The Distinction of Trinitarians, into Nominals and Realists; and the Design of these Sheets.

IT will easily appear, to all that have seen the late Prints be­tween the Trinitarians and U­nitarians; That the Questions controverted between us, are ma­naged here, on another Foot as they speak, in another Method, and by different Arguments, than in Fo­reign parts, or by the Latin Wri­ters. Among other remarks that we have made and urged, the Eng­lish Ʋnitarians show; That their Opposers do indeed all go under the common name of Trinitarians, but are (in truth) a great many several and contrary Sects. They all cast up their Caps, and cry, Trinity, Tri­nity: But the Ideas they have of the Trinity, and consequently their Faiths concerning this (pretended) Mystery, are so many and so con­trary; that they are less one Party among themselves, than the far more Learned, and far greater Number of them (I mean hereby, the Nomi­nal Trinitarians) are one Party with Us. As much as the Socinians are clamour'd on, for (abominable, in­tolerable) Hereticks; there is no­thing more certain than that the No­minal Trinitarians, who are truly and properly the Church, and who are by much the Majority of Chri­stians, are altogether in the same Sentiments concerning Almighty GOD, and the Person of our Sa­viour; that we are.

This is one of the Points that I shall insist on, and evince in these Sheets: but I shall argue divers o­ther Matters, these two especially. That the several Sects of Real Tri­nitarians are guilty of a manifest Tritheism, their Doctrine (neces­sarily and immediately) infers three Gods: and that the Nominal Tri­nitarians have causlesly innovated the Language of the Holy Scrip­ture, and of the (Primitive) Church, concerning GOD, and the Person of the Lord Christ. I said, in the Language of Scripture, and of the [Page 4]antient Church; for they have re­tained the Primitive and true Do­ctrine, only they have not kept to the Form of sound Words. I will speak, first, of (our Brethren) the Nominal Trinitarians; then of the Tritheistick Tribes, or Realists.

Of the Nominal Trinitarians; that these are the Church.

THE first observation to be made on the Nominals, is; that these are the Church; which I prove by two (incontestable) Arguments.

1. Their Doctrine has been e­spoused by a General Council. The Council assembled at the Lateran, in the Year 1215, established (in the most ample manner, and most ex­press Terms) the Doctrine of the School-Divines or Nominal Trinita­rians; and condemns, in the Person and Writings of Abbat Joachim, the Doctrine of the Real Trinitarians, as Heretical and Mad; I use the very words of the 2d Canon of that Council. To this Argument, I must note two things.

First, This Council was more tru­ly General, than almost any of the Councils that are so called. Here were present 1200 Fathers; the Am­bassadours of the Emperour of Con­stantinople, the King of the Romans, the Kings of France, England, Ar­ragon, Hungary, Jerusalem, Cyprus, and divers others: Here also were the five Patriarchs, (partly in Person, partly by their Legats) the Roman, Constantinopolitan, he of Jerusalem, the Antiochian and Alexandrian; whose Presence (by themselves or their Legats) is supposed necessary towards constituting an Oecumeni­cal (or General) Council.

Secondly, Divines and Canonists do not give the name of Heresy to any Doctrine, because 'tis rejected by a great number of Learned Men, or by a National Council: but they reckon it Heresy, if it has been cen­sur'd by a General Council, which represents the Ʋniversal Church. Be the mistake never so great, let it have been condemned by never so many Writers; whether Fathers or Moderns, or both: 'tis only Error, 'tis not Heresy, unless it has been Anathematiz'd by the Catholick (or Universal) Church; and the Catho­lick Church is never understood to speak, but by a General Council; which for that reason is called the Church Representative.

Briefly, Heresy and the Faith can be declared, but only by a General Council; the General Council at the Lateran (in Rome) has avowed the Doctrine of the Nominal Trinitari­ans, and Anathematiz'd the Hypothe­sis and Explication of the Real Tri­nitarians: therefore, say I, the for­mer are the Church; the latter are Hereticks. I am amazed, when I [Page 5]hear some Real Trinitarians say in their Books; That the Doctrine of the Nominals never had any other publick Authority, but the Creed and 2d Canon of the Council of La­teran: for what other equal Autho­rity thereto can it have; is not a General Council the highest Court of the Church? Her Canons de­clare the Faith, her Anathemas He­resy. And what other Council ever was so General as this; in which were assembled, the Emperour, and Kings of the East and West, the La­tin and Greek Churches, 1200 Fa­thers; and what especially makes a General Council, the five Patriarchs of Christendom.

What will the Realists say here; that this was a Popish Council? First, it would be News indeed, that the Roman Catholicks are not Ortho­dox, in the Questions concerning the Trinity, and the Incarnation. It has ever been granted to them, both by the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Church of England, that they are sound in Fundamentals; in the Doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Sa­tisfaction, and such like: their Er­ror consists, in the Additions they have made to the Fundamentals; and namely, by their Doctrines of In­dulgences, Transubstantiation, Wor­ship and Invocation of Images and Saints, and the rest. And is the Greek Church also Heretical in the Doctrine of the Trinity? for in this Council, the Greek Emperour and Church were represented, as well as the Latin Church: nay, of the five Patriarchs here present, four of them belong to the Orient, or Greek Church. When the Realists have turned themselves all ways, they will find themselves held, and even bound by the Authority of this Council; which is too Great and Venerable to be (openly, or directly) disclaimed.

'Tis objected to this Council, by Mr. Spanheim, the present (Learned) Professor at Leyden; that they assent­ed to, and published 70 Canons in 20 days Time; and that the Canons were not framed by the Fathers, but by the Pope. These are frivo­lous Exceptions, unworthy of so Learned an Historian: for 'tis not at all to the purpose, who contrived these Canons; seeing they were ap­proved, assented to, and published by the Council. Canons are oft­times composed by some particular Father in a Council; sometimes by a Committee of the Council, some­times (as in the present Case) by the President: but by whomsoever they are drawn up, they are not the Ca­nons of that Person or Persons; but of the Council, when the Council has examined, approved and voted them. But Mr. Spanheim doth not find Fault with this Council, for their Explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, or the Canons that refer to any part of that Article; but be­cause it was convened, under pre­tence indeed to carry on the War a­gainst the Saracens, in the Holy Land; but really to raise a Crusade (or Holy War) against the Albigen­ses, and to confirm the Vassalage of [Page 6] John King of England to the See of Rome, against the Consent of the English Peerage; that is (in short) to inlarge the Jurisdiction, and in­crease the Authority of the Western Patriarch, or Bishop of Rome.

2. My second (as I said, incon­testable) Proof, that the Nominal Tri­nitarians are the Church, is, that the Divinity-Chairs, and all Writers, whether of Controversy, or Systems, have ever followed the Doctrine of the Schools (which is the Doctrine of the Nominal Trinitarians) and the Creed, and 2d Canon of the (before­said) Council of Lateran, in decla­ring the Doctrine of the Trinity. They all take it, as the Council-Schools and Nominals do, for their Foundati­on; That ‘there is but one only and self-same Divine Substance: and in that Substance, but one (in­finite) Undestanding, but one (almighty) Energy, and Will, in number.’ Which is to say, there is but one really Subsisting (divine) Person, or God is but one subsisting Person; tho in a Critical or Classical Sense of the word Persons, namely, when Persons is used only for various Relations of the same really subsisting Person, we may say there are three Divine Persons. A subsisting Person is (by Confession of all) one parti­cular Substance, having (one) Un­derstanding, Will and Energy (or power of Action) in number: there­fore God being (according to the Council, Schools, and all Nomi­nals) one Substance, or one particu­lar spiritual Substance, with one only Understanding, Energy and Will; he can be, according to them, but one subsisting Person, tho he may be more Metaphysical or Classical Persons, that is, more Relations or Properties. This, I say, is the Doctrine of that Council, of the Schools, and of the Nominal Trinitarians; and it has al­ways been approved and taught by the Divinity-Chairs, and by the Wri­ters both of Systems and Controver­sy; therefore the Nominals, not the Realists, are the Church.

I shall grant, that the real Trinita­rians have on their side, the most (and most considerable) of the Fathers; reckoning from about the Year of Christ 140, and meaning those Fa­thers, whose Writings have been suf­fered to come down to our Times; and excepting out of the Number, the Party in the first Nicen Council, which some little time after the breaking up of that Council, were considered as the Orthodox Party, and the Church, and were persecu­ted as such by the Arians: But the Nominals have what is much more considerable, all the Moderns; ac­counting the Moderns from the Coun­cil of Lateran, or the Year 1215. Since that Council, Learning, and more especially Theological Learning, has not only been revived, but great­ly improved; the later Divines have been better Criticks, Interpreters, Phi­losophers, than the Fathers were; and the two last Ages only, have afforded more Hundreds of able Divines, than there were single Persons of the Fa­thers. Of the Latin Fathers, only [Page 7]St. Jerem would have been account­ed a Learned Divine in our Age; and of the Greeks, Origen, Eusebi­us, the two Gregories, Basil, St. John Chrysostom, and four or five more: had the rest wrote in any part of the two last Ages, they should undoubt­edly have been reckoned among the Scriblers. The Nominals therefore, if you demand Authority, produce a General Council, not only esta­blishing their Hypothesis, or Expli­cation of the Trinity, but denounc­ing Anathema to the contrary Do­ctrine and the Realists: if you re­quire a Poll, if you will be judged by most Votes, they have for them an hundred (far more Learned) Mo­derns, against one Father who can be cited for their Opposers, the Realists.

Why the Nominals are so called; their Doctrine, and Agree­ment with the Unitarians.

THE Church then, as I said, is unquestionably the Nominal Party; and this Party is so called, be­cause as the Realists are denominated from their believing three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds, who are so many real subsisting Persons: so the Nominals believe three Divine Per­sons, who are Persons in Name only, indeed and in truth they are but one subsisting Person. This will appear by all more fully and clearly, by the account I shall now give (in their own Words and Terms) of their Doctrine, Hypothesis, or Explica­tion.

The Nominals are one Party in se­veral Subdivisions; they must be cal­led one Party, because their Explica­tions so far agree, as really to leave but one God, and one Divine Person properly and physically so called. All the Divisions of the Nominals ac­cord, that there is but one only and self-same Divine Essence and Sub­stance, the Divine Substance accord­ing to them, is one in Number: not, as the Realists hold, one in Properties only; which indeed were only a like­ness of Substances, not an Ʋnity. As the Divine Substance is numeri­cally One, so (according to the No­minals) is the Divine Understand­ing, Energy, and Will; they are not repeated as the Persons are, but they are one as strictly and properly, as the Essence or Substance is one: Or more clearly, if it may be, thus; as there is but one Divine spiritual Sub­stance, so there is but one (omnisci­ent) Understanding, but one (omni­potent) Energy, but one (most Ho­ly) Will. They allow indeed of three Persons in the Sense hereafter declared; but all these Persons have but one Understanding, one Will, one Energy in Number. Having laid this honest and sound Founda­tion, they take a Latitude, and with­out quarrelling with, or censuring [Page 8]one another, in declaring what is to be meant by the three Persons. One saith, they are only three Acts of God, whereby he is denominated af­ter three several manners. On the account of his Creating, Redeem­ing, and Sanctifying Mankind, he is called three Persons: for (say these Gentlemen) a Creator is a Person, a Redeemer is a Person, a Sanctifier is a Person. If you reply, true; but one Person may perform all these Acts, and sustain all these Denomi­nations: they answer, you have right­ly understood them, for they intend not to say, there are three (Divine) physical or subsisting Persons, but three Persons in a Critical or Clas­sical (or if you will, Metaphysical) sense of the word Persons. For in­stance, three such Persons as one Man, who happens to be a King, a Husband, and a Father, may be said to be. Every Body knows who is that Learned Professor that preached this Trinity, first in three Sermons to the University of Oxford, with great applause; afterwards maintained it with no less Approbation among the London Divines, in divers Letters by him published. The Socinians, not only never denied three such Persons in God, or such a Trinity, but as willingly avow it, as this Professor himself, his Learned Auditory at Ox­ford, or his Admirers at London. Why are we Hereticks, while he is not only confest to be Orthodox, and Catho­lick, but is esteemed as (a worthy and deserving) Apologist for the Faith? Why may not the Author of the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius, or he of the Conside­rations on the Explications and De­fences of the Trinity, succeed to this Professor in his Canonship, at Christ-Church? It cannot be de­nied, that could they but prevaricate, they might pass for as Orthodox, and as sound Trinitarians, as the very greatest and bitterest of their Calum­niators: their Faith concerning God is the same, both for Sense and Terms; but the Professor, though a real U­nitarian, and only a Nominal Tri­nitarian, can asperse Socinus, they (on the contrary) see no reason to dis­claim their Friends and Partisans.

