yet if I judge my judgment is true for I am not alone but I and my Father which sent me It is also written in your law That the testimony of two men is true I am one that bear witness of my self and my Father that sent me beareth witness of me This is as express as words can make it If Father and Son were but Oâ—e single Person Christ could not have said I am not alone but I and my Father which sent me for one single Person is in this sense alone how many Names soever he has and if he and his Father are not Two distinct Persons they are not Two Legal Witnesses as Two distinct men are These and such like Arguments we may find in all the Ancient Writers who have engaged in this Controversy and from hence we learn not only what they thought of the distinction of Persons between Father and Son but what kind of Person they believed the Son to be such a Person as has a Personal Knowledge and Will and Power who is capable of being sent of receiving and executing Commands and has all this as distinctly in himself as he is a distinct Person The Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father but each of them know by their own Personal Knowledge the Father wills and the Son wills and wills all the same with the Father but each of them wills by his own Personal Will the Father works and the Son works and they inseparably do the same things but each of them work by their own Personal Power Knowledge and Will and Power of acting is essential to the Notion of a Person and therefore every distinct Person must have a distinct Personal Knowledge and Will and Power and those must acknowledge this who prove the distinction of Persons from distinct Personal Acts as all these Fathers did This is all we ask when we assert a distinction of Persons in the Trinity and this we must insist on or deny a Trinity for if there are not Three who have all the same distinct Personal Acts there cannot be Three distinct compleat Persons for Personal Acts shew a Person and distinct Personal Acts prove distinct Persons and in this sense as all these Arguments prove the Ancient Fathers owned a distinction of Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead Their distinction between Deus invisibilis and Deus visibilis the invisible and visible God whereby they proved the real distinction between God the Father and God the Son is an undeniable Proof of their Opinion in this matter for I urge it no farther It was the received Opinion as far as I can find of all the Ancient Fathers till St. Austin That God the Father never appeared in any visible Representation of himself for he tells Moses No man can see my face and live And St. Iohn assures us No man hath seen God at any time but the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him And yet in the Old Testament we frequently read of God's appearing to men which they therefore expound of God the Son and that his Appearance in a visible Form was a Preludium to his Incarnation This we may see largely proved by Tertullian and St. Hilary and observed by St. Athanasius and the plain consequence they draw from it is That this invisible and visible God cannot be one and the same Person and the consequence is so selâ—-evident that it needs no Proof but it evidently proves what a real substantial as well as distinct Person they thought the Son who could visibly appear while the Father remained invisible for as a visible and invisible God can't be the same Person so a visible God must be a real substantial Person And though St. Austin was of opinion That those Three Men which appeared to Abraham were the Three Persons of the Sacred Trinity and thereby rejected the distinction of the invisible and visible God by attributing a visible Appearance to God the Father which none of the Ancients had done before him yet by these Three distinct Appearances he confirmed the real distinction of the Divine Persons who were as distinct Persons as they appeared to be and therefore as distinct as Three Human Persons for they appeared as Three distinct men And therefore he observes That whereas Two of these Three went to Lot in Sodom Lot speaks to them as to One 19. Gen. 18. And Lot said unto them Oh not so my Lord And justifies Lot in this That though they were two yet they were equal and he would not divide the Father and Son and urges this against the Sabellians who made Father and Son One Person I do not justify St. Austin in this because I doubt whether the Argument be good but by this we may understand St. Austin's Judgment of the real distinction of Persons And to the same purpose the Voice from Heaven at our Saviour's Baptism This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and the Descent of the Holy Spirit like a Dove and lighting upon him is urged by the Ancient Fathers to prove a real Trinity of Divine Persons The Voice from the Father in Heaven the Son on earth and the Holy Ghost descending like a Dove which being Three distinct Manifestations and all at a time must represent the Father who spoke from Heaven the Son who was on Earth and the Holy Ghost who descended like a Dove to be Three distinct Persons not One single Person which cannot speak of himself in the Third Person nor descend on himself in a distinct visible Appearance The Sabellians being unable