Being whom all men called God without making a distinction of Persons in the God-head And therefore whereas he thinks that he has got the Trinitarians at an Advantage when the Apostle adds and the Word was God his triumph is vain What says he shall we do here was the Word the Father for so they interpreted God in the foregoing Clause No! no! neither so nor so The Word was God signifies the Word was a Divine Person in the Godhead and the Verse is very plain In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God intimately and inseparably united to him and that not as a Faculty or Power as Reason is in Human Minds but as a Divine subsisting Person for the Word was God God is the Name of a Being absolutely Perfect and the Light of Nature teaches us that there is but One such Supreme Being or but One God but Nature does not teach us that there are Three Divine Persons who are this One God though when Revelation has discovered this Mystery natural Reason is able in some measure to understand it and see the necessity of it as I have already shewn and if there be Three Divine Persons in the Godhead Reason will tell us that each Person is God though all Three Persons are but One God This is the Trinitarian Hypothesis and if the words of the Evangelist do easily and naturally agree with this Hypothesis and cannot reasonably signifie any thing else that is a sufficient Argument to me that this is the true Interpretation of the Text In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God That is In the beginning of all things was the Divine Person whose Name and Character is The Word this Word was inseparably united to that Supreme Being whom we call God and was himself God a Divine Person subsisting in the Vnity of the Godhead not a Power and Faculty as Reason is in Man Can any thing be more easie and obvious and more agreeable to the Doctrine of the Trinity Or if you change the Subject and the Praedicate as others will have it and read God was the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it makes no difference at all for this Supreme Being whom we call God was and is the Word though not Only the Word for God is the Father and God is the Son and God is the Holy Ghost though God is not only the Father nor only the Son nor only the Holy Ghost but the Supreme God is Father Son and Holy Ghost Now when the Evangelist had said That the Word was God or God was the Word there was great reason to repeat the same was in the beginning with God which our Historian thinks a meer Tautology for the intention of it is plain to inculcate more expresly on us that though the Word be God yet the Word is not all that God is as Grotius well observes for the Word was with God and therefore a distinct Person from some other Person who is callâ—d God that is that Eternal and Original Mind and Wisdom who is the Father of the Word And why the Name of God should peculiarly be appropriated to the Father as the Fountain of the Deity I have often observed But yet the Evangelist does in this Verse say something more than he said before and therefore this is no Tautology He had said That the Word was in the beginning that it was with God that it was God now he adds The same Word was in the beginning with God that is was always with him never separated from him and this is added for the sake of what follows That the Word was so with God in the beginning that God made the World by his Word For all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made which was made which is another very mysterious Repetition which nothing can give so plain an Account of as our Hypothesis All things were made by him this is full enough without the following addition nay indeed signifies more than what follows in strictness and propriety of Speech seems to do for that nothing was made without him of it self does not signifie that he made all things but that he had something to do in it as he may have who is not the principal Actor But our Doctrine gives a plain account of this Addition when the Evangelist had said That this Word who was with God in the beginning made all things there was an obvious Objection viz. then it seems that God with whom the Word was did not make the World if all things were made by the Word to have attributed the Creation of the World to the Word so as to have excluded God from making the World had been very absurd and contrary to the sense of Mankind God made the World by his Word the Word made all