Other Nominals soar high; they explain their Trinity after a very pe­culiar and surprizing manner. The Father, say they, is the Fountain of the Deity, the Author and the Cause of the other two Persons; he is ori­ginal Mind and Wisdom: who from all Eternity most perfectly understood himself and his own Perfections, and also Willed (that is, Loved) himself in a most perfect manner. No one will doubt (say they) that God al­ways, or from all Eternity, perfectly understood himself: and 'tis Natu­ral and Connate to every Being that hath Understanding, to Will (or Love) himself; [...] or Self-love is an Affection naturally arising in intellectual Beings; 'tis the first Affection of such Beings, and ad­heres inseparably to them. But seeing whatsoever understandeth, doth un­derstand by conceiving within it self an Image of the thing understood; [Page 9]therefore the Father (as hath been said) understanding himself from all Eternity, conceived within himself (from all Eternity) a most perfect I­mage of himself. Which Image, be­cause thus conceived, and as it were generated by him, is called the Son; 'tis also called the Wisdom of God, his reflex Wisdom, because 'tis the Wisdom that resulteth from the Fa­ther's understanding himself, and his own Perfections. As God under­standeth, he Willeth also (or Loveth) himself: this second Act, or God's Loving himself, is the Holy Spirit or third Person; as understanding him­self (or the reflex Wisdom of origi­nal Mind and Wisdom) was the se­cond Person of the Trinity. To un­derstand one self, and to love (or will) one self in created and finite Be­ings, are but only Acts of the Ʋnder­standing and Will; but in God, we call them Persons. Though nothing can be more ridiculous, than this ac­count of a Trinity; yet to purchase their quiet, the Socinians are con­tent to wear a strange, and odd Badg. For Peace-sake, they will say with our Holy Mother the Church, Understanding (or reflex Wisdom) is a Person, and Love ano­ther Person; and these two, with o­riginal Wisdom, shall be called a Tri­nity. Indeed we could wish, that so grave a Matron as the Church, would leave off Trifling: but seeing for the main of it, the thing is true; for 'tis true, that the Father is original Mind or Wisdom, and he Ʋnderstand­eth, and Willeth himself; we can bear with a little impropriety in speaking of Things. The Church requires us to say, Father, Son and Spirit, Trinity, three Divine Persons, but she declares at the same time, that the meaning only is, God (or original Mind) Ʋnderstandeth and Loveth himself: it would be hard if Sons should contend with a Mother, about a few (uncouth, or ill-chose) Terms and Words, on which she (con­fessedly) puts a sober meaning, a Sense no way contrary to the Unity of God, or that there is in truth but one sub­sisting Divine Person.

Well, here are two Explications of the Trinity, by the Nominals. The first saith, the Trinity of Divine Persons are the three external Acts of Creation, Redemption, and Sancti­fication; or God considered as the Creator, the Redeemer, and Sancti­fier of the World, or of Mankind. The other saith, the second and third Persons of the Trinity, are indeed three Acts of God, but they are in­ternal Acts, even his Understanding and Loving himself: So that the whole Trinity is original Mind (or the subsisting Person of the Father) Knowing and Willing himself; so these two Parties. But another Di­vision of the Nominals tell us, the Divine Persons are not bare Acts of God, whether External or Internal, but they are three Attributes of God: Goodness, Wisdom, and Pow­er, say they, are that Trinity which the Church teaches; and she teaches no other. But then, say I, 'tis evi­dent again, that the Church and the [Page 10]Socinians are well agreed; for the latter, no less than the former, be­lieve this Trinity; and the only Hereticks in these Questions, are the Real Trinitarians, who believe a Trinity of three really subsisting Persons, three distinct Spirits, three (Almighty, All-knowing) Beings.

But they are not very many, tho they are Learned Men, that speak af­ter these manners: the School-men, and the Divines that follow them, and who more properly are the Nominal Party, deliver themselves in other Terms; though in the main, in what truly gives to them the Name of Nominal Trinitarians, all the Divisi­ons of them perfectly agree. Because we litigate in the English Tongue, and contest these Questions only with English Writers; it will be fit to re­present the Doctrine of the Schools, or the Party which (I said) are more properly (it may be) the Nominal Trinitarians, out of the late Books of Dr. S— th against Dr. Sherlock. They teach, that God or the Trini­ty is one (Numerical self-same) Spi­ritual and Divine Substance, one (only) Spirit, one (solitary) Being. And though he is three Persons (by which, what they mean we shall see presently); there is in the whole Trinty but one (infinite) Ʋnderstand­ing, one (soveraign) Will, one (al­mighty) Energy or Power of Action in Number. This one Divine intel­tectual Substance, or really subsisting Person, is (at it were) distinguished and diversified by three relative Modes, or relative Subsistences: which Subsistences or Modes are so intirely Relative, that their very Subsistence is nothing else but their Relation; their Relation is not somewhat con­sequent upon, or supervenient to their Subsistence, as in created Per­sons, but is one and the same with it. These relative Modes being three in Number, are the three Per­sonalities of the Deity; but the con­crete and abstract Terms (namely Personalities and Persons) are but only different ways of expressing the same thing. And therefore as we describe the Personalities in the God­head, by Relations; relative Subsi­stences, relative Modes, relative Pro­perties, or such like: So we say also that every Person (as well as every Personality) in the Trinity is wholly Relative; that is, that which makes the first Person in the Trinity to be a Person, makes him to be a Father; and what makes him to be a Father, makes him to be a Person; so that (as we have but now said) both Per­sons and Personalities in the Trinity are meerly Relations, or relative Pro­perties of the one (self-same) Divine Substance, Being, or Spirit. These three relative Modes, Relations, or relative Properties, in the Divine Sub­stance or Godhead, are Innascibility or Paternity, passive Generation, and pas­sive Spiration; in plainer English, to Beget, to be Begotten, and to Proceed or be Breathed: the first maketh the Person of the Father, the other two make or constitute the Son and Holy Spirit. This is the Sum of what [Page 11]Doctor S— th saith in his last Book, or Tritheism Charged, pag. 156, 157. Mr. Hooker (Author of the Ecclesi­astical Policy) expresses this Do­ctrine, though not so fully, yet more intelligibly to the Unlearned, in these words. ‘The Substance of God, with this property to be of none, doth make the Person of the Father; the very self-same Sub­stance in Number, with this pro­perty to be of the Father, maketh the Person of the Son; the same Substance having added to it the property of proceeding from the o­ther two, maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost: So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God, which is one, and also that Property which cau­seth the same Person [that is to say, the Divine Substance with one of the three Properties before said, as suppose the Property to be of none] really and truly to differ from the other two.’ That is, to differ from the Divine Substance con­sidered under the Properties to be of the Father, and to proceed from the Father and Son. Mr. Hooker then, as well as Dr. S— th, understood the Doctrine of the Schools and Church concerning the Trinity, to be this. That there is but one infinite intel­lectual Divine Substance in Number, which Substance is the Subject (if we may so speak) of sundry Divine Attributes, such as Omnipotence, perfect Goodness, consummate Ho­liness, and the rest: none of which Attributes is more than once in the Divine Substance or Godhead; there is in God but one Omniscience, one Omnipotence, one Holiness, one Goodness in number; as the Nature or Substance is but one in number, so each Attribute is but once (not thrice) in the Nature, or Godhead. But then besides these Attributes, there are also three Persons in God; not sub­sisting Persons, for that would plain­ly make three Beings, three Spirits, and three Gods; but three such Per­sons as in very Deed are but so ma­ny Properties, or Modes, or if you will give them any the like Name. Such Properties as Grammarians and Classical Authors (and after them, Metaphysicians) call Persons: for ac­cording to them, a Father is a Per­son, a Son is a Person, a Sanctifier is a Person; and whosoever sustains these three Relations (or any other the like) is by them called three Persons. Thus, for example, M. Tullius, ac­knowledges in every Man no less than four Persons; namely, first, The ra­tional Nature, by which we differ from Brutes; next, the particular Properties (of Body and Mind) which distinguish one rational Nature (or Man) from another; thirdly, the circumstance, or manner of Life of each Man, as that he is a Rich Man or a Poor; lastly, The Profession that any one takes up, as to be a Civili­an, a Professor in Philosophy, a Pleader, a Poet, or Writer to the Stage. De Officiis; l. 2. c. 30, 32. A Person then in grammatical, criti­cal speaking, is not a subsisting Be­ing; but some either (characteri­zing) [Page 12]Property, or some Relation, or State, of a subsisting intellectual Be­ing: and it is of Persons, critically so called, that the Church would be understood, when she says, there are three Persons in God; she doth not mean three subsisting Persons, or Per­sons who are called Persons, because they are so many intellectual Beings. Dr. S—th very well understood the Doctrine of the Schools, when he notes; that the three Divine Per­sons are three relative Subsistences, but so (saith he) that their Subsi­stence is nothing else but their Relati­on; that is, they are meer States, Modes, or Relations, which (in a sense) subsist in the Divine Substance, Na­ture, or Godhead. Which indeed is to say, God is three Persons, as any particular Man, may be three Per­sons: for the same Man may be a Father, a Son, and may proceed from two others; namely, from Fa­ther and Mother. And though this is not the very manner of God's be­ing three Persons; yet the ternary Personality in God is sounded on the same Notion and Conception of the word Persons: and that Conception no more destroys his real Unity, whe­ther as a Being, as a Spirit, or as God, than that three-fold Personali­ty in a Man, makes him to be more than one Man, or than one subsisting Person. The short is, according to these Gentlemen, God is but one sub­sisting (or real Person: but this one (physical) Person having three (in­ternal) Relations, is thereby three relative Persons; three such Persons as one Man (or one Angel) who hap­pens to have three Relations, is. The three relative Persons no more contradict the Unity of God, than the theeefold Relation of Solomon, namely, as Son of David, as Fa­ther of Rehoboam, and as proceed­ing from David and Bathsheba, con­tradicts his being but one Man, or one subsisting and physical Person.

