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
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
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
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.
the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the several kinds of them typical of the various Effects and Vertues of Christ's Death we learn every where in the New Testament which I believe is the true meaning of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world not meerly slain in God's Decree for what God has decreed shall be done is not therefore said to be done before it is done but this Lamb was slain in Types and Figures from the foundation of the world ever since the fall of Adam in those early Sacrifices which were offered after the Fall which were typical of the Sacrifice of Christ for God had then promised that the Seed of the Woman should break the Serpents Head and for my part I must profess I know no Principle of Natural Reason that teaches us to offer the Blood of Beasts in Sacrifice to God and therefore must think the Sacrifices of Beasts to be an Institution Now that a Human Priesthood and the Sacrifices of Beasts were not acceptable to God in themselves the Apostle to the Hebrews sufficiently proves and I would desire some of our Learned Reasoning Socinians as they think themselves honestly to tell me what account they can give of this Jewish Priesthood and Sacrifices which is becoming God why should God be propitiated by a man subject to the same sins and infirmities and very often guilty of them that other men are why innocent Beasts must die to expiate the sins of men when the Apostle tells us that it is not possible that the Blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin And yet if there were no more in it then God's meer appointment and institution I do not see but the Jewish Priesthood and Sacrifices might have been as effectual as any other I think they are so far in the right and consistent with their own Principles that as they own Christ to be no more than a Man so they make him only a metaphorical Priest and his Death a metaphorical Sacrifice for a meer man can be no more than a metaphorical or typical Priest and Sacrifice but then the difficulty is how Christ is the Antitype to the typical Priests and Sacrifices of the Law if he be but a metaphorical Priest and Sacrifice himself for the Antitype ought to be that in truth and reality which the Type is a Figure of and though they were typical yet they were true and proper Priests and Sacrifices and made a true and proper Expiation for sin as far as they reached and therefore one would think should typifie not a metaphorical but a true Priest and Sacrifice though of a more excellent and perfect Nature This is easily accounted for if we allow the Divine Word to be Incarnate and to be our Priest and Sacrifice but without this the Jewish oeconomy is a most absurd and unaccountable Institution Thirdly Socinianism ridicules the Christian Religion that is makes it a very mean and contemptible Institution which I shall shew in a few words The Fundamental Mystery of the Christian Religion is the stupendious Love of God in giving his own Son his only begotten Son for the Redemption of Mankind This our Saviour lays great stress on God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life By this one would have thought that Christ had been the Son the only begotten Son of God before he gave him as Isaac who was a Type of Christ was Abraham's Son before he offered him at God's Command for that it is the Argument of Love when we part with what we have and what is dear to us but this is not the Case if Socinianism be true God did not give us any Son he had before but made an excellent Man whom he was pleased to call his only begotten Son though he might have made as many such only begotten Sons as he pleased and him he gave for us that is made a Man on purpose to be our Saviour God's love indeed in redeeming sinners is very great be the means what they will but his love in giving his only begotten Son for our Redemption which our Saviour fixes on as the great demonstration of God's love is not so wonderful if this giving his Son signifies no more than making a Man on purpose to be our Saviour In the next place the Apostles mightily insist on the great love of Christ in dying for us and his great humility in submitting to the Condition of Human Nature and suffering a shameful and accursed Death even the Death of the Cross. Ye know the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Iesus who 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 be humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. Now supposing Christ to be but a meer man who had no Being before he was born of the Virgin who knew nothing of his own coming into the World nor for what end he came whose undertaking was not his own voluntary choice but God's appointment where is the great love where is the great humility of this How did he become poor for our sakes who was never rich Yes says our Historian he could have lived in the greatest splendor dignity and plenty He that could multiply the loaves and fishes and the wine at the wedding of Cana need not have wanted any Comforts of life Right if he can prove that God would have enabled him to work Miracles to have made himself rich and great and to have ministred to Secular Pomp and Luxury if he had so minded but he being a meer Creature could work no Miracles nor to any other ends or purposes than God pleased and therefore if by God's Decree he was to live a mean life here and dye an accursed death and he was made for this purpose he neither ever was rich nor ever could be rich and therefore did not make himself poor for our sakes He could not by the Constitution of God have done otherwise than he did if he would be the Saviour of Mankind and therefore if he was not rich before he came into the World and voluntarily chose his Poverty for us I do not understand the great Grace of his becoming poor for he never was rich nor ever could be in this World Thus what is that humility our Apostle so highly commends in our Saviour for suppose his being in the form of God signifies no more than being made like
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
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