things not so as to Exclude God from making the World and God made all things but not so as to exclude the Word for without him was not any thing made that was made which is exactly what we teach that Father Son and Holy Ghost as they are One God so they are One Creator who made the World by One individual Act and Operation God the Father made the World and the Creation of all things may eminently be attributed to him as the Fountain of the Deity and of all Energy and Power but he did not make the World without his Word and Spirit All things were made by the Word and without him was not any thing made that was made This Account is very far from containing any thing absurd or contradictious but to have as little dispute as may be with this Author let us take it in that sense he would have us take it in instead of Word put the Son and instead of God put God the Father and I can find none of the Contradictions he talks of for then the words run thus In the beginning of all things was the Word the Son of God and this Son of God was inseparably united to God the Father and the Son was One God with the Father this same Son was in the beginning with the Father for the Father made all things by him and without him was not any thing made that was made But let us consider what Account our Socinian Historian gives of this Chapter He appeals to Grotius's Interpretation of it but has misrepresented Grotius that did an Action of Forgery lie in these Cases many men have lost their Ears for less matters The Account he gives of it in short is this Briefly the Word according to Grotius is not an Eternal Son of God but is here the Power and Wisdom of God which Word abiding without measure on the Lord Christ 't is therefore spoken of as a Person and as one Person with Christ and he with that Whoever will be at the pains to consult Grotius will soon see what credit is to be given to this Socinian but it is no wonder that those Men pervert Human Writings who having nothing else to value themselves upon but perverting the Scriptures But what Agreement there is between this Socinian and Grotius I shall show in some few particulars by comparing their Expositions with each other by comparing Grotius as he is represented by this Historian with Grotius himself Brief History In the beginning That is when God created the Heavens and the Earth Was the Word The Hebrews call that Power and Wisdom of God by which he made the World and does all other his extraordinary works the Word 33 Psal. 6. 11 Hebr. 2. 2 Pet. 3.5 They borrowed this Expression from Moses God said let their be light 1 Gen. 3. undoubtedly Moses is not to be understood of a Word orally spoken for God is a Spirit but his meaning is God put forth his Power Wisdom and thereby created Light and the Firmament c. This is a direct opposition to Grotius whom he pretends to follow and his Reason is as silly as his Authority is counterfeit for why could not an infinite Mind beget a substantial Word the substantial Image of his own Power and Wisdom and by this Word make the World and why may not this be represented by his saying Let there be Light for since he confesses this was not an oral word why should it be represented by speaking or saying if God have not an eternal substantial Word by which he made the World there must be some foundation for such forms of speech and since it is evident God did not create all things by an oral Word or Command there is no pretence for this expression God said Let there be Light unless there be a Divine Person who is the Word and Wisdom of God by whom he made the world especially since this Phrase of Moses is thus expounded both in the Old and New Testament that God made the world by his Word which is every where represented as a Divine subsisting Person The Word was with God i. e. It was not yet in the World or not yet made Flesh but with God So that to be with God signifies nothing but not to be in the world The Word was God i. e. The Word or Divine Wisdom and Power that is not a substantial personal Wisdom and Power but such a Faculty as Reason and Wisdom is in man is not something different from God but being his Wisdom and Power is God as the wisdom of man is man 't is the common maxim of Divines that the Attributes and Properties of God are God which is in some sense true The meaning of that Maxim is that there are no Powers or Faculties in God as there are in created Minds but God is a pure and simple Act and therefore what are and must be distinct Powers and Faculties in created Minds must be distinct Persons in the Godhead And thus whatever is in God is God as each Divine Person is But if there be distinct Powers and Faculties in God as there are in men then the Wisdom of God is not God nor the Power of God God no more than the Understanding is the Man or the Will the Man or the Memory the Man He adds That those Persons whether Angels or Men to whom the Divine Word hath been in an extraordinary degreeCommunicated have also had the Names of Iehovah and God communicated to them Vers. 2. The same was in the beginning with God This is here repeated by the Evangelist to teach us that the Word is so God that it is not all that God is there being other Properties and Attributes communicable as well as the Word So that the Word is but an Attribute of God and a communicable Attribute and but one of God's communicable Attributes So that there may be many Words for the Word as he just now said may be communicated to Angels and Men in such a degree that the Name Iehovah may belong to them and then why does St. Iohn call the Word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the only begotten of the Father Grotius So also Grotius But adds was jam tum erat was when all things began and shows that among the Hebrews this was a popular Description of Eternity to be before the World 17 Iohn 5. And to this purpose Applies the words of Iustin Martyr concerning the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was before the Worlds The Word He owns it is called the Word in allusion to what Moses says That God said let there be Light But he calls this Word vim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power Efflux Emanation in the same sense as the ancient Christians used them to signifie a Substantial Word Power Emanation In this sense he shows that it is used in the ancient Books of the Chaldoeans and by the Writer of