It is well known, what Judgment the Real Ʋnitarians make of this Ex­plication of the Trinity. Mr. How (because he delights to be civil) con­tents himself to say; the Real Tri­nitarians will judg, it is not Sense; View of the Considerations, pag. 50. The Bishop of Gloc. thinks it can have little better Success, than only to make sport for the Socinians; so he concludes his 28 Propositions in his 2d Defence of them. But Dr. Cudworth cries, 'tis the Philosophy of Gotham. Nay, Mr. How himself, though out of regard to so great a Party as the Nominal Trinitarians are, he will only say of their Expli­cation, 'tis not Sense; yet he reckons P. Lombard, the supposed Parent of this Explication of the Trinity, one of the four Evangelists of Anti-Christ. Dr. Bull also, and the Learned Author (Mr. J. B.) of the Answer to Dr. S—th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock; say a great many bitter things of the Divines of the Schools, by occasion of this (senseless) Ex­plication of the Trinity. These Gentlemen cannot bear it, that the same intellectual Substance in num­ber, which is but only to say the [Page 13]same numerical Person, should be made to be three Persons, because of three (pretended) internal Relations, or a threefold Relation to himself, which he is (absurdly) feigned to sustain. They confess, that the same intel­lectual Substance, or subsisting Per­son, may be a Father, and Son, and may proceed from another, or others: but then these must be external, not internal Relations; that is, he can­not be Father and Son to himself, as is implied in the Scholastick Expli­cation, because it supposes this Fa­ther, Son, and Proceeder, are really but one subsisting (or physical) Per­son, though they are three (and may be 300) Critical or Metaphysical Per­sons. If the Schools and Nominals said, God is three Persons, because of three external Relations, that is, three Relations to his Creatures: this might be understood, because the same Man may have three Relations to others, and is (on that account) called by Classical Writers three Per­sons, though now, and in the English Tongue that Sense of the word Per­sons is quite out of Use. But to talk of three internal Relations, or that the same intellectual Substance (which is to say, the same subsisting or physical Person) is Unbegotten, and Begotten, is of none, and yet pro­ceeds from two; to make him a Fa­ther and a Son, when there is none but himself to whom he is either way so related: it is such pitious Trifling, as utterly destroys the Patience of the Realists that hear it; while others think that the Philosopher, who is said never to have laughed but once, might even have done it a second Time on this ocasion. In very Deed, our Brother S—th has need of all his Talents and Helps, his Leisure, Learn­ing, Wit, Courage, the Council of Lateran, and all the Moderns, to de­fend him against the insults of the Realists; who have here so manifest an Advantage, and are (for the most part) Men so able to take and ma­nage it, that he will find at length, he has no way to rescue his Explica­tion or himself, but by Recrimina­ting; that is, by shewing the as great Absurdity, and plain Impos­sibility of the Explication of the Trinity b the Realists.

It may be worth while to inquire here, whether the Nominals do not know, or are not aware, that in very deed they are Unitarians, or (as some call us) Socinians? I am of Opinion they are sensible of it, and I ground my self on the express words of some of them, and those too the most esteem­ed: For example, Dr. J. Wallis, and Dr. S—th intimate plainly enough; that the Socinian Doctrine and theirs, is the same. Dr. Wallis answering to a Socinian, in his 3d Letter or Vindication of the Athanasian Creed, p. 62, 63. has these words. ‘That which makes these Expressions [he means the Terms used by Tri­nitarians, especially this, God is three Persons or three Persons are one God] seem harsh to the Soci­nians, is, because they have used themselves to fancy that Notion on­ly of the word Person, according to [Page 14]which three Men are accounted to be three Persons, and these three Persons to be three Men. But they may consider there is ano­ther Nation of the word Person, and in common use too, wherein the same Man may be said to sustain divers Persons, and those Persons to be the same Man, that is, the same Man sustaining divers Capacities. And then it will seem no more harsh to say, the three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, are one God; than to say, God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sancti­fier, is one God: which I sup­pose, even to this Answerer [he means the Socinian, to whom he is there answering] would not seem harsh, or be thought nonsense.’ Here he saith these two things; 1. That three Persons when affirmed of God, are not to be taken as when we say, three Men are three Persons; but in that sense, wherein the same Man is commonly (he means by Gramma­rians and Classical Authors) called three Persons, because he hath three Capacities; as (suppose) of a King, an Husband, and a Father. This is the Sense, in which God is said to be a Trinity, or three Persons: he hath these three Capacities, of Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; and in that regard (or sense) is said to be three Persons. 2. That to a Socini­an, this account not only will not be Non-sense, but not so much as harsh or uncouth. No one can deny, that the Doctor well perceived, that the Socinian Doctrine and his were indeed the same: a Sicinian, he says, would not be offended at this Ex­plication of a Trinity of Persons; Person here not being intended for a subsisting Person, as a particular Man is, but for a Capacity only of a really subsisting Person. And whereas the Socinian Author of the Considerati­ons on the Explications of the Trini­ty had said; if Dr. S—th and the Nominal Party believe but one Di­vine Substance in Number, which hath one only Understanding, one Will, one Energy or power of Acti­on in Number, he is a Socinian or Unitarian; for in very Deed, this is but one (really) subsisting Person: Dr. S—th nothing abash'd, with his usual dexterity and presence of Mind, answers to this effect; That ‘so he believes, and so the Church be­lieves, and that 'tis a good hear­ing, that the Socinians are come over to him, and to the Church, or fal in with him, and the Church.’ I cannot at present find the particu­lar page of Tritheism charged, where this is said, not having made a mark against those Lines; but I re­member well, that I report rightly the Sense of the Passage. His words need no Comment, they are a plain acknowledgment that (by that way of expressing themselves) the Soci­nians fall in with the Church, and with him. But whereas he saith, they fall in with the Church, as the So­cinians are content, that in Honour to the Church it be so said: so the English Ʋnitarians (or as they call [Page 15]us, Socinians) claim it as their right; to be owned the first Discoveres, that all the Heats between the Church and the Socinians, have arose from this only, this they mistook one anothers true meaning, by occasion of the canting un-scriptural Terms, Trinity, Persons (and such like) used by the Church.

For it is most true, that tho for Peace-sake we submit to the Language of the Church, as 'tis interpreted bby the Nominals; yet the Church's Terms are very improper: for the same single numerical subsisting Per­son (as the Church and the Socini­ans believe God to be) is not now in any Language called three Persons, by occasion of three Relations, Modes, or Properties adhering to him; tho 'tis confessed, the (Roman) Classical Authors so spake.

But whereas the Nominals, or the Church, since the Council of Lateran, that they may seem not to have departed from the Fathers, still talk of Trinity, Paternity, Genera­tion, Procession, Hypostatical Uni­on, Father, Son, and Spirit; on which (as we have seen) they put such a meaning, even those of them that speak most Harshly and Impro­perly, as no ways destroys the Unity of God, or that he is but one phy­sical and subsisting Person; and here­upon the Realists insult them, as Peo­ple that know not, or at best heed not what they say: the Socinians think 'tis even necessary, nay, a due Justice, to have more regard and respect for these their weak Brethren. First, We consider; that after all the im­proper Terms, impertinent Language, and unsignificant, and sometimes dangerous Words, used by the No­minals; all the Denominations of them agree at length, in this Sound and Orthodox Explication and Con­clusion, that there is but one Divine intellectual Substance, but one infi­nite Spirit, but one subsisting Person of God. Secondly, The Nominals choose indeed to speak (almost, a Realist would say altogether) Non­sensically, and to retain the dange­rous Tritheistical Terms of the Fa­thers, Trinity, &c. but this was, that they might restore the true Faith and genuine Christianity, without Noise and Tumult: the School-Divines, and Council at Lateran, re­formed the corrupted Doctrine of the Church, by only interpreting (so­berly and dextrously) the Language and Terms, which their Tritheistick Predecessors had brought into the Church, into her very Liturgies, and Creeds.—So many Councils, so ma­ny Fathers, and from them so ma­ny Nations had affirmed a Trinity of Divine Persons; that to oppose this Doctrine, would have begot endless Strises, bitter Contentions and Per­secutions: and after all, probably the Reformers would have come off no better than the Socinians have done; that is, with all the clear Truth they have of their side, and all their Dexterity and Wit in ma­naging it, being over-powered by the numbers of the contrary Herd, they should have been answered with [Page 16]Penal Laws, and Sanguinary Prose­cutions of the those Laws. They took therefore a Course that would do their Business, unperceived by the most; and when perceived by some few, it would not be hard to convict them of Tritheism, and explode them as Tritheists; and so de facto they served Abbat Joachim. And then getting their Explication (of the Trinity) confirmed by the Coun­cil of Lateran, they happily re­stored the publick Profession (and Faith) of the Unity of God, by an Authority which none dares to con­tradict: for a General Council (as was before noted) is the highest Court of the Church; that last Tri­bunal (on Earth) from which there lies no Appeal.

Of the Noetians and Sabellians.

THERE is yet another Branch of Nominal Trinitarians, more antient far than those yet mentioned; for about the Year of Christ 200, the Noetians, and but a little after them the Sabellians arose: both these said, there is but one Divine Sub­stance, Essence or Nature; and as the Substance of the Father, Son and Spiirt, is numerically One, so consequently (said they) there is but one Person of God; Father, Son and Spirit, are but only three Names of God, given to him in Scripture, by occasion of so many several Di­spensations towards the Creature. For in regard of the Creation, God is called the Father: he is named the Son, as he wrought Miracles and accomplished the whole Work of Man's Redemption, by the Lord Christ, in whom he dwelt after a pe­culiar and extraordinary manner; and who indeed was the Son of God, by miraculous Conception in the Womb of Holy Mary: He has the Name of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, from his omnipotent Energy or Power, by which he effecteth all things. In a word, the Noetians and Sabellians held, that God is but one subsisting Person; yet that with respect to things without Him, he may be called (as the Modern Nominals now speak) three Relative Persons: the one subsisting Person of God sustaineth the three Names of Father, Son and Spirit; which being the Relations of God towards things without him, he is so many Relative Persons, or Persons in a Classical cri­tical Sense.

