received this Doctrine from the Apostles it being the Faith of those Churches which were planted by the Apostles received their Faith from them and always lived in Communion with them 2. This makes it reasonable to believe that this very Faith is contained in the Writings of the New Testament for I suppose no man questions but that the Apostles taught the same Faith by Writing which they did by Preaching and then this is a Demonstration against all such Interpretations of Scripture as contradict the Catholick Faith whatever fine Colours Wit and Criticism may give them Nay 3. It is a certain Proof That these Primitive Christians who received these Inspired Writings from the Apostles which now make up the Canon of the New Testament did believe that the same Faith which the Apostles and Apostolical men had taught them by Word of Mouth was contained in their Writings for they could not possibly have believed both what the Apostles taught and what they writ if their Preaching and Writings had contradicted each other We know what the Faith of the Primitive Church was and we know they received these Apostolical Writings with the profoundest Veneration as an Inspired Rule of Faith and had we no other presumption of it but this we might safely conclude That they found the same Faith in these Writings which the Apostles had before taught them by Word of Mouth But besides this we find that all the Catholick Writers appeal to the Scriptures and prove their Faith from them and the Authority of such men who were so near the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition must be very Venerable 4. I shall only add this That since we know what the Catholick Faith was and how the Catholick Fathers expounded Scripture if the Words of Scripture will naturally and easily admit that Sense much more if they will not admit any other Sense without great force and violence let any man judge which is most safe and reasonable to expound Scripture as the Catholick Faith and Catholick Fathers expound it and as the Scripture most easily and naturally expounds it self or to force New Senses and Old Heresies upon Scripture which the Catholick Church has always rejected and condemned This I hope may satisfy our Considerer that he did very ill in rejecting a Traditionary Faith and venturing to expound Scripture by his Natural Sentiments which is a very Unsafe Rule in Matters of Pure Revelation of which mere Natural Reason is no competent Judge SECT III. What is sufficient to be believed concerning the Trinity THus far I fear our Considerer has been a little unfortunate or if it do not prove a Misfortune to him in forming his Notion of a Trinity his Luck is better than his Choice Let us proceed to his next Enquiry What is sufficient for Christians to believe concerning the Trinity or which is all one in this case what is necessary to be believed What the meaning of this Question is I can't well tell nor why he makes sufficient and necessary all one for at least they are not always so That is sufficient which is enough for any man to believe that is strictly necessary which every man must believe But let him take his own way he quits the Term sufficient and enquires what is necessary to be believed whereas in many cases that which is absolutely necessary for all may not be sufficient for some I should much rather have enquired how much may be known concerning this Glorious Mystery than how little will serve the turn which argues no great Zeal for it Well What is necessary to be believed concerning the Trinity He answers Nothing but 1. What 's possible to be believed And 2. What 's plainly revealed Here we begin to see what the effect is of consulting nothing but Scripture and Natural Sentiments I hope he meant honestly in this but if he did he expressed himself very incautiously for these two Conditions are very ill put together when applied to matters of Revelation Plainly revealed had been enough in all reason unless he would insinuate that what is plainly revealed may be impossible to be believed and that how plain soever the Revelation be men must judge of the possibility of the thing by their own Natural Sentiments before they are bound to believe it which makes Natural Reason not Scripture the final Judge of Controversies But we must follow him where he leads us and thus he divides his whole Work 1. To consider how far it is possible to believe a Trinity 2. What the Scripture requires us to believe in this matter As for the first he tells us There are two requisites to make it possible for us to believe a thing 1. That we know the Terms of what we are to assent to 2. That it imply no Contradiction to our former Knowledge Such Knowledge I mean as is accompanied with Certainty and Evidence This in some sense may be true but as it is thus loosely and generally expressed it is very like the Socinian Cant and Sophistry By knowing the Terms he means having distinct Natural Ideas of what is signified by such Terms as he himself explains it I can believe it no farther than the Terms of which it is made up are known and understood and the Ideas signified by them consistent So that all Divine Mysteries must be examined by our Natural Ideas and what we have no Natural Ideas of we cannot we must not believe And this once for all condemns all Supernatural Faith or the belief of Supernatural Objects though never so plainly revealed for we have no Natural Ideas of Supernatural Objects And though Revelation may furnish us from the Resemblances and Analogies in Nature with some Artificial Ideas this will not serve the turn for though they know what such Terms signify when applied to Natural they know not what they signify when applied to Supernatural Objects nor have they any Ideas to answer them As for Instance We know what Father and Son signify when applied to Men but when we say God is not only Eternal himself but an Eternal Father who begot an Eternal Son these Terms of Father and Son begetting and being begotten must signify quite otherwise than they do among men something which we have no Idea of and therefore say the Socinians All this is unintelligible and impossible to be believed unless we can believe without understanding the Terms This Considerer asserts the Premises he had best consider again how he will avoid the Conclusion Another Socinian Topick is Contradiction and this our Considerer makes another requisite to the possibility of believing That the thing do not imply a Contradiction to our former knowledge that is to any Natural Ideas And here he learnedly disputes against believing Contradictions and that it is not consistent with the Wisdom Iustice and Goodness of God to require us to believe Contradictions But if instead of all this he had only said That God cannot reveal such plain and evident
Persons but attribute true and perfect Divinity only to the Father and make the Son a Creature though the most excellent Creature made before the World and as like to God as any Creature can be and the Minister of God in making the World This Heresy was condemned by the first general Council assembled at Nice and if we would understand the Nicene Creed we must expound it in opposition to the Arian Heresy without running into the other Extreme of Sabellianism And therefore when we are taught to believe in One Lord Iesus Christ the Only begotten Son of God begotten of his Father before all Worlds God of God Light of Light Very God of very God begotten not made being of One Substance with the Father by whom all things were made Wemust understand a Son who is a distinct Person from his Father as the Arians allowed him to be but not a made or created Son as they taught but a Son by Nature begotten of his Father's substance and that not in Time but from all Eternity and therefore not a Creature but God by Nature true and perfect God as God of God begotten of God and therefore of One Substance with the Father not in the Sabellian sense as One Substance is One Person but as One Substance signifies the same Nature in opposition to the Arians who made him not only a distinct Person but of a different Nature like his Father but not the same not of the substance of his Father but a new created Substance made out of nothing as all other Creatures are The opposition of this Creed to the Arian Heresy is certainly the best way of expounding it and then we find nothing in it but the true ancient Catholick Faith of the real distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence But the present Inquiry is What is the true Notion of the Homousion or One Substance of Father and Son and besides that positive account the Fathers give us of it we may learn this from those false Glosses and Interpretations which they reject and those Rules they give for the expounding these words SECT I. The true Sense of the Homoousion from those Misrepresentations which were made of it and the Answers which were given by the Nicene Fathers to such Objections 1. FIrst then Let us consider what Misrepresentations were made of this disputed word Consubstantial by the Enemies of the Catholick Faith and what Answers the Fathers gave to such Objections St. Hilary mentions three in the beginning of his 4 th Book of the Trinity and I shall consider them in the Order in which he sets them down 1. The first is that this word Homoousion or Consubstantial is no better than Sabellianism that it makes the Father and the Son to be but One by One singular Substance which being Infinite extended it self into the Virgin 's Womb and taking a Body of her in that Body took the Name of Son and thus they say some former Bishops understood it and is therefore to be rejected as Heretical which as he adds is the first misrepresentation of the Homoousion Thus he observes in his Book de Synodis that the Fathers in the Council of Antioch which condemned Paulus Samosatenus did also reject the Homoousion because Paulus thereby understood the singularity of the Divine Nature and Substance which destroys the real personal distinction between Father and Son and adds that the Church though it retained the word Homoousion still rejects that sense of it as profane The Learned Dr. Bull notwithstanding St. Hilary's Authority can't believe that either Paulus or Sabellius did upon choice own the Homoousion but only put a forced and unnatural sense of it to favour their Heresies and seems to have very good reason on his side but that is not the present question How perversly soever Hereticks understood this word the Nicene Fathers rejected this sense as profane and heretical Now if One Substance does not signify One singular Substance in the Sabellian Notion of it which leaves only a Trinity of Names or Modes instead of a Trinity of Persons then Three consubstantial Persons must signisy Three substantial Persons who have the same Nature and Essence but not the same singular Substance And St. Basil tells us that this is the proper acceptation of the word Homoousion which is directly opposed to the Sabellian as well as to the Arian Heresy as it destroys the Identity of Hypostasis and gives us a complete and perfect Notion of distinct Persons for the same thing is not consubstantial to it self but to another that there must be another and another to make two that are consubstantial Another Objection against the Homoousion was this That to be consubstantial or of One Substance signifies the communion of Two in some other thing which is in order of Nature before them both as if there were some prior Substance or Matter of which they both did partake so as to have the whole Substance between them which makes them consubstantial or of one Substance both partaking of the same Being Nature or Substance which was before them both and therefore they rejected the Homoousion because it did not preserve the relation between the Son and the Father and made the Father later than that Substance or Matter which is common to him with the Son This also St. Hilary tells us the Church rejects and abominates for nothing can so much as in thought be before the Substance of the Father and the relation between Father and Son signifies to beget and to be begotten not to be both made of the same Substance A third Reason they assigned against this word Homoousion was this That to be Consubstantial or of One Substance in the strict and proper acceptation of these words signifies that the generation of the Son is by the division of the Father's Substance as if he were cut out of him and One Substance divided into Two Persons and so Father and Son are of One Substance as a part cut out of the whole is of the same nature with that from whence it is taken This was objected against the Homoousion in the time of the Nicene Council while this word was under debate which Socrates gives a more particular account of The reason those Bishops who refused to subscribe to the Nicene Faith gave against the Homoousion was this That that only can be said to be Consubstantial which is of another either by division or by efflux and emanation or by prolation or eruption by eruption as the branches sprout out of the root by efflux according to the manner of human generations by division as the same mass of Gold may be divided into two or three golden Cups but the Son is of the Father neither of these ways and therefore they rejected this Faith and ridiculed the Homoousion For this very reason Eusebius of Caesarea was for some time in suspense about the
Disputes amongst themselves which their common Adversaries are so apt to improve into Scepticism Infidelity or Heresy And therefore for a Conclusion I shall only take a brief Review of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article of a Trinity in Unity and apply it in a few words to our Socinian Adversaries The Faith of the Catholick Church taught by Christ and his Apostles is that there is but One God but this One God is a Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit in the Essential Unity of the same Undivided and Undiversified Godhead And this is the Faith which all the Catholick Fathers have owned and taught in their several Ages The whole Christian Church Baptizes as our Saviour commanded in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and this is the Rule of their Faith to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost A plain simple Faith could Men have been contented to believe God concerning himself Let our Socinian Adversaries tell us what there is absurd impossible or contradictious in this Faith Will they venture to say That it is absurd or contradictious that God should have a Son No! in some sense they will allow this true they themselves believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost they acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God as he is frequently called in Scripture and that in a higher sense than any other Man is the Son of God but that he is but a Man after all though advanced by God to Divine Honours above all Principalities and Powers and made the Judge both of the Quick and of the Dead and this they affirm to be all that the Scripture means in calling Christ the Son of God But this is not the present Dispute They know that the Catholick Church believed otherwise that Christ is the Eternal Son of God begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God very God of very God and they know also that thus the Catholick Fathers expounded those Texts which concern the Sonship and Divinity of our Saviour and they cannot but confess That they are very capable of such an Exposition nay that it is very difficult to put any other sense upon many Texts and the only reason why they reject these Catholick Expositions is the pretended Absurdity and Contradiction of the Catholick Faith Here then we join issue with them and desire them to shew us what is impossible or contradictious in this Faith That there is something incomprehensible in this Mystery that is something which we have no Natural adequate Ideas of we readily acknowledge with the whole Catholick Church and some of our Adversaries grant That it is possible for a thing to be whereof we have no Idea and then it seems to me very unreasonable to add but we are no ways concerned nor can we Reason or Discourse about those things whereof we have no Ideas For the direct contrary seems to be the more natural consequence that if God thinks fit to reveal such things to us of which we have no Ideas we are concerned and obliged to believe them for if they may be true they are the proper Objects of Faith though they want the Evidence of Natural Ideas But I do not intend to dispute this now but refer them to the Bishop of Worcester ' s Answer to Mr. Lock ' s Second Letter and to a late Sermon and its Vindication Concerning the Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy What I have now to say is of another Nature viz. That we have an Idea of a Trinity in Unity and such an Idea as contains nothing absurd impossible or contradictious in it That very Idea which I have so largely explained One Absolute Divinity with Two Eternal Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature The Eternal Father Eternal Self-originated Mind with his Eternal Word his Eternal Son and the Eternal Spirit of Father and Son This is that Idea which the Scripture gives us of it and which the Catholick Church hath always taught Every Man may understand what is meant by it and therefore it is not Jargon and Nonsense and I think I have sufficiently vindicated it from Tritheism and Contradiction and have no more to say of that nature till I hear what they have to object against what is already said and when they come to consider this Matter again as Men that shall certainly be called to an Account for it in this World as well as in the next I hope they will see reason to grow out of conceit with their own Philosophy about Emanations and Processions a Priority of Time and Priority of Nature Self-Existence and Necessary Existence and such like Arian Objections which were made and answered many Ages since and which they may find sufficiently answered in this Treatise This brings back the Dispute to Scripture where the last Appeal must lie in all such Matters without appealing for the Sense of Scripture to Natural Ideas and Philosophy And if the Interpretations of the Catholick Fathers were of any Authority with these Men I have already shewn how they expounded Scripture which will always be a venerable Authority to modest Men and sober Christians how much soever it be despised by Hereticks But it is time to put an end to this Treatise we may consider their Expositions of Scripture some other time THE END DR Sherloc◠Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity Third Edition Quarto Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A Sermon Quarto A Vindication of the Sermon in Answer to some Socinian Remarks An Answer to the Animad versions on the Dean of St. Paul's Vindication of the Trinity By I. B. A. M. Quarto A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for Writing against Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet Quarto All Printed for William Rogers Quâ nec dicuntur ut cogitantur nec cogitantur ut sunt Aug. de Trinit l. 5. c. 3. Cùm ergo quaeritur quid tria vel quid tres conferimus nos ad inventendum aliquod speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 3. Ad se quippe Pater dicitur Persona non ad Filium aut Spiritum Sanctum Aug. de Trin. l. 7. c. 6. Cur ergo non haec tria simul unam Personam dicimus sicut unam Essentiam Deum sed tres dicimus Personas cùm tres Deos aut tres essentias non dicamus nisi quia volumus vel unum aliquod vocabulum servire huic significationi quâ intelligitur Trinitas ne emnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cùm tres esse fateremur Ibid.