when God the Father does the thing But thus much he allows him That Christ is said to judge the World because he shall pronounce the Decree and Sentence of God and order the Angels to execute it And now has not this Socinian made a glorious King and Mediator of Christ without the least Power to do any thing but intercede by Prayers and Supplications with God and that without knowing the particular Condition of those for whom he intercedes If this be Christianity sit anima mea cum Philosophis if this be to expound Scripture by Reason it is plain that Scripture and Reason spoil one another for no man would reason so foolishly but to pervert Scripture nor expound Scripture so absurdly but to comply with what he calls Reason 4. Socinianism justifies or at least excuses both Pagan and Popish Idolatries at least as it is taught by those men who allow of the Worship of Christ which it is certain the Christian Religion teaches Now if Christ be no more than a Man this is Creature Worship and then Creature Worship is not Idolatry and this goes a great way in justifying or excusing Pagans and Papists If the Worship of a Creature be natural Idolatry God would not have permitted the Worship of Christ if it be not then Pagans and Papists are no Idolaters Though they worship Creatures whatever their Fault be in it if it be so much a Fault as a Mistake yet it is a Fault of a much less Nature than Idolatry and more easily pardoned Especially when they do not worship these Creatures as the Supreme God but as their Mediators and Patrons and Advocates with the Supreme God for there is a Worship due to a Mediator distinct from the Worship of the Supreme God as the Worship of Christ proves who is not God but a Creature-Mediator and thus the Heathens worshipped their inferior Deities and thus the Papists worship their Saints And if they do mistake and worship those for Mediators who are none and can do them no Service the greatest hurt seems to be that they loose their labour but according to these Principles they do no injury to God For as they tell us when it is said That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father the meaning only is as we honour God or the Father so we must not forget to honour also the Son of God An equality of Honour is no more intended here than an equality of Perfection in those words Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect So the Heathens did not intend the same degree of worship to their Mediators and Inferior Deities as to the Supreme God and we know the Papists distinguish between the worship of Latria and Dulia or that Soveraign worship which is due to the Supreme God and that inferior honour to Saints and Angels and it is plain this is not an arbitrary but real distinction as is evident in the worship of God and the Man Christ Jesus who are worshipped with different degrees of honour as these Socinians assert And whereas the Papists are charged with making Gods and Goddesses of dead Men and Women by paying Religious Worship to them they no more make them Gods than the Socinians make Christ a God And as for the worship of the Virgin Mary they have in reason as much to say for it as the Socinians have for the worship of Christ They make Christ the Son of God only because he was formed by a Divine Power in the Womb of the Virgin but Papists who believe Christ to be God own her for the Mother of God and I cannot see why it is not as great an honour to be the Mother of God as to be born of a Virgin by the Power of God and it may be more And in reason I cannot see allowing of the Intercession of a Creature why the Virgin Mother of God should not intercede as powerfully for us as a Man born of a Virgin by the Power of God and I am apt to think our Saviour will account it a less fault to worship his Mother than to make himself a meer Creature And though the blessed Virgin do not particularly know our Condition yet she may help us by her general Intercession as Christ does and pray particularly for her peculiar Devotoes and therefore at least we may pray to God in the Name of the Virgin and other Saints as Socinians do in the Name of Christ who knows as little of them And yet the Virgin and other Saints may understand our Condition and Affairs the same way that the Socinians say Christ does viz. by Revelation from God and by the Ministry of Angels who are sent into the World and carry the News of this World to Heaven though we should not allow of their Glass of the Trinity wherein they see and know all things So that here is nothing wanting but the appointment and allowance of God to make the blessed Virgin and other Saints as proper Advocates for us as the Socinians make Christ to be for they are as well qualified for it or might be if God so pleased according to their Principles