therefore St. Austin represents this much better by that Self-consciousness which is between those distinct Faculties in us of Memory Understanding and Will which know and feel whatever is in each other We remember what we understand and will we understand what we remember and will and what we will we remember and understand and therefore these Three Faculties which are thus intimate to each other make one Man and if we can suppose Three Infinite Minds and Persons thus conscious of whatever is in each other as they are of themselves they can be but One numerical God But that this may not be thought a meer arbitrary and groundless conjecture I shall shew you that this is the true Scripture Notion of the Unity of the Godhead or of Three Persons and One God That the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Infinite Minds really distinct from each other that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost either the Father or the Son is so very plain in Scripture that I shall not spend time to prove it especially since it is supposed in this Controversie for when we enquire how these Three Infinite Minds or Persons are One God it supposes that they are distinct and if there were any Dispute about it what I shall say in explaining their Unity will prove their Distinction that they are Three distinct infinite minds 1. Let us then consider what the Unity is between the Father and the Son for so our Saviour tells us I and the Father are One 10 Iohn 30. And how they are One we learn from several places in this Gospel which as the Ancients tell us was wrote on purpose in opposition to the Heresie of Carinthus to prove that Christ was not meer Man but the Eternal Son of God and One with his Father Now 1 Iohn 1. the Evangelists call him the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Word of God the Eternal Wisdom and Reason of God and therefore as intimate to God as his own Eternal Word and Wisdom as intimate as a Man 's own Wisdom and Reason is to him and therefore he adds that this Word which was in the beginning was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with God as we translate it which cannot signifie a local presence but an essential union or a being in God as Christ tells us The Father is in me and I in him 10 Iohn 38. for before place was made or any thing to fill it to be with God could signifie nothing else but to subsist in him and therefore v. 18. the Apostle expounds this being with God by being in the bosome of the Father which cannot signifie an External Union because God has no External Bosom but Bosom signifies the very Essence of God and if we could distinguish Parts in God the most inward and secret Recesses of the Divine Nature Now this intimate Union and In-being when we speak of an essential Union of pure and infinite Minds is a mutual consciousness and if I may so speak an inward sensation of each other to know and feel each other as they know and feel themselves To represent this plainly and intelligibly if it be possible to the meanest understanding I shall consider wherein the most perfect Union of created Spirits consist which are distinct and seperate Beings from each other wherein the Union of the Divine Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity answers this and wherein it excels it Now created Spirits as Angels and Humane Souls are then most perfectly united to each other when they most perfectly know one another and know all that each other knows and perfectly agree in all they know which is an Union in Knowledge when they perfectly love one another have the same will the same affections the same interests and designs when they are a kind of Unisons which move and act a like as if one Soul animated them both This is that perfect Unity which is so frequently and earnestly recommended to Christians both by Christ and his Apostles as we may see every-where in Scripture And the very same Union with this there is between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity an Union in knowledge in love in will in works The Son perfectly knows the Father and therefore knows all that the Father knows this St. Iohn means when he tells us That he is in the Bosom of the Father 1 Iohn 18. No man hath seen God at any time that is no Man ever had a perfect knowledge of God which is here called seeing because sight gives us the most distinct and perfect knowledge of things The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Where it is plain to be in the bosom of the Father is put to signifie the most perfect and intimate knowledge of him as in ordinary speech to take any Man into our bosom signifies to impart all our Secrets to him but our Saviour tells us this in plain words that the Father perfectly knows the Son and the Son the Father 10 Iohn 15. As the Father knoweth me so know I the Father Thus the Father loveth the Son 3 Joh. 25.5 Joh. 20. And the Son loveth the Father 14 Iohn 31. Thus the Son has no will but his Fathers 5 Iohn 20. I can of my own self do nothing as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which hath sent me 6 John 38. For I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me 4 John 34. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work Thus whatever Christ did or spake it was in conformity to his Father what he saw and heard and learnt of him 5 John 19. The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for whatsoever things he doth these also doth the Son likewise 12 John 49. I have not spoken of my self but the Father that sent me he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak This is as perfect an Union as Union signifies agreement and concord as can possibly be between two minds and spirits The like may be said of the Holy Ghost He perfectly knows the Father and his most secret Councels For the spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 He is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation who inspired the Prophets and Apostles to declare God and his will to the World and therefore is most intimately acquainted with it himself Thus our Saviour comforts his Apostles when he was to leave them himself with the Promise of the Spirit who should guide them into all truth 16 Ioh. 13 14 15. Howbeit when he the spirit of truth is come he shall guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will
Beings are distinguished and united and then there will appear no difficulty or absurdity in the essential union of Three Minds by a mutual consciousness to each other That the essential unity of a Spirit consists in self-consciousness every man may feel in himself for it is nothing else which makes a Spirit One and distinguishes it from all other Spirits and therefore if Two Spirits were conscious to all that is in each other as they are to what they feel in themselves they would be united to each other by the same kind of unity which makes every individual Spirit One And why then should not this be thought an essential unity between the Divine Persons of the ever Blessed Trinity And is there any difficulty in conceiving this that Father Son and Holy Ghost should be thus intimately conscious to each other The Scripture plainly asserts that it is so as I have already proved and there is no impossibility in the thing nay if we will allow Three infinite Minds it is impossible it should be otherwise A finite created Spirit indeed is conscious only to itself and not to any other created Spirits but God who is an infinite Mind is conscious to all created Spirits dwells within us and sees all our Thoughts and Motions and Passions as perfectly as we do our own how he does this we know not that he does so the Scripture assures us and that there is nothing impossible in it our Reason will tell us for certainly that infinite Mind which made all finite Spirits can see them too that is see all the Thoughts and Passions of a Spirit which is the only way of seeing a Spirit and that can be no infinite Mind which does not for there is something which it does not know if it does not know our thoughts If then it be essential to an infinite Mind to be conscious to all Spirits if we allow that there are Three infinite Minds we must grant that they are mutually conscious to each other though an infinite Mind is conscious to all that is in created Spirits yet there is not a mutual consciousness and therefore no essential unity between them for created Spirits are not conscious to an infinite Mind as it is impossible they should unless they were infinite themselves for a Mind which is conscious to an infinite Mind that is a Mind which comprehends an infinite Mind must be infinite But it is a contradiction to say there are Three infinite Minds unless they are mutually conscious to each other for if there be any thing in one which is not in the other they cannot both be infinite unless one infinite can be greater than another The truth is we have no positive Notion of Infinity but only in a Mind and it is impossible to conceive any Three Beings that are infinite but only Three infinite Minds and Three Minds may be infinite but then they must be mutually self-conscious or they cannot all be infinite When we think of an infinite Being we are presently confounded with the corporeal Images of an infinite Substance or a Substance infinitely extended and this we can make nothing of for indeed it is demonstrable that there can be no such thing We have an imagination of infinite space which we can set no bounds to but how far soever we extend our thoughts we can still imagine something beyond that but then we have no Notion that space is any thing but only a capacity to receive something nay it seems to me to be nothing else but an imaginary Idea of Extension separated from Body and Matter as we conceive place to be distinct from the Body which fills the place and therefore that if the Body were annihilated place would remain still of the same dimensions which the Body had that filled it and this is the conception of an imaginary space infinitely extended But it is as plain as any demonstration that no real Being is infinitely extended for there is and can be no actual Extension infinite The Extension of a real Being must really and actually be and yet there is not a more self-evident Proposition than this that there is no Extension so great but that it may be extended farther and then there can be no such thing in being as an infinite Extension for if there were there would be such an Extension as could not be extended farther unless we can extend that which is actually infinite already We may easily observe what it is that cheats us into the Opinion of infinite Extension as if there were such a real thing viz. That we cannot see to the end of all possible Extension we cannot extend our thoughts so far but we can imagine something farther and therefore we fancy that there is something infinitely extended though we cannot comprehend it or see to the end of it which would be a contradiction to see to the end of that which has none But we should observe that it is not the defect of our imagination that we cannot conceive an infinite Extension but Reason tells us that there neither is nor can be any such Extension but what may be extended farther now what cannot be cannot be a real thing for whatever is real is It is exactly the same case in Numbers there neither is nor can be an infinite number because there is no number so great nor can any number be so great but it may be made greater by adding to it so that Numbers Extension and the same may be said of Time and Succession are called infinite not that they have any real and positive infinity but because we can add to them without end which is a demonstration that they neither are nor can be infinite for what is infinite is capable of no additions and there can be no Number Extension or successive Duration but what is capable of infinite additions and therefore is at an infinite distance from being infinite By this time I suppose every one is convinc'd that infinite Extension does not belong to the Idea of a God because there is no such thing in Nature and if infinite Extension does not no Extension can for nothing is God but what is infinite Though the truth is this very word infinite confounds our Notions of God and makes the most perfect and excellent Being the most perfectly unknown to us for infinite is only a negative term and signifies that which has no end no bounds no measure and therefore no positive and determined Nature and therefore is nothing that an infinite Being had not use and custom reconciled us to that expression would be thought Nonsense and Contradiction for every real Being has a certain and determined Nature and therefore is not infinite in this sense which is so far from being a perfection that it signifies nothing real But since Custom has made it necessary to use this word it is necessary to explain what we mean by it That an infinite Being signifies a Being absolutely
and Intercession for us is not to be understood of a Verbal or Personal Mediation proceeding from a particular Knowledge of our Wants and Prayers and thus we have already lost this Faculty in Christ of knowing all things but he Mediates by his Merits that is not by his Expiation and Sacrifice but by the perfect Obedience and most acceptable Services that he has performed to God So that these Socinians are all of a mind as to this matter that whatever they seem to talk of Christ's Faculty of knowing all things and Ability to relieve all our Wants his Knowledge is only by Inspiration as the Knowledge of other Prophets is not an abiding inherent Faculty and does not extend to all things not to the present and particular Wants and Necessities of his Church much less of every particular Christian nay not to the prayers that are made to him and then I confess I see no reason to pray to him and his Ability to help is not an inherent Power to do those things for us which we need and which we pray for but only to intercede for us with God and that not particularly neither but only in general for he does not always know our particular Wants Christian Ears know not how to bear such talk as this which makes a Mediator and Mediatory Kingdom an empty insignificant Name and Title without any other Power but Prayers And that this is the Mind and Belief of our Historian I shall now briefly show and will leave all Men to judge whether this be not to ridicule the Scriptures and Christianity together 1. First then let us consider what the Knowledge of our Saviour is and two or three places will suffice for this purpose for they are very full and express St. Iohn tells of Christ He knew what was in man To which he answers The Knowledge which the Lord Christ had or now in his state of Exaltation hath of the secrets of mens hearts is the pure gift of God and revelation from God and the Divine Word abiding on him that is Divine Inspiration for he means no more by the Divine Word abiding on him this is a plain abuse of the Text and the Reason of it He knew what was in Man is the Reason assigned why he needed no External Information or Testimony of Man needed not that any one should testifie of man for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he himself knew what was in man and knew all men which according to the propriety of words signifies an inherent Personal Knowledge in opposition to any External Manifestation and therefore to Revelation it self for he always knew all men which cannot be done by Revelation which is particular and occasional But this is not our Dispute at present but only to show what this Socinian thinks of it The same he tells us with reference to the last Judgment when Christ shall judge the secrets of men the knowledge Christ hath or at the last Iudgment shall have of the secrets of hearts is purely by Revelation from God and the Divine Word communicated to him This he repeats again in answer to what Christ saith in the Revelations I am he which searcheth the reins and heart The knowledge which the Lord Christ had or hath of any ones secret thoughts is a Revelation made to him by God as it was also sometimes to former Prophets Prophets search the heart which was never said of any Prophet for to search the heart is to look into the heart and see the secrets there not to know them by Revelation that is know the thoughts and propensions of the heart by the Spirit or Inspiration of God in them But the Lord Christ hath a far greater measure of that Spirit than any of the former Prophets ever had that is God reveals more to Christ than ever he did to any former Prophets but it is only Revelation still not an inherent Knowledge In all these places to prove that Christ's knowing what is in man judging the secrets of men searching the reins and heart can signifie no more then that Christ has this Knowledge by Inspiration he proves from the first words of St. Iohn's Revelations The Revelation of Iesus Christ which God gave to him to shew unto his Servants things which must shortly come to pass Which does not signifie that this was a Revelation made to Christ but that Revelation which Christ made for though God is said to give it to him it is to shew unto his Servants that is by the appointment of God Christ shewed this Revelation to Iohn Thus when St. Iohn saw a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth he says This Text confirms what has been often said namely that the Knowledge which our Lord Christ now hath of Affairs on Earth is partly by means of those ministring Spirits which are sent forth into all the Earth as his eyes to see and relate the state of things for what other reason can they be here called his eyes I shall â—ot now dispute what the meaning of this is it is enough that we know his Opinion that Christ now in Heaven knows nothing of the Affairs on Earth but either by the Revelation of God or the Ministry of Angels and it seems notwithstanding the Divine Word abiding on him God does not reveal all things to him but he is fain to use the Ministry of Angels to be more perfectly acquanted with the Affairs of his Church And thus much for his Knowledge and I confess I desire a Mediator who knows more and in a more perfect manner 2. Let us now consider his Power which the Scripture speaks so magnificently of and which Christ himself calls all Power both in Heaven and Earth and yet our Socinian tells us that this all Power is no other Power but Intercession that Christ has no inherent Power in himself can do nothing at all but intercedes with God to do it He expresly tells us and lays it down as a Principle that Christ's Intercession is inconsistent with an inherent Power in him to hear and help us himself For if he doth hear our Prayers and can and doth by a Power constantly resident in him relieve our Wants to what purpose is he our Mediator with God What can be more evident then that here 7 Hebr. 25. Christ's saving us from the evils we either fear or labour under is ascribed not to his own inherent Power but to his Intercession with the Almighty Thus Christ promises to be always with his Church and a very comfortable Promise it is for we may expect a constant protection from him but our Historian tells us that Christ is neither present with us nor can help us himself bâ—t Christ is in the midst of and is with his People not by an immediate presence as God is but by his most powerful aid and help which