Sabellians did nor Two different Substances as the Arians did For when God is born of God this Divine Nativity will neither admit a Unity of Person nor a Diversity of Nature For Father and Son he who begets and he who is begotten must be Two Persons and the Son who is begotten of the Substance of his Father must be consubstantial with him It were easy to multiply Quotations to this purpose both out of these and numerous other Ancient Writers but this is Proof enough that the Primitive Fathers would not be frighted out of the true Catholick Faith of a Real and Substantial Trinity by the loud Clamours of Tritheism but rejected such a Notion of One God as confined the Godhead to One Single Solitary Person as Iudaism and an Anti-trinitarian Heresy For we know in what sense the Iews owned but One God viz. in the very sense that the Socinians and all Anti-trinitarians do that is That there is but One who is God but One Divine Person and in this sense these Ancient Fathers rejected it But besides these general Sayings they industriously confute this Notion of the Unity of the Godhead which confines it to one single Person that the One God is so One that there is and can be but One Divine Person who is true and perfect God The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament do expresly teach that there is but one God This the Ancient Hereticks perpetually objected against the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity And St. Hilary observes what danger there is in answering this Objection if it be not done with great caution For it may be equally impious to deny or to affirm it For the True Catholick Faith of One God lies between two such contrary Heresies as are ready to take advantage one way or other whatever Answer you give If you own that there is but One God without taking notice that this One God has an only begotten Son who is True and Perfect God the Arians take advantage of this against the Eternal Godhead of the Son If you say That the Father is God and the Son God and yet there is but One God the Sabellians hence conclude That Father and Son are but One Person as they are One God But in opposition to both these Heresies he tells us That though the Catholick Church did not deny One God yet they taught God and God and denied the Unity of the Godhead both in the Arian and Sabellian Notion of One God And consequently That they professed to believe God and God and God though not Three Gods but One God yet in that very sense which both Ancient and Modern Hereticks call Tritheism There is no dispute but the Scripture does very fully and expresly teach us That there is but One God Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord 6. Deut. 4. which our Saviour himself approves 12. Mark 29. and the Scribe expounds 32. Well master Thou hast said the truth for there is One God and there is none other but He And this is often confirmed both in the Old and New Testament But then the Fathers think that they have an unanswerable Argument to prove That by One God is not meant that there is but One who is God because the same Holy Scriptures which teach us that there is but One God do attribute the Name and Dignity and Power and all the Natural Perfections of God to more than One. St. Hilary explains this Argument at large the sum of which in short is this That we must learn the knowledge of God from Divine Revelation for Humane Understandings which are accustomed to Corporeal and Bodily Images are too weak of themselves to discern and contemplate Divine things nor is there any thing in our selves or in Created Nature that can give us an adequate notion and conception of the Nature and Unity of God We must believe God concerning himself and his own Nature and yield a ready assent to what he reveals to us For we must either deny him to be God as the Heathens do if we reject his Testimony or if we believe him to be God we must conceive no otherwise of him than as he himself hath taught us This is very reasonable if we believe upon God's Authority To believe all that God reveals and to expound the Revelation by it self not to put such a sense upon one part of the Revelation as shall contradict another but to put such a sense upon the words as makes the whole consistent with it self As in the present Dispute concerning the Unity of God The Scripture assures us that there is but One God and we believe that there is but One God Excepting the Valentinians and such kind of Hereticks all Christians both Catholicks and Hereticks agree in this Profession But the Question is In what sense the Scripture teaches that there is but One God Whether this One God signifies One single Divine Person or One God with his Only begotten Son and Eternal Spirit who have the same Nature and Divinity The Arians and Socinians embrace the first Sense of the words That One God is One Divine Person and for this reason will not own Christ or the Holy Spirit to be True and Perfect God because there is but One God and Three Divine Persons they say are Three Gods Now unless we will pretend to understand the Divine Nature and the Divine Unity better than God himself does we must refer this Dispute to Scripture and if we have the same Authority to believe more Divine Persons than One that we have to believe but One God then the Unity of God in the Scripture-notion of it is no Tritheism nor any objection against the belief of a Trinity for there may be but One only God and yet Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead This is St. Hilary's Argument and it is a very good one That Moses himself who has taught us that there is but One God has taught us to confess God and God that we have the same Authority to believe the Son of God to be God that we have to believe One God And therefore though we do and must believe One God we must not so believe One God as to deny the Son of God to be God for this is to contradict Moses and the Prophets This Argument he prosecutes at large throughout the IV th and V th Books of the Trinity and alledges all those Old Testament Proofs for the plurality of Divine Persons and for the Divinity of Christ which whatever opinion some Modern Wits and Criticks have of them have been applied to that purpose by all Christian Writers from the beginning of Christianity and were that my present Business might be easily vindicated from the Cavils and Exceptions of Hereticks St. Paul tells us That there is One God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and One Iesus Christ
be but One God but yet requires us to believe his Eternal Son to be true and perfect God and his Eternal Spirit to be true and perfect God it is certain that the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is very reconcilable with the Unity of God For as far as Revelation must decide this Dispute we are as much obliged to believe That the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God as we are to believe That there is but One God Those who will not acquiesce in this must appeal from Scripture to Natural Reason which is a very absurd and impudent Appeal for the plain sense of it is this That they will believe their own Reason before the Scriptures in matters relating to the Divine Nature and Unity which all wise men acknowledge to be so much above human comprehension That is That they know the Unity of God better than God himself does or which is the same thing That they will never believe any Revelation to come from God or any thing how express soever the words are to be the meaning of the Revelation any farther than their own Reason approves it Of which more elsewhere And yet I dare appeal to any man of a free and unbiass'd Reason in this Cause What is that Natural Notion we have of One God Is it any thing more than that there is and can be but One Eternal Self-originated Being who is the Principle or Cause of all other Beings And does not the Scripture do not all Trinitarians with the whole Catholick Church own this Do not all the Christian Creeds teach us to profess our Faith in One God the Father from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their Godhead Thus far then Scripture and Reason and the Catholick Faith agree Does Reason then deny that God can beget of himself an Eternal Son his own perfect Image and Likeness If it does then indeed Scripture and Reason contradict each other But I believe these men will not pretend to prove from Reason That God could not beget an Eternal Son and if this cannot be proved by Reason as I am certain it never can then Reason does not contradict Scripture which teaches us that God has an only begotten Son And if God have an only begotten Son Reason will teach us that the Son of God must be True and Perfect God and yet not another God because he has one and the same Nature with his Father This is all that any Christian need to believe concerning this matter and all this every Christian may understand and all this every one who sincerely believes the Faith of the Holy Trinity does and must agree in Those who do not I will at any time undertake to prove to be secret Hereticks and Enemies to the Christian Faith and as for those who do I will never dispute with them about some Terms of Art and the Propriety of Words in a matter which is so much above all words and forms of speech And here I leave this matter upon a sure Bottom and here we are ready to join Issue with our Socinian Adversaries Our only Controversy as to the Doctrine of the Trinity with them is Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit each of them be True and Perfect God If we can prove this which has been the Faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages we need dispute no other matters with them nor can any Disputes among our selves give any Support to their Cause A Dispute about Words may look like a difference in Faith when both contending Parties may mean the same thing as those must do who sincerely own and believe That the Son is True and Perfect God and the Holy Ghost is True and Perfect God and that neither of them are the Father nor each other And therefore those different Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity which the Socinians of late have so much triumphed in and made more and greater than really they are and more sensless too by their false Representations can do them no real service among Wise Men tho it may help to amuse the Ignorant If any men have subtilly distinguished away the Catholick Faith they may take them to themselves and increase their Party by them But if this were the Case as I hope it is not it is no Objection against the Catholick Faith that some men openly oppose it and others at least in some mens opinions do secretly undermine it There is reason to guard the Christian Faith against all inconvenient or dangerous Explications which seem to approach near Heresy if this be done with due Christian Temper and Moderation but I hope the Disputes of the Trinitarians are not so irreconcilable but that they will all unite against a Pestilent and Insolent Heresy which now promises it self glorious Successes only from their private Quarrels CHAP. II. An Examination of Some Considerations concerning the Trinity SECT I. Concerning the Ways of managing this Controversy BEfore I put an end to this Discourse it will contribute very much to the better understanding of what I have said and give a clearer Notion of the Use of it to apply these Principles to the Examination of a late Treatise entituled Some Considerations concerning the Trinity The Author I know not he writes with Temper and though he takes the liberty to find fault he does it Civilly and therefore he ought to meet with Civil Usage and so he shall from me as far as the bare Censure of his Principles will admit I was I confess startled at the first entrance to find him own the Vncertainty of our Faith in these Points concerning the Trinity for if after the most perfect Revelation of the Gospel that we must ever expect and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for above Sixteen Hundred years this Faith is still uncertain it is time to leave off all Enquiries about it As for the many absurd and blasphemous Expositions that have been made of this Doctrine if by them he means the Ancient Heresies which infested the Church they are so far from rendring our Faith uncertain that as I shall shew him anon the very Condemnation of those Heresies by the Catholick Church gives us a more certain account what the true Catholick Faith was I agree with him that the warm and indiscreet Management of contrary Parties has been to the Prejudice of Religion among unthinking people who hence conclude the uncertainty of our Faith and it concerns good men to remove this Prejudice by distinguishing the Catholick Faith from the Disputes about Ecclesiastical Words and the Catholick Sense of them and I hope I have made it appear this may be done and then the Faith is secure notwithstanding these Disputes and as for any other Offence or Scandal let those look to it who either give or take it This Considerer dislikes all the Ways and Methods which have hitherto been taken to compose these Disputes 1. He
those Heresies which the Catholick Church condemned and from the Corrupted Remains of the Ancient Faith which appeared in them For these Hereticks were originally Christians and professed themselves Christians and therefore did not wholly renounce the Christian Faith but grafted their Heresies on it As to confine my self to the Subjâ—ct of the present Dispute What we are to understand by Father Son and Holy Ghost Whether Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons or not each of whom is distinctly by himself True and Perfect God but in the Unity of the same Divine Nature and Godhead Now that this was the received Faith of the Catholick Church we may learn both from the Valentinians Sabellians and Arians Though the Valentinians as I observed before had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity either with the Platonick Philosophy as that it self had been corrupted by the Iunior Platonists or with the Pagan Theology yet the Propagation of their Aeons in different Degrees and Descents from the first Supreme Aeon the Unbegotten One and the Invisible and Incomprehensible Father as they stile him shews what they thought the Catholick Faith was concerning the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit which they took to be a Substantial Generation and Procession and accordingly in imitation of this Faith asserted a Substantial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Emanation of one Aeon from another and which is more none of the Ancient Fathers who wrote against this Heresy as far as I have observed ever quarrel with them upon this account Nay Tertullian though he abominates these Heresies owns this Probole or Emanation in a true Catholick Sense and tells us that these Hereticks borrowed this word from the Catholick Faith though they fitted it to their Heresy And challenges any man to say whether the Divine Word be not produced by the Father and if it be Here says he is the Prolation or Emanation which the true Catholick Faith owns And adds That the fault of this Heresy was not their producing one Aeon from another but that besides the number of their fictitious Aeons they did separate these Emanations and Aeons from their Author that the Aeons knew not the Father nay desired to know him but could not know him and was e'en dissolved with Passion and Desire whereas in the Catholick Faith there is the most Inseparable Union of the Son with the Father and the most Intimate and Perfect Knowledge of him So that Tertullian allows of a Real and Substantial Production of the Person of the Son from the Person of the Father as the Valentinians pretended of their Aeons and asserts that these Hereticks learnt this from the Catholick Faith of the Trinity And that the Church must not reject this Probole Prolation or Emanation in an Orthodox Catholick Use of those words because Hereticks abuse them to countenance their own Heresies As for the Noetians and Sabellians for however they explain the Doctrine of the Trinity whether by Three Names or Three Powers or Three Parts while they Teach That the One God is but One Single Person the Heresy is the same it is impossible the Catholick Church should reject this Heresy without asserting Three Distinct Real Substantial Persons in the Unity of the Godhead each of whom is as True and Perfect God as each of Three Men Peter Iames and Iohn is a True Perfect Distinct Man though these Three Men are not uniâ—ed as the Three Divine Persons are The occasion of this Heresy was That they thought that Three Real Distinct Persons in the Godhead were Three Gods and therefore though being profess'd Christians and consequently baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost they durst not deny Father Son and Holy Ghost yet neither would they own Three Divine Persons but turned them into Three Names or Three Parts of One Person which has much more sense in it than Three Modes though Three Modes of the same Person let them call them Three Personalities if they please is the same Heresy if there be but One Suppositum as One Man may be the Subject of Three or Three and twenty Modes and be but One Human Person still Noetus and Sabellius did certainly apprehend that by Father Son and Holy Ghost the Catholick Church understood Three Distinct Substantial Divine Persons or else why should they charge them with Tritheism upon this account and turn Three Persons into Three Names or Three Parts of One and the same God to avoid the Imputation of Three Gods And if this had not been the belief of the Catholick Church what meant their Zeal against this Heresy For all the Wit of Man can't find a Medium between Sabellianism and Three Divine Substantial Persons A Trinity must be Three Somewhats as it has been lately called and then it must either be One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Three Modes or compounded of Three Parts or be Three Distinct Suppositums and Persons Now if this had been the Catholick Faith That the Trinity is but One Suppositum or Person under Three Names or Modes c. I cannot imagine why the Catholick Church should have quarrell'd with these Hereticks or they with the Catholick Church unless they both mistook one another But if the Sabellians and Catholicks understood themselves and each other and did intend to contradict each other we certainly know what the Catholick Faith was For there is nothing contradicts a Noetian and Sabellian Trinity but a Trinity of Distinct Substantial Divine Persons And Novatianus well observes That these Hereticks did acknowledge the Divinity of Christ That whoever Christ was it was evident from those Characters given of him in Scripture That he was True and Perfect God And because the Father is True and Perfect God and Christ True and Perfect God for fear of owning Two Gods they make the Father and the Son to be but One and the same Person The Arians denied the Eternal Godhead of Christ and made a Creature of him though the most excellent Creature the Minister and Instrument of God in making the World and the reason of this Heresy was the same viz. for fear of a Plurality of Gods should they allow Christ to be True and Perfect God And this still is a plain evidence what they thought the Catholick Faith to be not only that Christ was True and Real God but that he was Truly and Really a Distinct Person from God the Father so distinct that if they should acknowledge him to be True God he would be a Second God which they thought contradicted the Faith of One God Well Though they would not own him to be True God yet they own him to be a distinct Person from the Father as distinct as God and a Creature are distinct Do the Catholicks now quarrel with the Arians that they have made a Substantial Person of the Son as in reason tâ—ey ought to have done had thâ—y not believed