And this too is the Explication of the Trinity, by that Party in the first Nicene Council, who contrived the word Homo-usios, or Consubstantial; by which they meant, that the three Divine Persons have all the same Sub­stance: and this is the Party, which after the breaking up of that famous Council, and upon the sudden Pre­valence of the Arian Faction, were [Page 17]persecuted by the Arians; and were considered by all others as the true Nicene Party, till about the Year of Christ 380, the Realists obtained that it should be said, that God is tres Hypostases, three subsisting Persons. Indeed there are several Comma's in the Nicene Creed, very hardly re­concilable to the Sabellian Doctrine: but as there were three powerful, and almost equal Parties in the Ni­cene Council, the Arian Party, the Realists, and the Sabellians; the lat­ter thought it enough, if they could procure Homo-usios (consubstantial) to be inserted into the Creed. For that ambiguous Word may be in­terpreted in favour of all those Par­ties. It may be interpreted the same Substance, the very same, or same in Number, and so it establishes the Sabellian Doctrine; or the same in Kind and all Properties, and so it countenances the Realists; or it may be understood of like Substance, and so it pleases the Ariani molles, the mo­derate Arians: tho the rigid Arians in the Council would by no means admit of it; they rather chose to lose their Bishopricks. But when the Council was broke up, it was perceived by the other Parties, that the zealous Assertors of Homo-usios (of the same Substance) were all of them Sabellians; believed that God is but one subsisting Person, and therefore destroyed the real Exi­stence of the Son, whom the Arians as well as the Realists took to be a subsisting Person, not a relative Per­son, a Respect or a Name only. And as the Arians discovered, that the Homo-usians were indeed Sabelli­ans; so these latter charged the Ari­ans and Realists as guilty of a mani­fest Tritheism, because they so inter­preted Homo-usios, as to make Fa­ther, Son and Spirit, to be distinct, intellectual Substances, or subsisting Persons. Let us hear their own Hi­storian, Socrates, L. 1. c. 23. ‘Af­ter the Council, the Bishops wrangled about the word Homo-usios. Those that were for it, were censured by the contrary Par­ty, as Sabellians; and were cal­led Impious, because they destroyed the real Existence of the Son. Those that were against it, were condemned by such as were for it, as reviving Gentilism, or the belief of more Gods.’ And this Truth, that Sabellianism was then taken to be the Nicene Doctrine, or the same with the Doctrine of Con­substantiality, is owned by the Lear­ned Critick H. Valesius, in his Notes on Sacrates, L. 1. c. 24. For where­as the Historian saith, That Cyrus Bishop of Berea was deposed, for holding the Sabellian Doctrine: Va­lesius notes hereupon, in these words; that is, for the Doctrine of the Con­substantiality, or the Doctrine of the Nicene Council, which Council brought in the Homo-usiotes, or Con­substantiality.

The Sum of what has been said, concerning the Nominals.

THESE at length are the Divisi­ons of the Nominals. They all agree, that the three Persons of God are not subsisting Persons; they are not so many distinct Lives, Under­standings, Wills, or Energies, which (together with a particular Substance) make a subsisting Person, and if they are more than one, they make so ma­ny physical real or subsisting Persons: no, they are Persons in a quite dif­ferent Sense, from that vulgar accep­tation of the word Persons. They are either three Attributes of God; Goodness, Wisdom, and Power. Or three external Acts; Creation, Re­demption, and Sanctification. Or two internal Acts of the subsisting Person of the Father; that is to say, the Father Ʋnderstanding, and Wil­ling himself and his own Perfecti­ons. Or three internal Relations; that is, three Relations of God to himself: namely, the Divine Sub­stance or Godhead, considered as Un­begotten, and Proceeding. Or three Names of God, ascribed to him by the Holy Scriptures, be­cause he is the Father of all things, by Creation; and because he did In­habit and Operate (after an extraor­dinary and miraculous manner) in the Person of the Man Christ Jesus, who was verily the Son of God by his wonderful manner of Concepti­on; and (last of all) because he ef­fecteth all things (more especially, our Sanctification) by his Spirit, which is to say; his Energy or Power.

Every one sees, these are very crude Conceits to be dignified with the Name of Mysteries: but withal the Reader is to know, that the My­stery is still behind. For the Myste­ry lies not here, that one subsisting Person is made to be three Relative Persons, or three Names, or three Attributes; or that God is called Father because he Created all things, Son because he Inhabited and Opera­ted in the Son our Lord Christ, or Spirit because he is that Almighty Energy which effected all things: for all this, though very harsh and im­proper, is yet intelligible; and the manner of speaking in Antient Times, did warrant such ways of expressing themselves, as may be seen in the Classical Authors, both Romans and Greeks. But it is Mystery, because (or, as) when you apply any of these Explications of the Trinity, to the Incarnation, the Hypostatical Union, or the Satisfa­ction; 'tis next to impossible, to make any degree of Sense of it: for how can we say that an Attribute, or a Property, or a Name, or to be Be­gotten, or any such like was Incar­nate, or Satisfied for Sin? as also because the Terms Generation and Procession cannot, without most re­mote [Page 19]and ridiculous Subtleties, be applied to three Attributes; or to Understanding, and Willing ones self; or to the same Unbegotten, and unproceeding Substance; or to Creation and Redemption and San­ctification. In short, our poor Bre­thren the Nominals are here purely constrained and forced to call their Doctrine Mystery; because 'tis so hard to find a way, to reconcile it to the ordinary Forms of speaking, that is, to common Sense. Therefore here the Realists glory over them; here they have an ample Field, for Wit and Sarcasm to parade in: here they ask the Nominals an hundred male­volent pleasant Questions; to which they answer, by objecting Profaness to the Questionists, and by the seri­ous word Mystery. Moreover they (the Nominals) comfort themselves, that the whole Mystery (or Absur­dity) of their Doctrine, consists only in the Terms [ Trinity, &c.] which they are forced to retain, to preserve the Church's Peace; not in the Sense, or thing intended: for the meaning and Sum of their Doctrine, as they explain it, is; there is but one Di­vine subsisting Person; not more such Persons, for that were to say more Gods.

Besides, after all the dry Bobs of the Realists, on the Nominals; them­selves must take their turn of being jeered. For when their Explicati­ons come to be examined; and their Contradictions to, and Comdemna­tions of one another as Tritheists, are considered: the Nominals will seem to be profound Philosophers, deep Sages, in comparison with these their Opposers; and these Opposers (the Realists) such awkward, uncouth Rusticks, that a great deal of Cha­rity or Discretion must be used with­in ones self, to be civil to them. But I shall not consider their Persons or Doctrine, as the Nominals do; neither with Railery, nor Anger, as the manner now is: but only as desirous to convince them, that they have as causlesly departed from the Doctrine of the Church, as dan­gerously.

Of the Realists: that they are divided, into two Factions; which comdemn each the other, of manifest Tritheism.

THE first Observation, to be made on the Real Trinitarians, is; not only that (as has been said) they stand Condemned and Anathe­matiz'd as Hereticks, by a General Council, and by all the Moderns, who are more, and more Learned than the Fathers; or that they are every day challeng'd and impeached of Tritheism, by Learned Men of the Nominal Party, and Appeals made to Universities, and the Divinity-Chairs, against them: But ‘they themselves being divided among [Page 20]themselves, censure one another as manifest Tritheists.’ They are divided into many Parties, but all those Parties are again bandied into two principal Factions; that can never be reconciled to one another.

One of these Factions saith, that the three Divine Persons are every way equal: namely, Co-eternal, a­like Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent. Most of the Fathers, after the Year 380, were of this Per­swasion: because they plainly saw, that to ascribe any Perfection, or degree of that Perfection, to the Fa­ther, more than to the Son or Spi­rit, is to say in effect; that the Fa­ther only is true God, not the Son or Spirit, because whosoever hath not omnimodous Perfection, cannot be God. And for this reason, they affirm, and earnestly contend; That ‘any one of the three Divine Per­sons, is equal to all the Three; the whole Trinity is not greater, or more perfectly God, than any one of the Trinity is.’ Surely a strange Paradox, that one Third should be Equal, or Equivalent to the Whole. Yet the Modern Rea­lists, the most hold this Opinion, as well as th Antients did.

But the more Learned and Ablest of the Moderns, detest so much as the Mention of three Equal Divine Persons: for what are three Gods, say they, of three equally Superemi­nent and All-sufficient (subsisting) Persons are not three Gods? If they are Equal in Dignity and Power, as wel as Co-eternal; we can possibly have no other Notion of three Gods, but three such Persons. Therefore these Gentlemen suppose, that the Son and Spirit are inferiour to the Father in all things; but only this, that they are Co-eternal with him: they are Subordinate to him, Depen­dent on him; and are Omnipotent (and the rest of the Divine Attributes) not ad intra, or of themselves, but only as he concurs with them to all their Actions. Episcopius (Instit. l. 4. c. 32.) and Dr. Cudworth ( Intellec. System, pag. 603, 604.) largely defend this Opinion; and condemn those of undeniable Tritheism, who make the Son and Spirit to be equal to the Father. But to know the Writers, who believe the equality of the Son and Spirit with the Father, from those that deny it; this Rule most commonly will serve. They that say the Son is [...] (God of himself, and Independent) generally hold the absolute Equality of all the three Per­sons; and that one Person of the Trinity, is equal to the whole Tri­nity: for if he were not, they plain­ly, see, he could not be perfect God; for something would be wanting to him, that is found in the whole Tri­nity. But those that deny [...], do (more commonly) make the Son and Spirit subordinate to the Father; not only in Dignity, but in all o­ther Respects: but these, though they ground themselves on the Au­thority of the Nicene Creed (which in direct opposition to [...], or God of himself, affirms, the Son is God of God, that is, God of, or from [Page 21]the Father) seldom care to speak plain, that they may avoid giving Offence.

Let us consider the Arguments, with which these two Factions of Realists attack one another: and what effectual use the Nominals make of those very Arguments, to ridicule and destroy both Parties, and their common Principle or Foundation, namely this; that the Divine Persons are subsisting Persons, not Persons, but only critically so called.

By what Arguments the Parties of Realists, attack and oppose each the other; and what (effectual) Ʋse, the Nominals make of this Contention.

FIRST, say they who affirm the Equality; if the Son and Spirit are Subordinate in Dignity and Au­thority, and inferior in Power and other Divine Attributes: it seems self-evident, that either the Father only must be said to the truly God, because he only hath omnimodous Perfection, and in the highest De­gree; or that there is one Great God, and two Inferior or lesser ones. To this, they that maintain the Inequa­lity of the three Persons, answer; by retorting the Argument, thus: If the Divine Persons are equal, then there are three Omnipotents, and three Omniscients; which is the very No­tion of three Gods, and is denied in terminis (or expresly) by the Atha­nasian Creed, which saith, not three Almighties, but one Almighty, &c.

But was it ever heard, since the Creation of things, say (the common Enemy to both) the Nominals; that two contending erroneous Parties, did more effectually ruin one ano­ther's common Mistake? For as 'tis self-evident on the one Hand, that it being the very Definition of God (the Notion that all Men have of him) that he is a Being Omnimo­dously (or absolutely) Perfect; there­fore if the Son or Spirit want some Perfections, or some degree of Per­fection, neither of them can be God, but the Father only: So on the o­ther hand, 'tis noless incontestable: that three Distinct, and (really) sub­sisting Persons, each of which pos­sesses all Perfections, and every de­gree of those Perfections, must (of necessity) be three Gods. Why do not these unhappy Men, say the No­minals, see; that three Almighties, and three Omniscients, are most cer­tainly three Gods: and that on the contrary, if only one of them is (in­ternally and verily) Almighty, as well as Superiour in Dignity to the other two; he only is true God, they are Gods only by Courtesy and Civility of Speech? Do not the two contrary Arguments of these un­lucky Reasoners, make a Dilemma; [Page 22]that overthrows their common Foun­dation, even this, that the Persons of the Trinity are subsisting Persons? Have they not shown us, how to argue succesfully against them both; for we learn from themselves, to say: either the (imagined,) subsist­ing Persons of their Trinity are equal, or not equal; if equal, they must be three Gods, because nothing is wanting to any of them toward making him a perfect God; if unequal, only one of them is properly and truly God, the other two by Civility and Courtesy only; they may be Gods to those that have a mind to compli­ment, but wanting some Perfections, or some Degrees of Perfection, nei­ther of them can be God in a The­ological or Philosophical Sense. But the Pleasure and Sport of the Nomi­nals increases, when the Realists seek to extricate themselves from these Noozes. For example.