and this the Papists think they have too that God has appointed or at least allows the worship of such favourite Saints and though they are mistaken in it it is certainly a much more innocent and pardonable mistake to make a Mediator whom God has not made than to make the Eternal Son of God a Creature In a word whatever evil there is in Creature worship that the Socinians are guilty of in worshipping a meer man but this is not the worst of their Case for they overthrow the whole Christian Religion by it which Popery does not overthrow though it greatly and dangerously corrupts it SECT VII An Answer to what remains in the Brief Notes I Am now hastening to a Conclusion and there is little behind to stop me for though half the sheet be yet untouched it is answered before I come to it and therefore both to save Paper and Pains I shall not transcribe his long impertinent Harangues as I have hitherto done but only give the Reader a view of those Passages which he intends for Argument or Drollery I know not whether The Son is of the Father alone not made nor created but begotten Our Note-maker has discovered a Contradiction between the beginning and the end of this Article for either the Son is not of the Father alone or he is not begotten for every Novice in Grammar and proper Speaking knows that begotten when it is distinguished from made and created always supposes two Parents a Mother as well as a Father He will allow the Son to be begotten if you speak of the Generation of the Son by the Divine Power on the Virgin Mary for then it would have been true that the Son is neither made nor created but begotten for then he has both Father
and Mother God is his Father and the Virgin Mary his Mother and thus though they will not allow the Virgin to be the Mother they will allow her to be the Wife of God which is as honourable These are very fit men to make Addresses to a Morocco Ambassador for they are so far of Mahomet's mind that God cannot have a Son unless he have a Wife but Mahomet was the better Divine in this that he never dreamt of God's having a Woman for his Wife I am afraid this is Blasphemy I 'm sure we have always thought it so from the Mouth of a scoffing Atheist or Infidel for this is not his own but borrowed Wit For does our Author in earnest think that God cannot have a Son unless he begets him as one man begets another This is to dispute against God's begetting a Son as the Epicurean in Tully did against God's making a World that he wanted Ministers and Instruments for such a Work as if God made a World as a Carpenter builds a House Does a Son necessarily signifie one who is begotten of two Parents I thought the true Notion of a Son had been one who is produced out of the Substance of its Parent not out of nothing which we call Creation nor formed of any other Praeexistent Matter which we call making and that the true Notion of begetting is to produce its own Image and Likeness out of its own Substance by what means soever this is done and if one Parent can thus beget a Son of his own Substance this argues greater perfection in the Father and is a more perfect manner of Production than by two and methinks he might allow the most perfect Being to beget a Son in the most perfect manner And that an infinite Mind can and must beget his own likeness and image that is an Eternal Son by a reflex Knowledge of himself I have already shewn The Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding His first quarrel against this is the Procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son the next is about the distinction between being begotten and proceeding which he says are the same thing and are now confessed to be so by the most learned Trinitarians who these are I know not but be they who they will it was no Argument of their Prudence or Learning to reject a distinction which both the reason of the thing requires and the Christian Church has always owned but this I have accounted for before and plainly shewn the distinction between Generation and Procession the first is a reflex Act whereby God knows himself and begets his own Likeness and Image Procession is a direct Act that Eternal Love whereby God loves himself and his own Image which proceeds from God as all Thoughts and Passions proceed out of the Heart And therefore there is but One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts The second Person is indeed the Son of the first but the third Person who proceeds from Father and Son is not the Son of either for to proceed is not to be begotten and therefore there are not two Sons nor two Fathers as this Author affirms much less are they Three Holy Ghosts though I grant as he says that they are Three Holy Spirits But this is a meer childish Fallacy and playing with words as as there is but One God so he is a holy Being and a pure Mind and Spirit as Spirit is opposed to Matter and thus all Three Divine Persons are holy Minds and Spirits essentially united into One infinite Mind and Spirit but the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son and a distinct Person in the Trinity is but One. In this Trinity none is before or after other none is greater or less than another Yet the Son himself saith