there the Effect is as early as its Cause because the Cause cannot subsist without its Effect as the Sun cannot be a Sun without Light and Fire cannot be Fire without Heat And this is the Case here the Son is begotten by the Father and is God of God Light of Light the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son but Father Son and Holy Ghost are essentially but One God and therefore unless the same One God can be afore and after himself in the Trinity there can be no afore or after but all Three Persons are Coeternal because they are essentially One Eternal God and it is in vain to confound our Minds with conceiving an Eternal Generation for that is as intelligible as an Eternal Being we can see the necessity of both but cannot comprehend either no more than we can Eternity It is demonstrable something must be Eternal and it is as certain that an Eternal Mind eternally knows it self and loves it self for there can be no infinite Mind without a reflex Knowledge of himself which is his Eternal Son nor without the love of himself and his One Image which is the Holy Spirit of which I have sufficiently discoursed already And thus we are come to the last part of our Task what concerns the Incarnation of Christ which after all that has been said to prove Christ to be the Eternal Son of God incarnate will take up no great time for what ever difficulties there may be in the Philosophy of the Incarnation or how God and Man is united into One Person it will not shake my Faith who see a thousand things every day which I can give no Philosophical Account of and which a little Philosophy would teach considering men not to pretend to give any account of and yet we believe our Eyes without understanding the Philosophy of things and why we should not believe a Divine Revelation to without it I know not But let 's hear what he has to say The right Faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Iesus Christ the Son of God is both God and Man Then the Lord Christ is two Persons for as he is God he is a Person Very right And as he is a Man he is a Person that we deny that he is a distinct Person from the Godhead when united to God But a rational Soul vitally united to a Human Body is a Person Right when it is by it self and so a Soul without a vital Union to a Human Body is a Person and a Beast which has no reasonable Soul but only an Animal Life as a Man has together with a Human Soul is a Person or a Suppositum or what he will please to call it but it is a distinct living subsisting Being by it self but when the Rational and the Animal Life are united in Man he is not two Persons a Rational and an Animal Person but one Person and therefore we neither need own Christ to be two Persons with Nestorius which yet is much more innocent than to deny his Godhead nor deny him either to be God or Man for he is God-Man in one Person as a Man is a Reasonable and Animal Creature united into One Person though we may find the reasonable and animal life subsisting apart and when they do so they are two and but one when united This is explained in the Creed by the Union of Soul and Body for as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is One Man so God and Man is One Christ which he says vainly enough is the only offer at Reason that is to be found in the whole Creed Well! we are glad any thing will pass with him though it be but for an offer at reason and let us hear how he confutes it 1. He says In the Personal Vnion of a Soul with a Body the Vnion is between Two finite things but in the pretended Personal Vnion of God to Man and Man to God the Vnion is between finite and infinite which on the Principles of the Trinitarians I wish he had told us what those Principles are is impossible For we must either suppose that finite and infinite are commensurate that is equal which every one knows is false or that the finite is united but to some part of the infinite and is disjoyned from the rest which all Trinitarians deny and abhor I beg your pardon Sir they were never so silly as to think of it but they abhor to see such Sacred Mysteries treated with so much Ignorance and Impudence Since he is for confuting the Doctrine of the Trinity by raising Difficulties about the manner of this Union how God and Man are united into One Person I desire he would first try his skill in inferior things and tell me how the parts of Matter hang together which though every Body thinks he knows I doubt no Body does Then I would desire to know how Soul and Body are united how a Spirit can be fastened to a Body that it can no way release it self though never so desirous of it till the vital Union which no Body knows what it is is dissolved Why the Soul can leave the Body when the Body is disabled to perform the Offices of Life but cannot leave it before The Soul I say which we Trinitarians believe to be a Spirit which can pass through Matter which cannot be touched or handled or held by Matter and yet feels the impressions of Matter is pleased or afflicted with them and sympathizes with the Body as if it could be cut by a Knife or burnt with a Fever or torn by wild Beasts as the Body is And since he apprehends there can be no Union without Commensuration and therefore a finite and infinite Being cannot be united because they are not Commensurate I desire to know whether he thinks the Soul and Body are Commensurate whether the Soul have parts as the Body has which answer to every part of the Body and touch in every Point These will be very new Discoveries if he can say any thing to them if he can't it is his best way to deny the Union of Soul and Body because he cannot understand it to assert that man has no Soul but only a Body because it is impossible that Matter and Spirit should ever be united into one Person and Life which is to the full as unreasonable as to deny the Personal Union of God and Man because he cannot understand how finite and infinite which are not Commensurate nor can be because neither a finite nor infinite Spirit have any parts to be measured can be united But in great good Nature he has found out a Salvo for the Trinitarians That God indeed is infinite and every Soul and Body even that of Christ finite yet the whole God and the whole Man are united because as the whole Eternity of God doth Coexist to a moment of time so the whole Immensity of God is in every Mathematical point of place
A VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION OF The Son of God OCCASIONED By the Brief NOTES on the Creed of St. Athanasius and the Brief HISTORY of the Vnitarians or Socinians and containing an Answer to both By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Master of the TEMPLE The Second Edition IMPRIMATUR Z. Isham R. P. D. Henrico Episc. Lond. Ã Sacris Ian. 9. 1690. LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1691. TO THE READER I Will make no Apology for publishing this Vindication of the Great and Fundamental Mysteries of our Religion for if ever it were necessary it is now when Atheists and Hereticks some openly some under a disguise conspire together to ridicule the Trinity and the Incarnation I confess the Book is too big could I have made it less as at first I intended but when I was once engaged I saw a necessity of going farther and I hope no man will have reason to complain that I have said too much but those who will find a great deal too much said for them to answer My Original Design was to vindicate the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation from those pretended Absurdities and Contradictions which were so confidently charged on them and this I 'm sure I have done for I have given a very easie and intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Vnity and if it be possible to explain this Doctrine intelligibly the Charge of Contradictions vanishes and whether men will believe this Account or not they can't deny but that it is very possible and intelligible and if we could go no farther that is enough in Matters of Revelation But I hope I have done a great deal more than this and proved That it is the true Scripture Account of it and agreeable to the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers and have vindicated the Scripture Proofs of a Trinity and Incarnation from the pitiful Sophistries of the late Socinian Historian I have not indeed answered particularly the whole Book in Order and Method as it lies which was too tedious a Work and not necessary but I have considered whatever was most material in it and have avoided nothing because it was hard to Answer but because it needed no Answer as I am ready to satisfie the World whenever a just Occasion calls for it for having dipt my Pen in the Vindication of so glorious a Cause by the Grace of God I will never desert it while I can hold a Pen in my Hand I must thankfully own that the writing of this Book has given me clearer and more distinct Notions of this Great Mystery then I had before which is the Reason why the Reader will find some things explained towards the end which I spoke doubtfully of at first as particularly the difference between the Eternal Generation of the Son and the Procession of the Holy Ghost and I hope this is a pardonable Fault The writing this Book has cost me many Thoughts and those who have a mind throughly to understand it must not think much if it cost them some and if they cannot be contented to bestow some serious Thoughts on it it will be lost labour to read it I pray God give success to it and open the Eyes of those Men before it be too late who are so industrious to write or disperse such Brief Notes and Brief Histories as are valuable for nothing but Blasphemy and Nonsense for I will be bold to say That Socinianism after all its pretences to Reason is one of the most stupid sensless Heresies that ever infested the Christian Church THE CONTENTS SECT I. COncerning the Nature of a Contradiction and how to know it page 1. Many Contradictions pretended where there are none as in the Notion of a Spirit and of God 3 How to discover when a pretended Contradiction is not real but in our imperfect Conception of things 4 It is absurd to dispute against the Being of any thing from the difficulty of conceiving it 5 What the natural Boundaries of Humane Knowledge are 9 SECT II. The Athanasian Creed contains nothing but what is necessary to the true Belief of the Trinity and Incarnation 10 The Dispute between the Greek and Lat. Church about the filioque 17 SECT III. Concerning the necessity of the Catholick Faith to Salvation and a Brief History of Athanasius 21 That the Catholick Faith is necessary to Salvation 25 What is meant by keeping the Catholick Faith whole and undefiled 28 The Scriptures being a compleat Rule of Faith do not make Athanasius's Creed an unnecessary Rule 29 The great usefulness of ancient Creeds 31 Pope Leo III. would not deny Salvation to those who disowned the filioque 33 What is meant by the Catholick Faith 35 The History of Athanasius 37 SECT IV. The Catholick Doctrine of a Trinity in Unity and Unity and Trinity explained and vindicated from all pretended Absurdities and Contradictions 45 What it is that makes any Substance numerically One 48 The Unity of a Spirit nothing else but Self-consciousness ibid. And therefore mutual consciousness makes Three Persons essentially and numerically One. 49 The unity of a Mind or Spirit reaches as far as its Self-consciousness does 50 That this is the true Scripture Notion of the Unity of the Father Son and Holy Ghost ibid. The Unity between Father and Son explained 51 The union of created Spirits an union in Knowledge Will and Love 52 The same union between Father Son and Holy Ghost ibid. But this which is only a moral union between Creatures is an essential union between Father Son and Holy Ghost as it is the effect of mutual Consciousness 55 This proved from Scripture as to the unity between Father and Son 56 This makes all Three Divine Persons coessential and coequal 58 That the Holy Spirit is One with Father and Son by a mutual Consciousness proved from Scripture 64 This Notion contains the true Orthodox Faith of a Trinity in Unity 66 For it does not confound the Persons but makes them distinct ibid. Nor divide the Substance but makes them numerically One 68 This makes the Doctrine of the Trinity as intelligible as the Notion of One God ibid. The material Images of Substance confound our Notions both of One God and of a Trinity in Unity 69 God must be considered as Eternal Truth and Wisdom 70 Wisdom and Truth a pure and simple Act and contains all Divine Perfections 71 Three infinite Minds must necessarily be mutually conscious to each other 74 No positive Notion of Infinity but only in a Mind 75 No infinite Extension 76 What the true Notion of Infinite is that it is absolute Perfection 78 That there are no absolute Perfections but those of a Mind 79 Extension is no Perfection nor to be Omnipresent by Extension 80 The same absolute Perfections of a Mind by a mutual Consciousness may be entire and equal in Three infinite Minds 81 This reconciles the