The Realists that are for the Equa­lity, say; Father, Son, and Spirit, though omnimodously Perfect (and subsisting) Persons, are one God, by their mutual Concord and Agree­ment: So also Origen, and other Antenicenes, make out the Unity of God in a Ternary of Persons; tho they did not believe the Equality. To this, the Nominals answer; the (supposed) Divine subsisting Persons are hereby loving Friends; which is a good Hearing, for should three Al­mighties fall out, what would the World do? but if they are not only distinct, but subsisting Persons, they are as much three Gods, in a proper and natural Sense, as if they were never so much at odds; Concord doth not make a Real or Physical Unity, which is the Unity of God, but on­ly a Moral Ʋnity, or such as is be­tween Friends or Allies.

Other Realists, almost all the Mo­derns, see, and confess this; there­fore they say, their Gods are one; because they are in one another. But say the Nominals, God is in his Creatures, more especially in the Faithful, and they in him; as our Saviour himself witnesses: are they thereby all but one God? is the Creature deified by being in God, and he in us?

No, no, say others; but the Di­vine Persons who are thus in one a­nother, have like Substances, Na­tures, and Properties: which can­not be said of God and the Crea­tures. Admirable again, cry the Nominals; but remove this one Scru­ple. If these resembling Gods, are so united in their Substances, or so in one another; that their Substan­ces are continuous, like the Parts of the same Angel, or like the (assig­nable) Parts of the same Divine Per­son, 'tis plain that by such an Union (or mutual Immeation) of their Parts, they are become but one (sub­sisting) Person in number, which is what the Nominals and Socinians contend for: but if they are only so united, or so in one another, that their Parts are only Contiguous, like Wine and Oil shook together, and yet never incorporating; this is but only Contact and Juxta-positi­on, [Page 23]and doth not make the three Persons to be one, much less one God, any more than all the Men in a close Croud are one Man, or than the Wine and Oil (before-said) are one Substance. In a word, say the Nominals, who sees not; that the three Divine subsisting Persons, ha­ving like Substances or Properties, or what is all one, like Natures, are but only Gods resembling one another? and whether they be in at out of one another, likes are never the same.

'Tis well; but it may be, they have better luck, who say the Di­vine Persons are not equal; but the Second and Third are subordinate in Authority, and inferiour in their Per­fections. The Objection. against them, is; that hereby, either the second and third Persons, are neither of them God, but only the First: or here is one great God, and two lesser. They reply, that as a Fa­ther and his two Sons, are one Ma­ster of the Family; though the Au­thority and Power is in the Father, and only secondarily derivatively, and less absolutely in the Sons: So Father, Son, and H. Spirit are one God, because the two latter (though subject and inferior to the former) have like Authority and Power with him, for that he always concurs with them. But the Nominals cry; this is not one God, in a Physical or Na­tural Sense, but only in a Political: and that the (supposed) Father of the Family and his two Sons, may as well be said to be one Man; as one Master, For in very Deed, on­ly the Father is Master; though he delegates Authority and Power to his Children, during his Pleasue: or if Power and Authority is absolutely and irrevocably conferred on them, they are as much Masters as he; and there is no longer one Master, but three.

Secondly, Another Argument of. those that contend for the Equality, is; if the Son and Spirit are unequal to the Father, and he only hath omni­farious Perfection, with all degrees of those Perfections: then the two for­mer are very unnecessarily superadded to the latter; he is perfect God with­out them, they add nothing to him; we can understand them but only as Foils to set off, and to recommend. his Perfections.

This Reasoning also is retorted, by them that hold the inequality of the Persons in the (supposed) Trini­ty: for they reply; if there are three equally perfect (Divine) subsi­sting Persons, two of them are re­dundant, or more than needs. If we suppose them, say these Gentle­men, unequal, we leave but one God; because the Second and Third are God but only as they are united to the First, by his Concurrence with them, and by their Subordination and Subjection to him: but if we say, they are equal; here are two unnecessary Persons supposed not on­ly without any cause for it, for any one of these absolutely perfect Persons is sufficient for himself, and for the Creation; but the Unity also of God, the first and most important [Page 24]Article of Revealed Religion, is lost, because it cannot be imagined, but That ‘three (subsisting) absolutely perfect Persons must be as truly three Gods, as one such Person (which no Body will deny) is one God.’

Here again the Nominals see, and take their Advantage: 'tis well, ve­ry well argued, Gentlemen, say they, on both sides. For 'tis so true, as not to be questioned; that if the subsisting Persons which you have imagined, are unequal, and only one of them is All-sufficient, for himself, and for the Creation: the two impo­tent Persons are but dead Weights; of no use, but only that the other may be the better pleased at his own Per­fection, when compared with their Littleness. And 'tis true again, what the other Party says; that of three subsisting All-sufficient Persons, two are not only redundant, but take away the Unity of God: for if 'tis true, that one such Person is a perfect God, three of them (for that very Reason) must be three perfect Gods. Why do you not perceive, say the Nominals to the Realists, that your own Arguments destroy your Hypo­thesis? one perfect Person and two imperfect Persons are indeed one God, but the whole God-head then is in the perfect Person, as We and the Socinians contend: and three (sub­sisting) absolutely perfect Persons are a Trinity, not only of Persons, but (because each of them is absolutely Perfect) of Gods. O strange Inad­vertence, say these Gentlemen! that Men should not see, that one perfect Person is alone a (most) compleat God, and is not helped to be more so, by the addition of two Imper­fects: and that three perfect (sub­sisting) Persons either are three Gods, or one cannot be one God; but one perfect Person is the very Definition of God, dictated to us by Natural Light.

Again, Thirdly; Say they that hold the Equality of the Persons. If the second and third Persons are inferiour in Power, and other Divine Attri­butes, and Subordinate in Dignity and Authority; they must be infi­nitely Inferiour, and infinitely Subor­dinate; for whatsoever is short of in­finite Perfection, is infinitely short of it: for if a Perfection is not Infinite, 'tis but only Finite, which is infinite­ly short of Infinite; as all both Phi­losophers and Divines agree. Let us apply this, to the (supposed) sub­sisting Divine Persons: if the Second and Third are less Perfect than the First, they are (for that Reason) but finitely Perfect, and consequently are infinitely short of the Perfection of the First. But will you say, in the hearing of sober and descerning Per­sons; that a finite Perfection or Per­son is God ? God, say the Party that hold the Inequality; but if it is so certain (as you take it to be) that two less perfect Beings can neither of them be God, but only an absolute­ly perfect Person: it will follow however, from this very Reasoning, that three perfect Persons are three Gods. Because for that very Cause, [Page 25]why you affirm, that of two less per­fect Persons, neither of them can be God; you must say, three perfect Persons are three Gods: for the weight of your Argument, laying in this Supposition, That ‘only a perfect Person, and every such Per­son, is a perfect God;’ you must either give up that, or own that your whole Reasoning is Impertinent and Null.

The Nominals turn also this Con­certation against the common Hypo­thesis of both these Parties of Rea­lists. How well, say they, and sure­ly is it argued by the former; that Persons less than absolutely Perfect, are (of necessity) but finitely Per­fectly, and consequently cannot be Gods, or God? and 'tis as soundly urged; that if this be a good Rea­soning, if imperfect Persons cannot be Gods or God, and a perfect Per­son is, then three or more perfect Persons must be more Gods: because ‘as Imperfection or less Perfection denies God-head; so the omni­modous absolute Perfection of Persons, must make so many Gods as there are such Persons.’

But hitherto of the first Observa­tion on the Realists; that the two grand Factions of them, and which include all their lesser Parties, con­demn one another of Tritheism: and that the Church, or Nominal Trini­tarians, turn the Arguments of the contending Parties of Realists, a­gainst them and the Principle for which they strive; namely, That the Persons of the Trinity are sub­sisting Persons; when indeed 'tis on­ly God that really subsists, the Per­sons of the Godhead are only Persons critically so called, that is, they are only Relative Subsistences, they are but only the internal Relations of God to himself, or his external (threefold) Relation to his Crea­tures.

That the Realists themselves do not dissemble their Tritheism.

MY next Observation on them, is; That ‘themselves do (sometimes almost openly, and explicitely.) own and profess their Tritheism; both the Antients, and Moderns; both those that hold the Equality of Persons, and those that deny it.’ Let us take some Examples, of this.

Arnobius calls the Father, and in contradistinction to the Son, Deum Principem, the principal God; he calls the Son, Deum ex Principis Dei jussione loquentem, The God who speaks by the Commandment of the chief God. l.2. p. 81. But can it ever be avoided; that a principal God, and a less principal God, who speaks only by command from the chief God, are too Gods?

Justin Martyr calls the Son, [...] the [Page 26]God who is Servant, to God the maker of all things. Dialog. cum Tryph. pag. 279. Are not God the Servant, and the God to whom he is Servant, most certainly two Gods? do not these Predications manifestly suppose and imply them to be distinct Gods: can the same God in number, be said to be Servant and Lord; and that too (as they speak) ad Idem, or ad Eundem, with respect to the same thing or to himself?

But Origen yet more expresly; we call the Son, the second God. Cont. Cels. l.5. p. 258. And again, the first God (or the Father) worketh not; no nor properly speaking doth the (Son or) second God. Cont. Cels. l. 6. p. 318. Shall not a first and a second God be allowed to be two Gods; could this Father more plain­ly declare his Tritheism?

I grant, that Origen and all the Ante-Nicens, were such Realists, as held the Inequality of the three Di­vine Persons; but still they believed them to be so many Gods. Origen was is much of Opinion, that the Son is inferiour to the Father; that (with Arius) he will not allow him to be truly Co eternal, but only the oldest of the Creatures, [...] (saith he, contr. Celf. l. 5, p. 257.) [...] And he is so far from thinking that the Son is Al­mighty; that he every where denies that he may be Prayed to: except only as to a Mediator, who (saith he) is to Pray with us, and for us. Ori­gen's first and 2d Books concerning Prayer, have so many Arguments di­rected against Praying to any but the Father; and particularly that we should not Pray to the Son, he calls them Fools that do: that it well ap­pears indeed, he held Father and Son to be subsisting Persons, as the Re­alists do; and that he durst say, there are two Gods, a first and a second God: but yet that in Truth, the Supream Divinity (or true Divini­ty) is in the Father only. Which also is the Opinion of all the Ante-Nicens, and was the Doctrine that Arius (afterwards) maintained: with whom, those Modern Realists who hold the Inequality, do (almost) wholly symbolize; it may be said, that most of those who hold the In­equality of the supposed three Divine (subsisting) Persons, perfectly agree with the Ariani molles, the moderate Arians.

But here comes one, that will make all the World to know the in­most thoughts of the Realists; he perfectly (and in terms) discovers their Secret. 'Tis St. Basil, called by his Party of Realists (who hold the Inequality) Basilius Magnus, Basil the Great, ‘To those, (saith this bold Man) who accuse us, as hold­ing three Gods; we answer: God is not one, in Number, but only in Nature.’ He means, as the Nature of Man, namely, the com­mon Humanity, is one; but there are many particular Men, Peter, James, John, &c. So the Nature of God, or the common Divinity is one; but there are as truly more Gods in number, or more particu­lar [Page 27]Gods, as there are more particu­lar Men; Father, Son and Spirit are each of them as truly a God, as Pe­ter, James and John, are each of them a particular Man. This fa­mous Passage is to be found in Basil's 141st Epistle, ad Caesarienses. Again (Adv. Eunom.) ‘In the Number and in the Properties, there is a Diversity or Multiplicity; in the Properties by which each Divine Person is characteriz'd, we believe a Diversity; and an Ʋnity, only in what makes the Deity.’ i.e. In the Divine Attributes, that are common to all the three Divine Per­sons: for each Person has Omnisci­ence, Omnipotence, and Omnipre­sence, perfect Goodness; which At­tributes make the Deity, as Rationa­lity and Risibility make the Huma­nity. Basil then held; that to this Question, how many Gods, it must be answered: three Gods in Number, or three Personal Gods, and one in Nature or Divine Properties. Which is to say; in very Deed, three Gods: but yet Gods so resembling one ano­ther, that from the sameness of their Attributes or Essential (not Perso­nal) Properties, they may be called one God; even as all Men, or Man­kind from the sameness of their Na­ture, namely, the Rational, are in common speech often times called Man. Which Comparison, or Ex­plication of their Meaning and Do­ctrine, is often used by St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nyssen; the Patriarchs and Founders of those Realists, who affirm the Equality of the (supposed) Divine subsisting Persons.