the Father is greater than I 14 Joh. 28. And the Son himself saith I and the Father are One 10 Joh. 30. And therefore there can be no greater inequality between them than what is consistent with an Oneness and Identity of Essence that is not an inequality of Nature but Order as a Father is greater than the Son who is naturally subordinate to him though their Nature be equal and the same Though we know the ancient Fathers understood this of Christ as Man as it is also expressed in this Creed Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead inferiour to the Father as touching his Manhood He proceeds As for the other Clause None is afore or after other 't is just as true as that there is no difference between afore and after I ask whether the Son doth not as he is a Son derive both Life and Godhead from the Father All Trinitarians grant he does grounding themselves on the Nicene Creed which expresly calls the Son God of God Light of Light very God of very God begotten not made But if the Father gave to the Son Life and Godhead he must have both before he could communicate or give either of them to the Son and consequently was afore the Son was No effect is so early as its Cause for if it were it should not have needed or had that for its Cause No Proposition in Euclid is more certain or evident than this I hope he will abate a little of his Mathematical Certainty before I have done with him and yet I shall quickly have done with him too I will begin with his Philosophy of Causes and Effects No Effect he says is so early as its Cause Did he never then hear of what we call Emanative Effects which coexist with their Causes Is not the Sun the Cause of Light and Fire of Heat and can he conceive a Sun without Light or Fire without Heat and if he cannot so much as in thought without absurdity and contradiction separate these Causes and Effects is it possible to separate them in time that the Cause should be before its Effect that is that the Sun should be without Light and the Fire without Heat and yet can Light be without the Sun or Heat without Fire What becomes then of his Reason which is as certain and evident as any Proposition in Euclid That if the Effect were as early as its Cause it should not have needed or had that for its Cause For Light needs the Sun and Heat the Fire for their Causes and yet are as early as their Causes But I perceive he is but a young Mathematician or Philosopher and therefore I would desire him to remember against the next time That plain Matter of Fact is as certain and evident as any Proposition in Euclid In all other Causes and Effects which subsist distinctly and separately his Maxim is good That the Cause must be before the Effect but when the Effect is essential to the Cause and the Cause cannot be without it
there the Effect is as early as its Cause because the Cause cannot subsist without its Effect as the Sun cannot be a Sun without Light and Fire cannot be Fire without Heat And this is the Case here the Son is begotten by the Father and is God of God Light of Light the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son but Father Son and Holy Ghost are essentially but One God and therefore unless the same One God can be afore and after himself in the Trinity there can be no afore or after but all Three Persons are Coeternal because they are essentially One Eternal God and it is in vain to confound our Minds with conceiving an Eternal Generation for that is as intelligible as an Eternal Being we can see the necessity of both but cannot comprehend either no more than we can Eternity It is demonstrable something must be Eternal and it is as certain that an Eternal Mind eternally knows it self and loves it self for there can be no infinite Mind without a reflex Knowledge of himself which is his Eternal Son nor without the love of himself and his One Image which is the Holy Spirit of which I have sufficiently discoursed already And thus we are come to the last part of our Task what concerns the Incarnation of Christ which after all that has been said to prove Christ to be the Eternal Son of God incarnate will take up no great time for what ever difficulties there may be in the Philosophy of the Incarnation or how God and Man is united into One Person it will not shake my Faith who see a thousand things every day which I can give no Philosophical Account of and which a little Philosophy would teach considering men not to pretend to give any account of and yet we believe our Eyes without understanding the Philosophy of things and why we should not believe a Divine Revelation to without it I know not But let 's hear what he has to say The right Faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Iesus Christ the Son of God is both God and Man Then the Lord Christ is two Persons for as he is God he is a Person Very right And as he is a Man he is a Person that we deny that he is a distinct Person from the Godhead when united to God But a rational Soul vitally united to a Human Body is a Person Right when it is by it self and so a Soul without a vital Union to a Human Body is a Person and a Beast which has no reasonable Soul but only an Animal Life as a Man has together with a Human Soul is