perfect equality and subordination of the Divine Persons ibid. And shows how each Person is God and all but one God 82 This gives an Account of the different modi subsistendi of which the Schools speak 83 And how the Operations of the Trinity ad extra are common to all Three Persons 85 An Answer to the Absurdities and Contradictions charged on the Doctrine of the Trinity by the Brief Notes 87 SECT V. The Doctrine of the Fathers and Schools about a Trinity in Unity reconciled to the foregoing Explication of it page 100 That the Fathers made the Three Divine Persons Three distinct infinite Minds 101 That Father Son and Holy Ghost are as distinct Persons as Peter James and John how to be understood 104 How the Fathers Explain the Unity of the Godhead 105 1. By the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or coessentiality of the Divine Persons 106 What they meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. How they proved the Unity of Essence from the sameness of Nature Gregory Nyssen's reasoning in this matter and vindicated from the Mesrepresentation of Petavius and Dr. Cudworth 109. c. 2. To this the Fathers added a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence 121 Concerning the Unity of Energy and Power 123 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession is Self-consciousness 125 St. Austin explains the Unity of the Divine Persons by Examples of Self-consciousness 126 The Unity of the Godhead consists in the Unity of Principle 128 How the Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are essential to the Notion of One God explained at large 129 c. SECT VI. Concerning expounding Scripture by Reason 140 The Arguments against a Trinity in the History of the Unitarians Letter 1. particularly answered 153 c. His first Argument 154 His second Argument 155 1 Coloss. 17. The first-born of every Creature explained 156 The Mediatory Kingdom of Christ explained at large 159 His third fourth and fifth Arguments answered 176 His sixth Argument 178 His seventh Argument 184 His eighth Argument from those Texts which declare that the Father only is God ibid. His ninth Argument That if Christ were God there was no need of giving the Holy Spirit to his Human Nature 187 His tenth and eleventh Arguments 188 His Arguments against the Godhead of the Holy Ghost ibid. Concerning the Personality of the Holy Ghost 189 That the Spirit is obtained of God by our Prayers therefore it self is not God Answered 193 Father Son and Holy Ghost the entire Object of Worship page 193 Those who do not worship the Trinity do not worship the true God if Father Son and Holy Ghost be God 194 No need of any new Cammand to worship the Holy Ghost when it is revealed that he is One God with the Father and Son ibid. That the Scripture speaks of God as One Person Answered 196 Whether the Socinian Faith be a reasonable and accountable Faith 198 The Socinian Faith ridicules the Scriptures 199 This is particularly shown in the Expositions of Scripture contained in the History of the Unitarians ibid. The Form of Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost explained 209 1 John 1 2. In the beginning was the Word c. explained and vindicated 215 How this Historian has represented Grotius 220 Socinianism makes the Iewish oeconomy very unreasonable and unaccountable 231 Socinianism ridicules the Christian Religion 238 SECT VII An Answer to what remains in the Brief Notes 256 Concerning the Generation of the Son ibid. The equality and coeternity of the Persons in the Trinity 259 Concerning the Incarnation 262 How an infinite and finite Being may be united into one Person 263 What makes a Personal Union 266 A VINDICATION Of the DOCTRINE OF THE Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY AND OF THE Incarnation of the SON of GOD In ANSWER to the Brief NOTES on the Greed of St. Athanasius SECT I. Concerning the Nature of a Contradiction and how to know it BEFORE I particularly Examine the Brief Notes on Athanasius 's Creed which under a pretence of exposing that Creed charge the Christian Faith itself of Three Persons and One God with the most monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions I shall 1. Shew what a Contradiction is and in what cases we can judge of a Contradiction 2. I shall take a brief view of the Athanasian Creed and shew that it signifies no more than that there are Three Persons and One God or a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and that if we own this we must own the particular Explications of the Athanasian Creed First As for the first A Contradiction is to deny and affirm the same thing in the same sense as to say that a thing is and is not at the same time that there is but One God and that there is Three Gods that is that there is and that there is not but One God for if there be Three Gods then it is not true that there is only One God Things which are so contrary as to contradict each other can never be both true for all Contradictions finally resolve into this It is and It is not which is absolutely impossible But when we come to apply this to the nature of Things we may easily fancy Contradictions where there are none For a Contradiction in the nature of Things is such a Notion or Idea of any thing as implies a Contradiction and then it is impossible any such thing can be as it is impossible that such a Proposition whose terms contradict each other should be true but then before we can pronounce that such a Notion or Idea is contradictions we must be sure that we perfectly understand and comprehend the nature of that Being otherwise the Contradiction may not be in the thing but in our manner of conceiving it It is not enough in this case to say we cannot understand it and know not how to reconcile it but we must say that we do perfectly understand it and know that it cannot be reconciled As for instance Some new Philosophers will tell you that the Notion of a Spirit or an immaterial Substance is a Contradiction for by Substance they understand nothing but Matter and then an immaterial Substance is immaterial Matter that is Matter and no Matter which is a Contradiction but yet this does not prove an immaterial Substance to be a Contradiction unless they could first prove that there is no Substance but Matter and that they cannot conceive any other Substance but Matter does not prove that there is no other Thus the Atheist discovers a great many Contradictions or Absurdities in the very Notion and Idea of a God or of an Eternal Omnipresent Omnipotent Omniscient Being For to be without a cause and without a beginning without time and without succession to be present every-where and to fill all Places and yet to have no parts no extension to be able to create a World and to annihilate it
again to make all things of nothing and to reduce all things to nothing again to know all things past present and to come especially the most contingent Futurities the freest Thoughts and Counsels of Men before they think them or some Ages before they themselves are in being without imposing a Fatal Necessity on Humane Actions I say the Notion of such a Being is very much above our conception and to an Atheist who is for believing nothing but what he can fully comprehend seems very absurd and contradictious This shews that Men may easily mistake in charging the Nature and Notions of Things with Contradictions and therefore we must enquire how we may discover when such an appearing Contradiction is not real but is wholly owing to our imperfect conception of things I. Now in the first place we have great reason to suspect this when it relates to such things as all Mankind agree we do not and cannot fully understand or comprehend for it is a vain and arrogant presumption to say what is or what is not a Contradiction when we confess we do not understand or comprehend the thing we speak of A Contradiction in the Nature of Things is what is contrary to the Nature of that Being of which we speak Now so far as we understand the Nature of any Being we can certainly tell what is contrary and contradictions to its Nature As that Accidents should subsist without their subject that a Body should be without extension or an organized Body without any distinction of parts that the same individual Body should be in Heaven and on Earth and in a thousand distant places at the same time that Flesh and Blood should lie invisible under the Species of Bread and Wine that a Body suppose of five or six foot long should be concealed under the least crum of Bread these and such like are the manifest Absurdities and Contradictions of Transubstantiation and we know that they are so because we know the Nature of a Body and know that such things are a contradiction to the essential Properties of a Body But now all Men must confess that they have not a clear and comprehensive Notion of the Nature and Essential Properties of a Spirit especially of an infinite Spirit as God is and it is impossible to know what is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit if we know not what the Nature of a Spirit is and that Man who shall pretend to comprehend all that is possible in an infinite Nature is as contemptibly ridiculous as if he should challenge to himself infinite Knowledge for without that no Man can comprehend what is infinite II. It is a sufficient proof that such seeming Contradictions are not in the nature of things but in our imperfect manner of conceiving them when we have other evident proofs that the thing is though we cannot comprehend it for nothing can be which involves a Contradiction in its nature and therefore if it is the contradiction is not real but imaginary As for instance As unconceivable as the Notion of Eternity is yet all Mankind even Atheists themselves must confess that something was from Eternity for if ever there was nothing it is impossible there ever should have been any thing for that which once was not can never be without a cause and therefore whatever Difficulties there may be in the Notion of an Eternal Being we must acknowledge something Eternal and that is proof enough that there is nothing absurd or contradictious in the Notion though we cannot comprehend it and I am sure the Notion of a first Eternal Cause is much more easie and natural than to make either Matter or the World and all the Creatures in it Eternal Whatever we can certainly prove to be either by Sense Reason or Revelation if there be any difficulty in conceiving it we must attribute that to the imperfection of our own Knowledge not to any Absurdity or Contradiction in the thing itself This shews how unreasonable that Method is which is taken by Atheists Infidels and Hereticks to dispute against the being of any thing from the difficulty of conceiving it and some pretended Absurdities and Contradictions in it when there are very plain proofs that the thing is and such as it is impossible for them fairly to answer this is the fundamental miscarriage which is not owing to a prudent caution as is pretended but to wilfulness and obstinacy and pride of Understanding or to a fixed prejudice and aversion to the belief of such matters and therefore I shall not only observe but particularly prove the unreasonableness of it The proof of this comes to this one point that we may have sufficient evidence of the being of a thing whose nature we cannot conceive and comprehend he who will not own this contradicts the sense and experience of Mankind and he who confesses this and yet rejects the belief of that which he has good evidence for meerly because he cannot conceive it is a very absurd and senseless Infidel And the reason of this is very plain because all the ways whereby the being of any thing can be proved are obvious and intelligible to all Mankind but the nature of most things are very dark and obscure and such as the wisest Men know little or nothing of And therefore we may certainly know that a great many things are whose nature and essential properties we cannot conceive As to shew this particularly 1. The proofs that any thing is are either from Sense from Reason or from Revelation What is evident to Sense is evident to all Men who have their Senses what is plainly proved by Reason and it is not a sufficient proof if it be not plain is plain to all Men who can use their Reason and what is plainly revealed every Man may know who can read and understand the Scriptures the being and nature of things are known very different ways and the being of things not only may but most commonly is known without knowing their natures Any Man may know the first but few Men in any measure can know the second Whoever has his Senses about him knows that there are such things as he sees hears or feels but the Philosophy of Nature is not learnt by Sense Reason will convince us by some visible and sensible effects that there are some invisible causes without informing us distinctly what the nature and powers of such causes are and God may and does reveal many things to us which we either are not capable of fully comprehending or the nature of which he does not think fit particularly to explain to us and in all these cases we may certainly know that things are without understanding the Nature and Philosophy of them 2. It is so far from being a wonder to meet with any thing whose nature we do not perfectly understand that I know nothing in the World which we do perfectly understand It is agreed by all Men whoever considered this matter that
the essences of things cannot be known but only their properties and qualities The World is divided into Matter and Spirit and we know no more what the substance of Matter than what the substance of a Spirit is though we think we know one much better than the other We know thus much of Matter that it is an extended substance which fills a space and has distinct parts which may be separated from each other that it is susceptible of very different qualities that it is hot or cold hard or soft c. but what the substance of Matter is we know not And thus we know the essential properties of a Spirit that it is a thinking substance with the Faculties of Understanding and Will and is capable of different Vertues or Vices as Matter is of sensible qualities but what the substance of a Spirit is we know no more than what the substance of matter is Thus as for the essential properties operations and powers of Matter Sense Experience and Observation will tell us what they are and what causes constantly produce such effects and this is all we do or can know of it and he who will not believe that Matter is extended that the Fire burns that Water may be condensed by Frost into a firm and solid Pavement that Seed sown in the Earth will produce its own kind again that a Body can move from one place to another that a Stone falls to the ground and Vapours ascend and thicken into Clouds and fall down again to the Earth in gentle Showers c. I say he who will not believe these things till he can give a Philosophical account of them must deny his Senses in complement to his Understanding and he who thinks that he does understand these matters would make a Man question whether he has any Sense Thus it is also with reference to a Spirit We feel within ourselves that we can think and reason that we can choose and refuse that we can love and hate and desire and fear but what these natural powers and passions are we know not how thoughts rise in our minds and how one thought begets another how a thought can move our Bodies or fix them in their Seat how the Body can raise thoughts and passions in the Soul or the thoughts and passions of the Soul can affect the Body The Properties and Operations both of Bodies and Spirits are great Secrets and Mysteries in Nature which we understand nothing of nor are concerned to understand them no more than it is our business to understand how to make either a Body or a Spirit which we have no power to do if we did understand it and therefore it would be an useless piece of Knowledge which would serve no end but Curiosity and that is reason enough why our wise Maker should not communicate this knowledge to us were we capable of it because it does not belong to our Natures as no Knowledge does which we can make no use of the perfect Notions and Idea's of Things are proper only to that Almighty Mind which can give being to them Now this plainly shews what the Natural Boundaries of Humane Knowledge are how far we may attain to a certain Knowledge and where we must give off our Enquiries unless we have a mind to impose upon our Understandings with some uncertain and fanciful Conjectures or to perplex our selves with inexplicable Difficulties 1. As first We have certain ways of discovering the being of Things which fall within the compass of our Knowledge this our Senses Reason or Revelation will acquaint us with and therefore we may know what Things there are in the World as far as they fall under the notice of Sense or are discovered by Reason or Revelation 2. We may know what Things are or what their essential Properties Qualities Operations and Powers are whereby we can distinguish one sort of Beings from another as suppose a Body from a Spirit Bread from Flesh and Wine from Blood and can Reason from Effects to Causes and from Causes to Effects with as great certainty as we understand what the Causes or Effects are 3. But the Essences of Things and the Philosophy of their Natures the Reasons of their Essential Properties and Powers which immediately result from their Natures the manner of their Production and the manner of their Operations are Mysteries to us and will be so do what we can and therefore here our Enquiries must cease if we enquire wisely for it is vain and absurd to perplex ourselves with such Questions which we can no more answer than we can make a World The sum is this when we charge any Doctrine with Absurdities and Contradictions we must be sure that we understand the thing for if it be such a thing as we do not and cannot understand the Nature of we may imagine a thousand Absurdities and Contradictions which are owing wholly to our Ignorance of Things SECT II. The Athanasian Creed contains nothing but what is necessary to the true belief of the Trinity and Incarnation II. LET us now take a view of the Athanasian Creed which this prophane Author makes the Subject of his Drollery and Ridicule and examine whether there be any thing in it which a good Catholick Christian can reject without rejecting the Catholick Doctrines of the Holy and Ever Blessed TRINITY and the Mysterious Incarnation of the SON of GOD for if this Creed contains nothing but what is necessary to this belief and what every Christian who believes these Doctrines must profess then all these Scoffs which are cast upon the Athanasian Creed do indeed belong to the Christian Faith itself if the Trinity and Incarnation be Christian Doctrines As to begin with the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity The Athanasian Creed tells us The Catholick Faith is this that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity that is that we worship One God and Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and this all Christians grant to be the Catholick Faith except Arians Macedonians and Socinians and such like Hereticks And how we must worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity is explained in the next Paragraph Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance Which must be acknowledged if there be Three Persons and One God for if we confound the Persons by saying that they are all but One Person under Three different Names and Titles or Denominations then we destroy the Distinction of Persons if we divide the Substance by saying that every Person has a separate Divine Nature of his own as every Man has a separate Humane Nature then we make Three Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn are Three Men which is to overthrow the Doctrine of One God and therefore the Creed adds For there is One Person of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost But the God-head of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the
