the Writer suggests to us the Reason of that Appellation viz. the Dignity and Power bestowed on him by the Father For which reason also Moses Solomon and others are dignified with the same honourable Appellation Plainly told of Three that are each of them God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How hard a thing is it when a Man is engag'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve a Cause to make a Conscience of what he affirms We are indeed as he truly notes plainly told of Three and some things are spoken of each which cannot be truly spoken of all but this only proves that the Three cannot be essentially the same so that if any One of them be truly God the other two must be Creatures Mr. H is strangely rash to affirm that the Scripture plainly tells us of Three distinct Persons each of which is God for had that been true this Controversy had never been It is as Mr. H. judges easier to count Three than to determine of Infiniteness But then how bold is he to determine of the One as he does and how unlucky is he in counting the other for he determines that each of the Three distinct Persons are the Infinite God sometimes perhaps he uses abating Expressions and he counts God the Father God the Son God the Holy Ghost for One God The Dean had argued that if all Three Persons by Composition are but one God neither of them by himself is true and perfect God Which invidious Consequence he charges Mr. H to have own'd Mr. H replies that this is most untruly said and that for his part he denies both Antecedent and Consequent too If Mr. H can indulge himself to deny in one place what he has affirm'd in another he shall always have something to say for himself whatsoever is said against him but the Dean's Charge was honest for Calm Disc p. 47. Mr. H writes thus Father Son and Holy Spirit being suppos'd necessarily existent in this united State they cannot but be God Instead now of Composition put in the word together in the Dean's Argument and then surely Mr. H will not be so hardy as to deny the Antecedent and still the Consequence holds witness the good Man's next words When you predieate Godhead or the Name of God of any One of them you express an inadequate Conception of God And pray what is that but a half Conception of God a Conception short of what God is Indeed Mr. H did put in another Epither and with that his Phrase sounds thus A true but inadequate Conception But that is a Contradiction in Terms for a true Conception of a thing is an adequate full Conception of it and an inadequate Conception is not a true One What follows p. 41 and 42. is nothing but a sensless Stir concerning a Similitude of the Trinity which they both have us'd and both confess'd nothing to the purpose Mr. H says He brought the Union of Soul and Body not to illustrate Personal Union but Essential and yet his Business was to prove it possible that Three Persons might become one God So then by his Confession when he was to prove his Point he talk'd off from the Matter as many a fluent Orator has done that he might not lose but puzzle the Cause and so save it P. 42. Mr. H plays upon the Dean with scoffing Sarcasms But to his Argument returns nothing but plain dull Falshood or rather Theological Banter 1st He says that the Dean to make out something against him foists in a Supposition which never came into any Man's Head but a Socinian's and his own This is by a Rhetorical Hendiadis to call him a Socinian as if the Dean had wrote his Vindication of the Trinity to no purpose But herein Mr. H does him manifest wrong for on my Conscience he is no Socinian now whatever he may have been formerly But Mr. H has a Plaister for the Wound which that Imputation gives He said what he said if we will believe him contradistinguishing the Dean to the Socinians that so it might appear more strange that the Dean should foist in a Socinian Supposition Thus the Dean is excus'd from being a Socinian and to mend the Matter set out for a Man of no Conscience who being in truth an Anti-Socinian yet argues against Mr. H by virtue of a Socinian Supposition and that foisted in too Mr. H will not bate him a jot of being a Foister I see the Calm Enquirer is no Angel for he brings against the Dean a railing Accusation which is more than Michael did against the Devil a worse Creature than Dr. Sherlock by a great deal Come we now to the Supposition it self said to be foisted If God be a Person he can be but One. Now this Socinian Supposition or Argument or whatever it be does not look like a very unreasonable One and if the Dean should be ashamed of it because it is said to be Socinian he may for the same Reason be ashamed of the most unexceptionable things which he ever wrote But where 's the Foisting If Mr. H. did not say that God was a Person may not the Dean suppose it and argue from it Dares Mr. H. deny it Indeed he dares but with as empty metaphysical Pretence as can be imagin'd The Name of God says he is the Name of the Essence not the distinguishing Name of a Person This is perfect Theological Banter empty Words to which he cannot fix an intelligible Meaning But if Person signify an intelligent Being as both these Antagonists admit then the Essence and Person of