a Person or a Suppositum or what he will please to call it but it is a distinct living subsisting Being by it self but when the Rational and the Animal Life are united in Man he is not two Persons a Rational and an Animal Person but one Person and therefore we neither need own Christ to be two Persons with Nestorius which yet is much more innocent than to deny his Godhead nor deny him either to be God or Man for he is God-Man in one Person as a Man is a Reasonable and Animal Creature united into One Person though we may find the reasonable and animal life subsisting apart and when they do so they are two and but one when united This is explained in the Creed by the Union of Soul and Body for as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is One Man so God and Man is One Christ which he says vainly enough is the only offer at Reason that is to be found in the whole Creed Well! we are glad any thing will pass with him though it be but for an offer at reason and let us hear how he confutes it 1. He says In the Personal Vnion of a Soul with a Body the Vnion is between Two finite things but in the pretended Personal Vnion of God to Man and Man to God the Vnion is between finite and infinite which on the Principles of the Trinitarians I wish he had told us what those Principles are is impossible For we must either suppose that finite and infinite are commensurate that is equal which every one knows is false or that the finite is united but to some part of the infinite and is disjoyned from the rest which all Trinitarians deny and abhor I beg your pardon Sir they were never so silly as to think of it but they abhor to see such Sacred Mysteries treated with so much Ignorance and Impudence Since he is for confuting the Doctrine of the Trinity by raising Difficulties about the manner of this Union how God and Man are united into One Person I desire he would first try his skill in inferior things and tell me how the parts of Matter hang together which though every Body thinks he knows I doubt no Body does Then I would desire to know how Soul and Body are united how a Spirit can be fastened to a Body that it can no way release it self though never so desirous of it till the vital Union which no Body knows what it is is dissolved Why the Soul can leave the Body when the Body is disabled to perform the Offices of Life but cannot leave it before The Soul I say which we Trinitarians believe to be a Spirit which can pass through Matter which cannot be touched or handled or held by Matter and yet feels the impressions of Matter is pleased or afflicted with them and sympathizes with the Body as if it could be cut by a Knife or burnt with a Fever or torn by wild Beasts as the Body is And since he apprehends there can be no Union without Commensuration and therefore a finite and infinite Being cannot be united because they are not Commensurate I desire to know whether he thinks the Soul and Body are Commensurate whether the Soul have parts as the Body has which answer to every part of the Body and touch in every Point These will be very new Discoveries if he can say any thing to them if he can't it is his best way to deny the Union of Soul and Body because he cannot understand it to assert that man has no Soul but only a Body because it is impossible that Matter and Spirit should ever be united into one Person and Life which is to the full as unreasonable as to deny the Personal Union of God and Man because he cannot understand how finite and infinite which are not Commensurate nor can be because neither a finite nor infinite Spirit have any parts to be measured can be united But in great good Nature he has found out a Salvo for the Trinitarians That God indeed is infinite and every Soul and Body even that of Christ finite yet the whole God and the whole Man are united because as the whole Eternity of God doth Coexist to a moment of time so the whole Immensity of God is in every Mathematical point of place
only in the superior and governing Nature as it ought to be because in that the Natures are united into One Person and that must govern and take care of the whole Thus the Mind in man is conscious to the whole man and to all that is in man to all the motions of Reason and Sense but Sense is not conscious to all the Actings of Reason which is the superior Faculty though it is conscious as far as is necessary to receive the Commands and Directions of Reason for the Body moves at the command of the Will and it is so far conscious to its Commands Thus in the Person of Christ who is God-man the Divine Word is conscious to his whole Person not only to himself as the Divine Word but to his whole Humane Nature not by such Knowledge as God knows all men and all things but by such a Consciousness as every Person has of himself But it does not hence follow that the Humane Nature is conscious to all that is in the Word for that destroys Humane Nature by making it Omniscient which Humane Nature cannot be and its being united to the Person of the Word does not require it should be for an inferior Nature is not conscious to all that is in the superior Nature in the same Person This Union of Natures does require that the inferior Nature be conscious to