go about thus to make Asses of all Mankind under a pretence of teaching them a Creed and Things Divine to despoil them of their Reason the Image of God and the Character of our Nature But let us in two words examine the Parts of this monstrous Proposition as 't is laid down in the Creed itself Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance But how can we not but confound the Persons that have say they but One numerical Substance and how can we but divide the Substance which we find in Three distinct divided Persons Our Author should have kept to Athanasius's Creed which he undertook to expose and then we had not heard of this Objection for the Creed does not say that there are Three Persons in One numerical Substance but in One undivided Substance nor does it say that there are Three divided Persons in this One undivided Substance but Three Persons which may be Three and yet not divided but intimately united to each other in one undivided Substance Now tho' we should grant it unconceivable how Three distinct Persons should have One numerical Essence that the Essence of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost should be numerically the same and yet their Persons distinct for it is not easie to distinguish the Essence or Substance from the Person and therefore not easie to tell how there should be but One Substance and Three Persons yet it is no Absurdity or Contradiction to say that Three real substantial Persons should subsist in One undivided Substance and then there is no necessity either to confound the Persons or divide the Substance We must allow the Divine Persons to be real substantial Beings if we allow each Person to be God unless we will call any thing a God which has no real Being as that has not which has not a real Nature and Essence whereas all Men grant there are no Accidents or Qualities or Modes in God but a pure and simple Essence or pure Act and therefore the Three Divine Persons are substantially distinct though in One undivided Substance which shews that to say That the One true God is Three distinct Persons and Three distinct Persons are the One true God is not plainly as if a Man should say That Peter James and John being Three Persons are One Man and One Man is Three distinct Persons Peter James and John Because Peter Iames and Iohn are not only distinct but divided and separate Persons which have Three divided and separate Substances which therefore cannot be One Man as Three distinct Persons in One undivided Substance are One God This is sufficient to vindicate the Athanasian Creed which only asserts Three distinct Persons in One undivided Substance which has nothing absurd or contradictious in it but because this Author founds his Objection upon One numerical Substance let us briefly consider that too for the Divine Essence or Substance is certainly numerically One as there is but One God and the difficulty is how Three distinct substantial Persons can subsist in One numerical Essence I will not pretend to fathom such a Mystery as this but only shew that there is nothing absurd in it and take down the confidence of this vain Pretender to Reason and Demonstration Let us then enquire what it is that makes any Substance numerically One that if there be any Absurdity in this we may find out where it lies Now in unorganiz'd Matter it is nothing else but the union of Parts which hang all together that makes such a Body One whether it be simple or compounded of different kinds of Matter that is One numerical Body whose Parts hang all together In Organical Bodies the Union of all Parts which constitute such an organized Body makes it One entire numerical Body though the Parts have very different Natures and Offices but this is of no use to explain the numerical Oneness of the Divine Essence because the Divine Substance has no Extension and no Parts and therefore cannot be One by an Union of Parts In finite created Spirits which have no Parts and no Extension neither that we know of no more than a Thought or an Idea or a Passion have Extension or Parts their numerical Oneness can be nothing else but every Spirit 's Unity with itself and distinct and separate subsistence from all other created Spirits Now this Self unity of the Spirit which has no Parts to be united can be nothing else but Self-consciousness That it is conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings Passions which no other finite Spirit is conscious to but itself This makes a finite Spirit numerically One and seperates it from all other Spirits that every Spirit feels only its own Thoughts and Passions but is not conscious to the Thoughts and Passions of any other Spirit And therefore if there were Three created Spirits so united as to be conscious to each others Thoughts and Passions as they are to their own I cannot see any reason why we might not say that Three such Persons were numerically One for they are as much One with each other as every Spirit is One with itself unless we can find some other Unity for a Spirit than Self-consciousness and I think this does help us to understand in some measure this great and venerable Mystery of a Trinity in Vnity For God being present every-where without Parts and without Extension we must strip our Minds of all material Images and Figures when we contemplate the Unity of the Divine Nature Though we should suppose but One Person in the Godhead as well as One God as this Author does yet we must consider his Unity not as the Unity of an infinite Body but an infinite Mind which has no distinct Parts to be united and let any Man who can give me any other Notion of the numerical Oneness of an infinite Mind but Self-consciousness that though present every-where it is still intimate with itself and in the very same way and for the very same reason Three Divine Persons who are as intimate to each other and if I may so speak as mutually conscious to each other as any One Person can be to itself are truly and properly numerically One. This I suppose is what several Ancient Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession which I confess is an ill word and apt to raise very material Imaginations in us as if the Divine Persons were united in One Substance as Three Bodies would be could they touch in every Point whereas we know not what the Substance of an infinite Mind is nor how such Substances as have no Parts or Extension can touch each other or be thus externally united but we know the Unity of a Mind or Spirit reaches as far as its Self-consciousness does for that is One Spirit which knows and feels itself and its own thoughts and motions and if we mean this by Circumincession Three Persons thus intimate to each other are numerically One And
shew you things to come He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you All things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you Of which words more hereafter at present I only observe how intimately the Holy Spirit is acquainted with all the Secrets both of Father and Son whatever things the Father knows that the Son knows and what the Son knows that the Holy Spirit knows that is whatever the Father knows which is first said to be the Father's then the Son 's and then the Holy Spirit 's according to the Order of Persons in the adorable Trinity Thus the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Love which inspires us with the love of God and gives us the reciprocal Testimonies of God's love to us For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us 5 Rom. 5. And as some of the Ancients represent it he is that love wherewith the Father and the Son love each other and therefore there is no question but that he who unites Father and Son and unites God to us and us to God by love is united to Father and Son by love himself He is that Holy Spirit who renews and sanctifies us and subdues our wills into a conformity and subjection to the will of God and therefore no doubt but he has the same will with Father and Son Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost are most intimately united in knowledge will and affection but after all this is no more than what we call a Moral Union such as may be between created Spirits which remain separate Beings still and though they are morally are not essentially One and therefore such an Union as this cannot make Father Son and Holy Ghost One God but Three agreeing and consenting Gods as Peter Iames and Iohn though they should in the most perfect manner be united in the same Faith and mutual love and affection c. yet would be Three Men still And therefore I must now shew that what is merely a Moral Union between Creatures is an essential Union between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity And this I have already shewn in part The Three Divine Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity are united in knowledge in will in love but are not united as Creatures are by an external likeness conformity agreement consent in knowledge will and affection but are so united to each other as every Man is to himself not as one Man is to another As for instance Every Man by an inward sensation feeels his own knowledge will and affections but he does not know any other Man's thoughts or will or passions by feeling them in himself as he does his own but by an external communication of thoughts and therefore though they may be morally One by an exact agreement and harmony of thoughts and passions as far as by external communication they can know what each others thoughts and passions are yet they are essentially distinct and separate But Father Son and Holy Ghost are One not by an external agreement or consent but by an internal consciousness as every Man is One with himself If I may so speak because we want proper words to express it they feel each other in themselves know the same thing by feeling each others knowledge and will and love a-like by feeling what each other wills and loves just as every Man feels his own thoughts knowledge will and passions that is are as intimate to each other and as essentially One by a mutual Self-consciousness as every Man is One with himself And the phrases and expressions of Scripture whereby the Unity or Oneness of Father Son and Holy Ghost are expressed require this sense Thus I observed before that the Son is the eternal word and wisdom of the Father and therefore as intimate to him as every Man's Reason is to himself and knows the Father not by external Revelation but as every Man knows himself But the most frequent expression whereby Christ represents this close and intimate and essential Union between his Father and him is I am in the Father and the Father in me which he repeats several times in St. Iohn's Gospel Now if we will allow this to be a proper not a metaphorical expression it can signifie no other Union than what I have now described That it is a proper and not a metaphorical expression appears from this that there is no such Union in Nature between any two other Beings as this to be in One another and a Metaphor is translated from something that is real and natural upon account of some likeness and similitude and therefore that which is like to nothing else which has no pattern and example can be no Metaphor because it alludes to nothing Now if we speak of a substantial Union or a Union of Substances what two Substances can there be in the World which can mutually be in each other or can mutually comprehend each other which is indeed a palpable contradiction as signifying at the same time to be greater and to be less than each other for in substantial Unions that which comprehends is greater than that which is comprehended that which is within any thing else is less than that which contains it and therefore for two Beings mutually to comprehend and to be comprehended by each other is to be greater and less than each other greater as they comprehend each other and less as they are comprehended So that this Oneness between the Father and the Son is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it and we cannot long doubt what kind of Union this is if we consider that there is but one possible way to be thus united and that is by this mutual Consciousness which I have now described If the Son be conscious in himself of all that the Father is as conscious to the knowledge to the will to the love of the Father as he is to his own by an internal sensation then the whole Father is in the Son if the Father be thus conscious to all that the Son is then the whole Son is in the Father if the Holy Ghost be thus conscious to all that is in the Father and in the Son then the Father and the Son are in the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son by this mutual Consciousness to each other This is very plain and intelligible and makes them as much One as every Man is One with himself by Self-consciousness And this is a plain demonstration that all Three Divine Persons are coessential and coequal with each other We know nothing of God but that he is an infinite Mind that is infinite Knowledge Wisdom Power Goodness And if these Three Divine Persons are all internally conscious of all these Perfections which are in each other they must all have the
same Perfections the same Knowledge Wisdom Power Goodness that is the same Nature unless that Knowledge Wisdom Goodness which we are internally conscious of and feel within ourselves be not the Perfections of our Nature whereas we may externally know those Perfections which are not ours but what we feel in ourselves is our own and therefore this mutual Consciousness makes all that is the Father 's the Son 's and all that is the Son 's the Holy Spirit 's as our Saviour speaks All things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I that he the Spirit shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you 16 Iohn 15. And if these Three Persons be thus mutually in each other as you have already heard they must be all equal for if the Father be in the Son how can the Son be less than the Father if he comprehends the Father and all his infinite perfections If Son and Holy Ghost are in the Father and Father and Holy Ghost in the Son and Father and Son in the Holy Ghost imagine what inequality you can between them if Son and Holy Ghost are conscious to all the infinite Perfections which are in the Father and have all the Perfections they are conscious to how can Son and Holy Ghost be less perfect than the Father or then each other I am sure our Saviour attributes all his Wisdom and Knowledge and Power to his intimate conscious Knowledge of his Father which he calls seeing him which is such a knowledge as Creatures cannot have of God 5 Iohn 19.20 Verily verily I say unto you the Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do for whatsoever things he doth those also doth the Son likewise For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that himself doeth and he will shew him greater works than these that ye may marvel By this perfect conscious Knowledge which the Son has of the Father he has all those Perfections in himself which are in the Father he can do whatever he sees the Father do and he sees whatever the Father does but can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do He has all the Perfections which are in the Father and therefore can do whatever he sees the Father do but there is no knowledge no perfection no power in the Son which is not in the Father and which he does not receive from the Father and therefore he can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do which signifies the most perfect equality between the Father and the Son founded on the Son's seeing the Father and whatever he doth or his intimate Consciousness of all that the Father is And this is the true Notion of the Son 's being the Image of his Father The brightness of his Father's glory and the express Image of his person 1 Heb. 2. For as a dead Image and Picture represents the external Lineaments and Features of the Person whose Picture or Image it is that we can see the Person in his Picture so a living essential Image is the living essential perfections of the Father and with a conscious knowledge sees the Father in himself For this reason the Son is said to hear of his Father to see what his Father doth and to do the same to receive commandement from his Fatber to do the will of his Father and the works of his Father to finish the works which his Father gave him to do to glorifie his Father c. Which must not be expounded after the manner of Men as the Socinians expound such expressions and thence conclude the great inferiority inequality subjection of the Son to the Father such as there is between a Prince and the Ministers he employs and that therefore the Son cannot be the Supream God for the Supream God cann't be commanded taught sent on Messages to fulfil the will and pleasure of another and do nothing but what he sees done and receives Commission to do I say we must not put such a mean and servile sense on these expressions but we must expound them only to signifie that the Son receives all from the Father Life Knowledge Will Power by Eternal Generation and whatever he does he does with a Consciousness of his Father's Will and Wisdom as it were feeling the Will and Wisdom and Power of his Father in himself and this he calls hearing and seeing the works of the Father receiving Commands and doing the Works of the Father because his Nature is that to him which external Teachings ' and verbal Commands are to Men he hears he sees he does the Works and Will and Commands of his Father by being the perfect living self-conscious image of his Father's Will and Knowledge and infinite Perfections But there is one place more I must take notice of by which the Socinians think to overthrow all that I have now said that the Union between the Father and Son is not such an essential Unity as we speak of but a meer moral Union or a perfect agreement and consent in knowledge will and affection such as is or ought to be among Christians and that our Saviour himself has thus expounded it 17 Iohn 20 21. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word That they all may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in us Which is the very expression I have so much insisted on to prove this essential Union and Self-consciousness between the Father and the Son As thou Father art in me and I in thee which it seems signifies no other kind of Union than what our Saviour prays for among Christians That they also may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee Now the Union of Christians is only an Union in Faith and Love and One Communion and therefore thus the Father and the Son are One also by a consent and agreement in Knowledge Will and Love Now this I readily grant as I observed before that Father and Son are One by a most perfect agreement in Knowledge Will and Love which we call a Moral Union between Men and it is this Unity or Oneness for which our-Saviour prays that his Disciples may be One as the Father and he are One that they may perfectly agree in the same Faith and Love that they may speak the same things and mind the same things But then this perfect harmony and consent between the Father and the Son results from an essential Unity from their being in one another which is such an Union as it is impossible there should be between Christians but this Moral Union in the same Faith and mutual love is called being One as the Father and Son are One because it is the nearest resemblance of this essential Unity that can be between Creatures and that is the only meaning of As That they may be One