to maintain this Point which is so manifestly absurd and so irreconcilable with all the forms of speech used in Scripture concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost found it necessary to allow some distinction between them but yet were so afraid of Tritheism that they kept religiously to their main Point that One God was but One Person and therefore would admit of no other distinction but what was reconcilable with the Unity of a Person 2. Hence secondly some of them taught That the Son is distinguished from the Father not as one Person is distinguished from another but as a man's Word or Wisdom which is in his Heart and Soul may be distinguished from himself that is That the Son is not a living substantial subsisting Word no more than the Word of a Man which is only the motion of a living subsisting heart but does not live and subsist it self but being spoke it vanishes and being often repeated never continues and therefore is not another Man nor Man of Man nor with Man as the Divine Word is true and perfect God God of God and God with God and therefore they make God and his Word but One Person as Man and his Word is One Man In answer to this St. Athanasius urges all those Texts which prove Christ and God the Father to be Two
of the Godhead but not the Incarnation of the Son of God But this is not the Doctrine of Scripture merely to say That God suffers himself to be worshipped in the Man Christ Iesus as if God and the Man Christ Iesus were not One Person but that he commands us to worship that Person who is called Christ Jesus not as a Man in whom the Power of God dwells and is present as in the Heavens or in the Jewish Temple or in the Prophets and Holy Men who were never for this reason thought the Objects of Worship but as his own Eternal Son Incarnate That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father which does not only signify to honour the Father in the Son but to pay Divine Honours to the Person of the Son which makes them distinct Objects of Worship and therefore True and Proper Persons not Personal Characters which may be distinct Reasons of Worship but are not distinct Objects But we shall better understand this by the account he gives of the Union of God and Man In what manner Soul and Body or God and Man are united is not the question for we know nothing how this Physical Union is made but the question is concerning the Nature and Kind of this Union Whether as the Soul and Body are united in One Person so as to be One Man so God and Man are united in One Person That as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is One Man so God and Man is One Christ. Whether the Divine and Human Natures are united in One Person or God be united to Man only as an assisting Principle by a perpetual and constant Influx of Divine Powers and Virtues These two are vastly different The first indeed always includes the second in the most perfect manner but the second does not always infer the first A Personal Union is always a Union of Life Influence and Power as he describes the Vnion of Soul and Body That there is some Intelligent Power that makes use of the Organs of my Body and acts in conjunction with the motions there produced This is all true and necessarily consequent upon a Personal Union but a very lame account of the Vital Union of Soul and Body for thus Angels may use the Bodies they assume without a Personal Union But a conscious Life Sensation and Government which makes One self is a great deal more than to act in conjunction with the Motions of the Body The Union of Influence and Power may be without Personal Union and therefore does not always make One Person It is the first we enquire after it is the first the Scripture teaches That the Word was made Flesh That God sent forth his Son made of a woman This is the Catholick Faith of the Incarnation but this the Considerer takes no notice of but all he says relates only to the Union of Influence and Power And I may says he as well consider God united to Man when he so acts by the Ministry and Operation of Man that the Actions of God seem conveyed to us the same way as the actions of one man are to another But does this make God True and Perfect Man This falls short of the conjunct Operations of Soul and Body which are much more close and intimate than the actions of one man are to another however to be sure the actions of one man upon another do not make Two such Men One Person nor therefore can the like Influence of God on Man make God and Man One Person But he proceeds Had those who upon some occasions spake by the Extraordinary Assistance of a Divine Power been constantly so directed and assisted how could they have distinguished the Motions of their Souls from the Impressions of God Just as they did when they were sometimes thus assisted for External Impressions are always distinguishable from Internal Motions But suppose they could not distinguish them does this prove that God is Incarnate in such men or would it be a reason to worship such men as God He adds And why then should we not think such an extraordinary Power as this as much united to such men as that common ordinary Power we call the Soul is to those Bodies in which it acts and exerts it self The Answer is plain because it would