God cannot be distinguish'd but are of the same Import then the Name of God is the Name of that Person or Intelligent Being which is God And if God be but one God then there is but one Person or Intelligent Being which is God Mr. H. pursues his Reasoning thus If Three Intelligent Natures be united in one Deity each will be Persons he should have said a Person and each will be God and all will be one God I grant it for Dato uno absurdo sequuntur mille Let me try my skill If Three Intelligent Natures may be united in One then Two may be so united and then the Dean will be Mr. H. and Mr. H. the Dean each will be a Trinitarian and both will be one Trinitarian The truth is nor Three nor Two Intelligent Natures can be united into One the same Intelligent Nature Nor can Mr. H. and the Dean be united into the same Man they come indeed close up to one another and are together by the Ears but they can never be united into One. Mr. H. thinks it makes for him tho I know not which way that he hath as Divines commonly do stil'd the Father Fons Trinitatis What is the Theological Sense of that Phrase I am not able to say the plain Sense is that a Trinity of Gods flow from the Father and Three and One makes Four unless some other Mystery forbid To
vital Sensation Now Sensation will take in Seeing as well as Feeling and then Mutual Consciousness if he keeps to the letter will be Knowing each other in themselves In short Seeing Feeling Knowing each other in themselves are Forms of expressing which he uses promiscuously not very Orthodox indeed but there is no Heretical Sense under them no Sense at all that I know of but as he complements Dr. S th they are Gipsy-Cant Hold I cry him Mercy for Gipsies understand one another's Gibberish His not very Orthodox Expressions may perhaps be better call'd Rosy-crucian Cant for that mysterious Order of Philosophers are the only Persons that I know of besides our gross Tritheists who use Words without any intelligible meaning Mutual Consciousness is really nothing but a shamesul Instance of the Dean's Faculty in putting impossible Cases which it were not difficult to expose but his way is to ease his Adversary of that Labour and do it himself His Self-Consciousness refutes his Mutual Consciousness i.e. if he has desin'd them aright for how should he that by Self-Consciousness feels himself to be himself by Mutual-Consciousness feel himself to be some Body else It is true an intelligible Sense of these words may be given As thus I am conscious to my self of what I think say or do and what is known to me and my Friend of that we two are mutually conscious But the Dean never understands words in their proper and natural signification is never contented till he has made them signify what no Body can understand nor he declare without talking backward and forward so shamefully that were it not for fear of his Vindictive Spirit every Man would do as Dr. S th has done i. e. show him his Picture I had almost said his living and substantial Image But he is sure that Mr. H w can never form any Notion of the Union of Spiritual Essences without Mutual Consciousness It must be his Prejudice then that hinders him for Spiritual Essences may be united by Consent but that 's not the Union he intends he intends an Essential Union and that 's an Essential Contradiction and Substantial Nonsense The Dean fairly recounts that Mr. H w represents the Unity of the Godhead by the Union of Soul and Body which make one Man and by the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature which are said to make one Christ Now he criticises and affirms these to be Personal Unions meaning Unions of divers things which make one Person but cannot be the Unity of the Godhead in which there is a Trinity of distinct Persons I know no inconvenience of allowing according to common Acceptation that Soul and Body make up one thing call'd Man nor know I what Mr. H w can get by it for neither of the two singly is Man or if each of them singly is so together they must make up a double Man Which was the Fancy of the silly Indian in John Dreyden's Play I kill'd a double Man the one half lay Vpon the Ground the other ran away But the Dean rejects these Unions he says because they are not the Unions of distinct Persons But that is not fair for he himself has confess'd once and again that there is nothing in Nature like Three Persons in One Godhead And I must take leave to tell him that if there were Mr. H w is as like to find it as he But since there is not they must e'en both be content with such faint Resemblances as they can get As for the Union of two Natures I have a better Reason for rejecting than the Dean by much it is building Mystery upon Mystery and proving one Dream by the help of another Mr. H w's Unity of the Godhead is such and no other than the Dean speaks it such an Union of Three Spiritual Beings and Individual Natures as together which is fairly call'd by Composition constitute the Godhead Against this Notion he says some things weakly those the Letter takes notice of and perhaps I may also spend my Verdict on them there other things he says well and with sound Reason but in them he is most unlucky for instead of Three Spiritual Beings