As thou Father art in me and I in Thee Not that they may be One in the very same manner but with such a kind of Unity as does most nearly resemble the Unity between the Father and the Son that is which produces the like consent and harmony in Will and Affections For we must observe that As very often signifies only some likeness and resemblance not a sameness for kind or degree and thus it must of necessity signifie in all comparisons between God and Creatures for though there is something in Creatures like to what is in God some faint shadows and images of it yet nothing in Creatures is the same that is in God St. Peter exhorts Christians As he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of Conversation 1 Pet. 1.15 And Christ commands us to be perfect as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect 5 Matth. 48. But can any Creature be holy and perfect as God is Will you hence conclude that Holiness is not the immutable Nature of God but the free choice of his Will not his Nature which is One pure simple Act but an Habit of Virtue because so it is in us and yet we must be holy and perfect as God is which cannot be according to this way of Reasoning unless holiness in God be the same holiness which is in Creatures and indeed we may as well conclude this as that the Oneness between the Father and the Son is only a Moral Union in Will and Affection because there can be no other Union between Christians and yet Christ prays that they may be One as He and his Father are One Since this phrase As thou Father art in me and I in thee does evidently signifie a great deal more than such a Moral Union of Will and Affections why should they not as well conclude that Christ prays for such an essential Oneness between Christians as there is between him and his Father as that the Father and the Son are One in no higher and more perfect sense than what is applicable to the Unity of Christians with each other There may be such a likeness and resemblance between natural and moral Unions between the Acts and Perfections of Nature and the Vertues of the Will and Choice as may be a just foundation for a comparison but he is a very absurd Reasoner who from such a comparison will conclude they are the same we are required to love our Neighbour as our selves but will any Man hence conclude that the love of our selves and the love of our Neighbour are of the same kind Which is manifestly false Self-love being a natural and necessary Passion the love of our Neighbour a Christian Vertue the first the effect of Nature the second of Grace but the effects so like each other that they may well be compared and the natural principle which acts most equally and necessarily and perfectly may be made the Rule and Measure of Brotherly love Thus this essential Unity between the Father and the Son produces the most perfect harmony and Union of Will and Affections and therefore is the most perfect Pattern of that Moral Union which ought to be among Christians For we may observe that this Oneness between the Father and the Son is not the only natural and essential Unity which is made the Pattern of Unity among Christians the unity of the natural Body and the vital sympathy and fellow-feeling which all the Members of the same natural Body have for each other is proposed as a pattern also of that mutual love and affection between Christians 1 Cor. 12.12 27. And yet no man will be so absurd as to say That either Christians are as naturally and vitally united to each other as the Members of a natural Body are or that the Members of the natural Body are united only by mutual Love and Affection as Christians are This is sufficient to shew how Father and Son are One by a mutual consciousness whereby they are as intimate to each other as every man is to himself who knows all that is in himself and feels all the motions and workings of his own mind and we need not doubt but the Holy Spirit is in the same manner One with Father and Son But I must not expect that the Adversaries I have to deal with will grant any thing which is not proved and therefore I shall not stand to their Courtesie but briefly prove this also St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 2.10 That the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God So that the Holy Spirit knows all that is in God even his most deep and secret Counsels which is an argument that he is very intimate with him but this is not all it is the manner of knowing which must prove this consciousness of which I speak and that the Apostle adds in the next Verse that the Spirit of God knows all that is in God just as the Spirit of a Man knows all that is in Man that is not by external revelation or communication of this knowledge but by Self-consciousness by an internal Sensation which is owing to an essential Unity v. 11. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God So that the Spirit of God is as much within God and as intimate to him as the Spirit of Man is in Man that is by an essential Oneness and Self-consciousness And as the Spirit knoweth the deep things of God so God who searcheth the hearts knoweth the mind of the spirit too 8 Rom. 27. So that the Father and the Holy Ghost are mutually conscious to each other as a Man and his own Spirit are and then we need not doubt but the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of the Son as well as of the Father Is as intimate to the Son also And therefore Christ tells us of the Spirit He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you all things that the Father hath are mine therefore said I he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you 16 John 14 15. So that the Holy Spirit receives the things of Christ But how does he receive them Just as Christ receives them of the Father the same things and the same way not by an external communication but by an essential Oneness and Consciousness of all that is in the Father and in the Son This seems to me to be the true Scripture-account of the numerical Unity of the Divine Essence and to make a Trinity in Unity as intelligible as the Notion of One God is but because all that I have to say turns upon this I shall more particularly explain this Notion 1. By shewing that this contains the true Orthodox Faith of the Holy Trinity 2. That it gives a plain and intelligible Solution of all the Difficulties and
seeming Contradictions in the Doctine of the Trinity I. This contains the true Orthodox Faith of the Holy Trinity or a Trinity in Unity for so the Athanasian Creed teaches us To worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance for there is One Person of the Father another of the Son another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal There are two things then which an Orthodox Christian must take care of neither to confound the Persons nor to divide the Substance that is to acknowledge Three distinct Persons and yet but One God and nothing can be more apparent than both these in that account which I have given of the Ever Blessed Trinity 1. It is plain the Persons are perfectly distinct for they are Three distinct and infinite Minds and therefore Three distinct Persons for a Person is an intelligent Being and to say they are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct infinite Minds is both Heresie and Nonsense The Scripture I 'm sure represents Father Son and Holy Ghost as Three intelligent Beings not as Three Powers or Faculties of the same Being which is down-right Sabellianism for Faculties are not Persons no more than Memory Will and Understanding are Three Persons in One Man When we prove the Holy Ghost to be a Person against the Socinians who make him only a Divine Power we prove that all the Properties of a Person belong to him such as Understanding Will Affections and Actions which shews what our Notion of a Person is such a Being as has Understanding and Will and Power of Action and it would be very strange that we should own Three Persons each of which Persons is truly and properly God and not own Three infinite Minds as if any thing could be a God but an infinite Mind And the distinction between these Three Infinite Minds is plain according to this Notion for they are distinguished just as Three finite and created Minds are by Self-consciousness They are united indeed into One as I have already discoursed by a mutual Consciousness to each other which no created Spirits have which are conscious only to the actings of their own Minds not to each others and therefore these Three Divine Persons are not separate Minds as created Spirits are but only distinct each Divine Person has a Self consciousness of its own and knows and feels itself if I may so speak as distinct from the other Divine Persons the Father has a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor the Holy Ghost and the Son in like manner feels himself to be the Son and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost feels himself to be the Holy Ghost and not the Father nor the Son as Iames feels himself to be Iames and not Peter nor Iohn which proves them to be distinct Persons Which is a very plain account how these Three Divine Persons are distinct that there is One Father not Three Fathers One Son not Three Sons One Holy Ghost not Three Holy Ghosts Here is no confounding of Persons 2. Nor do we divide the Substance but unite these Three Persons in One numerical Essence for we know nothing of the unity of the Mind but self-consciousness as I shewed before and therefore as the self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct Persons so the mutual consciousness of all Three Divine Persons to each other makes them all but One infinite God as far as consciousness reaches so far the Unity of a Spirit extends for we know no other unity of a Mind or Spirit but consciousness In a created Spirit this consciousness extends only to itself and therefore self-consciousness makes it One with itself and divides and separates it from all other Spirits but could this consciousness extend to other Spirits as it does to itself all these Spirits which were mutually conscious to each other as they are to themselves though they were distinct Persons would be essentially One And this is that essential unity which is between Father Son and Holy Ghost who are essentially united by a mutual consciousness to whatever is in each other and do by an internal sensation I want other words to express it feel each other as they do themselves and therefore are as essentially One as a Mind and Spirit is One with itself 2. This is a very plain and intelligible account of this great and venerable Mystery as plain and intelligible as the Notion of One God or of One Person in the Godhead The great difficulty of conceiving a Trinity of Persons in One infinite and undivided Essence or Substance arises from those gross and material Idea's we have of Essence and Substance when we speak of the Essence or Substance of God or created Spirits We can frame no Idea of Substance but what we have from Matter that it is something extended in a tripple Dimension in length and breadth and depth which is the subject of those Qualities which inhere and subsist in it And therefore as Matter is the subject of all sensible Qualities so we conceive some such Substance of a Mind and Spirit which is the subject of Will and Understanding of Thoughts and Passions And then we find it impossible to conceive how there should be Three Divine Persons which are all infinite without Three distinct infinite Substances each distinct infinite Person having a distinct infinite Substance of his own and if we grant this it seems a plain contradiction to say That these Three distinct infinite Substances are but One numerical Infinite Substance which is to say that Three Infinities are but One Infinite and that Three Persons are but One Person for a Person and an intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms and therefore Three distinct Persons are Three distinct numerical Substances and One numerical intelligent Substance is but One numerical Person But this is all carnal Reason in a strict and proper sense which conceives of an infinite Mind after the manner of a Body and distinguishes between the Matter or Substance and the Powers and Vertues of the Divine Essence as it does between Matter and Qualities and Accidents in Bodies We know nothing of the Divine Essence but that God is an infinite Mind and if we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God but an infinite Minds that is infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness the Essence of God though considered but as One numerical Person is as perfectly unintelligible to us as the One numerical Essence or Substance of Three Divine Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity It is this gross and material imagination about the Essence and Substance of the Deity which occasions all the Difficulties about the Notion of One God as well as of a Trinity in Unity For we cannot