the Son to be a distinct Substantial Person this Dispute we hear nothing of but the only Dispute was concerning the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and that proves that they did own the Son to be a Substantial Person for were he not in a true proper sense a Person and a Substantial Person he could not be Consubstantial with the Father Nay St Austin expresly tells us That Arius agreed with the Catholicks against the Sabellians in making the Son a distinct Person from the Father and if so the Catholicks taught That the Son was as distinct a Person as Arius did though not a Separate and Created Person as he did Now when Arius would have reduced Christ into the number of Creatures though he made him the first and most excellent Creature created before the World and God's Minister in making the World as like to God as a Creature can possibly be but not of the same Nature with God the Catholick Church would not bear this but in a most Venerable Synod collected from most parts of the Christian World condemn this as contrary to the Faith always received and owned in their several Churches Thus far at least the Tradition of the Church was Sacred and Venerable and the concurrent Testimony of all these several Churches was a more certain Proof of the Apostolick Faith than all the Wit and Subtilty of Arius For Wit may patronize New Errors but cannot prove That to be the Ancient Apostolick Faith which the Church had never received from the Apostles nor ever heard of before This I take to be a very sensible Proof what the Faith of the Christian Church was from the Times of the Apostles till the Council of Nice and consequently what that Faith was which the Church received from the Apostles And this abundantly satisfies me That whatever loose Expressions we may meet with in some of the Fathers before the Arian Controversy was started and managed with great Art and Subtilty though I know of none but what are capable of a very Orthodox Sense it is certain that they were not Arians nor intended any such thing in what they said For had Arianism been the Traditionary Faith of the Church it must have been known to be so and then how came the Church to be so strangely alarm'd at the first news of it Or what shall we think of those Venerable Fathers and Confessors in that Great Council who either did not know the Faith of the Church or did so horribly prevaricate in the Condemnation of Arius when they had no other apparent Interest or Temptation to do so but a Warm and Hearty Zeal for the Truly Ancient and Apostolick Faith It is certain Arius never pretended Catholick Tradition for his Opinion but undertook to reform the Catholick Faith by the Principles of Philosophy and to reconcile it to Scripture by new-coin'd Interpretations though in this he fail'd and found the Great Athanasius an over-match for him It is not with Faith as it is with Arts and Sciences of Human Invention which may be improved in every Age by greater Wits or new Observations but Faith depends upon Revelation not Invention and we can no more make a New Catholick Faith by the power of Wit and Reason than we can write a True History of what the Apostles did and taught out of our own Invention without the Authority of any Ancient Records Men may do such things if they please but one will be Heresy and the other a Romance And yet this is the bold and brave Attempt of Secinus and his Disciples They are so modest indeed as not to pretend Antiquity to be on their side they can find no other Antiquity for themselves but in Cerinthus and Ebion who separated from the Catholick Church and were rejected by them and it does not seem very modest to set up such men as these against the Universal Consent of the first and purest Ages of the Church The Socinians who know very well what the Charge of Novelty signifies in matters of Religion That a New Faith is but another Name for New Heresies Though they reject the Doctrine of the Fathers and the Catholick Tradition of the Faith from the Apostolick Age yet they appeal to Scripture and Natural Sentiments as the greatest and best Antiquity in opposition to Apostolick Tradition This is our Considerer's way which he prefers before a Traditionary Faith and by the same reason the Socinians may oppose it to a Traditionary Faith And if we must always expound Scripture by our Natural Sentiments this Author had best consider whether he can prove a Trinity by Natural Reason or fairly reconcile the Natural Notion of One God with the Catholick Faith of the Trinity or of Three each of whom is True and Pâ—rfect God from the mere Principles of Natural Reason for if he can't he must not in his way find a Trinity in Scripture But of this more hereafter 3. Let us now in opposition to this pretence consider of what Authority the Traditionary Faith of the Catholick Church ought to be in expounding Scripture The Holy Scripture at least in pretence is allowed on all hands to be a Compleat and Authentick Rule of Faith but the question is since men differ so much in expounding Scripture What is the safest Rule to expound Scripture by whether the Traditionary Faith of the Church or our Natural Sentiments or Natural Reason I do not mean that we must learn the Critical Sense of every Text from Catholick Tradition for we have not in all points such a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture though even in this respect we shall find that the Catholick Fathers have unanimously agreed in the Interpretation of the most material Texts relating to the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ. They sometimes indeed alledge such Texts especially out of the Old Testament as our Modern Criticks will not allow to be proper and apposite but even this shews what their Faith was and yet these very Expositions which have been so anciently and unanimously received though they may appear at this distance of time too forc'd and mystical have too Sacred and Venerable an Authority to be wantonly rejected We may learn from Christ and his Apostles what mysterious and hidden Senses were contain'd in the Writings of the Old Testament such as it is very probable we should never have found in them had not Christ and his Apostles explained their meaning And the nearer any Writers were to the Apostolick Age the more they were addicted to these Mystical Interpretations which is a good reason to believe that they learnt it from the Apostles themselves But this is not what I now intend my present Argument reaches no farther than this That if we can learn what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Holy Trinity and the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ has always been Then 1. It is very reasonable to conclude That they
had already demonstrated this That One God signifies One single Person he only proves That the Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost belong to God and therefore That these Terms must all be so understood as to include the same God the One single Divine Person in their Signification The first I think he proves well enough That these Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost belong to God and this vindicates him from being a Socinian But when he applies all these Titles and Characters to One and the same God that is in his sense to One and the same single Person this proves him to be a Sabellian for this was the Doctrine of Noetus and Sabellius That these different Titles and Characters did belong but to One single Person who is God He proves That these Titles and Characters Father Son and Holy Ghost do signify God from the forms of Baptism Salutation and Blessing Go teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all From whence as he adds I infer That all these terms Father Son and Holy Ghost signify God because I cannot possibly conceive 't is agreeable to the nature of the Christian Religion that the Ministers of it should teach baptize or bless the people in any other name but God's I like this Argument very well but if it proves any thing it proves more than he would have it That Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself true and perfect God and not all Three One single Person for it seems altogether as absurd to teach baptize or bless in Three Names and Titles when there is but One single Person signified by those Three Names And therefore his Inference is not very plain That if any One of these Terms signify God they must all Three signify God and if all Three signify God they must all Three signify One and the same God for God is One. This is very artificial but not plain The consequence is plain That if Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Names of God they must all signify One God by the Unity and sameness of Nature because there is but One God but not by the Vnity of Person because the Scripture mentions Three each of whom is God Which proves That God is One in Nature but Three in Persons as the Catholick Church has always believed As for what he adds That the One Supreme God the Lord and Maker of all things is here meant by the word Father is a thing not questioned and therefore Sâ—n and Holy Ghost are terms expressive of the same Divine Nature may in some sense be allowed if he will distinguish between Nature and Person but according to the sense of Scripture and the belief of the Catholick Church Father Son and Hâ—ly Ghost are the names of Three Real Distinct Divine Persons not of One Divine Nature in the sense of One Persâ—n But though we allow this with the Catholick Church That the Father is the One Supreme God we have no reason to allow this to the Considerer who will not allow Father Son or Holy Ghost to be Names of Divine Persons or to be Names or Relations of the Divine Nature considered as the Divine Nature for he says they are extrinsecal that is â—xtra-essential Ideas Titles Characters Respects Relations and therefore Father according to this Hypothesis is not the essential Name of the One Supreme God but given to him for some extrinsical and extra-essential reasons is his Name not by Nature but by Institution and then must be proved to be his Name which the mere form of Baptism cannot do for the Name God is not expressed in it much less does it prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are One and the same God or One single Person It is evident indeed from other Texts That Father is the Name of God but then it is the Name of God the Father and the Son is the Son of God and the Holy Ghost the Spirit of God the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and this does prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost have the same One Divinity the same One Divine Nature as the very Names and Relations of Father and Son and Spirit prove But surely this does not prove That God the Father and his Son are the same One single Person as well as One God for Father and Son all the world over signify Two distinct Persons for no One Person can be Father and Son to himself nor can the Eternal subsisting Spirit of God be the same Person with that God whose Spirit he is Unless he allows that Father in the form of Baptism is the Name of a Person he can prove nothing from it and if Father be the Name of a Person Son and Holy Ghâ—st must be the Names of Persons also and then the Names and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove That they are not One single Person but Three Persons Thus he proves the Son to be God from that Religious Worship which is paid to him which does indeed prove him to be God but not the same One Person with the Father Our Considerer is much mistaken if he thinks it sufficient to prove That Father Son and Holy Ghost are the Titles and Characters of the same One single Person who is the One God if he can prove that each of these Names signify One who is God And the truth is if these Names Father Son and Holy Ghost do not signify Persons they cannot signify God for then they are not Names of Nature but something extrinsecal and accessory to the Divine Nature and therefore they may be the external Denominations of him who is God but not the Names of God considered as God and therefore cannot signify God because they do not signify the Divine Nature in the Persons of Father Son and Holy Ghost but something extrinsical and accessory that is something which is not essential and therefore which the Divine Nature might be without I hope the Considerer did not think of this Consequence That it is possible that God might neither have been Father Son nor Holy Ghost which yet must be allowed possible if these be mere extrinsecal and accessory Titles and Characters Nay this must be allowed unless we will grant that these Names signify Three Real Subsisting Intelligent Coeternal Persons in the Vnity of the same Godhead But these Three Persons do somewhat puzzle him That God should be called Father Son and Holy Ghost is as easily to be believed as that he should be called Adonai Elohim and Jehovah That the same thing should be signified and expressed by several Names is no such incredible Mystery Which still shews us what it is he believes and would prove in all this That
begotten of his Fathers Substance the Son of God who in his own proper Person is true and perfect God not a part of God but all that God is not One God as One Person with the Father but as having the true Divine Nature distinctly in his own Person This is a Demonstration that the Nicene Consubstantiality is the Consubstantiality of Two real substantial Persons who have the same Nature distinctly subsisting in each of them 2 Another Rule for expounding the Homoousion is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are equipollent terms that to be of one Substance and to be in all things alike to each other signify the same thing I know the Fathers condemned the Arian Homoiousion for they asserted That the Son was like the Father in opposition to his being of the same Nature with the Father and therefore this was an imperfect likeness and resemblance or indeed no likeness at all for a created and uncreated Nature are at such an infinite distance as to have no true and real likeness to each other to be sure not such a likeness as there must be between a Son and a Father Nay sometimes they would not allow that likeness can be properly applied to two individual Natures of the same species as to two individual human Natures which are not like to each other but are the same But yet whether it was proper or improper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be upon all accounts and every way perfectly alike was allowed to be very Orthodox and therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis approves several Oriental Creeds as very Orthodox though they left out the Homoousion because they in the most express terms confessed the perfect likeness and similitude of Nature between Father and Son which they guarded with the utmost Caution against the perverse Interpretations both of the Sabellian and Arian Hereticks And he disputes at large That perfect similitude is a sameness and equality of Nature and calls God to witness that before he ever heard of those words Homoousion and Homoiousion he always thought that what is signified by both these words is the same that perfect likeness of Nature is the sameness of Nature for nothing can be perfectly alike which has not the same Nature And this he says he learnt from the Evangelists and Apostles before ever he heard of the Nicene Faith which he had not heard of till a little before he was banished for that Faith This observation is of great use as St. Hilary notes to confute Sabellianism and to fix the true sense of the Homoousion for if to be Consubstantial or of one Nature signifies a perfect likeness similitude and equality of Nature Consubstantiality must at least signify Two who are thus consubstantial as likeness similitude and equality does and these Two must have One and the same Nature not in the sense of Singularity and Sabellian Unity but of likeness and similitude that Father and Son are One Substance not as One Person is One with himself but as Two Persons are One by a perfect likeness and similitude of Nature which must be the true meaning of Consubstantial if Consubstantiality and likeness of Nature be the same 3. I observe farther That the Catholick Fathers did not make the Homoousion the Rule of Faith that whatever sense some critical Wits can put on it must therefore be owned for the Catholick Faith but they chose it as the most comprehensive word to comprize the true Catholick Faith and to detect the Frauds of Hereticks They taught no new Faith by this word but what the Catholick Church had always taught but secured the Faith by it against the shifts and evasions of Hâ—reticks This is the defence they made to the Arian Objection That it was an unscriptural word they confessed the word Homoousios was not to be found in Scripture but the Faith expressed by that word was Thus St. Austin answers Pascentius and tells us That Christ himself has taught us the Homoousion where he says I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and my Father are One and expounds this of the Unity Dignity and Equality of Nature And adds That it is not the word but the thing signified by that word which is so terrible to Hereticks and if they would dispute to purpose they must not reject the word but the doctrine it contains And thus Laurentius who presided in that Dispute gives judgment in this Controversy That the Homoousion was not the Name of the Christian Faith but signified the Equality of the Trinity and that though this word be not in Scripture yet the thing signified by it is true and we must believe honourably of the Unity lest we injure the Trinity We may find enough to this purpose in Athanasius De Decret Syn. Nic. and elsewhere of which more presently And therefore St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis which he wrote to some Catholick Bishops who were very Orthodox in the Faith and yet doubted of this word Homoousion tells them That they are to consider what the Synod intended by that word and not reject the word unless they rejected the Faith taught by it and would profess those Arian Doctrines which the Council condemned in it This is the constant language of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers when the Dispute is concerning the use of this word which gives us this certain Rule for expounding the Homoousion that we must understand it in no other sense than what the Nicene Fathers intended by it for if we do we may acknowledge the Homoousion and yet deny the Nicene Faith What they taught by this word that we must own and what they rejected by it we must reject And though we may fancy that this word signifies more than what the Nicene Fathers understood by it as we have heard what perverse Senses the Hereticks fixt on it yet it being not a Scriptural but an Ecclesiastical word it must be expounded to that Sense and no other which placed it in the Creed SECT III What the Nicene Fathers meant by the Homoousion AND this brings me to a more particular Account of the Homoousion and what the Nicene Fathers understood by it Eusebius Pamphili who at first doubted about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ was of the substance of the Father and consubstantial or of One Substance with him gives an account to his Coesareans of the Reasons which moved him afterwards to subscribe to that Form of Faith as appears by his Letter to them recorded in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History He tells them That he did not admit these words without due examination but when he found there was nothing meant by them but what was truly Catholick and Orthodox he complied for Peace sake For by the Son 's being of his Father's Substance they meant no more than
23. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 165. l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 188. l. 16. marg r. ex iâ—demutabilis p. 208. l. 24. Identity p. 216. l. 5. â— Man's r. Man p. 225. l. 34. marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 230. l. 2. r. Identity p. 236. l. 14. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 245. l. 10. r. an Angel p. 304. l. 2. marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 322. l. 12. de Trin. l. 2. marg l. 15. de Trin. l. 7. l. 32 videri p. 347. l. 14. r. his p. 349. l. 12 13. r. where-ever p 350 marg l. 8. r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Curious Reader may observe â—ome other Mistakes which I hope will not disturb the Sense THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SOCINIAN Controversy CHAP. I. SECT I. The Present State of the Socinian Controversy the unreasonableness of it and how to reduce the Dispute to the Original Question THE Faith of the Holy Trinity is so fundamental to the Christian Religion that if Christianity be worth contending for That is For if God have not an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit the whole Mystery of our Redemption by Christ and of our Sanctification by the Spirit which in its Consequences is the whole of the Gospel and distinguishes it from all other Religions is utterly lost Those various Heresies relating to the Divinity Person and Offices of Christ and the Holy Spirit which began to appear even in the Apostolick Age and have ever since under several forms and disguises disturbed the Peace of the Church is proof enough how much the great Enemy of Mankind thinks himself concerned by all possible means to corrupt this Faith and that great unwearied unconquerable Zeal wherewith the Catholick Fathers have always defended this Faith shews of what importance they thought it and therefore it is no wonder and ought to give no scandal to Christians that these Disputes are again revived among us with as much fury and insolence as ever for there never was a more unhappy Season for the Enemy to sow his Tares But that which is most to be lamented is That the lukewarmness of some and the intemperate Zeal of others have given greater scandal to the World and more shaken the Faith of Christians than all the Opposition of our Adversaries could have done I need say no more the Case is too well known and the Evil Effects too visible among us I will make no new Quarrels if I can help it but sincerely endeavour to prevent the Mischiefs of what has already happened as far as is necâ—ssary to secure the Faith of Christians and to wrest those Weapons out of our Enemies hands which some professed Friends have unwarily furnished them with To do this I shall endeavour in the first place to restore this Controversie to its original state and take off those Vizards which make it appear very frightful to ordinary Christians This Dispute about the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity has of late been dressed up anew with some old School-Terms which how proper soever they may be to give Learned Men a more distinct Idea and Conception of that Adorable Mystery only amuse common Christians and confound them instead of teaching them better This as it was at first occasioned by Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Christian Faith which forced the Catholick Fathers to use some unscriptural Termâ— which by degrees improved into great Subtilties and disturbed the Church with very nice and wrangling Disputes so our Modern Socinians at this day place the main strength of their Cause in these Disputes and think it a sufficient Confutation of the Faith of the Ever Blessed Trinity that the Trinitarians themselves cannot agree about the Sense of Person Hypostasis Substance Nature Essence nor in what Sense God is One and Three but advance very different and as they think contrary Hypotheses to reconcile the Unity of God with the distinction of Three Persons in the Godhead As if there were no difference between what is fundamental in this Faith and such Metaphysical Speculations As if no man could believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost without determining all the Disputes of the Schools Learned men may dispute these matters and things may so happen as to make such Disputes necessary but the Faith of Christians may be secured and Heresies may be confuted without them The Faith is plain and certain even all that is necessary to the purposes of Religion but men may leap out of their depths where they can find no footing and when such Questions are asked as no man can certainly answer it is very likely that they will be answered very different ways and upon very different Hypotheses and there is no great hurt in this neither while these different Hypotheses are neither made new Articles of Faith nor new Heresies but serve only for Hypotheses to give a probable Answer to such Questions as ought never to have been asked and to stop the mouths of Hereticks when they charge the Catholick Faith with Nonsense and Contradiction To distinguish rightly between these two will set this Controversy upon its true ancient bottom which will spoil the Triumph of our Adversaries and possibly may rectify the Mistakes and allay and qualify the intemperate Heats and Animosities of those whom a common Faith ought to make Friends SECT II. How to reduce this Dispute concerning the Trinity to Scripture Terms THE Catholick Fathers have always appealed to the Form of Baptism as the Rule and Standard of Faith that as we are baptized so we must believe In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This is a plain simple Faith which every Christian may understand and which every Christian must profess That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature and inseparably united to himself and that this Father Son and Holy Ghost are the joint Object of the Christian Faith and Worship This is the true Christian Faith and this is all that we are concerned to defend against our Adversaries and would men stick to this without engaging in Philosophical Disputes which we know little or nothing of and which the Scripture takes no notice of we should soon find how weak and impotent all the Attempts of Hereticks would prove Whatever Disputes there are about the signification of those words Nature Essence Substance Person Hypostasis Subsistences Relations c. there is no Dispute about the signification of Father Son and Holy Spirit we have natural Idea's belong to these words when applied to Creatures and when God is pleased in Scripture to represent himself to us under thâ—se Characters if we must understand any thing by them we can understand nothing else but what the words signify all the World over only allowing for that infinite distance there is between God and Creatures which requires us to abstract from all material and creature imperfections We
must not think that God begets a Son as men do by corporeal passions or division of his substance or that he begets a Son without himself or separate from himself or that because a Creature-father is always older than his Son therefore God can't beget a Son coâ—ternal with himself for all these Circumstances do not belong to the essential Notion of a Father but of a Creature-father But then it is essential to the Notion both of Father and Son that the Father communicates his own Nature to the Son and that the Son receives his Nature and Being from his Father that Father and Son do truly and really subsist by themselves though they may be and when we speak of God the Father and his Son are inseparably united to each other that the Son with respect to his Nature is perfectly the same that his Father is the son of a man as true and perfect Man as his Father is and therefore the Son of God as true and perfect God By these Arguments the Catholick Fathers confuted both the Sabellians who made Father Son and Holy Ghost but Three Names and the Arians who denied the Consubstantiality of the Son or that he had the same Nature with his Father For both these Heresies destroy'd the essential Notion and Idea of Father and Son which includes in it both a real distinction and sameness of Nature that they are as really Two but infinitely more one and the same than any other Father and Son in Nature are Now I cannot see but that as these Names and Characters are better understood and liable to less dispute so they convey to our Minds a more distinct conception of God the Father and his Eternal Son than any other artificial Terms Were there no Controversy about Nature Essence Person Substance Hypostasis yet they immediately convey no Idea of God the Father and his Eternal Son to my mind much less give me a more distinct Conception than these Terms Father and Son do For they neither acquaint me what God is nor what Father and Son is and as the Schools themselves assert cannot be Univocally or in the same sense spoken of Creatures and of God who is Super-Essential above all Praedicaments and Terms of Art that is Nature Essence Substance Hypostasis Person do not and cannot signify the same thing when spoken of God as when applied to Creatures And this has occasioned all those Disputes concerning the Use and Signification of these words when applied to God which indeed is no reason for wholly discarding these Terms which the Perverseness and Importunity of Hereticks has forced the Church to use and which have now been so long used that the Ecclesiastical Sense of these Words is very well known to Learned men if they would be contented to use them in that Received Ecclesiastical Sense in which the Catholick Fathers have always used them but yet it is a reason not to clog the Faith of ordinary Christians with them who are not skilled in Metaphysical and Abstracted Notions and it is a reason to reduce the Controversy as much as possibly we can to Scripture Terms when these Artificial and Metaphysical Terms divide even the Professors of the Catholick Faith and give too just occasion to the vain Boasts and Triumphs of Hereticks To represent this matter plainly I observe That all all those Unscriptural Terms which the Catholick Fathers made use of for the Explication of this Adorable Mystery were intended for no other purpose but to give us some distinct Ideas and Conceptions of what the Scripture teaches concerning the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost by using such Terms as signify something in Creatures which bears some though a very imperfect anology and resemblance to what we are to conceive of God And therefore the Fathers justifie the use of such words by shewing That all they mean by them is contained in Scripture and reject any Words and any such Sense of Artificial Words as cannot be justified by Scripture Which by the way is a more infallible Rule than all Metaphysical Subtleties to find out in what sense the Fathers used such Words by observing to what Scripture-Notions they apply them and how they justifie their use from Scripture when they are Disputed If this be the truth of the Case as it certainly is then the Catholick Faith does not depend upon the use of these Terms for it was before them for they were intended only to explain and illustrate the Catholick Faith and to comprise Scripture-Notions in Terms of Art which must be acknowledged to be of great use and was by experience found to be so in the Disputes with ancient Hereticks while the Fathers agreed in the sense of these Terms But when these Terms themselves are become the great matter of Dispute and men who as is to be hoped agree in the Catholick Faith cannot agree about the Propriety and Signification of such Terms nor how they are to be applied and used whether in the singular or plural Number whether substantively or adjectively in recto or obliquo and our Adversaries abuse such Disputes to the Reproach of the Catholick Faith as a perplex'd uncertain contradictious Riddle and Mystery which men can know nothing of or can never agree in it becomes absolutely necessary at present to take this Controversy out of Terms of Art and to let our Adversaries see That our Controversy with them is not concerned in these Disputes That it is not about the Signification and Use of such words as Essence Nature Substance Person c. but Whether the Supreme Eternal Self-originated Father have not an Eternal Son eternally begotten of himself and an Eternal Spirit the Spirit of the Father and of the Son eternally proceeding from them And whether this Eternal Son and Eternal Spirit are not True and Perfect God In this all sincere Trinitarians do heartily agree with each other and are ready to join issue upon this State of the Controversy with all their Adversaries of what denomination soever And if we can prove from Scripture That God has an Eternal Son begotten of himself and that this Eternal Son is True and Perfect God as the Father is and that the Father and Son have an Eternal Spirit who is True and Perfect God as Father and Son is I hope this is a sufficient Confutation of Socinianism and yet all this may be proved without concerning our selves in any Metaphysical Disputes And therefore such Disputes as these though they give opportunity to our Adversaries to make some Flourishes and to cast Mists before peoples eyes are not of that moment as they would represent them they neither prove Socinianism to be true nor the Catholick Faith of the Trinity to be false or uncertain I do not intend at present to dispute this Point with the Socinians Whether the Son and the Holy Spirit for there is no dispute about the Father be not each of them True and Perfect God This has been proved
necessarily prove them Three in Number as I have already shewn though the Divine Essence the res numerata is but One it being Communicated from Father to Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Ghost Whole of Whole which makes it perfectly one and the same Undivided Undiversified Essence Subsisting Distinctly but not Separately in Three That this is the true Notion both of the Fathers and Schools and all that the wisest Schoolmen meant by the Singularity of the Divine Essence and Nature which they acknowledged to subsist in Tribus Suppositis or Personis whole and entire in Three distinct Persons or Subjects may appear in due time when Men have recovered their Temper so far as to be capable of hearing Reason and of understanding plain Sense But my only design at present is to shew that these Relations in the Ever Blessed Trinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost Vindicate the Faith of the Trinity from the Imputation of Tritheism Three Gods must signifie Three Absolute Independent Self-originated Dâ—vinities Three such as we acknowledge the Person of the Father to be who is Infinitely Pâ—rfect and is of himself and all the Catholick Fathers acknowledge that Three Fathers would be Three Gods Three such Absolute Beings though equally Perfect and every way alike would be Three Divine Self-originated Natures or Three Individuals of the same specifick Nature that is Three Gods as Three Individuals of Human Nature are Three men But Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three Absolute Divine Natures nor Three Individuals of One specifick Nature but are Three Singulars of One Individual Nature Communicated whole and entire from Father to Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Ghost So that there is but one and the same Divine Nature in all Three and therefore but One Divinity and One God unless one and the same Divine Nature can be Three Gods To number Three each of whom is himself True and Perfect God does not prove Three Gods unless you can multiply and number Natures too for One Divine Nature is but One God but Three Gods must have Three Appropriate and Incommunicable Divine Natures which the very Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost deny in the Christian Trinity There is but One Self-originated Divinity in the Person of the Father and the very Name of Son proves that he is not of himself but has and is all that he has and is from the Father and is all that the Father is Hâ— iâ— Gâ—d â—f Gâ—d now God of God is Another and is True and Perfect God but is not Another God because he receives all from his Father has the same Divine Nature that his Father has has nothing but what his Father has and has all that his Father has Tâ—tus ex Toto Whole of Whole which is but One Undivided Undiversified One Numerical Whole One God This seems to be the true Reason why St. Austin and after him the Schoolmen lay such stress upon the Relations in the Trinity to salve the Unity of the Divine Nature For by Relations the Schools mean Relationes Subsistentes Subsisting Relations or Relatives not Relations without a Subject which St. Austin rejects as absurd For nothing can be Predicated Relatively which has not some Being and Substance of its own to be the foundation of that Relation A Man who is a Master a Man who is a Servant must be a Man or he could not be the Subject of any Relation either of Master or Servant and thus as he adds Father must signifie a positive Being something that he is himself or else there is nothing to sustain a Relation to another and the like must be said of the Son and Spirit Now these Relations in the Trinity of Father Son and Spirit though each of them have the whole Divine Nature and Substance do yet prove that there are not Three Absolute Independent Divinities but only One Divine Nature and Substance As St. Austin speaks of Father and Son utrunque Substantia utrunque Vna Substantia they are both of them Substance and both of them One Substance for the Son must receive his whole Being from his Father and therefore have the same One Nature and Substance that his Father has which proves that a Trinity of Relatives can be but One God because they can have but One Divine Nature in them all But this is beyond my present design Thus I have given a short view of the Catholick Faith of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity We are Bâ—ptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and if we are Christians we must Believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost and we need not believe nor understand any more than what these Names when applied to God do plainly and necessarily signify This I have explained as easily and familiarly as possibly I could that ordinary Christians who are not skilled in School Terms or Subtilties may know what they are to Believe and see the plain Reasons of it This is what all Christians who sincerely Believe a Trinity are agreed in That there is an Eternal Father who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit of the same Nature with himself That the Father is God God of himself The Son is God God of God True and Perfect God Begotten of his Father from all Eternity That the Holy Ghost is God True and Perfect God Eternally Proceeding from Father and Son That the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost Father or Son but they are Three truly and really distinct from each other But that Father Son and Holy Ghost have all the same One Divinity Communicated from the Father to the Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit and therefore are but One God All this as I have shewn is necessarily included in the Names and Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost which if they be not empty Names but signify any thing real must signify all this And what is there unintelligible in all this Such a Distinction and such an Unity as is signified in the very Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost necessarily prove that God is Three and One If the Father is himself True and Perfect God the Son himself True and Perfect God the Holy Ghost himself True and Perfect God and the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father nor the Holy Ghost either Father or Son then there are Three each of whom is in himself True and perfect God and that is a Divine Trinity And if the Father communicates his whole Nature without division or separation to the Son and Father and Son communicate the same whole Nature to the Holy Spirit they are in the most perfect notion One there being one and the same whole entire perfect Divinity in all Three A Whole a Whole and a Whole are Three in number but are but one Identical Nature for a Whole of a