be an External not an Internal Principle of Life and Motion and Sensation how constant soever its Influences were He calls it an Extraordinary Power which shews that it is not a Natural Principle of Action it is an Extraordinary Power united to a Man and therefore the Man is the Person this Extraordinary Power only an external assisting Principle of the same kind with that in Prophets though more constant and regular in its actings But here is nothing of Incarnation in all this Is this Extraordinary Power a Divine Subsisting Person in the true and proper Notion of a Person Is it the Son of God that Eternal Word which was in the beginning was with God and was God Is this Extraordinary Power so united to Human Nature as to become Man Is it the Person of Christ Jesus who was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin lived in the World as a Man suffered and died and rose again from the dead and now sits at the Right Hand of God in the highest Heavens Not one word of all this which is the true Mystery and the only Use of this Doctrine of the Incarnation whereon all our Hopes of Salvation by Christ depend This Extraordinary Power is not a Person but such a constant regular Inspiration as he says some are of opinion the Soul of man is But whether that be so or not as he thinks mâ—st probably it is not which yet argues some kind of Inclination to it yet it seems to him plain from Scripture that such a Power as we ascribe to God he will not say such a Power as is God or a True Divine Person did as constantly and regularly act in and through Christ as the Human Soul is perceived to do in any other man That such a Power did constantly appear and act in Christ is true but whether by Nature or by a constant and regular Inspiration is the Question Our Saviour proves his Divine Nature from his Works our Considerer thinks it proves no more than a constant and regular Inspiration The first is necessary to the Catholick Faith of the Incarnation That the Word was made Flesh the second proves him only to be an extraordinary and perpetual Prophet The first makes him True God-Man the second makes him only a Divine Man And this is all he can mean by this Power regularly and constantly acting in and through Christ For if Christ be God-Man he is this Divine Power in his own Person it is his Divine Nature not an external adventitious Principle how regularly and constantly soever it acts it is not merely an uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity with the Man Christ Jesus
a Mistake only in Philosophy not in the Traditionary Faith of the Church for which only we alledge his Authority And the Conclusion of this Argument most fully acquaints us what he understood by a Person Whatever says he the Substance of the Word is that I call a Person and to that I give the Name of Son and by acknowledging him the Son I own him to be second to the Father Whoever reads this must confess That Tertullian did believe Father and Son to be Two distinct substantial Persons that though the Son be of the same Substance with the Father as begotten of his Father's Substance yet the Personal Substance of the Father was no more the Personal Substance of the Son than Father and Son were One Person Novatianus who was Cotemporary with St. Cyprian though a Schismatick was charged with no Heresy in this Article and he opposes the Sabellians with the same Arguments and almost in the same words that Tertullian and done before him And tells us particularly That this Divine Word which is the Son of God begotten and born of him is not a mere Sound or Voice like the Word of a Man but that substantial Virtue and Power which proceeds from God A Divine Substance whose Name is the Word Such a Word as is both the Son of God and God God proceeding from God and making a Second Person in the Godhead Epiphanius in opposition to the Heresies of Noetus and Sabellius who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but One Substantial Person affirms over and over That the Father is Substance the Son Substance and the Holy Ghost Substance that is each of them Substance by himself and as distinct in Substance as they are in Person Three Substantial Persons which are not one another nor all the same These Hereticks allowed the Father to be Substance the Son Substance the Holy Ghost Substance but denied them to be Three in Substance but taught that they were but One Substance as they were but One and the same Person Three Names or Three distinct Virtues and Powers of the same One Substance or Person And therefore when in opposition to these men Epiphanius asserts That the Father is Substance the Son Substance and the Holy Ghost Substance he can mean no less but that each of them is as distinctly Substance as he is a Person for to oppose One Substance and One substantial Person you must assert not Three diverse or different Substances but Three as distinct in Substance as they are in Person or Three distinct substantial Persons Epiphanius asserts against these Hereticks That the Son is not the Father but truly and properly a Son begotten of God the Father as to Substance Now a Son which is substantially begotten of the Father and is not the Father must in Substance be distinct from God the Father that is a distinct tho not separate