Three Individual Natures read Three Minds or Persons and his Arguments conclude equally against his own Hypothesis In short what he says well comes to this If all Three are but One God then not any One by himself is that One God and this he says Mr. H w has own'd p. 47. and I think his words come near it which are these When you predicate Godhead of any One of the Persons you express an inadequate Conception of God But to prove himself a sounder Trinitarian he says that he owns and that none are Orthodox Christians but they who own so too that the Father has the whole entire Divinity in himself that the same subsists in the Son the same in the Holy Ghost that each by himself in the most proper adequate Conception is true and perfect God tho all Three are but One and the same God which does plainly and undeniably prove that the Dean and all his Orthodox Christians do believe that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are One and Three in one and the same respect For that Godhead which by them is predicated of every of the Three separately that very Godhead is predicated of the whole Three conjunctly The Dean says that Mr. H w's Notion of the Unity of the Godhead is such that neither the Scriptures nor the Antient Church know any thing of it I am of the Mind that the Scriptures know as much of the Hypothesis of one of them as of that of the other and as for the Antient Church who can tell what he means by it the Fathers beyond the acknowledg'd Rules of good Life neither agree with one another nor any one with himself but I guess his Antient Church to be made up of those particular Doctors whom he judges to have talk'd his Way though I won't sware but they may have drop'd a word or two in favour of Mr. H w's Divine Composition Where any late Socinian Writers have declar'd themselves willing to compound this Dispute of a Trinity of Divine Persons for the Three Attributes of Power Wisdom and Goodness I know not I beg the Dean's pardon if I wrong him when I believe he wrongs them for I observe that they have noted that there are other as essential Attributes of God as the Three mention'd viz. Truth and Justice and so the Mystery will consist of five Parts and that is two more than it did when it had two too-many And then if any of the Trinitarians make but an Attribute of the H. Ghost yet they all do and must allow Jesus Christ to be a Person and they all do affirm him to be one and the same God with the Father which I am very sure the Socinians will by no means agree to Indeed when the Trinitarians explain the Trinity by calling God as
the Creator Father as the Redeemer Son as Sanctifier the Holy Ghost the Socinians say for Peace sake they can endure this but then they also say 't is a harsh Way of speaking and in my Judgment off from the Question for suppose that some Trinitarians could part with the personal Deity of the Holy Ghost yet they are all pertinaciously zealous for this impossible Piece of the Mystery that Jesus Christ is one and the same God with his eternal Father and then though they may perhaps sometimes think good to shelter themselves under the Prosession of One God for various Reasons variously denominated yet they cannot compound the Controversy about Three Persons for Three Attributes Jesus Christ is a Person and I think they all make him one in the Trinity and they may as well make three Persons to be one God as two and as well some other number as three The Dean egregiously mistakes one thing viz. that the Socinians are afraid of the Hypothesis of Three Divine Persons each of which is God but I will assure him 't is no such thing though they are asham'd of it 't is so infinitely absurd and manifestly impossible they need not be afraid of it for Reason will never recommend it only Persecution may fright them from examining it who were bred up to it On Mr. H w's Letter in reply to the Postscript Nec quenquam jam ferre potest Caesárve priorem Pompeiusve parem Could Caesar and Pompey have agreed to share Empire between them they might have manag'd Rome and the World as they pleas'd but Pompey proud of his early Fame and long Prosperity would needs be uppermost while Caesar's Success against the Gauls prompted him to endure no Superiour so they divided their Interests the Event was Caesar was too hard for Pompey by his Valour Brutus and Cassius by their Treachery too hard for Caesar Would Mr. H w and Dean Sherlock agree to share the Honour of explaining the mysterious Doctrine of the Trinity between them it would be a great stroke towards perswading Church-men and Dissenters to Orthodox Tritheism but as ill-luck will have it to the Prejudice of every Diotrephes whether of Church or Tabernacle the Dean is pertinacious for his Hypothesis there must be Three distinct Minds in one Numerical Godhead or no Trinity and Mr. H w that could be contented to have his Scheme admitted as possible cannot endure to have it set by as Heresy So they expose one another to the scoffing Railery of Theists and Atheists to the Scandal of weak and to the Contempt of wise and good Men. This appears on the Dean's part from what I have said in my Examination of his Postscript and will appear from what I have to say on Mr. H w's Letter