by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8.6 St. Hilary finds this God of whom are all things and this Lord by whom are all things in the Mosaical History of the Creation And God said Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and God made the firmament and divided the waters c. 1. Gen. 6 7. Where as he applies it the Father commands and the Son his Almighty Word makes all things So the Psalmist tells us of the Father He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast 33. Psal. 9. Or as it is in the 148 th Psal. 5. He commanded and they were created And by whom they were created St. Iohn tells us In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made 1 Joh. 1 2. This he thinks proves a plain distinction of jubentis Dei facientis Dei God that commands and God that does for common sense will not allow that they should be one single Solitary Person much more reason have we to distinguish them when both the Old and New Testament distinguish them But whatever dispute this may admit that Account Moses gives of the Creation of Man he takes to be an unexceptionable Proof of a Plurality of Divine Persons And God said Let us make man in our image after our likeness So God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him 1. Gen. 26.27 Now if we understand these words as spoken by God in the same sense as we should and ought to understand them had they been spoken by men which St. Hilary lays down as a Principle That God speaks to us as we speak to one another and expects to be understood by us according to the common use and acceptation of such forms of speech then let Vs make man in Our Image after Our Likeness cannot signify a singular and solitary Person for such a form of speech naturally imports a Plurality of Persons and a common Nature and Likeness No single solitary Person speaks to himself to do any thing but only wills and chuses what to do and execâ—â—es his own purposes much less does he speak to himself in the Plural Number which in common use signifies some Companions and Partners in the work Let Vs make cannot signify One single Person nor can Our Image admit Two Persons of an unlike and different Nature when the Image is but one and the same and therefore this must prove that there are more Divine Persons than One and that they have all the same Divine Nature Were God but one single and solitary Person this would be a most unaccountable form of speech and there can be no pretence to put such a harsh sense on the words unless we certainly knew that there was no other Divine Person but he who spoke but then if instead of knowing this we certainly know the contrary that when God made the World he was not alone but had his Eternal Substantial Wisdom the Person of the Eternal Word with him by whom he made the world this puts the matter out of doubt And this St. Hilary proves frâ—m that account which Solomon gives of Wisdom 8 Prov. 22 c. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was Then I was by him as one brought up with him rejoicing always before him And therefore the Father was not alone and did not speak to himself when he made the world his own Wisdom a Divine Eternal Person co-operating with him and rejoicing in the Perfection of his Works But besides this he proves at large that the Angel which so often appeared to Abraham Hagar Iacob to Moses in a Burning Bush and is in express terms called God the Judge of the world the God of Abraham and Isaac and Iacob was not a Created Angel nor God the Father and yet was True and Perfect God even the Son of God who in the fulness of time became Man and adds several Passages in the Psalms and Prophets which plainly own a Divine Person distinct from God the Father to be True and Perfect God I need not tell those who are acquainted with the Writings of the Ancient Fathers that they all insist on the same Arguments to prove the same thing that there is not in any one point a more universal Consent amongst them which is too Venerable an Authority to be over-ruled by Criticism it being no less than a Traditionary Exposition of Scripture from the Apostolick Age. But I am no further concerned in this at present than to shew what Notion the Catholick Fathers had about the Unity of God These Fathers did not fence against the Objection of Tritheism by distinguishing away the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit by making the Son God ex accidenti secundum quid for they knew nothing of an accidental or secundum quid God which I must own sounds to me very like Blasphemy and Contradiction that when this Name God signifies the most necessary and absolutely Perfect Being any Person to whom this Name does naturally and essentially belong should be God by Accident or only in a limited and qualified sense But without fearing the Charge of Tritheism they with Moses and the Prophets own another Divine Person distinct from the Father but as Real and Substantial a Person and as truly and perfectly God as the Father is Insomuch that Tertullian when he had alledgâ—d that Tâ—xt 45. Psal. 6 7. which the Apostle to the Hebrews applies to Christ 1. Heb. Thy throne O Gâ—d is for ever and ever the scepter of thy Kingdom is a right scepter Therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows was not aâ—raid to add Ecce Duos Deos Behold Two Gods That is Two Divine Pâ—rsons each of whom is by himself truly and essentially God for notwithstanding this he would not say there are Two or Three Gods and gives his reason for it He owned a Plurality of Gods even Tritheism it self in that sense of the word Tritheism which the Arians and Sabellians objected against the Faith of the Trinity as Three Gods signify no more than Three Divine Substantial Persons each of whom is truly and perfectly God as having distinctly in himself the whole and perfect Divine Nature but this he and the other Fathers deny to be Tritheism they are God and God and God but not Three Gods And they think it a sufficient proof as any man would who believes the Scripture that this is not the Scripture-Notion of Tritheism because the same Scripture which teaches us that there is but One God attributes
enquire 1. What that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith 2. What Evidence we have of this Tradition concerning the Trinity in the Catholick Church 3. Of what Authority this ought reasonably to be in expounding Scripture SECT II. Concerning the Traditionary Faith of the Church with respect to the Doctrine of the Trinity FIrst then Let us consider what that Catholick Church is from whence we must receive this Traditionary Faith Now since Christ gave the Supreme Authority of preaching the Gospel and planting Churches to his Apostles those only must be reckoned the true Apostolick Churches from which we must receive the true Christian Faith which were planted by the Apostles or by Apostolick men and lived in Communion with them It is not sufficient to prove any Doctrine to be the true Primitive Faith That it was preached in the Apostles days but that it was the Faith of the Apostolick Churches which were planted by the Apostles and received their Faith from them for that Only is the Primitive and Apostolick Faith And therefore though Arians and Socinians could prove their Heresies to be as Ancient as the Apostolick Age as we grant something like them was this does not prove theirs to be the true Christian Faith if it were not the Faith of the Apostolick Churches And this was very visible in those days what these Churches were which were planted by the Apostles and lived in Communion with them and is very visible still in the most Authentick Records of the Church For the Hereticks which sprang up in that Age separated themselves from the Apostles and thereby made a visible distinction between the True Apostolick Churches and Heretical Conventicles And in after-Ages they either separated themselves or were cast out of the Communion of the Church This St. Iohn accounted a great advantage to the Christian Church and an Infallible Proof of False Doctrine and Heresy as it certainly was at that time for if the Apostles taught the True Faith those who separated from the Apostles and preached another Gospel which they never learnt from them must be Hereticks 1 Ioh. 2.18 19. Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they no doubt would have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us The Separation of Hereticks in that Age was a visible renouncing the Apostolick Faith and Communion and therefore how many Heresies soever started up it was still visible where the Apostolick Faith and Tradition was preserved and this was of admirable use to preserve the Faith of the Church sincere and uncorrupt For had these Hereticks continued in Communion with the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and secretly propagated their Heresies and infected great numbers of Christians without dividing into distinct and opposite Communions it would have been a great dispute in the next Age which had been the true Apostolick Faith when the Members of the same Churches which all their time lived in Communion with the Apostles should preach contrary Doctrines and pretend with equal confidence Apostolick Tradition which the greatest Hereticks might very plausibly have done had they always lived in Communion with the Apostles But they went out from us says St. Iohn that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us that the world might know how to distinguish between Catholick Christians and Hereticks and between the True Catholick Faith and the Corrupt Innovations of Perverse men And this I take to be a good reason to this day why we should keep the Communion of the Church sincere and uncorrupt and not set our doors open for Arians and Socinians and all sorts of Hereticks to mix with us For though since the Câ—mmunion of the Church has bâ—en so broken and divided by Schisms and Factions and Hâ—resies it is no proof of the True Apostolick Faith merely that it is the Faith of such a Church though the Church of Rome still vainly pretends to such Authority yet it would soon ruin the Christian Church and the Christian Faith to have no distinction preserved between true Apostolick Churches and the Apostolick Faith and the Conventicles of Hereticks the impure Off-spring of Cerinthus and Ebion of Photinus or Arius And therefore I cannot but abhor that Accommodating-Design which some men have expressed so warm a Zeal for to Comprehend away the Faith of the Holy Trinity in some loose general Expressions without any particular determined Sense and to purge our Liturgies of every thing that savours of the Worship of the Blessed Trinity that Arians and Socinians may join in Communion with us Which is a plausible Pretence under the Notion of Christian Charity and Communion to betray the Christian Faith Not expresly to renounce it but to bury it in silence as a Useless and Church-dividing Dispute I am satisfied this Holy Faith can never be Confuted but could these men prevail it might soon be Lost. But to return This is a sure Foundation for our Enquiries into the Faith of the Primitive Church To know what the Primitive Church is for otherwise we may mistake Old Heresies for the Primitive Faith But those Churches which were planted by the Apostles or Apostolical men and received their Faith from them and lived in Communion with them are the true Primitive and Apostolick Churches and their Faith is the true Primitive Apostolick Faith and what that was Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus assure us The Faith and Worship of Father Son and Holy Ghost And what their Faith was as to all these Three Divine Persons is evident from the Writings of those Ancient Fathers who preserved the Succession and Communion of these Apostolick Churches But this is not what I intend at present but from hence it appears That those Ancient Heresies which were rejected and condemned by the Apostolick Churches as soon as they appeared could not be the Apostolick Faith These Hereticks separated from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches and therefore could not receive their Faith from them nor did they pretend to this while the Apostles lived though they forged new Gospels and Acts and Revelations for them when they were dead And thus all the Heresies of Simon Magus Menander Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus and all those other Divisions and Subdivisions of Hereticks who denied or corrupted the Doctrine of the Divinity of our Saviour or his Incarnation are all rejected from the Apostolical Faith for these Hereticks did not receive their Doctrines from the Apostles and Apostolick Churches as they themselves owned by their Separation from the Apostolick Churches and these Churches gave Testimony against their Corruptions as soon as they were known and there is no need of any other Confutation of them if we allow the Doctrine of
but yet that Jesus Christ was a Divine and Human Person though Christ was one Person and Jesus another And therefore as the Nicene Creed which we find also in the Ancient Oriental Creeds teaches us to believe in One God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible not to exclude Christ from being the Maker of the World but in opposition to those Hereticks who would not allow the Supreme God who is the Father of Christ to be the Maker of the World but attributed the Creation of this World to one or more Inferior Angels So they add And in One Lord Iesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in opposition to those who made Christ and Jesus Two Persons And yet in this very Heresy we may see what the Ancient Catholick Faith was That Jesus Christ was God and Man as Cerinthus himself owned though he would not unite Christ and Jesus into One Person nor make the Union inseparable The Valentinian Heresy though dressed up after the mode of the Pagan Theology was a manifest Corruption of the Christian Faith under a Pretence of a more perfect knowledge of Divine Mysteries and we may still see the broken Remains of the Catholick Tradition of the Trinity among them Their Pleroma by which they seem to understand the Fulness of the Deity as St. Paul uses that Phrase 2 Col. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily I say this Pleroma consisted of several Aeons or Divine Persons which were propagated from the Unknown and Incomprehensible Father in gradual Descents and all together made up the Compleat and Perfect Deity which were more or fewer according to the various Fancies of Hereticks Now from these wild Conceits we may in some measure learn what the Catholick Faith was That the Godhead was not confined to one Single and Solitary Person but that there is such a Foecundity in the Divine Nature as communicates it self to more Persons than one For had it been the known and received Faith of the Christian Church That there is but One Person in the Godhead as well as but One God there had been no pretence for these Hereticks who called themselves Christians and boasted of a more perfect knowledge of the Christian Faith to have invented such a number of Aeons which they included within their Pleroma as the several Emanations of their Deity And we may observe that most of the Names which they gave to their several Aeons are Scripture-Names and Titles which the Pagan Theology knew nothing of and which they could learn no where but from the Christian Church Basilides I think was one of the first who gave us any distinct account of these Aeons which was new modell'd by Valentinus and other succeeding Hereticks and his first and Supreme Aeon as Epiphanius tells us was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Unbegotten One who only is the Father of all and by others is called the Propater and the Unknown Invisible Incomprehensible Father Now though the Heathens very familiarly call their Supreme God the Father of Gods and Men with respect to his Creating Power yet as the Notion of Father is founded in a substantial Generation as these Hereticks plainly understood it so it is the peculiar Character of God under the Gospel who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ his only begotten Son It is certain the first Person in the Godhead was never called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the One that is unbegotten but to distinguish him from One who is begotten the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten who is God also but God oâ— God And it is observable what Tertullian tells us of Heracleon That he made his first Aeâ—n to be illud quod pronunciat which some Criticks not understanding think to be a defect in the Copy but the sense is plain that his first Aeon is he that pronounceth or speaketh by which he represented the Eternal Generation of the Word So that his first Aeon is the Pronouncer or Speaker that is the Father of the Eternal Word which St. Iohn tells us was in the beginning was with God and was God Which shews that this is nothing else but a disguized Corruption of the Catholick Faith concerning the Eternal Generation of the Word from the Eternal Unbegotten Father To confirm this I observe farther That most of the Names which they give to their other Aeons are such Names Titles or Characters as the Scripture gives to Christ or the Holy Spirit which they have multiplied into so many distinct Persons or Aeons such as the Mind Word Prudence Power and Wisdom Truth Life Light the Only begotten the Paraclete and the like Valentinus indeed as Epiphanius observes did model his Thirty Aeons according to Hesiod's Genealogy and Number of Gods and with some manifest allusions to them but yet he retained as many Scripture-Names as he could the better to reconcile unwary people to his fabulous Genealogiâ—s as the hidden and mysterious sense of Scripture And it is impossible such Fables should ever have obtained any Credit had they not been grafted on the Catholick Faith and pretended to improve it with new degrees of Light and Knowledge When these Heresies were pretty well silenced up start Noetus and Sabellius who ran into the other Extreme The Valentinians had corrupted the Doctrine of the Trinity by multiplying Three Divine Persons into Thirty Aeons besides all their other Pagan and Fabulous Conceits about them This offended these men as downright Polytheism as indeed it was no better and to avoid this they reject a Trinity of Real and Substantial Persons for a Trinity of Names that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but Three Names of the same Person who is sometimes called the Father at other times the Son or the Holy Ghost with respect to his different Appearances or Operations Or they made the Son and Holy Ghost not Two Persons but Two Personal Attributes in God his Wisdom or Power Or they made the Trinity but Three Parts of One Compounded God as a Man consists of Body Soul and Spirit which of late have been revived among us under different Names After these men arose Arius and his Followers who out of great Zeal also for the Unity of God framed a New and more Subtile Heresy They were sensible that Father and Son were not Two Names but Two Real Distinct Persons and therefore they attributed the whole entire Divinity to the Father and made the Son not to be God by Nature but the most Perfect and Excellent Creature as Perfect an Image of God as any Creature can be but not Consubstantial with God nor Coequal and Coeternal with him All these Heresies were rejected and condemned by the Catholick Church in their several Ages as soon as they appeared and were taken notice of And this is one very good way to learn what the Catholick Faith was from its Opposition to