Substance from God the Father Athanasius also is very positive in this That this Divine Word is a Perfect Son of a Perfect Father Being of Being the Image or Character of his Father's Substance not an insubstantial Word but a living Power and the Author of Life to all things not like the Power of a Man which denominates a Man powerful for the Power of Man is not his Offspring or Son whereas this Power of God is his Son that the Father is Perfect Power as the Father of Power and the Son Perfect Power as born of him It were endless to transcribe such Sayings as these out of the Fathers but I cannot miss Athanasius his Argument from those words of our Saviour I am in the Father and the Father in me Now says he the Father is not the Word in the Heart of the Son and therefore neither is the Son the Word in the Heart of the Father but the Living Word begotten eternally of the Living God the Father and being without beginning with the Father insomuch that we cannot conceive the Father ever to have been alone Which attributes as compleat and distinct Personal Subsistence to the Son as to the Father That if the Father who has the Son in himself be a real subsisting Infinite Person the Son who has the whole Father in himself must be as real subsisting Infinite a Person for there is the same reason of both The Answer Athanasius gives to a Sabellian Objection against the substantial Generation and Subsistence of the Word and Son of God is an unanswerable Proof what he thought of this matter The Objection is this That if the Word and Son be truly and substantially begotten this substantial Word must go out of the Father and subsist separately from him Whereas the Word which is in God must be inseparable from him and not appear out of him for how should he appear out of God when God fills all places even Heaven and Earth and therefore there is no place for the Word to subsist in where God is not In answer to this Athanasius first observes what this Objection is levelled against viz. To disprove the true and proper Generation of the Son his Eternal Procession from the Father and Subsistence with the Father that the Father does not compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself nor the Son compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself This is the Faith the Sabellians opposed and which Athanasius defended as the Argument it self will assure us which contradicts no other Notion of Generation or Subsistence but a substantial Generation and a compleat Personal Subsistence of the Word but they could not imagine how the Word should be substantially begotten and compleatly and perfectly subsist by himself in his own Person and Substance distinct from his Father's Subsistence and Person without going out of the Father and subsisting in a separate place from the Father as all Created Births do which opposes nothing but a real substantial Birth and a compleat distinct subsistence of the Word and therefore this is what the Sabellians took for the Catholick Faith and this is what Athanasius defends Who tells them that this is a very ignorant mistake to think that God is circumscribed by place and to conceive the Son in another place and to imagine that the Father and Son must be divided and separated one in this place and another in that if we acknowledge that the Son is begotten of the Father and does appear and subsist by himself distinct from the Father This he proves from Scripture That there is no place that can contain God and therefore we must have no imagination of Place when we think of God the Son and the Holy Spirit That these are false and Atheistical Reasonings That the Omnipresence of God is not a co-extension with all Creatures which is a bodily or kind of Corporeal Omnipresence but his Power holds and contains all things for Power is unbodied and invisible which neither encompasses other things nor is encompassed by them and therefore it is impious to
Person signifies an Intelligent Being but he has secured himself against this Imputation by an artificial addition some Intelligent Being acting in such or such a manner He will not allow Person to signify absolutely an Intelligent Being but an Intelligent Being with respect to some peculiar manner of acting and thus One single Person in the proper Notion of Person for an Intelligent Being may sustain Three Persons or Personal Characters with reâ—pect to extrinsecal Relations and the different manner of acting The whole Mystery and Sophistry of this is That God who is One single Person is upon different accounts sometimes called the Father sometimes the Sâ—n and sometimes the Holy Ghost and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost have a Personal signification each of these Names signify Person in a proper sense that is the Person of God but all of them separately and together signify but One and the same single Person for they are all of them attributed to God and God is but One or One Person though this One proper Person may sustain Three figurative Persons or Personal Characters This is plain dealing and this is his Answer to his first Hard Saying That God is One and Three the same God but Three different Hypostases or Persons That God is One and the same single Person under Three Personal Characters