Mr. H w reduces the Dispute between him and the Dean to these two Heads 1. Whether the Enquirer has said more than the Dean or more than is defensible of the Distinction of the sacred Three in the Godhead 2. Whether the Dean hath said so much as the Enquirer or so much as was requisite of their Union Of the first I affirm they have both said more than is defensible there is indeed some Difference in the Sound of their Terms but their Sense on both Sides is equally Absurd and Tritheistical Three Minds and Spirits Three Essences and individual Natures if every of them is suppos'd to have all Divine Perfections every of them is suppos'd to be a True God and all of them to be Three Gods One and the same is the Hypothesis of these two angry Writers only varigated with different Terms of Art They catch and cavil at one another for some little By-sayings or Omissions but return not one wise word to the plain Arguments wherewith they condemn one another for Tritheists They are mutually self-conscious of their Pagan Error and that suppresses the Pride of their Hearts so when they fain would raise their Voices to a triumphal Jö all they can reach is I will vindicate Three Minds from being Three Gods as well as you Three Natures and I will assert Three Natures to be but One God as well as you Three Minds Before I read Mr. H w's Letter I could not have imagin'd that he would have rivall'd his insolent Adversary in this weak Absurdity but I see an indefensible Cause will shame a Man of excellent Parts and high Provocation put a calm Enquirer beside his Temper For thus p. the 7th Mr. H w denying the Charge of having expresly said and extenuating his having implied that the sacred Three are Three distinct Substances is content with this sorry Reply There is somewhat more considerable in the Notion of Substance according whereto if the Dean can make a shift to avoid the having of any inconvenient thing prov'd upon him by consequence I hope the Enquirer may find a Way to escape as well Mr. H w never rose above hoping well of his Hypothesis here he seems to despair and the mysterious Article may go where it will if his Honour be but as safe as the Dean's Indeed it is a reasonable Desire to escape but as well as the Dean and it is ill luck if he does not yet I believe he is not like to escape much better neither The Dean in his Self-defence takes the Confidence to affirm that he allows but one Divine Essence one Individual Nature in the Godhead Mr. H w is content to intimate that he believes the Dean has said the contrary in his Vindication I am sure on 't and shall make bold to point to one notorious Place it is p. 47. there he teaches that the Divine Persons are substantial Beings and that if each Person be God each Person has a real Being a real Nature and Essence of his own This is enough a conscience Three distinct Persons with each his real Nature must needs make Three real Natures and if each Person is God each Nature is God for 't is the intelligent Nature which constitutes the Person and then there be three Natures which three Natures are three Gods To the Dean professing to own but one Divine Essence Mr. H w slightly objects that the contrary appears from his Hypermetaphyfical Fancy upon that Passage The Son is the express Image of his Father for the Dean descants that the Image and the Prototype must be distinct and two in number and he illustrates it by the Similitude of the Man and his living Image which must needs make two Men if there be such a thing as a living Image of a Man and if there be not who can help it 't is no fault of his And after all may not an impossible Supposition to use Mr. H w's Phrase though it does not come to the Matter yet serve to free our Minds and disentangle them from being under a necessity to conceive things to be after such a manner as will be found to differ nothing from Socinian Heresy But enough of the Dean's
Goodness prepar'd his way to make a natural Trinity in Unity of them In truth any Man might have guess'd so as well as the Dean But the Enquirer tells us his Discourse was never intended to terminate in such a Trinity tho it seems plausible or not absurd It is a great Fall from possible to not absurd and then that it only seems not absurd is another great Fall Why did Mr. H concern himself with such an Hypothesis an Hypothesis of so ill a Nature Why he did it to disentangle Mens Minds from an apprehended necessity of conceiving the Three Attributes to be One and the same Thing A Proposition that only seems only not absurd is no very fine Argument to disentangle Mens Minds from Error but to let that pass who are they that apprehend a Necessity of conceiving the Three Attributes to be One and the same Thing Not the Unitarians he knows it none that ever wrote for he challenges the Dean to name that Writer that does not distinguish them at least ratione ratiocinatâ in contradistinction to ratiocinate let him no more than preface his Discourse with this natural Trinity in Unity unless he designs to disentangle the Dean's Mind with it and if so let him make his best on 't Upon his Success I will promise him Egregiam laudem magnum memorabile nomen He cannot get much more by freeing the Doctrine of the