the superior as far as its Nature is capable and as far as the Personal Union requires for so Sense is in some degree conscious to Reason and it cannot be one Person without it And therefore the Human Nature in Christ is in some measure in such a degree as Human Nature can be conscious to the Word feels its Union to God and knows the Mind of the Word not by External Revelations as Prophets do but by an Inward Sensation as every man feels his own Thoughts and Reason but yet the Human Nature of Christ may be ignorant of some things notwithstanding its Personal Union to the Divine Word because it is an inferior and subject Nature And this I take to be the true account of what our Saviour speaks about the Day of Judgment Of that day and hour knoweth no man no not the Angels in Heaven but my Father only where our Saviour speaks of himself as a man and as a man he did not at that time know the Day of Judgment though personally united to the Divine Word who did know it for as he is the Divine Word so our Saviour tells us That he seeth all that the Father doth and therefore what the Father knows the Eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father must know also But yet the Human Nature of Christ was conscious to all the actings of the Divine Word in it as we may see in the Story of the Woman having an Issue of Blood twelve years who in the midst of a great Crowd of People came behind him and touched his Garment and was immediately healed our Saviour presently asked who touched him and when all denied it and Peter wondered he should ask that Question when the Multitude thronged him and pressed him Iesus said some body hath touched me for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me he felt the miraculous Power of the Divine Word working in him as a man feels what is done in himself This I think gives some account how God and Man may be united into One Person which though it be a great Mystery which we cannot fully comprehend yet is not wholly unintelligible much less so absurd and contradictious as this Author pretends As for what he adds about believing and professing this Faith let him apply it to Christ's being the Messias or any other Article of the Creed and see what Answer he will give to it for what if men can't believe it are we obliged under the penalty of the loss of Salvation to believe it whether we can or no doth God require of any man an impossible Condition in order to Salvation No! but if it be credible and what a wise man may believe and what he has sufficient Evidence to believe he shall be damned not because he can't but won't believe it But what if it be against a mans Conscience to profess it if he profess against his Conscience he sins and if notwithstanding this a man must either profess or be damned then God requires some men to sin in order to their Salvation God requires no man to profess against his Conscience but he shall be damned for not believing it not for not professing what he does not believe it looks like a Judgment upon these men that while they can talk of nothing less than the severest Reason they impose upon themselves or hope to impose upon the World by the most Childish Sophistry and Nonsense And now I shall leave our Note-maker to harangue by himself and perswade Fools if he can that the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation is nothing but Popery or must be parted with for the sake of Iews or be made a Complement to the Morocco Ambassador and his admired Mahomet or must be sacrificed to Peace and Unity and to secure men from damnation who will not believe I will not envy him the satisfaction of such Harangues it being all the Comfort he has for I am pretty confident he will never be able to Reason to any purpose in this Cause again Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be World without end Amen THE END ADVERTISEMENT A Preservative against Popery in two Parts with a Vindication in Answer to the Cavils of Lewis Sabran a Jesuit 4 o. A Discourse concerning the Nature Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church 4 o. A Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor Novemb. 4. 1688. 4 o. A Practical Discourse concerning Death The Fifth Edition 8 o. The Case of the Allegiance due to Soveraign Powers stated and resolved according Scripture and Reason and the Principles of the Church of England with a more particular Respect to the Oath lately enjoyned of Allegiance to Their Present Majesties K. William and Q. Mary The Fifth Edition 4 o. By William Sherlock D. D. Master of the Temple Printed for W. Rogers The Creed Brief Notes Answer Notes Answer Notes Answer Notes Answer Vossius de tribus Symbel dissert 3 Cap. 29 30. Cap. 31. Ibid. Cap. 48. Ibid. Ibid. Cap. 44. Dissert 2. c. 1. Creed Notes Answer Notes Answer Answer Creed Notes Answer Notes Answer Aug. lib. contra Serm. Arrian c. 16. Creed Notes Answer Notes Answer Creed Notes Answer Creed Notes Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas. Cont. Arium Disput. Tom. 1. p. 116. Paris 1627. Quae ratiocinatio ad id cogit ut dicamus Deum Patrem non esse sapientem nisi habendo sapientiam quam genuit non existendo per se pater sapientia Deinde si ita est filius quoque ipse