As for the Modern Realists, they are only some late Writers of our own Nation; the first and chief is Dr. Cudworth, after him followed Dr. Bull: then Dr. Sherlock, my Lord the Bishop of Glocester, Mr. How, Mr. Milbourn, Mr. J.B. in his late (Learned and Bitter.) Answer to Dr. S—th. Some of these are for the absolute Equality of the Divine Per­sons, in all Essential Attributes; such as Power, Wisdom, Omnipre­sence: but some, as Dr. Cudworth especially, will allow the Son and Spirit to be equal in nothing to the Father, but only that they are Co­eternal; and by this, he thinks, he sufficiently acquits himself of Aria­nism. But both Parties most open­ly avow their Tritheism; and that many ways. By saying; there are three infinite Spirits, three Omni­scient Minds, three Divine intelle­ctual Substances; three Divine Per­sons as really Subsisting, and as truly Distinct and divers, as three Angels or three Men are. Again, by their Explication of the Possibility, and the Manner, of an Unity in Trinity. Some of them saving; three sub­sisting Divine Persons are one God, by a certain most close Unition of their Substances; Others, by mutual Consciousness, of one another's Thoughts and Actions; or because, besides their having like Substances and Properties, they are also in one another. They see nor, what 'tis marvellous Men of their Sense should not see; that several subsisting Per­sons [Page 28]each of which is a perfect God, three Almighties, three Omnisci­ents, whether Conscious, or not Con­scious to one another, whether in or out of one another, whether agree­ing or at odds, none of these Foreign Considerations can so alter the Case, but that all Three must as truly be three perfect Gods, as each of them (is confessed) to be one perfect God.

But let us hear Mr. J. S. in his late Answer to Dr. S—th's Animad­versions on Dr. Sherlock. For as this Gentleman is well skilled in these Questions; so he delivers his Mind without much Reserve: he seems not to be afraid, to say what he thinks; because 'tis so certain, that the Fathers (after the Year 380.) were in the very same Sentiments concerning the Trinity; namely, that the Persons of the Trinity arc really distinct and subsisting Persons, and equally have all Divine Perfecti­ons, in the highest Degree. He faith, pag. 141. ‘Each distinct Di­vine Person, is as compleatly and perfectly God; as each distinct Angdical Person is a compleat perfect Angel.’ He demands at pag. 75. ‘Will the Animadverter (Dr. S—th) deny; that one Di­vine Person is one God?’ I will answer for Dr. S—th. 'Tis Here­sy, to say; that the Persons of the Trinity are as distinct, as three An­gelical Persons: for Angels or An­gelical Persons are distinguished in their Substances, and have so many several Understandings, Wills and Energies; but in all these Respects, the Persons of the Trinity are not distinct, but are (Identically) the same. Nor is one Person of the Trini­ty as compleatly and perfectly God; as an Angelical Person is compleatly and perfectly an Angel: for one Ange­lical Person is a compleat and perfect Angel; but all three Persons of the Trinity, and not one only, are neces­sary to compleat the Notion and due Conception of one God. Therefore to his Question, Is not one Divine Person one God ? I answer, no; three Divine Persons are one God: that is to say, taking the word Per­sons in the Sense that the Church in­tends it, namely, for Relative Per­sons, or the threefold Relation of the Deity. But taking a Divine Person, as this Author and his Fellow-Rea­lists do, for a subsisting Person, a distinct intellectual Being, and In­finite Mind and Spirit; I answer, and the Church also so answers: that indeed every such Person is one God, and three such are three Gods.

Page 85. ‘When God is said to be three Persons, the term God is taken in a Logical Sense; and is equivalent to a terminus Commu­nis, or a Species.’ As who should say; there are truly three Gods, in a proper, physical, and natural Sense of the word God: for the words. God and Man are specifical Terms; the former implies divers (personal) Gods, as the other implies many (personal and individual) Men. He is so far from being ashamed of all this; that he adds again,

Page 85. ‘The Fathers of the Nicene Council, nay the whole Eastern Church did appropriate a the title one God to the Father; and God of God to the Son.’ The Fathers meant thereby, the Son is God (not of or from himself, but) from, or by, or of the Father. See what use Mr. J. B. makes of this, at pag. 91. ‘The Phrase God of God does necessarily imply a Mul­tiplication of the term God, in some Sense or other. And one and the same numerical God (in concreto) can never be God of God and not God of God: these two cannot be verified of the same Subject; of one and the same God, in concreto, or in Per­son.’ 'Tis Heresy in excelsis; and the last words in Person, designed only to blind his true meaning, or to mollifie it to those that happen to understand him, do but increase the grossness of his Tritheism. He hath said (in those words) in effect; the Nicene Creed, and Oriental Church acknowledging one who is God of God, this God (who is God of, or from God) cannot be the same God with him from or of whom he is God, namely, with God the Father: these two must be several Subjects, different Gods. This avowed Tri­theism, I say, is neither hid nor sofmed by adding; different Gods, in concreto, or in Person: for it was ne­ver said (or so much as thought) before, that the multiplication of Persons in the Godhead, or these expressions, God the Father, God the Son, God the H. Spirit, would war­rant any one to say several Gods, or that God of God is not the same both Subject and God, with God the Fa­ther and God the Holy Spirit. In short, that which this Author and his Party of Realists intend, and say, (though somewhat Covertly and Artificially) is; that as all the Men in the World, in concreto, are not­withstanding sometimes expressed by the general abstract word Man: So the three Gods, in concreto, three Personal (really subsisting) Gods may also be expressed; but they care not how seldom, the seldomer the bet­ter, by that (scurvy, Socinian) ab­stract word God.

I have not made these (short) re­marks on Mr. J. B. with a malevo­tent Intention; to create Envy, or to raise up Enemies, to him: I shall confess, that as broadly as he has spoke; St. Sasil, Gregory Nyssen, and other Fathers (after the Year 380) so Taught, and so Spoke; and I have before given some instances of it; as I shall give more, in the Continuation of my Answer to Dr. BuII's Defence of the Nicene Faith, and Judgment of the Catholick Church. But all that I design, is only; to ap­peal to the World, whether the Rea­lists have not notoriously owned and professed their Tritheism, with which they are charged, not only by the So­cinians, but by the Nominals; which is to say, by the Church. Dr. S—th is but one Man, he is only a private Doctor; but he has rightly under­stood the Doctrine of the Church: if a [Page 30]General Council were again to as­semble, they would certainly espouse his two Books; he hath said neither more, nor less, nor otherwise, than the Catholick Church (since the Council of Lateran) has constantly taught. Mr. J. B. is a Learned and very discerning Person, so are other Realists of this Nation (I must not say, of the English, or of the Catho­lick Church, for they are departed from both) who have lately written against the Socinians: but they have opposed to ours, such an Explica­tion of the words God, Persons, Tri­nity; as Dr. S—th hath deservedly called a Trinity of Gods; nor will they be ever able to wipe off the Im­putation. Mr. J.B. must not think, he has answered Dr. S—th: he hath only, sometimes mistaken him; some­times misreported, or perverted, his plain and obvious Meaning; or quarrelled with the Doctrine of the Schools, and of the Lateran Coun­cil, (which is to say, of the Catho­lick Church) to make room for the (exploded) Tritheism of St. Basil, and some other Fathers.

The Doctrine of the Catholick Church, Mr. J.B. knows well, can be fetched only from General Coun­cils; the Church is never understood to speak, but by a General Council: particular Fathers are but only par­ticular Doctors; they are not the Church, how many soever they are. Therefore I desire Mr. J. B. to tell me, what Council ever used his Lan­guage; that one Divine Person is one God, as perfectly one God, as one Angelical Person is one perfect Angel? In what Council shall we find, that the word God is equiva­lent to a Species; which is to say, the Divinity no less than the Hu­manity (or the Manhood) compre­hends several Individuals, of the same both Nature and Denomination: as there are many Men, in concreto, so there are divers Gods also, in con­creto. Can he direct us to that Council, which teaches; that God of God, and God not of God (that is, Father and Son) are not the same God; or that the term God implies any Multiplication? Did ever any Council so far apostatize from Chri­stianity, as to deny; that there is but one numerical God: and call that Doctrine the Faith of Jews, Maho­metans, and Heathens? But this is Mr. J.B's Language, and the Do­ctrine of all the Realists; they all intend as he has said: nor will any of them censure his Book, but applaud it as a great and extraordinary Per­formance. I do not regard the Im­pertinences of Mr. Tho. Holdsworth (of North-Stoneham, near Southamp­ton) in his late Impar Conatui, which he hath opposed to Mr. J. B. This Orlando has vomited up his Crudi­ties, on a Person too much above him to take notice of him; and all that I shall trouble my self to say of him, is: that if, as he has been careful to tell us the Place of his Residence, and of his Vicinage, so he had also told us his Age; we might have guessed, with more certainty than now we well can, whether he raves, or dotes.

The Realists speak much more Mystically, or Absurdly, than the Nominals.

I Must make another Remark on the Realists; namely: That the ab­surd contradictory and impossible Things, partly expresty said by 'em, partly implied in their Doctrine, are far less tolerable or accountable; than the (forced) Improprieties, in the use of Words and Terms, by the Nominals, are.

I confess, both Parties so often depart, from the common use of Terms and Words; that one as well as the other is frequently forced, to the [...] of Mystery: when they cannot assoil the Difficulties, objected to themselves by each other, or by the Socinians to both; when they find that the use of Words, and the nature of Things, are both a­gainst them, they cry Mystery; their Doctrine then (they confess) though a Truth, is however a Mystery, above the Capacity, whether of them­selves or of any others. But then, say I; the Realists would cover such flat Impossibilities, such gross Con­tradictions to common Sense, in a Word such Monstrosities, under the cloak of Mystery: that they have infinitely more need of that (wretch­ed) Blind, than the Nominals; who only by explaining their Terms, which Custom and Law have imposed on them, go a great way in fairly satis­sying all Difficulties; and when they cannot perfectly account for them, they make some small use of My­stery. To understand this; we must take a short view, of the (polite, hap­py) Things, said by them both.