found a Trinity but it is not a Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Nature but a Trinity of extrinsecal accessory Ideas But since he has used some Art in palliating this Heresy it will be necessary to take off the Disguise The first step he makes to it is by seeming to own That there may be some greater Mystery and Obscurity in the Doctrine of the Trinity than that Account which he has given of it But if this Account says he of the Trinity be too easy and falls far short of those high expressions of distinction found in Scripture as I think it does and no other grounded upon any Notions our Souls have framed of Vnity and Distinction can be true or consistent as I have before particularly proved then it necessarily follows That God must be One and Three in some way or manner not conceivable by human Vnderstanding Here he thinks he has found a safe Retreat He asserts and proves as he would have us believe from all the Notions of Distinction and Unity which our minds can frame That God is and can be One in no other Notion than of One single Person in the first and proper sense of a Person for an Intelligent Person and that God neither is nor can be Three in the sense of Three Proper Distinct Persons If you charge him with Sabellianism for this then he retreats to an obscure confused knowledge to such a way and manner of God's being One and Three as is not conceivable by human Understanding Well But will he allow us with this obscure and confused knowledge to believe the Holy Trinity to be Three Divine Proper Distinct Persons and One God in a way and manner unconceivable by Human Vnderstanding By no means This he has proved by all the Notions of Unity and Distinction cannot be true or consistent nor is it possible for us to believe what we do not understand the terms of or what contradicts our former knowledge and we are not bound to believe what is not possible to be believed nor can God in Justice or Goodness require such a Faith of us as we have already heard So that Sabellianism we may believe and must not believe any thing contrary to it and then we may believe that there is something more in it than we understand if we please And therefore we may observe That he is not concerned about any difficulties in the Notion of the Divine Unity which all Catholick Writers have been most concerned for how to reconcile the Unity of God with a Trinity of Divine Persons but that which troubles him most is the Distinction which the Catholick Fathers never disputed about but positively asserted in the most proper and real sense against the Sabellian Hereticks But he seems sensible as well he may be that the Sabellian Notion of Persons falls very short of those high Expressions of Distinction which are found in Scripture And here it is that he allows of an obscure and confused Knowledge When he has rejected a True Personal distinction all other kinds of distinction he can think of will not answer those high expressions of distinction found in Scripture and therefore provided you do not believe them distinct Persons you may believe if you please that there is some other unknown and unconceivable distinction between them This is plainly what he means by his obscure confused Knowledge by his general confused Faith by his general confused Notion of the Trinity and therefore he religiously keeps to that form of words That One and the same God is Three which must be understood in his Notion of One and the same God that is One single Person for all his Notions of Vnity and Distinction are on purpose designed to prove That One God can't be Three in a true and proper Notion of a Person and therefore he never so much as names that question How Three Divine Persons are One God Which can never be reconciled to a Sabellian Unity of a Single Person SECT VI. What it is the Scripture requires us to believe concerning the Trinity THE Considerer having laid the Foundations of Sabellianism in his Natural Sentiments proceeds to examine what the Doctrine of the Scripture is concerning this matter and to reconcile the Scripture to his Natural Sentiments though the more reasonable and safer way had been first to have learnt the Faith from Scripture and then to have corrected the Mistakes of his Natural Sentiments by Scripture I do not intend to enter into a long dispute with him here but shall only let the Reader see what it is he would prove and what he asserts for his whole business in short is to prove That the Sabellian Notion of the Unity of God or of One single Person and of Three Names Titles Characters extrinsecal Respects and Relations is the True Scriture Doctrine of the Trinity This he very freely tells us That the Sum of all that the Scriptures plainly and expresly teach concerning a Trinity is this That there is but One only God and what he means by One only God we have often heard the Author and Maker of all things But that One God ought to be acknowledge and adored by us under those Three different Titles or Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost Which Words are very remarkable He does not say That this One God is to be acknowledged and adored in Three who have the same One Divinity subsisting whole and perfect and distinctly in each of them which is the Catholick Faith But this One God is to be acknowledged and adored by us under these Three different Titles and Characters of Father Son and Holy Ghost So that Father Son and Holy Ghost are not the One God for neither of them is God but they are only the different Titles and Characters of the One God And though God when represented by different Characters is God still under each Character yet neither of the Characters is God no more than the Titles and Characters of a Man is the Man Now one might have expected that the Considerer should have proved That the Scripture-Notion of One God is That there is but One single Divine Person in the true and proper Notion of the word Person who is God and that these Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost do not in Scripture signify Three Distinct Real Persons but are only Three Different Titles and Characters of the same One Divine Person This indeed had effectually proved what he pretends to but he was too wise to attempt either The first he says nothing at all of but takes it for granted that he has demonstrated That by his Natural Notions of Unity and Distinction but had he not first demonstrated that nothing could be true and consistent and that God can require us to believe nothing which contradicts his Natural Notions he should have a little enquired what the Notion of Scripture is about this matter But taking it for granted that he
as he represents it but the Personal Union of the Divine Nature of Christ to Human Nature He was not only as conscious of all the Divine Perfections in himself as a man is conscious of his own thoughts which yet by the way is absolutely impossible without being True and Perfect God in his own Person but he knew himself to be God the Eternal Son of God not the same Person with his Father but One with him Were a man thus regularly and constantly Inspired he would know that he was thus Inspired and he would also know that these Divine Perfections are not in himself not seated in his own Human Person nor under the Conduct of his own Will as his own Natural Powers are and therefore must know himself to be a mere Man still not God-Man So that this constant and regular Inspiration this uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity which is all he allows in this matter cannot make any Person God-Man This Inspiration is not a subsisting Person is not the Person of the Son of God is not Incarnate by its Union to Man no more than it is Incarnate in other Prophets The Man is the Person and therefore a mere Creature still tho never so Divinely Inspired This is such an Incarnation as Socinians themselves own in as high expressions as the Considerer can invent Cerinthus owned something more That Christ who descended on Iesus at his Baptism was a Divine Person not a mere Inspiration and rested on him and was most intimately united to him till his Crucifixion That Sect of the Noetians and Sabellians who were called Patripassians for they do not seem by the accounts we have of them to have been all of that mind did acknowledge the Incarnation of God in a true and proper sense as the Catholick Church did the Incarnation of Christ But then their Trinity being but One proper single Divine Person distinguished by Three Names or Personal Characters which is the express Doctrine of the Considerer their whole Trinity was Incarnate suffered and died in the Incarnation and Sufferings of Christ the Father as well as the Son as it must of necessity be if there be but One Divine Person who is Father Son and Holy Ghost and if this One Person is in a true and proper sense Incarnate But this the Catholick Church abhorred and condemned under the name of the Patripassian Heresy Others of them were Sabellians in the Doctrine of the Trinity but Photinians or Samosatenians that is Socinians as to the Doctrine of the Incarnation as Athanasius often intimates And if I understand him this is the Considerer's way who believes a Trinity in One single Person and an Inspired Man for a God Incarnate And thus we have lost the Trinity and Incarnation and must part with every thing which is peculiar and essential to Christianity with them And now one would wonder after all this what he has to say more about the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation and yet this is his next Enquiry What the Scriptures necessarily oblige us to believe in this Point that is concerning the Trinity and Incarnation Though he has been careful all along never to use this term Incarnation as being sensible that all he said about God-Man would not reach the Catholick Notion of Incarnation When I met with this Enquiry I was in hope that there was something behind to unsay all that he had hitherto said for if what he has already said be true it is certain the Scripture requires us to believe nothing about them But upon Examination I found that the Question was fallaciously stated and the true meaning of it was What the Scriptures oblige us to believe instead of what has hitherto passed for the true Catholick Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation I shall not dispute this Point with him now to shew what he means will be Confutation enough We must not he says look upon the Doctrine of the Trinity as a nice abstracted Speculation designed for the exercise of our Vnderstandings but as a plainer Revelation of God's Love and Good Will towards men and a greater Motive and Incitement to Piety than ever we had before this Doctrine was delivered This we grant That the Christian Faith is not designed merely for Speculation but for Practice but yet all the Doctrines of Faith are matters of Speculation and the Doctrine it self must be believed in order to Practice or else the Revelation of it is of no use at all The Question then is Whether we must not believe the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation Or how much we must believe of them Must we not believe That God has in a true and proper sense an Eternal and Only-begotten Son begotten from Eternity of his own Substance his True Perfect Living Subsisting Image Must we not believe That this Eternal Son of God did in a true proper Notion become Man by uniting Human Nature to his own Person and that in Human Nature he suffered and died for the Redemption of Mankind Truly No if I understand him All this is a nice abstracted Speculation and a very perplexing exercise of our Vnderstandings and we are bound to understand no more by God's giving his own Son to dye for us but his Love and Gâ—od Will to Mankind as it is a great Motive and Excitement to Piety But how can we learn God's Love and Good Will to Mankind from this Doctrine if it be not true if God have no Eternal Son and therefore did not give his Eternal Son to become Man and to suffer and dye for us The Gospel proves the great Love of God to Sinners by the Incarnation Death and Sufferings of his Son that if we do not believe this Doctrine strictly and literally true we lose the Gospel Proof of God's Love to Sinners and of the Virtue and Efficacy of Christ's Death and Sacrifice to expiate our sins and of the Power of his Intercession as the Eternal Only-begotten and Well-beloved Son of God But our Considerer will not allow this These Titles and Relations must be chiefly câ—nsidered with reference to the great Work of Man's Salvation But must they not be considered as Three distinct proper Persons in the Unity of the Godhead who have their distinct Parts and Offices in the Redemption of Mankind No but distinct Relations and Offices of One and the same single Divine Person who is the One Supreme God and is All in One Father Son and Holy Ghâ—st Saviour Mediator Comforter But how then can these Titles and Relations signify an Eternal Distinction in the Godhead an Eternal Fâ—tâ—â—r an Eternal Son and an Eâ—ernal Spirit when thâ—se Offices relating only to Man's Salvation were not Eternal This he resolves into the Eternal Purpose and Decree of God to redeem Mankind by the Death and constant Mediation of a Man chosen and enabled for this work by the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him And in consideration of
a great and unconceivable Mystery and has always been owned to be so by the Catholick Church we have no Notion or Idea of it but no more have we of the Eternal Existence of the Divine Nature it self without any Cause or Beginning or of the Creation of all things out of nothing or of the Natural Production and Propagation of Created Beings our present Inquiry is not concerning the Mystery of the Eternal Generation but concerning the Unity of the Divine Nature in Father and Son in what sense they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Substance and that the Eternal Generation gives an account of For if the Father communicate his whole Nature and Substance to the Son without division and separation which is the Catholick Faith the Son must of necessity have the same one Substance with the Father for a whole same of a whole same cannot be another and therefore must be the same One Substance whole of whole St. Athanasius reasons very subtilly against the Arians upon this Point They taught that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made of nothing as other Creatures are Then says he he must be the Son of God by participation what is it then he partakes of Other Creatures are the Sons of God by the participation of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit is given by the Son not the Son as the Eternal Son of God sanctified by the Spirit for the Spirit receives all from Father and Son not the Son from the Spirit He must then partake of the Father But what is that and whence is it If that he partakes of be something Extra-essential to the Father which is not the Father's Nature and Essence then he does not partake of the Father but of that Extra-essential Being whatever it is and then he is not second to the Father that whereof he partakes being before him nor is he the Son of the Father but of that Extra-essential Being or Nature by the participation of which he obtains the Title and Character of Son and God But this is very absurd since the Father calls him his Beloved Son and the Son calls God his own Father and therefore is not a Son by Extra-essential Participations but Son is the name of him who participates in the Nature and Substance of the Father But then again If that which is participated of the Father be not the Nature and Essence of the Son the same Absurdity returns there being some middle Term between these two To be of the Father and the Nature of the Son whatever that Nature be which proves that the Nature of the Son is not of the Father and therefore he is not the Son of the Father for Nature makes a Son All this being so absurd it is necessary to own That the true genuine Son of God is all that He is of the Essence and Substance of the Father For when God is thus wholly and perfectly participated it is the same thing as to say that God begets and to beget signifies that he begets a Son And therefore though all things by the Grace of God partake of the Son he will not allow us to say That the Son partakes of any thing which implies that the Son is one thing and that which he partakes of is another But that which is the participation of the Father that is the Son This is the most Natural and Essential Unity that is possible to be conceived That the whole Son is nothing else but the whole entire immediate participation of the Father's Substance and therefore must be as perfectly One with the Father as the Father is One for there is but one and the same Substance which is the Substance of the Father and by an Eternal and Ineffable Generation the Substance also of the Son Though Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Real distinct Persons and each of them have the whole entire Divine Nature in himself yet there is but One Divine Nature One Divinity in them all and therefore they are but One God This is the Account St. Hilary gives why we may say God is One and One and One but not Three Gods Because the Divine Nature is not multiplied with the Persons Thus speaking of the Father and Son he tells us That the Son is One of One and therefore they are both One For between One and One that is One of One there is no Sâ—cond Nature of the Eternal Divinity For as he adds elsewhere The Nature of the Father is born in the Nativity of the Son and for this Reason the Father and Son are One God because the Son is God of the Nature of God But their being thus One does not destroy the subsisting Nature of the Son but in God and God preserves the Nature of One God And therefore the true absolute and perfect Profession of our Faith is To confess God of God and God in God not after the manner of Bodies but by Divine Powers not by transfusion of Nature into Nature but by the Mystery and Power of the Divine Nature For God is of God not by dissection protension or derivation but by the Power of the Divine Nature subsists by his Birth in the same Nature Not so the same Nature that he who is born is he himself who begets for how is that possible since he is begotten but he who is begotten subsists in the same whole entire Nature which is his whole entire Nature who begets And this Perfect Unity Sameness Identity of Nature he resolves into the Mystery of the Divine Generation Virtute Naturoe Mysterio potestate Naturoe for since he is not begotten of any other Substance or Nature but of his Father's Substance and that not after the manner of Bodies by dissection protension or derivation but by the Mysterious Power of the Divinity which communicates it self whole and perfect there must be the same One Divinity in both And he appeals to every man's Understanding what the natural Interpretation of these words are That the Son is of the Father for can of the Father signify that he is of any other than the Father or that he is of nothing or that he is the Father himself He is not of another because he is of the Father for a Son cannot be God if he have any other Father but God and therefore is God of God He cannot be of nothing because he is of the Father and whoever is begotten must be begotten of the Nature of him who begets He is not the Father himself because he is of the Father and the Birth of the Son speaks a necessary relation to the Father Now a Son who is so of the substance of the Father as to be nothing but what he is from the Father and to be all that the Father is whole of whole must have the same One Nature Substance and Divinity with the Father for whole of whole must be the