imagine how any Substance should be without a beginning how it should be present in all places without Parts and without Extension how Substance Essence Existence and all Divine Attributes and Powers which are distinct things in created Spirits should be all the same one simple Act in God and yet Reason tells us we must allow of no Composition no Qualities or Accidents in the Divine Nature for a compounded Being must have Parts and must be made for that which has Parts must have some Maker to join the Parts together and to endow it with such Qualities and Powers But now if we consider God as Wisdom and Truth which is his true Nature and Essence without confounding our Minds with some material conceptions of his Substance these things are plain and easie For it is demonstrable that Truth is eternal had no beginning no Maker for when we speak of original and essential Truth and Wisdom what was not always Truth and Wisdom could never begin to be so And if Truth be the only real thing and necessarily eternal there is an eternal Mind which is nothing else but eternal Truth for he who can imagine Truth and Wisdom to be eternal without an eternal Mind ought not to pretend to either unless he can tell us how Truth can subsist without a Mind Thus it is demonstrable that Truth and Wisdom has no Parts no Extension no more than Thought has Truth and Wisdom is confined to no place fills no space but is every-where the same without Extension and Parts and therefore has a necessary and essential Omnipresence There is a faint resemblance of this in finite and created Spirits even humane Wisdom and Reason Thoughts and Passions have no Extension nor Parts which is a good argument that a created Spirit has no Extension nor Parts neither for nothing which has Extension and Parts can be the subject of that which has none All the Qualities of Bodies are extended as Bodies are for the Properties and Qualities of all Things must conform to the Nature of the Subject in which they are and therefore Faculties Powers and Operations which have no Extension or Parts as the Will the Understanding the Memory the Thoughts and Passions have none must be seated in a Subject which has no Parts nor Extension neither Thus Thought is confined to no place but in a Minute surrounds the Earth and ascends above the Heavens and visits all the empty Capacities of infinite space which is an imperfect imitation of the Omnipresence of an Infinite Mind Thus what can be a more pure and simple Act than Wisdom and Truth Now though we conceive the Divine Attributes and Perfections under different Notions and Characters such as Wisdom Love Justice Goodness Power they are indeed nothing else but Infinite Truth and Wisdom which receives several Characters and Denominations from its different effects as the same Sea or River does different Names from the Countries by which it passes For what is intellectual Love but the perfect Idea's of Truth or the true knowledge and estimation of Things What is Justice and Goodness but an equal distribution of Things or a true and wise proportion of Rewards and Punishments What is perfect Power but perfect Truth and Wisdom which can do whatever it knows This last will not be so easily understood because in Men we find Knowledge and Power to be very different things that Men may know a great deal which they cannot do And yet if we consider this matter over again we shall find it a mistake For even among Men it is only Knowledge that is Power Humane Power and humane Knowledge as that signifies a Knowledge how to do any thing are commensurate whatever humane Skill extends to humane Power can effect nay every Man can do what he knows how to do if he have proper Instruments and Materials to do it with but what no humane Power can do no humane Knowledge knows how to do We know not what the Substance or Essence of any thing is nor can we make any Substance we cannot create any thing of nothing nor do we know how it is to be done which shews that Knowledge and Power in Creatures are equal and that proves a very near relation between them especially when we add that Knowledge is not only the Director of Power but is that very Power which we call Force For it is nothing but Thought which moves our Bodies and all the Members of them which are the immediate Instruments of all humane Force and Power excepting Mechanical Motions which do not depend upon our Wills such as the motion of the Heart the circulation of the Blood the concoction of our Meat and the like all voluntary motions are not only directed but caused by Thought and so indeed it must be or there could be no motion in the World for Matter cannot move it self and therefore some Mind must be the first Mover which makes it very plain that infinite Truth and Wisdom is Infinite and Almighty Power So that if we set aside all material Images of Essence and Substance and contemplate God as Eternal Truth and Wisdom the Notion of a God is very plain and easie as far as we are concerned to know him in this state The same cause has confounded and perplext the Notion of a Trinity in Unity and given occasion to some vain and arrogant Pretenders to Reason profanely to deride and ridicule that most Sacred and Venerable Mystery They puzzle and confound themselves with some gross and corporeal Idea's of Essence and Substance and how Three Divine Persons can subsist distinct in the same numerical Substance but would they but consider the Three Divine Persons as Three Infinite Minds distinguished from each other by a self-consciousness of their own and essentially united by a mutual consciousness to each other which is the only way of distinguishing and uniting Minds and Spirits and then a Trinity in Unity is a very plain and intelligible Notion Now certainly this is much the most reasonable way For what the Essence and Substance of a Spirit is when we distinguish it from Understanding and Will which we call the Powers and Faculties of a Spirit for my part I know not no more than I do what the naked Essence and Substance of Matter is stript of all its Qualities and Accidents as I observed before the naked Essences of Things are not the Objects of our Knowledge and therefore it is ridiculous to dispute about them to say peremptorily what is or what is not in matters which we know nothing of And therefore as we frame the Notion of Bodies from their external and sensible Qualities so we must frame the Notion of a Spirit from its intellectual Powers of Will and Understanding c. and when we dispute about the distinction or union of Spirits we must not dispute how their Substances which we know nothing of can be distinguisht or united but how two Minds considered as intellectual
Knowledge which took the Patterns of things for the new World and gave Being to them and therefore God made the World by his Son and begotten Wisdom who doth all things by seeing what the Father doth as the Father doth all things by seeing himself in his reflex and begotten Wisdom for the Father and the Son are one single Energie and Operation This is that eternal Word and Reason that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world which communicates the light of Reason and the eternal Idea's of Truth to Mankind This is that Son who reveals the Father to us and acquaints us with his secret Counsels for the Salvation of Sinners This is that Word which became Flesh and dwelt among us who hath undertaken the Work of our Redemption and is become the Wisdom of God and the Power of God to Salvation to them that believe for all the natural Communications of Wisdom and Reason all the new Discoveries of the Divine Wisdom whatever the Divine Wisdom immediately does must be done by this begotten Wisdom that is by a reflex Wisdom which is the Principle of Action and Execution and therefore as God made the World by his Word so also he redeems the World by his Incarnate Word this being as immediate an effect of the Divine Wisdom and Counsel as his Creation of the World As for the Holy Ghost whose Nature is represented to be Love I do not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said that the Holy Ghost is that mutual love wherewith Father and Son love each other but this we know that there is a mutual love between Father and Son The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hands And the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that himself doth And our Saviour himself tells us I love the Father And I shewed before that love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person for there are no Accidents nor Faculties in God And that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person is sufficiently evident in Scripture for he is the Spirit of God who knows what is in God as the Spirit of Man knows what is in Man and he is the Spirit of Christ who receiveth of the things of Christ and his peculiar Character in Scripture is love which shews us what he is in his own Nature as well as what he is in his Effects and Operations for Nature and Energy is the same in God It is by the Holy Spirit that the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 5 Rom. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us For this Spirit is the essential love of God and therefore both inspires us with the love of God and gives us a feeling sense of God's love to us He is the Spirit of the Son the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father and which cries in our hearts Abba Father The Spirit of the Son that is of the eternal and only begotten Son that very spirit whereby the eternal Son calls God Father whereby the Father owns the Son and the Son the Father that is that essential Love which is between Father and Son and therefore wherever this Spirit of the Son is it will call God Father will cry Abba Father that is is a Spirit of Adoption in us for the eternal Spirit of the Son dwells only in Sons by our Union to Christ who is the eternal Son of God we become his adopted Sons and as such the Spirit of the Son dwells in us And therefore the fruits and operations of the Spirit answer this Character For the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness which are the communications of the Spirit of Love This shews the difference between generation and procession between being a Son and the Spirit of God Generation as I observed before is a reflex Act whereby God begets his own Image and Likeness it is God's knowledge of himself which to be sure is his own perfect Image and the living essential Image of God is his Son for to be a Son is to be begotten of his Father's Substance in his own Likeness and Image But the Divine Spirit or this Eternal Love proceeds from God is not a reflex but a direct Act as all Thoughts and Passions are said to proceed out of the Heart a reflex Act turns upon it self and begets its own likeness but Love is a direct Act and comes out of the Heart and thus does this eternal Love proceed from God besides this eternal Love is not the Image of God but his eternal complacency in himself and his own Image and therefore is not a Son begotten of him but the eternal Spirit which proceeds from him It is true this eternal subsisting Love which is the third Person of the Trinity has all the Perfections of Father and Son in himself for Love must have the perfect Idea of what it loves and therefore this subsisting Love must have all those Perfections in himself which are the Eternal Object and Cause of this Eternal Love but his essential Character is Love and though Love has the whole Divine Perfections in it self yet it has them not as a Son not as the Image of God This gives a plain Account also how he is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son and according to the Profession of the Latin Church proceeds both from Father and Son for this Divine Love eternally proceeds from God's reflex Knowledge of himself or seeing himself in his own Image he loves himself in his Image and therefore the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son that is from the Original and the Image by one undivided Act as every man loves himself in that Idea and Image he has formed of himself in his own Mind And no man will wonder that the Creation of the World is ascribed to the Holy Spirit as well as to the Father and Son for it is Eternal Love which gives Being to all things which is the Author and Giver of Life without which Infinite Wisdom and Power produces no One Effect Original Wisdom contains the Ideas of all Things and begotten Wisdom can frame the Natures of Things according to the Original Ideas of the Divine Mind but it is Love which gives Being to them 6. From hence it is clear That these Three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God as these Three Powers of Understanding Self-reflexion and Self-love are one Mind for what are meer Faculties and Powers in created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead really distinct from each other but as inseparably United into One as Three different Powers are essentially united in One Mind There is a vast difference indeed between them as there is between God and Creatures the Mind is but One the
Faculties and Powers more but these being only Faculties and Powers neither of them is a whole entire Mind the Understanding alone is not the whole entire Mind nor Reflexion nor Love but the Mind is whole and entire by the union of them all in One but these being Persons in the Godhead each Person has the whole Divine Nature The Son has all that the Father has being his perfect and natural Image and the Holy Spirit is all that Father and Son is comprehending all their infinite Perfections in Eternal Love and they are all the same and all united into One God as the several Faculties and Powers are in One Mind 7. For this proves that these Divine Persons are intimately conscious to each other which as I before showed makes them One numerical God for as the same Mind is conscious to all its own Faculties and Powers and by that unites them into One so where there are Divine and Infinite Persons instead of Faculties and Powers they must be mutually conscious to each other to make them all One God 8. This proves also that though there are Three distinct Persons there can be but One Energie and Operation Father Son and Holy Ghost is the Maker and Governour of the World by one inseparable and undivided Energie neither of them do nor can act apart as the several Powers of the Mind all concur to the same individual Action Knowledge Self-reflection and Will do the same thing which is the Effect of Knowledge brought into act by Reflection and Will and yet the Effect may be ascribed to Knowledge and ascribed to Will as the making of the World is to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost not separately to either but as they act in Conjunction and produce the same Effect by One individual Energie and Power 9. This proves also that Father Son and Holy Ghost must be co-eternal as the several Powers and Faculties must be co-temporary and co-exist in the same Mind Understanding cannot be without a Power of Reflection nor that without Will and Love And I suppose no man will say that there could be any imaginable instant wherein God did not know and love himself This Account is very agreeable to what St. Austin has given us who represents the Father to be Original Mind the Son his Knowledge of himself and the holy-Holy-Spirit Divine Love as I have done and gives the very same Account of their Union Cùm itaque se mens novit amat jungitur ei amore verbum ejus quoniam amat notitiam novit amorem verbum in amore est amor in verbo utrumque in amante dicente When the Mind knows and loves it self its Word is united to it by Love and because it loves its Knowledge and knows its Love its Word is in Love and Love in its Word and both in the loving and speaking or knowing Mind This is the Eternal Generation of the Son Itaque mens cùm seipsam cognoscit sola parens est notitioe suoe cognitum enim cognitor ipsa est when the Mind knows it self it is the sole Parent of its own Knowledge for its self is both the Knower and the Thing known that is the Son is begotten of the Father by a reflex Knowledge of himself and he gives us the same Account of the Difference between Generation and Procession that One is a new Production if I may so express it inventum partum repertum that is the Production of its own Image of its own Wisdom and Knowledge by Self-reflexion the other comes out of the Mind as Love does and therefore the Mind is the Principle of it but not its Parent Cur itaque amando se non genuisse dicatur amorem suum sicut cognoscendo se genuit notitiam suam in eo quidem manifeste ostenditur hoc amoris esse principium undè procedit ab ipsa quidem mente procedit quae sibi est amabilis antequam se amet atque ita principium est amoris sui quo se amat sed ideo non rectè dicitur genitus ab ea sicut notitia sui quâ se novit quia notitia jam inventum est quod partum vel repertum dicitur quod saepe praecedit inquisitio eo fine quietura This I hope is sufficient both to explain and justifie this Doctrine which is the great Fundamental of the Christian Religion of a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and that Account I have given of it It must be confessed that the ancient Fathers did not express their Sense in the same terms that I have done but I will leave any indifferent and impartial Reader to judge whether they do not seem to have intended the very same Explication which I have now given of this venerable Mystery As for the Schoolmen they generally pretend to follow the Fathers and have no Authority where they leave them Sometimes they seem to mistake their Sense or to clog it with some peculiar Niceties and Distinctions of their own The truth is that which has confounded this Mystery has been the vain endeavour of reducing it to terms of Art such as Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Hypostasis Person and the like which some of the Fathers used in a very different Sense from each other which sometimes occasioned great Disputes among them not because they differed in the Faith but because they used words so differently as not to understand each others meaning as Petavius has shewn at large The more pure and simple Age of the Church contented themselves to profess the Divinity of Father Son and Holy Ghost that there was but One God and Three who were this One God which is all the Scripture teaches of it But when Sabellius had turned this Mystery only into a Trinity of Names they thought themselves concerned to say what these Three are who are One God and then they nicely distinguished between Person and Hypostasis and Nature and Essence and Substance that they were Three Persons but One Nature Essence and Substance but then when men curiously examined the signification of these words they found that upon some account or other they were very unapplicable to this Mystery for what is the Substance and Nature of God How can Three distinct Persons have but one Numerical Substance What is the distinction between Essence and Personality and Subsistence The Deity is above Nature and above terms of Art there is nothing like this mysterious Distinction and Unity and therefore no wonder if we want proper words to express it by at least that such Names as signifie the Distinction and Unity of Creatures should not reach it I do not think it impossible to give a tolerable Account of the School-terms and distinctions but that is a work of greater difficulty than use especially to ordinary Christians and I have drawn this Section to too great a length already to enter upon that now SECT VI.