The Nominals teach, there is but one, (numerical) God, or one God in Number; who yet is three Persons. That the Father is God, the Son is God, the H. Ghost is God; yet all three are but one God, one God in Number, one self-same God. They are perfectly aware, this were equal­ly Impossible and Ridiculous; if 'twere not dextrously interpreted and explained: it would not be My­stery, or Mysterious Truth, but no­torious Falshood and Absurdity, they well know; if wholly left in these Terms, without an Explication. Therefore they declare, that by the term Persons, and the words Father, Son and Spirit, they mean not (with the Vulgar) several subsisting Per­sons; that is to say, ‘So many in­tellectual Substances, with each his own particular Life, Under­standing, Will, and power of Action;’ for they confess there is in God but one Substance, Life, Un­derstanding, Will, Energy, in num­ber: but three Persons in God are so many States, or Respects, or Pro­perties, or Relations (or something equivalent to these) of the same ore [Page 32]Divine intellectual Substance or Na­ture. And in this Sense also, ac­cording to the Nominals, the words Father, Son and Spirit (when used of God) are to be understood: name­ly, as Relations or States, all of them sustained by one and the same sub­sisting Person, or intellectual Sub­stance; not as in so many Subjects, or as denominating variously three distinct Beings. They show, that so the Classical Authors, both Greek and Latin, spoke: and as their Lan­guage was adopted by the Church, in speaking of God, with great Pro­priety; so in process of Time, the use of Words being much altered, occasion was given to introduce the Heresy of the Realists; who unlear­nedly understanding the old Words, in a novel Sense, have brought into the Church three Gods, instead of one.

Again, they (the Nominals) say, the second Person of the Trinity (or of God) was Incarnate in the Man Christ Jesus; in such manner, that thereby the Lord Christ is God as well as Man. This also is called by that Mystical Name, the Hypostatical (or personal) Union. But they mean no more by it, than this; that God was as much and truly united to the Hu­manity, as the Human Nature is ca­pable of: that is to say, in a most extraordinary, marvellous, and (to us) unaccountable Manner.

When they say, O God the Father have Mercy on us; O God the Son, O God the Holy Ghost, have Mercy on us; they intend not hereby three Objects of Worship, or so many seve­ral Patrons and Helpers: but only as these are so many Relations and Re­spects of the Deity, either to himself or to us; so they invocate him by these Distinctions, or in these several Properties and Relations. In short, the whole Mystery consists in the Terms they use; and scarce at all, if at all in the Sense, or things intended by those Terms: which things (or sense) are received, and imbraced by us the Unitarians; for we admit the whole Doctrine, as here declared and ex­plained.

But 'tis quite otherwise with the Realists; their Non-sense is in the thing meant, not in the Words or Terms. They say, there are three Divine subsisting Persons, three infi­nite Spirits, three omniscient Minds, three distinct Almighties, as distinct as so many Angels or Men; each of them as truly, properly, adequately, and perfectly God, as each Man is a Man, and each Angel an Angel: and yet all of them are but one God. This, we confess, is Mystery with a Witness; the Mystery (every one sees) lies not in the Words and Terms, but the thing it self is absurd and impossible: to cry Mystery here, is to profess; that by Mystery, we mean Contradiction, and Impossibilities.

The Excuses they make for this Mystery, are as mysterious, or more mysterious than the Mystery, for which they would apologize. For to say, these three (most perfect) Gods become one God, by their mutual Accord and Love, is; as if you should pretend, that by Love and Accord, [Page 33]three Men are one Man. And when they say, they are one God by like­ness or sameness of Nature and Pro­perties; and by being in one another: they might equally say, that two or more Angels, because they have the same Nature and Properties, and be­ing Spiritual, do immeate, or are in one another, are thereby one Angel. These Explications of their Mystery, are assuredly as great Mysteries, as direct Contradictions to Reason and common Experience; as the Do­ctrine it self, of one God and three Divine subsisting Persons. But why do the Realists expect, that Man­kind will be perswaded to accept such palpable abnegations of all consistent Sense, for Mystery: words that are hardly Sense, or of either ambigu­ous or obscure meaning, may be put off (with some or other, who care not for the Trouble of considering) for Mystery; but gross Contradicti­ons, obvious and notorious Non-sense, will never be mistaken for Mystery. 'Tis true, People may be constrained to profess it, or to subscribe to it; but they never believe it, no not when (through a long habit of Sub­mission to the Commands of others) they seem to themselves to believe it. I doubt not, that the Doctors of the Church of Rome, seem to them­selves to believe the Transubstantiati­on; because having accustom'd them­selves to submit to the Declarations of the Church, they have never suffered any reluctance to arise in their Minds, against any of those. Declarations: notwithstanding, I am perswaded, not a Man of them truly believes that Mystery; were all Fears and Hopes, and other blassing Interests removed, they would presently perceive, that in very Deed they believe it not; their Reasons never assented to an im­possible Proportion, nor could assent; but only (as I said) through a long habit of Submission, they did not discern, that they assented not to the Church's Declarations. And this, I believe, is true also, of all who pre­tend, or seem to believe any other inconsistent, or impossible Doctrines.

The Tritheism of the Realists, not grounded on the H. Scripture.

BUT this once more; 'tis not on a probable or prudent Ground, that the Realists sometimes pretend, that the Tritheism they impose has such a Foundation in Holy Scripture: that as on the one side, to believe the Trinity in their Notion of it, is a violence done to Reason; so not to own and profess it, would oblige them to as great a Violence, and Disobedience to Holy Scripture.

I confess, I have often wondred; that Men so Learned and Discerning, as very many of the Realists are, should maintain such an Opinion; and after having made such Conces­sions to the Nominals, and to the Unitarians, as the Realists do. They [Page 34]grant it, to be certain and incon­testable, not only in Reason, but in Holy Scripture, that there is but one God, but one Creator; they allow this to be so true and evident, that the Scripture ought never to be so interpreted, as in any degree to con­tradict this first Article of all revealed Religion: because to interpret Holy Scripture at any Time, or in any part of it, inconsistently with that Ar­ticle, were to make it contradict it self, and that too, where it speaks most plainly and expresly. I say, this Foundation being laid, and agreed on all Hands; I have often wondred at the pretence of the Realists: for their Doctrine being a manifest Tritheism, as explained by them; in saying 'tis what the Holy Scriptures teach, they say, that the Sacred Scriptures con­tradict themselves. They would have it understood as a great deference, on their Parts, towards the Holy Scrip­tures; that they imbrace and pro­fess the Doctrine therein contained, though such Doctrine very flatly con­tradicts all Reason and common Sense, and withal other parts of the same Scriptures: but it were far more becoming such as they are, to express their Reverence for the Scrip­ture, by interpreting it consistently with it self, and with Reason, as the Nominals and Unitarians do; than to expose it to the contempt and unbelief of all others, by such a Re­verence of it as this Book needs not; that is to say, by pretending to believe it indeed, but believe it as manifestly inconsistent with it self; as well as with that Reason which God has in­fused into the Human Nature, for a Guide and Judg, in all either ob­scure or doubtful Matters. It is the Church and the Unitarians, that truly reverence the Scriptures; by rescu­ing them from senseless, and contra­dictory (which is to say, impossible) Senses.

But supposing it were true, that the meer Words of some few (sus­pected, or ambiguous) Texts, did seem very much to favour the Do­ctrine of the Realists; yet seeing those Texts (as interpreted by the Rea­lists) too plainly contradict evident Reason, and the Nature of things: why will not these Gentlemen see, that in such a Clash as this, ‘We must interpret the Scripture consi­stently with Reason and the nature of things; because words will bear to be somewhat strained, much rather than things?’ The nature of Things, and the dictates of Rea­son, are Eternal and Immutable; they will not admit, or bear the least Stretch, Strain, or Violence done to them: but Words are of a very desultory and vagrant Meaning; they are some­times to be taken Literally, or as they Sound, sometimes in a metaphorical or figurative Sense; sometimes in an Hyperbolical, that is excessive; nay, sometimes in an Ironical (which is to say, contrary) Sense: which being the Case of all Books and Writings whatsoever, there can never be a real Necessity of so interpreting the Scrip­ture, that it should contradict the known Nature of things, plain Rea­son, or it self.

Whereas some say here, and are [Page 35]willing always to repeat it; that the current of Scripture is so much, and so clearly, for such a Trinity as the Realists profess: that it would be manifest Violence, done to the Di­vine Word, to interpret it as the So­cinians do. I answer, Cedò locum, name me the Text, or Context, al­ledged for the Doctrine of the Tri­nity; that is not interpreted by some of the most Learned Criticks and In­terpreters of the Trinitarian Party, in the same manner as 'tis understood by the Unitarians. Why do they pretend, that they are constrained, and by the clearness, and the cur­rent of Scripture; to profess a Tri­nity of Divine (subsisting) Persons: when all Learned Men know, that the Texts they have to alledg, are so far from being the current of Scripture, that they are few in Num­ber, and also of very suspected Au­thority, that is, they are justly doubt­ed of, whether they are genuine ori­ginal Parts of Scripture, or have been added to it; and so far from being clear, that they are extreamly Ambiguous, and accordingly not on­ly some, but even the generality of Trinitarian Criticks interpret most of them, as we do; and not only most of them, but the Principal of them, more particularly the (objected) Texts that seem to impute the Cre­ation of Things to our Saviour. As I said but now, Cedò locum, I de­mand that Text, or Context, which I will not show is interpreted by the most sufficient of their own Party, as we take it: but if so, as 'tis not the first Time this Challenge has been made to them; why do they (so un­truly) pretend, that they are carried away by the Current of Scripture, and by the clearness of it, both on their sides? May they call a few single Texts (or rather, shreds of Texts the Current of Scripture: or talk of the clearness of their Texts; when they cannot alledg so much as one, but is interpreted to an Uni­tarian Sense by some of their own (best) Writers, on the Scriptures, and of Controversy?

With how much more Reason and Sincerity, may the Unitarians claim the current of Scripture; and that 'tis clear also, on their Side? For there is not a Page there, but speaks of God in the singular Num­ber; there God is never called Per­sons, but Person: he is always spoken of, and to, by singular Pronouns, such as I, Thou, Thee, He, Him, Me; which are never used in any Language, but only of one single Person; never of three (subsisting) Persons.

When the Realists say, the Scrip­tures are clear of their side; they mean it chiefly of those Texts, where­in Christ is called God: and of those, in which the Creation of the World, and of all things, is (or seems to be) attributed to him. But how often is the name God given in Holy Scripture, to those that ei­ther represent God, as Kings and Magistrates; or that are like to him in some very distinguishing Respect, or in whom he dwells after a pe­culiar manner, as Prophets, and He­roical Persons: is, not Moses (for [Page 36]one Instance) on all these accounts called God, and by God himself? And is it a Marvel then, that the Mediator also of the New Testament, as well as he of the Old, is dignified with this Name? And yet (as I have said elsewhere) I am well as­sured, that the Realists will never prove, against the Author of the Brief History of the Socinians; that the name God is really given to the Lord Christ, in any Text that is a genuine Part of Scripture: that is to say, that hath not been corrupt­ed by the Zeal of Catholicks, to make it more conformable to their Sentiments. As to the Texts, that impute the Creation of things, to the Son; that is, to the Lord Christ: do not all Learned Men know, that the best of the Trinitarian Interpre­ters, some of the zealousest Men of the Party, understand all those Texts of the New Creation; that is, of the Renovation of things on Earth, by the Ministry of Christ; and in Heaven, by his Exaltation above the Angels? And secondly, That neither is there any need of this; for those Texts may be thus translated: all things were made for him; and without regard to him, was nothing made that was made. Were made for him; that is to say, they were originally made by God, for the Mes­siah: namely, to subject them (in fulness of Time) to him, and to his Law. Which is the Interpretation of St. John Chrysostom, a most Learned Trinitarian, in the Opus Im­perfectum, on St. Matthew.