distinguished nor separated but is perfectly One Same Undivided Essence and therefore Vna Substantia though not Vnus Subsistens One Substance though not One but Three that subsist What I have thus briefly represented I hope I have proved in the First Chapter from the Authority of Scripture and Reason founded on Scripture And from what I have already discoursed of the Doctrine of the Fathers it may appear to careful and intelligent Readers who use such Application as this Argument deserves and requires that this is their Unanimous Sense also But yet as far as it is possible to clear this Matter more fully and vindicate the Fathers and Schools from those Obscurities Inconsistences and Contradictions which are generally charged on them in so concerning an Article I shall reassume this Matter and particularly shew 1. That what they call a Divine Person is the Divine Essence and Substance and nothing else 2. That this Divine Essence and Substance as constituting these Divine Persons is proper and peculiar to each and incommunicable to one another and therefore that this Divine Essence and Substance as subsisting distinctly in Three is no more numerically One than their Persons are One. 3. What difference they made between Nature and Essence and Hypostasis and Person 4. Whether the Catholick Faith of a Real and Substantial Trinity can be as reasonably and intelligibly explained by the Notion of One Singular Substance in the Divinity as by asserting Three Personal Substances or Suppositums And whether the Singularity of the Divine Essence in this Notion deliver the Asserters of it from any Inconveniences and Objections which the contrary Opinion is thought liable to 1. As for the first That a Divine Person is the Divine Essence it is and must be in some sense acknowledged by all who profess the Faith of a Real Trinity for there cannot be a Real Trinity of Divine Persons if each Person be not True and Perfect God that is the whole Divinity or Divine Nature and Essence And therefore those who assert in the strictest sense the Singularity of the Divine Essence yet assert That this One Singular Essence subsists distinctly in each Divine Person which whether it be to be understood or not yet is an acknowledgment that there is no conceiving a Divine Person without the Divine Essence But we need not be beholden to any man for this Concession for the thing is plain and evident in all Catholick Writers Petavius has very critically observed the different use of Words in Catholick Writers relating to this Venerable Mystery such as Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis Subsistence Person c. which sometimes occasioned great Misunderstandings between them and is to this day made a pretence of charging the Fathers with great Uncertainty and Obscurity and with contradicting each other and themselves This of late has been much insisted on in order to disparage the Authority of â— as Zealous Contentious Bigots who neither understood one another nor themselves nor the Catholick Faith but so confounded Terms that we can never certainly know what they meant or used such dangerous Terms that if we rely too much upon them we mâ—y easily mâ—stake Hâ—resy for the Catholick Faith Were this true our Case would be very bad but two or three Observations will set this matter in a clear light 1. That very Ambiguity which the Fathers are charged with in the use of Words does certainly prove that by a Divine Person they meant the Divine Essence Nature and Substance The plain Case is this The Catholick Fathers did universally own and profess a Trinity in Unity Three Persons and One God So that there was no difference in their Faith how different soever their words were The most common Terms whereby they exprest the Unity of the Godhead were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vna Esseâ—â—â—â— Vna Natura Vna Substantia One Essâ—nce One Nâ—ture One Substance and a Trinity they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Hypostates and the Latins Three Persons but sometimes we meet in undoubted Catholick Writers wiâ—â— the direct contrary Expressions such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tres Substantiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances and One Hypostasis The usual way of reconciling this seeming Contradiction is by saying That when these Fathers use such Expressions as Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances they do not understand this of Three divers or specifically different Essences Natures Substances which is Arianism but of Three Persons and when they affirm that there is but One Hypostasis they do not by One Hypostasis mean One Person which is Sabellianism but One Nature Essence or Substance As we know this very Controversy about One or Three Hypostases was thus composed in the Alexandrian Synod where Athanasius presided And no doubt but this is the true Solution since those who were neither Arians nor Sabellians could not understand such Expressions in any other sense But then the Question still remains How this Ambiguity should happen or how it comes to pass that such contradictory Terms as One Essence and Three Essences One Substance and Three Substances One Hypostasis and Three Hypostases should both be Orthodox and Catholick Now the only Account I can give of this matter is this That these Terms Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis which originally signifies Substance of which more presently may signify as the Philosopher speaks either the First or Second Substance either the common Nature which has the same notion and definition common to the whole Kind as Humanity which is the same in all Men or a Singular Subsisting Nature and Substance which in Creatures we call Individuals and in reasonable Creatures Persons Now in analogy to this common Specifick Nature which is one and the same in all its Individuals the Catholick Fathers taught but One Essence Nature Substance and in this sense but One Hypostasis in the Godhead that is a Consubstantial Trinity in analogy to the several Individuals of the same Species in whom only this common Nature did really and actually subsist they ordinarily asserted Three Hypostases sometimes as we see Three Natures and Essences and Substances in the Trinity that is Three Real Substantial subsisting Persons and in this sense Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances was accounted Catholick Doctrine St. Hilary allows Tria in Substantia or Tres Subsâ—antias Three in Substance or Three Substances for Tres Subsistentium Personas Three Subsisting Persons And St. Greg. Nyssen in answer to Eunomius who asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three Essences or Substances says That if he understood this distinction of Substances only in opposition to Sabellius who gave three Names to one Suppositum or Substance that not only he but all Catholick Christians assented to it His only fault being in this Case that he uses improper words Three Essences for Three Hypostases Now that which I observe from hence is this That had they not believed each Divine Person to
be distinctly by himself the Divine Nature Essence and Substance there could never have been any occasion for this Dispute about One Essence Nature Substance Hypostasis and Three Essences Natures Substances Hypostases nor for that known Distinction by which they reconciled this difference between Essence and Hypostasis that the first signifies something analogous to a Common Specifick Nature the second to Individuals If the Divine Nature subsisted in Singularity or were but One Singular Subsisting Nature Essence and Hypostasis must signify the same thing for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essence is Substance and so is Hypostasis and in this sense they must both signify a first Substance and then one singular Subsisting Nature or Substance and three singular Subsisting Natures and Substances is an irreconcilable Contradiction Had the Singularity of the Divine Nature been the Catholick Faith we should never have heard of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Common Nature and Essence of the Divinity for Singular and Common are express Contradictions and a Singular Subsisting Nature can have nothing thing analogous in it to a Common Specifick Nature If each Divine Person be not the Divine Nature Essence Substance there can be no Pretence that Essence and Substance should ever signify a Person nor can any Interpretation make Three Essences and Substances Catholick Doctrine if there be no sense wherein Three Persons may Orthodoxly be called Three Essences and Substances as there can't be if a Person as a Person be not Essence and Substance And on the other hand if Hypostasis which is the peculiar and appropriate Name whereby the Greek Fathers denote a Person do not signify Essence and Substance it could never be Orthodox to say that there is but One Hypostasis no more than it is to say that there is but One Person in the Trinity 2. But to set aside this Dispute concerning Three Essences Three Natures Three Substances and One Hypostasis in the Trinity which though allowed to be Catholick yet were sparingly and cautiously used because they were liable to Heretical Senses I observe farther That these words Essence Nature Substance are distinctly applied to each Person of the Holy Trinity which could not be Orthodox were not each Person distinctly in himself Essence Nature Substance What I have already discoursed with relation to Sabellianism and upon several other occasions sufficiently proves this and I shall not trouble my Readers with a needless Repetition Petavius owns it and has given several Instances of it That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentia Natura Substantia do not always signify the common Essence of the Divinity but the Divine Persons that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Person of the Father and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Person of the Son which is undoubtedly true but still Essence signifies Essence and Nature Nature and Substance Substance and the only reason he has to say That in this construction the Words signify a Person is because they are used singularly and construed with the name of a Person as the Essence and Substance of the Father or of the Son But this is no reason if the Essence be not the Person if the Essence of the Fâ—ther do not signify that Essence which is the Person of the Father and the Essence of the Son that Essence which is the Person of the Son For if a Divine Person be not the Divine Essence Essence can never signify Person And yet if they do believe that each Divine Person is by himself in his own Person Essence and Substance the whole undivided Divinity I cannot imagine the reason of this Criticism why they should be more afraid to say the Essence and Substance of the Father than the Person of the Father unless it be that this does not so well agree with their Notion of the singularity of the Divine Essence as I doubt indeed it will not especially if we add the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Unbegotten and begotten Substance the one the Person of the Father the other of the Son of which more hereafter but this is not to learn our Faith from the Fathers but to expound them by our preconceived Opinions 3 dly I observe farther That all those words which are more peculiarly appropriated to signify the Divine Persons were always used by Catholick Writers in the notion of Substance and were never thought Catholick in any other sense Hypostasis is the most received word among the Greek Fathers to signify a Person and One Essence and Three Hypostases was the Catholick Language Now it is agreed on all hands That Hypostasis literally signifies Substance and as I have already observed the only dispute about it was that some by Hypostasis understood the Common Nature and Substance in the notion of Essence and for that reason asserted That there is but One Hypostasis as there is but One Essence in the Trinity others understood a singular Subsisting Nature and Substance and in this sense asserted Three Hypostases but none of them ever understood Hypostasis in any other notion but that of Substance either a Common or Individual Substance And to prevent this Ambiguity as far as they could which might conceal very different Heresies Sabellianism on one hand and Arianism on the other and many times occasioned the Orthodox to suspect each other of these opposite Heresies though Essence and Hypostasis signified much the same thing yet they appropriated the name Essence to signify a Common Nature and Substance and Hypostasis to signify Individuals As we learn from St. Basil Greg. Nyssen Damascen and many other Catholick Writers who assign this difference between Essence and Hypostasis But yet this did not wholly silence this Dispute among the Greeks much less did it satisfy the Latin Fathers who knew no difference between Essentia Substantia but translated the Homoousion by Vnius Substantiae and therefore it was as great Heresy to them to say Three Substances as they translated the Greek Hypostases as to say Three Essences in the Trinity St. Austin professes That he knew not what the Greeks meant by One Essence and Three Substances and for the same reason it is well known St. Ierom rejected Three Substances for both by Essence and Substance they understood a Common Nature which made it Heresy indeed to assert Three Substances which in this acceptation of the word must signify Three divers Substances which specifically differ And therefore tho they did not reject the Greek Faith but did believe as heartily as they that each Person by himself was perfect Hypostasis and Substance and rejected the Sabellian One Hypostasis and One Substance yet they did not like the Phrase of Three Hypostases and Three Substances for they knew no difference between Three Substances and Three Essences and by both understood Three different Kinds and Species of Beings And for this Reason both to secure the Catholick Faith from such
Terms can belong for there is no such thing in created Nature and therefore we can have no Idea of it It is abundantly sufficient in this Case that we have a clear and distinct Notion of One Substance and Three Hypostases in the Essential Unity and Distinction of Father Son and Holy Ghost Three subsisting Relations in One Individual Essence and Substance though when we abstractedly consider these Terms of One Substance and Three Hypostases we can form no consistent Notion or Idea of it And now let our Socinian Adversaries who talk so loud of Absurdities Contradictions Nonsense false Counting and Tritheism try their skill to make good these Charges against the Divine subsisting Relations in the Unity of the same Individual Essence SECT IX A more particular Inquiry into the Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Nature and Person with an Account of some Catholick Forms of Speech relating to the ever Blessed Trinity BUT since one Nature and Essence and Three Hypostases or Persons is the Catholick Language and necessary to guard the Faith from those Two Extremes of Sabellianism and Arianism it will be necessary to consider how to apply these Ecclesiastical Terms to the Three and One in the ever Blessed Trinity And here were I so disposed I might enter into a very large and perplext Dispute but my design as far as possibly I can attain it is only to explain what the Catholick Fathers meant by these Terms and to give a plain and sensible Notion of them And after what I have already so largely discoursed concerning Nature and Hypostasis I have little more to do than to compare them together and to shew in what the Catholick Fathers placed this Distinction And as nothing is of greater consequence than rightly to understand this matter so nothing requires greater Caution nor greater Application of Mind Whosoever is conversant in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers must acknowledge it not only reasonable but necessary to distinguish between their Faith and their Philosophy Their Faith which they received srom the Scriptures and the Universal Tradition of the Catholick Church is plain and simple and the same in all That there is but One God who has an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit that Father Son and Holy Ghost are each of them by himself True and Perfect God and all but One God which is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that they are in a true and proper Sense Three and One This is the Catholick Faith wherein they all agree but then those Philosophical Terms which the importunities of Hereticks who corrupted either the Faith of the Unity or Trinity forced them to use in the Explication of this Mystery are of a different Consideration These have not always been the same nor have all agreed in them and the wisest Men have owned great Improprieties in them all when applied to this Sacred Mystery and indeed it is impossible to be otherwise for that infinite Difference and Diversity there is between the Divine and Humane Nature nay all created Nature can never admit of any Common Terms proper to express both The most perfect Creatures bear only some imperfect Analogy and Resemblance to what we conceive of God and therefore when we apply such Words and Terms to the Divine Naturâ— as are borrowed from Creatures and we have no other we must understand them only by way of Analogy and Accommodation and when we expound such Terms as are used by the Catholick Fathers in such an accommodated Sense we must apply them no further than that particular Matter they intended to represent by them I have already shâ—wn this in several particular Passages relating to the Homoousion but now I am more particularly to consider the difference between Essence and Hypostasis and I shall only shew how the matter of fact stands what has occasioned this difficulty what the true state of the Controversy is and how we may form some sensible notion of this Distinction and if I should mistake in so nice a Point as this I hope it will be a pardonable Mistake while I make no change in the Catholick Faith and intend it only as an Essay if it be possible to silence or qualify the Dispute about words The Greek Fathers attribute all the Heresies relating to the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to this one Mistake that Essence and Hypostasis are the same for then if there be but One Essence in the Blessed Trinity there must consequently be but One Hypostasis which is Sabellianism or if there be Three Hypostases there must be Three Natures and Essences either in the Arian or Tritheistick Notion Thus with reference to the Incarnation two Natures must be two Persons or Hypostases as Nestorius taught or One Person must be but One mixt and compounded Nature too which was the Heresy of Eutyches This some Fathers thought a fundamental Error in Philosophy introduced by Aristotle who makes the first Substance which is the only true and proper Substance to be that which is predicated of no Subject nor is in any Subject that is what we call a Subsisting Individual as this Man or this Horse And therefore Theorianus observes That the Catholick Fathers understood Essence and Hypostasis in a very different sense from the Greek Philosophers that is by Essence and Substance they did not mean one singular Individuum or singular Nature and Substance as Aristotle did but a common Nature not a common Notion as Genus or Species which are Aristotle's second Substances but a common Subsisting Nature which is one and the same whole and perfect in every Individual of the same kind And what Aristotle call'd his first Substance a singular Subsisting Nature that they called Hypostasis a common Subsisting Nature with its individuating Characters and Properties It is evident some Ages past before these words Essence and Hypostasis were thus nicely distinguished or at least before this Distinction was so unanimously received for as I have already observed these Words were used very promiscuously which occasioned the Alexandrian Schism and it does not appear to me that this Distinction was setled by Athanasius and the Bishops with him in that Synod as some seem to think though soon after it generally prevailed as we may learn from St. Basil Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril of Alexandria Damascen Leontius Theorianus Theodorus Abucara Ignatius Sinaita and generally all the Catholick Writers of the Eutychian and Severian Age who universally agree in this That Essence and Hypostasis differ as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that which is Universal differs from what is Proper and Singular Now so far these Fathers were certainly in the right That if they must apply Philosophical Terms to Divine Mysteries which the Cavilling Objections of Hereticks made necessary there was an absolute necessity for them to change their signification for as there is nothing common to