Expiation of his Blood And though Christ be the Eternal Son of God and the Natural Lord and Heir of all things yet God hath in this highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at or in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth and that every tongue some of all Nations Languages and Tongues shall confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father For when God exalts and magnifies himself or exalts his Son it does not and cannot signifie any addition or increase of their essential Greatness and Glory for neither the Father nor the Son can be greater than they are but yet God is exalted when his Greatness and Power is more visible and more universally acknowledged and adored and thus God has highly exalted his Son too by conferring the Mediatory Power and Kingdom on him as to shew this particularly but briefly This makes the Son more universally known acknowledged and adored The Notion and Belief of one God is Natural to Mankind that there are three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Unity of the Godhead is not known by Nature but by Revelation There are some obscure hints and intimations of this even in the History of the Creation more plain in the Types and Prophesies of the Jewish Law which relate to the Messias and possibly this was more particularly explained in their Cabala which some learned men industriously prove contained this Mystery of the Trinity but all this while this Mystery was very obscure and the Glory of the Son little known in the World for though now we certainly know from the Exposition of Christ and his Apostles that the Prophets spake of Christ under the name of Lord and God and Jehovah yet all went in the Name of God But when Christ appeared in the World then God owned him for his Son this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Christ owned himself for the Son of God his only begotten Son and upon all occasions calls God his Father and that in such a distinguishing manner that the Jews understood him to mean that he was the Son of God by Nature and charge him with Blasphemy for making himself God He appealed to those mighty Works he did in his Father's Name to prove the Truth of what he taught them that he was indeed the Son of God But then God visibly owned him for his Son when he raised him from the dead and bestowed a Kingdom on him a Name which is above every Name as St. Paul tells us That he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the Dead And for this reason that of the Psalmist Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee is applied to the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead We deliver unto you glad tydings how that the promise that was made to the Fathers God hath fulfilled the same to us their Children in that he hath raised up Iesus again as it is also written in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee Which it is plain does not signifie that God then first begot him for he owned him for his beloved Son long before at his Baptism and Christ calls himself his only begotten Son long before and the Socinians themselves attribute his Sonship to his miraculous Conception in the Womb of the Virgin and St. Paul we see expounds God's begetting him at his Resurrection by his being declared the Son of God by the Resurrection from the Dead which supposes he was his Son before and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Flesh for so he was the Seed of David but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Spirit of Holiness or his Divine Nature for so its opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proves it must signifie He was the only begotten Son of God from eternal Ages but the World did not fully know him to be so till God declared this by his Resurrection from the Dead and by bestowing a Kingdom on him and then he visibly appeared in the Glory and Majesty of the Son of God as if he had been begotten by him that day and this seems to be the meaning of our Saviour's Prayer And now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self with that glory which I had with Thee before the World was that is now publickly own me to be thy Son which I always was but was never yet sufficiently declared so to the World And therefore when he was raised from the Dead and advanced into his Kingdom which he was to administer not by Human Force and Power but by the Power of the Divine Spirit it was time to let the World know this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity because each Divine Person has his distinct and proper part in this mysterious oeconomy and therefore he commands his Disciples to Baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that is into the belief and worship of One God Father Son and Holy Ghost of which more presently But this is not all the Son is not only now made known and manifest to the World and publickly owned by his Father but he has a peculiar Authority invested in him distinct both from the Father and the Holy Spirit as he is a Mediatory King There being but One Supreme and Soveraign God Father Son and Holy Ghost who are but One Energy and Power but One Monarchy but One Maker and One Lord of the World in the Natural Government of the World there is no distinction of the Divine Persons no peculiar Offices and Administrations to distinguish them not one thing done by the Father another by the Son and a third by the Holy Ghost but the whole Trinity made and governs the World by One individual Operation and therefore the Creation and Government of the World is the Work of One God and therefore peculiarly attributed to the Father who is the Fountain of the Deity who is that Original Mind and Wisdom who made and who governs the World by his Son and holy Spirit so that in the Natural Government of the World the Son has no Kingdom of his own but reigns as One Supreme God with the Father and the Holy Spirit and all attributed to the Father as the beginning of Energy and Power But in the oeconomy of man's Salvation the Son has a Kingdom of his own which is peculiarly his administred in his Name and by his Soveraign Authority The Father is atoned by him and has committed to him all Power both in Heaven and in Earth He is made the Head of all Principalities and Powers which are now immediately subjected to him and must receive their Commands and
God and is not God himself as he says the Holy Spirit is if it have any Personal Acts must be a distinct Person and if these Personal Acts are such as are proper only to God it must be a distinct Divine Person He says this Holy Spirit is the Inspiration of God be it so This Inspiration then is either within God himself or without him in Creatures who have this Inspiration If it be within God himself it must be a Person or else it cannot be distinct from God and a Divine Person unless any thing be in God which is not God If this Inspiration be without God in Creatures who are inspired by him how is it the Spirit of God for the Spirit of God must be in God as the Spirit of Man is in Man How does this Inspiration in Creatures search all things yea the deep things of God and knoweth the things of God as the Spirit of a Man knoweth the things of a man For the inspiration in Creatures searcheth nothing of God and knoweth nothing of God but what God is pleased to reveal The Inspiration knows nothing of God but the inspired Mind knows as much as it is inspired with the knowledge of So that according to this Account the Spirit of God is nothing but the inspired knowledge in Creatures and therefore no Personal Acts can be attributed to it but what Creatures can do by such Inspiration and let any man consider whether this Answers those Characters we have of the Spirit of God in Scripture If this be so I desire to know How the Spirit of God differs from his Gifts and Graces For if the Spirit be nothing but God's Inspiration in Creatures the Spirit is either a Gift or a Grace and is not One in All but as many as those Creatures are that are inspired and as different as the Gifts and Graces are with which they are Inspired Whereas St. Paul tells us There are Diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit and there are differences of Administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of Operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all So that the Spirit is distinguished from his Gifts as the Lord is from his Administrations and God from his Operations and is the same Spirit in all as it is the same Lord and the same God 3. His next Argument is The Spirit is obtained for us of God by our Prayers therefore itself is not God But this has been answered already for though the One Supreme God cannot be sent nor given which I suppose is the force of his Argument yet in the ever blessed Trinity One Divine Person may send and give another the Father may send the Son and give the Holy Spirit And yet since they like that better we will allow That the Holy Spirit does give himself and is asked of himself for the Divine Persons in the Trinity as I have often observed and proved do not act separately but as the Father and the Son give the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit gives himself in the same individual Act. And when we pray to God for his Holy Spirit we pray to Father Son and Holy Ghost who are this One God and One entire object of Worship It is the ever blessed Trinity we invoke when we pray Our Father which art in Heaven For as they are inseparably One God so they are the inseparable Object of our Worship since this great Mystery of a Trinity in Unity is so plainly revealed to us we cannot worship this One Supreme God but we must direct our Worship to all Three Divine Persons in the Unity of the same Godhead for we do not worship this One Supreme God unless we worship Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore whether we invoke each Person distinctly as our Church does in the beginning of the Litany or pray only to God by the Name of the most High God or by the Name of Father or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ it is all one for Father Son and Holy Ghost is the One Supreme God and the entire Object of our Worship and whoever worships One God but not Father Son and Holy Ghost does not worship the true God not the God of the Christians Before this was so plainly revealed it was sufficient to worship One Supreme God without any conception of the distinct Persons in the Godhead but when it is plainly revealed to us that this One Supreme God is Father Son and Holy Ghost whoever does not worship Father Son and Holy Ghost does not worship the true God for the true God is Father Son and Holy Ghost and there is no God besides him which I would desire our Vnitarians as they falsly call themselves and our Deists carefully to consider if any thing be fundamental in Religion it is the worship of the One true God and if Father Son and Holy Ghost be this One true God those who worship a God who is not Father Son and Holy Ghost do not worship the true God and that I think is the true Notion of Idolatry So that these Men are so far from being Christians that I cannot see how they are worshippers of the true God which should at least make them concerned to examine this matter with more Care and less Prejudice than they have yet done So that when we worship One God we worship Father Son and Holy Ghost and when the Glory of these Divine Persons was made known to the World there was no need of any new Command to worship these three Divine Persons for when it is revealed that they are the One Eternal God the Command of worshipping this One God must include them all Which gives a sufficient Answer to what he adds That there is neither Precept nor Example in all Holy Scripture of Prayer made to the Spirit on this or any other occasion which on the Trinitarian Supposition that the Holy Spirit is a Person and God no less than the Father is very surprizing nay utterly unaccountable But I hope this will satisfie any man that it is not unaccountable for though the Spirit be God he is but One God with Father and Son and therefore not a distinct and separate Object of Worship but is worshipped with the Father and the Son in the Unity of the same Godhead and this required no new Command nor any separate worship of the Holy Spirit There is indeed a distinct worship paid to Christ All men must honour the Son as they honour the Father When God brought his first begotten into the World that is when he raised him from the Dead and exalted him to his own right hand he said and let all the Angels of God worship him God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name that at the Name of Iesus every Knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth But this
Antitype and therefore whatever is said of God must belong to his Person and cannot belong to any other What God did under the typical State of the Law may be a Type and Figure of those more glorious things which we would do in Human Nature and thus his Triumphs and Victories over the Enemies of his Church which is by a Metaphor called his ascending on high since God who fills all places neither locally ascends nor descends was a Type and Figure of his real Ascension into Heaven after he had first descended into the lowermost parts of the Earth as the Apostle argues but if what the Psalmist says that God ascended on high c. received its accomplishment in the Ascension of Christ into Heaven Christ must be the God of whom the Psalmist speaks Thus what the Psalmist says of God Worship him all ye Gods or Angels the Apostle Attributes to Christ when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world he saith and let all the Angels of God worship him To this our Author answers 'T is uncertain whether St. Paul had any respect to the words in the Psalm What when he cites the very words as a Prophesie of Christ How shall we then know when the Apostle has respect to the words he quotes But if he had he doth not quote the words of the Psalmist as if they were spoken of Christ but only declareth the Decree of God known to him by the Spirit for subjecting the Angels to Christ in the same words that the Psalmist had used upon another occasion But he proves this Decree of God by no other Revelation but the words of the Psalmist nor pretends any other and if that do'nt prove it we have no other But his Reason for this is admirable because they are words most proper to express that Decree for the Writers of the New Testament generally affect to speak in Scripture language which is an effectual Answer to all the Texts of Scripture quoted out of the Old Testament that the Apostles did not intend to prove any thing by them but only affected to speak in Scripture language but when the Apostle says this was spoken of Christ if it were not spoken of him I doubt he affected something worse than speaking in Scripture Language this is either to ridicule Scripture or give the lie to it let him choose which he likes best St. Paul applies that of the Prophet Isaiah I have sworn by my self which all acknowledge to be spoken by God unto me every knee shall bow to Christ. This our Historian says is Because Christ then and there at the last Iudgment holdeth the place of God representeth him and acteth by his Commission So men are said to appear before our Soveraign Lord the King when they appear at the Bar of his Iudges because the Iudges act in the King's stead and by his Commission But why does he confine this bowing the Knee to the last Iudgment St. Paul indeed gives this as one Instance of it but does not confine it to this but in the Epistle to the Philippians makes it as large as the Exaltation of our Saviour Wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name that at the Name of Iesus every knee should bow and that every Tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father This is what God says by the Prophet Every Tongue shall swear to me and St. Paul to the Romans Every Tongue shall confess to God And this shows that it is the Person of Christ to whom we must bow the knee it is the Name of Iesus at