which may be called Three Persons because each of them signifies the True and Proper Person of God And here we see in what sense these Gentlemen allow That each Person is Substance is Mind and Spirit and yet that God is but One Substance One Mind and Spirit viz. in the very same sense that this Author affirms that God is but One single Person and yet that the Father is a Person the Son a Person and the Holy Ghost a Person and for the same reason that they decry and abhor Three Substances Three distinct Minds and Spirits in the Godhead though affirmed to be indivisibly and inseparably One Infinite Substance Mind and Spirit for the same reason they reject Three Intelligent Substantial Persons though our Modern Sabellians have been more cautious generally than this Considerer not to own it in express words Now as for these Terms of Three Substances and Three Minds there may be good reason to let them alone tho when rightly explained no reason to condemn them of Heresy but we must insist on Three Distinct Infinite Intelligent Substantial Persons Each of which is Mind and Substance and One is not the Other If they disown this as the Considerer does they are downright Sabellians if they own it we have no farther Dispute about this matter Let us now consider his other Hard Saying That One of these Three Hypâ—stases or Persâ—ns should be both God and Man Now the Hardness of this Saying is not That it is hard to prove from Scripture that so it is or that it is hard to conceive how God and Man can be united which is all that he touches on But it is and always will be a Hard Saying to the Considerer upon another account that is To reconcile it with a Trinity of One proper single Person and Three Personal Characters The Doctrine of the Incarnation is this That the Eternal Son of God became True and Perfect Man by taking the Human Nature into a Personal Union to himself That the Son only became Man not the Father nor the Holy Ghost That two perfect distinct Natures the Divine and Human Nature were without Confusion united in the One Person of Christ and that this One Person is the Eternal Word and Son of God Now if there be but One single Person in the Godhead and Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names or Personal Characters of this One single Person How can the Son be Incarnate and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost It is only a Person that can be Incarnate for a Personal Character can't be Incarnate without the Person and if there be but One single Person and this same One Person is Father Son and Holy Ghost it is impossible that that Person who is the Son should be Incarnate but the Person who is the Father and the Holy Ghost must be Incarnate also because the same Person who is the Son is the Father and the Holy Ghost The short Question is this Whether a True Proper Divine Person was Incarnate in the Incarnation of Christ If not then Christ was not a Divine Person how Divine soever he might be upon other accounts the Divine Nature did not persâ—nally subsist in him he was not personally True and Perfect God and then the Person of Christ was no more than a Man whatever Divine Influences he might receive from God But if the Divine Nature were truly and properly Incarnate in the Person of Christ then if there be but One single Divine Person in the Godhead but One Divine Nature in the sense of One single Person then the whole Godhead Father Son and Holy Ghost which are but One True and Proper Person was Incarnate in Christ. This is the true difficulty and he is so wise as to take no notice of it It does not appear to me that he believes one word concerning the Incarnation of God or of a True Divine Person he says He that is in Scripture called the Son of God did appear in the likeness of men He certainly was a True Man but that is not our present dispute Was he in his own Person True and Perfect God Was he a Human Person or the Person of the Son of God appearing in Human Nature He was he says in the Form of God before he took the Nature of Man upon him This sounds well but why does he not speak out and tell us what this Form of God is Whether the True Divine Nature subsisting in him a True Divine Person Well But God did suffer himself to be worshipped and adored in and by the Man Christ Iesus the least that can be inferred from which is That God was more immediately and peculiarly present in Christ than ever he was said to have been any where else as in the Heavens the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims in Prophets and Holy Men who spake as they were moved by the Spirit Now all this might have been spared would he but have said That the Person Iesus Christ was worshipped with Divine Honours as being in his own Person True and Perfect God as well as Man and without saying this he says nothing to prove that Christ is the Son of God Incarnate To say That God did suffer himself to be worshipped in and by the Man Christ Iesus as he was worshipped in the Heavens in the Jewish Temple between the Cherubims for that must be the force of the Comparison does no more prove Christ to be God than it proves the Heavens the Iewish Temple and the Cherubims to be God It may prove a more perfect symbolical Presence of God in Christ which he calls the Fulness