the Son of this One God the Father and the Spirit of God be the Spirit of this same One God And though the Son of God be God and the Spirit of God be God that is the Name of their Nature not of their Persons and therefore can no more be multiplied with the Persons than the Divine Nature is The Son of God is God but it is Authoritate Paternae Naturae as St. Hilary speaks not by any Absolute Godhead of his own but in right of his Father's Nature and Divinity which he received by an Eternal Generation Thus it must be where there is but One Absolute Nature with its Internal Processions Let us put the Case in a Human Mind and suppose That its Word and Spirit were Distinct Living Intelligent Hypostases in the Mind Essential Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature perfectly the same with the Mind but distinct Hypostases but would any one for this Reason call these Three Three Men or Three Minds And yet such a Living Subsisting Word and a Living Subsisting Spirit would as perfectly have the Nature of the Mind as the Mind it self but neither of them would be an absolute Mind but one the Word of the Mind and the other the Spirit of the Mind not Three Minds but One Mind with its Essential Word and Spirit This though an Imaginary Case gives us a sensible representation of the difference between the Eternal Mind and its Eternal Word and Spirit which I freely acknowledge cannot properly be called Three Infinite Minds and Spirits for though the Eternal Subsisting Word is an Infinite Mind and so the Eternal Subsisting Spirit yet Mind as well as God is the Name of their Nature not of their Persons which is Identically one and the same in all This as I take it is what some Learned and truly Catholick Writers mean in distinguishing the several Acceptations of this Name God That sometimes it signifies the Divine Nature and Essence in general as when we say The Trinity is One God that is One Divinity that there is but One Divine Nature and Essence in all the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity Sometimes it signifies Personally as when we say The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God that is the Person of the Father the Person of the Son and the Person of the Holy Ghost is God But then they are still forced to acknowledge that the Name God is not predicated Vnivocally of all Three Persons but that the Father is God in a more excellent and eminent Sense than the Son is God or the Holy Ghost God as being God of himself an Unbegotten Self-originated God the Fountain of the Deity to the Son and Holy Spirit Upon which account he is so often by the Catholick Fathers called the One God and the only True God Now all this is very True and very Catholick but with all submission it seems to me to be an inconvenient way of speaking which perplexes the Article with different Senses and is liable to great Cavils and Misconstructions as the Examples of Dr. Payn and the Author of the 28 Propositions witness and when most dexterously managed will sooner silence than convince an Adversary The Divine Essence must be considered only as in the Divine Persons when we say That the Trinity is One God the true meaning is That Three Persons are One God and the general abstract Notion of the Unity of Essence does not account for this but the Unity of the Divine Essence in Three Thus to say That the Father is God in the highest sense of that Name God and that He alone strictly speaking is a Being absolutely perfect because he alone is Self-existent and all other Beings even the Son and Holy Ghost are from him may be expounded to a very Catholick Sense and was certainly so meant but is liable to great Cavils when Men take more pains to pick Quarrels with Words than to understand an Author An Absolutely Perfect God and a God that wants any Perfection sounds not only like Two Gods but like Gods of different Kinds for every diversity of Nature alters the Species All that is meant by this is certainly True and Catholick and taught in express words by the Primitive Fathers That the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father that the Son is all that the Father is excepting his being the Father and unbegotten that is excepting Paternity and Self-existence or Self-origination and that upon this Account the Father is eminently called the One God the Son God of God that is God as the Son of God What I have now discoursed seems to me to give the fairest Account of this Matter I take the Name God always to signify a Person in whom the Divine Nature is not the Divinity in the Abstract and then the Name God must belong to any Person after the same manner as the Divine Nature is his that is he must be called God in no other sense than as he is God Now as I have already shewn there is but One Absolute Divinity with Two Internal Processions in the Unity and Identity of Nature And if we make this our Rule of Speaking as we must do if this be the Catholick Faith of the Trinity and we will fit our words to the nature of things then it is very plain That the Name God absolutely belongs only to him who is this Absolute Divinity that is the Person of the Father that no other Person is God in recto absolutely and simply God but only he that he is the One God the only True God as both the Scripture and Fathers own But what becomes then of the Son and Holy Ghost Is not the Son God and the Spirit God Yes the Name and Title of God belongs to them as the Divine Nature does that is not absolutely as to the Absolute Divinity but as to Divine Processions to Divine Subsisting Relations in the Unity of the Godhead that is the Second Person in the Trinity is God but not in recto as God signifies that Person who is the Divinity but as the Son of God as habens Deitatem having the Divinity not absolutely and originally but by Communication by Eternal Generation And so the Holy Spirit is not absolutely God but the Spirit of God and God only as the Spirit of God as an Internal Procession in the Divine Nature But in what sense then can we say That the Trinity is One God or that Three Persons are One God Must we not necessarily own that God in these Propositions is taken Essentially for the Deity in the abstract and not as considered in any One Person For will we say That the Trinity or Three Persons are but One Person No! and yet in this Proposition The Trinity is One God by One God I understand One who is absolutely God One Absolute Divinity which is the Father who has indeed a Son and Spirit in the Unity of his
several Individuals we form a Notion of one common Nature which belongs to them all as the Notion of Humanity or Human Nature which belongs to all men and affords a common Name and a common definition to them But this is only the work of the mind for there is no such one common Human Nature actually existing in all Mankind but every man is a man by himself and has a particular Human Nature as he has a Soul and Body of his own which is not the Soul and Body of any other man in the world And thus Damascen owns it is with all Creatures of the same kind who in truth and reality are distinct separate Beings who subsist apart by themselves as Peter and Paul and all other men do and are united only in a common Notion not in a common subsisting Nature which is one and the same in all But then he tells us that it is quite otherwise in the Divine Nature which is a common Nature and yet but One not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not meerly in our notion and conception but in truth and reality the same One Divine Nature without the least diversity or separation actually and distinctly subsisting in Father Son and Holy Ghost which being perfectly the same is but One and really and substantially subsisting in Three is a common Nature which is equally and perfectly in them all Thus Damascen has declared his Opinion fully against the notional and specifick Unity of the Divine Nature that the Divine Nature is One only as Human Nature is One because it has one common Name and Definition which belongs to all of the same kind whereas there is no one common Human Nature in Subsistence but only in Notion But the same One Divine Nature actually subsists in Three and is the same One Divinity in Three And that this was the true Sense of all the Catholick Fathers will appear from considering some Notions which were common to them all 1. They all agree That there is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but One Divinity and One God and One God because but One Divinity and for this very reason nothing is more familiar with them than to call the Holy Trinity One God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One Divinity in Three perfect Hypostates Now will any man say That the One Divinity or One Divine Nature and One God is a meer Notion Is not the Unity of God the fundamental Article of Natural Religion And if this One Divinity does really immutably inseparably subsist in Three Divine Persons as it must do if these Three Divine Persons with respect to this One Divinity are naturally and inseparably One God Can this One common subsisting Divinity be a meer Notion which has no Hypostatical Subsistence but only subsists in Thought Can the Specifick Notional Unity of Human Nature make three men one man as the One common Divine Nature makes Three Persons One God If the Unity of the Divine Nature be but a Notion the Unity of God the Unity of the Trinity which is this One God must be a meer Notion also And so in truth and reality there is no more One God than there is but one man I readily grant That the Father may be and often is in a peculiar manner called God and the One God as distinguished from the Person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit but I deny that he is called the One God as considered without them or so much as in thought separated from them If we do not include the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead we must deny their Godhead also unless we will say that there is One God and besides him two Divine Persons each of which is God but not the One God Which must introduce a Plurality of separate Gods For if they be not One they are more than One and if One Person be the One God without the other they cannot be One God This shews what necessity there is of owning the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity to be the One God and One Divinity naturally and essentially One and then the necessary Consequence is That this One Divine Nature which actually and substantially subsists in Three distinct Divine Persons who for that reason are naturally and essentially One God cannot be a mere Common Specifick Nature but One Common Subsisting Nature But what possible Sense can we make of this One Common Subsisting Nature which is really actually indivisibly One and yet is Common that is does really and distinctly subsist in more than one To be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Common and to be One not in Notion as a Species is common to all the Individuals but in the truth and reality of Nature sounds very like a Contradiction When we say the Divine Nature is common to Three Persons and subsists distinctly in three we deny it to be One singular solitary Nature which can subsist but in one and constitute but One Person which was the Sabellian Notion of the Divine Unity which the Catholick Church condemned as destroying a Real Trinity as I have shewn at large But how then can this Common Nature which is not singular but subsists perfectly and distinctly in Three be actually and essentially One for a Natural Unity is a Numerical Unity is one in number which one would think should signify a singular Nature for so it does in all Creatures And when we speak of the Unity of the Divine Nature it cannot be one by composition which the absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature cannot admit This is the great difficulty which we must not expect perfectly to understand because a Finite Mind can never comprehend that is can never have an adequate notion of what is infinite But I shall give some account what the Catholick Fathers have said of this matter which will satisfy us that it is a natural not a mere Specifick Unity which they intended and will give us such a notion of this Venerable Mystery as will deliver it from all inconsistency and contradiction 2. I observe therefore That the Catholick Fathers lay the foundation of this Sameness and Homoousiotes of Nature in the Eternal Generation of the Son of the Substance of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Nicene Creed is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Son is not of nothing as all Creatures are but receives his whole Substance of the Substance of his Father St. Basil in express words makes Generation essential to the notion of the Homoousion For such Beings as upon account of likeness of Nature may be call'd Brothers to each other are not therefore Homoousious but when the Cause and that which actually subsists from or out of that Cause have the same Nature then they are Homoousious to each other And in opposition to that Perverse and Heretical Sense which some affixed to the word Homoousion that
it signified two made of the same Substance by the division and partition of it as two Shillings cut out of the same piece of Silver besides all other Blasphemies the same Father tells us That this destroys the Faith both of Father and Son for in this Sense to be of one Substance can make them no more than Brothers And I need not observe that all the Fathers prove the Son to be Consubstantial to the Father because he was not made nor created but begotten of his Father's Substance which does not refer merely to a specifick Sameness of Nature but to the substantial Communication of the same Nature from Father to Son which is therefore not in meer Notion and Idea but substantially the same in both for they would not allow that a mere specifick Sameness of Nature made Two Persons Consubstantial unless one of them received his Nature and Substance from the other And this seems no improbable account why the Nicene Fathers in their Anathema's added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they teach that the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Substance of his Father in opposition to his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of nothing they must by the Substance of the Father mean that Divine Nature and Substance which is the Person of the Father for there is no other Notion of begetting a Son of his Father's Substance nor is any other sense of the words directly and immediately opposed to his being made of nothing But then since Ousia does often signify a specifick Nature which the Philosophers call a second Substance to prevent this mistake they added Hypostasis which signifies a first Substance or a subsisting Nature and condemn those who say the Son is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of another Nature specifically different from the Nature of the Father as the Arians taught or that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any other Substance than that which is the Substance of the Father and consequently not begotten of the Father for both these are essential to the Notion of the Homoousion to have the same Nature for kind or the true perfect Divine Nature and to receive this Nature from the Father by a substantial Generation and the Council condemns those who deny both or either of these I must add one thing more to make this Notion complete that as the Son is begotten of the Substance of the Father so he receives his whole Substance from the whole Substance of the Father This is the constant Doctrine of the Fathers That the Son is Totus ex Toto Whole of Whole That the Divine Generation is not like Human Generations by corporeal Passions by a division of the Father's Substance by a partial efflux or emanation but the Father without any division diminution or alteration of his own Substance communicates his whole Divine Nature to the Son That the Son is perfectly and entirely all and the same that the Father is Thus they expound those sayings of our Saviour All that the Father hath is mine All things are delivered unto me of my Father As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son also to have life in himself Not to signify an external arbitrary Gift and Donation but the Eternal Communication of his whole Divine Nature to the Son that he is Life of Lâ—fe Light of Light God of God Very God of Very God For this Reason the Arians rejected the Homoousion because they thought it absolutely impossible that the Father should beget a Son of his own Substance without a division of his Substance that he should communicate the whole Dâ—vine Nature to his Son and have the same whole Divine Nature himself And the Fathers allow that this is above Human Comprehension as the Divine Nature it self is but think those men little consider the true measure of Human Understanding who will not believe that God has a Son because they cannot comprehend the inessable Mystery of the Eternal Generation The Scripture assures us that God has a Son that Eternal Word which was in the Beginning was with God and was God The very Notion of a Son signifies that he has the same Nature with his Father and receives his Being and Nature from his Father is Substance of his Father's Substance for thus all other Sons receive their nature and substance from their Parents The absolute simplicity of the Divine Nature whiâ—h has no Corporeity no Composition no Parts and therefore can be divided into none proves that the Divine Generation can have nothing like to Human Generations no more than God is like a man and therefore must be as much above Human Comprehension as the Divine Nature is We certainly know what it is not That it is not by any separation or division of Substance for the Divine Nature is a pure simple indivisible Monade but how this Monade can communicate it self we cannot tell But this we know That if a Monade does generate it must generate a perfect whole for when the whole is a simple indivisible uncompounded Monade it must generate its whole or nothing Thus much is evident That to communicate a whole perfect undivided Nature and Substance is the most perfect Generation He is the most perfect Father who communicates his whole Substance to his Son without division or separation who without ceasing to be what he was himself begets a Son wholly and perfectly the same with himself For the more perfectly One Father and Son are the more perfect is the Generation and they cannot be more One than to be One and the same Substance communicated whole and entire from Father to Son There is nothing like this in human Births for the imperfection of created Nature will not admit it the Father communicates the first Seeds and Principles of Life with part of his Substance but the Child is nourished grows and encreases to its just proportion by adventitious matter which never was the Substance of the Father and therefore Father and Son are not One Substance though the Father communicates the same specifick Nature with part of his Substance to his Son Now though we cannot conceive how a whole begets a whole yet we must grant that this is the most perfect Generation for to generate is to communicate Nature and Substance to beget 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another self as the Ancients speak of the Divine Generation and then the more perfectly the Son is the Father's self the more perfect the Generation is and therefore thus God must beget a Son if he begets at all for he must beget in the most perfect manner And thus the Son must be begotten if he be begotten at all for if he be a Son he must be of his Father's Substance and that not a part but the whole for the Divine Substance must be a perfect indivisible Inseparable Monade This Eternal Generation of the Son is