Trinity from the Difficulties in which it is entangled P. 26. Mr. H w teaches that the Son is from the Father by necessary eternal Promanation the Holy Spirit from Father and Son and that the Three most celebrated Attributes though I know not why Truth and Justice should not be celebrated as much as they are necessary Emanations con-natural to their Original Now all this must be taken in the unnatural improper theological Meaning of the Words which what it is none but the Sons of Art know and 't is against their Rule to make it common But from the proper natural Meaning of the Words the Wit of Man cannot make out an intelligible agreeable Proposition If Mr. H. thinks otherwise let him try and define what Promanation is what Emanation what Procession c. if he has any Idea in his Mind of what those Words signify he may desine them if he has no such Idea then let him confess himself beholding to the Dean who teaches a puzzled Trinitarian to rest his Terms upon a Theological Bottom But methinks the People are very hardly us'd when they are requir'd to believe Mysteries which will endure no Explanation but in Words that are to be taken in a Sense which neither they can find out nor will their Teachers tell them But I recal my self I think the People are not put to such hard Terms of Communion but Preachers only nay whether they are or no I am not positively certain for Assent and Consint may be as well interpreted cum grano salis in this Matter as it is generally in some other and as for the damnatory Clause at the End of one odd Creed very few are of that strong Stomach and Unchristian Temper as not to be sick and asham'd of it In the three next Leaves I meet with nothing but barbarous Stuff about Composition between the two Antagonists On which all I shall note is that the Dean puts a word or two out of joint which is no great matter in such a perplext Dispute and Mr. H. falls upon that and thence takes occasion to overlook the Intention and Force of his Adversary's Argument Mr. H. p. 33. brings in the Dean disputing against the Hypothesis of Three distinct Essences Natures Minds Spirits necessarily and eternally united in the Divine Being after this manner God is eternal and unmade but whatever has Three such Essences in it must have a Maker Mr. H. is the less concern'd for this Argument because it does the Dean's Business as well as his but concern'd for the Cause more than the Dean and therefore he will rub it off as well as he can and so he defies the Dean to prove that there is any Inconsistency between a Thing 's having Three distinct Essences naturally and necessarily united in it and its being eternal and unmade To this the Dean might answer whether consonant to his Hypothesis or no that troubles not me nor perhaps when he comes to answer will it affect him Be it granted that the Terms naturally and necessarily united are not inconsistent with those other eternal and unmade for Wisdom Power and Goodness I will add Justice and Truth are naturally and necessarily united in God and also eternal and unmade but then Three distinct Essences cannot be naturally and necessarily united and yet eternal and unmade because the Maker of all things is one Essence one single Essence and cannot possibly consist of Three distinct Essences which is Composition and that appears because the Three distinct Essences must either be suppos'd every of them God in an adequate Sense or only in an unadequate Sense Three distinct Essences each of which is God in an adequate Sense are without Contradiction Three Gods and Three distinct Essences two of which are God only in an inadequate Sense are in a just and true Sense less than God and what is less than God cannot be essentially united to him but does depend upon him and was made by him If there can be such Things as Three distinct Essences naturally and necessarily united they must then as the Dean said have a Maker and must differ in Union from what they were in Distinction as the Whole does from a Part or else must be one and three three and one in one and the same respect P. 34 and 35. Mr. H. strives not to understand the Dean which he ought not to do because the Dean is so oft not to be understood let who will strive to understand him but Mr. H. is to be excus'd because that which he is not willing to understand he is not able to answer In short all that I shall here offer is if Mr. H. determines that every of the Three Persons in his Trinity are adequately compleatly fully perfectly God then it is plain that his Trinity is a Trinity not of Persons only but of Gods also and if he determines that no one by himself but all Three together are perfect God then his Three Persons and Natures are no better nor worse but the Parts of a Composition as the Dean calls them and finite Parts as all things must be called whereof no one is perfect God will never make an infinite Composition which Truth though very obvious came not into my Mind till I read a Paper of that great Man's the Author of the Considerations P. 36. Mr. H. will not admit that the Three Persons are of a different Kind or Nature but that they differ only in Number that is as much as to say that they are all Three eternal which in terminis was too