In short, I would not have it said; that the current of Scripture is, much less is clearly, on their side, who contend for a Trinity of Divine (subsisting) Persons: because 'tis so well known, that this (senseless, ex­travagant) boast of some small Wri­ters of Controversy, is the Jest and Sport of their own Criticks and In­terpreters of Note; who have far more scorn for such Sciolists, than they have Enmity to the Socinians.

Of the Unitarians; their Agreement with the Church.

THE Unitarians, called also So­cinians, are a Sect or Party, or Denomination of Christians, who have indeavoured to perfect that Re­formation; that was so happily be­gun by Dr. M. Luther, Mr. J. Cal­vin, and here (in England) by Arch­bishop Cranmer.

Dr. Luther subverted the Infalli­bility, and Supremacy of the Pope; the Worship and Invocation of Angels, and Saints; the (supersti­tious) monastick Vows; the Mer­chandize of Indulgencies, by which poor Sinners had been long cozen'd into a Belief, that they could buy the Pardon of their Sins, from the Pope and his Factors: and this not only without Restitution, Amend­ment, or Repentance, but without [Page 37]Confession; for that also was some­times a Clause in their Bulls of In­dulgence, that the Purchaser should be absolved of all his Sins, whether Confessed or not Confessed. The forms of Indulgences were so ample, that is, so General and Comprehen­sive; that Men of any Wealth ne­ver cared, what Sins they were guilty of: because they knew they could at any time, whether Dead or Alive, purchase their Pardon; if they had neglected it in their Life Time, 'twas but leaving so much Mo­ney by Will, for Masses and Indul­gences, and they were sure all should be forgiven. The Story of the French Gentleman is well known; who being admonished by his Friend, of his horrible Cursing and Blasphe­ming; answered: ‘Man, there is no fear, cannot I buy my Pardon of the Friars Austins? I would be forgiven for an Ounce of Gold, though I had ravish'd the Mother of God, and cut off both her Breasts.’ This was the state of Things, when Dr. Luther appeared, and opposed himself (so successfully) to these Corruptions; as I said, he intirely ruin'd the Mar­ket of Indulgences, Monastick Vows, Invocation of Saints and Angels, the Supremacy and Infalli­bility of the Chair of Rome.

Mr. J. Calvin, besides that he greatly strengthned, and confirmed what Dr. Luther had begun; by his extraordinary Erudition, fine Wit, and indefatigable Diligence, in all which Mr. Calvin excelled the very greatest of the first Reformers: he carried the Reformation somewhat farther, than Luther had done. He took away the use of Images, which can serve only for a snare to the Weak; and for an Avocation, and Amusement, to the Discerning. His Doctrine concerning the Sacraments, has fewer Follies than, not only that of Rome, but, than Luthers; he rejected the Consubstantiation, as well as the Transubstantiation, and was not imposed on by the Do­ctrine of Ubiquity. I need say no­thing of Arch-bishop Cranmer; be­cause his Reformation is known to every Englishman: his Doctrine and Discipline being expressed in the 39 Articles, the Books of Homilies, of Canons, and the Common-Prayer.

All Protestants have a great Reve­rence, for these famous and excellent Men; even those of us, who think, that their Reformation is yet very incompleat. I may add, that as much as these Reformers are de­tested, by the Papists; the very Pa­pists, all Orders of them (from the highest to the lowest; from the Pope, to the Begging, and discalceate Fri­ar) are greatly in their Debt. For now they have Learned Priests, Ho­ly Popes; and the Kings and States of the Roman Communion, are no longer the Slaves of the Pope: all which was otherways, when there were no Protestants, of whom the Pope and Conclave and (the rest of their) Hierarchy might stand in some awe. The Popes consider now; that they must act Soberly, live Ex­emplarily, and inspect the Conduct [Page 38]and Sufficiency of the Clergy; else the Princes and People, now in their Communion, will desert to the Pro­testants.

It was Dr. Luther, as odious as his Name among them is; who took off the Yoke, and filed the Chains, from the Necks and Hands of Emperours, of Kings and Na­tions. From laying prostrate, under the Feet of the Pope; from holding his Bridle, and his Stirrup; from expecting (after their Electi­on by the Princes of the Empire) till the Pope should please to crown them, and thereby give them the Name and Power of Emperours; from Trembling, every time that a (crouching) Friar was turned, into a (boisterous) Pope: I say, from this miserable Vassalage, the German Emperors, and other Catholick Kings and States, are delivered; and care now, just so much, and no more, for his Holiness's Love or Anger; as the Example of his Life, or the actual Assistance he can lend to 'em, shall merit. Since Luther, the Clergy (also) of the Roman Communion, are Learned and exemplary Men; in their own Defence, and for their own Security, they must be so. And they dare now, withstand any new Incroachments on their Privileges, or their Revenues, by the Court of Rome. Nay, they have retrieved, in some Degree, their antient Rights and Authority: for Rome dreads (and ever will dread) another Lu­ther; in case she should (unjustly, or rashly) either oppress, or offend the inferior Clergy. Those of the Lay-Communion of that Church, are now led with a Pastoral-Staff; not hared with the Church's Thun­der, Excommunications and deli­verings up to Satan. They are sent of no more Errands to Syria and Asia; in pretence, to rescue the Holy Sepulchre; in Deed, to inlarge the Papal Bounds, and Authority. They are fed now with much sounder Doctrine; and led, by a better Ex­ample. For now the necessity of Repentance, and Amendment, are taught; Indulgences are now owned, to be only Prudential and Charita­ble relaxations of Penance; Images are now used, only as Memorials of departed Saints, and Incentives to i­mitate their Example; the Sacrifice of the Mass is now only a commemo­rative Sacrifice, which even Prote­stants believe it to be; the Virgin Mary and the Saints are prayed to, only to pray with us, and for us: and the like abatement is made, in o­ther Articles. And whereas with reference to the Example of their Priests, it has been a Proverb in some Places; ‘He that will give his Child to the Devil, let him make him a Priest: now,’ and for al­most two Ages last past; their danger from the Protestants, as was said before, has reformed their Manners.

These are the Services, done by the first Reformers; as well to the Papists themselves, as to us of the Re­formation: their Memory is glorious, and ought to be precious also, among us. But we say also; that the Au­géan Stable was too foul, to be ab­solutely cleansed at once, even by [Page 39] Hercules and his Companions: Dr. Luther did a great deal, the Labours of his Companions and Seconds were very laudable; but much Filth is still left behind. We desire to be (fairly and candidly) heard, concerning some corruptions in the Faith; and some abuses in the Morality, still taught: and particularly, which is the Subject of these present Papers, concerning the Object of our Faith and Worship, Almighty GOD.

We see, we own; that the Do­ctrine of the Church, meaning by the Church the Nominal Trinitarians, is sound, as to the Sense and Intention of it: but we (humbly) offer, that the Terms in which 'tis expressed, are Ʋn­scriptural, and very Dangerous. The words Trinity, Incarnation, Hyposta­tical Ʋnion, are never used in Scrip­ture; nor is God ever there called Persons, but Person. And 'tis evi­dent, that by occasion of these Terms; the Vulgar have such a conception of the Trinity, as is certain Tritheism. When the People hear of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; they know not, that thereby are meant only so many Re­lations of God, either internal Re­lations to himself, or external Rela­tions to the Creature: but they con­ceive in their Minds, such a Father, Son and Spirit distinct from both, as are so many several subsisting Spirits, so many distinct All-perfect Beings; in very Deed so many Living Gods, and not one God under three several Conceptions. For tho they are taught to say, three Divine Persons and but one God; and that God the Father, God his Son, and God the Holy Ghost, tho each of them is God, yet all of them are but one God: this last all of them but one God, because they know not how 'tis to be conceived with the other (namely, that each of them is God; and one of them is God the Father, another God the Son;) they utterly lose the Concep­tion of one God, and retain only what is intelligible to them, namely, three Divine Persons, each of them a God.

We think, that the Church having gained her Point, against the Fathers and Realists, in the Lateran Coun­cil; and having been in Possession of the Truth, for near 500 Years together: she may now fling off the Disguise hitherto used, the dangerous Tritheistick terms, Trinity, Persons, and the rest; she may now begin to declare the Truth she owns, in Terms and Words that are proper for it. Why does she frown upon those, nay, persecute them, that believe the Uni­ty of God in the Sense that she holds it; only because they would cast out the Terms that so plainly fa­vour the Tritheists, that is, the Rea­lists? What has the Church to fear; has not the Lateran Council, and all Writers ever since, declared the Re­alists to be Hereticks: therefore what need is there to retain their Terms, when we have discharged the Noti­ons intended by them?

'Tis true, we can say as the Church does, three Divine Persons; the Fa­ther is God, the Son is God, the Ho­ly Ghost is God; taking these words in the Church's Sense, not for sub­sisting Persons, that is to say, Living, [Page 40]Spirits, but for Relations, Proper­ties, Modes, or such like. We can say, God was Incarnate; meaning he did inhabit the Lord Christ, after an ineffable manner, and without Measure: which is really as much as the Church intends by the word In­carnation. We own the (eternal) Generation of the Son or Word, and Procession of the Spirit, by and from the Father; explaining our selves, with the School-Divines, the Church, and divers Fathers, thus: that God or the Father, or original Wisdom, conceived a most perfect Image of himself, by understanding, and con­sidering his own Perfections; and that he loveth (or willeth) as well as understandeth himself. We can even say, three Divine subsisting Per­sons; intending with Dr. S—th, the Schools, the Lateran Council, and the Church, Relative Subsistences, whose Subsistence is nothing else but their Re­lation. Which are Dr. S—th's express words, Tritheism charged, p. 156.

I cannot but ask it again; why does the Church keep, or impose on us, such Words and Terms; as in their present Signification, destroy the Faith we both imbrace; the Faith of the real Ʋnity of God? We can say as the Church says, we can use her Terms; because we know her mean­ing: but we cannot but say of them, as Mr. Calvin did (when ask'd his Opinion) of the English Common-Prayers, Tolerabiles Ineptiae. For in very Deed, 'tis meer Trifling, and something worse; when the signi­fication of these Terms and Words is wholly altered, from what it anti­ently was, yet still to retain them: while the Church knows at the same Time, that they give wrong Notions to the Vulgar, making all our Peo­ple Tritheists; and serve also to ani­mate, and harden the Realists in their Heresy.

But I must do the Church this right, to confess; that most of her greatest Men, particularly the first Reformers, have publish'd to all the World their hearty desire, that all these terms of the Realists were abolish'd; and all were obliged to use the Scrip­ture-Language and Words only: which would heal all our Breaches, and perfectly restore our Peace; not only in this, but in (almost) all other Questions and Strifes. Let us hear, of so many as might be alledged, Dr. M. Luther, and Mr. J. Calvin.

M. Luther complains; ‘The word Trinity sounds odly: it were better to call Almighty God, God; than Tri­nity.’ Postil. major. Dominic.

Mr. Calvin is yet less pleased, with these kind of Terms; he says, ‘I like not this Prayer, O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity. It savours of Barbarity;—the word Trinity is bar­barous, insipid, profane, an human Invention, grounded on no Testi­mony of God's Word, the Popish God, unknown to the Prophets and Apostles.’ Admon. 1. ad Polon.

Decemb. 17. 1695.