which every knee must bow and every Tongue must confess that Iesus Christ is the Lord. Now I suppose he will not say That we must confess the Judges to be the King or that we must bow to their Persons but to their Commission or that they represent the King wherever they are but only in the King 's Court. If then we must bow to the Person of Christ and confess him to be the Lord and this be an accomplishment of God's Oath unto me every Knee shall bow and every Tongue shall swear then Christ is that God who in the Prophet Isaiah swore that every Knee should bow to him And the Prophet plainly describes who this God is to whom every Knee shall bow Surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength even to him shall men come and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed in the Lord shall the Seed of Israel be justified and shall glory And I suppose all Christians know who that Lord is who is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption by whom we are justified through Faith in his Blood And this is that God to whom every Knee must bow But he is a little mistaken also in his Law we are not said to appear before our Soveraign Lord the King because we appear before the Judges who act by the King's Commission for this is true only of the Court of King's Bench which is peculiarly the King's Court though other Judges act by the King's Commission also in the Kings Court we are said to appear before the King But now though Christ receive his Kingdom and Power from God and God is said to judge the World by him yet it is properly Christ's Iudgment Seat So St. Paul here calls it We shall all stand before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ and we must all appear before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ for the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Iudgment to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father which I explained before And therefore this being Christ's Court of which he is the Supream and Soveraign Judge to him we must bow our Knee that is he is that Lord of whom the Prophet Isaiah speaks The same Prophet tells us Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself and let him be your fear and let him be your dread And he shall be for a Sanctuary but for a Stone of stumbling and for a Rock of Offence to both the Houses of Israel for a gin and for a snare to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem This is evidently spoken of the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel And this St. Paul applies to Christ that the Jews did stumble and fall and were broken as the Prophet foretold at this stumbling Stone Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness hath not attained to the Law of Righteousness Wherefore because they sought it not by Faith the Faith of Christ but as it were by the Works of the Law for they stumbled at the stumbling-stone as it is written Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed Where the Apostle joyns two Prophesies together the first that which I have already quoted
our selves to their Institution and Guidance not as to Creatures but as to God who is both the Author and the Object of our Faith and Worship No man must religiously consecrate himself to a Creature for that is Idolatry even among the Pagans their Mysteries terminated on their Gods and they were initiated by them into the Worship of that God whose Mysteries they were and it was never known yet that men devoted themselves to the Institution and Guidance of any Human Doctors or Masters by Religious Ceremonies Now if Baptism be a Religious Rite God and Creatures can never be made the joynt Object of Religion and therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost must be One God with the Father I desire to know what is meant by being baptized in the Name of the Father Is it only to take him for our Instructor and Guide Or is it to worship and obey him for our God And why then do not the same words in the same Religious Act signifie the same thing when applied to the Son and Holy Ghost as they do when applied to the Father Let them shew me any one Instance in Scripture where a Creature is joyned with God in any Act of Worship much less in the Fundamental Contract of Worship if I may so speak wherein we devote and consecrate our selves to God Our Author with his usual Assurance adds 'T is in vain not to say ridiculously pretended that a Person or Thing is God because we are baptized into it or in the Name of it for then Moses and John Baptist also would be Gods Our Fathers were all baptized unto Moses unto what then were you baptized and they said unto John 's Baptism That is saith the generality of Interpreters unto John and the Doctrine by him delivered But in the first place he mis-represents the Argument which is That the Son and Holy Ghost are God because we are baptized in their Name as we are in the Name of the Father and together with him in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and I confess he had answered this Argument could he have shewn us that the Jews were baptized in the Name of God and in the Name of Moses for that had joyned Moses with God as our Saviour joyns the Son and the Holy Ghost with the Father in the Form of Baptism But he is so far from doing this that in the next place I observe that the Jews never were literally baptized in the Name of Moses or in the Name of Iohn as Christians are by our Saviour's Institution in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Moses did not Baptize the Jews at all much less in his own Name though St. Paul observes that they had a kind of Mystical Baptism under Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea And therefore it is plain that to baptize into Moses is a figurative and allusive Expression and does not and cannot signifie that they were baptized in the Name of Moses because it is not true for though we should grant as he argues that to be baptized into Christ and baptized in the Name of Christ signifies the same thing when men are literally baptized in the Name of Christ yet it is a demonstration that to be baptized into Moses and baptized in the Name of Moses cannot signifie the same thing because those who were mystically baptized into Moses never were baptized in the Name of Moses and it is burlesquing Scripture to make any Phrase and Expression signifie that which never was I will only ask this Author Whether the Jews were baptized in the Name of Moses If they were not let him tell me how their being baptized into Moses comes to signifie their being baptized in the Name of Moses Could the Apostle mean by this Phrase that they were baptized in the Name of Moses that is could the Apostle mean what he knew was not true And yet I deny that to be baptized into Christ and baptized in the Name of Christ signifie the same thing for to be baptized into Iesus Christ does not relate to the Form of administring Baptism in the Name of Christ but to the effect of it in uniting us to Christ and incorporating us with him as Members of his Body which induces an Obligation of a Spiritual Conformity to his Death in dying to Sin and living to God And thus the Israelites were baptized into Moses or into the Mosaical Covenant not by being baptized in the Name of Moses but by mystical Sacraments the Cloud which over-shadowed and guided them and the Red-Sea which divided and gave them safe Passage but drowned the AEgyptians being Types and Figures of the Christian Baptism but I shall not spend time in explaining this now it is enough to shew that it is nothing to our present Argument Thus it is evident that to be baptized into John 's baptism does not signifie to be baptized in the Name of Iohn for Iohn did not baptize in his own Name but made Proselytes to the Messias as the Apostle adds Iohn verily baptized with the baptism of Repentance saying unto the People that they should believe on him who should come after him that is on Christ Iesus Are not these now admirable Proofs that we may be baptized in the Name of Creatures because the Israelites were mystically baptized into Moses who never literally baptized any much less in his own Name and that the Disciples of Iohn were baptized into Iohn's Baptism that is into Iohn and that is in the Name of Iohn which we know he never did And yet the Socinians who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost make this Form of Baptism infinitely more absurd still The Holy Ghost they say is not a Person but the Power and Inspiration of God Now is it not very absurd that the Power and Inspiration of God which is not a Person should be joyned in the same Form with Father and Son who are Persons Is not this like swearing Allegiance to the King and to his Son and to his Power or to his Wisdom The Holy Spirit is plainly distinguished from the Father and from the Son and it seems has a distinct Name of its own into which we are baptized now if the Holy Spirit be not a Person I desire to know how the Power and Inspiration of God is so distinct from the Father as to justifie our being distinctly baptized in the Name of the Father and in the Name of the Holy Spirit or of his Power or Inspiration To be baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is sufficient to convince any man who is not resolved against being convinct that the Holy Ghost is a Person as Father and Son are Persons otherwise it were very absurd to joyn the Holy Ghost with Father and Son in such a Religious Dedication as Baptism is In the
And adds The very truth is they cannot otherwise defend the Incarnation or Personal Vnion of an infinite God to a finite Man This is Gibberish which I do not understand but this I do understand which I suppose is the meaning of it if it have any meaning That an Eternal Being who has no beginning and no succession of Being may Coexist with time and that an infinite Mind who has no parts or extension is present every where without extension This I have sufficiently discoursed already and refer my Reader to it But he has a thundring Argument against this But withal it must be owned that then the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation do infer imply and suppose all the Contradictions that Mr. Johnson has objected to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation I hope not all for that is a very good Discourse and I only wish for the Author's sake si sic omnia but pray what is the matter His whole Book and all his Demonstrations are founded upon these two Suppositions That a longer time doth not all of it coexist in a shorter nor is a greater extension constipated or contained in a less Suppose this for I have forgot what his Demonstrations are and have not the Book now by me what is this to the Trinity and Incarnation though a longer time cannot all of it coexist in a shorter which I hope is not so loosly expressed by Mr. Iohnson because it is not sense for time is in a perpetual flux and nothing of it exists but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but what is this to an Eternal Being's coexisting with time without time or succession Though a greater Extension cannot be contained in a less what is this to an infinite Mind's being present every where without Extension for here is no Comparison between a longer and shorter time but between Time and Eternity which is not Time nor Succession nor between a greater and less Extension but between a finite and infinite Mind neither of which have any Extension But suppose the worst how does this concern the Doctrine of the Incarnation If he could tell how to apply all the Demonstrations of Mr. Iohnson which he tells us in Print he forbears to do because the Press is not open to them these Absurdities and Contradictions would not fall upon the Doctrine of the Incarnation but upon the Notion of an Omnipresent God who has no Parts nor Extension which was not invented to salve the Difficulties of the Incarnation but is the true Notion of God and his Omnipresence who is not Omnipresent by Parts but is every where a perfect and infinite Mind and if he can ridicule God out of the World we will quarrel no more about the Incarnation I do not at all wonder that he boasts so much what Follies and Contradictions he could discover in the Athanasian Creed for a man who cannot understand common Sense can never fail of finding Follies and Contradictions 2. He proves That the Vnion between God and Man cannot make one Person as the Vnion of Body and Soul does because the Vnion of Soul and Body is not the Vnion of Two Persons but only of One Person the Soul to a thing otherways without Life Reason Memory or Free-will But in the pretended Vnion of God with Man there are Two distinct and very different Lives Memories Reasons and Free-wills which utterly destroys a Personal Vnion for that supposes but One Life One Reason One Memory One Free-will Now this is false as to matter of Fact for though we will allow the Soul to be the Person yet by its Union to the Body it has two sorts of different Lives Wills Affections Appetites Reasons the Animal and Sensual and the Rational Life Will Appetites a Carnal and a Spiritual Reason that is two different Principles of Flesh and Spirit as much as if every Man had two Souls So that there may be two Lives two Wills c. in the same Person and it makes no difference in this Case whether these two Wills be seated in two different Subjects or the same Soul by its vital Union to Matter have two distinct Wills and Reasons and therefore we must find out some other Notion of a Personal Union than this that one Person can have but one Will one Reason c. for it is plain one Person may have two Wills and Reasons and if he may have two he may have three according to the number and diversity of Natures which are united into One Person Now when I inquire what it is that unites different Natures into One Person I do not mean what it is that naturally unites them neither what the natural Union is between Soul and Body in the Person of Man nor of God and Man in the Person of Christ for this we know nothing of and therefore no pretended Contradictions and Impossibilities in this shall hinder my belief of it as I discoursed in the first Section But how two different Natures may be so united as to make but One Agent for One Agent is One Person Now there are but two things necessary to this 1. That these different Natures be so united that the superior Nature have the Government of the whole Person unless there be One governing Principle there cannot be One Agent and therefore not One Person and the superior Nature must be the Governour and the Person as this Author tells us the Soul is the Person in man as being the superior governing Principle and in the Soul Reason has the natural government of Sense as being the superior Faculty proper to a Spirit whereas Sense results from its Union to Matter And thus in Christ the Divine Word is the Person and in this Personal Union of God and Man has such a government of Humane Nature as Reason has over Sense in Man and therefore St. Iohn tells us That the Word was made Flesh or was Incarnate for the Person of the Word took Humane Nature into a Personal Union with himself And this is the Reason why all the Actions and Passions of Humane Nature are attributed to Christ as the Son of God because the Word is the Person to whom Humane Nature is united and who has the sole government of it as all the Sufferings and Actions of the Body are attributed to the Man though the Soul is the Person because it is the superior and governing Power and constitutes the Person 2. To compleat a Personal Union it is necessary there be One Consciousness in the whole As a Man has a conscious Sensation of every thing which is done or suffered either by Body or Soul feels its own Reasonings and Passions and all the Pains and Pleasures of the Body and in this Sense there must be but one Life in one Person and this own Consciousness to the whole is the One Life But then we must observe That where different Natures are united into One Person this universal Consciousness to the whole Person is seated